DIRECTV Announces New HD!

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Does anyone know if any of these channels are coming to Turbo HD? We've been screwed so many times with promises of more HD that I hope they are finally coming around to live up to their their end of the deal.
 
Does anyone know if any of these channels are coming to Turbo HD? We've been screwed so many times with promises of more HD that I hope they are finally coming around to live up to their their end of the deal.

I doubt you will ever see ANY channels delivered by D* through the turbo HD packages that you can get with E*.

Of course that is just my opinion:D
 
Today they moved the D10 channels to D12, so they are starting their work on D10.

I wouldn't expect new HD for a few weeks until they try fixing D10 and get it back in place. Famous word insert: soon.

Well the STA they asked for yesterday said they wanted to do some abbreviated testing starting June 2nd. I suspect D10 may be back in place sooner than we expect. SatelliteRacer did say that the rest of the wave 1 HD launches would come in June.
 
That wasnt too hard. I found a pretty good chart that showed some good looking data.

Looks like within the same resolution (480, 720, 1080) mpeg4 is about half the bitrate of mpeg2. But SD mpeg2 bitrates are about half that of 720p/60 and 1080i/30 was a bit higher than that.

The raw numbers (for the sample video the test used) was 4Mb/s for SD mpeg2, 2Mb/s for SD Mpeg4, 8Mb/s for HD mpeg4 @ 720p, and 10Mb/s for HD mpeg4 @1080i


It would be an E* subscriber's dream to get 10Mb/s from their 1080i HD channels. With 8 HD channels per transponder, they are getting only a bit more than 5Mb/s average. I don't know how they can label that stuff as being HD.

D*'s new HD channels look pretty decent, when they are showing true HD program material.
 
It would be an E* subscriber's dream to get 10Mb/s from their 1080i HD channels. With 8 HD channels per transponder, they are getting only a bit more than 5Mb/s average. I don't know how they can label that stuff as being HD.

D*'s new HD channels look pretty decent, when they are showing true HD program material.

I think the providers squeeze everything, including the SD. I remember having Directv back in the mid to late 90's and finding that the PQ on many of the channels was as crisp as a dvd. Now a dvd is much better. The PQ on the SD nfl sunday ticket stuff I watched a couple of years ago was incredibly bad. Looked like when they show those game clips from the 1960's.

Theres another decent way to figure out the relative sizes of stored programming. Load your computer with a network tool that can measure total network throughput. Windows task manager actually has a 'networking' chart that can do a decent job of this. Fire up directv2pc and play a show. Once its playing, go to that chart and look at the % utilization and the rate and do the math to get Mb/s.

Theres some networking overhead and some encryption overhead, but if you're getting 7-8Mb/s on a piece of HD content and 3-4Mb/s on a similar or identical piece of SD content, that should give you a good relative measure.

BTW 1080i/30 in mpeg2 can run in the area of 16Mb/s, vs 10Mb/s for the same content in mpeg4. I've seen some local channels broadcasting OTA in that range.
 
Thats an old one buddy, been around in the electronic business for a long time ...

This is how and when I first heard the soon only not yet story from a Sony rep. In the late 80s I was working for a national electronics/appliance chain. A women came to our store and said that the Rockefellers owned Sony. I asked her where she had heard that from. She said "Didn't you know that Sony stood for Standard Oil of New York. Working for an independent store in the 90s, our Sony rep corrected me. While Not Yet is often true, I liked the lady's story better.:D
 
Heading back in the direction of the thread. I was on vacation last week. I noticed that HallmarkHD was getting a 721 error mesage and I could'nt find the other channels. I called in and a nice southern lady corrected that channel. I told her, that I understood there were more new HD channels. Her reply was no, that the only new channels were the HBO and Cinemax limited offer package I'd purchesed a month ago. I've since found Travel, ESPNU, and WGN. Wasn't there a fifth?:D Speaking of ABC--that Pussycat Doll is truly an amazing creature.:D
 
Heading back in the direction of the thread. I was on vacation last week. I noticed that HallmarkHD was getting a 721 error mesage and I could'nt find the other channels. I called in and a nice southern lady corrected that channel. I told her, that I understood there were more new HD channels. Her reply was no, that the only new channels were the HBO and Cinemax limited offer package I'd purchesed a month ago. I've since found Travel, ESPNU, and WGN. Wasn't there a fifth?:D Speaking of ABC--that Pussycat Doll is truly an amazing creature.:D


I've been through the guide twice. All I have found are WGN HD....Travel Channel HD........I see the Hallmark Movie Channel (but that's a premium network apparently) but I don't see Hallmark HD at all.
 
Okay, so if I'm understanding things right if I leave the old SD version set to record MSNBC shows those would be mpeg2 and actually take more space than the hd version?
 
Not likely.

If the mpeg4 version has some serious bitrate reduction and the mpeg2 version is full bitrate, it'd be a bit competitive. Otherwise, the SD mpeg2 version is probably at least half the size of an HD mpeg4 version.

The same channel in HD mpeg2 at the same resolution as its HD mpeg4 counterpart probably takes more space.

This is reasonably well borne out in the official recording time as given by directv:

" The 320GB unit can record up to 30 hours of HD (in MPEG2); up to 50 hours of HD (in MPEG4); and up to 200 hours of standard definition"

So for a given resolution and 200GB free disk space (the 320 has about 100gb reserved by directv), you'll get 30 hours of mpeg2 HD, 50 hours of mpeg4 HD, and 200 hours of mpeg2 SD.

If you're more interested in high volumes of content rather than picture quality, I think you'll always be better off with SD mpeg2.
 
So is this all the HD that will be coming this summer? besides the 3D channels. If so I am very disappointed and will keep my bright house cable and drop Direct in 2 months when my contract is up.

Where is TCM, AMC, BBC America. Bright house has all of them, of course they don't have 50 pay per view channels. But I really don't want to pay $80 a month for the luxury of paying more.
 
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