Coming Soon: Get BabyFirstTV™ at No Extra Charge - but HD Equipment Will Be Required

[TheTechGuru]

DIRECTV Beginning January 2012, BabyFirstTV

TV for Babies | BabyFirst TV Featuring Harry The Bunny & More

Beginning January 16, 2012, BabyFirstTV™ will be included in the CHOICE™ programming package and above at no extra charge. You will no longer need to add it as an à la carte subscription at an additional charge. If you currently subscribe to BabyFirstTV™, the charges will stop in January. You'll need to have DIRECTV HD equipment, HD dish, and HD Access ($10/month) to enjoy BabyFirstTV™. However, the content will still be broadcast in standard definition.

Below is the list of compatible DIRECTV receivers:
DIRECTV[SUP]®[/SUP] HD Receiver: Models H20, H21, H23, H24, H25 DIRECTV[SUP]®[/SUP] HD DVR: Models HR20, HR21, HR21P, HR22, HR23, HR24, HR34 TiVo[SUP]®[/SUP] HD DVR from DIRECTV: Model THR22 DIRECTV[SUP]®[/SUP] DVR: Model R22

Behold! The first (of probably many) Ka band MPEG4 SD channel!

 

[Jimbo]

Not sure why it was an extra charge in the first place.
If I had to guess, I would say it was part of the contract agreement.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

It was a premium channel on both DISH and DIRECTV, however earlier this year it became free of DISH. I can only guess that it was a contract thing.

I don't have any more babies to take care of, but when I did Baby First TV actually kept him entertained.

 

[satjay]

Same here no more babies in my house, but maybe those that have them will enjoy the channel

 

[Mr Tony]

Behold! The first (of probably many) Ka band MPEG4 SD channel!

There already is some
Golden Eagles
GodTV
Free Speech TV
Nasa

 

[TheTechGuru]

There already is some
Golden Eagles
GodTV
Free Speech TV
Nasa

I'm not the user of the SD box so I never noticed. I guess it's getting time to put HD boxes on SD tube TV's to have all the channels. Wouldn't make a difference in the price per month, just the damn fee of getting it.

 

[Jimbo]

I'm not the user of the SD box so I never noticed. I guess it's getting time to put HD boxes on SD tube TV's to have all the channels. Wouldn't make a difference in the price per month, just the damn fee of getting it.

Many places are already putting in HD boxes on SD TV's.

Friend of mine has an HR21, with a SD TV and wants to get the Velocity Channel and cannot.

I'm guessing the reason is they are not paying for the HD channels (HD Fee).

 

[TheTechGuru]

Ya, I can't wait until the day they only use HD boxes and get rid of all of the SD duplicate feeds then are able to move a lot of the HD back to Ku band (and hopefully increase bit rates). At that time the $10 HD fee will probably be gone too.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Ya, I can't wait until the day they only use HD boxes and get rid of all of the SD duplicate feeds then are able to move a lot of the HD back to Ku band (and hopefully increase bit rates). At that time the $10 HD fee will probably be gone too.

You will be waiting for many years.

How many SD-only boxes do you think D* has in customer locations? 10 million? 15 million? More?

It is a nice dream, however.

 

[mediabuyergal]

Hi everyone. This action by DirecTV makes me angry. We have had Babyfirst for a few years and enjoyed it. Thought the $4.99 was a bit much for one channel but the kiddies liked it so okay. I am angry because the way DTV expresses this "change" to us is that on 1/16 we can get BF for FREE! However we need the HD access at $10/month. We don't want the HD Access for $10/month. Our now "Free" channel is $10/month or to heck with us....conform or surrender! That is what makes me so MAD. I don't like the way DTV is handling this and don't understand why we can't continue to have the channel as we do now. We can see all the other channels on the Choice Plus package (and all these channels have an HD one....ie Nat Geo, ESPN, etc etc etc) just fine right now. Can someone help me understand why we won't be continuing to have BF avail with the HD access? I'm not a techie, so forgive the question. I might understand if the content of the channel was going to be broadcast in HD, but it is going to still be in Standard Definition. Anyway. The kids will be bummed. I refuse to feel like I'm being extorted to buy HD access so we can still see this channel. I wondered what happened to NASA channel...it was there one day and then gone off the guide. Anyway if someone can help me understand the tech side of this situation at least I'll feel educated. THANK YOU happy holidays everyone

 

[mediabuyergal]

I'm such a newbie still learning how to post on here.....Please help me understand why, technically, we cannot still receive Babyfirst channel on DTV without having to purchase the HD access? Oh they are making me so mad about this. THANK YOU ALL

 

[texasbrit]

If you go onto autopay, HD access is free of charge...

 

[Mr Tony]

Can someone help me understand why we won't be continuing to have BF avail with the HD access?

I'm confused as to what you currently have

Do you get the HD version of a channel when you select it (like ESPN, TBS, TNT, USA, etc)?
If so then you have nothing to worry about.

What do you currently have for receivers? If they are only SD (like a D12, D11, R15) then yes you would need to upgrade to HD to see it. Its not that the channel is going to be HD, its going to be MPEG4 which in simple terms is a different way for the companies to broadcast it. It is a little cleaner picture. SD receivers can only see MPEG2 which is currently what the SD channels are in.

By the way....Dish Network does the same thing. They have SD only channels in a "HD only" pack

 

[TheTechGuru]

You will be waiting for many years.

How many SD-only boxes do you think D* has in customer locations? 10 million? 15 million? More?

It is a nice dream, however.

It's going to happen sooner or later, probably in the next 5-10 years.

If they can roll out all new access cards they can roll out all new receivers.

If a customer is going to be still SD only they could probably keep their existing round dish and DirecTV could just do receiver swaps by mail.

 

[mediabuyergal]

Hello, Iceberg..Thank you for replying to my questions. We have an H23-600 receiver. We still have our original dish so therefore wouldn't get HD under our equipment setup anyway. Our tv hooked to this receiver is not an HD television. Maybe Santa will provide one under the tree this year. Your answer helped me as now I understand why with our situation we will not still receive a transmission of BFTV as it is now. We will have to upgrade all our equipment, including the tv set. Our biggest problem is the way DirecTV presents this change (ie, you will need HD equipment and $10/mo access, however the content will continue to be broadcast in Standard Definition.) If they would have presented an explanation as you just have we would understand why we won't still be able to have the channel with our current system. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions. Happy Holidays!

 

[Mr Tony]

Are you sure you dont have a HD dish (slimline)? Seems odd they would install a HD receiver (H23...I have the same one) yep not give you a slimline dish.
You would not need a new TV even if you subbed to HD. I have my H23 on a SDTV (I have 2 R22 HDDVR's on the 2 HDTV's) and it works just fine.

If you dont mind me asking, what locals do you get? Reason I ask is a few markets in West Virginia require MPEG4 setups which would be the slimline dish. So you would be almost all setup. If you went with auto pay on the account the HD fee is waived so that $10 fee would not be on the account and you'd get BFTV

 

[andrewj0781]

This comes in handy at our house. My son is due on the 29th of January. We have all HD receivers because D* only broadcast our Locals in HD. Do have a question. Not sure where to find the answer at. Why doesn't D* give us The CW in HD (The Pittsburgh CW)? I mainly watch it in the morning for King of Queens reruns and a few court room shows. Just wondering why that's not a HD channel as well.

 

[lacubs]

This comes in handy at our house. My son is due on the 29th of January. We have all HD receivers because D* only broadcast our Locals in HD. Do have a question. Not sure where to find the answer at. Why doesn't D* give us The CW in HD (The Pittsburgh CW)? I mainly watch it in the morning for King of Queens reruns and a few court room shows. Just wondering why that's not a HD channel as well.

in Erie, the CW isn't in HD either

 

[mediabuyergal]

Thank you Iceberg

Are you sure you dont have a HD dish (slimline)? Seems odd they would install a HD receiver (H23...I have the same one) yep not give you a slimline dish.
You would not need a new TV even if you subbed to HD. I have my H23 on a SDTV (I have 2 R22 HDDVR's on the 2 HDTV's) and it works just fine.

If you dont mind me asking, what locals do you get? Reason I ask is a few markets in West Virginia require MPEG4 setups which would be the slimline dish. So you would be almost all setup. If you went with auto pay on the account the HD fee is waived so that $10 fee would not be on the account and you'd get BFTV

Hi Iceberg: Thank you again for taking time to post about my questions. We have had a standard one LNB dish (round) for years. We had a legacy receiver (standard) that was through original third-party DirecTV provider, Pegasus. When DTV took over Pegasus at first nothing changed. Finally, DTV provided us with a replacement primary receiver (the H23-600). However the original dish is still on our house.

We do have locals available via DTV, (we are in Bluefield, WV which is Beckley-Bluefield-Oak Hill TV DMA). The only "local" station (that we could pick up here in mountains with just an antenna) is the NBC affiliate WVVA. The others are in Raleigh County (Beckley area) and can't get via an OTA antenna. So, because we don't really care about our local channels (and can get WVVA thru a digital to analog converter hooked up to our tv, we didn't opt to subscribe to DTV locals for the additional charge)

Wordy answer, I know. Thank you for mentioning about auto pay to waive HD access fee. DTV did not offer such information during my call about this situation. So, we need the slimline dish replacement so we could get HD service since we have the H23 receiver already. So that is what we will have to do to get started. Getting an HD tv is on our list anyway as our SDTV is okay, but old.

Thank you Iceberg. Happy Holidays.

 

[Mr Tony]

Hi Iceberg: Thank you again for taking time to post about my questions. We have had a standard one LNB dish (round) for years. We had a legacy receiver (standard) that was through original third-party DirecTV provider, Pegasus. When DTV took over Pegasus at first nothing changed. Finally, DTV provided us with a replacement primary receiver (the H23-600). However the original dish is still on our house.

ewww Pegasus. Had them at the lake house too.
OK that seems odd they'd give you a HD receiver with no HD dish

We do have locals available via DTV, (we are in Bluefield, WV which is Beckley-Bluefield-Oak Hill TV DMA). The only "local" station (that we could pick up here in mountains with just an antenna) is the NBC affiliate WVVA. The others are in Raleigh County (Beckley area) and can't get via an OTA antenna. So, because we don't really care about our local channels (and can get WVVA thru a digital to analog converter hooked up to our tv, we didn't opt to subscribe to DTV locals for the additional charge)

oh shoot thats right. Those locals were added recently so you can still be grandfathered in without locals

Wordy answer, I know.

no worries. I can vouch for most of us that we'd rather have a long response than short incomplete info answers where we continually have to ask quiestions

Thank you for mentioning about auto pay to waive HD access fee. DTV did not offer such information during my call about this situation. So, we need the slimline dish replacement so we could get HD service since we have the H23 receiver already. So that is what we will have to do to get started. Getting an HD tv is on our list anyway as our SDTV is okay, but old.

yeah all you would need is a slimline dish because BFTV is moving to either 99W or 103W (the HD sats). The original dish sees only 101W where the Standard Definition channels are. Since you've been a customer so long they might cut you a deal to have it installed

Thank you Iceberg. Happy Holidays.

no problem. Happy to help