Mundo Fox

[TexasTuner]

They're on in Houston, 34.1. Started up a few weeks ago. I wonder where else they are in the Lone Star State (or anywhere else, for that matter)?

 

[Bluenoser]

They're on in Houston, 34.1. Started up a few weeks ago. I wonder where else they are in the Lone Star State (or anywhere else, for that matter)?

Wikipedia has the following list for Texas:
Abilene: KTWT-LP 21.1
Beaumont: KUIL-LD 12.5
Bryan: KAGS-LD 23.4
Corpus Christi: KXPX-CA 14
DFW: KFWD 52.1
Del Rio and San Antonio: KYVV 28.1
El Paso: KTFN 65.2
Houston: KUVM-CD 34.1
Laredo: KXOF-CA 39.2
Odessa/Midland: KMDF-CA 22.1
RGV: XHRIO 2.1
Tyler/Longview: KCEB 54.2
Waco/Temple: KCEN 6.4

Wikipedia's list is at /http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MundoFox_affiliates

Mundo Fox also has listings at their website, check "Encuentra" in the upper right hand corner and then hit "Selecciona tu ciudad".

 

[Megapsycle]

Now if they would add English Secondary Audio Program "SAP" channel, I might even watch and pick up some Spanish while I'm at it.

 

[fredcantu]

That is probably not allowed by their program producers. Telemundo does close caption their telenovelas in English. Maybe MundoFox does the same? We don't have MundoFox in Austin.

 

[TroyG]

I hope Comcast picks up MundoFOX here in Houston.

 

[Mediafrog+]

I hope Comcast picks up MundoFOX here in Houston.

KUVM/34 was on Comcast channel 74 when the station was an Azteca America affiliate, but was dropped when the network went to KYAZ/51.

It has to annoy the FOX bigshots that their new network is relegated to a LPTV in one of the largest Hispanic markets in the country. But they are too late to the game with Univision, Telefutura, Telemundo, Azteca America, Estrella TV and MegaTV all on full power signals. KUBE/57 might be a future home if its current classic TV format fizzles.

 

[TexasTuner]

I hope Comcast picks up MundoFOX here in Houston.

KUVM/34 was on Comcast channel 74 when the station was an Azteca America affiliate, but was dropped when the network went to KYAZ/51.

It has to annoy the FOX bigshots that their new network is relegated to a LPTV in one of the largest Hispanic markets in the country. But they are too late to the game with Univision, Telefutura, Telemundo, Azteca America, Estrella TV and MegaTV all on full power signals. KUBE/57 might be a future home if its current classic TV format fizzles.

Okay..just curious...Houston's KRIV Fox 26 is owned by Fox. Why would Fox put Mundo Fox on an LPTV, and not on their full power O&O which has got to have better coverage than their LPTV affiliate? Any guesses? And, KRIV runs no subchannels, at least not today.

 

[JHBrandt]

Okay..just curious...Houston's KRIV Fox 26 is owned by Fox. Why would Fox put Mundo Fox on an LPTV, and not on their full power O&O which has got to have better coverage than their LPTV affiliate? Any guesses? And, KRIV runs no subchannels, at least not today.

In DFW, MundoFox is HD. Is that true in Houston also? If so, it has to go on another station; there's not enough room for another HD channel on KRIV.

If it's in SD, I'd guess that Fox is saving KRIV's bandwidth for future Mobile/Hand-held channels. In DFW, the Fox O/Os are KDFW/4, which has an M/H channel, and KDFI/27, which has Bounce, so there's no room for another subchannel. (Of course in DFW the MundoFox affiliate is a full-power station, so they're not giving up OTA coverage as in Houston.)

M/H hasn't really taken off yet and it may never take off, but Fox may be giving it some more time before they commit KRIV's extra bandwidth to another purpose.

 

[fredcantu]

Fox doesn't have any extra subchannels on it's owned & operated Fox affiliates. In some cities where it has two signals it may put extra subchannels on whichever station DOES NOT carry Fox.

 

[Mediafrog+]

M/H hasn't really taken off yet and it may never take off, but Fox may be giving it some more time before they commit KRIV's extra bandwidth to another purpose.

Mobile Handheld may have missed its window of opportunity by dragging its feet and allowing video downloads/streaming on smartphones to pass it by. Why buy a mobile TV device with limited programming when you can get almost anything you want on your smartphone?

Reminds me of OTA subscription television in the early 80's, which came on the scene after cable had gotten a foothold in the Pay-TV market.

The more recent MediaFLO mobile handheld effort was a colossal flop as well.

 

[mmnassour]

Fox doesn't have any extra subchannels on it's owned & operated Fox affiliates. In some cities where it has two signals it may put extra subchannels on whichever station DOES NOT carry Fox.

I absolutely do not get that, at least here in Austin. I know for a fact that KTBC has .2 capability, I've seen it in test mode. All they need to do is plug in a stream.

 

[JHBrandt]

Mobile Handheld may have missed its window of opportunity by dragging its feet and allowing video downloads/streaming on smartphones to pass it by. Why buy a mobile TV device with limited programming when you can get almost anything you want on your smartphone?

Early M/H TVs were separate devices, but I think the long-term idea was to have M/H receivers in smart phones. The advantage would be that a smart phone could receive as much M/H as desired, irrespective of data plan limitations. Two hours of video can easily run 1 Gb, which could add $10 to your phone bill and/or slow you to 3G speeds for the rest of the month.

Nevertheless I've become doubtful that M/H has a future. A few M/H-capable smart phones have been announced, but the chicken-and-egg situation has limited demand for them. Making matters worse is the decision by some M/H broadcasters to use encryption in order to demand fees from device manufacturers. That just pushes the cost of M/H higher, further weakening demand. The whole mess is starting to remind me of HD radio.

 

[JHBrandt]

Fox doesn't have any extra subchannels on it's owned & operated Fox affiliates. In some cities where it has two signals it may put extra subchannels on whichever station DOES NOT carry Fox.

I absolutely do not get that, at least here in Austin. I know for a fact that KTBC has .2 capability, I've seen it in test mode. All they need to do is plug in a stream.

I don't understand it either. Due to the technology they employ, there is no advantage in not using the reserved bandwidth. It's either going to send a useful data stream or null packets; either way, .1 will look exactly the same.

KDFW/4 does use their extra bandwidth, for an M/H simulcast. I don't doubt that Fred is right about no .2's on the Fox affiliate, but the only reason I can imagine is that they're still waiting to see whether M/H might become more profitable.

 

[TexasTuner]

Fox doesn't have any extra subchannels on it's owned & operated Fox affiliates. In some cities where it has two signals it may put extra subchannels on whichever station DOES NOT carry Fox.

I absolutely do not get that, at least here in Austin. I know for a fact that KTBC has .2 capability, I've seen it in test mode. All they need to do is plug in a stream.

I don't understand it either. Due to the technology they employ, there is no advantage in not using the reserved bandwidth. It's either going to send a useful data stream or null packets; either way, .1 will look exactly the same.

KDFW/4 does use their extra bandwidth, for an M/H simulcast. I don't doubt that Fred is right about no .2's on the Fox affiliate, but the only reason I can imagine is that they're still waiting to see whether M/H might become more profitable.

34.1 here in Houston is running Mundo Fox in HD. As to running two HD channels in one channel assignment, now that I think of it, I can't remember ever having seen it done down here. Many of our LPTVs run widescreen, but they look anywhere between fair to awful. I seem to recall that the standard channel gives one about 19.2 megabytes, and you can slice and dice any way you want. The full HD operations I am told take anywhere from 9-12 megabytes, but logic tells me that would still leave room for another HD stream. Unless there's a technical reason why they can't do it, I still fail to understand why KRIV doesn't run it on it's own air, unless there are other factors that none of us know about.

 

[mmnassour]

I don't understand it either. Due to the technology they employ, there is no advantage in not using the reserved bandwidth. It's either going to send a useful data stream or null packets; either way, .1 will look exactly the same.

KDFW/4 does use their extra bandwidth, for an M/H simulcast. I don't doubt that Fred is right about no .2's on the Fox affiliate, but the only reason I can imagine is that they're still waiting to see whether M/H might become more profitable.

Or KTBC is such a small fish in the Fox ocean that it's fallen through the cracks. A former engineer there told me they can't even order spare parts without approval from corporate, and that approvals were almost impossible to get.

What the heck, it's only Fox. ;D

 

[arnoldevns]

Knowing what I know about the situation, I'll just say that Fox is a company that waits to watch others succeed or fail at something before they jump into it. They waited on HD for years on the national and local level before investing hundreds of millions of dollars in it.

MundoFox is another of an example of that mindset. They must believe there's room for another spanish language broadcast network.
I really don't know what, if any, ratings they're getting for the network.. but they must believe that down the road it will make money. They cut their risk somewhat by involving another company that's had success with this programming. This is a long-term investment for Fox.

Subchannels are another "wait-and-see" thing for Fox. Fox hasn't jumped into that because they want to see if things like Antenna TV, Me-TV, etc make money for their owners. If so, Fox will probably jump in in a big way. They're probably making only a small investment to see if the "Dyle-TV" thing works. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find that they're being paid to put their stations on M/H so the phone company can sell the idea to the public.

I'm fairly certain that Bounce TV is paying for their spot on KDFI 27.2. If so, it's a good thing for Bounce because they've gotten pretty good cable carriage for 27.2 out of the deal.

 

[mmnassour]

That makes sense, in fact, it makes good business sense.

However, let's remember the reason Fox went HD is that originally Murdoch planned to do multicasting at 480i, and was threatened by numerous government types that if he blew off HD, that he'd find his stations with just about enough bandwidth to do ONE 480i channel...and no more.

I think that counts as.....encouragement to make the proper business decision ;D.

 

[fredcantu]

Came across Mundo Fox on big dish satellite. I watch a few hours of prime time. It's actually a pretty slick product. The bright red graphics really stand out. The dramas are highly produced. The news-- not so much. You can tell they have a tiny staff.

 

[kc4rae]

Several weeks ago, I noticed "MFOX" on KCEN's signal, but it is not showing programming.

 

[JHBrandt]

34.1 here in Houston is running Mundo Fox in HD. As to running two HD channels in one channel assignment, now that I think of it, I can't remember ever having seen it done down here. Many of our LPTVs run widescreen, but they look anywhere between fair to awful. I seem to recall that the standard channel gives one about 19.2 megabytes, and you can slice and dice any way you want. The full HD operations I am told take anywhere from 9-12 megabytes, but logic tells me that would still leave room for another HD stream. Unless there's a technical reason why they can't do it, I still fail to understand why KRIV doesn't run it on it's own air, unless there are other factors that none of us know about.

It is possible - just barely - to do two HD subchannels over one 19.2 Mb/s stream. KXII/12 in Madill, OK actually does 2 HD's (CBS & FOX) plus 1 SD (My Texoma). However the results are sometimes not pretty. The HD images tend to get quite "blocky" on fast-moving scenes, as happens frequently on sports broadcasts. Also, it won't work with Fox's own HD equipment (being a dual affiliate, KXII uses their own statmux, not Fox's). Fox's equipment allocates a fixed amount of bandwidth (15.3 Mb/s IIRC) to the .1 channel, which only leaves enough for SD on .2.

So from what you've said, it sounds like they went with a LP affiliate instead of putting it on .2 so they could broadcast MundoFox in HD.