The long awaited premiere of “ Battle for Tobacco Road ” airs tonight at 9pm on HBO. The one-hour documentary features the heated rivalry between two of college basketball’s best programs. While the two are night and day different, they also share similarities that make for a fascinating contrast/comparison piece. Aside from the insulting name, the documentary sheds a very complimentary light on the two programs and the area in which they reside. The show airs numerous other times thru March on HBO variants.

The analog to digital television transition was to occur on all stations this coming Tuesday. Last week, however, the Senate and House passed approved the DTV Delay Act which sets the mandatory switch date to June 12. The change is creating a lot of confusion because some TV stations (.pdf) are going ahead with their transitions this coming Tuesday anyway. The transition is not easy for some stations as they will have to broadcast their new digital signals with new equipment that cannot be used until the transition occurs.

As a general rule, affiliates of the three major networks are waiting to transition on June 12, and our three are no exception. Three other local stations, however, will go ahead with the transtion; WRDC (MyTV), WLFL (CW), and WRAY.

Of course, if you haven’t seen the video of the old lady fumbling with her converter box , it is a must see!

Carolina Hurricanes Alternate Captain Eric Staal has, once again, been named to the NHL All-Star Team. This is the third time being named to the team for Stall, last year’s All-Star Game MVP. The game begins at 6pm today on Versus (TWC channel 65 and 271).

Note: Staal scores the game’s 3rd goal at 9:30 in the 1st

The previously mentioned filming date for the Travel Channel’s "Man vs. Food" show has been changed. The new date is Wednesday, January 28 .

The Pit is taking reservations for spectator seating that night (6-9). They will also be offering some topical specials that night:

• Double Combo (Carolina Ribs and Chopped Hog) with two sides for $14.99 (normally $19.99)
• All you can eat Chopped Hog and two sides also for $14.99 (not normally available)

Adam Richman , the host of the Travel Channel’s " Man vs. Food ", will be coming to Raleigh next week. On Tuesday the 27th (6pm-9pm) Ed will be at The Pit learning all he can about barbeque from pitmaster Ed Mitchell . The show will also stop by The Roast Grill for another segment of the program.

WRAL FM has found the replacement for the recently departed Sherri Logan on the morning drive-time show. Beginning Monday former morning TV news host Lynda Loveland will join Bill Jordan and the gang on the radio side. Loveland is an extremely nice person with a funny bone, however this move may be a waste of her rare on-camera talents.

News reporter Kelcey Carlson will take Loveland’s seat on the WRAL TV morning news. Valonda Calloway will join Bill Leslie at noon.

The new N.C. State commercial shown during halftime of basketball games features the (previously seen ) Dennis Miller look-alike touting the university’s attributes. Specifically, he talks about ideas moving toward patents. One problem: he says,"so get your cerebellum in gear…".

The cerebellum is the region of the brain which deals with voluntary motor control and coordination. Ooops! I don’t think that’s what he meant.

Those who watched American Idol on Wednesday night got to see the show’s introduction of Anoop Desai. The masters student in Folklore at UNC wowed the judges with his soulful rendition of " Thank You " by Boyz II Men. Look for Desai, an East Chapel Hill High graduate and Haywood Hinkle Scholar at UNC, in the second round in a couple of weeks.

Time Warner Cable recently announced that they would be adding a few more channels. Beginning Friday, horror and suspense channel Chiller (SD) will appear on channel 127.

On February 13, these HD channels will be added

• USA HD - Channel 258
• Bravo HD - Channel 259
• CNBC HD - Channel 266
• Sci-Fi HD - Channel 267
• Telemundo - Channel 379 (Digital extension of Basic Cable)

Most likely these channels will be delivered via SDV. In that case Time Warner hardware is required to view the additional channels. They would not be seen on CableCard devices such as Tivo Series 3, Windows Media Center, etc.

The previously mentioned HBO documentary “Battle for Tobacco Road: Duke vs. Carolina” will debut Monday, February 23 at 9pm.

“This film will explore how a cross-town rivalry between two prestigious academic universities in North Carolina has escalated into one of the most scrutinized and intense rivalries in college sports,” said HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg. “The regular season showdowns and the ACC Tournament meetings between these two schools have become national events, and we’ll explore how it all started and what it means to have played in one of these contests.”

WRAL was the first local station to go high def with both its general broadcast and with its local news production. If I’m not mistaken the station has struck another first: local TV station with an iPhone app. The application gives an iPhone custom interface to content on wral.com, with quick access to Doppler radar images, traffic cameras, headlines, sports scores, and WRAL’s weather forecast video. The app is a free download free through iTunes .

It appears that recently Time Warner Cable subscribers who tune in to local HD channels by selecting the channel on their TV (as opposed to using a TWC box to select) have recently “lost” some of their channels.

Apparently as TWC has added channels recently, they have changed some of the frequencies being used for some of these HD channels and subchannels (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, etc).

Try going into your TV’s setup menu and get your TV to rescan all channels. The local HD channels and subchannels are delivered through a method called “clear QAM”. New TVs can detect channels on clear QAM, but older ones cannot. These local channels are hidden in Time Warner’s most basic tier of cable service, but not publicized for obvious reasons.

Try rescanning and hopefully you’ll get your channels back!

Just a reminder: WRAL’s sports anchor for more than 30 year, Tom Suiter, will be doing his final 6:00 newscast tonight . Suiter will continue to be in the newsroom and will continue some on-air duties, such as hosting Football Friday. Oxford-native Jeff Gravley will take the reins as WRAL’s primary sports anchor.

Today Time Warner Cable added another group of HD channels, bringing the total available just above 40. The channels should now be available on HD boxes and DVRs. If not, do a manual reboot (hold the power button until you see changes on the screen).

It’s fantastic to see the improving lineup in the HD tier. CableCard customers (Tivo Series 3 and Media Center users), however, still are in the dark as the recent new channels are being delivered via SDV. The hope in the HD community is that the tuning adapters that TWC has announced will enable CableCard customers to receive the channels for which they are paying. ( Sign up for a tuning adapter at TWC’s page). Rochester, NY today became the second TWC market to roll out the adapters.

Here is the current HD channel lineup (asterisk denotes channels not being delivered to CableCard customers)

read more…

It all started with a surprised announcement at Hi-5, and tonight it will end. NBC’s The Biggest Loser: Families concludes tonight featuring Ed and Heba , the couple from Raleigh. Tune it at 8pm.