Spaceway 2 Launch thread - It's up!

[LonghornXP]

After the first of the year once SW2 has been testing and deemed working expect to see another press release with additional markets that will be rolled out between the summer and the end of 2006. Just make sure you all know that the announced 36 markets won't be it but once they reach around 50-75 it gets tricky because I don't know what market they will stop at between markets 50 and 75. Sometime after the first of the year we all will start seeing massive marketing ads on TV advertising both the new choice to rent both an HD box and HD DVR plus informing customers that they can now get their local channels in HDTV. They will be advertising only in the markets they will be serving with HD local channels and the ads will be on the local TV stations as you might guess. The HD box and HD DVR rental change will be a national ad deal just so you know. I've also got word that any local channels that D* has a national deal with will be carried even if they are PBS, WB and/or UPN stations. For example because Sinclair has a deal in place today with DirecTV for HD local carriage that means that all Sinclair owned stations in the announced markets will be carried. So in the case of the Tampa Bay market because WB is owned by Sinclair WB will be offering in HDTV right away.

From what I'm hearing at least for the Tampa Bay market is that PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, UPN and WB HD feeds will be carried in or around December of "this" year as in next month.

 

[hdtvtechno]

Oh shot

Congrats to Directv

I missed the Live feed on Channel 399

Will directv replay the feed on 399 again ?

 

[moqz1001]

In The 210 Dma's How Many Locals Are Their Combined ?


Now As For National Channels ... There Is Wayyyyy More Than 150 Channels, So What Channels Will Directv Drop ?


Because If The Channels Themselves Are No Hd Directv Could Still Upconvert Them To Hd


But Still We Have Over 150 National Channels ( Tnt, Espn Etc...) And Manty Not Carried By Directv Yet...


So Me I Am Not Celebrating, They Dont Have Room For The 300+ National Channels Out There...

So This Means Either More Sat Launches And/or Another New Dish We Will Need After The 5 Bird One In 3 Years



So Now What ?

 

[lee78221]

Oh shot

Congrats on Directv

I missed the Live feed on Channel 399

Will directv replay the feed on 399 again ?

http://www.videocorner.tv/index.php?langue=en

 

[tibber]

In The 210 Dma's How Many Locals Are Their Combined ?


Now As For National Channels ... There Is Wayyyyy More Than 150 Channels, So What Channels Will Directv Drop ?


Because If The Channels Themselves Are No Hd Directv Could Still Upconvert Them To Hd


But Still We Have Over 150 National Channels ( Tnt, Espn Etc...) And Manty Not Carried By Directv Yet...


So Me I Am Not Celebrating, They Dont Have Room For The 300+ National Channels Out There...

So This Means Either More Sat Launches And/or Another New Dish We Will Need After The 5 Bird One In 3 Years



So Now What ?

my quick and dirty math of an average of 6 chans per dma looks like 1260 total channels so 1500 should cover us nicely. This does assume that D* will be able to broadcast sub channels in the same space that they would have been able to broadcast a single true HD channel... And in fact, that does leave room for some of the regional cable channels that aren't broadcast OTA.

As for 150 nationals, there are only, what, 30-40 HD national channels right now--counting the VOOM channels? Yeah, in the next 5 years there might be 150 national DT channels, but how many will be full bandwidth HD? OK, even if every channel does switch by 2009, and somehow they all take full bandwidth, D* can start reclaiming bandwidth from the SD channels at some point.

Remember, this is a long transition period starting in 1999 or so and continuing beyond 2009. I'm very happy to see HD content coming (that way i'm no longer frustrated that i bought my first HDTV too early ). I'm glad that locals are going HD and that the providers are getting ready for it. And I'm thinking D*, while getting off to a slow start, has done a great job preparing for this transition very well of late.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[LonghornXP]

To Moqz1001: Please do not create more than on thread in two different areas for the same topic. Anything about this topic should stay in this thread and I've closed the extra threads and I urge you to not create another thread for this.

 

[moqz1001]

To Moqz1001: Please do not create more than on thread in two different areas for the same topic. Anything about this topic should stay in this thread and I've closed the extra threads and I urge you to not create another thread for this.

poor lil longhorn got his feathers ruffled, HA HA who cares what you think buddy

why not answer, they will have room on the 3 birds that are not lil for only 150 channels that ate either hd or upcoveted hd, thats bs

if that is not the case then state so in their "marketing statememnts, i am for one disguisted

 

[jdk]

It is generally considered bad etiquette to post copies of the same message across threads - especially in unrrelated threads. That way everyone can be sure to be in on the conversation.

 

[charper1]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?p=789738#post789738

See post #198

 

[shugo77]

poor lil longhorn got his feathers ruffled, HA HA who cares what you think buddy

why not answer, they will have room on the 3 birds that are not lil for only 150 channels that ate either hd or upcoveted hd, thats bs

if that is not the case then state so in their "marketing statememnts, i am for one disguisted

:


...

 

[Skyboss]

poor lil longhorn got his feathers ruffled, HA HA who cares what you think buddy

i am for one disguisted

And a clown.

 

[CWS_kahuna]

Glad to see/hear this SW2 sat finally had lift off. Time for D* to get things rolling.

LonghornXP,
So your understanding that the Tampa market will get WB, UPN & PBS basically right away in HD (mpeg 4 only or 2 as well?). I don't know who owns what in the LA market but that would lead me to believe the same might happen right away here then too since all of those channels are available in my area.

 

[DixonJDixon]

XP, not sure if this is the right thread, but when can we expect the HD-DVR and HMC to be released?

 

[Thomas P.]

Great news on SW2 getting successfully launched and being fully operationally soon.

Anybody know the status of the Denver market....i.e. what stations we could expect and what is the current time frame?? I'm assuming that the lack of progress in constructing the new Golden transmission tower will impact some of the Denver TV stations not converting to digital quickly.

To me, this is highly ambitious and very aggressive plan by D* and I personally applaud them for this goals. But, there seems to be a shortage of equipment, qualified installers, etc. that will make it difficult to have the top 20 US markets up & running in MPEG4 format spring of 2006. I wish them luck and I hope to be one of the Denver subs. to convert ASAP.

 

[SoonerSteve]

The launch is great news, but being in San Antonio (DMA #37) makes me wonder how to move us up in the list. I hate to be so close and yet so far away!

 

[CPanther95]

In The 210 Dma's How Many Locals Are Their Combined ?


Now As For National Channels ... There Is Wayyyyy More Than 150 Channels, So What Channels Will Directv Drop ?


Because If The Channels Themselves Are No Hd Directv Could Still Upconvert Them To Hd


But Still We Have Over 150 National Channels ( Tnt, Espn Etc...) And Manty Not Carried By Directv Yet...


So Me I Am Not Celebrating, They Dont Have Room For The 300+ National Channels Out There...

So This Means Either More Sat Launches And/or Another New Dish We Will Need After The 5 Bird One In 3 Years



So Now What ?

The list at AVS (which is based on member reports, so it is likely not 100% - but close) shows only 689 local stations among the 7 national networks sending HDTV. There's no reason to think that D* will not be able to stay ahead of the curve.

... and it's asinine to think that D* will be upconverting all SD channels and allocating HD bandwidth for every channel they carry.

 

[CPanther95]

The launch is great news, but being in San Antonio (DMA #37) makes me wonder how to move us up in the list. I hate to be so close and yet so far away!

San Antonio is a weird market in that it is #37 in television households, but IIRC, the city actually ranks #10 in population. It is possible that D* will look ahead, to its likely 2006 ranking - as opposed to the current DMA rank - like they did when announcing Tampa as one of the first 12 markets weeks or months before Tampa officially passed Seattle to move from #13 (9/04) to #12 (9/05).

However, from 04 to 05, San Antonio did not change its DMA position, so I don't know how likely that is.

 

[Sharpie]

I know this has probably been discussed to death but I am too lazy to go back and look. Will this new bird help or not with the pic quality on SD channels? Will this lessen the compression issues?

 

[rad]

I know this has probably been discussed to death but I am too lazy to go back and look. Will this new bird help or not with the pic quality on SD channels? Will this lessen the compression issues?

My money says it won't do anything for SD PQ at least in the near term. They'll still need the 8 HD channels for the national east/west coast network feeds. Even then they might use that space to add some new national HD channels until D10 and D11 go up. And since they're still adding a bunch of new customers all the time they must assume that the masses don't mind the PQ as it is now.

 

[omnibus]

Will this new bird bring some locals to Wyoming?

The biggest city in the state has just over 50K population

Our city/town has just over 20K

What are our chances?