HD Locals In Tallahassee, Florida

[salvatorep]

Whilst filing an official complaint with DirecTV last evening about the poor quality of the SD local channels in Tallahassee, Florida, I asked the CSR about when HD locals would be available. "Right now!", he says, "all you need is a 5-LNB dish."

"Great! Send it to me!", I blurted. "Oh, " he says, "it doesn't look like your area is set up to receive a signal on the 5-LNB dish yet...and I cant tell when its scheduled to happen. Maybe late 2006 or early 2007."

So, which is true: that I need a waiver from the local channels before having DirecTV give me HD locals, or that they're not ready to broadcast them to me regardless of waivers? Some other option?

 

[charper1]

You are #109 ( Tallahassee-Thomasville) on the current DMA list so IF they come online this year it would be at the very end of 2006 and not likely any earlier and a MPEG4 receiver and new dish will be needed. DirecTV's plan is to serve at least 76% by year's end.

Their is no digital waiver process and this is not the fault of your DBS provider; this process will be hashed out via the FCC and the NAB. As long as you are covered by a grade B affiliate signal or better, waivers are highly unlikely and you will need to complain to the FCC and your local representatives. If you are in a market served by more than one affiliate, then you can be denied by all or any of them, not just the closest, most common sense one.

As far as the PQ of said locals on DBS you can call the local engineers and ask how they provide their signal to the satellite companies; many times these are already poor and not helped by any compression on the DBS end to retransmit to you.

 

[salvatorep]

Thanks for the quick, detailed reply charper.

 

[charper1]

Oh; add to that 76% comment.... There are 210 DMAs

 

[scotsmanron]

As another Tallahassee resident.....Fox here pretty much told me that they would give me the waiver on the second try. The others are still going to balk. I'm going to hit them up with the "Show me how then, or you are violating the law" thing.

As for it being late this year, I don't know what to think. The Fox engineer had the D* engineers in his office the day that I emailed and the was several weeks ago. He seemed to think that they might get up and running by the summer. Knowing the ABC and NBC affiliates it could be YEARS!!!

 

[Questioner]

I feel your pain, I hope you get them by the end of the year, but I am in the low 50s and personally would feel lucky to get them by xmas. It seems only a few cities on the the current group of mpeg4 installs can give you a date in the next 3 months, that's not a good pace.

 

[scotsmanron]

First we hear no HD channels because of getting HD locals going. Now we can't get the HD locals going. What is going to be the next freaking excuse. These people are beginning to sound like government.