Another bad month for C band

[Peter Parker]

http://www.skyreport.com/

12,000 fewer C band subs in August bringing the total to 310,896. C-band began the year with over 428,000 subs.

 

[ilongwe@yahoo.com]

satelliteguys,

I need need upgrade firmware for my X2 free to air decoder. Help Guys!.The one I have expires too quickly.

Waiting.

I.K.L

 

[Stargazer]

I think some wait until they have a hardware failure with their C-Band unit until they switch over to DirecTv or Dish Network. I am sure Voom has taken some of these customers considering how much the HD hardware costs with C-Band. Local channels being on Dish and Direct has also helped take away those C-Band subscribers.

 

[charper1]

The overall biggest killers are the fact that c-band makers abandoned their R&D and never followed through with the multi-LNB dishes similar to what your local cable companies are upgrading to. C/Ku-band BUD is still the cheapest subscriptions, highest quality audio & video delivery; its how D*, E*, Voom and the others get the majority of their signals to compress and redistribute to you with their built in markup costs. But dish size, startup costs, abandonment by its manufacturers, and ease of the DBS all has lead to its demise.

 

[dfergie]

The overall biggest killers are the fact that c-band makers abandoned their R&D and never followed through with the multi-LNB dishes similar to what your local cable companies are upgrading to. C/Ku-band BUD is still the cheapest subscriptions, highest quality audio & video delivery; its how D*, E*, Voom and the others get the majority of their signals to compress and redistribute to you with their built in markup costs. But dish size, startup costs, abandonment by its manufacturers, and ease of the DBS all has lead to its demise.

Yup
I bought dbs for the portability then gradually migrated all my programming to it. A whole lot easier to surf than going from transponder to transponder and Sat to Sat, plus having a built in guide I subcribed to Satellite TV week for several years for just the basic programming info. And maint. is easier with dbs...

 

[rtt2]

Actually the biggest hi has been programmers switching their feeds and changing the encryption.

Programmers have been slowly taking away their analog streams and moving them to digital. While others are making their streams a digital stream that cannot be decoded by a home user of C-Band. They are going to PowerKey or Digicipher II Combo Mode. Both these can't be decoded by a home user.

Many people will not pay to upgrade to digital as was the case when HBO went all Digital this year and just went to the small dish.
There will be a lot of people bailing when Lifetime goes because it is going PowerKey and cannot be decoded. A lot of wives are going to force their husbands to abandon the big dish.

 

[charper1]

UH? the lack of the ability of the home user to decode these new encryptions is exactly what was refered to by the "makers abandoning their R&D". They gave up on the home users and went back to head-end development. HBO is still broadcasting in analog on G5-08 and G5-15. HBO discontinued carriage of its four analog "multiplex" feeds: HBO 2 E & W, HBO Signature East & MoreMax East. HBO will continue their carriage of the four main feeds: HBO East, HBO West, Cinemax East and Cinemax West.
26 digital HBO/Cinemax channels will continue to be offered to subscribers with a 4DTV or digital sidecar receiver. HDTV HBO East and West are still available with an HBO subscription, a high definition TV, a 4DTV system or sidecar and a HD decoder. What major network is using Powerkey?

 

[rtt2]

Sorry chapter1 I was typing a little too fast and was not clear enough. I know HBO is avaliable w/ a 4DTV subscription and the special to upgrade to a 922 that ran in conjunction with the HBO feeds being transitioned was good for some. But even at $450 vs. free for the small dish was just too much for some people.

PowerVu has been taking over about half the networks transitioning and Motorola has got the other half. Just the west coast feeds seem to be going but the programming providers are planning on using the same encription technology for the East coast feeds if they havent upgraded the system already and have just not implimented it yet.

Lifetime West gone PowerVu, Lifetime East will supposedly leave analog on October 6 in favor of S-A digital.

A&E West gone PowerVu on 9/28/03 with East expected later this year

Wisdom Channel gone PowerVu

TechTV gone PowerVu

TNT-HD opts for PowerVu when it started

 

[charper1]

read again, HBO is still on ANALOG (regular VC2) cband on G5-08 & G5-15 NOT just 4DTV. I understood what you were saying perfectly, but it isnt correct info. I have both E* as well as, cband VC2, 4DTV and cband HDTV, I also still install them for user that want a bit more choice. Read up at Lyngsat or SatcoDX to find the signals.