Austin has MTV in Morbid Mono!

Thomas D. Barrett

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Mar 7, 1993, 4:12:35 PM3/7/93

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Has anyone else noticed that since the channel move that MTV is in
beautiful monophonic sound? Try it... turn off the stereo and turn it
back on... listen with headphones... it ain't stereo! They broke
it...

VH1, TNN, CMT, BET, and Showtime all have wonderful, full-bodied, and
true stereo direct from the digital decoder before and after the move.

MTV, on the other hand, has lost all of the stereo seperation even
through the stereo pilot is there. Somehow, they broke it by sending
it through some sort of cheesy local commercial device or cheesy patch
box.

HBO has a little seperation, but the sound is tinny and there isn't
much true stereo seperation on it (I'll have to wait until they have a
music special or good movie to be sure). Also, one of my television's
complain about the stereo signal. One other bit of weirdness is that
they didn't really move it phyically, it just shows up on a different
channel on the decoder box.

I suspect that they changed some things around with HBO and MTV at
their front-end and hoped that no one would notice.

PLEASE give them a call because one person complaining about the
lousey sound ain't gonna get anything done. I can accept moving the
channels around a bit every few years, but I can't accept sloppy audio
and video. Especially if I have to pay more for it!

Another note... the Cartoon network, the SciFi channel, and many other
satellite programs are now available. Furthermore, Super Radio
services are available all over the place and include CD-quality
digital sound. Austin cable's TV and FM is totally saturated... they
can't add anything without dumping something.

Late in '93 and early in '94 we will see many revolutionary things
happen to pay and free television and audio... Austin needs to keep up
with these things and right now Austin Cable is only willing to do a
quick patch job to maybe offer a few digital FM channels (for a fee).
Now is the time for everyone to speak-up and demand that Austin cable
present a plan to upgrade their system. They either have to do it, or
we will have to allow AT&T and other information providers come in and
show them how to really operate a modern cable system!

Thanks for the bandwidth!
Tom

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Thomas D. Barrett

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Mar 9, 1993, 6:39:02 PM3/9/93

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As a follow-up... Austin Cable's Larry Phillips finally returned my
call and reported that they wer looking in to the stereo problems with
MTV and would hopefully have the situation corrected by next week. We
weren't able to talk in real time and he didn't volunteer what the
problem was.

As for HBO, he added that they did not change anything... so it may
just be that I haven't had a chance to listen to a program yet which
has a good stereo soundtrack.

Tom
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Thomas D. Barrett

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Mar 13, 1993, 4:36:43 PM3/13/93

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Larry Phillips at Austin Cable seems to have come through... MTV is
now back to being full stereo. From the sound of their local
commercials now, I suspect that they changed out the local commercial
equipment and the stuff they are using now isn't stereo compatible.
Whatever they did, it seems to have gotten around the problemo!

Tom