Breaking: DirecTV to Launch 2 HD Satellites

[SpySatellite]

Shouldn't this have already been done by now? So much for cutting edge technology. Seems like they are trying to catch up in my opinion.

 

[Neutron]

That's a lot of bandwidth if they plan on 500 HD channels in MPEG-2....

 

[Darin]

The Spaceway satellites are said to have enough bandwidth for 500 channels each using MPEG2, and apparently DirecTV-10/11 have even more.

 

[LonghornXP]

Actually there is one other format that DirecTV can use that I'm told they will use that would allow them even more channels without using any compression at all. This format would be ATSC. Because every single DirecTV HD box has an ATSC tuner built into it DirecTV will be taking the feed directly from the local stations in the ATSC format unchanged and will just transmit this signal to their customers and again they would pipe it over a channel number but the box would still think its an ATSC signal which is still is and the box would decode it just as if it was an OTA broadcast.

I've been told that using ATSC they would free up about 1/3 of the bandwidth that it would take using MPEG2 and this allow them to add 1/3 more actual channels without compressing and letting customers boxes do the hard work and this is a better solution.

I've been told that using ATSC that DirecTV can offer over 700 local HD channels per satellite but using ATSC would allow them to offer about 50-75 national channels with around 500 local HD channels all with one satellite.

From what I've been told is that each satellite can either offer about 750 HD locals using ATSC or offer about 150 or so national HD channels or anything inbetween but for every national HD channel they offer it would mean reducing the amount of locals being offer by about 4. So for every 4 maybe 5 local HD channels they can only put one national HD channel.

So it would make sense to me that if DirecTV used SpaceWay 1 for 50 national HD channels and used what was left for about 500 local HD channels using ATSC instead of MPEG2 that would be the best bet and this is what they are planning to do. So national HD channels are going to be planned ahead on. I've also been told that DirecTV will have to resort to doing 3 HD channels per xponder until the first SpaceWay sat is launched at which time they will move existing HD channels that go above and beyond 2 per transponder onto the new satellite. But we just may have to deal with it.

Also the NFL games aren't what is crapping up the bandwidth. Right now they are testing the new HDTV channels and will be resorting to more compression until SpaceWay. But rest assured that within one year quite a bit of customers will have locals in HD uncompressed and all customers will have many more national HD channels with very little compression and they won't have to resort to this again.

 

[LonghornXP]

Also I've been told that they had to put 3 HD channels per transponder for a little while until football is over and even though I did say that it wasn't football it partly was in that if they didn't offer any new HD channels it would be a no issue but until the NFL is over in January they will have to cram everything up. After the NFL season they will go back to 2 HD channels per xponder and when SpaceWay launches they won't have to resort to doing this for the next football season even if they show every single NFL game in HDTV next year.

Now the reason I said this was because there was a reason behind them offering 6 free months of the HDTV package. First they think that customers with many more HD Package channels might overlook the picture quality problems until the 6 free months is up and when that happens picture quality will be greatly improved and as such customers with more HD channels with picture quality back to normal will be more inclined to keep it.

After I've been talking to my contact this goes much deeper than I thought.

 

[Darin]

I've been told that using ATSC they would free up about 1/3 of the bandwidth that it would take using MPEG2 ...

But that doesn't really make sense - they aren't the same thing. MPEG2 is a compression algorithm, while ATSC is more of a broadcasting standard. ATSC still uses MPEG2 for compression.

 

[Neutron]

LonghornXP I am so glad that you are on our forum!!

I haven't had my theatre system, which includes my HD Satellite box hooked up for 3 weeks now. We moved and I was waiting on my TV purchase which I did today. I will be hooking everything back up tomorrow. I hope the HD channels don't look too bad when I look at them tomorrow.

Provided Directv is launching those sats next year I can live with the overcompression for now. At least they are doing something about it.

Longhorn, can you confirm InHD at all, even if it's just that they are working on a deal?

 

[rad]

Why do the 3/transponder 24x7x7 and not just on Sunday during NFL-ST?

Also, what you've said makes it sound like TNT-HD will not be on for the race Saturday night, drats.

 

[Neutron]

Where do you get that ATSC is in MPEG-2 form?

 

[Alan Gordon]

But that doesn't really make sense - they aren't the same thing. MPEG2 is a compression algorithm, while ATSC is more of a broadcasting standard. ATSC still uses MPEG2 for compression.

I'm glad someone brought that up as that statement didn't make any sense to me. However, there was an article earlier this year (or late last year) talking about DirecTV possibly trying out 8PSK. Don't know exactly how they would go about doing that, but at least it would be better than DirecTV using NTSC!

~Alan

 

[DaJoker]

Read any of the ATSC standards at http://www.atsc.org/standards.html. ATSC relies on MPEG2 for digital encoding of audio, video, and psip (program data).

 

[Darin]

Where do you get that ATSC is in MPEG-2 form?

Well, there's plenty of reading about the ATSC standards here

Edit: ooops, too late.

 

[LonghornXP]

I know that didn't make sense but what I was trying to say was that if DirecTV encoded these signals on the fly into MPEG2 format that they use it would require much more error correction. I do understand that ATSC is an MPEG2 format.

What I was getting at was if DirecTV encoded the ATSC signal on the fly they would use more bandwidth via the error correction than if they just sent the feed directly unchanged. What I was getting at is that every local station sending out HDTV is doing their own error correction and if DirecTV justs sends their feed directly they would save bandwidth, time and picture quality.

Do you all get what I'm trying to say.

 

[Neutron]

Hmm.... I did not know that. Very interesting.

I hope they didn't hold ATSC to always use MPEG-2. I hope they can adapt it to use MPEG-4 or WM9 if needbe.

 

[DaJoker]

Beat ya by a few minutes Darin

Another thing that doesn't make any sense here, even if they do pass through ATSC directly. Most stations right now are using the full 19m/s bandwidth especially when doing multicasting. How does that even save bandwidth? Seems to me it would be using 1/3 MORE bandwidth, not 1/3 less considering the compression and such that they use currently.

 

[LonghornXP]

Beat ya by a few minutes Darin

Another thing that doesn't make any sense here, even if they do pass through ATSC directly. Most stations right now are using the full 19m/s bandwidth especially when doing multicasting. How does that even save bandwidth? Seems to me it would be using 1/3 MORE bandwidth, not 1/3 less considering the compression and such that they use currently.

To answer this question....Because these satellites are very high powered satellites. This means that if they offer 300 plus locals in HDTV that the error correction would require power and because these satellites only have so much power to do everything if they have 1/3 of the power being used to error correct that wouldn't be a good thing. Now these satellites work differently than current sats in that you don't really deal with transponders the same way we do today. I've been told that if they can avoid using error correction they would save tons of bandwidth. Also the more compression they use the more error correction they will need to use.

So from their tests they found that if they used MPEG2 they could only get about 500 HD local channels while if they used ATSC they could offer over 750 HD local channels with no loss on picture quality.

Here is what they said to me. So when dealing with locals in HDTV the local stations are doing both the error correction and encoding for them so why would they do it again and lose bandwidth.

 

[rocatman]

Sorry to rain on the DirecTV HD locals parade but realize that the first Spaceway satellite will be a Ka-band satellite which is much more susceptible to rain fade. Couple that with the aiming problems one would expect with the new five orbital location dish, and there may be some problems with loss of signal in areas that get much rain. In addition, there is a recent article on the SkyReport website that states that the first Spaceway satellite is scheduled to be launched on an Ariane 5 in April of 2005. It also states that Arianespace will set a record of seven months for processing a launch vehicle and spacecraft. Having some experience with processing launch vehicles, this is an extremely short period of time to perform this activity. Rushing these types of activities also significantly increases the probability of a launch failure and Arianespace does not have the greatest launch success record. I would be suprised if they launch prior to July of 2005. Also remember the scheduling delays that DirecTV had with their last satellite and the change of plans that Dish had to make with the satellite at 105. Just don't want folks to get their hopes up too high or make plans based on a schedule that is definitely agressive. Cable is starting to offer local HD in many areas and it is not hard to imagine a company making announcements like this one to try to hold on to their customers. Flame away.

 

[Alan Gordon]

Sorry to rain on the DirecTV HD locals parade but realize that the first Spaceway satellite will be a Ka-band satellite which is much more susceptible to rain fade. Couple that with the aiming problems one would expect with the new five orbital location dish, and there may be some problems with loss of signal in areas that get much rain.

First of all, the second SpaceWay (along with DirecTV 10 & 11 if I'm not mistaken) are ALL Ka-Band, and second of all, I suspect that if DirecTV were to spend a billion dollars on four satellites, they would have to be pretty sure the satellites would work.

I would be suprised if they launch prior to July of 2005. Also remember the scheduling delays that DirecTV had with their last satellite and the change of plans that Dish had to make with the satellite at 105. Just don't want folks to get their hopes up too high or make plans based on a schedule that is definitely agressive.

I think MOST people here are aware that with satellite launches, things could go wrong, heck that happens every time something has a rocket strapped to its back! However, I'm pretty sure everyone here (myself included, and I won't have locals til 2007) would not count on a hard date yet...

~Alan

 

[rocatman]

First of all, the second SpaceWay (along with DirecTV 10 & 11 if I'm not mistaken) are ALL Ka-Band, and second of all, I suspect that if DirecTV were to spend a billion dollars on four satellites, they would have to be pretty sure the satellites would work.

Just out of curisosity, what was the DirecTV's advertised planned use for the Spaceway satellites prior to the annoucement of their use for HD locals? Perhaps internet access or video on demand services?

The other factor is the apparent planned use of a single dish for receiving the signal from them along with a couple of other orbital locations that may not have been planned for when their construction was initiated. It is pretty obvious that its harder to market a two dish solution for most people especially a 30+ inch dish along with the current oval dish.

 

[Alan Gordon]

Just out of curisosity, what was the DirecTV's advertised planned use for the Spaceway satellites prior to the annoucement of their use for HD locals? Perhaps internet access or video on demand services?

Internet access.

~Alan