DISH Network Charges Forward With Another Round of National HD Channel Launches

**TalonDancer** · 05-12-2008 08:54 AM

Amazingly enough Dish was able to ....
* find enough space at 129 and 61.5
* resolve all the legal/licensing issues
* hold down prices by hard ball price negotiations
* solve all the uplink feed issues
* solve the other "technical issues"
....for 19 new HD Channels just in time to announce them as a group on a Sunday evening before the week containing Tech Chat, and Team Summit. Obviously the reason we have had to wait for new National HD this long was not so that Dish could have a Big Bang announcement.

Talon Dancer

**tigerfan33** · 05-12-2008 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by elwaylite

******* awesome!

And Scott's right, the HD only pack is one helluva value now.

I wonder how much longer it will last.

You would think it will still be offered next year, however at a slightly higher price.

**nlk10010** · 05-12-2008 08:55 AM

Originally Posted by sampatterson

Yahoooo - the World Fishing Network in HD!!!!

Thanks Dish for all the additions! Very nice!

I agree, nice set of channels.

As an aside, I keep hoping they REALLY mean RFD-HD rather than WFN-HD.

I can't imagine why this hasn't launched on D* OR E* yet. I mean, can they really be asking for so much money? They also, apparently, DO have HD content with their concerts and some other shows.

Not complaining, of course, I just think that RFD-HD would be a cheap channel that would be preferable to (though in the same vein as) WFN-HD.

**tigerfan33** · 05-12-2008 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by TalonDancer

Amazingly enough Dish was able to ....
* find enough space at 129 and 61.5
* resolve all the legal/licensing issues
* hold down prices by hard ball price negotiations
* solve all the uplink feed issues
* solve the other "technical issues"
....for 19 new HD Channels just in time to announce them as a group on a Sunday evening before the week containing Tech Chat, and Team Summit. Obviously the reason we have had to wait for new National HD this long was not so that Dish could have a Big Bang announcement.

Talon Dancer

Thank goodness for quarterly reports too.

**Jason Whiddon** · 05-12-2008 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by tigerfan33

I wonder how much longer it will last.

You would think it will still be offered next year, however at a slightly higher price.

Im sure itll go up and I wouldnt blame them. Im paying $30+ less per month than I was with D* and not missing the SD channels. I now have every channel I want except for FXHD, but itll come.

An increase of $5-10 would not make me mad at all.

**toadfannc** · 05-12-2008 09:06 AM

Should be an exciting couple of days.

Anyone hear anything about AMC-HD? They have a couple of decent new shows ("Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad") that would be much better in HD.

**Scott Greczkowski** · 05-12-2008 09:07 AM

Originally Posted by uncrules

As a D* sub I hope this will spur D* to light up D11 sooner then they planned to. The satellite should be parked in about two weeks. Hopefully they will light it up in June instead of September so that D* will add the other HD channels that are out that they don't have yet.

They are scheduled to do a lot of things to DirecTV 11 before they turn it on for consumers. This testing and beam setup is scheduled to go through September.

Now unlike DirecTV 10, DirecTV's main purpose is not for national HD, instead the majority of the bird will be for LIL HD (HD locals) while there is some room on it for national HD channels I don't expect to see them turn on loads of HD like they did when DirecTV 10 went up.

**bmuthagoose** · 05-12-2008 09:09 AM

Woo Hoo!

**DodgerKing** · 05-12-2008 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by Scott Greczkowski

They are scheduled to do a lot of things to DirecTV 11 before they turn it on for consumers. This testing and beam setup is scheduled to go through September.

Now unlike DirecTV 10, DirecTV's main purpose is not for national HD, instead the majority of the bird will be for LIL HD (HD locals) while there is some room on it for national HD channels I don't expect to see them turn on loads of HD like they did when DirecTV 10 went up.

September deadline is to cover their own butts in case something goes wrong, like it did with 10. If no issue occur it will be lit up in June or July.

**Scott Greczkowski** · 05-12-2008 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by TalonDancer

Amazingly enough Dish was able to ....
* find enough space at 129 and 61.5
* resolve all the legal/licensing issues
* hold down prices by hard ball price negotiations
* solve all the uplink feed issues
* solve the other "technical issues"
....for 19 new HD Channels just in time to announce them as a group on a Sunday evening before the week containing Tech Chat, and Team Summit. Obviously the reason we have had to wait for new National HD this long was not so that Dish could have a Big Bang announcement.

Talon Dancer

They have only had the space at 61.5 for a few weeks now, this is why they were doing all the shuffling of channels around.

I think it was smart of them to wait a few more days as now they got a bigger bang for their buck instead of having 2 HD channels launching here and there.