DISH NETWORK® UNVEILS BIGGEST HIGH DEFINITION UPGRADE IN TV HISTORY

[jacmyoung]

We used to order HDPPVs from time to time until they started the 24-hr limitation when the wife missed watching the whole movies twice and was told to pay again to finish watching. Never ordered again since.

The $6.99 1080p will be no different, with the 24-hr time limit we are not likely to use it, other than maybe the very first at $2.99 just to see what it is all about.

 

[Ronnie-]

Turbo-charged HD features state-of-the-art technology with the highest quality HD available including 1080p Video On Demand– .
That doesn't make me think one bit that Everything is 1080p. It says including 1080p VOD

I guess I misread it. I read it at first to say the highest quality HD at 1080p. I did not see it only saying VOD. I do now.

Edit: my point still stands to JW though. A 1080p display will upconvert anything not in 1080p to 1080p, the same as the receiver (and may do a better job depending on the panel) Thats what I didnt think was clear. Thanks to hemi though, I see that I misread it

 

[jacmyoung]

...VOD content can be different. It needs to be clarified.

I agree to some degree, VOD can also be seen as a form of broadcasting, only not limited to the normal broadcasting compression requirement.

 

[Jim S.]

I just had a lengthy phone call with a Dish Tech. The HD only TurboHD Bronze, Silver, Gold, & Platinum packages will NOT be available to existing customers until February 2009.

That still doesn't make any sense. I had guessed that they were only making it available to new subscribers because they wanted to give them all 722s so that they could push their ridiculous HD VOD over broadband. But since that seems not to be the case, whatever could the reason be?

 

[jwgreen68]

And my point still stands, upconverted 720p to 1080p, is not true 1080p. Think about it. You can't get 10 marbles out of 5, but you can get 5 from 10! Is that simple enough for you to understand now?

I guess I misread it. I read it at first to say the highest quality HD at 1080p. I did not see it only saying VOD. I do now.

Edit: my point still stands to JW though. A 1080p display will upconvert anything not in 1080p to 1080p, the same as the receiver (and may do a better job depending on the panel) Thats what I didnt think was clear. Thanks to hemi though, I see that I misread it

 

[jwgreen68]

It's not true. He probably had a lengthy phone call with his satellite dish. Lay off the drugs dude and read what has been posted here and what is on Dishs' site. ALL EXISTING CUSTOMERS WILL BE TURBO CHARGED IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS OF AUGUST 1st! Stop being an idiot, unless it's something that you can't help!

That still doesn't make any sense. I had guessed that they were only making it available to new subscribers because they wanted to give them all 722s so that they could push their ridiculous HD VOD over broadband. But since that seems not to be the case, whatever could the reason be?

 

[navychop]

I have 2 questions. 1. Does this mean that soon ALL our HD content will be Mpeg4? 2. Is it safe to assume that our annual price increase in February will be quite a shock to our wallets?? I personally am expecting a $25 increase for the "america's everything package".

It has been previously announced that all HD goes to MPEG-4 on 8/1, although at least one post said that would be delayed until sometime in September.

Price increase? Yes.

Major shock? IMHO, unlikely. Competition limits this.

$25 on AEP? Again, IMHO, very unlikely. That's a huge amount.

 

[Ronnie-]

And my point still stands, upconverted 720p to 1080p, is not true 1080p. Think about it. You can't get 10 marbles out of 5, but you can get 5 from 10! Is that simple enough for you to understand now?

Thats my WHOLE point. It doesnt matter if the receiver is doing it or the tv. Soemthing that ORIGINATES in 720p or 1080i will be upscaled by the output of the receiver or the input of the tv.

I based my original comment on the misreading of the page. I didnt see it as specific to VOD, and thought it was covering the whole HD content thats offered.
That doesnt change the fact that even if the box can output 1080p, that the regular programming wont be 1080p.

No need to try to insult everyone with your comments.

 

[dmendenjr]

OK, for those curious how dish hits 114 right now, this is how they have them broken down:

• 40 : Turbo Gold HD Channels
• 18 : Premium HD Channels
• 07 : Turbo Platinum HD Channels
• 25 : HD Regional Sports Networks Available
• 04 : HD Locals: ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox
• 06 : HD PPV channels
• up to 14 : HD VOD Channels

114 Channels. Again, I personally think the last 14 is REALLY stretching things a bit, but that is e*'s logic....

 

[mlb]

The last 14 are a joke. The part time HD RSNs are a stretch, same with the HD PPV channels. Either way, good to see more HD.

 

[mikew]

I'm sorry, but this whole PR stunt by Dish is completely lame. They've added a few HD channels, 1 1080p VOD movie and say they've "re-invented" HD. Hardly Charlie! When the psing match is over, DirecTV will still have the sports packs that Charlie will never have.

Today's news ranks pretty low compared to the hype.

 

[Tyralak]

What kind of math are they using?)

Outcome based, no doubt.

 

[BuddyBoy]

From what I'm reading, the BCM7412 chipset in the 722 doesn't support 1080p.

Broadcom BCM7412 Product Brief

That means nothing, except for letting everyone know that their 1080p is 1080p24 packaged inside of 1080i60 using 3-2 pulldown. The decoder doesn't have to support 1080p. The downstream deinterlacer/scaler does need to be able to recognize, extract, and reassemble 1080p24 out 1080i60 using reverse 3-2 pulldown though, which a lot of TVs already do. Hence, the announcement of 1080p doesn't mean a lot to some of us, unless it also means higher quality high bitrate content.

A cynic could view this announcement as Dish saying, "Hey everyone, we're going to activate the deinterlacer inside the receiver and enable 1080p output so those of you who have TVs with crappy video processors (80% of TVs tested failed at end of 07, see link below) can now enjoy the same picture that the handful of you with good TVs are already enjoying.

Home Theater: Are You Getting All of the HDTV Resolution You Expected? Round 3

specifically the "3-2" column of this chart:

 

[james_k_p]

Thats my WHOLE point. It doesnt matter if the receiver is doing it or the tv. Soemthing that ORIGINATES in 720p or 1080i will be upscaled by the output of the receiver or the input of the tv.

I based my original comment on the misreading of the page. I didnt see it as specific to VOD, and thought it was covering the whole HD content thats offered.
That doesnt change the fact that even if the box can output 1080p, that the regular programming wont be 1080p.

No need to try to insult everyone with your comments.

But really, who really cares about upscaling? Upscaling is just hype to get the little non techy people out there interested. Upscaled dvd players? Puhlease.
The point you guys are arguing back and forth about really is futile.

Upscaled crap to 1080p does like look like real 1080p, so who really cares?
The big picture is that we are not getting what we all would love unfortunately .

Think of the boat I'm in, I have this first generation Sony SXRD. Yeah, it's 1080P alright, but ONLY for the ASTC Tuner LOL. Which from what I understand, will probably never have 1080p broadcasts. So I'm stuck with 1080i everything via hdmi.

Whoever came up with "upscaling" and "hdlite" should be shot.

 

[BuddyBoy]

My point is that there are NO channels broadcasting at 1080p. Anything output at that by the receiver of of the normal national channels is only scaled to the output. The page is misleading

You need to make the distinction (or understand that there is one) between the format of the signal, and the payload contained within the signal.

24fps movies mastered at 1080p24 can be sent inside of a 1080i60 format signal, and reassembled at the receiving end (either inside the STB or inside the TV) to perfectly reconstruct the original progressive signal. So although no channels are sent as 1080p, that doesn't mean that some of us aren't already watching native 1080p (not the result of upconversion). We're watching the original progressive frames that were filmed at 24fps, not an approximation (ignoring lossy compression for the moment).

 

[Poke]

Either way this is great news for Dish and it seems their back on the lead on several things not just HD but MPEG4 as well.. Again its good to see both doing well Direct and Dish.

 

[Chris_R]

My biggest question/concern, and I haven't really seen anyone address it here yet, is with the new HD channels that are being added like the HBO suite. I know they're already uplinked and ready to be turned on, but I've heard from folks who say they're running up to 8 HD channels *per transponder* on both 61.5 and 129. I know it's MPEG4 and it's new technology, but there has to be some MAJOR compression going on to allow those channels to share bandwidth...enough that I would think that the data loss & pixelation would be very noticeable. My understanding is that DirecTV is holding at 4 to 6 channels per transponder, and the last time I saw an HD movie on D* it was pretty darn good. Dish, on the other hand, was very fuzzy at times and pixelated during action scenes. Wonder if the new channels will exhibit the same picture loss.

 

[tawhite]

Either way this is great news for Dish and it seems their back on the lead on several things not just HD but MPEG4 as well.. Again its good to see both doing well Direct and Dish.

Agreed, this is GOOD news, competition is a great thing and seeing Dish and DirecTV battle it out means nothing but good things for the consumers!

 

[wily1eye]

We used to order HDPPVs from time to time until they started the 24-hr limitation when the wife missed watching the whole movies twice and was told to pay again to finish watching. Never ordered again since.

The $6.99 1080p will be no different, with the 24-hr time limit we are not likely to use it, other than maybe the very first at $2.99 just to see what it is all about.

As an experiment i ordered an hdppv with with a time limit , made it a "protected recording " and moved it to my external harddrive.......that was about a month ago.. it is still playable... (hopefulluy dish doesnt catch on to my workaround after reading this)

 

[dennispap]

It said this in the press release:
Does this mean the additional 36 HD Channels will be CONUS since E11 is set for 110? I don't see how that will help the arch plans; unless they are moving more of what is not HD on 61.5 off of it and on to 110...



Good question: If you add up the nationals (45), premiums(19), part time RSNs & Big Ten & Mav TV (27), Big Ten Alts(5), PPVs(6), and 4 locals in a market (if you are so fortunate) plus the two NBC HD olympic channels and you get 108... still missing 6.

\

I say ppv (6) doesnt count, part time RSNs & Big Ten & Mav TV (27), Big Ten Alts(5), also dont count. New orleans still doesnt have the 4 networks in hd(4)

So that leaves 64 channels that everyone who has dish network can get.
If i am a legitimate subscriber and i cant get the rest of those channels, they dont/shouldnt count.