Speculation on 2011 HD

[Mojo Jojo]

FIOS does not compress the broadcast/cable channel at all. It comes just as it is sent to them. Cable in a lot of areas does not compress either, but tend to have limited HD. Note, this is not the same as bluray, but it is a big step up from what DBS/Uverse and some cable does where they take the signal and compress it even more. Dish is taking a 19.2 mbit MPEG2 stream and compressing it to a 5-6mbit MPEG4 stream. Yes MPEG4 does better than the MPEG2, but not 3-4x better, things look a lot better on the original feeds.

Thank you for the information; I appreciate it. I do not think Fios is available in my area. The local cable does have limited HD and does not offer all the channels on Dish and DirecTV. Maybe that is why cable is more....I am not sure about the pricing of Fios.

 

[mike123abc]

Another factor is that Dish is capacity constrained right now on the Wester Arc. The TPs running HD have 7-8 HD channels on them already. Yes they could bump the remaining 7s up to 8 for a few more channels. What Dish really needs to do is what they were rumored to do in 2010 which was start a conversion of the WA to 8PSK (not MPEG4) for SD. This would of course mean replacing all the old non 8PSK SD receivers.

Perhaps that is something they will do this year and then they will be able to free up some TPs. The conversion gives them about 30% more capacity on an SD TP. They would probably free up about 8TPs on WA with a converison. They might use some of them for spot beams on 119, but they should have a lot of capacity left for HD after the conversion.

 

[tom231]

Disney would be great.

In 2011, I'd like to see the 922 interface put onto the 722.

I too would love to see a new interface. About 5 years ago I had Charter with the their MOXI DVR. Say what you will about Moxi, but the interface was far superior to my current Dish interface. HD DVR Interface, Emmy Award Winning HD User Interface, Moxi High-Def Interface, Moxi It's almost as if the Dish interface is generic!

 

[tempVAdish]

What would be great, but expensive, is to convert all existing SD subscribers to the entry level HD receivers. This would allow the removal of SD versions of channels available in HD, as well as let them go all MPEG4 on the WA like the EA. The receivers will still output an SD signal to the old TVs, but free up a lot of bandwidth in the long run....

 

[navychop]

Yep. As we've discussed so many times before, the millions of non-MPEG-4 units out there will likely delay this for many more years. I was surprised when they did it for EA. But frankly, if they planned on doing it anytime soon, they would no longer be sending out 625s, would they?

 

[rocatman]

Yep. As we've discussed so many times before, the millions of non-MPEG-4 units out there will likely delay this for many more years. I was surprised when they did it for EA. But frankly, if they planned on doing it anytime soon, they would no longer be sending out 625s, would they?

That is why the conversion of the Western Arc only to 8PSK/MPEG-2 instead of to 8PSK/MPEG-4 is probably more likely. This would allow the continual use of the models 111, 311, 522/625 receivers since these can receive 8PSK/MPEG-2. Dish uses 30 TPs on 110W/119W at QPSK/MPEG-2 so a 30% increase in bandwidth frees up 9 TPs. As Mike123abc pointed out above, Dish could use as many as 5 of these TPs for spotbeams on E-14 at 119 W. Dish also uses QPSK for a large number of Western Arc spotbeams including some at 129 W.

 

[megamike]

Still LOTS of repeated SD (of HD channels) on EA, they are mpeg4 but still SD. Hopefully they can finish the EA WA split for everyone so that we can get rid of those SD channels that have HD channels on EA.

 

[Jim5506]

I have not watched much of anything on SyFy since they renamed it - nothing worth watching.

History and Science Channel are much better.

 

[toddhawk]

Excellent points on capacity Mike123abc. I guess to ADD HD (that is what this thread is about I thought) you need to have bandwidth to add and an agreement in place. It's interesting that there is such a battle now over channels. Quite a "sparring match" going on right now. For the last 2-3 years we've heard (from Dish & so many others) an emphasis on expanding HD. This year (if what we see them discussing at the CES is reality) I see the Dish / DirecTV etc. group not talking HD at all, likely because the networks now are trying to get "premium fees for HD". If there's no capacity, and the fees are too high, we won't see any new "prominent HD" (such as ESPNU etc) and will likely lose some programming. But eventually I think a middle ground will be found. With SO MANY networks out there in a limited revenue market, something HAS to give. My guess is that Dish will likely wait this out and we subscribers may "suffer" (suffer?? probably a bad word) in the short term. But I still want more HD