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NTV General
Closed Captioning. V Chip Power line interference Satellite related transmission Problems How to report problems:
Simulcast:Why does NTV Take over other channels?Many people ask "why NTV cuts into other cable channels?"....One of the CRTC regulations governing Cable Television affords any Local Broadcaster the right to insert it’s own commercials into any program which is aired by a cable delivered distant signal provided the program contains the same episodic content and is aired in the same time slot as a program originated by a distant signal. (a signal originated outside of the Province) The regulation goes on to note that this requirement only applies to cable systems classified by CRTC as class 1 systems.(5000 subscribers or more). Therefore, you will only see simulcast in major centers such as St. John’s or Corner Brook. Simulcast is p racticed throughout the Country in every major city. In consideration of the Private Broadcaster, who’s only source of revenue is through the sale of the commercial’s within the body the programs which it airs. This concession was made by CRTC to protect the local broadcaster, who has purchased the rights to air these programs within it’s coverage area. Otherwise, distant signals from other stations delivered via cable, containing national commercials would be delivered into the Local Broadcasters coverage area, thereby negating the requirement for nation al advertisers to purchase air time on that local station. This results in loss of historic revenue for the local station which would ultimately be reflected as a decline in local service. It must be remembered that private broadcast stations are quite different from cable companies in so much as they provide over the air service which is free to the public. Unlike the CBC who are heavily subsidized with tax payers dollars, it’s the commerc ial revenue which pays the operating and expansion costs linked to providing service. Cable companies pay nothing for the local signal they provide to you, but they fragment the audience of the local broadcaster further reducing it’s revenue base. Meanw hile, they collect a monthly fee for their services from each subscriber. In many ways cable companies are another form of utility, not unlike the power or telephone companies. The issue many people take by saying "since I pay for cable, why should the local broadcaster have the right to cut in?" is completely out of the control of the local broadcaster. The cable service you pay for is regulated by the CRTC. Cable must abid e by the rules which were put in place when that industry was in it’s infancy. These rules were not created thoughtlessly. While you may not agree, take it up with the CRTC, the broadcaster and cable companies are only following the rules. Top Sometimes during simulcast, the picture gets snowy when NTV cuts in, Why? In almost all cases today NTV is received by the cable company direct via satellite. Prior to satellite NTV was received by cable as an over the air signal. Cable headends located in fringe coverage areas were subject to reception problems, however today there is no reason why your NTV picture on cable should not be as good as any other signal cable delivers to your home. Simulcast is under control of the local cable provider, who should be receiving a good NTV picture via satellite. In fact the signal is virtually transparent, meaning that the feed received by the cable operator is as clear as the program leaving our Mast er Control Room. In order to provide simulcast, the cable company must switch off the incoming feed from the distant signal and split the NTV feed to supply, not just the NTV channel, but sometimes one or more other channels. If the cable operator is no t careful with the methods used to split and balance the signal, the NTV level fed to each channel could be different and usually lower, then the viewer will experience a snowy or grainy picture and perhaps degraded sound. This problem lies with the cable operator, and not NTV. We have no control over the methods the cable operator uses within his headend to provide the simulcast split. Furthermore, we have no control over the timing of the cut in or cut out with reference to the other signal. The cable company uses a computer to control the timing, we can only say that a particular program will start on NTV at let’s say 10:30PM and it will require simulcast with channel - x. The cable company will enter this time and channel information into it’s computer. However, it’s unlikely that two stations originating the same program will be exactly in sync with each other. This is why you wil l sometimes see NTV take over, or switch out of a channel either early or slightly late. This is usually a matter of, at the most, a second or two. Unlike the level related problems, which the cable operator can cure, no amount of attention will cure the timing problem. Top I get an echo in the audio if I have two TV’s on, one on cable ch-5 and the other on antenna tuned to ch-6 in St. John’s...why does this happen? The problem occurs only in St. John’s because the St. John’s transmitter site is the only site fed by terrestrial microwave. The delay occurs because of the time delay the signal takes to travel through space to the satellite, and then back to earth again some 28,000Km x 2. This is compared to the time it takes for the signal to travel 5 Km across the city on Microwave. At 186,000 miles per second there is much more delay on the satellite signal. Since cable take their feed from satellite, as due all of our other transmitters, this signal is actually delayed compared to when it started at the studios, therefore in every other place the delay is the same as our other transmitters are fed by satellite, the same feed that cable takes. We are in the process of modifying our signal path to use satellite to feed our transmitter site in St. John’s. This should be done within a few months, after which the echo will no longer exist. However, you might experience it from time to time in the future. This will occur if we resume feeding the St. John’s transmitter site via microwave. The microwave is being retained as a standby facility, therefore in the event of a satellite failure which we have experienced in the past, NTV and Oz-FM will swit ch to the backup and remain on the air at least in the coverage area of the St. John’s transmitters. It is also likely that we will use this alternative feed when working on the uplink or satellite downlink at the site. But in this case the change will be temporary. Top How do I receive NTV when Cable goes off? If cable service is disrupted in your area, receiving NTV may be a simple as switching to the over the air NTV channel in that area. In St. Johns its Ch-6. You can find out if we have a transmitter in your area by consulting the listing in the NTV/Oz-fm coverages section of this web page. In some cases the signal level is strong enough due to leakage into the cable system from our over the air transmitter to provide enough signal at the cable input of your set to permit satisfactory viewing. However, your best viewing would be had by disconnecting the cable feed and installing the pole antenna or rabbit ears your set came with. In other cases, dont cut the wire off that old antenna you have up in the attic. Use it for optimum signal. If you find you need an antenna consult your local TV shop for more information on antennas and their installation. Top Is NTV Stereo everywhere? All of our over the air signals are transmitting stereo audio, however many cable operators are not providing NTV in stereo. This is simply an equipment issue with them. The NTV signal by over the air pickup, or by satellite is in stereo. However, the cable operator must provide the necessary equipment to generate the stereo signal, if the feed is via satellite. If the cable company is repeating one of our over the air signals, then our stereo signal be present anyway. Top Closed Captioning.I have a problem with caption on cable sometimes, but ch-6 over the air is OK, what’s wrong?Yes, we are aware of this. It all started when NTV went digital. Despite efforts of the digital equipment manufacturer and Cancom they have to date been unable to resolve the issues surrounding this problem. Digital transmission handles the Caption information differently than the analog systems did. This problem is completely out of NTV’s hands, but we are monitoring the progress on it’s resolve. Hopefully, the issue will be resolved soon. Please be patient. We have not forgotten about you. Meanwhile, at least for the period that NTV Ch-6 remains on the analog microwave feed, this transmitter will provide those using captioning with reliable service. Top V ChipWhat’s Vchip all about?The V chip is a system whereby information on the content of a particular program is passed to the viewer. Very similar to the movie rating system which has been in place for years. The TV stations will transmit a code corresponding to a rating for the particular program based on it’s content. New TV’s will have V chip decoders built into them, while viewers with older sets will be able to purchase a device which attaches to their set similar to a remote control box. This device will allow the rating of the particular program to be displayed on screen. In addition to this, a lockout function will be provided, users may select various codes to be blocked by the system. This will result in viewing limited to only those programs with ratings thought to be appropriate by those (parents) in control of the box. All other programming will be blocked. This system effectively gives the viewer the choice. Top Will this be available on NTV and when? All broadcasters in Canada will be required to install and maintain the necessary equipment to transmit the V Chip codes. NTV will install this equipment once it becomes available, and is required. At Present the systems are under test, also a great deal of controversy is raging over the issues of who will decide what the rating of a program’s content will be. Therefore, it is expected that we might experience some false starts prior to the actual final implementation of these systems. More information will be posted as it becomes available. Top Power line interferenceWhat does Powerline Interference look like?Power line interference is typical in weak over the air signals, especially those transmitted in the Low Band VHF channels (ch-2 to ch-6). However, it is not limited to that band and can occur in the Hi Band VHF channels (ch-7 to ch-13) as well. The problem will be immediately evident as two or three horizontal white bars, which could drift through your picture. These bars also have little colored sparkles inside them. The power line interference can also interfere with the audio and be present as a roaring, or frying sound. The cause of Powerline interference is arcing hydro insulators located on poles that are usually within a mile radius of the TV receiver. Sometimes this problem will be easy to fix, but more often it’s intermittent, and has to be caught in the act. One rule of thumb here is that 2 lines across the TV will tell you that the interference is caused by a single phase hydro line, while 3 lines will mean that the interference is caused by a 3 phase power line. Typically, power line interference is at it’s worst on dry cold days in the Winter. This is especially true if there has been a lot of salt used on the roads, or there has been a wind storm. If you live by the sea, and the prevailing winds blow on shore, salt spray will quickly coat insulators causing this problem to recur. Insulators are most prone to arc because of salt built up on them. After a rain storm power line interference will usually be at a minimum, since the rain will tend to wash the salt off the insulators. Top How can I eliminate it? The Department of Communications, now Industry Canada used to be the body responsible for locating this interference. However, since it is ultimately the responsibility of the Hydro Companies, the detection of the problem has fallen to Hydro, or Nfld. Power. If you have power line interference, you should start by calling Newfoundland Power in your area. They will direct you to the correct party within their organization. Try to be as specific as possible, tell them if it’s intermittent, and how many lines are across your TV, what channels are effected, and if it clears up when it rains. Top Satellite related transmission ProblemsWhat causes the picture to freeze or audio to abruptly stop sometimes?This freeze up is a direct result of the loss of a sufficient number of bits in our digital satellite data stream to cause the receivers at Cable Headends, or our transmitters to lock up. This lock up is first noted as small green squares, or a momentary freezing of the picture. It could also affect the audio causing it to just stop mid sentence and then resume. Ours is not the only signal affected, you will see this on other cable channels frequently. Actually, NTV has increased the amount of forward error correction on our digital signal in an effort to minimize the effect of this compared to other channels. But nothing is perfect and you will see and hear this from time to time. It affects both NTV and OZ-FM since the Oz signal is also carried on this digital system. You might note that since OZ is carried in the NTV digital signal, it is also available to every cable operator who is taking the satellite NTV signal. Although, extra equipment is required by the cable operator, you might request OZ be added to the available FM signals on your cable service. Digital satellite transmission has many advantages ranging from increased immunity noise to interference which used to manifest itself as sparkles on analog satellite transmission to more efficient use of the available satellite resources, or the ability to put multiple TV signals into the same space occupied by one analog signal. With the emergence of specialty channels, and many other uses of satellite space, it was necessary for those who use satellite to migrate their signals from analog to digital. The conservation of satellite resources was further increased due to the loss of Anik E1 power capacity last year. However, subsequent failures on Anikl E2 as well reduced the available channel capacity onboard both satellites. However, digital technology is not without it’s drawbacks. Lower power required to reduce intermodulation between the signals repeated by the satellite has caused problems in many areas. This is especially true where the footprint is reaching it’s limits. Dish sizes are increasing to offset the effects of these lower powers. Many satellite viewers and rural cable operators are still using 10 foot dishes. They may be OK when the signal is strong and worked well for analog but the marginal nature of the digital signals has created the need for upgrades. While NTV is using 12 foot dishes at all of it’s transmitter sites. However, Ice and snow build up which is sometimes accumulates faster than our dish heater systems can cope it. This has caused some isolated problems this Winter. The digital signals are also effected by terrestrial microwave. Radar, both shipboard and airborne will sometimes cause interference as well. It would appear that we have also been hit occasionally with these problems at certain transmitter sites. Severe weather also plays a role. Since this is the first year NTV has used digital transmission in the field, we will have a learning curve based on experiences concerning these types of signals. Each site is constantly monitored by a computerized remote control and supervisory system. Data collected will better aid us to engineer offsets to failures in the future. As a footnote to this information, when a failure of the satellite signal occurs, most cable channels will display a screen which is black, with a small message "NO SIGNAL" at the top. If you are watching over the air, our TV picture will just freeze and a flashing green bar may be present. If listening to the audio of TV and /or OZ-FM it will simply mute and no sound will be heard. Hopefully the condition is temporary, and service will be restored soon. Top How to report problems:If I have a reception problem with NTV or OZ-FM, how do I report it?If you are having a reception problem you should first check with neighbors to determine if it is only your problem. If cable related, remember most cable headends are fed via satellite, and "no signal" means that they could have a problem. It’s also possible that we may have one at our uplink. Perhaps it’s a satellite problem. In any event it’s wide spread, and you may rest assured that someone is looking into it. To report a problem first determine to possible source, is it cable or NTV? If you conclude it’s cable then call them. If you get no satisfaction within a reasonable period of time, we would like to hear about it. If your receiving us over the air, then you should call NTV. Oz-FM problems should also be reported to the NTV number. Call 722-5015, 24 hours, if out of the St. John’s calling area please don’t forget it’s long distance and use 1-709-722-5015. Top What information should I provide? You should first identify what signal, NTV or OZ-FM. You should explain the nature of the problem How long you have had the problem. Tell us if you are receiving cable or over the air. Give us the channel you are receiving, E.g. ch-7 cable, or ch-10 over the air. Tell us the area you live in. Last...Give your Name and Telephone number. We want to get back to you! Top My NTV is not good on cable, it this normal? There is no reason why our signal would be any different than any other signal you receive on cable. This is especially true if the cable company is taking the satellite delivered signal. (In some cases, a cable headend using NTV’s over the air picture might display some problems, however this is really not an excuse either.) The cable operators have at their disposal the ability to obtain a quality NTV feed, no matter where they are located in North America, but they must choose to do so. You should insist that they provide you with a quality signal. Please let us know if you are having a problem. We will also contact the cable company to request they upgrade. Top
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