8PSK when?

[3HaloODST]

I know Dish has been trying to get rid of the legacy receivers over the past few years... I wonder though, when will Dish get done and convert WA to all 8PSK? Even if we don't get more channels, they can use the bandwidth to give the HD channels a little more bitrate (and perhaps they could even stop downconverting the 1920x1080 to 1440x1080.) Also could look into HD RSN's... 8PSK will free up 33% more bandwidth for WA (about 7Mbps per transponder!) Then, they can throw 2-4 more SD channels on each TP with the end result using less transponders, freeing up space for HD. Looking on TheList that's 13 TPs on 110 @ 7Mbps gained each which means 91Mbps! On 119 it's 15 TPs which would be another 105Mbps! Even 129 has a single QPSK TP so another 7Mbps. So in total that's 203Mbps gained by getting rid of QPSK. Now the question is... When Dish?? The 8PSK/MPEG2 receivers have been around for 8 years... Surely there's not still a ton of people with obsolete receivers?

 

[TimberWolf]

it is an ongoing project
there are more of them out there than you think, the old recs were installed for almost 10 years
even if only 10% of the active accounts still have them, that's over 1 million boxes that still need swapped

 

[DishSubLA]

People do post on here about receiving the letter and getting swapped, so Dish is migrating, but probably not at the pace you would like. My brother has a 508, and he is waiting for his letter, but none so far.

 

[garys]

My sister, who only lives four miles from me has two 510's and an old 2800 has yet to get a letter. I was getting letters for six months and got switched over last May. Of course, I had HD receivers starting with the old 6000.

 

[DishSubLA]

I wonder if Hopper/Joey (mostly it problems) is sucking resources from everywhere at Dish. Maybe this is why the 8PSK swap-out seems to have slowed.

 

[navychop]

And we should remember, a lot of HD was SOURCED at 1440x1080.

 

[JM42]

I wonder if Hopper/Joey (mostly it problems) is sucking resources from everywhere at Dish. Maybe this is why the 8PSK swap-out seems to have slowed.

I doubt it. Any new rollout is going to have some impact, but until the bridging blunder of 213 I would think the Hopper rollout has probably gone better than or at least as well as expected. Hopper upgrades are probably providing a good source of refurbs for the eventual conversion.

Dish essentially announced the slow down of 8PSK in the 2011 q1 or q2 earnings call. The Tivo settlement took the pressure off replacing the SD DVRs, and slowed the whole process down.

There is no incentive to replace receivers until they decide they need the bandwidth, and that won't be until they have a real disparity in EA/WA capabilities. My guess is they'll continue a slow approach, letting the old units dribble away on their own as much as possible. Then we get a hard deadline announced with a big push to get it all done relatively quickly.

 

[3HaloODST]

I haven't really kept up with it lately, but if I recall correctly, is it true that EA is almost at it's limits? Last I heard there were some transponders with 10 HD channels on it, which I would assume means that they are running short on bandwidth, as WA even with all the "wasted" bandwidth of QPSK/MPEG2 has yet to have any 10-channel TPs. It has a few 9-channel TPs though. I am assuming with 77 being virtually useless for EA as far as CONUS, that would be why WA would have more capacity.

Anyone got any knowledge? I don't really keep up with the satellite capacity.

 

[navychop]

I think WA is more constrained than EA. And will be until 8PSK and maybe MPEG-4.

 

[3HaloODST]

I don't know about that. EA has more 10-channel HD transponders than WA (WA has none.) Ideally it should be no more than 6 per TP (most have 8.) WA has several 9-channel HD TPs, as does EA, however only EA has 10-channel HD TPs. WA has 3 satellites in service, EA only has 2 that are really being put to use. WA definitely has more bandwidth being wasted though.