Universal HD gone?

[lsh1885]

We were getting Universal HD here in Orlando on Brighthouse, but today if I turn to the channel All I get is a blank screen.

 

[korsjs]

i am in tampa and it is coming in fine as of 1000 pm. smokey and the bandit is on.

 

[lsh1885]

I'm wondering now if they just had it on here for the US open. They have now even removed the channel it was on. If you try to go channel 1000, you get the "????", as if it is a non-existant channel.

 

[korsjs]

400 pm and it is still on tampa brighthouse. did you call them and ask them what it up? maybe they changed the channel number.

 

[BFG]

I remember Longhorn XP saying something about that they only had a deal to keep Universal HD on the tampa system. He didn't have any information about the channel staying on other systems.

 

[LonghornXP]

I remember Longhorn XP saying something about that they only had a deal to keep Universal HD on the tampa system. He didn't have any information about the channel staying on other systems.

Yup and I hope my contact was right. Just to say this again I was told that the deal for BHN to get WFLA (local NBC HD station owned by Media General) also included Universal HD carriage. From what I've been told was that Media General among other NBC station owners have been offered incentives to force cable companies to carry Universal HD for a cut in price for their local HD stations.

It seems that BHN eventually was forced to cave in and accept Universal HD to get NBC HD. They had room left in their HD Pak so they just planned to throw Universal HD into the HD Pak. Also market demand and lost customers are what forced BHN to make this deal because they were losing HD customers because of not having NBC HD.

Edit...Also in case you wanted to know that as of 9-12-2005 at 7:45pm Universal HD is still running on channel 540 on BHN Tampa Bay systems.

 

[R-U-Q-R-U]

Universal Removed From BHN-Orlando

I'm wondering now if they just had it on here for the US open. They have now even removed the channel it was on. If you try to go channel 1000, you get the "????", as if it is a non-existant channel.

Customer service informed me that Universal HD was for the US OPEN and the 9/11 special only.

 

[lsh1885]

That's too bad, I wish they would add that channel. I would also like them to add ESPN2 HD and FSN Florida, maybe that will happen someday.

 

[korsjs]

i no longer have universal hd in tampa. i noticed last night. don't know how long it has been gone.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

I will tell you I checked the bitrate on this via BHN and it was really horrible.

Consider this. Directv only uses 1280x1080i for Universal HD. It is "Universally" considered to be their WORST (softest) HD channel. Yet Directv is giving the video about 11.0Mbps to 12.5Mbps depending on the source bitrate.

Brighthouse put this in 1920x1080i and was giving it around 9.0Mbps.

Much more macroblocking than on Directv with higher resolution and substantially less bandwidth (duh) - and this is Directv's worst looking HD channel.