Pbs Hd?

[crazyeye]

Does anybody know if we will be getting PBS in HD? How come that hasn't been included with the national networks? You'd think that would be a no-brainer - frontline in HD, Nova in HD. What's up? Also, anybody know whether New York 9 - WOR is coming and or MSG HD? I've seen that on the D* site and hope it is in place for Knick season at the end of the month.

Mike

 

[jdspencer]

I think PBS is the roadblock for this to happen.

 

[wallypa]

Spoke with a D* supervisor couple of days ago and asked her about PBS HD. According to her, PBS HD is not on their list of upcoming hd channels. Hope I'm wrong but I am assuming that it will not be on this year, which would be a pity.

 

[satfrat]

Spoke with a D* supervisor couple of days ago and asked her about PBS HD. According to her, PBS HD is not on their list of upcoming hd channels. Hope I'm wrong but I am assuming that it will not be on this year, which would be a pity.

Not a problem for me,,, luckily I have a PBS HD channel available on my C-Band 4DTV receiver/HDD-200 decoder. I knew I'd be happy for not turning my back on my BIG dish.



Robin

 

[Siguy]

The rumor that's always going around is that they can't do PBS because PBS wants every single PBS carried all in one big deal; they don't want just one PBS station getting picked up in HD and becoming the one national PBS station (probably because it screws over their local stations).

So who knows, maybe PBS won't be on there until they have room to launch a ton of them all at once, but that sounds impossible to me because Los Angeles alone has 3 full PBS stations.

 

[joedekock]

Go figure... a network mostly funded with federal dollars...

 

[paulman182]

What I have always heard was that PBS wanted the subchannels carried in each market where the main channel would be carried.

That's slightly different from what Siguy posted, but I have no real way of knowing which is true.

 

[chrisb]

Does anybody know if we will be getting PBS in HD? How come that hasn't been included with the national networks? You'd think that would be a no-brainer - frontline in HD, Nova in HD. What's up? Also, anybody know whether New York 9 - WOR is coming and or MSG HD? I've seen that on the D* site and hope it is in place for Knick season at the end of the month.

Mike

If you live in the NYC area, you can get 9, 11 and 13 off an OTA antenna.

MSGHD should happen. When is the question.

 

[RLuyster]

What they need to have is a PBS-HD feed that is not screwed up by having multiple sub-channels bleeding off its bandwith. One regional PBS outlet that I can receive here (WOUC-DT, Cambridge) now has four(!) subchannels running along with the main HD channel. The result is even worse than the dreaded "HD-Lite" that we've hated on D*. Their HD no longer even looks like HD. Previously they were running only one subchannel when they carried PBS-HD during the evening hours. There really should be some FCC standards that prohibit this kind of excess and still calling the end result "HD", IMO.

 

[harshness]

Go figure... a network mostly funded with federal dollars...

Perhaps LIN TV is funded by Federal monies too?

PBS is not as generously supported by government money as they once were. Legislators and congressmen have been pretty brutal in their withdrawal of support.

 

[joebbaseball]

Go figure... a network mostly funded with federal dollars...

30% of PBS is funded w/Fed. dollars. Not mostly.
joe

 

[jmrife]

Go figure... a network mostly funded with federal dollars...

I think a little research will tell you that's not exactly true. I believe it is now less than 15% and decreasing.

 

[crazyeye]

Why then would Verizon FIOS be able to carry only 1 PBS HD channel? That seems odd in light of what is being said here. Also, is it possible, if using an OTA antenna to view those channels on the same TV input or through the HR20, providing a somewhat seamless viewing experience?

 

[Bob Nielsen]

Why then would Verizon FIOS be able to carry only 1 PBS HD channel? That seems odd in light of what is being said here. Also, is it possible, if using an OTA antenna to view those channels on the same TV input or through the HR20, providing a somewhat seamless viewing experience?

The HR20 seamlessly integrates OTA (digital) and satellite channels. It won't scan for channels and uses a database according to zip code. Guide information is provided for the OTA channels.

 

[mmach]

Not having local (or national) PBS HD via satellite pisses me off too. Sure, the HR20 does a great job of seamlessly integrating OTA with satellite... IF you can get the locals via antenna. It's very marginal for me, and I don't want to set it to record something and go to watch the show later and find out it was a bad OTA day and the recording is blank. I could probably get OTA reliably with a rooftop antenna, but why should I have to do that, that's why I subscribe to DirecTV.

I emailed DirecTV about this just about a week ago, and got a fairly generic response that was completely uninformative (just said that they're evaluating the possibility of carrying local PBS HD in the future). I am curious about that rumor of PBS insisting they carry all subchannels. I guess I can see some motivation for that, but I think I'd rather just get the main PBS HD channel than no PBS HD at all.

 

[2muchspl]

I too was kinda shocked not see PBS, I just plugged up the OTA in the 700 to get it and the ABC "bonus" channel (love when they put an xtra college game on it).

is using the OTA an option?

 

[Siguy]

Why then would Verizon FIOS be able to carry only 1 PBS HD channel?

Well FIOS is more analogous to local cable. In fact, I think they even offer a package that's just local analog channels wherever you are. They don't have to carry everything nationally, they can break it up area by area, town by town. So it's just not a big issue for them because they operate so differently from the satellite companies. At least I think it works that way. I could be wrong on this.