Breaking: DirecTV to Launch 2 HD Satellites

[hancox]

Perfect, just when my one year commitment with the 811 is up. Good bye dish, hello direct. Hopefully direct will be offering some good promos for first time customers.

same boat here. I'm just praying I have LOS to all these birds. YIKES!

 

[techweb]

For those who have a problem with rain fade on the present Ku band, wait until you see how bad it is on Ka.

 

[Darin]

It's not known yet what rain fade will be like. True, the Ka band does suffer more attenuation than Ku, but a given size dish will provide more gain to Ka than it will Ku. How the two will balance out is yet to be seen, but I don't see them putting themselves in a position to make it a big enough issue for cable to take advantage of. They will probably either make up for it in dish size, or satelllite power.

As far as LOS, DirecTV's Ka licenses are at 99, 101, and 103. If you can see their core programming at 101, chances are good you will also be able to see their Ka satellites.

 

[belsokar]

I find it funny but really a bit sad that people would not celebrate an announcement like this...people used to complain that there's no way satellite would ever get locals in HD...and now they have announced its a year away, and people are starting to complain that they have to wait till 2007 to get more national hd channels...the way it appears to me, is that directv will not cede anything to cable...meaning that they will do everything to stay ahead of the game...and that means that we will definitely be seeing some national hd channels added in the near future until local hd channels start piping in...in the meantime, I don't think local cable will offer much more than will be offered on directv...

the sad thing about all this, is I'm a dish network customer, and don't see them having a quick enough reaction to keep me as a customer...we'll see...I may join the cable forces until next summer, at which time I can jump to directv...i need my hdtv

 

[sampatterson]

HDTV can be compressed also, so while I applaud that Directv is doing this, I didn't see any mention that it would be full uncompressed hdtv.

 

[Darin]

HDTV can be compressed also, so while I applaud that Directv is doing this, I didn't see any mention that it would be full uncompressed hdtv.

You can bet that it will be compressed, as full uncompressed HD would be something like at LEAST 10 times the bandwidth of an HD OTA signal. There's no such thing as uncompressed HD in broadcast form. The bandwidth requirements are just too high. The question is simply how MUCH is the signal compressed. And in the cases where the HD signal being delivered to DirecTV is already at "consumer" levels (e.g. < 20Mbps), is it re-compressed to a lower level?

 

[bommai]

Compression

Assuming they move to MPEG4-Layer 10 (aka H.264 or AVC), they don't need 20Mbps for the bandwidth. They can do it in about 6Mbps. That is the future. There is no reason to be stuck with MPEG2 forever.

-Siva

 

[Stargazer]

People are expecting HD just as they expect to get their local channels more and more to be the norm. Without it the service will not be complete as cable will have it.

 

[belawrence]

one quick question?

Isn't this going to require a massive IRD switchout? I'm assuming as was mentioned in a previous post that D* would need to use something along the lines of MPEG4 or even WMVHD. Are there any D* receivers currently in release capable of decoding any new compression scheme?

 

[Darin]

Assuming they move to MPEG4-Layer 10 (aka H.264 or AVC), they don't need 20Mbps for the bandwidth.

No, but they would need to replace a BUNCH of receivers. If you do the math on the bandwidth available on the satellites, and the number of channels they say they can carry, you can see they are basing that on MPEG2. They could do everything they're saying with one satellite if it were MPEG4. That's not to say that they won't switch to a newer codec at some point in time, but I don't see it coming as soon as these new satellites.

 

[lkruse]

No, but they would need to replace a BUNCH of receivers.

They will not replace SD receivers. They will most likely continue to operate their KU band satellites for many more years beyond 2007. Since DirecTV owns seperate licenses for KU and KA orbital slots:

KA 99,101,103
KU 101,110,119

If you want local or more national's HD then you would be required to purchase new receiver and LNB to receive them. DirecTV probably will keep the existing limited number of HD channels on their KU band to satisfy the current users with HD receivers until a certain percentage have upgraded to new hardware capable of receiving the KA band.

 

[Neutron]

So in order for us to see the new HD channels we will have to purchase another receiver??

 

[Darin]

They will not replace SD receivers...

I still don't think they'll be moving to MPEG4, or any other codec, any time soon... even if it's only on the HD channels. The hardware they are selling TODAY that isn't MPEG4 compatible. Not even the $1k HD-TiVos. Putting all the new HD channels in a format that their existing HD customers can not receive would be a slap in the face to those customers, especially considering the money they've spent on that hardware. That's not good PR. Besides, as I pointed out, if they were planning on MPEG4 when these satellites roll out, their capacity numbers would be drastically different.

I expect we will see hardware shipping with MPEG4 (or whatever) capability long before they actually implement it.

 

[ljp416jmp]

First, I want ABC, NBC, Fox, and PBS in uncompressed HiDef...that would be a start...

Then, have ESPN/ESPN2 do 100% of their programming in HD

Then, add TNT-HD, INhd, + all other current stragglers

Then, have the DVD guys get moving on hi-def DVDs

Then, finally, get all the advertisers to do high def, 16x9

And do this by Dec 1, 2004....all on directv....and i'll be a customer for life

 

[lkruse]

Well having heard talk of new receivers with MPEG-4 and the following statement in the DirecTV announcement makes me kinda conclude that they will be using MPEG-4 to get as many HD channels that they can on the satellites.

The satellites, which will take advantage of DIRECTV's advanced transmission techniques and state-of-the-art video compression technology...

 

[Darin]

Well, MPEG2 is state of the art video compression technology... for broadcast television. As of now, there is no better compression technology that is ready to be used for live, on the fly encoding.

 

[JoeSp]

If VOOM is moving ahead with MPEG 4 this fall then there is newer technology for viewing video. If D* decides to open up the top 30 to 40 markets HD offerings thru their service and all HD channels currently available but you have to buy a new HD receiver the question then becomes not if you are going to buy the new receiver but how many of you will and how quickly?

 

[Darin]

If VOOM is moving ahead with MPEG 4 this fall then there is newer technology for viewing video.

IF being the key word. And if they do, will it be on the content that they get from other providers and have to compress on the fly, or will it only be on their proprietary content that can be pre-encoded with multiple passes. And will they even make it long enough for us to find out? Only time will tell.

... the question then becomes not if you are going to buy the new receiver but how many of you will and how quickly?

No, the question becomes, which other provider do you choose instead. See, DirecTV can't put their customers in a position that makes switching to another provider a better choice. It would be suicide.

 

[Carter]

Darin,

The 500 HD channels is based on MPEG-2 compression, correct? Thus, D* does not really need to switch to a different compression format but IF D* did then they could get even more HD channels (500+).

 

[Darin]

The 500 HD channels is based on MPEG-2 compression, correct?

That's the way it looks to me.