Breaking: DirecTV to Launch 2 HD Satellites

[TheForce]

This is great but let me be just a tiny bit negative for a moment-
But before I do that, let me just brag a bit that I said this would be happening 3and4 years ago when everyone told me DBS would NEVER solve the bandwidth problem by launching more satellites. Their reasoning... Outer space is already filled up!

OK back to forward thinking negativity-

I believe that marketing and technology are closely intertwined with sophistication of the viewer. Here's what I mean by all this: Today's Broadcaster is still running on 1950's business model and DBS is reacting to this business model with 21st century space age technology. The 1950's business model for broadcast TV is simply Programming paid for by sponsorships divided up by programs with the ubiquitous 30 second spot. Nearly all TV is done with this business model, even most "cable channel networks" And this is the sole basis for DirecTV spending billions to perpetuate the unnecessary redundancy of network locals into each market. The programming is basically the same but the 30 second spot breaks are what varies from market to market. Now we have D* retransmitting hundreds of channels, soon to be HDTV channels that have identical programming but different spot breaks for the majority of the broadcast day. Also would be some minimal local produced programming as well such as NEWS. BUT, even News is mostly national redundant subject matter done with a local face, only local news is really unique to local TV. That represents an extremely small portion of the broadcast day that requires the local TV station.
With me so far? OK, now consider the sophisticated TV viewer who is rapidly becoming a 21st century TV viewer, not tied to the 1950's Broadcast TV business model. This viewer, today has broken from a habit and restriction to watching live TV of just a few channels to hundreds of cable networks, DVD's and Computer Internet news sources. Plus, a growing portion of the viewing public has discovered the TIVO mindset of 30 second commercial skipping and time shifting viewing. This completely eradicates the 1950's Broadcast TV business model. Soon a totally new addition to viewer options will be added to compete even with our present evolving DVRs. This is VOD. VOD, we are discovering, is THE most exciting new evolution to the 1950's style TV broadcast business model. Unfortunately, it leaves 1950's vintage broadcast TV station in the dust. They have no way to accommodate this technology and will become a relic of the industry unless they find a new purpose and a new revenue stream to pay for it. First blow is being done with the TIVO mindset viewing and the second blow will be with the advertiser base moving to VOD.

OK let me define this further for anyone who is getting lost here. Why, you might be asking, or how, would VOD work for advertising? Why would I want to watch TV commercials on VOD? In order to keep up you have to broaden your scope of all this technology and try to think like a businessman who's former advertising market strategy has been the 30 second spot on local or even network TV. These businessmen are well aware that their ad cost per impression is growing due to the information explosion and their increasing cost per Impression on local broadcast TV due to a lower viewership. These businessmen are in search of ways to get their message out to the viewer in a more EFFICIENT way. VOD offers this in that the new 21st century TV broadcast business model uses a new concept- Advertise your products and services directly to those people who actually want to BUY your product. Oh how novel this is. The old way was to annoy a viewer with a 30 second commercial whether he was a potential buyer or not. The net result was, in the old days, to get up and go to the bathroom or go get another beer. The newer viewer just clicks his TIVO and skips ahead to the show as he is watching on time delay TIVO anyway. Either way the only time a business's 30 second spot is viewed, is by a potential buyer anyway, so why not just pay to target that ad to the people who actually WANT to watch your spot; and, buy your product? But here's the problem- How do the people know where that spot is? Is there enough information contained in a 30 second spot for the interested buyer? Fortunately we don't need to lay the groundwork on this question. The answer is simple. The 30 second spot is best replaced by the half hour or less infomercial. We know these work because they can be made engaging to hold a buyer/ viewer's attention, but only a viewer who may consider buying the product will be watching anyway. Enter the company web site. This has shown that people actually do strive for advertising and they are people who are actually potential customers for your product or service. All that is missing is VOD. Today, my company offers this VOD and we are seeing a huge desire to get on board with this concept. We haven't abandoned the 30 second spot, nor the half hour direct response infomercial but we have added the VOD product for as much as our current technology will permit. What we see is VOD on the internet and for certain types of programming, VOD for higher resolution satellite(a thing of the future).
We believe that VOD along with the internet will soon bankrupt local TV business model. It won't be the viewers lack of interest alone that will kill it but it will be the advertising base these stations rely on that will be dwindling as they too discover targeting their ad $$ directly to people who actually want to buy their product.

If I lost you on this- follow this example- You need to buy a new hard drive, what do you do? Learn about what's the latest by just happening to see a TV ad from Maxtor on TV? Fat chance you will actually see that when you need to make a decision on what and where to buy. No, today you'd probably do a google search for it and read advertising on the internet. Maybe the Maxtor website has a few VOD videos on that website to watch to convince you their product is better than Western digital or other competitor. You make a choice and can place an order directly while there. How about another product- Mastercard from Bank of America- You are looking for a creditcard with certain features. Consider the idea of a VOD on DBS where as part of that system you go to the menu and see an index of VOD content that reads-
infomercials
Banking
Credit Cards
Mastercard
BOA
Wachovia
MBNA

So you select BOA and watch the ad and respond with a direct link to their website and order up a new credit card for yourself.



I think you see what our future will be all about soon as it pertains to TV and how we view it. All this is that DBS's will have this new capacity for the future but local redundant broadcast TV can not and should not be what they nor you should be banking on. VOD is the way that all TV can survive when the viewer is in control. My TV broadcast consulting business has been pushing this idea now for several years. It is being received by small business with great success. The hardest part is making the businessman who has been brainwashed into the "there is no other way" mindset in seeing the future and what works. A 54 year old business model is not easy to change but it will be the people who will force it's change. It will be people like me in the business who will respond to this desire for change. We do not fear the demise of the 30 second spot or local TV station revenue stream, we embrace it as a new opportunity to create new ways to advertise more effectively for the small and general business that makes our country great. The DBS and D* response to adding these new channel capacities is a big step toward VOD possibilities. Putting up redundant programming from Local broadcast and TV networks is just a short sighted stepping stone to the real future of TV and how we watch it and how it is paid for.

 

[angusdavis]

I know that didn't make sense but what I was trying to say was that if DirecTV encoded these signals on the fly into MPEG2 format that they use it would require much more error correction. I do understand that ATSC is an MPEG2 format.
... What I was getting at is that every local station sending out HDTV is doing their own error correction and if DirecTV justs sends their feed directly they would save bandwidth, time and picture quality.

Something to understand with lossy codecs like MPEG and JPEG is that every time you re-encode, you lose quality. If DTV does indeed do as LonghornXP says and simply rebroadcast the native ATSC feeds from local affiliates, that would be very smart and a Good Thing for HDTV junkees like us. Every time you re-encode, it's like taking a photocopy of a photocopy -- information is lost in each successive round of decompression and recompression, as would be the case if they elected to reencode the signals or even encode them with a fancier codec like MPEG4. Note that Cable and OTA have the ability to send the native ATSC feeds without re-encoding so DTV needs to take the approach LonghornXP is talking about if they want to offer comparable picture quality.

 

[rocatman]

Internet access.

~Alan

So in a situation with rain fade from a Ka band signal, your internet access slows down a bit, no big deal. Even with VOD using a TiVO/DVR, your programming just takes a little longer to download to the harddrive or your storage buffer needs to be large to compensate for possible reduced trnsmission rates. But with live or nearly live programming with a high bandwidth like HD, your video experiences pixelation or other video degradion. Obviously DirecTV had an internet access plan and as time went along realized that internet access via satellite could not really compete with cable modems or DSL for various reasons including latency so they switched their plans to HD locals. It will probably work but there may be some requirements/limitations on the dishes that may not be acceptable to as many as DirecTV would like.

 

[LonghornXP]

I was told that DirecTV would be able to have the SpaceWay sats adjust bandwidth on the fly for areas that have bad weather. So for example an area that is fully dry with sunshine would get just the amount of bandwidth it would need to have a quality picture while other areas that are having bad storms could get extra power and more power means a bigger beam or single being sent into that area so that bad weather would be much harder to go out.

From what I was told is that today when it rains that the new SpaceWay sats could avoid going out even longer than what the current sats can. So to sum it up say in Florida if we have a bad storm our regular channels would go out before the SpaceWay channels would.

This is some really cool stuff I might say.

 

[Conjuror]

What a breaking BS!

Someone please correct me if I am wrong:
I MAY get local HD channels in 2005 when they launch first two satellites but I'll get locals in HD for sure sometime in 2007 when they launch few more satellites.
WTF, I'm getting all my locals in HD with free OTA installed by Voom. If you don't want them with Voom then you can buy an antenna for up to a 100 bucks and have all locals in HD for free for rest of your lives. Why wait a couple of years and then pay for them every month?
What's wrong with you people? Can't you count?

 

[LonghornXP]

Someone please correct me if I am wrong:
I MAY get local HD channels in 2005 when they launch first two satellites but I'll get locals in HD for sure sometime in 2007 when they launch few more satellites.
WTF, I'm getting all my locals in HD with free OTA installed by Voom. If you don't want them with Voom then you can buy an antenna for up to a 100 bucks and have all locals in HD for free for rest of your lives. Why wait a couple of years and then pay for them every month?
What's wrong with you people? Can't you count?

Most people can't get OTA signals with ease. Some of buildings or hills around. Some are far away or to close or both. Some areas have major multipath problems. The fact is that unlike what you may think just because they sell you an antenna doesn't mean it will work in your area. That is exactly why Voom is loosing customers left and right. For what they charge they have only premiums in HD and a few more HD channels that others don't carry. People don't think their exclusive channels or worth it. Most Voomers can't get good OTA reception so they end up back at cable.

I'm in Tampa and my Fox and NBC reception with a rooftop never does the same thing two days in a row. One day it works one day it doesn't. CBS is in the complete oppisite direction than the others. That fact is that even in a big market like Tampa I would rather pay DirecTV for HD Locals than deal with my fuc*ing antenna every single god damn day of my life.

 

[beast37799]

Something to understand with lossy codecs like MPEG and JPEG is that every time you re-encode, you lose quality. If DTV does indeed do as LonghornXP says and simply rebroadcast the native ATSC feeds from local affiliates, that would be very smart and a Good Thing for HDTV junkees like us. Every time you re-encode, it's like taking a photocopy of a photocopy -- information is lost in each successive round of decompression and recompression, as would be the case if they elected to reencode the signals or even encode them with a fancier codec like MPEG4. Note that Cable and OTA have the ability to send the native ATSC feeds without re-encoding so DTV needs to take the approach LonghornXP is talking about if they want to offer comparable picture quality.

I have one question does current hd recievers allow for atsc feeds over the sat or does it require a hardware/ software upgrade

 

[LonghornXP]

I have one question does current hd recievers allow for atsc feeds over the sat or does it require a hardware/ software upgrade

All current HD receivers can decode an ATSC signal no matter how it is sent. If an ATSC signal is sent via satellite it still detects that its an ATSC signal and it would still decode it as such. I think the only thing DirecTV might have to do is put a flag on the channel that would tell the HD box that it needs to decode an ATSC signal if even that needs to be done.

But I've been told that no boxes will need a software update for this and all current and old HD boxes will work just fine.

 

[Neutron]

Someone please correct me if I am wrong:
I MAY get local HD channels in 2005 when they launch first two satellites but I'll get locals in HD for sure sometime in 2007 when they launch few more satellites.
WTF, I'm getting all my locals in HD with free OTA installed by Voom. If you don't want them with Voom then you can buy an antenna for up to a 100 bucks and have all locals in HD for free for rest of your lives. Why wait a couple of years and then pay for them every month?
What's wrong with you people? Can't you count?

Dude, go troll over in the Doom forum....

 

[korsjs]

Dude, go troll over in the Doom forum....

Neutron,

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I do like you and do respect your opinion.

I don't think he is trolling, some people can pick up OTA eaiser than others. He might be able to pick up OTA very easy and does not realize other have a big problem.

Plus, there are numerous posts by you in the Dish Network forums suggesting that Direct TV might be a better option for people. I think he was just trying to point out that Voom is an option as you are suggesting direct tv is better.

 

[Neutron]

It was his very last statement that I was referring to. To me it was insulting D* customers. "What's wrong with you people? Can't you count?"

 

[korsjs]

It was his very last statement that I was referring to. To me it was insulting D* customers. "What's wrong with you people? Can't you count?"

Don't let it get to you. People take their tv service to serious at times. We just have to hope all three services challange each other - in the end, the consumer wins.

 

[Neutron]

I'm looking forward to the oncoming HD war between the 3 sat providers. I hate to say it, but cable is kicking ass in this category since they do offer HD locals and some have InHD 1 and 2.

I hope we can show them that us sat subs can have an impressive lineup too.

 

[rocatman]

Another factor that needs to be considered is that one would expect that the local stations will be improving their HD signals including increasing the power output as more folks purchase HD TVs/receivers.

On a different subject how much do you think DirecTV will charge for HD locals? Could it be as high as $10.99/month? It has to be higher than what they charge for SD locals. How much are you willing to pay per month for your HD locals?

 

[bonscott87]

I'll pay for my HD locals and I get them all via OTA. I'd pay up to $5 a month extra.

Why?

One station is iffy at best. Another is very low power and has breakup problems. Another I can't get at all because it's antenna is about 10 degrees to the right of all the others.

With D* I'll get them all, perfectly.

 

[Darin]

I do understand that ATSC is an MPEG2 format.

Technically, MPEG2 is a compression format that is used by the ATSC standard. I don't believe ATSC is limited to MPEG2, but I think every station must broadcast on one channel the "standard" that can be received by standard ATSC receivers. If, at some point, they want to multiplex, say, an MPEG4 signal, I believe they can do that as long as there is also an MPEG2 stream that everyone can decode.

... if DirecTV encoded the ATSC signal on the fly they would use more bandwidth via the error correction than if they just sent the feed directly unchanged.

I'm wondering if what's getting confused here is that maybe they will simply not be re-encoding the MPEG2 stream. Taking the MPEG2 stream out of an ATSC compliant signal, then taking that MPEG2 stream into a satellite broadcast would NOT require re-encoding. The digital component that contains the video data would not have to be altered. But this would have nothing to do with ATSC at the satellite... it'd be an MPEG2 stream no different than what we are currently getting via satellite. It would just simply be saying that they aren't re-compressing the video. I guess I just still fail to see what ATSC could have to do with anything in this context. I suppose MAYBE they could be talking about the modulation used in an ATSC signal, as that is newer than what most, if not all, current DirecTV receivers can demodulate, but I don't think they'd be able to use the demodulator for the OTA signal... that is the point where the signal goes from analog to digital, so would therefore be directly downstream of the tuner. The signal path from the satellite tuners wouldn't even go through those chips, I wouldn't think. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what this is supposed to mean.

This means that if they offer 300 plus locals in HDTV that the error correction would require power and because these satellites only have so much power to do everything if they have 1/3 of the power being used to error correct that wouldn't be a good thing. Now these satellites work differently than current sats in that you don't really deal with transponders the same way we do today. I've been told that if they can avoid using error correction they would save tons of bandwidth.

Technically, error correction doesn't directly consume satellite power, as the error correction is encoded on the ground, before the signal is ever beamed up to the satellite. However, more error correction does consume more bandwidth, which can use more of the satellite's capacity. But there is no way they'd be able to not use error correction. In fact, depending on what size dish they end up using, there's a possibility that they'd have to use MORE error correction to help compensate for increased atmospheric attenuation of Ka signals. But Ka also gets more gain from a given size dish, so we'll just have to see.

 

[lkruse]

Another thing to consider is ... do the current DirecTV HDTV receivers receive KA signals? If not then current DirecTV HD will be left out in the cold and will have to upgrade to a newer receiver... they certainly will have to update their LNB's.

Current DirecTV HD receivers will probably be able to continue to receive HDTV signal on the KU band but be limited to the number of channels they can receive. If they want locals or additional national channels then they will have to upgrade to a receiver capable of receiving the KA band. I can see why DirecTV would be taking a hard look at MPEG4 compression...

 

[beast37799]

im sure that the ka lnb on the new dish will work just as the ka lnb on dishnetworks "superdish" does .Plus i think i also heard that the 5 lnb dish will have the same 4 port mulitswitch output as the triple lnb dish does so it would work with current recievers and all 4x8, 5x8, 5x16 multiswitches

 

[Darin]

The receiver doesn't care whether it's Ku or Ka... the LNB downconverts the requencies received to a lower band the receiver can tune in. All that's needed for Ka is for those LNBs to downconvert the signal a little farther than the Ku LNBs. Because of this, there's no reason to believe the current receivers can't continue to be used.

BUT, I would expect existing multiswitches to need to be changed out. Current multiswitches can only address two satellite slots.

 

[Alan Gordon]

The receiver doesn't care whether it's Ku or Ka... the LNB downconverts the requencies received to a lower band the receiver can tune in. All that's needed for Ka is for those LNBs to downconvert the signal a little farther than the Ku LNBs. Because of this, there's no reason to believe the current receivers can't continue to be used.

Also, getting back to beast's statements about Dish Network, isn't the satellite located at 105° just Ku FSS?! I also know that the satellite located at 121° has some Ka band capability, but isn't it just in testing now, and the transponders being used are also Ku FSS?! Someone correct me if I'm wrong... I consider myself a "techie", but I can get confused with all this!

~Alan