DISH to FCC HD Locals Cost too much

[Barry Erick]

Dish sent a letter today to the FCC that says it would cost more than a billion dollars to put HD locals on sats, as they would need 4 new birds.

It isn't like they haven't known about this until now.

 

[navychop]

4? That really sounds excessive.

Maybe they're trying to poor mouth to get permission to go in jointly with D* on locals.

 

[rad]

Maybe they're trying to poor mouth to get permission to go in jointly with D* on locals.

Then they'd have to replace STB's since D*'s HD LIL's are in Ka band.

 

[navychop]

Or D* would make the change. Plus the encryption, etc. I don't see it as likely, but maybe a long range ploy.

 

[Peter Parker]

i believe that in the past D* has suggested sharing the locals---it has been E* that was alaways reluctant.

 

[rocatman]

I believe this was related to a FCC proposal (not a requirement yet) to have the satellites companies carry all the locals channels in a market that are classified as "must carry" to carry any HD locals in a market. DirecTV also stated that this would be very burdensome for them as well. This has been enacted for SD locals but there were no rules on HD locals so this indeed would be new. For example Dish carries 25 local channels in the Los Angeles area and I realize that not all of them will be in HD at least anytime soon but you can see why the satellite companies are having problems with this. Of course the OP either didn't get all the facts or chose not to provide them. Here is an excerpt from SkyReport:

DBS Concerned with Must-Carry Idea

The nation's big satellite TV services were at the Portals during the last week fighting a proposal that could impose digital HD must-carry obligations on DBS platforms.
Both DIRECTV and DISH Network contacted Federal Communications Commission personnel about the issue, fretting that the proposed mandate - if enacted - could impact satellite capacity and operations. The companies described the must-carry idea that has been floated by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin as "burdensome" and that it could take years to comply with such a provision. DISH Network said in a three-page filing outlining its opposition that its satellite fleet is at or near full capacity today, and that a local HD must-carry mandate would put a lot of pressure on the company's day-to-day capabilities. HD channels require between three and four times the bandwidth of standard definition channels, the company said. "If DISH Network was required to carry all must-carry channels in HD, approximately three new, state-of-the-art satellites - with access to corresponding new spectrum - would need to be designed and constructed to meet those new burdens," the company said in its comments. "This is a four-year process with a price tag of over a billion dollars," added DISH Network. DIRECTV also approached FCC officials about the HD must-carry initiative. The company said that in its meetings it told commission staff the availability of satellite capacity and ground infrastructure, as well as the ongoing digital TV transition, would impact its ability to comply with a must-carry requirement.

 

[mike123abc]

Dish would have to add a lot of satellite capacity, DIRECTV appears to have it with their new Ka satellites. But, even DIRECTV would have to pay a fortune to add the bandwidth from the stations to the uplinks to carry the extra data.

Then both companies would be faced with 2x transmitting (SD and HD) all the stations still since they would have to support all the old boxes or they would have to upgrade every box to MPEG-4.

It is only a matter of time for this to have to happen. I cannot imagine stations going HD and not demanding to be carried in HD. Dish is probably angling to get a few years extention to the proposal to give them time to build out their satellites. They probably realize they are going to have to do it, but they do not have the capacity now and it takes years to get satellites built and up.

 

[mdonnelly]

...

Then both companies would be faced with 2x transmitting (SD and HD) all the stations still since they would have to support all the old boxes or they would have to upgrade every box to MPEG-4.

If this happens, MPEG-2 will be history. Both providers will need all the compression they can get.

 

[mike123abc]

If this happens, MPEG-2 will be history. Both providers will need all the compression they can get.

DIRECTV has the capacity in the air. They can do every channel in the US if they wanted to do so. It is getting the channel to an uplink center that costs the money (fiber). For Dish, new satellites are probably still cheaper than replacing all the boxes. You have to figure dish has at least 25 million boxes out there that would have to be upgraded, that is 3+ billion right there (don't forget they would have to do a service calls).

MPEG-2 is going to stay around for quite a while. It is way too expensive to swap out all the boxes. Both providers need to sell only MPEG-4 boxes for a while to at least churn some of the old ones away, but they are still putting MPEG-2 in new installs.

 

[fallout2600]

Dish sent a letter today to the FCC that says it would cost more than a billion dollars to put HD locals on sats, as they would need 4 new birds.

It isn't like they haven't known about this until now.

Got a link to the article? Would like to read it....thanks

 

[Dah-Henny]

SkyREPORT.com - Satellite Industry Daily News, Information, Data and Research for direct-to-home, DBS, C-Band, Local Channel, Broadband, High Speed Data, PVR and Interactive Television.

 

[fallout2600]

thanks

 

[jacmyoung]

2009 will be an interesting year as far as local digital conversion goes.

Even if HD must carry will be in place, things will not be as bad as some want you to believe. For one thing all the major markets will be taking care of already, for the rest of the small DMA's replacing old MPEG2 to MPEG4 will be much less of an issue while they turn off the MPEG2 locals to make room for MPEG4 HD locals.

 

[JAG72]

2009 will be an interesting year as far as local digital conversion goes.

Even if HD must carry will be in place, things will not be as bad as some want you to believe. For one thing all the major markets will be taking care of already, for the rest of the small DMA's replacing old MPEG2 to MPEG4 will be much less of an issue while they turn off the MPEG2 locals to make room for MPEG4 HD locals.

There is no such thing as HD must carry for 2009. They only have to broadcast in digital not HD.

 

[Scott6760]

2009 will be an interesting year as far as local digital conversion goes.

Even if HD must carry will be in place, things will not be as bad as some want you to believe. For one thing all the major markets will be taking care of already, for the rest of the small DMA's replacing old MPEG2 to MPEG4 will be much less of an issue while they turn off the MPEG2 locals to make room for MPEG4 HD locals.

They can't turn off MPEG2 channels when 90% of the receivers in the field don't support MPEG4

 

[roachxp]

There is no such thing as HD must carry for 2009. They only have to broadcast in digital not HD.

True there is no HD must carry, just digital carry.

But the local channels do not have to provide D* or E* or anyone else the HD feed. I noticed the local FOX in Maine will not broadcast the HD via OTA only via fiber to the providers willing to pay. The only thing available OTA is the digital SD feed.

 

[digiblur]

Then they'd have to replace STB's since D*'s HD LIL's are in Ka band.

That doesn't make a difference but the modulation scheme and encryption they are using does.

 

[whatchel1]

?????

True there is no HD must carry, just digital carry.

But the local channels do not have to provide D* or E* or anyone else the HD feed. I noticed the local FOX in Maine will not broadcast the HD via OTA only via fiber to the providers willing to pay. The only thing available OTA is the digital SD feed.

Is The FOX a sub-channel of a station that carries another network as well?

 

[GeorgeLV]

Then they'd have to replace STB's since D*'s HD LIL's are in Ka band.

That doesn't make a difference but the modulation scheme and encryption they are using does.

To expand on what digiblur is saying, that band the signals are broadcasted on doesn't matter because the LNB shifts them to an intermediate frequency for transmission to the STB. Dish Network could easily make a DishPro LNB to "see" a DirecTV satellite.

 

[drdroo]

I noticed the local FOX in Maine will not broadcast the HD via OTA only via fiber to the providers willing to pay. The only thing available OTA is the digital SD feed.

Correct. That's because (the words of our local FOX in Bangor) they are not able to get a full slot from the FCC to put the FOX channel on HD over the air. This is supposedly going to be resolved when things move around in 2009.

WPFO (Skowhegan to York on Cable, and Waterville to Kennebunk OTA roughly) is not digital at all supposedly. They claim they won't be until Feb 2009.
MyFox Maine | FAQ About HD TV

Is The FOX a sub-channel of a station that carries another network as well?

Yes. FOX is a subchannel on the ABC feed (in Bangor. In the WPFO market it's analog only) because FOX is a LP station over the air and the digital subchannel is provided as a convenience to the viewers.

On DirecTV - Portland ME already has HD locals (including FOX) and Bangor should be online by April allegedly. FOX is also in HD on Time Warner Cable.

So basically, if you're OTA or a Dish Network customer, you're just screwed in Maine when it comes to FOX in HD. I can, however, get ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS in HD using an antenna. I get FOX in SD as a subchannel off ABC.

We've had SD locals in Bangor since Dec 2005. It'll probably be a colder day in hell before Dish comes back to upgrade to HD. Also, since FOX isn't over the air in HD, they'd have to use other means (such as fiber optics or high speed microwave) or move their uplink to the ABC/FOX affiliate, which is where DirecTV is installing their uplink. Dish picked the wrong location to uplink.

This is unfortunate because Bangor's DMA stretches basically from Fort Kent ME to Skowhegan ME. It also stretches all the way to Calais ME to the Canadian border. The amount of cable available in the state is mostly in the Portland DMA, and cable penetration is significant there. Dish clearly does not have much concept of this market.