[opendtv] Re: No Commentary on Fox/NASCAR Broadcast

Dan;

 

Sounds like a station issue and not a FOX problem per se.  I've never seen
the problem with XETV 6.  As for SAP or PRO, this is a crappy thing to do on
those aux services.  Does your VCR record the SAP audio on other programming
events on that station?  On other stations?  Does your VCR permit to select
which audio service to record on a program-by-program basis?

 

What do you mean by "bleep?"  Is this a click, a more refined sound, a
consistent sound, or are you just using that term to signify "something
different?"

 

This interspersed commentary.  Does it come in and go out in the middle of a
sentence, at the beginning or end of what a single person says, or is it a
coherent exchange between announcers?

 

Is it always the 'play-by-play' person, or is it always the color person?

 

And, are you acquiring the Fox signal using an antenna to the VCR, or is
there cable somewhere?

 

What is HARD to imagine, is you noticing a consistent problem - I'm assuming
across multiple broadcasts - that wasn't heard in the control room of the
station.

 

If you didn't have the interspersed announcements, I'd say that your just
getting the 'b' audio.

 

By the way, I've noticed a "very similar" problem for a few seconds to
minutes, a few months back, in Cox Cable San Diego carriage of CBS
programming on KFMB-TV:  the main audio dropping out, but still being able
to hear the 'mix + effects and music' audio, and the problem disappearing
during commercials.  I just turned off the shows - I mean, a sit-com without
dialog?   First noticed in on a Friday ("Numbers", in the middle of a show,
corrected during the broadcast), then on a Monday and the following Tuesday.
Haven't seen it since.

 

The fact that it disappears during commercials is a good clue that the
problem comes out of the station's transmitter.  

 

Have you thought to call the station?

 

John Willkie  

 

  _____  

De: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] En
nombre de dan.grimes@xxxxxxxx
Enviado el: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 10:41 AM
Para: openDTV@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asunto: [opendtv] No Commentary on Fox/NASCAR Broadcast

 

I am having a consistent audio problems with my recordings of the NASCAR
races broadcast on FOX. Because I didn't watch the OTA signal live, I don't
know if it is in the recording or if it was live. I did watch a brief amount
on cable at a friend's house (while waiting for the Indy 500 rain delay) and
the commentary was consistent.

The symptoms are these: the audio is fine for all commentary and commercials
until the drop of the green flag. When the race starts, all I get is natural
sound, the audio of the race cars, and short blips of commentary.
Commercials run fine with the proper audio. The audio for the racing action
switches based on the visual (i.e., an in-car cam has in-car audio, a track
shot has the audio with the cars zooming by, etc.). However, every once in a
while, you hear a short bleep and there is some commentary and a second
later it goes back to natural sound without commentary. This happens the
entire length of the race up to the post race when everything is good again.

I am guessing that my VCR is stuck on recording SAP and that this isn't
happening on the regular broadcast (I checked my VCR and it says it is
recording the standard stereo broadcast.) I can't imagine this happening on
multiple races without fixing it. I am guessing that the feed to the SAP is
some aux channel on a router that is switching based some other control
signal and that the natural audio is mixed on a separate console than the
commentary or final output is mixed on. Does FOX (or whoever is producing
audio) know that this is going out? Does this audio go with some special
feature? Does anyone know an engineer working on the NASCAR live trucks?

Dan Grimes

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