Who do you call when your HDTV........isn't?
I was watching the
premiere episode of Heist last night off my DVR,
when at about halfway through the show, it switched from the high definition feed to a widescreen feed within a 4x3 box
within the regular widescreen area on my 4x3 TV. Not satisfying at all. I'd have been more appalled if the
show didn't suck so much (visually it actually looks very good, it's no CSI: Miami or Oceans Twelve, but it looked very
natural and pleasing in high definition), but the problem is who do I call and complain to?It seemed like somebody forgot to flip the switch back to high def after the commercial break or something and since I wasn't watching live, there was definitely nothing to be done after the fact. Despite that, what can we do if our high definition channel suddenly isn't? Do I contact the cable company, the local affiliate and whose desk do I need to make sure my complaint ends up on?
I'd be remiss if I didn't end this by saying I don't recommend watching Heist to anyone, it was really bad. The writing was best described as "Heist feels like it was from somebody who saw Pulp Fiction and Oceans 11 and decided the key to good writing was inane banter and pop culture references". View at your own risk.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Randy Ellis @ Mar 23rd 2006 4:05PM
NBC seems to do this often. They must have LAZY operators in their Master Control.
Ben Drawbaugh @ Mar 23rd 2006 4:12PM
I call the news line of the local affiliate and I ask for engineering.
Depending on the station depends on what happens after that. Sometimes you get right through and sometimes you get stuck in IVR hell. If you get to an engineer they usually explain the problem and fix it if they can. If not I call back and explain to the person at the news desk and sometimes they relay the message and fix it and sometimes they say stupid things like; Yes it is!
This is one of the worst thing about DVRs because usuallly by the time you realize it, it is too late to call.
Samual Icky @ Mar 23rd 2006 4:29PM
Same problem here... not only that but I lost about 1:30 worth of the show (when it came back from break during the second heist)... worse of all I hate when the local stations preempt network feeds for some local programming (mostly sporting related)... only to broadcast those network shows later that night... always in SD and not HD.
Anthony @ Mar 23rd 2006 4:34PM
I've noticed that this happens on NBC a lot.
Tony @ Mar 23rd 2006 5:01PM
Happened to me too and on some other shows - I'm in Canada on Bell Expressvu HD - 9200 Dual Tuner PVR
Noodlez @ Mar 23rd 2006 6:37PM
Happened here also, I assumed it was a local mess up, guess not. But it also seemed when it returned the show had already started and a few moments was missing.
Least NBC was showing HD for a bit the local CBS station showed SD all night so they could have there weather info box up. (there was no sever weather unless you count the inch of snow after midnight)
Keith @ Mar 23rd 2006 6:57PM
This happens to me sometimes too. When I am watching a NBA game on a Saturday or Sunday on ABC, sometimes the first quarter or so is in standard def. I dont understand why. I use OTA, so it has nothing to do with the cable company.
Morgan @ Mar 23rd 2006 8:23PM
There's not some dude flipping a switch from HD to SD during commercials. The system accepts both HD and SD input, and the commercials are in SD. What most likely happened is they had a problem with the HD feed and switched to the backup SD. A lot of times I've seen it after the HD breaks up for a while, like last season on Lost.
Best guess is that the satellite feed starts cracking up, and they switch to SD because it's lower bandwidth and more immune to interference.
Ben Drawbaugh @ Mar 23rd 2006 9:42PM
"There's not some dude flipping a switch from HD to SD during commercials."
You would be surprised, many affiliates have automated systems but alot of them are still manual. At the very least their is someone monitoring it and verifying that all the commercials are being played.
The other thing is that many affiliates can only splice SD so they have to switch to SD to splice the commercials. You can notice this when they splice in the local commercials at the end of the break and the images changes. For example our NBC affiliates stretches their SD, so the national commercials are 4x3 and the local commercials are spliced in. Sometimes they screw up and don't switch back to HD.
David M. @ Mar 23rd 2006 9:49PM
While local stations flip between SD and HD during commercial breaks (in order to insert local SD commercials), all the stations get a solid, uninterrupted HD feed from the network. Since it seems like this was an issue for everybody no matter where in the country we are, it must have been a problem at the network level.
Tip: while a lot of stations don't answer their main phone line during prime time (not business hours), there's generally a News Tip line that's answered 24/7 ;)
ZombieCreep @ Mar 23rd 2006 11:25PM
Football season last year was the worst. Pretty much all networks had a 5-10 minute delay until the HD kicked in.
I'd look at the wife and hold my hand like a fake phone and say "Hi, can someone please flip the HD switch, please."
I'm glad you all cleared this up for me. It might be the network, the affiliate or the cable provider.
Mark @ Mar 24th 2006 12:49AM
Here is Sacramento the show 'Heist' stayed HD all the way through and the clarity and colors were great. The show itself wasn't the best agreed but quality of the broadcast here was excellent.
tommiwan @ Mar 27th 2006 9:53AM
This happened again last night, but this time while I was watching ABC. Maybe it was the immediate comparison but the SD feed looked horrible when they switched to it. Wonder why this happens?