Here's an interesting topic, I was wondering this for a while. How long does everyone think that dtv will keep using mpeg2 and standard definition receivers? When do you guys see the transition into all high def channels where we won't have anymore standard definition? This was lingering in my mind for a while.
FUTURE OF MPEG2
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It will be a long time before SD is gone. There are many channels who have yet to announce HD Channel options. I would love to see all HD but you are easily 10+ years from that.
I dont think it will take ten years. Dish is switching everything over to 8PSK first then eventually everything else will fall into place.
But Dish had the forsight to start building their hardware a couple years ago to support that. DirecTV could have started building their SD receivers to support MPEG4 but didn't so they're still selling MPEG2 only boxes which IMHO says they have no plans for the near future to migrate to MPEG4.
True, but HD also does the Ka band which wouldn't be needed. I'd be curious to know how much more it would have cost to use a MPEG2/4 chip vs. just a MPEG2.
IIRC a few financial presentations had them down to just one STB, wonder if they're still planning to do that/
Who says you need to go HD on all channels?
Dish does MPEG4 SD right now on Eastern Arc. Folks get a HD receiver and if they want it for SD only there is a setting that turns off HD options (so you dont get the bars on the side)
Dish does MPEG4 SD right now on Eastern Arc. Folks get a HD receiver and if they want it for SD only there is a setting that turns off HD options (so you dont get the bars on the side)
I think it was just use the HD receivers, no more SD hardware, so that everyone has a MPEG4 box so they can use MPEG4 on all channels on 101 and 119.
I think the company approaching it from the lets make all new dma's mpeg4 and then slowly take dmas on 119 and 72.5 and move them ove to mpeg4
I'd just be happy if everything went to 16x9 wide screen so I wouldn't have to stretch a 4x3 picture which is where you get most of the distortion.
It doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not the channels themselves are HD. A channel doesn't have to be HD to go MPEG-4. However there are easily 20-30 million boxes out there that don't do MPEG4. It'll take a while for them to swap them out, but eventually it'll probably be in their interest to do. It may be a very long time, but there will be a tipping point.
It would probably make since to phase out MPEG2. But you could very easily create the biggest damnedest mess of all time. Not to mention all of the confusion it would cause. I know some people that are still using 1st generation RCA receivers. It might be better to just leave well enough alone on this topic.
Don't forget the chipset change from the more capable duo of the HR20 to the single chip of the subsequent models.
CONSENSUS???????????????
So do we a consensus here that it will take 5+ years or 10 years to convert everyone to MPEG4 instead of MPEG2. Also from SD to all HD? I think SD to all HD is about 10 years in my opinion.
So do we a consensus here that it will take 5+ years or 10 years to convert everyone to MPEG4 instead of MPEG2. Also from SD to all HD? I think SD to all HD is about 10 years in my opinion.
All HD may never happen. People need to remember that we've transitioned to Digital Television, not High Definition Television.
Don't forget that much of the World hasn't begun their digital transition in earnest yet. To date, there have been only 12 countries that have transitioned completely to DTV including the US. Canada's deadline is August 21, 2011 for example. The UK is currently converting one area at a time but isn't expected to complete the transition until 2013. Russia is slated for 2015 and Mexico is planning on 2022.
The digital transition is the first step. There simply isn't much motivation for going widescreen with some content so that could take quite a bit longer. Many of the religious and limited scope networks tend to run hand-me-down hardware. It will likely take some time for that to filter down.
Don't forget that much of the World hasn't begun their digital transition in earnest yet. To date, there have been only 12 countries that have transitioned completely to DTV including the US. Canada's deadline is August 21, 2011 for example. The UK is currently converting one area at a time but isn't expected to complete the transition until 2013. Russia is slated for 2015 and Mexico is planning on 2022.
The digital transition is the first step. There simply isn't much motivation for going widescreen with some content so that could take quite a bit longer. Many of the religious and limited scope networks tend to run hand-me-down hardware. It will likely take some time for that to filter down.
If there are indeed 20+ milllion D* receivers in the field that cannot do MPEG4, then I agree that it will be a long time before MPEG2 goes away.
At best, you are talking about D* shipping out 20+ million new receivers directly to homes for customers to swap. And millions of customers won't be able to do this, so that will require millions of service calls.
If D* can get the average cost to them for a swap down to $100, you are talking about a conversion cost of over $2 billion dollars. And I seriously doubt they could hit that figure. If it is 25M receivers at an average cost of $150, that would be $3.75B.
If they were serious about doing this anytime soon, then they should have started shipping receivers that could all decode MPEG4 a good 2-3 years ago. For their conversion problem only grows larger every day.
I suspect somewhere along the line they decided that they'll eventually phase out MPEG2 HD channels and deal with that rather small conversion, but that they are indefinitely delaying converting SD channels to all MPEG4.
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