Why is everybody so anxious for MPEG4 to come out?

joemama

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
May 21, 2004
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I fail to see why everybody wants MPEG4 to come so badly. Sure it will allow the addition of a few more channels, but it's not gonna make the picture look any better. Am I missing something? :confused:
 
with mpeg 4 they will be able to fit more channels on each transponder, thus reducing the need for as many wing dishes... instead of having to use three or four dishes to get all the channels, you will hopefully be able to just use one, maybe two
 
Hello,

But won't the migration to MPEG4 also result in costly equipment upgrades for current users, especially those with HDTV receivers?

Then again, you can't get something for nothing :yes

Regards
 
thats the one thing no one knows right now, hopefully dish will make it as painless as possible and just let us swap equipment out, i would think if they tried charging everyone for switching they will loose many of customers... just my opinion...
but yes, it will require different equipment, just as to get HD you have to buy a HD tv, and a HD receiver...
but its also supposed to be a long transition time also, over 3 or 4 years probably, so we'll see
 
Begemotik said:
Hello,

But won't the migration to MPEG4 also result in costly equipment upgrades for current users, especially those with HDTV receivers?



Regards

Yes, satellite companies love that. Its an opporunity to charge double or triple what the equipment is worth.
 
i was told they were going to just swap everyones out and they were going to hd, and free of charge, i told the guy wouldnt that be kind of expensive on dish network part, he said he was told they were to swap em all out and if you already have dvr you will get dvr hd. and they also had to swap out all the dishes that there was only going to be 1 dish no more 2-3 dishes on the house. sounds expensive to me so i assume dish is going to pass the buck to us in some kind of fashion, or either that are trying to lead the future in sat tv, from the guy was telling me it sounded like they were going to do things in voom footprints, with putting evey hd and all.

we will see soon. i want the voom channels but i dont want to spend $699 on the receiver for it
 
From what I have read no one outside of DishNetwork knows when that will be implemented. I don't think DishNetwork even has an exact date or their not telling. Swapping out everyones receivers will be costly. Costly for whom? Don't think that DishNetwork will pay for it. No matter what product or service it is when there is a cost increase the consumer ALWAYS pays for it. It does however pay for the consumer to be informed. All these current receivers will at some point be door stops. Think about the receiver you are currently thinking about buying from some retailer or even directly from your dbs provider or even the ones you currently own. They all know that one day in the future it will be useless. It seems as though what the dbs industry wants is for everyone to lease the equipment not own it.
 
ByrdWatcher said:
From what I have read no one outside of DishNetwork knows when that will be implemented. I don't think DishNetwork even has an exact date or their not telling. Swapping out everyones receivers will be costly. Costly for whom? Don't think that DishNetwork will pay for it. No matter what product or service it is when there is a cost increase the consumer ALWAYS pays for it. It does however pay for the consumer to be informed. All these current receivers will at some point be door stops. Think about the receiver you are currently thinking about buying from some retailer or even directly from your dbs provider or even the ones you currently own. They all know that one day in the future it will be useless. It seems as though what the dbs industry wants is for everyone to lease the equipment not own it.

Yep. Undoubtedly, they will jack up the monthly programming rates to pay for the cost of this changeover. DirecTv will do the same, and you may have to pay $75-80/month for the most basic package! At some point, you will have to decide if it's time to stop feeding the (dbs) pig.
 
BabaLouie said:
Yep. Undoubtedly, they will jack up the monthly programming rates to pay for the cost of this changeover. DirecTv will do the same, and you may have to pay $75-80/month for the most basic package! At some point, you will have to decide if it's time to stop feeding the (dbs) pig.

They'll STILL be cheaper than Cable which is jacking up prices twice a year lately.
 
joemama said:
I fail to see why everybody wants MPEG4 to come so badly. Sure it will allow the addition of a few more channels, but it's not gonna make the picture look any better. Am I missing something?

They CAN improve the PQ if they lower the compression ratios on the actual signal. PQ is a matter of bytes ... let's pretend for one second they are pixels, even though they are not. Satellite providers like D* & E* will benefit because the more efficient compression scheme of MPEG4 would allow them to double the content overnight. Since we know they would not do this they will bump of things like HD and hopefully back off on the signal encoding. Meaning a pixel is a pixel: if currently they are sending 1024 pixels from a transponder but it is compressed to the point that only 720 of the pixels are effectively displayed they should easily have the room to display the entire 1024 under MPEG4 ... which subsequently could provide for 2048 pixels in the same amount of bandwidth.

Wow, even I am confused now ... but the point is that MPEG4 could make the picture better, but that does not mean that is what they will do with the increased bandwidth.
 
My initial question was somewhat loaded. I know how MPEG2 works, and I know some of the advantages that MPEG4 can bring. I was trying to guage what the average poster here knows. From most of the posts I've read, it seems a majority of the people here think once the MPEG4 switch is thrown the amount of channels will double and the picture quality will increase. Over time this may happen, but in a side by side test, the average Joe won't even know the difference.
 

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