Spaceway 2 Launch thread - It's up!

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omnibus said:
Will this new bird bring some locals to Wyoming?

The biggest city in the state has just over 50K population

Our city/town has just over 20K

What are our chances?

I'd say you're gonna have to wait for the next set of satellites going up in 2007.
 
Unless you just cannot get them OTA (and close to 90% of major metro market subscribers can), I still don't understand the push to reinvent the wheel with local HD rebroadcasts when we have so many national HD channels I would presume everyone wants which we still do not get. Transmit the HD locals to fringe and rural areas first-those poor folks can't get them at all. Give everyone the National HD.

Does anyone here know for sure or on reliable rumor how this launch of Spaceway 2 will or may affect D's broadcast of stations like Starz HD or TNT HD??? Thanks.
 
DixonJDixon said:
XP, not sure if this is the right thread, but when can we expect the HD-DVR and HMC to be released?

I'd be interested to know the answer to this question too. Living in the Miami area, I'm happy that HD locals should be available through D* sometime early next year. BUT, if the new Mpeg 4 HD-DVR isn't available at that time, I'm not going to give up my Mpeg2 HR10-250 HD-DVR just yet (especially since I get good reception of HD locals using an OTA antenna). I don't have a link for you, but IIRC its been posted elsewhere on this site that the new HD-DVR won't be available until sometime in the second half of 2006. (EDIT -- actually, this thread indicates that the HD-DVR might be available in January 2006 http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=109346&page=7&pp=15 )

I'm personally willing to take a pass on switching to the new Mpeg 4 units and any new potential HD national channel offerings until the new HD-DVR comes out. With my work schedule, I end up recording most HD programs on weekdays because I just don't watch much live tv anymore. I just hope that the unit gets released before the start of the next football season -- because IIRC its been suggested on this site that D* will move the NFL Sunday Ticket HD channels to the new bird.

Sorry if this is not the right thread to be posting this reply. I also hope that I haven't mischaracterized anything in my post. Be gentle. :)
 
omnibus said:
Will this new bird bring some locals to Wyoming?

The biggest city in the state has just over 50K population

Our city/town has just over 20K

What are our chances?

ZERO.

Wyoming has 2 DMAs:
#195 Cheyenne, WY
#198 Casper, WY
 
Happy Camper,

I doubt 90% of folks can get them OTA with the reliability they get from cable/DBS. I have spent hundreds of dollars, and many hours tweeking my OTA setup, and I still have issues. Last night I could not watch LOST in HD. If the wind blows hard, and it did last night, the trees cause big time multi-path issues, and my OTA reception goes to hell. Most folks would not put up with either the large (CM 4228) antenna, or the reception issues, when they can get cable instead. D* would not be using a billion dollars in new sats for local HD if they didn't need to.
 
Happy Camper said:
Unless you just cannot get them OTA (and close to 90% of major metro market subscribers can), I still don't understand the push to reinvent the wheel with local HD rebroadcasts when we have so many national HD channels I would presume everyone wants which we still do not get. Transmit the HD locals to fringe and rural areas first-those poor folks can't get them at all. Give everyone the National HD.

Does anyone here know for sure or on reliable rumor how this launch of Spaceway 2 will or may affect D's broadcast of stations like Starz HD or TNT HD??? Thanks.

If you ask anyone from the Denver DMA here on the forum about 1% of the people from that area can get the OTA signal even with very large antennas. The tower is issue here has pushed full power DTV until at least 2009.

Maybe other metro area people have a very responsive local broadcaster but not here.
 
I am shocked Denver wasnt the first market outside of the Detroit test market. With all the OTA problems, this could have been a huge marketing spin for that area tempting many HD early adopters to switch to Directv.
 
Brewer4 said:
I am shocked Denver wasnt the first market outside of the Detroit test market. With all the OTA problems, this could have been a huge marketing spin for that area tempting many HD early adopters to switch to Directv.

That would have made perfect sense..

Which, to me, makes it not shocking at all :)
 
Brewer4 said:
I am shocked Denver wasnt the first market outside of the Detroit test market. With all the OTA problems, this could have been a huge marketing spin for that area tempting many HD early adopters to switch to Directv.


All timing. Where would Denver live permanently? Hint: It's not SW1 :)
 
I tried the OTA signal as it was basically worthless living in Arvada 10 milles from the weak downtown tranmsitters....and then you had to turn the antennae to get a very poor bad WB2 HD signal.

The HD situation in Denver is real bad...with maybe 1 full time station to look forward too once the locals are up in HD.
 
Thomas P. said:
I tried the OTA signal as it was basically worthless living in Arvada 10 milles from the weak downtown tranmsitters....and then you had to turn the antennae to get a very poor bad WB2 HD signal.

The HD situation in Denver is real bad...with maybe 1 full time station to look forward too once the locals are up in HD.
Perhaps try a better antenna. I use the Channel Master 4228 Provided to me by VoOm and I get WB, NBC, FOX & part time KRMA from LOVELAND.

On topic I am just glad this second bird is finally in the air! Now it is just a matter of time until Denver is blasted with HD from SpaceWay and OTA wont matter too much (though it is cleaner than what D* provides), it will be "most excellent" to get more national HD too.

Good Job D*, now lets finish this off so my TV can move back from NYC!!!!!
 
I'm in Austin, Texas........great OTA HD feeds......maybe by the time D* updates us, they'll have an HD-DVR & MORE HD PROGRAMMING. I'm so happy that SW2 is up there now.
I pray that the roll-out will be aggressive now!

Happy, get ready to go back to D*! Just pray the PQ of the HD feeds are true HD..........

Barney
 
rad said:
My money says it won't do anything for SD PQ at least in the near term. They'll still need the 8 HD channels for the national east/west coast network feeds. Even then they might use that space to add some new national HD channels until D10 and D11 go up. And since they're still adding a bunch of new customers all the time they must assume that the masses don't mind the PQ as it is now.

SD picture quality will be the same for quite some time until they get rid of all the SD local channels once those feeds go off the air and get replaced with the HD feeds and or digital feeds.
 
Barneypoo69 said:
I'm in Austin, Texas........great OTA HD feeds......maybe by the time D* updates us, they'll have an HD-DVR & MORE HD PROGRAMMING. I'm so happy that SW2 is up there now.
I pray that the roll-out will be aggressive now!

Happy, get ready to go back to D*! Just pray the PQ of the HD feeds are true HD..........

Barney

DirecTV does have a few bugs to work out but once they are fixed expect to see a massive rollout and yes the picture quality is quite impressive. I've been able to take a glance at all of the Tampa local HD feeds including WB and UPN and they are very very close to the OTA quality. They are having quite a few dropouts while they work out the bugs which seems to be going along quite nicely. Also they as in DirecTV doesn't want to start rolling out HD locals in most areas such as both Denver and Tampa until they get these bugs worked out. The dropouts that will occur during this bug testing might cause them to lose customers at least from their point of view. It won't be long now until things get going at full speed.

Also on a side note the HD DVR is expected now to be out in January. I was the one that said it could have been in late 2006 because DirecTV at that time couldn't get their suppliers to tell them exactly what supply of boxes they would have. The suppliers kept telling them to give them another month. Just a few weeks ago their suppliers gave the go ahead of what kind of supply they would have and all I heard was that the supply was above DirecTVs expectations at this point in time. They will still have shortages in supply so they must stick to just new customers and existing customers in only the announced markets for now until supply picks up. Also customers with an HD Box or an HD Tivo that goes bad and gets replaced with the DirecTV Protection Plan will be getting the new HD box or the new HD DVR after the first of the year. The Home Media Center is expected to be out in late first quarter to early second quarter timeframe but that will be a soft rollout with some bug testing and if things go fairly smooth it should be in full release a little before the summer but as with anything supply will be somewhat short but DirecTV is very very happy with the supply numbers with Motorola.
 
Longhorn thanks for the update on HDDVR. You mentioned Denver in your statement. Any chance we are getting it sooner than maybe Jan or Feb?
 
Longhorn,

Any idea if the hd dvrs with MPEG4 will have multiroom viewing. I have 2 HD TIVOs to replace in NY and want to be able to transfer shows between them. Will I be able to or should i wait for the HMC. If the HD dvr can do multiroom viewing, what does it lack that the HMC will do?

Thanks
 
Gen Custer said:
Longhorn,

Any idea if the hd dvrs with MPEG4 will have multiroom viewing. I have 2 HD TIVOs to replace in NY and want to be able to transfer shows between them. Will I be able to or should i wait for the HMC. If the HD dvr can do multiroom viewing, what does it lack that the HMC will do?

Thanks

They will at somepoint next year have a new multiswitch that will work with the new five LNB dish that would handle the multiroom viewing. This multiswitch will work with the HMC and the DirecTV branded SD and HD DVRs. So in simple terms the non Tivo SD and HD DVRs plus the HMC will at some point next year support multiroom viewing. Now when is an entire new question that I can't answer at this moment in time.
 
x1hdtv said:
Longhorn thanks for the update on HDDVR. You mentioned Denver in your statement. Any chance we are getting it sooner than maybe Jan or Feb?

It just depends but its looking like a shortly after the first of the year release. Also keep in mind that shortly after release with most companies including DirecTV isn't a few days but two weeks to a month. That is shortly for them.
 
I live in Tampa area (Sarasota) and i can't wait till they start offering LIL here next month. Do you guys think I would have to give up my Sony HD200 if I switch to the new format? I would like to keep it.
 
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