KWDA LIGHTS UP IN DALLAS

[Mediafrog+]

And now they've added 30.1 & 30.8. (9 subchannels!) The color bars moved from 30.9 to 30.1; 30.9 is now showing Spanish infomercials : and 30.8 is showing a teaser for a new African-American-themed channel, Diicon.

Diicon is said to be coming Jan. 1, 2012. But we've been down this road before with the Urban Superstation, which never made it. Let's hope Diicon has better luck.

YouTube video for Diicon is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zQaGh7su-Q

One of the YouTube comments: "Independent Movies,Youth Sports,DFW Metroplex News,The best artist videos of Gospel,R&B,Hip Hop,Urban,Blues and Jazz."

 

[JHBrandt]

YouTube video for Diicon is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zQaGh7su-Q

One of the YouTube comments: "Independent Movies,Youth Sports,DFW Metroplex News,The best artist videos of Gospel,R&B,Hip Hop,Urban,Blues and Jazz."

It actually looks like the sort of thing LPTV was made for: content tailored to a local, underserved audience. The only mismatch I see is they intend to cover D/FW but KWDA's transmitter covers less than half of FW. (Covers Dallas just fine, though.)

 

[mmnassour]

Nice clip, but having two misspelled words in it doesn't do much for their credibility.

 

[JHBrandt]

And now they've added 30.1 & 30.8. (9 subchannels!) The color bars moved from 30.9 to 30.1; 30.9 is now showing Spanish infomercials : and 30.8 is showing a teaser for a new African-American-themed channel, Diicon.

More minor adjustments: MCTV moved from 30.3 to 30.1, and the infomercials moved from 30.9 to 30.3. 30.9 is still in the PSIP but is now dark.

The bandwidth formerly wasted on color bars seems to have been reallocated to the "channel available" teaser on 30.4; the latter's picture quality has noticeably improved.

 

[TheRover]

Re: THEY FIXED IT!!

On my Sanyo DP42840 42", I rescanned the other day, and I got:

21.1 as KTXA

and, these sub-channels

21.2-21.9 (These are the only digital channels/sub-channels I logged, that did not display a channel name or label.)

KWDA finally figured out how to fix their hinky PSIP. They are now showing as 30.2-30.7 + 30.9 on all my tuners (that previously showed them as 21.1-21.7).

The "Adding Digital Channels" option on my TV does not correct my channel listing.

So, I did a complete re-scan, and yes the channels that were showing up under 21.2-21.9 are gone and in their place are channels 30.1 - 30.9.

When a station re-assigns it's channel number, to get the new channel number to list, on my TV, I have to do a complete re-scan, otherwise the old channel number will show when simply doing an "Add Digital Channel" update.

 

[JHBrandt]

And now they've added 30.1 & 30.8. (9 subchannels!) The color bars moved from 30.9 to 30.1; 30.9 is now showing Spanish infomercials : and 30.8 is showing a teaser for a new African-American-themed channel, Diicon.

More minor adjustments: MCTV moved from 30.3 to 30.1, and the infomercials moved from 30.9 to 30.3. 30.9 is still in the PSIP but is now dark.

The bandwidth formerly wasted on color bars seems to have been reallocated to the "channel available" teaser on 30.4; the latter's picture quality has noticeably improved.

It had disappeared back in December, but 30.8 is back - with a new Diicon teaser.

I think they hit the wall on bandwidth though. The PQ on 30.4 is crappy again.

 

[Anonymouse]

Anybody have a clue why KWDA is simulcasting on 93.7 (an FM translator in San Antonio)? I heard a liner for "KWDA Mana 30.7" or something like that, my Spanish isn't that great so I apologize if I have the spelling wrong.

Anyway, the 93.7 transmitter keeps switching on and off. Audio quality is pretty good. They used to be something different (a Spanish Christian radio station), but today they began with this weird on and off simulcast... I'm not even sure this is legal!

 

[JHBrandt]

It had disappeared back in December, but 30.8 is back - with a new Diicon teaser.

I think they hit the wall on bandwidth though. The PQ on 30.4 is crappy again.

Diicon is finally live on 30.8. For several months it had been just audio with a slide-show tribute to deceased African-American singers, but they finally went live with full-motion videos last week. Had some technical difficulties at first, but they seem mostly ironed out now.

For me the biggest complaint is that the videos are windowboxed, wasting a good chunk of precious SD real estate. Also, some of the videos look like they're supposed to be 16:9 vs. 4:3, resulting in the "Avatar" effect: everyone looks 10 feet tall. At least they aren't blue!

KWDA still needs to steal back some bandwidth, though. Even at SD, eight subchannels is just too much. They should make 30.7 audio only and drop the KPFW simulcasts on 30.1 and 30.6.

 

[JHBrandt]

There have been a few changes since May:

1. KWDA finally has programming on 30.4! Apparently Vision Celestial now has two channels: 30.4 is labeled Vision1 and 30.5 is labeled Vision2 :
2. 30.8 is now branded Black Contemporary TV, which probably makes more sense to folks than Diicon or Iicon or whatever they used to call it. Production values appear to be better too.
3. They're actually up to 9 subchannels now 30.9 is La Perrona, another audio+static image channel like 30.7 (Mana).
4. This actually isn't a change with KWDA but with KPFW. MCTV is no longer on KPFW 18.2; therefore 30.1 is no longer a simulcast.

They still need to make 30.7 (and the new 30.9) audio-only and drop 30.6 to claw back some bandwidth, though. Video compression artifacts are all over the place.