HBO to go all HD

[SarKen]

HBO to go HD on all 26 of their channels - Engadget HD

I wonder if E* will carry these! It looks like 2008 is turning out to be a big year for HD.

Ken

 

[DWS44]

There is also a discussion here if you are interested:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/satelli...els-available-high-definition.html#post924780

 

[DISH_NC]

I guess that makes for 10 of the 100 new national HD channels on D*....

 

[dfergie]

Main article: http://www.satelliteguys.us/satelli...els-available-high-definition.html#post924780 DirecTV article: http://www.satelliteguys.us/directv...directv-carry-11-hbo-cinemax-channels-hd.html

 

[ripnbigc]

I hope Charlie was serious about staying the leader in HD.

 

[datwell]

I hope Charlie was serious about staying the leader in HD.

Me too!

--Doug

 

[SarKen]

Me too!

--Doug

Me Three!

 

[MikeD-C05]

I hope that this means soon all premium movie channels will go full hd by next year and that DISH will add them as they come online.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Better get that MPEG2 to MPEG4 channel conversion in high gear!

 

[Aridon]

If dish falls behind I'll be one of the first ones out the door. I certainly hope they don't take the cheap road and end up falling way behind the game.

 

[Bradtothebone]

Moving VOOM to MPEG4 should go a long way towards getting some or all of these channels. As an AEP sub, I'd feel MUCH better about spending the extra money if a lot of the premiums (STARZ, HBO, MAX) were in HD. Now, where is the announcement from Showtime?

Brad

 

[DWS44]

...and here we all assume these just show up in current packages & pricing.

I can see Dish giving us the current one, maybe two HD (per premium) at the current prices, but I'd bet good money that the premium (& AEP) prices start going up if there are suddenly 5-10 HD channels per premium package.

(NOTE...I hope I'm wrong!)

 

[Cyclone]

I had always thought the same thing. That with more HD channels, the price would have to climb. But that didn't happen with locals. So I'm not so sure it will happen with premiums. I know that I would be much more likely to pay for a premium if most of the channels were HD.

I'm nearly in "HD Only" mode now, so if I did currently have a premium package, I would likely only consider it's HD channel the only one of the package to be of any value. But with 7 - 10 HD channels being part of the pack its value would grown considerably.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I'm going to expect the additional channels without any additional price increase from Dish. Dish will not be paying more to HBO. And as I'm already paying a $20/month premium for HD, on top of the channel costs, why should they charge me even more?

The increase in HD subscribers should offset the additional satellite cost. If E* picks up another 250,000 HD subs, out of their existing subscriber base, over the next 6 months, that's $5M/month in additional revenue. It is even more if they attract new E* subs as a result of the expanded HD offerings.

 

[kstuart]

I'm going to expect the additional channels without any additional price increase from Dish. Dish will not be paying more to HBO.

How do we know that Dish will not be paying more to HBO ?

 

[technoguy]

How do we know that Dish will not be paying more to HBO ?

Because they just recently signed a new multi year contract.

 

[kstuart]

Because they just recently signed a new multi year contract.

And that contract could say:

" EchoStar agrees to pay $10 million per year per extra HD channel uplinked. "

or some other figure (not even a guess there...).

 

[whatchel1]

Unless they changed the rules

Unless HBO has changed the rules then both D* & E* are paying a certain amount per sub no matter how many channels are provided. I doubt that either would sign contracts that are different just because more of the channels will be supplied in 2 format streams.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

They didn't pay a penny more to get the primary HBO HD channel.

It is the same content. And most of the material is already stored in HD. There is no reason for HBO to charge more. Technically these are not new channels, but as stated above, just the same channels in a different format. The cost to transmit these channels to E* for retransmission would be minor.

 

[MRUSS]

It would be nice to have everything in HD, but with the 622 I get all the movies I can watch with 1 channel from each premium network by time shifting. One channel I would like to see is the western channel in HD because it has different programming.