ATSC 3.0: Denver

[bjdraw]

I called and talked to David Stromberg at KDVR. He told me that the Denver stations plan to go live with ATSC 3.0 on December 15th. Initially they will be using the CW tower and all the streams will be simulcast of the ATSC 1.0 channels, so not 4k and HDR (etc). Eventually they will transition from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 and start to use the higher quality signals, etc.

[Williams]

Thanks for the update! and for starting the local thread. I am in Denver and have been trying to lock onto the weak ATSC 3 signal on RF2.

Hoping there's a player that works on my mac mini running OS 10.13 by then.

[ppasteur]

I too am interested.
I can get physical channel 2 on one of my antennas. It even plays pretty well on my LG OLED (audio and video). Nothing of much interest on any of the three sub-channels though. I was happy to be able to get ATSC3 to work.
Was there any mention of whether the local stations would be making any kind of announcement?
Any mention of the specifics of what stations will be participating?
I am curious to see if there will be any increase in quality. I know it will be the same source, but many stations in Denver are pretty bandwidth limited due to all of the sub-channels.
Thanks for starting the thread!!

[bjdraw]

I wish I would have taken more notes, but I seem to recall him mentioning more than 5 stations. I was left with the impression that all the big stations will be live on the same day. He did mention that every station will be transmitting ~6Mbps at HEVC, so not sure that's enough bit to improve the over the compressed ATSC 1 signals. He also mentioned that they are using a IP over RF via microwave to the location with the towers, so I took this to mean they have lots of flexibility in changing the quality around as they fully roll out ATSC 3.0.

I would be surprised if they make any announcement, other than telling the ATSC 1.0 viewers to rescan to continue to watch The CW (the existing CW channel is going to be used to broadcast all the other channels in ATSC 3.0). It seems this is just the first of many steps towards what we are all looking forward to, but right now they realize the audience is geeks who will learn everything in forums.

The guy was super nice and told me to call back if I had any more questions. I got in touch with him by calling the main number and asking the receptionist to transfer me to engineering. Initially he didn't answer and his mailbox was full, but he called me right back when he noticed he missed my call.

[Gwilly7]

This is good news, thank you for the info. I am in Littleton and looking forward to testing the new broadcasts.

[ppasteur]

From KyL416 in the AVS Denver OTA Thread:

KWGN and KDVR made their filings:

KWGN's RF 34 signal will convert to ATSC 3.0 on 12/21 and carry nextgen simulcasts of KDVR, KMGH and KUSA in addition to KWGN's primary CW channel.

And for KWGN's ATSC 1.0 simulcasts:
2.1 CW HD will be on KDVR's RF 36 signal
2.2 CourtTV will be on KUSA's RF 9 signal
2.3 Comet will be on KMGH's RF 7 signal
2.4 Charge! will be on KMGH's RF 7 signal

About 3 weeks before I can do some real testing.
I would say "I can't wait" but that is not true... I have to. So I will.