Dish Network® Outlines Upcoming Hd Launch Schedule

[tigerfan33]

Then why has Memphis been taken off the list. I have spoken with all 4 station engineers. There is no tech issues. Dish hasn't even spoken with them.

When Birmingham hd locals were announced last Summer and then upliked, I called all stations there and talked to all engineers to see if there were any glitches with contracts.. They didn't even have ANY info on the situation and didn't even know they had been uplinked. Management or owner is the one you will have to talk to to get info.

BTW. A week later they fired up the hd in Birmingham.

[tomyo10]

well, I guess it isn't a big deal to those who already have their locals in HD, or can get them OTA. But to those who can't, yes, it is a big deal.

[kennya]

It never ceases to make me wonder, what is the big deal about receiving locals in HD? Except for the occasional sporting event, the major networks prime time line up leaves much to be desired. I'm sure that viewing the typical sit-com in HD improves the story line??? As far as VOOM goes, at least you aren't bombarded with up-converted commercials. But, each to their own.

I guess all of us do have opinions, but I am going to have to dis-agree with this one....

[wayne231]

Yeah well in most cases its not up to the engineers it's going to be someone who deals with the contracts with each station. I would speak to my local station engineers as well and they usually have no clue on the negotiations end of things. It all starts there with each station negotiating with the provider. So for Memphis area or any other local station market if you can its best to find out who does the negotiations for that station and see if they have been in talks with Dish or whatever provider it is.

Well, I gues station managers are just clueless too. Just make you wonder who really runs anything.

[Poke]

Well, I gues station managers are just clueless too. Just make you wonder who really runs anything.

Well I dont know what their title would be I'm sure it differs from market to market. But the ones for sure are going to know something are the one's in-voled in the Negations process. If the station manager are in-voled then yes they should know something. I know back when I was dealing with my local stations I usually had to speak with someone presidents office. Most time dealing with anyone else they would tell me they had no clue due to they were not in-voled in that part of the process. But like I have said it will differ from place to place.

[dishjim]

Tomyo,

Any channel that was listed and that is not listed currently is due to a technical issue. (A technical issue that has NOTHING to do with the new satellite)

For example here in Connecticut we were listed, but were not on yesterdays list. From what I am hearing is because of last weeks LIN Broadcasting announcement Dish wants to launch the Connecticut HD locals with the LIN stations included. This means they need fiber from the channels going to the various uplink centers. In addition the uplink centers need to be wired and equipment put in place to rebroadcast those channels.

From what i am hearing that they hope to launch the missing markets ON TIME however some the factors of getting those channels on line are out of their hands, so they pulled them off the list incase there is a delay.

All areas announced on the Charlie Chat are on the Radar and WILL be on Dish Network this year.

With all due respect I find it hard to believe that E* would announce Cleveland for the 2nd time in 2 years if everything wasn't in place.

[mike123abc]

Many stations are owned by companies that have a bunch of stations. The deal could be made with Dish and the local station office has no idea.

The biggest hold up on this is usually the fiber. Dish is at the mercy of the local providers to get a fiber line from the reception point to an uplink center.

[flyingsquirrel]

From a technical standpoint, why would you need a Fiber link with HDTV? I understand how the quality of the connection is important with an analog signal but with a digital signal you should be able to use almost anything that allows for a "Lock". That could be UTP or even microwave OTA or ATSC OTA.

What am I missing here?

Also, I am assuming that most of these locals already have Analog SD links to Dish, don't they? Why couldn't Dish switch run the digital signal over the existing link and then have dish "downres" the HD signal for SD?

I don't doubt that there could be other technical issues, like encoding and compression issues and such. But I don't think there should be connection issues. If anything, connection issues should be much less critical with anything digital. That's why IP-phones require have better quality with less resources.

[8bitbytes]

It never ceases to make me wonder, what is the big deal about receiving locals in HD? Except for the occasional sporting event, the major networks prime time line up leaves much to be desired. I'm sure that viewing the typical sit-com in HD improves the story line??? As far as VOOM goes, at least you aren't bombarded with up-converted commercials. But, each to their own.

If you have never watched Numb3rs in HD with 5.1 surround sound and a good sub, you have no idea what you are missing. In fact, if you watched a few things in HD on a 92" screen, you would see a lot of things you have been missing!

[digiblur]

It's not cheap to backhaul 4 HD locals at 15(give or take) megabits a piece and usually takes a while to get the line installed from point A to point B.