Why does dish have shared channel numbers?

[voyagerbob]

Why can't dish give say ESPN2HD (9425) one channel number for the 61.5 location and a DIFFERENT one for 129?

It isn't like they would run out of channel numbers anyitme soon. This would give those with both 61.5 & 129 the chance to select which signal they would like for each channel.

Just my 2 cents. It's frustrating

Voyagerbob

 

[Hall]

98% of Dish's customers neither know nor care what satellite they receive their TV from.... What would they print in their literature ? I suspect Dish (or more likely, ESPN) wants channels grouped together and they might not be able to do this (in all cases). I realize that those who only "see" one or the other satellite would only have the one they have access to show up in the guide.

 

[mike123abc]

It used to be that you saw both entries in the guide and could pick which one you wanted to watch. But a couple years ago they "fixed" the duplicate entries in the guide problem.

 

[Cyclone]

I don't think that its in their system design to have a customer receive both satellites that contain duplicate channel numbers. So folks that get both 129 and 61.5 are the exception.

Plus I'm sure they like to be able to call ESPN-HD by a single channel number instead of referring to it with two channel numbers just to accommodate those few who have put up two dishes to receive the exact same programming.

 

[Van]

I was thinking about this post over night and honestly it makes absolutely no sense as to why it would matter at all what so ever and why it would be frustrating to the poster. Its the same programming wich means that wether it comes off one sat or all 10 birds that dish beams Kirk off of its not going to matter in the least bit if its channel 9425, if Voyager can explain what makes it so frustrating that might help.

cyclone it is in dishnetworks system to do just that, see post number three. As to why some people have 4 feeds its because dish had at one time and probably still does specific programming that cant be found on either bird that both has ( say for instance sky angel on 61.5 while 129 has an hd channel thats not on 61.5 such as voyagers locals in hd ).

 

[voyagerbob]

if Voyager can explain what makes it so frustrating that might help.
QUOTE]

Thats easy. I get a signal of around 100 for 61.5 and about 60 for 129. So I have rain and even wind fade because the 129 signal is the one selected for me instead of me getting to pick the one from 61.5 with the stronger signal. When it storms I lose the channel and the 61.5 signal doesn't come in to compensate, it just sticks with the lost signal from 129.

Voyagerbob

 

[Van]

Have you tried to retune your 129 dish?

 

[Smith P.]

Or install separate one 24" or 30" for 129W?

 

[Pepper]

that's not the point, there should be a way for the user to decide which sat is preferred in those cases where the same channel exists at two locations.

 

[JohnH]

Well, just pull the plug on the sat you don't want.

 

[JohnH]

It used to be that you saw both entries in the guide and could pick which one you wanted to watch. But a couple years ago they "fixed" the duplicate entries in the guide problem.

It always chose the same one, no matter which you selected.

 

[JohnH]

Why can't dish give say ESPN2HD (9425) one channel number for the 61.5 location and a DIFFERENT one for 129?

It isn't like they would run out of channel numbers anyitme soon. This would give those with both 61.5 & 129 the chance to select which signal they would like for each channel.

Just my 2 cents. It's frustrating

Voyagerbob

Reason they caused the duplicates to not show up was to reduce EPG population. Duplicates caused EPG to overflow sometimes. Now you want them to, in effect, put the duplicates back.

 

[SKrueger]

Jumping in. I do have duplicates.

I get Showtime HD on both 9430 and 9460 and HBO HD on 9440 and 9456. And they are both the same East coast feed. Are these the same channels mapped to two different numbers? Or are there actually two HD feeds of the same channel? If two feeds, why waste the bandwidth? Why not make one a West coast feed.

 

[Pakbackr]

I don't understand it either. I keep my guide on HD only and hate having to page through screens of redundant channels. Someone told me there was a "mapping" setting I could change to eliminate this, but I cannot find it.

 

[JohnH]

Jumping in. I do have duplicates.

I get Showtime HD on both 9430 and 9460 and HBO HD on 9440 and 9456. And they are both the same East coast feed. Are these the same channels mapped to two different numbers? Or are there actually two HD feeds of the same channel? If two feeds, why waste the bandwidth? Why not make one a West coast feed.

Yeah, there was a report that the picture resolution was different on the ones from 148w.

 

[Pepper]

Well, just pull the plug on the sat you don't want.

kinda hard to do when the HDRSN is on 129, skyangel is on 61.5, and the receiver insists that all channels that exist on both should come from the weaker satellite.

 

[rdinkel]

I added 61.5 back when it was needed to get CBS-HD feed. Now that it is gone, but I keep the 61.5 as added security for when/if 129 signal gets too low. Will probably swing the 61.5 dish to new MPEG4 sats once they are launched/operational.

 

[dishcomm]

Why can't dish give say ESPN2HD (9425) one channel number for the 61.5 location and a DIFFERENT one for 129?

It isn't like they would run out of channel numbers anyitme soon. This would give those with both 61.5 & 129 the chance to select which signal they would like for each channel.

Just my 2 cents. It's frustrating

Voyagerbob

I don't quite understand where the problem is...It doesn't matter. The services are mirrored off both sats...They are not seperate channels.

 

[Pepper]

This is getting frustrating because y'all just aren't understanding the issue.

- ESPN2HD (for example) exists on 61.5 and 129 on the same channel number, 9425.
- When you choose 9425 the receiver will AUTOMATICALLY choose which satellite to get it from. If your system has BOTH 61.5 and 129, it will likely choose the one from 129.
- If it's raining, you WILL LOSE SIGNAL because of the weak signal from 129, but the receiver will NOT switch to the higher power 61.5 signal unless you go outside in the rain, unplug the 129 feed, and run check switch. Oh, and remember to run out there and plug 129 in and run check switch again, when you want to watch that channel that isn't mirrored somewhere else.

If the mirrored channels had different numbers from each satellite then the user has more power to decide what happens. The way they did it with the premium HD channels on 61.5 and 148 (same channel, different channel numbers) is an example of this (SKrueger apparently has both 61.5 and 148, that's why HBOHD and SHOHD are on two different channel numbers each).

 

[n0qcu]

The way they did it with the premium HD channels on 61.5 and 148 (same channel, different channel numbers)QUOTE]

Actually all the channels that are/were duplicated between 61.5 & 148 (including HBOHD & SHOHD) had the SAME channel numbers.