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Olympic Transmission Troubles

1523 Views 14 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  peters4n6
The opening ceremonies were interrupted and disrupted again and again for viewers in Denver getting their feed from local NBC affiliate KUSA "9News".

The local station blamed the technical problems on a local rain storm:



So I have to wonder if this just impacted DirecTV subscribers or if the problems also affected Comcast subscribers and those using off-air reception?

I also have to wonder if they simply didn't properly waterproof their cables, or if their dish was just not sized to withstand rain-fade? Either way it seems irresponsible.
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If the station was able to send out that message they obviously lost their feed from the network, not their ability to transmit.
davring said:
If the station was able to send out that message they obviously lost their feed from the network, not their ability to transmit.
Yes, that makes sense. That would mean it impacted everyone in Denver then. That makes it even worse.
I believe you will be able to see most of what you missed later on USA and UHD. If you have VOD active there are more choices as well as channels 750-756 which are special feeds for DirecTv customers.
Local stations receive the national feeds via downlink, they must have lost their feed for some reason (could have just been a bad enough storm to block the signal...even the pros get rainfade sometimes!). It stinks and the timing was not the best, but at least it will be rebroadcast many times so people should be able to catch it again.
I had lots of interruptions, too. They were momentary pixilation and loud noises in the sound. I get NBC from KXAN 36 out of Austin. There is nothing on KXAN's website to indicate a problem. There is no bad weather in the area (unless you count HOT).

It was quite frustrating. I've got Jay Leno on right now and it just had a problem just now. The picture went all haywire for a second or so.

KXAN is the only channel I've noticed this problem with.
The picture here was spectacular but I have to say that I found much of the ceremonies unsettling and a little creepy.
I set up to record the opening ceremonies at 8:00 PM PDT as originally scheduled. Then discovered that the program starts at 7:30. Started watching at 7:30, then paused it at 8:20, expecting to pick up the rest of the program from the scheduled 8:00PM recording. Went back at about 9:30 to watch the rest, but there was no recording on the list. Pressed record to start a new recording, and then tried to pick up the earlier part from the buffer. Could not play any of the buffered recording, and could only watch from the new recording point. Later, checked the history, and it said that the 8:00PM recording I had set up was CANCELED! Nobody canceled it. What happened? I missed about 1 hour of the ceremonies. Does anyone know if this will be rebroadcast on another channel?
FarNorth said:
The picture here was spectacular but I have to say that I found much of the ceremonies unsettling and a little creepy.
Yes Me Too. Why did they have to keep cutting to that camera on George Bush !!

Um...I assume that is what you mean :)
Yea, KUSA was really messed up last night. I switched to OTA and it was the same. It even affected analog for a while. I was thinking DirecTV would turn on a out of market channel or show it in the 750's, but no luck. They did that for superbowl last year.

On the news they said they lost power and had over 3" of rain in a short period of time. I am about 15 miles from them and did not get a drop of rain here.
FarNorth said:
The picture here was spectacular but I have to say that I found much of the ceremonies unsettling and a little creepy.
The only thing that creeped me out was the handing off of the Chinese flag to the army from the little kids. Nothing else was creepy in the slightest. It was beautiful, imaginative and unbelievably executed flawlessly.

Unfortunately, WBAL (Baltimore) had to drop to SD twice for the stupid lottery picture and picture and also lost the HD feed about three other times for no apparent reason. They were all short, though.
tonyd79 said:
Unfortunately, WBAL (Baltimore) had to drop to SD twice for the stupid lottery picture and picture and also lost the HD feed about three other times for no apparent reason. They were all short, though.
I'm so tired of them dropping coverage to put on the tax for the mathematically challenged. They make that picture larger and provide unneeded audio so you can't watch what you really want to see.

If the really have to show that, they could just put it in a smaller picture showing just the balls and without the audio.
Oogie Pringle said:
I'm so tired of them dropping coverage to put on the tax for the mathematically challenged. They make that picture larger and provide unneeded audio so you can't watch what you really want to see.

If the really have to show that, they could just put it in a smaller picture showing just the balls and without the audio.
The local lottery was without local sound and we got to hear the Olympics at least on the digital channel. The mega lottery took over the sound.
I've seen at least 20-30 momentary buzz sounds in the audio.....throughout the broadcasts on 3 different stations....its not on a specific network...it must be either the main NBC group feed or else the DirecTV broadcast.
hdtvfan0001 said:
I've seen at least 20-30 momentary buzz sounds in the audio.....throughout the broadcasts on 3 different stations....its not on a specific network...it must be either the main NBC group feed or else the DirecTV broadcast.
I had a lot of crackling and popping in the audio. Very annoying. Thought it might have been my A/V receiver setup, but the same audio artefacts were on my other set hooked up directly to another HR-21
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