rad,
That is true but hopefully there will be a way to get some national stuff on these new sats.
That is true but hopefully there will be a way to get some national stuff on these new sats.
Was anything 'good' said in the conference call today?
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I'll stick around... but with folks getting the "Letter" if my Distant Hd nets get cut in half I will have to think about it as my half would be the west feeds which are old news...
D* better get on the stick and get moving with what ever it has to do for HD services. Already they are behind E* by not offering the HD Voom Channels and TNT-HD. Plus they want you to pay $199.00 each, for HD receivers when E* is giving them away. With all of the HD TV sets being sold, the demand is increasing for HD channels. If I just bought a new HDTVand was looking for HD satellite service, under the current conditions, E* would get my business. Yes, the current majority of of the D* customers are not HD, but the market for them is increasing every day, as new HDTVs are sold.
I understand that things take time and problems will cause delays, but when you set up a timetable for implementation of a project and you can't meet it, an explanation goes a long way toward calming down people that are waiting for something to happen. I think if D* kept its customers up to date on the project, relations would run a little smoother. The rumor mill would be quieter also.
I understand that things take time and problems will cause delays, but when you set up a timetable for implementation of a project and you can't meet it, an explanation goes a long way toward calming down people that are waiting for something to happen. I think if D* kept its customers up to date on the project, relations would run a little smoother. The rumor mill would be quieter also.
Neutron said:That is definately backpedalling from earlier this summer. That sucks though. I thought D* wanted to be the HD leader??
This sounds just like E* a year ago.
Come on guys. It's called Spaceway 2 still on the launch pad in Russia instead of in the sky. *This* is why D* doesn't announce stuff in advance, you just never know what will happen. If Spaceway 2 can get up there in a couple months with no problems they can get pretty agressive again. Since it's not up there yet they have to back off a bit.
But if they are saying Nov for HD locals, it's pretty clear to me S2 isn't going up till October.
Personally, I find it interesting that if they are now talking about November for HD locals . . . this conveniently coincides with the date their current promotion is set to expire. Perhaps they are just clearing out inventory in advance of their next big push
With the problems they've had, can you blame them for giving "worst case senario" information? If that bird was up and everything looked good, they'd have given the "best case scenario" info...
I really believe that once they get over these initial hurdles, they'll be a lot more agressive than they're letting on. They can't afford not to be, frankly...
I really believe that once they get over these initial hurdles, they'll be a lot more agressive than they're letting on. They can't afford not to be, frankly...
rad said:
Well, I guess the CSR I spoke with didn't know what he was talking about. He just kept going on about these "150 national channels that are coming up very soon." This was what he kept telling me to get me to stick with D*. He sounded otherwise knowledgeable, but certainly didn't let on that this was only going to happen in 2007! What are we supposed to do until then? They have to know that once people get a taste for HD, that's pretty much all they want to watch.
And with inevitable delays, it is at least possible that early 2007 may get pushed, right? That's two years before D* starts competing with E* and at least my local cable outfit in HD. I'm really surprised.
rad said:
That is not what I said to start with. What I was saying is that these new satellites will be used as two big spotbeam satellites for the entire USA. Because of this both Spaceway 1 & 2 must be up to service the entire country. I also have been told that in case of a delay that Tampa was put in the list instead of Seattle and do you wonder why. Because besides the LA market which is up in MPEG2 today only Seattle is on the west coast. Does anyone wonder why all 10 markets are on the eastern half the the USA. Once Spaceway 2 is up they can offer HD LIL channels to the western half of the USA and offer national HD channels via spotbeams. Now I was saying that D* 10 & 11 work the same way in that when one goes up they can only offer half the USA with HD LIL channels until the second one goes up. So they will reserve space on Spaceway 1 & 2 for national HD channels but if that does fill up they can't offer new national HD channels until both D* 10 and 11 have gone up. Its not good business practice to offer national HD channels that only the Eastern USA can get for a good 6 months.
Sorry, misunderstood. On your comment though about offering channels only the eastern US can get, E* doesn't seem to have a problem with having V* channels on 61.5 which many in the west can't get. 
rad said:Sorry, misunderstood. On your comment though about offering channels only the eastern US can get, E* doesn't seem to have a problem with having V* channels on 61.5 which many in the west can't get.
The E* satellite at 61.5 is being used as conus for the V* channels not as a spotbeam. Again I'll explain further.
Spaceway 1 & 2, D* 10 and D* 11 are all satellites that can do both conus and spotbeams. Now the problem is that all of these satellites can handle spotbeams much better than conus. This means from what I've been told is that these satellites can offer between 5-10 spotbeamed channels "or" 1 conus channel in the same amount of bandwith. My contacts say its closer to 7 or 8 spotbeamed channels to one conus channel. Now the numbers above are based on one satellite having one big spotbeam that covers one half of the USA.
The simple answer is that D* can get more bandwidth for both HD LIL channels and national HD channels by using this system compared to using some transponders as conus xponders. The problem is that for this system to work you need two satellites to create two spotbeams because if they just used one satellite as one spotbeam that covered all the USA it would require much more power (not bandwidth) which this reduces the bandwidth of the satellite. The amount of channels you can over does depend greatly on how much power the satellite can put this stuff out. Its like putting all expensive nice computer parts into a computer with a power supply that can't handle the load. So to fix this you need todo one of three things.
1. Do something to reduce power (ie. cooler CPU, video card etc.)
2. Buy a new Power Supply to handle the load.
3. Remove some of the parts (ie can't offer as many channels)
Again this system has its drawbacks in that they can't offer national HD channels until both spaceway sats are up but the advantage of this system is that with both sats up and working you get the benefit of bandwidth for national HD channels.
Think of this system as D* sending out Starz HD via all spotbeams. In this case for D* to offer Starz HD via this system they must send out two seperate Starz HD feeds from both satellites but in this case if sending out two seperate Starz HD feeds via spotbeam would use about 1/4 of the bandwidth to send out just one conus Starz HD feed I think we all know which system is better.
What I do know is that D* 10 & 11 are even better at doing this than the first two spaceway satellites so they can offer more HD channels via spotbeams than the current spaceway satellites can.
LonghornXP said:
You may need to contact your brother again.. or use another source because that reasoning in not only flawed but wrong..
RANK Designated Market Area (DMA) TV Homes % of US
2 Los Angeles 5,431,140 4.956
6 San Francisco-Oak-San Jose 2,359,870 2.153
If you used that reasoning, then D* would have used DMA #13 Tampa AND DMA #14 Minneapolis-St. Paul since there are two markets on the WEST coast.
The REAL reason that Tampa was picked is because it has an O&O Fox station. That station, WTVT, also does a lot of work for News Corp in dealing with the FCC.
you know what.............No One (and I do mean NO ONE) Here knows anymore about what D* is doing and when than I do.
and I don't know jack!
other than we ain't getting anything any time soon
oh yeah, I forgot......They Are Taking Stations AWAY, we do know that
and I don't know jack!
other than we ain't getting anything any time soon
oh yeah, I forgot......They Are Taking Stations AWAY, we do know that
rkr0923 said:
I've been holding back from replying to this thread and others. I would have said it more eliquently, but rkr0923 is right. Here is what I see happening this year.
1. D10, H20 and R15 recievers will have ITV capabilities.
2. H20 and R15 will be out sometime in the middle/late fall. Limited quantities earlier if lucky.
3. The first 12 DMA markets will get new dishes and H20's and will be first MPEG4 guinnea pigs. Only thing different will be 4 major networks in HD. The other 12 markets, I doubt they will get changed over in 2005.
4. There will not be any major changes to new software or channels this year. Maybe a bone or 2 around a few channels (ESPN2 HD or TNT HD). That also wont happen to around Nov/Dec if lucky.
5. You will not see a Directv HD DVR this year. Buy those Tivo HD's if the price is right. MPEG 2 is not going anywhere for quite some time.
So the skinny is, there are a boat load of things happening in preparation to make 2006 in absolutely awesome year. 2005, will be pretty much as usual and all hardware/software/channels that you see right now will carry you through the end of the year. Anything else is pretty much wishful thinking.
Now if only D* can prove me wrong (folks dont bash me unless things ACTUALLY show up on my TV, then you can fire away)........
Bschneider said:
Tampa was picked ahead of Seattle for several reasons which I'll list below.
First Seattle is a west coast city. Second it does have an O&O fox station. Also the third and final most important reason is that D* has many more HD customers in the Tampa Bay Area than they do in Seattle and when you rolling out HD LIL channels you want the most HD customers to be upgraded as you can.
I took an cancelled my HD package and HD receiver , I will look back into HD through D in a year but right know they suck for HD .
LonghornXP said:
I'll give you the second and third.. however, Seattle being on the west coast has nothing to do with it.. IF Seattle had an O&O, it would have been the list also.
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