EXCLUSIVE: Big Happenings at DirecTV

[jabroni]

The local channels in HD means a lot to me as I am a sports fan. I simply cannot watch the major important sports programs anywhere else. The only possible exception to this is ESPN, which thankfully is converting to HD. So I need the majors in HD and if Direct wants to pipe em into my house, fine with me!

Also, the missus likes to watch the sitcoms and other prime time programming from the networks, and thankfully, these are now being offered in HD.

 

[Tampa8]

These replies remind of the "old days" on the forums when the big debate was should DBS carry local networks. Many were not sure Dish was doing the right thing, including Direct TV who waited and lost subscribers to Dish because of it. As has been pointed out, more people - by far - watch the networks at night than all other programming combined. When cable has them in HD and more people have HD TV's, that is what people will want, just as when cable had the locals DBS had to or they would have been just a second choice system. That some of us are not interested really does not matter at all. And from reading the posts and my experience in Florida and Connecticut, getting the digital signal is not all that easy, and many times requires a rotor and very good antenna. Even with a good signal, I will sometimes lose the signal for a second when a jet/plane goes by.

 

[Ransack]

I want locals in HD via satellite!! If D* does it first and at a reasonable price for its hardware, i will jump ship from E* in a hearbeat. Locals in HD plus NFL sunday ticket...bye bye E*...you had better get your sh*t together and fast

 

[Stargazer]

HD or at least enhanced definition will have to become the norm for channel additions and locals. We are looking at HD/enhanced definition channel additions now as taking up too much bandwidth as we did with standard definition five years ago. Satellite almost gets all the SD locals up and now its getting time to launch the HD locals. Once all the HD locals go up then it will be time for something else, something we may not even know about yet, when it comes to technology.

 

[Simrdai]

I am extremely happy that they might be adding local HD feeds. I hope they do this in the LA area soon.
I live in a city that has digital cable, cable modem, dsl etc...but I'm far south of LA and can't receive broadcasts. There's a large hill blocking my path to the north.

I had to sign up with digital cable just so I can get my locals in HD. I really enjoy watching my favorite shows like Alias, ER, Hack, football games in HD so its worth it to me, but it sucks having to spend extra money on maintaining digital cable as well as directv.
The reason I stick with directv, is the integrated Tivo with dual tuners. Noone else has such a thing. Echostar's PVR's are crap (IMO), i won't ever try them again if I can help it.

So if Directv ever offers local HD (more than just channel 2 and fox is worthless in my opinion since fox is so anti HD), I will be happy because I can dump digital cable and pick up that new HD tivo box coming out soon.

 

[hdtvtechno]

Wow

Cool

 

[bubba04]

My favorite channels to view since I got my 811 is DiscoveryHD/HDNet/HDMovies. I love these channels because they are HD ALL the time. 24 hours a day we get HD broadcasts from these channels. Now... locals in HD? Doesn't sound very thrilling to me. Not many shows are broadcast in HD. I'd have to wait until primetime every evening to tune into shows I would normally not pay attention to. And the commercials? Arrhhhh!! At the moment, locals in HD do not matter to me. I am looking forward to the Superbowl in HD, but that's about it for now from a local for awhile. If locals in HD were my top priority, then Cable would be the way to go. Right now I have an indoor antenna to receive my ABC/NBC locals in HD. If these went away, I would not be upset. At least not "upset" enough to tack an antenna to the outside of my house.
Bubba04

 

[pradike]

Too generalized promises...

While the letter is great news, after reading it carefully 3 times, I sensed this was as much hype as commitment. If D*TV thinks that adding a very limited area HD feed for CBS and maybe Cinemax & Starz HD is "doubling or more" their HD content - this will be most disappointing.

As a loyal D*TV customer since 1996, I am using 2004 as the "make it or break it" year for HDTV on D*TV. If they truly offer local HD, and also add 4-6 "new" channels in HD, I'll stick around...otherwise, they've lost a long-time client.

BravoHD and others have been in production for months, TNT HD comes live in 90 days, and no word on anything from DirecTV other than general promises...even a general commitment for x new channels in 2004 (without naming them) would at least give customers something to stay for....on the other hand, DISH does the opposite...promise alot and deliver little (can you say SuperDish).

I'll hope for the best, but actions speak louder than words.

 

[Lee L]

Unfortunately, Dish does not have much more HD than D* right now. They both need to get on it in regards to adding HD content. They always say that they will add channels when they become available yet there are several HD networks currently running or that will begin service very soon that are not carried and no announcements have been made.

 

[Chris Freeland]

D* and E* has the same problem at this time that keeps neither one from adding any additional HDTV, it is called lack of available bandwidth. Both providers seam to have some things in the works to free up some bandwidth, but until then I would not expect any new HD. I agree that most of what was said in this letter is a lot of hype and no real details, however it will be interesting how everything plays out this year, 2004 should be an interesting year for DBS in general.

 

[mike123abc]

Well if you look at it from DIRECTV's point of view:

Now: HBO-HD, SHO-HD, HDNET, HDNET Movies, ESPN-HD, DHDT -- 6 channels

Could add: CBS-E, CBS-W, Fox-E, Fox-W, MAX-HD, Starz-HD, Bravo-HD - 7 more channels

7 more channels would more than double the current availability, would take 3 more/10 total to triple...

 

[jcrash]

Doesn't DirecTV have an issue with thinking that it is OK to compress HD signals? I really would love my locals in HD via satellite, but if it means compression, well that isn't really HD now, is it? At best it means what you used to see you can now see in 16x9.

However, if they can find a way to get the major networks in Pure HD via satellite, I'll jump to DirecTV in an instant.

 

[pradike]

My point exactly..

Mike abc123 - I agree - That's the same thing I was pointing out....with these additional few channels that have already been on the market for months elsewhere, they could effectively "double" their HD.

In terms of compressed HD...guess what...cable & DISH does this too. Compressed HD is not the problem, over-compression is (squezzing too much data down the pipeline). There is a technical limit, and staying on the reasonable side of it makes compression a non-issue.

As far as the BANDWIDTH issue, after the 7S sat goes up in the next 45 days or so, they could add 4-6 channels of HD if they wanted to (after moving over some local channel capacity form one sat to another). That said, if I were program director at DirectTV, I could create some immediate bandwidth by scaping some of the useless wasted bandwidth for the TVGuide channel, redundant DirecTV info channels, way too many music channels, and many others.....

The revenue they could earn from 6 solid-content added HD channels could offset anything from these other misuses of bandwidth. As far as I'm concerned, the bandwidth excuse is just an excuse.

ON the other end of the spectrum, the Voom product is full of HD channels, with lame programming content. Hopefully, D*TV will learn from other's stupid mistakes.

 

[jcrash]

In terms of compressed HD...guess what...cable & DISH does this too. Compressed HD is not the problem, over-compression is (squezzing too much data down the pipeline). There is a technical limit, and staying on the reasonable side of it makes compression a non-issue.

Hmm, that might float the boat for Joe Blow, but I expect 1080i when I tune to 1080i, not some ba*tardized version. If I can tell the difference on a 57" TV then I don't want it. If I can't tell teh difference, then more power to them. But, I can easily tell the difference between 480,720, and 1080 OTA signals, so I'd have to guess you could tell when they started compressing it too.

I think I've read that at least come cable companies are not compressing HD - but I honestly wouldn't know.

 

[mike123abc]

ALL HD is compressed. It is just a matter of how much compression. Just look at the numbers: 1920x1080x30FPSx24bitcolor is about 1.5 gigabits/second uncompressed. Over the air HDTV runs up to 19.2 mbit/sec or so, or about 78X compression minimum. Actually a lot of 1080i averages around 11-14mbit/sec. The 19mbit on OTA gives some head room for scenes with lots of action.

DIRECTV was reportedly fitting 2 HDTV streams on one transponder, and with overhead giving each stream less than 16mbit/sec. This caused people to complain.

 

[beejaycee]

I only have a cursory understanding of how things are set up at D* but aren't a lot of their locals currently carried on CONUS beams? And if so, aren't they expecting to put up a new satellite next month with spot beams? This would seem to free up some transponders on the other satellite(s) to carry HD programming once they move locals to spots. But then again, they may just add new markets and nothing changes (but that doesn't seem likely to me when they have a chance to differentiate themselves). Like I said, I don't know all the details so feel free to correct me.

 

[Stargazer]

I would think that the local HD stations would get compressed quite a bit. Since a lot of the extra locals in the markets would not be broadcasting in HD (such as the shopping channels, etc.) then that would help by allowing more markets to go up.

 

[Ramy]

Locals in HD

I would like to see my locals in HD since where I live is too far away to pick them up by antannae and the terrain doesn't permit it either.

 

[Stargazer]

That is the same situation that I have here. I know if I dont pick up the analog stations with an antenna then I definitely will not pick up the HD signal when it is being transmitted in low power.

 

[veander]

How far are either of you from these towers? Use Antennaweb.org if you don't already know how far away you are (as the bird flies obviously). I am 22 miles from all the towers (15 miles from one) in the Minneapolis area and from what I have read of other customers in my area I should get the OTA channels easily. I haven't actually moved there yet or had anything set up (Thursday is the big move day and February 2nd is the DirecTV $200 HDTV setup day!).