Congress likely to pass HD distant locals today!

[Alan Gordon]

and at first glance, I like the new bill better. (Especially since it allows anyone with analog LIL to get HD distant locals until HD LIL is available in that market, whether they can get HD OTA or not.)

Wait a minute, are you telling me that if you have analog LIL, you will be able to get HD distants even if you can receive a network's affiliate DT signal OTA?! That sounds fishy to me...

Hopefully this would at least get ABC-HD up on DirecTV faster!!


~Alan

 

[charper1]

Or will they just fix that with E*10? Someone else said earlier that 18 months was sufficient to solve the problem with E*10 and perhaps another new 110/119 satellite.

He said "suddenly" so sure after new birds go up they may add new HD, but I took "suddenly" to mean mean in the next month or so.

 

[Jaspear]

Wait a minute, are you telling me that if you have analog LIL, you will be able to get HD distants even if you can receive a network's affiliate DT signal OTA?! That sounds fishy to me...

Hopefully this would at least get ABC-HD up on DirecTV faster!!


~Alan

I noticed the "HD" instead of "digital" language as well. It could be that you could only get distant HD if the the local affiliate were not providing HD programming on their digital transmitter. Otherwise, Dish would be required to give you HD from the local affiliate. Once a local affiliate begins to offer HD, Dish would have 60 days to switch you from the distant to the local.

 

[Neutron]

This will be good news to those of us who can't get a reliable HD signal OTA!

I take it once this bill passes we will have to redo waivers right?

 

[charper1]

God lets hope not

 

[Alan Gordon]

I noticed the "HD" instead of "digital" language as well.

I didn't read the article itself, I got abour four hours sleep last night, and I just figured I'd wait until the actual bill was done and could be analyzed. However, how stupid of DirecTV or Dish Network to offer consumers (say, ABC in digital form, but not in HD)... they should save the space on the satellite and just give people ABC E&W.

It could be that you could only get distant HD if the the local affiliate were not providing HD programming on their digital transmitter. Otherwise, Dish would be required to give you HD from the local affiliate. Once a local affiliate begins to offer HD, Dish would have 60 days to switch you from the distant to the local.

In my case, I can pick up the three digital stations in my DMA. The NBC affiliate who is broadcasting HD (and multi-casting two DT signals), the FOX affiliate (who is not broadcasting HD yet, but should this month or the next), and the independent affiliate. I do not know yet if the UPN affiliate is broadcasting HD or not, but if they are I can't pick it up.

I do not have an ABC or CBS affiliate in my DMA, but I can sometimes pick up CBS-HD out of a neighboring DMA 70% of the time (usually) during the hours of 8:00 P.M. - 12:00 A.M. depending on the weather, but never during the earlier hours. I can pick up ABC-HD 55% of the time (usually) between the hours of 8:00 P.M. - 11:30 P.M., but a lot of that time is prone to pixelation or picture drop-outs and the engineer of that station was surprised that I could even pick it up at all as the antenna is pointed in the opposite direction of where I live. I get CBS-HD from DirecTV and if DirecTV were to add ABC-HD, I'd be able to get it, but in the meantime, a lot of the time, I'm screwed when it comes to ABC.

My locals are not available from DirecTV (although they are from Dish), and I'm hoping that DirecTV will add them next year, however, under the last bill that was expected to pass was when my locals came, I had to choose between my distants (ABC E&W, CBS-HD E&W, CBS E&W) or my locals that would allow me to receive my locals throughout the house, and hopefully finally get a good solid picture from my UPN station (should DirecTV offer it). That would be a hard choice, but if I would be able to get ABC and CBS in SD through "Significantly Viewed" and then CBS-HD and ABC-HD through DirecTV, then I'd choose my locals and it wouldn't be as big of a deal to me...

~Alan

 

[Darkwing Duck]

So I'm wondering what does the "Significantly viewed" bit mean to mean, the non HDTV DirecTV subscriber who gets Cincinnati locals? Does it mean that I can get the Dayton locals like I did with cable? Basically I'd applicate it if someone could it explain it to this duck. Thanks.

 

[BFG]

Does it mean that I can get the Dayton locals like I did with cable?

Yup, I think that's what it means.

 

[Darkwing Duck]

Yup, I think that's what it means.

Awesome!

 

[BFG]

So does anyone know if this passed? because I'm starting to read reportsa that it did...

 

[RBBrittain]

It passed the House earlier today. It's still being debated in the Senate, mainly to find the right way to take out a provision elsewhere in the omnibus bill (discovered after House adjournment) that would have allowed certain congressional staff members to access IRS tax return data without the proper restrictions. In any event, the bill should pass the Senate shortly.

BTW, since the posted bill is a scanned PDF, thus it has no text (and I have no OCR apps that could convert it to text--my only OCR app works directly off my scanner), I'm trying to type the changes into an HTML copy of the House bill. I was able to convert the original PDF of over 300 pages (containing both SHVIA and non-SHVIA provisions, just one of 10 PDF's containing the entire bill) into a 107-page PDF of just the SHVIA provisions. But even that is nearly 10 MB; I doubt Scott would want that uploaded onto his server, and I don't think I have any web space for that big a file. Surely the one I'm working on will be easier to work with.

 

[RBBrittain]

One clarification: The bill pretty much says "digital" throughout, not "HD". I know there's a difference, but I started this thread saying "HD", and as I was hurriedly typing my analysis in this morning, I was trying to type "digital/HD", but sometimes it was a lot quicker to just type "HD". So yes, the bill says "digital"; it doesn't necessarily have to be HD. But then, the digital distant locals brought in by D* and E* will probably be true HD.

I'll try to post the exact language on digital LIL as soon as I get to it.

 

[RBBrittain]

The Senate has now passed the bill, but it won't make it to the President's desk till next week, after a separate bill passes the House to delete the tax-return language. But except for the actual date the President signs it (which determines, among other things, the exact date 18 months from now that Charlie will have to give up the "two-dish solution"), it's a done deal.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I can host the 10 meg file if need be.

I will PM you RBBRITTAIN.

 

[Neutron]

GOOD to hear!! Now maybe I can get the national FOX and NBC feed since I can't get them reliably over the air.

 

[ScottChez]

So does this mean that Direct TV will turn back on there Fox HD East and West feeds like they had turned on for the world series a few weeks again.

And does this mean that the Super Station package will stay on Dish and maybe even get added to Direct TV?

What does this bill mean?
the hundreds of pages is way to long to understand at once.

 

[RBBrittain]

Thanks Scott for your help on the file. Turns out it's only 5 MB. I was using CutePDF Writer to "print" the pages as PostScript, then convert them to PDF via Ghostscript; I think 10 MB was the PostScript file size.

This file is still scanned PDF, but it's *just* the 107 pages of the final draft (out of over 3,000 pages total, or 14.75 inches thick according to one senator in debate) that are devoted to SHVIA renewal:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/rbbrittain/SHVIA.pdf

 

[Alan Gordon]

So does this mean that Direct TV will turn back on there Fox HD East and West feeds like they had turned on for the world series a few weeks again.

FOX HD East & West being turned off had nothing to do with this bill. There were some people who said that it was taken off due to a dispute with Dish Network, and there were some people who said it was a dispute between FOX and DirecTV.

And does this mean that the Super Station package will stay on Dish and maybe even get added to Direct TV?

There is nothing in the bill (that I read) that would make Dish change their minds about the SuperStations (at least I don't think). However, unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything to make DirecTV change their mind about the SuperStations (or any WB! or UPN affiliate) which disappoints me to no end.

~Alan

 

[MustangLX89]

No rest for the wicked and government officials are definatly...

 

[Chezbrgr2]

I guess I am below the curve on this one but, is this the bill that would allow me to recieve CBS and NBC HD from D*!

My locals are both owned by Nexstar and have no intentions on HD broadcast.

Thanks for any help.