Charlie Chat Caps & Bytes

[goaliebob99]

Dish is trying to get away from wing dishes. That's why we have eastern and western arcs. That will standardize the thing. These things will come in time.

The problem is that its taking too long for them to do it.... They should have started the Mpeg4 trasition on wa like two months ago!! By the time dish gets off ther @sses, D* would have launched every movie channel and have well cornered the market.

 

[JohnH]

One should not mention D* in this MPEG 4 thing. They are still MPEG 2 and they kept their customers hanging well over a year for their HD thing.
The MPEG 4 transition has been going on at E* since first HD channel was launched in MPEG 4.
It seems both providers still have a substantial number with legacy equipment.

 

[goaliebob99]

One should not mention D* in this MPEG 4 thing. They are still MPEG 2 and they kept their customers hanging well over a year for their HD thing.
The MPEG 4 transition has been going on at E* since first HD channel was launched in MPEG 4.
It seems both providers still have a substantial number with legacy equipment.

I thought D* was all mpeg4... Its been my understanding that they have been that way for quite awhile, and all the channels in the 90's were brought over from MPEG2 to MPEG4, especally on the new sats.

D*'s hold up was bandwidth, or the lack of using it untill they could get another bird up there to duplicate the bandwidth.

 

[JohnH]

The channels in the 90s were HD, you are apparently talking about SD as they are the only channels which are still MPEG 2.

It is always another bird except in these cases it is legacy receivers. D* needed the bandwidth to increase their SD sports channels in MPEG 2.

 

[HDRoberts]

DirecTV is still broadcasting in plain old vanilla MPEG2 SD on regualar DBS Ku from 101. Since DirecTV now has all their Ka bandwidth, I'm almost doubting we will see an MPEG4 transition for them in the next decade. Some local markets they have transitioned, but that is just because there is no more room on 101.

Dish, on the other hand, has generally discontinued using MPEG2 equipment for new installs. They have started free HD (which I think is the first step in simply giveing everyone HD signal and stoping the SD/HD duplication). I think Dish is simply waiting for more people to get HDTVs and get a paid upgrade. Why do it for free when people will still pay you for it? I almost expect that they will start the transition in Februrary, just after people would have goten upgrades for their new HDTVs gotten during Christmas.

 

[goaliebob99]

Gotya, I was talking about HD, Your right that they do have to upgrade that portion of the system too. I wonder how much bandwidth they would gain off of the 101 bird if they did that.