I have a question regarding Canadian hijackers such as Global and CTV. When they hijack an HD show is it still HD?

I'm pretty sure Lost is in HD on ABC, so does it translate when CTV hijacks it? And what other shows are in HD nowadays? Primetime stuff from the big 4 networks. Are some of the shows i watch even in HD in the states? Such as Prison Break, Heroes, House, Terminator, Chuck, 24 etc?

I recently bought a Samsung Series 5 40inch 1080p HDTV and i will soon get an HD receiver from Videotron and i was curious since i love tv shows and i want to be able to benefit from my HDTV and not be 'cock-blocked' by Global or CTV

Thanks!

I am with Rogers in Ottawa. If you watch HD Global or CTV you still get the hijacked feeds, but if you watch HD CBS, ABC, NBC or FOX you get the original feed from the American affiliate. The one exception I can think of is the Super Bowl when the FOX feed was hijacked by CTV and the time shifted West coast Fox was scrambled and unwatchable.

Don't you mean Eh-DTV?

They "hijack" it? What exactly does that mean? They rebroadcast the signal?

Depends on where you live. I'm with Rogers in Toronto and as of quite a while ago if you watch an HD channel out of the US in prime time, they are substituting the appropriate Canadian HD channel feed. This is for every-day broadcasts, not just Superbowl/Oscars type stuff. Typically, if the original broadcast is in HD, the Canadian broadcaster will broadcast it in HD on their HD channel.

The big drawback to this is that sometimes the Canadian broadcaster gets the HD feed from the US with the network logo bug intact. They then add their own bug, cluttering up the screen even more than it already is.

For our American friends, we in Canada get both Canadian stations and local affiliate American stations (from nearby cities like Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle, etc.) on our cable and satellite feeds. So, when The Office is airing on Thursday night, its airing on both NBC and Global TV. If I switch to my NBC station (in my case, WGRZ in Buffalo) I will actually be watching the Global TV feed, with their commercials. The cable company has to manually substitute the feed. This is to ensure Global TV's advertisers' spots get seen by all of the Canadian viewers.

The terms often used are simulcast or 'simsubbing'.

What happens is, when you turn in to watch "CSI" on CBS, or "Heroes" on NBC, or any other prime time series on one of the big 4 networks, the local Canadian channels CTV, City TV or Global will have their broadcast of that same program REPLACE the American one, so you see the Canadian channel's logo, and Canadian commercials.

In the case of ABC, their logo is overlayed with the Canadian logo, making a larger, uglier blob on the corner of the screen than before.

This happens on SD and HD channels, and has occurred for many years now. This is done by the cable company, who is basically told by the Canadian network and broadcast standards to do this, just as smg669 has stated.

Global HD is the worst offender, because often their HD broadcasts aren't HD at all - the SD 4:3 version is shown instead. Also, their 5.1 surround is very poorly compressed, and sounds similar to a low bitrate mp3.

Sometimes when the Canadian channel screws up, the cable company will switch it back to the original American broadcast.

IF they catch it.

If the schedule is different, then you have the option of watching the Canadian channel OR the American channel, but that schedule difference is rare.

I still don't get it. So they air, say, Heroes at the exact same time as NBC, but they just "replace" the NBC feed with the CTV feed? Why would a cable company even give Canadians an NBC feed, in that case?

Or do you mean that CTV broadcasts their stuff on the same frequency as the local NBC or whatever station?

They replace it.

Your TV is actually on NBC, but instead you see Global (in the case of a show like Heroes)

My HD cable channels for these two networks are:

NBC HD: Channel 529

Global HD: Channel 515

So the TV will be on 529, but I see everything that's on 515.

Same as the SD channels.

When that show is over, depending on what's on afterwards, it will switch back to the American signal, or switch to another Canadian signal.

The absolutely worst thing about it is when they don't change back after the end of the simulcast, which happens way too much. I can remember tons of times when a show is over, and I miss 10 to 15 minutes of the following show, because the simulcast is still on. After complaining, all entities involved end up pointing their finger at each other, saying someone forgot to "flick the switch".

I am lucky as Rogers doesn't do this in my town. I have seen it in action when visiting out of town and it does indeed suck.

To add to that, they NEVER seem to switch it with enough time to see the original American network's preview of next week's episode for a show, with the exception of LOST and that's only because on ABC, LOST runs about a minute longer (probably because of more commercials).

For a long time, City TV didn't have 5.1 surround capability so that was a downgrade when watching a show (Ugly Betty is the only one I watch that City TV cuts into) but that's no longer an issue as they now feature that true surround ability.

While it has gone on with standard TV for probably decades, the HD simsubbing is fairly new, as apparently the technology involved prevented it from happening for quite a while when HD channels were introduced. So for that time, HD had an additional advantage over SD because it was the only way you could see the original American network broadcasts if you had cable TV. Obviously not anymore.

So getting an HD cable box is pretty much pointless for now? If none of the shows i watch are on HD then there's no point right? Might as well watch it on normal kinda fuzzy cable.

So why would a cable company even give you American networks if they're just going to broadcast a Canadian network over it?

Because not all US shows are aired in Canadian stations. It only happens when a Canadian Network purchases a show and airs it at the same time as the US. Sometimes because of scheduling conflicts, a Canadian station airs the show before or after the US network.

We like to blame the CRTC for this.

No, no.

Global often made mistakes with their HD programming, but they seem to have gotten the handle on it now. American or Canadian channels, you can still watch all prime time shows AND sports in HD.

-All three CSI series
-LOST
-Desperate Housewives
-Ugly Betty
-Heroes
-NCIS
-Grey's Anatomy
-24
-Bones
-House
-Two and a Half Men
-How I Met Your Mother
-Without A Trace

and the list goes on....all in HD on both American and Canadian networks.

If a show is on in HD in the states, you can find it in HD in Canada (the only major exception I can think of is Mad Men, but if you wait a day, it's on Rogers On demand in HD). City TV screws up time and time again with cutting into the wrong feed, but of late, I can't think of too many errors (but Men In Trees comes to mind and the fiasco where they'd broadcast eps without the dialogue channel and they showed the series finale 3 weeks early instead of the third last ep.).

and as the the question of So why would a cable company even give you American networks if they're just going to broadcast a Canadian network over it?

Because, the Canadian networks only cut in SOMETIMES. Other times they don't show the same programming or if it's not on at the same time etc. - so they give us the US feeds for more variety...thank god because I count on the US West Coast feeds to get all my shows pvr'd in HD.

If you have an HDTV, you need HD Digital cable... besides my TV and blu-ray player, my HD PVR is the best thing I own!

Yeah City TV's broadcasts of Ugly Betty is often 'dialogue free' as well.

I'd say CTV is the only one that doesn't screw up anything, and it's the only one that doesn't annoy me.

So basically:

Global:

-sometimes airs the 4:3 SD versions (though they make this mistake less and less)
-always very poorly compressed ac3 5.1 audio

City TV:

-image glitches
-(PRO) they occasionally air a film in its original aspect ratio, and not cropped from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1 like most channels do
-only recently became 5.1 capable, but still has bugs (no center channel) to work out
(PRO) almost ALL of their news programs are in HD

In my case, I only watch Ugly Betty on this channel, so my experiences are limited to problems occurring with this one series they air.

CTV:

-it's pretty much good to go. No problems I've come across with this one. I'd say the image is better here watching all the CSI's than on CBS where it often looks pixelated.

Ah, good to know that i can still get my shows in HD even in Canada!

Shaw Cable (western Canada) does not sim-sub HD yet.

One alternative to this is to get those western channels, called a timeshifting package. For Rogers, the basic HD channels (Global, CBC, City TV, CTV, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, PBS, Sun TV, E!) are free with the HD digital terminal rental but to get the west coast counterparts means having to pay extra.