Could Dish have LIL HDTV before DIRECTV?

[mike123abc]

Dish has been busy buying lots of satellites and satellite slots. We have seen the launch of AMC-15 (in testing now). Also to launch soon AMC-16 (currently Dec 16th) and 6 months from now rumor of AMC-17. Each of these satellites has a full set of Ku-FSS transponders plus Ka transponders on spots.

I thought it would be interesting to see what the LIL HDTV carrying capacity of these satellites would be. Assuming Dish elects to pass through the full 19.2mb/s like DIRECTV has indicated they are planning to do with the spaceway satellites, what is the carrying capcity? Well with 125mhz of Ka in each spot, it looks like at least 12 HDTV channels could be carried per spot. With the Ku-FSS transponders it looks like 3/transponder.

Assuming only 105 would be used for AK/HI since 83/85 are probably too low (even though they have spots for AK/HI), 105 would have 12 spots of 12 HDTV channels each or 144 LIL HDTV channels on it. 83/85 would have 10 spots of 12 or 120 channels each. The Ku-FSS 105 would probably not be used for LIL HDTV, but assume that 83/85 were to be HDTV LIL. Each of the TPs on 83/85 could carry 3 HDTV channels, or 72 total per satellite.

This gives us the following possible capacities:

105: 144 Ka band LIL HDTV channels in 12 spot beams = 144
83: 120 Ka band LIL HDTV in 10 spot beams + 72 Ku-FSS LIL HDTV = 192
85: 120 Ka band LIL HDTV in 10 spot beams + 72 Ku-FSS LIL HDTV = 192

This would give dish a total of 144+192+192 or 528 LIL HDTV channels. Note that this is more capacity than the first spaceway satellite. This could be providing the top 50 markets of HDTV LIL.

Then of course there are a ton of satellites to be built... Dish needs a satellite for 148/157 Ku-DBS, 83/109/121 Ku-Aux, plus their own Ka slots. These could be used to fill in the rest of the country with LIL HDTV, but it could take many years for them to all be built/launched.

By the summer of next year Dish could (in theory) have the top 50 markets (plus AK/HI) or 66% or so of the households covered.

Of course the above is all speculation, they may not use the Ka spots for LIL HDTV, they could have a wacky internet in the sky promotion planned or something. The same could be said for Ku-FSS 83/85 Dish is being very quite about these satellites considering they are launching soon. Dish would probably like nothing more than to offer LIL HDTV before DIRECTV does. Spaceway (when all three 3 satellites are up) has been said to have the capacity to get every LIL channel in the US, covering 66% of the country before DIRECTV starts spaceway could keep Dish out of the PR doghouse. If Dish is agressive about building out their satellite fleet they could even match DIRECTV's Spaceway rollout and have LIL HDTV at the same time/capacity as DIRECTV.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I do believe you are on to something.... but one piece of the pie is missing the MVDSS spectrum Echostar and VOOM won at auction last year.

This will allow them to offer LIL HD without even putting the channels up on Satellite!

And if the buzzing is trued about Echostar and VOOM then Dish could gain all the spectrum, and server most of the US with HD locals without using ANY satellite spectrum.

Its something to think about.

 

[mike123abc]

I do believe you are on to something.... but one piece of the pie is missing the MVDSS spectrum Echostar and VOOM won at auction last year.

Dish could soon be drowning in spectrum. This is going to be pretty amaizing to see if they can use it all. They have a lot of time limits to get all this stuff deployed. The MVDSS stuff could be used to fill in a lot of places that the spot beams on the satellites are overflowing with neighboring markets, this is especially so in the NE where they have a bunch of big markets under the same spots.

 

[boba]

How about the SHIVIA requirement of all off 1 dish?

 

[mike123abc]

A single dish can be made that can receive 83/85/105/110/119. Most likely though dish would not spread a market across so many satellites. It would be a cheaper dish to only do for example 83/105-FSS and 110/119-DBS, just a slightly larger superdish. Toroidial dishes can be bought today that can do 45 degrees, see a Ku-FSS satellite every 2 degrees and is under 1 meter. It would be possible to have a MegaDish able to see every satellite from 83 to 121, but I suspect if Dish were to use 105 for national HD programming, they would keep single markets to one other Ku-FSS satellite and build dishes like 83/105, 85/105, 105/109, 105/121 (with of course 110/119 LNBs on every dish). Specific 2 satellite Ku-FSS dishes would be cheaper to build.

Now of course if some of the market comes on satellite and some comes via MVDSS, I bet there would be some problems.

 

[hancox]

even more interesting on MVDSS - how about offloading *regular* LIL to get rid of it on the satellite. Talk about drowning in bandwidth!

 

[drjake]

Everybody continues to miss the point on the proposed one-dish requirement. It does not require one dish; it only requires that all locals be on the same dish. Theoretically, Dish could give each customer a separate dish for each Bird without violating the one-dish requirement, so long as all local channels for a market can be served from one of the dishes.

 

[mike123abc]

There is not confusion on the one dish rule. It is the problem that people do not want an antenna farm on their roofs (said by someone that has 5 DBS dishes on my roof). If Dish is to sell LIL HDTV they have to come up with a single dish solution in the long term to compete with DIRECTV. DIRECTV is said to have a single dish that can do their 3 DBS and their 3 Ka band satellite slots all at once. Yes this dish is bigger than superdish, but it is a single dish solution.

Dish has the apparent option now of planning how they are going to deliver HDTV LIL. They can make plans now to have a single dish solution. Now it is quite possible that different markets will have different dishes, but each market could be made to work with just one dish.

 

[n0qcu]

Not only that but the digital locals can be on a different dish than the analog locals.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Everybody continues to miss the point on the proposed one-dish requirement. It does not require one dish; it only requires that all locals be on the same dish. Theoretically, Dish could give each customer a separate dish for each Bird without violating the one-dish requirement, so long as all local channels for a market can be served from one of the dishes.

Not to reopen this whole debate again, but I have read this proposed agreement about 6 times. No where does it say what you are saying. It says that a ONE Dish solution is needed for analog locals. Now a Superdish would accomplish this. The intent behind the one dish rule for locals might be to do exactly what you suggest , but the wording does not say that as far as I have read. The more I read about all this bandwith Dish has the more I believe that the Superdish is the way Dish will go to provide this . One way or another you will need a larger Superdish to hit all the new slots they have in mind. Wether Dish shuffels around the existing local channels to newer slots or leaves them the way they are , remains to be seen.

OF course unless Congress passes a bill that addresses this change soon, and the president signs it into law, none of this will even matter.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I do believe you are on to something.... but one piece of the pie is missing the MVDSS spectrum Echostar and VOOM won at auction last year.

This will allow them to offer LIL HD without even putting the channels up on Satellite!

And if the buzzing is trued about Echostar and VOOM then Dish could gain all the spectrum, and server most of the US with HD locals without using ANY satellite spectrum.

Its something to think about.

How exactly would this MVDSS spectrum work Scott? How does it work if it doesn't go through the satellite?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

How exactly would this MVDSS spectrum work Scott? How does it work if it doesn't go through the satellite?

It goes off of ground based transmitters. Therefore no need for Satellite for many LIL HD channels.

 

[hpman247]

Just curious guys, but what does LIL specifically stand for. I've heard it tons of time, and I know what it is I just dont know wut it means.

 

[mike123abc]

Just curious guys, but what does LIL specifically stand for. I've heard it tons of time, and I know what it is I just dont know wut it means.

Local into Local... I.E. satellite retransmission of locals back into the local market that they serve.

 

[Neutron]

I wonder if LiL HD is even "compelling" enough for Charlie?

I thought he said in the last Charlie Chat that he had no use for LiL HD?

 

[Derwin0]

to save bandwidth, couldn't they just kill the analog feed of a local station when they transmit the digital version. Since in theory they're going to be shut off in a couple years anyway.

 

[Curtis0620]

There is no analog feed on satellite, all feeds are digital. The difference is SD vs HD.

 

[Derwin0]

i realize that
i meant them transmitting from the analog feed provided by the local, or the DTV feed provided by the local

 

[larrystotler]

This is incorrect. The current local channels carried by satellite are a digital retransmission of the current analog broadcast. The new digital mandate, as explained many times before, has absolutely NOTHING to do with HD. The mandate requires that all OTA transmissions be changed to a digital broadcast so that the analog spectrum can be taken back and reused. Quite frankly, E* could just retranmist the current main subchannel of the digital transmission and be in compliance, but most customers would miss out on the numerous subchannels that are available. Basically, you will see a lot of the network's main programming go HD eventually, but there is no reason to even think that all local programming will ever be in HD. It will cost a huge amount of money for each station to replace all of it's SD programs with HD or HD enhanced copies. Also, retranmission of the locals in "HD" locals will be a huge bandwidth waste since they will have to allocate a full HD area for it when maybe 30% of what will be broadcast is in HD. Also, sat companies are already in compliance in that we get a digital transmission of the locals already, so why get rid of something that 95% of customers will need for the forseeable future?

 

[HookedOnTV]

And the advantage of broadcasting local HD via MVDSS vs. the existing OTA 8VSB broadcast is? Does it offer a better coverage area? Seems like duplicating something that is already there.