DISH is pulling the wool over our eyes!!!

[JoeSp]

I sat thru the Tech Chat again last night and a few things struck me

1. Dish announced 8PSK Turbo programming for HD over two years ago. This is not anything new. However, if they moved SD over to 8PSK Turbo that would be.

2. Dish is not ready for MPEG4! Trying to use the 8PSK Turbo as something reasonable to MPEG4 translates into "We Got Beat like a Stepchild'!! This Turbo thing has been around a long time. You cannot sqeeze more bandwith out of something you are already using unless you ---- wait for it --- downrez your signal --- Hence the Voom HDLite signals. Voom looked better 3 months ago then it does now --- even my wife has noticed.

3. Dish has given up on any of their past promises! Lets see, Charlie said we would hear new HD news on the Chat in September -- nothing. Then the Tech Chat for November was the time for the big news -- backing up. I expect December's Chat to be one of those there is no worthwhile HD programing however, if you would like more Voom HDLite you can now get 11 more channels for a price.

4. Anyone remember this --- Charlie's quote of the day "There will be no new HD channels until MPEG4!" How many of us remember that statement. It now looks like Charlie is eating his own words.

5. Once again Charlie's quote of the day "We will have new HD up before our competitors and this will include HD LIL!" . He said this in July -- guess he can see the handwritting on the wall.

Dish has consistantly promised and consistantly not delivered!! DirectTV Promised and are now delevering HD content especially HD LIL.

The Wool has been pulled boys!!!

 

[mdonnelly]

If D* wants to separate themselves with LIL-HD, that's fine with me. I get my locals in HD now via OTA, at better resolution than E* or D* ever will provide. E* should focus on nationwide HD, like VOOM, ESPN2-HD, etc., and that will keep me in the fold.

You guys! "Charlie lied! Charlie lied!" Welcome to the real world. He's not going to shoot himself in the foot and cripple the company just to live up to an offhand remark made in a Charlie Chat.

He shoots from the hip, and means what he says at the time. Sometimes he gets overtaken by events. I'd still rather have him on the air letting us know what direction it is that he wants to take the company, even if what he proposes can't get done in the timeframe proposed.

Take the chats for what they are: chats! It's not a filing with the FCC or the SEC. It's not a court deposition.

Oh yeah, by the way. D* built those Spaceway sats for high speed internet, not LIL-HD. Is that a broken promise too?

 

[rthomp03]

I don't call a "not ready for prime time" technology a lie. I've had it before in my field that a promising new technology doesn't initially live up to it's full potential. There are "learning curve" issues involved as well as maturation of the technology. I'd much rather Charlie take his time and try to get it right than rush it out the door as he has other things. We would all be complaining then as well. I say let D* work out the bugs and take the heat, and if they get lucky and don't get burned then more power to them.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

1) Why in the world would anyone be holding up DirecTV as an example of good HD when they are grossly compressing several of their HD channels. You criticize Dish for VOOM quality, well D* is squeezing the heck out of prime channels like HBO and Showroom HD. In fact, that may be part of the solution for D*. MPEG4 doesn't work as advertised, so let's down-rez everything to still offer as many channels as we can. We'll make it fit!

2) Clearly Charlie is not achieving the results out of MPEG4 that he was hoping for. So what do you want him to do? Follow the D* route, down-rez his channels, and go ahead with MPEG4?

3) Do you want him to keep his promise not to add any more HD channels until MPEG4, even if MPEG4 is a year off? Doesn't make any sense to me.

He makes statements based upon the best information he has at the time. This summer they were hopeful that MPEG4 would pan out. Now that it isn't meeting their goals, they have to scale back on them while they work out the bugs. Clearly they are working on MPEG4 solutions, as they are about ready to start rolling out MPEG4 receivers.

I personally don't want E* to follow D*'s example on HD. I'd rather have higher quality HD and wait for MPEG4 to mature, than to rush ahead and have to down-rez in order to meet # of channel commitments.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

This 8PSK Turbo is actually a new version with a different symbol rate then was used before.

I have talked to a few at DirecTV and they are NOT happy with the way MPEG4 is working for them, but yet the continue on because they have to.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I wonder what is not working for them. Is it the slow channel changes that I have heard you would have to endure with mpeg4? Is it the fact the picture doesn't look as good in mpeg4 as it does in mpeg2? Or is it like Dish has said that it doesn't provide any more bandwith than 20 % improvement? I would love to know specifically what they are talking about.

 

[jergenf]

This 8PSK Turbo is actually a new version with a different symbol rate then was used before.

I believe 8PSK or 8PSK turbo is a modulation method in place of 8VSB and not compression like mpeg2 or 4. I believe the Demo-HD and Voom channels are still using the normal 8VSB modulation because when my DVR died I got a picture for those channels while all the HD channels in the HDPak I just received audio only which left me to believe it didn't know how to process the video portion of the signal. It was able to get free channels like 101, 103 and 580 at that time as well.

 

[Juan]

I wonder what is not working for them. Is it the slow channel changes that I have heard you would have to endure with mpeg4? Is it the fact the picture doesn't look as good in mpeg4 as it does in mpeg2? Or is it like Dish has said that it doesn't provide any more bandwith than 20 % improvement? I would love to know specifically what they are talking about.

M-O-N-E-Y Why spend all that money on NEW technology..when you can accomplish the same amount bandwidth savings with receivers that are already in the field equiped with 8PSK technology !!!!!!!!

 

[HokieEngineer]

I believe 8PSK or 8PSK turbo is a modulation method in place of 8VSB and not compression like mpeg2 or 4. I believe the Demo-HD and Voom channels are still using the normal 8VSB modulation because when my DVR died I got a picture for those channels while all the HD channels in the HDPak I just received audio only which left me to believe it didn't know how to process the video portion of the signal. It was able to get free channels like 101, 103 and 580 at that time as well.

Please do not confuse 8VSB and 8PSK.

8VSB is a modulation used for OTA transmission of digital signals.

8PSK is the modulation used by Dish and some other satellite companies. Since releasing the 8PSK module for the 6000, dish has always used THE SAME modulation for the "new" HD channels, 8PSK turbo. The recent firmware updates were to add another modulation, QPSK turbo with 7/8 FEC. Yea, I know, complicated, but thats the truth.

I really doubt anything will change in respect to HD channels per transponder or anything like that. What we might see is new SD channels lit up on QPSK turbo transponders.

H.264 (mpeg4.10) is the new encoding being tested. I would guess Dish wanted the new Voom channels up using this, but they must have had a date if the h.264 encoders were not ready (not performing to their liking), they would bite the bullet and use existing technology to put up the rest of the Voom channels + espn2hd + east/west HD locals.

There is no point in rushing to h.264 if it is not ready. By ready, I mean performing to their liking. Sure, D* is already using it and deploying it. Guess what? They are using a new satellite for all those hd locals! For the time being, they probably could care less if they are even saving bandwidth by using h.264. Dish on the other hand, is pretty strapped for satellite space until E10 is operational. There would be no point in launching h.264 content if they are not realizing the predicted bandwidth savings.

The satellite currently at 129 is also slightly damaged. Not all of its solar cells are operational. I doubt they really want to push this bird to the max. This might be the reason we are seeing QPSK modulation on all the new voom channels on 129, yet 8PSK on 61.5.


So, whats all this mean? Don't worry about h.264. It'll come along when its ready. Dish currently doesnt have the satellite space to do HD lil anyways. HD lil will come about after E10 is launched. Until then, your current receiver will get all the programming they offer. Dish did not pull the wool over anyones eyes. I do think they caused unneeded chaos about 8PSK turbo however.. That is NOT a new technology. They just needed a new buzz word for joe public I think.

 

[John Kotches]

Personally, I think it's a good move on DIsh's part not to deploy MPEG-4 until they are getting the compression levels they want.

They can thoroughly test out their MPEG-4 infrastructure on 148 in the meantime with their test encoders and get it all worked out ahead of time while monitoring the results and (hopefully) even finding issues with the encoders/decoders as well.

When they finally are getting the level of real time compression performance they were looking for they can beginning the transition to MPEG-4 and go forward with better performing encoders with a leg up on the competition.

Cheers,

 

[riffjim4069]

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren't VOOM engineers testing MPEG-4 and VC-9 for quite some time. And weren't they testing Harmonic's DiviCom MV 100 encoding platform running Windows Media Video 9 and MPEG-4? I would assume that E* would have been testing MPEG-4 on vacant Rainbow-1 transponders since early May. I'm just a little surprised we're hearing "MPEG-4 encoders aren't up to snuff" this late in the game...after more than a year of testing.

 

[HokieEngineer]

Noone was testing anything on the R-1 transponders, since they were in limbo until the FCC approved the sale. Kind of like buying a home, but not being able to move in until closing .

I'm not up on what voom was doing prior to closing down, but I would suspect dish is going to use equipment provided through existing deals/contracts they've had.

I dont believe real time h.264 encoding is as advanced as people hoped it would be by now.

 

[waltinvt]

Humor me cuz I have no idea if this even makes technical or legal sense.

I believe there are still a lot of affiliates around the country that, although they're not transmitting digital yet (or low power at best), do have the digital signal ready in house but just can't get it out to the masses OTA yet. Some are providing direct links to cable but the majority of their dma viewers are not getting their digital signal.

Would it make sense for Dish to discontinue all analog LiLs (most of which look like crap anyway)? Just drop them everywhere.

Instead offer to carry the affiliate's digital signal if they have one ready. The net bandwidth requirement is still more but not as much as carrying both signals.

By NO LONGER offering analog LiLs, Dish could skirt around some of the SHVERA fineprint that still links digital qualification to analog reception and may be able to offer the HD DNS to more customers than "D".

Currently the FCC rules that anyone whose dbs company offers analog locals as being "served" for the purpose of digital too and thus not eligible for the signal testing appeal process to prove they're not in a grade "B" area.

Dish can down convert these locals to their non HD customers and probably still provide a better picture than they were getting with the old analog LiLs package.

For their HD customers Dish could probably charge a little more for a full digital LiLs package.
I'm probably all wet here but it sounds good to me after a long Monday.

 

[John Kotches]

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren't VOOM engineers testing MPEG-4 and VC-9 for quite some time. And weren't they testing Harmonic's DiviCom MV 100 encoding platform running Windows Media Video 9 and MPEG-4? I would assume that E* would have been testing MPEG-4 on vacant Rainbow-1 transponders since early May. I'm just a little surprised we're hearing "MPEG-4 encoders aren't up to snuff" this late in the game...after more than a year of testing.

I'm not at all surprised by this. Realtime encoding is a very complicated endeavor and it takes tremendous resources to do this. I think its clear that DirecTV is forced to go with whatever they can get from realtime MPEG-4 encoding right now and that Dish doesn't have to.

So Dish has the luxury of getting a capacity bump when they can get an additional 15-20% from the MPEG-4 realtime encoders.

Realtime is a completely different ball game than offline encoders which can have encode times as high as 10 or 20:1 (ie 1 hour of playback == 10 to 20 hours of encode time).

You're seeing this differently than I am, and both viewpoints are perfectly valid.

Cheers,

 

[John Kotches]

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren't VOOM engineers testing MPEG-4 and VC-9 for quite some time. And weren't they testing Harmonic's DiviCom MV 100 encoding platform running Windows Media Video 9 and MPEG-4? I would assume that E* would have been testing MPEG-4 on vacant Rainbow-1 transponders since early May. I'm just a little surprised we're hearing "MPEG-4 encoders aren't up to snuff" this late in the game...after more than a year of testing.

I have a friend that does VC-1 (it used to be VC-9 until it was handed over to SMPTE) encoding at Microsoft. He has encoding for HD down to about 10:1 vs. realtime these days. He does it with either 16 or 32 3.2 GHz CPUs all loaded with multiple GBs of RAM. I think it's 16 machines with DualCore CPUs these days. This is very heavyweight stuff, and we're not even talking about real time here.

This is why I said, it's a completely different ball game.

 

[dodge]

Directv HD sucks

I installed and H20 for a neighbor last week and looking at the HD ota and Dtv is like night and day!!! The dtv hd is soft it sucks , the ota is great, If you live within 50 miles of the transmitter ota hd is the way to go!!!

 

[SimpleSimon]

Currently the FCC rules that anyone whose dbs company offers analog locals as being "served" for the purpose of digital too and thus not eligible for the signal testing appeal process to prove they're not in a grade "B" area.

First I've heard of this. You got a source for it?

 

[waltinvt]

First I've heard of this. You got a source for it?

I probably should have worded that a little differently but as I see it, it amounts to the same thing.

Maybe I'm confused (been known to happen ) but when I re-read some of those threads where we hashed a lot of this out earlier this year like:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=380527&postcount=1

which contains a lot of quotes from SHVIA, SHVERA and subsquent fact sheets, I come away with it basically boiling down to:

Until digitally specific testing procedures become available (some DMAs supposed to start by April 30, 06 & rest '07 I believe) digital dns qualification is still dependent on the old analog predictive method (which we all know isn't worth squat for digital) except that now you can't even appeal it via a signal test if your sat company offers analog LiLs.

This is an excerpt from Procedural Rules issued by FCC last March:

Signal testing was required by the SHVIA so that subscribers could attempt to demonstrate that they could not receive a signal of Grade B intensity or better and thereby qualify for a distant network signal.[3] This requirement is revised by Section 204 of the SHVERA, which provides that where local-into-local service is offered, subscribers are not eligible to receive distant analog signals unless they were getting distant analog signals as of December 8, 2004.[4] Consequently, there is no need for a signal strength test to measure whether the analog signal can be received at households in markets in which there is local-into-local service or such service is introduced before a subscriber seeks distant analog signals of network stations. Section 209, accordingly, requires the Commission to exempt satellite carriers from complying with the testing requirements in Section 339(c)(4)(A) of the Act.[5]

So until the digital tests become available, if you're predicted to receive grade "B" analog OTA, you're considered "served" and don't qualify for distant digital dns from satellite. Plus if you're satellite provider offers analog LiLs, you no longer qualify for the current signal testing proceedures

What confuses me is I also thought there was something (and I may have drempt this) written that said in order to get distant HD DNS, you HAD to subscribe to your satellite provider's analog LiLs.

 

[jergenf]

Would it make sense for Dish to discontinue all analog LiLs (most of which look like crap anyway)? Just drop them everywhere.

Instead offer to carry the affiliate's digital signal if they have one ready.
Dish can down convert these locals to their non HD customers and probably still provide a better picture than they were getting with the old analog LiLs package.

For their HD customers Dish could probably charge a little more for a full digital LiLs package.
I'm probably all wet here but it sounds good to me after a long Monday.

I think in the future (when anaolgs end) they'll have to. But for now there could be some problems because of aspect ratio. For example in my area NBC, ABC and Fox digital stations are sending 16:9 format 24 hours a day. If they were to use that digital feed then it would look horizontally squeezed on the typical 4:3 set. Sure those of us with HD receivers and widescreen sets could fix the problem by using stretch mode (or letterbox for those with 4:3 sets) but that feature is not available on the typical STB. All future receivers will need to include format feature before they can just grab the digital feed as is.

The second problem of course is that HD would have to be converted to SD wide. Since this happens on a program by program basis it would be a major hassle for DN to monitor and reformat.

As far as charging more I hope not. If they're sending full HD I could understand the added expense because of the larger bandwidth and the fact that they'll need to re-encode the data stream in mpeg4.

 

[jmcgee_jr]

Hey walt we come up with all these good ideas up here just cause theres no way for us to get anything good. Most people say just put up a antenna and get them VIA OTA. Were not so lucky. Im shopping around for a used but working rotor I want to trhow up a new 57 element antenna and see what i get.. maybe PBS and thats it. But who knows.