Dish Seen In DirecTV’s Orbit

[ZandarKoad]

Dish Network is the worst company in the entire country to work for. Does no one remember this? A Dish acquisition would be hell for every single person who works with or for either company. Employee satisfaction would plummet to new depths. I assure you, this would most certainly affect the quality of all aspects of the services being provided from installs, to phone support, to software and hardware.

 

[Mfinchv1]

Slowing or not. The fact of the matter is one gains subs each quarter and the other has more quarters of losses than gains over the last couple of years. There is a reason for this. This along with other things I mentioned is a sign that one company is doing better than the other. If two companies will merge I would prefer the merger be run by the one that has been more successful. There is a reason for their success.

Sent from my Jailbroken iPhone 3GS using SatelliteGuys

Back in the day it was dish to buy direct...you would assume direct does better..but dish is the ones with the money..lol..savin by not having to pay nfl players millions for there commercials..and there success...Directtv has been around since 94 I think...dish..97. So id hoped they got a few million subs back then..and treated them well. I KNOW i hated ussb...direct tv, all news channel. Hated the format...and the $900 bucks for there basic reciver

 

[Mfinchv1]

That was back when dtv first started!!! My first dishnetwork ird was $24.95..same sorta ird as dtv. Basic features.

 

[EricfromTx]

This feels like when Sirius & XM were talking merger all over again.

 

[inazsully]

Competition is what keeps prices in check. We don't need a merger, we need a third player.

 

[johnny58259]

Actually dish has been around longer haven't they just not under dish name cause echostar has Been around for many many years

 

[Mfinchv1]

Actually dish has been around longer haven't they just not under dish name cause echostar has Been around for many many years

Ohhh ya....duh

 

[mike123abc]

Competition is what keeps prices in check. We don't need a merger, we need a third player.

There will probably never be a third player. It is just too expensive considering the market potential. The only way I see another player come in is if Dish or DIRECTV were to sell off part of their fleets at a bargain price (like if Dish sold off Eastern Arc, or DIRECTV sold off their Ku satellites and just used Ka).

Given that there is no real subscriber growth in tradition pay TV (in fact there is a growing number of cord cutters), why spend billions launching a satellite TV service? This is what it would take if you want to have LiL service. Now perhaps someone could jump on a Ku satellite and offer a package of national channels that would sell to those with a good OTA option, but that would be a limited market.

 

[DodgerKing]

This feels like when Sirius & XM were talking merger all over again.

The worst thing that happened to XM was Sirius.

 

[Claude Greiner]

If there was a merger, I would be the first to speak against it before congress.

There is no true cost savings besides the savings from the customers who can no longer flip flop between providers. The only thing it would bring is less competition and give people less choices

 

[Tampa8]

Some of us who disagree on other things with each other agree on this point. In the end one satellite company is not good. This has nothing to do with not liking Direct TV or Dish, in fact it's because they are both better than Cable and offer different things that they have to remain as two companies. There are certain things both have to compete with Cable for, but there are things they compete against each other, and that needs to remain.

 

[coinmaster32]

I am not slamming anyone. I'm just not seeing how this is possible from a technological standpoint.

If you use a FTA receiver and point it at several satellites, you will find encrypted channels such as PowerVu, Irdeto, Nagravision, and others. If you have a conditional access module, and a smart card from a satellite TV company, you can actually purchase a legitimate subscription to view these channels.

The issue with NDS Videoguard, the system Directv uses, is that without proper hardware, a FTA receiver cannot see any of those channels. Feel free to hook up a FTA receiver to a dish and point to satellite 101, you will find no channels from Directv. There is special hardware built into a Directv receiver that allows it to see those channels.

That's why only directv receivers can see directv channels. A dish network receiver can't, nor can a FTA receiver.

A dishnet receiver does not have the necessary hardware built in to do so.

With all of the above out of the way, there relies more issues.

Directv uses a seperate fleet of satellites then dish uses. If they merged, then either 2 of the following would happen.

1. Dish or Directv would have to allow one dish setup to be the final, this would mean all of the satellite use on one fleet would be empty (waste of money).
2. New satellite dishes would have to be installed to allow customers more than the satellites they get now. The cost of upgrading everyone's dish would be expensive.

 

[WTguy]

Back when Dish was trying to buy Directv, Dish actually was making a hybrid receiver for awhile in anticipation of a successful merger. The hybrid receiver could work with either system.

Claude, you would be second in line to testify against a merger behind me. I remember when Directv was a monopoly for about 2 years, I had just moved into the country side. Their single receiver setup was $499 and the package was just as high as cable. C-band units were going for just under $1,000 when Directv signed on. It was not until Dish signed on and slashed the prices of equipment by adding the packages to the price (my first setup was less than $500 and included a year's worth of programming).

A la carte? It is an oasis.

 

[coinmaster32]

Back when Dish was trying to buy Directv, Dish actually was making a hybrid receiver for awhile in anticipation of a successful merger. The hybrid receiver could work with either system.

Claude, you would be second in line to testify against a merger behind me. I remember when Directv was a monopoly for about 2 years, I had just moved into the country side. Their single receiver setup was $499 and the package was just as high as cable. C-band units were going for just under $1,000 when Directv signed on. It was not until Dish signed on and slashed the prices of equipment by adding the packages to the price (my first setup was less than $500 and included a year's worth of programming).

A la carte? It is an oasis.

That's what Scott probably saw, a hybrid receiver.

The reason why Directv systems were so expensive back then is because you could buy them non-contract. The price you paid was the FULL price of the system. When Directv started doing contracts like cell phone companies, this made the price cheaper, in a way you have to agree to a commitment. Prices for these systems fell as more people signed up. Everything is always expensive when it's new tech. The price of HDTV's and computers over the years is a good example of this.

A la carte was actually a reality in the C-Band days, you could pretty much sub to any channel. The problem does not lie in the Satellite/Cable Providers, but with the content providers. They are greedy and want you to subscribe to all the channels they offer, or none at all.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

If you use a FTA receiver and point it at several satellites, you will find encrypted channels such as PowerVu, Irdeto, Nagravision, and others. If you have a conditional access module, and a smart card from a satellite TV company, you can actually purchase a legitimate subscription to view these channels.

The issue with NDS Videoguard, the system Directv uses, is that without proper hardware, a FTA receiver cannot see any of those channels. Feel free to hook up a FTA receiver to a dish and point to satellite 101, you will find no channels from Directv. There is special hardware built into a Directv receiver that allows it to see those channels.

Tim, once again you are wrong.

You can use a standard DVB card and with a program like progressiveDVB and the correct plug in you could use that standard DVB card to play the XM channels that use to be on DIRECTV,

The DVB used by DIRECTV is a modifed version of the DVB standard, but its still a version of DVB. If you check around there is a lot of programs out there which can tune DIRECTV transponders on a DVB card. (Or at least there were.) the tough part about DIRECTV was their encription, but there was stuff out there in the clear as well.

Another example is we use to run an automated DIRECTV Uplink Report which you could see at http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/85912-Uplink-Activity-Report-01-04-2007-26-changes again this was done with standard DVB Equipment. We only stopped doing those reports because since DIRECTV was using a non standard table and non standard package codes it was a lot of guessing to what was actually going on. If we kept following it we could have probably picked it up more, but the guessing was not working well enough for my liking.

I am told that ANY DISH receiver could pick up the standard DIRECTV transponders (but not the KA band stuff) with just a software upgrade. To decode the channels though a NDS card would be needed.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

That's what Scott probably saw, a hybrid receiver.

Nope, not the case.

Again you seem to be spouting stuff of without stating any facts. If your goinig to argue something then at least know what your talking about.

 

[harshness]

If Dish and Directv merges, that means that either Directv's or Dish Network's System will have to be phased out, as neither are compatible.

That was reportedly the impetus for allowing the Sirius-XM merger and we all know how that went in terms of coming up with a single radio for both systems.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is some talk about picking up DIRECTV Audio from right here at SatelliteGuys using a DVB Tuner Card.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/102139-direct-tv-sats

 

[coinmaster32]

Tim, once again you are wrong.

You can use a standard DVB card and with a program like progressiveDVB and the correct plug in you could use that standard DVB card to play the XM channels that use to be on DIRECTV,

The DVB used by DIRECTV is a modifed version of the DVB standard, but its still a version of DVB. If you check around there is a lot of programs out there which can tune DIRECTV transponders on a DVB card. (Or at least there were.) the tough part about DIRECTV was their encription, but there was stuff out there in the clear as well.

Another example is we use to run an automated DIRECTV Uplink Report which you could see at http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/85912-Uplink-Activity-Report-01-04-2007-26-changes again this was done with standard DVB Equipment. We only stopped doing those reports because since DIRECTV was using a non standard table and non standard package codes it was a lot of guessing to what was actually going on. If we kept following it we could have probably picked it up more, but the guessing was not working well enough for my liking.

I am told that ANY DISH receiver could pick up the standard DIRECTV transponders (but not the KA band stuff) with just a software upgrade. To decode the channels though a NDS card would be needed.

Well, my apologies, I didn't think this was possible. Thanks for clearing this up .

 

[harshness]

Not entirely true. DISH software can be made to pick up the DIRECTV signal with a software update. This was something that they said last time DISH and DIRECTV tried to merge.

Ten years ago, both companies were using pretty similar switchgear and switching technology. Things have changed substantially in how (and at what stage) they stack channels these days.

Such is not to say that it isn't possible, but it isn't as easy as it was back when.