WPTD Tour

Article by Mark Erbaugh, photos by Dave Lundy

Tuesday evening, May 2, the DMA Amateur Radio SIG sponsored a tour of the WPTD Channel 16 studios in downtown Dayton. Members of the Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA) and the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) also attended the tour.

Our Channel 16 hosts for the evening were Fred Stone, Chief Engineer and George Hopstetter, Asst. Chief.

The tour started with a pizza dinner (thanks Channel 16). While we were eating, HDTV broadcasts were playing on a large (70") screen in front of the room. The picture quality was amazing. After dinner, chief engineer, Fred Stone gave a talk with slides showing the installation of the digital transmitter and antenna.

Next there was a talk by Rich LaRue of MVCC (Miami Valley Communications Council) with highlights of new technology showcased at the recent NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) convention in Las Vegas.

There was a talk by George Hopstetter on consumer digital TV. Currently most, if not all TV stations broadcast in digital as well as their traditional analog broadcasts. For example, Channel 16 broadcasts in analog on channel 16, but in digital on channel 58. Digital TV offers the ability to transmit up to five programs simultaneously in the same bandwidth currently used for one program. For example, during the day, Channel 16 transmits five different programs on their digital channel. During prime time, they replace two of these programs with one HDTV program.

This is all transparent to the end user. The user selects the channel and which program within the channel and the digital TV receiver adjusts accordingly. When selecting a digital TV, the most important factor is contrast. Be wary of contrast in the showroom. Salesmen have been known to tweak the contrast and brightness to make things look better than they really are.

There are two formats of high definition TV (HDTV), 720p which has 720 rows and 1080i which has 1080 rows. For best results you need to check the actual resolution of the display just as you would for a computer monitor. To get the maximum quality from 1080i you need at least 1080 pixels of vertical resolution. When the display has less than 1080 lines, the picture will still display, but it will be interpolated with a small loss in quality. The digital TV receiver automatically adjusts to the type of broadcast being received.

After the talk, we were given tours of the studio. Channel 16 has recently upgraded their master control room. Where there used to be a wall with many monitors each wired for a different signal, there are now two 42. and two 53. plasma displays (one each for each of two positions). Hardware displays virtual monitors within each of these displays.

These virtual monitors can be reconfigured as needed and can also display other information such as a sound VU meter or alarm status. Two operators can now monitor and control the operation of many broadcasts. Channel 16 can broadcast up to 4 programs and another 4 over Channel 14 in Cincinnati.

Behind the master control room was the server room. Most of the recorded content is now stored on hard disk. Channel 16 has about 6 terabytes of content storage and another 8 terabytes of archive storage.

You may see nine of the over 130 photos Dave Lundy took during the tour here.

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	This page was last modified Mon, May 15 2006 02:03 am EDT.	Contact: Dave Lundy