Before I worry, I wanna see the uplink reports for the next couple weeks. That will be telling of how well E* can rebound. Do they reverse the 61.5 movements they've been making (Arc) or continue their same preparations?
AMC 14 Satellite Launch Failure - What now for Dish?
- Thread starter darrencp22
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Most of the speculation in this thread (and others) is based on a fundamental assumption --- Dish intended (and still intends) to continue mirroring HD Nationals on two satellites at 61.5 and 129 while maintaining some HD Locals on 110 and/or 119. So lets ask a simple question....
Why would Dish continue to waste transponders mirroring NATIONAL HD channels on satellites at 61.5 and 129 while at the same time using transponders for LOCAL HD on 110/119?
AFAIK all of the recent up-link evidence points to the opposite assumption -- Dish intended to move LOCAL HD to the east and west coast satellites (61.5 and 129) and free up transponders on 110/119 for NATIONAL HD.
Does anyone have evidence to the contrary?
Talon Dancer
Why would Dish continue to waste transponders mirroring NATIONAL HD channels on satellites at 61.5 and 129 while at the same time using transponders for LOCAL HD on 110/119?
AFAIK all of the recent up-link evidence points to the opposite assumption -- Dish intended to move LOCAL HD to the east and west coast satellites (61.5 and 129) and free up transponders on 110/119 for NATIONAL HD.
Does anyone have evidence to the contrary?
Talon Dancer
I don't think anyone here has any evidence as to what Dish's plans are.
What you say makes perfect sense except for one thing: why did Dish do it this way up to now? Why mirror national anything on 61.5/129 instead of putting all nationals on 110/119 and locals on the appropriate satellite. Why change now?
Using 110/119 for national and 61.5 for locals violates the 'single dish' concept. I believe Dish promised the FCC this was the ultimate goal.
Begin WAG...
Dish walked into this strategic trap 1 HD channel at a time
At first it didn't seem so silly. There weren't many HD channels, so the mirroring strategy only used a few extra transponders, and it kept them for installing lots of wing dishes. But now as they try to add significant National and Local HD, the mirroring strategy simply has to be unwound to free up badly needed transponders on all the sats.
... end WAG.
Talon Dancer
Wasn't that what AMC-14 was really supposed to do. Allow Dish to have a "single dish" pointed at the east coast (Eastern Arc) for an MPEG-4 only service (i.e. HD & SD) while leaving the MPEG-2 SD folks and the West coast MPEG-4 folks pointed with a "single dish" at 110 & 119 & 129.
AFAIK the loss of this "single dish" idea/commitment on the east coast is the real problem with "losing" AMC-14 (at least short term).
Talon Dancer
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Begin WAG...
Dish walked into this strategic trap 1 HD channel at a time
At first it didn't seem so silly. There weren't many HD channels, so the mirroring strategy only used a few extra transponders, and it kept them for installing lots of wing dishes. But now as they try to add significant National and Local HD, the mirroring strategy simply has to be unwound to free up badly needed transponders on all the sats.
... end WAG.
Talon Dancer
I thought that's what you might say, because it is a reasonable explanation.
Only issue is that Charlie could see this national HD thingie coming at least a year ago. I would have expected, in order to economize on transponders, he would have started the transition long before this. There has to be something else going on that could at least partly explain the lateness of the changeover.
AFAIK the new strategy depends on MPEG-4 compression to fit all the SD and HD on far fewer transponders, hence fewer sats that could be targeted with a single dish (e.g. the fabled 1000.4 or 1000.5). IIRC Dish has been experimenting with how many channels they could get on single transponder for several months. My guess is they wanted to be confident of MPEG-4 prior to unwinding the mirroring strategy.
Talon Dancer
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I thought the single dish only meant all your locals had to be on the same sat,not a single dish. For example, if one of your locals is on 61.5, they all have to be on 61.5. The FCC did this because E* was dumping the local spanish,shopping and church channels on the wing sats.
Yes - I think AMC-14 was supposed to help the start of this process.
My point was namely that 110/119 being just the 'MPEG2 SD customers" is a sound concept. HD over to the arcs. I disagreed with your concept that National HD on 110/119 was a good idea, purely because it would either be redundant (since customers with HD service would/count be single dish toward 61.5) or because it would go against the concept of the single dish solution.
My point was namely that 110/119 being just the 'MPEG2 SD customers" is a sound concept. HD over to the arcs. I disagreed with your concept that National HD on 110/119 was a good idea, purely because it would either be redundant (since customers with HD service would/count be single dish toward 61.5) or because it would go against the concept of the single dish solution.
I'm not sure, you might be right. My impression was that the service in general was supposed to be provided using a single dish.
I do think from an install time perspective, a single dish solution for the entire service is a sound idea.
Good point. I suppose the "single dish" concept/commitment, if taken literally, would force Dish to mirror some channels unless they designed a pretty large/fancy dish covering 61.5 <-> 119.
My guess is that they can now claim to have tried and ask forgiveness. At least I hope so. I'm looking forward to a wing dish install for 61.5 and the Austin locals listed in my program guide ASAP
Talon Dancer
I already have a wing dish up at 61.5.. I have nothing wrong with 2 dishes here. But some HOAs don't even want to see a dish in the first place, let alone more than one. I can understand why some people don't want to see more than one either.
I have a feeling the 'map' will be adjusted when it comes to locals this year...
I have a feeling the 'map' will be adjusted when it comes to locals this year...
Single Dish applies to locals only. All locals must be received on the same dish. There is no single dish requirement for anything else. Dish started to put the popular channels (ABC/CBS/FOX/NBC) on 110/119 and if you wanted the others you had to have a dish pointed to 61.5 or 148. The FCC ruled that must carry meant they had to be non discriminating on equipment, so you had to have a single dish solution to get all the channels requesting must carry.
Dish could have 20 dishes for its service if it wanted to do so, just as long as all the local stations were received together on a single dish. Marketing wise it is better to have a single dish for everything since people do not want 20 dishes sitting on their roofs.
So, since the main reason to offer HD locals via satellite is for people who can't get them OTA. And these people are likely to be outside of major metro areas..... maybe having a wing Dish for 61.5 to get HD Locals wouldn't be so objectionable
FWIW I really liked the idea of the single dish 1000 setup when we originally got Dish installed nearly 2 yrs ago. But now I'd add a wing dish in a New York second to get my HD locals
Talon Dancer
If that is the case why did they move "ALL" my locals from 61.5 to 110? I believe the 1 dish rule requires that at least basic service be availble on a singe dish, not just locals.
Probably because everyone has a Dish 500 at 110/119 then a Dish 300 at 61.5 to they wouldn't have to go out an install a 61.5 for everyone in Cleveland that didn't have a 61.5. And IIRC, the single dish rule was just concerning local channels. The issue was that station owners that were moved to a wing position (61.5 or 148) were at a disadvantage since views would need to specifically ask for a 2nd dish to be installed inorder to view their channels. Lots of folks didn't know that they needed a 2nd dish so they never would see those wing stations so the FCC made E* put all locals on one dish so all the stations were playing on a level field.
They probably moved them when they launched a new satellite like E10. E10 had a lot more spot beams, meaning they were able to reuse the same transponders in more places around the US allowing them to both turn on more cities and move existing cities from the wing satellites (61.5/148), and superdish (105/121) to 110. People really hate 2 dishes. The fewer markets that require them the more happy customers.
The idea of duplicating 110/119 on 61.5/77 is so that those in the NE could get a single dish for all their chanels (including HD) since 110/119 are full and 129 is too far west to be seen reliably. 61.5 and 77 work to allow all the HD on one dish with all the content from 110/119.
But with AMC-14 out of the picture (so to speak) can Dish still implement that strategy? I thought the Sat they were moving into 77W for test purposes was a cripple.
Talon Dancer
E6 works fine. The issue with E6 is that the beam is not shaped for that slot. The resulting footprint will probably cause issues in the western US. Also they may have to point it south some to keep from interfering with Canadian DBS, they really need coverage in the NE since the NE cannot see 129 well.
