Thread: NASA TV Public/Media Channels Transitioning to HD

Just received this from NASA today: Jan. 13, 2012 Fred Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0713 MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-007 NASA TV'S PUBLIC, MEDIA CHANNELS TRANSITIONING TO HD WASHINGTON -- Beginning Feb. 17, 2012, NASA Television's Public and Media channels will transmit their respective content in high definition. NASA Television's Public Channel (101), the channel most often carried by cable and satellite service providers, provides digital coverage of NASA missions and events, as well as documentaries, archival and other special programming. NASA TV's Media Channel (103) provides mission coverage, news conferences and relevant video and audio materials to local, national and international news-gathering organizations. NASA TV's Education Channel (102) will continue in standard definition. The current NASA TV HD Channel (105) will cease service. For complete NASA TV downlink information, visit:
NASA - NASATV

-end- Big picture - appears channels 101 and 103 will be changing to HD streams, channel 105 (which typically is channel 101 in HD format except for a few special feeds) will be going away. Those who still have SD-only receivers should be able to use channel 102.

They're the reason I finally gave in and bought a digital receiver, lol. A die-hard c-bander from the late 80's, I wonder how much longer I would've waited to buy an fta receiver if they hadn't dropped the analog.

Cool, now we will have two channels playing the same content, in HD.

Originally Posted by TRG

Cool, now we will have two channels playing the same content, in HD.

Two channels playing different content in HD. It's not very often the public and media channels have the same content in HD simultaneously unless it was like the shuttle missions or currently live events like ISS crew/supply launches or planetary mission launches/major events. The media file going HD is good for me who likes to snag video file items in HD as I get a choice of more airings to record from the media channel instead of the occasional airing on the public channel.

Good news, actually. I just wish the shuttle program was still ongoing, I'd be watching NASA-TV far more than I am now...

Originally Posted by Tron

... I just wish the shuttle program was still ongoing, I'd be watching NASA-TV far more than I am now...

Or Apollo. How many must have become engineers or scientists spurred by the excitement of these space programs. This is symbolic of the lack of vision in general in government now.

sweet. This saves bandwidth (well allows them to utilize it better) by dropping the SD simulcast of the main channel and added a 2nd HD feed

Good that there will now be two options for catching HD programming replays.