Obama wants to delay digital TV conversion?

[Vlad!]

I definitely still suggest contacting the station. In theory the digital signal should be at least as strong as the analog signal. When I contacted one of my local stations asking what sort of antenna I would need and basically just doing fact-finding for my own curiosity, they sent me a free HD antenna! I didn't really even need one, but it's nice to have as a fallback in case I decide to ditch cable Internet and stop getting area channels in HD over the wire for free.

I'm just saying, these guys want you to be able to view their commercialsprograms, and sometimes they may just legitimately not know that there's a problem.

Maybe. If it's really their problem I'd expect others to be having difficulties, too, so the first step is figuring out if it's just me.

My approach to this sort of thing (power outages, cable outages, whatever) is to assume it's just me and contact the company quickly. No sense in waiting around just to find out a while down the road that yes, it was a widespread issue and everybody else was also taking the 'wait and see' approach.

[bloop]

NBC says I may have to press "12-1" or "12.1" on my remote.  Unfortunately, my remote lacks both a hyphen and a decimal point button.

[Vlad!]

NBC says I may have to press "12-1" or "12.1" on my remote.  Unfortunately, my remote lacks both a hyphen and a decimal point button.

Yeah, digital channels are generally specified as a <channel number>.<sub number> tuple. My TV, which has a digital tuner built-in, understands this, and the remote has a . button (also, channel-up understands this so the TV goes from 5.1 to 5.2 when I press up before it goes to 6.1).

If your TV doesn't have a digital tuner, you will need to change the channel using your D/A converter box.

You probably realize all this already, but it never hurts to check the basics

[bloop]

We bought our HDTV on the cheap without a remote, so we bought a remote.  It seemed perfectly adequate at the time, but little did we know. 

We'll just get another universal.

[murlough23]

Going a channel up from "4" (which was analog NBC) gets me to "4.1" (which is digital NBC). There's a 4.2, but I'm not sure what it is or if it's at all related. Anyway, I can get to 4.1 just fine and I've been able to ever since I got my TV. But sometimes I get there and just get constant black screen with "No signal", despite not futzing with the antenna since the last time I was there.

But yeah, if contacting the station might get me free stuff, it's worth a try. Maybe we should also re-scan for channels, since they said to do that after analog goes dark. (I've already found that we have like 10 PBS stations and a ton of Asian-language ones hidden in the decimal points.)

[Vlad!]

4.2 is another broadcast by the same broadcasting company. For example, here:
5.1 is WRAL-TV HD, which broadcasts CBS programming in HD (generally 720p)
5.2 is WRAL-NC SD, which broadcasts This TV programming in SD (480i)
5.3 is WRAL-TV SD, which broadcasts CBS programming in SD (480i)

The black screen + "no signal" might mean that they're airing a program in a format your TV doesn't support (for example, they're airing something in 1080i and your TV can't display 1080i and can't downscale to whatever it can display). Or it might mean that you're just not getting a signal because they fail or you fail or sunspots are interfering or aliens are interfering or whatever.

[murlough23]

The black screen + "no signal" might mean that they're airing a program in a format your TV doesn't support (for example, they're airing something in 1080i and your TV can't display 1080i and can't downscale to whatever it can display).

Seems unlikely when I've watched the same program (in this case, SNL) in digital before, on the same channel, with the antenna on the same setting.

Or it might mean that you're just not getting a signal because they fail or you fail or sunspots are interfering or aliens are interfering or whatever.

Heh. Thanks for narrowing it down.

[bloop]

I think my local NBC affiliate just doesn't care if I watch their commercials.  I tried typing "12.1" on my new remote, and it still doesn't register.

Thank God for Hulu!

[Vlad!]

That's weird. You might try hitting up AVForums to see if your TV has something funky going on, but probably NBC just hates you. Thank God for Hulu!

[bloop]

After much antenna wrangling, I have captured NBC.