In Northeast Ohio, you can find old episodes of "Smallville" in HD thanks to HDNet. But you can't see the current ones in that format yet.

The reason: Local CW affiliate WBNX (Channel 55) still hasn't gotten its HD signal up and running. That may change in a few weeks, but even that's not dead cert.

Station manager Lou Spangler told me today that it took the station 3 1/2 years to get a permit for its digital channel because of a Canadian TV station feared transmission conflicts. Once it got over that hurdle, it hoped to have the digital signal — and HD with it — running by Aug. 1, and tweaked into readiness for viewers by Labor Day, before the new TV season began.

But there have been problems that Spangler — an admitted non-techie — summed up as "computers that won't talk to computers."

Now, he's hoping for a tests in late October and a formal launch by Nov. 1.

But even that will just be a signal for the likes of the cable companies to pick up. WBNX doesn't expect to have its over-the-air digital antenna in hand until late this year, when winter would interfere with construction, so it will probably be April before WBNX has over-the-air digital transmissions.

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