There are a lot of things going on here, and it does not surprise me that Dish is bringing this up now.
One of the first rules of negotiating is that before you can juggle, you have to get the balls up in the are. This is Dish trying to get the balls in the air.
So What's going on?
1) For analog signals, Dish is pulling in a signal either over the air or via hard line connection and converting it to digital and rebroadcasting it. No two signals are the same. There is always tweaking involved and the results vary widely. Some locals look better than others when the process is finished.
2) Changing that to Digital involves solving a different set of problems for each station. Digital signals are usually weaker, so location of your pickup tower may have to change. Different signals are of different types (ie, 480p, 720p, 1080i) and stations are allowed subchannels. And they have different data rates. Generally, CBS is the best and ABC is the worst. So a digital signal is brought in almost always in MPEG2, uncompressed, recompressed into MPEG4 and sent up to the satellite. All these things can be tweaked, and it is a one station at a time process.
3) Sometimes there is no direct digital equivalent to the content of the analog station. PBS stations are notorius for this. In my area, WTTW has four digital subchannels which together approximate what is on the analog channel. What now, batman? Carry all four?
4) There is nothing in the current regs that prevents a station from doing an overnight analog to digital conversion. I am sure this will happen in dozens of smaller markets across the US that can't afford a new tower for digital.
All of these points are more or less legitimate.
SO WHAT DOES DISH DOING?
a) this is the CYA "I told you so" early warning that this could be a problem. And it is not only a problem for Dish, but this would also apply to all the Cable companies, as well.
b) They are trying to stimulate discussion towards a solution
WHAT MIGHT THE SOLUTIONS LOOK LIKE?
i) Have the FCC say that Digital Broadcasting Must START in Feb 2009, and that TV stations should be required to broadcast both Digital and Analog for a transition period of six months or so. This would give Dish and everyone else time to work out the problem. Then you can pull the plug on Analog
ii) Have the FCC develop a digital broadcast standard that would alleviate some of the variables in (2) above. Develop some kind of "signal interchange" standard. Make the TV stations responsible for delivering such a compliant signal and the MSOs responsible for delivering it.
iii) Allow Directv and Dish and the cable companies to collaborate on this issue, perhaps with shared uplinks of someting similar.
SO I don't think this is anything sinister. But no one entirely trusts CE.
One of the first rules of negotiating is that before you can juggle, you have to get the balls up in the are. This is Dish trying to get the balls in the air.
So What's going on?
1) For analog signals, Dish is pulling in a signal either over the air or via hard line connection and converting it to digital and rebroadcasting it. No two signals are the same. There is always tweaking involved and the results vary widely. Some locals look better than others when the process is finished.
2) Changing that to Digital involves solving a different set of problems for each station. Digital signals are usually weaker, so location of your pickup tower may have to change. Different signals are of different types (ie, 480p, 720p, 1080i) and stations are allowed subchannels. And they have different data rates. Generally, CBS is the best and ABC is the worst. So a digital signal is brought in almost always in MPEG2, uncompressed, recompressed into MPEG4 and sent up to the satellite. All these things can be tweaked, and it is a one station at a time process.
3) Sometimes there is no direct digital equivalent to the content of the analog station. PBS stations are notorius for this. In my area, WTTW has four digital subchannels which together approximate what is on the analog channel. What now, batman? Carry all four?
4) There is nothing in the current regs that prevents a station from doing an overnight analog to digital conversion. I am sure this will happen in dozens of smaller markets across the US that can't afford a new tower for digital.
All of these points are more or less legitimate.
SO WHAT DOES DISH DOING?
a) this is the CYA "I told you so" early warning that this could be a problem. And it is not only a problem for Dish, but this would also apply to all the Cable companies, as well.
b) They are trying to stimulate discussion towards a solution
WHAT MIGHT THE SOLUTIONS LOOK LIKE?
i) Have the FCC say that Digital Broadcasting Must START in Feb 2009, and that TV stations should be required to broadcast both Digital and Analog for a transition period of six months or so. This would give Dish and everyone else time to work out the problem. Then you can pull the plug on Analog
ii) Have the FCC develop a digital broadcast standard that would alleviate some of the variables in (2) above. Develop some kind of "signal interchange" standard. Make the TV stations responsible for delivering such a compliant signal and the MSOs responsible for delivering it.
iii) Allow Directv and Dish and the cable companies to collaborate on this issue, perhaps with shared uplinks of someting similar.
SO I don't think this is anything sinister. But no one entirely trusts CE.
