DISH Network Sues the FCC

[goaliebob99]

You might want to check your copyright law on that one. What was the source of the photo?

The photo is royalty free, stock photo that anyone can use as provided by the orignial photagrapher. Many websites have that photo(s) that I modified of charlie, but the photo you modified was avaliable only at my website and was taken by myself, or on my camera by a friend. Those photo's are not royalty free!

 

[goaliebob99]

Goaliebob Once you create a website you may have lost the privacy that you thought you had. Now fair use may be another thing entirely. But then it isn't really using it for anything that would profit him. So there could be little that can be done. Not sure what rights you really have after you have a "public" website.

Copyright law still applies, even if its on the web or not.

 

[Jim5506]

The purpose of this suit is to delay, delay, delay, the implementtion of the must carry PBS HD, because if it is implemented as written Dish may have to TURN OFF some HD cities because they do not have room for all of them until the satellite is up late next year.

Once again our enimitable US Congress has stepped in the unintended consequences law - they write a law then find out what it does (a la healthcare).

 

[larry55]

The purpose of this suit is to delay, delay, delay, the implementtion of the must carry PBS HD, because if it is implemented as written Dish may have to TURN OFF some HD cities because they do not have room for all of them until the satellite is up late next year.

Once again our enimitable US Congress has stepped in the unintended consequences law - they write a law then find out what it does (a la healthcare).

this is a dish discussion nothing to do with health care stay to subject.

 

[whatchel1]

not trying to start a discussion

this is a dish discussion nothing to do with health care stay to subject.

I don't think he was trying to start a discussion on the pros or cons of the healthcare. Just stating How congress operates.

 

[scoobyxj]

What it looks like to me is they are just trying to get the date of implementation delayed from end of 2011 to end of 2012. In directly this may also be the date that they will try to get all converted over to MPEG4 (this is just a conjecture on my part).

Bingo that is what is going on.

While that seems logical. I wonder? Dish is still setting up New Accounts with non MPG4 compatible equipment (IE 625's 322's 512's). I find it hard to believe the switch over date would be that close with all these SD receivers still going out.

 

[DishSubLA]

It is never wise to sue the government.

Companies do it all the time, even the FCC. Comcast, among others, having sued the FCC and prevailed. The practice is impersonal and the FCC just sees it as one more company choosing to go to court. It would be illegal for the FCC to do anything that can be construed as retaliation, and they really aren't interested in retaliating, either, as Dish issues are hardly the only thing on the FCC's plate and certainly ranks next to ZERO on the current administration's list of issues it want the FCC to pursue with the whole national broadband access plan and ISP's to allow "open access" being #1. This is all just business and usual in America.

 

[mike123abc]

While that seems logical. I wonder? Dish is still setting up New Accounts with non MPG4 compatible equipment (IE 625's 322's 512's). I find it hard to believe the switch over date would be that close with all these SD receivers still going out.

Dish has not hinted at an MPEG-4 conversion for western arc. They have only rumored 8PSK conversion which these receivers can handle.

Dish can provide the HD for PBS if they provide the big 4. The big 4 just will go down in quality to fit PBS in, but I doubt it will really affect many markets.

I think the real reason is that Dish wants to delay the WA conversion to 8PSK, or roll it out slower to save money, this may force them to accellerate plans. And really they would only have to do it in the markets that need the space.

On EA it might delay new markets from being rolled out since they will have to use space being freed up on 72 from DIRECTV for PBS HD instead of other things. Eventually when 77 gets its spot beam satellite they will have the capacity.

They just want the FCC to rule that it is impossible for them to provide PBS so they do not have to make the hard choices while waiting for the new satellites to launch.

 

[JohnH]

Kind of makes one wonder why no markets on the WA have been started on the MPEG4 conversion since we are one full year into the digital conversion?
They are now providing SD channels for many stations which go not provide SD channels. It is almost like they are asking to be required to carry subchannels.

 

[cditty]

Companies do it all the time, even the FCC. Comcast, among others, having sued the FCC and prevailed. The practice is impersonal and the FCC just sees it as one more company choosing to go to court. It would be illegal for the FCC to do anything that can be construed as retaliation, and they really aren't interested in retaliating, either, as Dish issues are hardly the only thing on the FCC's plate and certainly ranks next to ZERO on the current administration's list of issues it want the FCC to pursue with the whole national broadband access plan and ISP's to allow "open access" being #1. This is all just business and usual in America.

I didn't say companies don't do it. I said it isn't wise. The FCC won't forget this. I work in broadcast and have seen these things playout... Even if Dish has a favorable outcome this time, they will pay for it later, in a way that doesn't seem related to this particular issue.

 

[cditty]

Beyond that, they should compress all those PBS channels to high hell to make them fit and say... Here you go, this is the only way we could do it.

 

[JohnH]

Different compression for different folks is just another violation of the rules.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

Beyond that, they should compress all those PBS channels to high hell to make them fit and say... Here you go, this is the only way we could do it.

Dish HD already lags behind everyone but Uverse in HD quality according to most observers and most PBS stations will be downconverted by Dish to 1440x1080i when they appear on Dish. When they start doing things like you suggest is when large groups of customers get fed up and leave. They already compromise HD quality just to make more garbage fit. Instead of devoting resources toward compliance with the law, Dish chooses to sue. Only time will tell if it is a wise move for them. It is certainly not with the best interest of subscribers at heart though.

 

[SamCdbs]

When they start doing things like you suggest is when large groups of customers get fed up and leave.

Not relative to PBS. They could broadcast the PBS signal upside down and have a cartoon of little blue penguins dance across the screen and the 99.9% of people who NEVER watch PBS would not notice.

That is what the whole story is about. Government wanting to force something onto the systems that the Market rejects.

 

[cditty]

Different compression for different folks is just another violation of the rules.

That, I did not know. I figured if they used adaptive bandwidth on the other nationals, they could do so on locals too.

PBS HD doesn't look that good anyway. It's bit-starved on a local level, because they all feel the need to have the MAX number of sub-channels....

 

[TigerpounceTN]

Not relative to PBS. They could broadcast the PBS signal upside down and have a cartoon of little blue penguins dance across the screen and the 99.9% of people who NEVER watch PBS would not notice.

That is what the whole story is about. Government wanting to force something onto the systems that the Market rejects.

My three year old daughter watches PBS all the time and there has been sentiment on this forum to get PBS Sprout for the cartoons. People would notice. Of course, no one who never watches PBS would notice or care. People who do watch would notice that dish is shafting them. It won't happen anyway though. This really does seem to be a delaying tactic to get some sort of plan in place before adding the channels.

 

[JohnH]

Adaptive compression is not what you suggested. They can use that as long as each gets the same chance for an equal slice of the pie.

Funny how there were comments about how great the game looked when a big game was on one of the networks.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

PBS HD doesn't look that good anyway. It's bit-starved on a local level, because they all feel the need to have the MAX number of sub-channels....

Here we have a PBS which has 5 sub channels total and the main HD channel looks TERRIBLE.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

Here we have a PBS which has 5 sub channels total and the main HD channel looks TERRIBLE.

That one shouldn't be too tough to add then. Haha. They could get away with murder with that source.

 

[Greg Bimson]

That is what the whole story is about. Government wanting to force something onto the systems that the Market rejects.

Hmm.

DirecTV has local PBS stations in HD.

Comcast has local PBS stations in HD.

Time Warner has local PBS stations in HD.

Brighthouse has local PBS stations in HD.

And the list goes on. However, Dish Network does not lave local PBS stations in HD. The American Public Television Stations (APTS) has unsuccessfully attempted to reach an agreement with Dish Network, unlike all of the above. And it wouldn't cost Dish Network anything but bandwidth, as the government has MANDATED that non-commerical stations cannot receive payment in exchange for their signal. Which, of course, is another instance of how the goverment levels the playing field, or as others put it, intereferes with the free market.