Yellow Screen Of Death?

This is the place for any magazine-related discussions that don't fit in any of the column discussion boards below.
Post Reply
Bigglez
Posts: 1282
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:39 pm
Contact:

Yellow Screen Of Death?

Post by Bigglez »

Here's something I haven't seen before. One of our local
HD TV channels is completely solid yellow. No sound.

I did a bit of poking around and discovered that the
same station is transmitting a network feed in SDTV
on another channel, and it is correct and with sound.

Further checking I looked up the bird and found:

Echostar 119 Transponder 7 Spotbeam Sig level 55
KPIX San Francisco channel 5 (Yellow screen)

Echostar 110 Transponder 26 Spotbeam Sig level 57
KPIX San Francisco channel 5 (Okay)

Echostar 119 Transponder 7 Spotbeam Sig level 75
KGO San Francisco channel 7 (Okay)
This is on the same bird and proves the bird is alive.

I'm left wondering where in the broadcast chain this
fault occurred? Also, what causes a yellow screen
in 16x9 format? If the signal chain was lost wouldn't
my HDTV go to black and silence (as it does for any
other signal loss)?
User avatar
haklesup
Posts: 3136
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2002 1:01 am
Location: San Jose CA
Contact:

Post by haklesup »

Echostar 119 Transponder 7 Spotbeam Sig level 55
KPIX San Francisco channel 5 (Yellow screen)
Doesn't say anything about the uplink from the source. Maybe yellow signifies a live carrier with no content. In any case, a call to KPIX is appropriate. So many other viewers could not give information like this. You'd think they already know about it though.

I don't know how the transponder works though. For all I know its a software crash and it's waiting for reset.

Is it still out, I can check that when I get home via my Comcast and again via OTA. Ill let you know if its out for me too.
Bigglez
Posts: 1282
Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:39 pm
Contact:

Post by Bigglez »

haklesup wrote: Maybe yellow signifies a live carrier with no content.
I don't know. Common sense says that if there's no carrier
(from the bird) I couldn't get a signal strength reading.

If there is a carrier but it contains no data, my HDTV would
default to blank and silence, right?

At your request I took a look and the channel
is now 'normal' (Judge Judy in HD and SD via DirecTV).
I don't have any OTA reception equipment (by choice).
haklesup wrote: In any case, a call to KPIX is appropriate. So many other viewers could not give information like this. You'd think they already know about it though.
Did that just now. According to KPIX Engineering
(415-362-5550) the HD signal was off the air from
midnight to 04:30 For scheduled maintenance.

Further, they told DirecTV who would have switched
to an upconverted signal form the SDTV feed to fill
the channel.

Apparently something went wrong, and the DirecTV
encoder just output a 16x9 yellow screen.

Now we know!
User avatar
Dave Dixon
Posts: 436
Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 1:01 am
Location: Wichita, KS
Contact:

Post by Dave Dixon »

For what it is worth... EchoStar 7 at 119 degrees has been having some power issues lately. Seems to be at nighttime over the US when it is relying on it's batteries. It hasn't died off, but signal can often be drastically reduced during the later hours.
User avatar
jollyrgr
Posts: 1289
Joined: Thu Jan 03, 2002 1:01 am
Location: Northern Illinois
Contact:

Post by jollyrgr »

Echostar 7 is co-located at 119.0 degrees with Anik F3 (118.8 degrees) and DirecTV 7S (119.0). These are DishNetwork and DirecTV satellites. Are cable TV outlets using these feeds for their head end?

Or am I missing something here?
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced!
User avatar
Dave Dixon
Posts: 436
Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 1:01 am
Location: Wichita, KS
Contact:

Post by Dave Dixon »

I am wondering the same thing. I'll look into this and see what I can find out about cable feeds.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 35 guests