SD Dupes and wasted space, blocking more or other HD!?!?!?

[rec9140]

I am going to ask...

Why is Dish wasting space on the SD dupes where other channels that should be in HD are not? Which I am sure the excuse is no space.

Seriously you need space, let me find space, real quick... lets see basically every thing the 14x range, the 200-220 range, all the religion, all the selling/shopping, all the PPV, all the sports packages, all the muslim, all the spanish.. .OK... tons of space now... No I don't watch news, sports, shopping, or religion or PPV !

Well duh! Pull the plug on the SD dupes! Really why are they needed?

[rant]
The excuse answers are as follows:

1) Older receivers... well if I had to upgrade my 5K for newer encryption and formats, then those using non HD to SD converting receiver should upgrade too.

2) Cost of #1 as an upgrade... Well if the sub has to do the upgrade at THEIR EXPENSE? Next!

3) Loss of subs due to #2.... well luddites we don't need!

Some of these SD's look horrid, compared to what they once were. So Dish is obvisouly squishing some of these more than others, like Fox Moive channel... gawd trying to watch The Sentiel was horrid.. I finally just reached over and put the DVD in!

At this point in time, there really is no reason for them to continue.. pull the plug, and only add new stuff in HD, once all the current stuff is added in HD. And if they aren't uplinking an HD to start, DON'T OFFER IT!
[/rant]

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

1) The majority of customers televisions that have DISH Network are still mostly SD TV's. While there may be one or two HD TV's in most houses, TV's 3, 4 5 and 6 are SD.

2) DISH is required under contract the SD versions of channels they have HD versions of. They can not just shut the SD off then they would be in violation of contracts.

 

[Tampa8]

Always suspicious when we are getting rid of all the "Muslim" and "Spanish" even with a hundred emoticons. And great idea to get rid of all the shopping channels that pay dish to be carried.......

 

[Dishman1978]

Always suspicious when we are getting rid of all the "Muslim" and "Spanish" even with a hundred emoticons. And great idea to get rid of all the shopping channels that pay dish to be carried.......

Ha ha. My thoughts exactly.

 

[TheKrell]

I'm curious if Scott has a reading on the SD dupes on Eastern Arc. Why do they need to be there at all? Does anybody actually watch them?

 

[MikeD-C05]

I'm on eastern arc and the only channel I watch in SD is Tv Land, and I wish it was in HD too. The rest of the sd channels I do not tune to, because they are awful in picture quality.

 

[Mr Tony]

but the reason they have to to keep the SD versions up on EA is there are folks who are on EA who dont have HD (other than their locals)

There are folks out there who dont want HD at all (I havent met one recently) and their locals are on EA so they get MPEG4 equipment and its locked to 480i

 

[Blackloz]

I'm sure once more contracts come up for Renewal they will only negotiate for the HD versions and down convert if they have to.

 

[dangue]

I'm sure once more contracts come up for Renewal they will only negotiate for the HD versions and down convert if they have to.

Given that WA still permits SD mpeg2 equipment, they'll need SD versions of the channels for quite a while longer.

 

[TheKrell]

but the reason they have to to keep the SD versions up on EA is there are folks who are on EA who dont have HD (other than their locals)

Well nuts! IMHO it wouldn't be much bother to force the receiver to output SD only, and then all those SD dupes could be eliminated.

 

[DishSubLA]

Well nuts! IMHO it wouldn't be much bother to force the receiver to output SD only, and then all those SD dupes could be eliminated.

All Dish HD boxes and Hoppers and Joeys all have analog SD outputs functioning at all times; that is NOT the problem. The problem is the content providers won't let Dish stop providing the SD feeds to subscribers.

 

[TheKrell]

All Dish HD boxes and Hoppers and Joeys all have analog SD outputs functioning at all times; that is NOT the problem.

True enough, but that's not what I'm talking about. According to Iceberg, there are many Dish subs on Eastern Arc who do not currently subscribe to HD. So, I am guessing, their receivers are only authorized to receive the SD channels, and not the HD channels, to prevent them from seeing the HD they never paid for. My counter proposal was to force the HD receiver to output only SD, even on the HD outputs. Then the SD channels could be eliminated from EA, the SD customers would still see their channels in SD, and spectrum would be freed.

The problem is the content providers won't let Dish stop providing the SD feeds to subscribers.

One wonders why they care, unless they're charging double for SD and HD feeds.

 

[HanoverPretzel]

As of about a year and a half ago when I signed up Dish, they were not only still doing SD equipment installs, but forcing people with credit they didn't like to accept SD installs for $99 (Versus free install, free HD equipment, and free HD for free) or pay big bucks for HD equipment on top of that $99. I have an HD television, but only SD input from Dish. That may still be going on when people call today to switch to Dish, and that's newer subscribers, not counting all the legacy SD installs from years past where people haven't wanted to pay the upgrade fees and/or agree to the upgrade commitments when HD equipment and service first started being offered.

Would I mind if they eliminated the SD feeds? Not if they hooked me up with the HD equipment, free HD for Life, and no addition commitment term. If they eliminate SD and then tell me I need to pay a couple hundred bucks and make another two year commitment to continue with my service, though, I'd switch to cable. Cable would set me up for free with HD- or SD, if I wanted to save money (Cable charges a little more for HD typically) and continue with that.

I think Dish knows that basically if they eliminate SD feeds at this point, they'll either have to make a big cost outlay to upgrade a bunch of people at the company's expense, or expect huge subscriber losses from people who would basically be happy to keep paying Dish for what they're getting, but if told "$200 and a new two year contract or leave", would do the latter.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I'm curious if Scott has a reading on the SD dupes on Eastern Arc. Why do they need to be there at all? Does anybody actually watch them?

They are required to be there under the contract with the Networks.

 

[TheKrell]

They are required to be there under the contract with the Networks.

At what quality? I'll bet they could (1) enhance firmware so that SD EA customers only see SD, and (2) compress all SD dupes onto one transponder on 77, e.g. at 1Hz frame rate or something ghastly like that. My point is that, if nobody is actually watching the SD dupes, then they could really compress the hell out of them. That might satisfy the contractual obligations while still reclaiming bandwidth for channels people actually watch.

 

[SlyFerret]

Just because people have SD TV's or don't want to subscribe to HD feeds doesn't mean that DISH couldn't consolidate all of the channels to HD only. As they get boxes upgraded to support the broadcasts, the boxes can handle outputting the content as an SD signal when necessary.

The HD boxes should already support HDCP anyway, so that would enable DISH to enforce resolution limits for people who don't subscribe to HD service.

I think the comment about the networks/content providers is spot on. The way I understand it, this is mostly a contract issue, with a secondary problem being the time that it will take to get all of the boxes upgraded to support receiving the HD broadcasts.

-SF

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

At what quality? I'll bet they could (1) enhance firmware so that SD EA customers only see SD, and (2) compress all SD dupes onto one transponder on 77, e.g. at 1Hz frame rate or something ghastly like that. My point is that, if nobody is actually watching the SD dupes, then they could really compress the hell out of them. That might satisfy the contractual obligations while still reclaiming bandwidth for channels people actually watch.

There are minimum signal quality clauses as well.

 

[mike123abc]

It is like Disney withholding the HD versions of Disney channel and such because they claim it is 2 different feeds and they want to be paid for the HD feed like the SD feed.

Viacom claims DIRECTV dropped 26 channels, when it was really only 17 because they count the HD versions as different channels.

The programmers have a racket where they view HD as a separate channel and want additional compensation.

 

[R0ss]

I'm curious if Scott has a reading on the SD dupes on Eastern Arc. Why do they need to be there at all? Does anybody actually watch them?

My parents...no HD TV's in the house...as Scott said a lot of folks still have SD TV's and if they work there is no reason to add them to the land fill...we still have one in my wife's office that works just fine..

Ross

 

[Mojo Jojo]

My parents...no HD TV's in the house...as Scott said a lot of folks still have SD TV's and if they work there is no reason to add them to the land fill...we still have one in my wife's office that works just fine..

Ross

Some people even throw out SD TVs to upgrade to HD TVs. However, they keep the SD equipment and do not upgrade to HD equipment. XD

We actually have 2 HD TVs and 2 SD TVs. So, our 2 HD Duos work just fine for now.