All HD by 2012?

[Roxor]

Was doing some searches and came upon one that said Dish would probably be all HD by 2012? Is that realistic, or just wishful thinking?

 

[JTBenson]

What is the source? Do you have a link?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just wishfull thinking. They dont have enough bandwith.

Many channels have no plans at this time for going HD, and really have no reason for making such an expensive move.

 

[jdmacor]

Somehow they would still charge me more for being some kind of legacy Turbo customer...

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Who knows, maybe the digital switchover won't happen until then...

 

[Pepper]

It depends on market forces (assuming we still have a free market by then, at least something resembling the thing we have now which is sort of reminiscent of a free market).

If the public decide they want everything in HD, the ratings of SD channels will drop so they go out of business, or upgrade and get their viewers back.

As long as the public doesn't care, mediocre SD will remain.

 

[Poke]

I think there a good chance by then that most networks if not all will have a HD version of their channel by then. I think if the FCC makes a move to have all Networks have a HD version up by then it could happen. Bandwidth would not be a issue as much due to you dont have as much overhead. Due to your not supporting two formats anymore with SD and HD you will be back just to one. Which should lower cost and hardware pricing should go down for networks to make the switch. So overall as long as we dont have any hold outs or networks that dont drag their feet we could easily get back to one format. So 2012 not for but I would think by then most of your Networks should have a HD Channel by then. After that there really will come a point that we can do away with SD.

 

[Dish VIP]

Just wishfull thinking. They dont have enough bandwith.

Many channels have no plans at this time for going HD, and really have no reason for making such an expensive move.

What about Dish going all MPEG4 by 2012. Is that more realistic?

 

[Paradox-SJ]

What about Dish going all MPEG4 by 2012. Is that more realistic?

They have a lot of STB's to replace and write down as well as get both arc's up and running in MPEG4...if they were really aggressive it could get done by 2012...IMO...

 

[mike123abc]

Perhaps the article was referring to the mandate to have all the locals in HD if they carry a market by 2012.

 

[nelson61]

What about Dish going all MPEG4 by 2012. Is that more realistic?

In Charlies financial conference last fall ( Nov?), he said that they expected a migration to MPEG4 to be done in 3-4 years.

 

[denisincalif]

Perhaps the article was referring to the mandate to have all the locals in HD if they carry a market by 2012.

:upI was thinking the same thing. And I have a vague memory that the mandate included all the subchannels. That is, satellite services (and cable?) needed to carry all local channels including all their subchannels by 2012, and any which had HD available had to be carried in HD. All of this is probably not feasible. And probably very few people care about most subchannels. But I am pretty sure there was talk of this in Congress a year or two ago.

 

[M Sparks]

Many channels will likely never go HD. TV Land is a good example.

However, I can see a situation where EVERYONE has MPEG-4/HD capable receivers. At that time, there would be no need to simulcast SD/HD channels. Removing 200 or so SD channels and moving the remainder to MPEG-4 would solve the bandwidth problems.

The channels themselves aren't going to want to support HD/SD simulcasts forever, either. I also imagine there will be some contraction of less popular SD channels as well over time. For example, Viacom might be more interested in getting all providers to switch to 100% HD feeds of, say, MTV and MTV2, rather than trying to get them to take MTV Hits or whatever. I think we hit the SD saturation point a couple of years back- there's no longer the explosion of new channels we used to see constantly.

Anyway, Eastern Arc is a step in this direction, but I don't know if 2012 is a realistic time frame, as far as replacing every receiver.

 

[Hemi 6.1]

Was doing some searches and came upon one that said Dish would probably be all HD by 2012? Is that realistic, or just wishful thinking?

Sure if Dish launches more satellites. But the real question is will all the Networks be ready. Very Doubtful, They can't even get the Digital switch done and they 've had a year to prepare .

 

[tigerfan33]

MPEG4 will probably be a thing of the past in three years.

 

[MikeD-C05]

MPEG4 will probably be a thing of the past in three years.

Are you saying that there will be something to take its place like mpeg 6 or are you saying they will go backwards to mpeg 2?

 

[Hemi 6.1]

I want the one with Less compression and NO HD LITE.

 

[aperry]

Many channels have no plans at this time for going HD, and really have no reason for making such an expensive move.

Several that have no reason are going HD, like Nickelodeon (at least the Nick at Nite stuff). And I fear that many of them will fall into the same stretch-crap-o-vision that TBS and Lifetime have done.

 

[tigerfan33]

Are you saying that there will be something to take its place like mpeg 6 or are you saying they will go backwards to mpeg 2?

Going forward. As good as Dish is with it's hardware, I see new receivers along with new encoders.
As long as I can see in the future, I might as well see better.

 

[Stargazer]

Higher resolutions will lead to higher compression requirements and a replacement of MPEG-4. I believe when this happens and piracy is still an issue, a changeover of encryption systems will also be done with the change to MPEG-6+