DirecTV Drops $1M on HD Equipment

[ticket]

The nation's biggest direct-broadcast satellite provider placed an order for about $1 million in modulators and redundancy switches from Comtech Telecommunications subsidiary Comtech EF Data.

The purchase includes Comtech's DVB-S2 modulators and 1:1 redundancy switches, which will be used to power DirecTV's HDTV-uplink services.

The order fulfills almost one-third of DirecTV's previous volume purchase agreement to spend $3.5 million over two years.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6407743.html

 

[craig001]

$1M isn't really that much. My station spent over $3M to convert to HD last year.

 

[Satmeister]

$1M isn't really that much. My station spent over $3M to convert to HD last year.

Yup.

In the big picture...this is chump change.

Heck...they have over $1 Billion tied up in their upcoming sats alone, not to mention more in a new transmission center, new cust service center, and other infrastructure costs. They are going to spend more on HD this year than other providers all else put together. This is why cable providers, in particular, are scrambling trying to figure out how to compete a yeara from now....there are plenty of closed door meetings going on regarding this at Comcast, TWC, and other places.

 

[plnoldrick]

when i read this all i could seem to picture was dr. evil demanding 1 million dollars and a bunch of politicians laughing at him.

 

[Newshawk]

$1M isn't really that much. My station spent over $3M to convert to HD last year.

I can imagine, craig, but remeber, this is only modulators and switchers-and they sound like pretty simple switchers, at that. I would imagine that redundancy switchers would be set up to automatically go to a back-up feed of a channel in case the primary feed fails for some reason. At the NBC affiliate I workd at back in '89-'90, that was the job of the MCO... for we had some pretty crappy, old equipment at that station. I was what was then and probably still is the smallest NBC affiliate in the country... WMGM-TV 40, licensed to Wildwood, NJ with studios in Linwood, NJ.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Whats that for a few more HD Local to local cities?