I've been c-band free for 2 years now. I used to love my old 4DTV system, although it seemed I was working on it more than watching it, but using 20 year old parts can cause that.
I remember the wild feeds in both Analog and Digital.
Surprisingly, C-Band could've been really big, had it had more support. I did all I could, I spent countless hours on the phone with manufactures, programming providers, and the like.
What killed 4DTV was a lack of care. Everyone viewed it as a dinosaur, just fading into nothing. Subs to 4DTV went down every year, and the last I heard, only 25-30,000 people were subscribed to it.
What killed it off was not that the dish was huge, that was actually a benefit, when the "pizza dish" went out, C-Band still shined through. I remember waking up one morning and it was 10 below, and there was ice and a good 6" of snow on my dish, and it was still working great.
What killed it off was HD, or the lack of it.
HD started becoming popular in the mid 2000s, around 2003-5. There were a few more providers back then as well, including the infamous NPS.
Of course, Motorola purchasing 4DTV did not really help things much, but never the less...
You see, everyone wanted HD, and when Directv and Dish both had HD, everyone looked at 4DTV and saw it had none, whatsoever.
So subs slowly started dropping, and got worse each year. Black Friday sales came out, making the HDTV alot cheaper. Sets got cheaper and cheaper, and slowly, America went from SD to HD.
4DTV...did not.
You see, another satellite company, although KU, and Canadian, HAD the equipment to not only record SD, but to record HD as well, and that was a company called Star Choice.
SC used DC2 to deliver HD programming to it's HD DVR's.
Could 4DTV be in HD? Certainly, but it was a classic case of "too little, too late".
By the time the head honchos of the several companies I talked to started looking into the possibility of HD, it was too late, and by that time, 4DTV was nothing more than an afterthought.
I know now that 4DTV is now called HITS, and uses a single orbital location.
If people would of cared, and support was shown, 4DTV/HITS would've been huge.
A company could of been launched, or contracts made with China, to produce a 6 foot fixed dish, and Motorola could of made the HD-DVR's.
The equipment, provided on a non-contract basis, would rival Ku due to its ability to provide signal in times of storms, snow, winds, etc.
The people of today hate contracts, and the non-existence of a contract would of made prices lower as well.
Would 4DTV/HITS of been as big as Directv or Dish? Most likely not, due to the fact that Ku dishes fit in more areas and some HOA's disallow a C-Band dish.
I can tell you though, it would've been big, with at least 1 million subscribers.
As I look at the latest channel offerings, it appears that 4DTV/HITS lost a few channels, which is not much of a suprise.
I don't see 4DTV/HITS being around 10 years from now, sadly.
I remember the wild feeds in both Analog and Digital.
Surprisingly, C-Band could've been really big, had it had more support. I did all I could, I spent countless hours on the phone with manufactures, programming providers, and the like.
What killed 4DTV was a lack of care. Everyone viewed it as a dinosaur, just fading into nothing. Subs to 4DTV went down every year, and the last I heard, only 25-30,000 people were subscribed to it.
What killed it off was not that the dish was huge, that was actually a benefit, when the "pizza dish" went out, C-Band still shined through. I remember waking up one morning and it was 10 below, and there was ice and a good 6" of snow on my dish, and it was still working great.
What killed it off was HD, or the lack of it.
HD started becoming popular in the mid 2000s, around 2003-5. There were a few more providers back then as well, including the infamous NPS.
Of course, Motorola purchasing 4DTV did not really help things much, but never the less...
You see, everyone wanted HD, and when Directv and Dish both had HD, everyone looked at 4DTV and saw it had none, whatsoever.
So subs slowly started dropping, and got worse each year. Black Friday sales came out, making the HDTV alot cheaper. Sets got cheaper and cheaper, and slowly, America went from SD to HD.
4DTV...did not.
You see, another satellite company, although KU, and Canadian, HAD the equipment to not only record SD, but to record HD as well, and that was a company called Star Choice.
SC used DC2 to deliver HD programming to it's HD DVR's.
Could 4DTV be in HD? Certainly, but it was a classic case of "too little, too late".
By the time the head honchos of the several companies I talked to started looking into the possibility of HD, it was too late, and by that time, 4DTV was nothing more than an afterthought.
I know now that 4DTV is now called HITS, and uses a single orbital location.
If people would of cared, and support was shown, 4DTV/HITS would've been huge.
A company could of been launched, or contracts made with China, to produce a 6 foot fixed dish, and Motorola could of made the HD-DVR's.
The equipment, provided on a non-contract basis, would rival Ku due to its ability to provide signal in times of storms, snow, winds, etc.
The people of today hate contracts, and the non-existence of a contract would of made prices lower as well.
Would 4DTV/HITS of been as big as Directv or Dish? Most likely not, due to the fact that Ku dishes fit in more areas and some HOA's disallow a C-Band dish.
I can tell you though, it would've been big, with at least 1 million subscribers.
As I look at the latest channel offerings, it appears that 4DTV/HITS lost a few channels, which is not much of a suprise.
I don't see 4DTV/HITS being around 10 years from now, sadly.
