Ergen Announces Move to MPEG-4

[AJF]

This article from TWICE:

http://www.twice.com/article/CA479247.html?display=breaking+news

It has a few more details than we've heard thus far .

 

[nuts4scuba]

That article also mentions that Direct will be going to MPEG4 in the future. I wonder what their plans are? Will you need to upgrade those boxes too?

 

[MikeD-C05]

I sure hope they don't plan on making everyone pay go upgrade to the new mpeg4 receivers.

 

[RBBrittain]

That article is actually from the earnings call on 11/9, which I listened to a stream of on the E* website. It seems the analysts are very much enamored with Charlie's MPEG4 plans.

One curious thing: It says MPEG4 is about a year away. The end of "two-dish", per the final version of SHVERA, is now 18 months away. So will MPEG4 be the solution to "two-dish"? It may be easier to ship new receivers to every customer in the "two-dish" markets that needs one than to install new dishes, or play something just short of Russian roulette with the various local channels.

Also note that all three of the receivers supported by SBC Dish (311, 522, and 811) have 8PSK tuning, though only the 811 needs it. (Indeed, 8PSK, internal smart card, and firmware are the only differences between the 301 and 311.) This suggests that SBC knows something we don't, especially since all SBC Dish subscribers are on DHA, and SBC (not E*) owns the receivers. Could the 311 and 522 (plus the 111 and 322, which also have 8PSK) be the only SD receivers that are upgradable to MPEG4?

 

[Mickdog]

That article is actually from the earnings call on 11/9, which I listened to a stream of on the E* website. It seems the analysts are very much enamored with Charlie's MPEG4 plans.

One curious thing: It says MPEG4 is about a year away. The end of "two-dish", per the final version of SHVERA, is now 18 months away. So will MPEG4 be the solution to "two-dish"? It may be easier to ship new receivers to every customer in the "two-dish" markets that needs one than to install new dishes, or play something just short of Russian roulette with the various local channels.

Also note that all three of the receivers supported by SBC Dish (311, 522, and 811) have 8PSK tuning, though only the 811 needs it. (Indeed, 8PSK, internal smart card, and firmware are the only differences between the 301 and 311.) This suggests that SBC knows something we don't, especially since all SBC Dish subscribers are on DHA, and SBC (not E*) owns the receivers. Could the 311 and 522 (plus the 111 and 322, which also have 8PSK) be the only SD receivers that are upgradable to MPEG4?

Here is blurp from Broadcom:

Broadcom's Advanced Satellite Communications Technology Selected By EchoStar's DISH Network™ Service

Advanced Modulation and Turbo Code Technology Deployed
In EchoStar's DISH Network High-Volume Set-Top Box Product Line
IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a leading provider of silicon solutions enabling broadband communications, today announced that EchoStar Communications Corp. (Nasdaq: DISH) is using Broadcom's 8PSK (Phase Shift Keying) turbo code technology across EchoStar's newest line of DISH Network™ satellite TV receivers, including the DISH 111, DISH 311, DISH 322, Dish Player-DVR 522, DISH 811 and Dish Player-DVR 921 products.

Broadcom's 8PSK turbo code is an advanced modulation and coding technology that increases information throughput by 35 percent in a given bandwidth or radio frequency link with no additional power requirements. This capability allows EchoStar's DISH Network to provide more programming services to subscribers using their current dish antennas. With the help of Broadcom® turbo code technology in DISH Network's new line of satellite set-top boxes, DISH Network hopes to expand the wide variety of available video and audio programming to include local stations for additional geographic areas, international programming and bandwidth-hungry, high-definition TV programming.

 

[jcase]

As far as I know Dish has yet to show any Standard Definition channels in 8PSK, however as pointed out above all the new boxes have 8PSK built in.

 

[RBBrittain]

That just backs up my statements on 8PSK. But (a) is 8PSK necessary to enable MPEG4, and (b) will 8PSK and/or MPEG4 solve the "two-dish" problem?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

There is no two-dish problem.

Charlie would like you to think there is but there isn't.

Infact he could have a solution in place today if he wanted to. (By adding those wing channels on the spot beams and turning the compression up in those areas a little more) Or by uplinking all the wing locals to a SuperDish slot.

Charlie saying he needs more time, is just Charlie whining like he always does. And if congress throws Charlie a bone you can bet he will take it.

 

[ocaddict]

Be nice. Charlie is my hero.

 

[Poke]

Well if the 811 and so on have the 8PSK built in. Then when they go over to MPEG4 then maybe a software update will turn this on. Right now there is no need for it but future tense there is.

 

[hongcho]

MPEG-4 HP (for HD) will require more than just a software update.

Hong.

 

[Stargazer]

Well the 111, 311, 522 certainly cannot do HD regardless anyways unless there was an upgrade in the hardware if that is even possible, or maybe another box to attach to it. Another emphasis to make the receivers upgradable/expandable in the future.

 

[TyroneShoes]

...(a) is 8PSK necessary to enable MPEG4, and (b) will 8PSK and/or MPEG4 solve the "two-dish" problem?

8PSK is a modulation technique, a method of parsing a bitstream so it can be transported and eventually demodulated at the other end. MPEG-4 is an encoding compression technique, a method of making ones and zeros out of analog video, and then throwing away that is perceived as redundant, and then what's left is eventually decoded at the other end.

They are two very different things, barely related to each other, and separate but different steps in DBS delivery. They are two (four, actually) different parts of the process, and one does not really depend upon the other...for the most part what modulation scheme is used is independent of what encoding scheme is used, and vice versa.

After other preparation video is encoded, and the file created by that can either be recorded directly (before transportation) or streamed. It is modulated before being transmitted, then demodulated, then decoded. Two schemes, four steps.

You can have 8PSK (or not) whether you use MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or MPEG-24. You can have MPEG-4 (or not) whether you modulate it for transmission with 8PSK, 8VSB, or 16VSB. About all they have in common is that both are strategically applicable to making DBS delivery efficient, and E* is fond of both for that reason. They have minimal impact on each other, just slightly more than your gas stove has on your electric microwave oven. IOW, apples and oranges.

 

[AJF]

I was just going to say that but he beat me to it.

Nice post Tyrone.

 

[Chris Freeland]

There is no two-dish problem.

Charlie would like you to think there is but there isn't.

Infact he could have a solution in place today if he wanted to. (By adding those wing channels on the spot beams and turning the compression up in those areas a little more) Or by uplinking all the wing locals to a SuperDish slot.

Charlie saying he needs more time, is just Charlie whining like he always does. And if congress throws Charlie a bone you can bet he will take it.

I do not agree, turning up the compression or moving split dma's to a Superdish is a good the solution to ending 2 dish local's for some markets, no one wants their locals on satellite to start looking like streeming video. Moving 2-dish locals to a SuperDish would be very costly and disruptive to subs, not a good solution. The best solution is to re-shufle locals and place as many as possible on spotbeams, those dma's pushed off of the spotbeams would then move to the wings (all of a dma's locals), but this could not be done over night, it would take time.

However with E10 being launched with 45+ spotbeams next year and a 3rd up-link center also being added, this should provide plenty of capacity to place all split markets on a spotbeam and no other alternative solution should be necessary. Although I do not agree that Charlie could do a 1 dish solution today, I do agree that 18 months should be sufficient time for the phasing out of 2-dish dma's and Charlie is still whining.

 

[Tyralak]

Well the 111, 311, 522 certainly cannot do HD regardless anyways unless there was an upgrade in the hardware if that is even possible, or maybe another box to attach to it. Another emphasis to make the receivers upgradable/expandable in the future.

Perhaps it's there to do what I always thought was the way to go - putting a channel up in HD, and having the non HD boxes downconvert the signal instead of having a redundant channel. Like TNT for instance.

 

[Stargazer]

It may be possible to do this in those particular receivers but the older ones would have to be replaced. I wonder how many of the older receivers without the 8PSK compared to the newer ones with the 8PSK are out there.