Bright House bringing ABC Family / Disney / MGM HD to Central Florida

[Saxamoophone]

Bright House bringing ABC Family / Disney / MGM HD to Central Florida - Engadget HD

ABC Family HD (1337), Disney HD (1335) and MGM Channel HD (1306)

Should start popping up in a guide near you around Thursday.

$5 goes out to whoever can guess which analog channels go missing Thursday

Sounds like CNN-HD should be added soon too.

 

[stevenl]

Well BHN is launching SDV, So that will let them use current bandwidth to add even more HD, however they have been and will continue to reclaim some analog channels.

 

[Curtis0620]

What about FSN, NFL?

 

[skottey]

I never felt like I was getting any value out of the HDPak. I found I rarely watched those channels. But you guys are going to like MGM HD. I have that on DirecTV and do watch it. It has some good movies and they are commercial free and from what I can tell so far, unedited.

Are these channels coming to BHN Tampa Bay? Not that I care entirely too much since I have no use for ABC Family and get the other two with DirecTV. But it is always nice to see more channels added to BHN.

 

[stevenl]

Also note that StarzHD and Cinemax HD are coming very soon to.

And I would assume they were coming to Tampa also.

And in regards to NFL Network BHN has teamed up with several other cable companies and they are all kinda in agreement not to add NFL Net unless they agree to meet some demands. They want almost 280million a year!! from these cable companies, and for 8 new games a year and a bunch of old footage... No one can convince me of its worth.

FSN Is in the same boat, in TAMPA BHN has FSN Because of the demand. In Orlando though the market has yet to demand it. Perhaps if the Magic have another good season this next year, and FSN gets to carry some college games, Orlando may add it, but for now Orlando just does not have the demand to honor the 75cents PER sub that FSN is asking. Specially because they do not want on a digital or sports tier. If FSN would agree to be on the sports tier, BHN would add it tomorrow.

 

[Saxamoophone]

Well BHN is launching SDV, So that will let them use current bandwidth to add even more HD, however they have been and will continue to reclaim some analog channels.

True..but these ones aren't SDV yet I'm guessing? (assuming it's still a sept time-frame).

Anyways, just checked my guide (via the good old slingbox-smartphone) and the new channels are up and running in Orlando.

So everyone enjoy looking at that 14 year old hanna montana in hd ;P

 

[stevenl]

I know my son will enjoy that

 

[skottey]

So everyone enjoy looking at that 14 year old hanna montana in hd ;P

All that money and such crappy teeth. What a waste. Hefner better make her fix that mangle-mouth before he puts her in Playboy in 3 years. Gross!

 

[iceturkee]

What about FSN, NFL?

in your dreams!

 

[iceturkee]

Also note that StarzHD and Cinemax HD are coming very soon to.

And I would assume they were coming to Tampa also.

And in regards to NFL Network BHN has teamed up with several other cable companies and they are all kinda in agreement not to add NFL Net unless they agree to meet some demands. They want almost 280million a year!! from these cable companies, and for 8 new games a year and a bunch of old footage... No one can convince me of its worth.

FSN Is in the same boat, in TAMPA BHN has FSN Because of the demand. In Orlando though the market has yet to demand it. Perhaps if the Magic have another good season this next year, and FSN gets to carry some college games, Orlando may add it, but for now Orlando just does not have the demand to honor the 75cents PER sub that FSN is asking. Specially because they do not want on a digital or sports tier. If FSN would agree to be on the sports tier, BHN would add it tomorrow.

hmm, sounds like their were bunches of magic fans unhappy with not being able to watch all of the games this past season. they were certainly vocal enough to the sentinel......as were the sentinel sports writers! i'm just hoping fsn florida adds several magic games in hd next season. with all of the fsn's going full-time hd in the first quarter of 2009, the number of hd games being broadcast will also significantly rise!!

 

[Saxamoophone]

So I watched a lil bit of ABC-Family and Disney Channel last night....

What a joke!!!!!!

The only thing *hd* about them are the watermarks on the screen!

Everything was SD unconverted content.

I can understand some of their tv shows now being filmed in HD yet, but, when ABC family showed the movie "You got mail" you just KNOW there is a hd (or at least 16X9) version of the movie out there.

Has anybody seen a show in HD on these channels yet?

 

[jcarrera]

The important thing is to ADVERTISE HD, not to actually provide it.

 

[Saxamoophone]

The important thing is to ADVERTISE HD, not to actually provide it.

Yea, I figured as much.

Meanwhile ESPN-NEWS, CNN, USA, Sci-Fi, CNBC and others are all pumping out real hd feeds..

seems kinda a waste of space!

 

[stevenl]

hmm, sounds like their were bunches of magic fans unhappy with not being able to watch all of the games this past season. they were certainly vocal enough to the sentinel......as were the sentinel sports writers! i'm just hoping fsn florida adds several magic games in hd next season. with all of the fsn's going full-time hd in the first quarter of 2009, the number of hd games being broadcast will also significantly rise!!

Yet BHN continued to grow its customer base. The largest ratings the magic PLAYOFF game on Sun had was 50k viewers... thats about 5% of BHNS customer base. Call FSN tell them to let those 5% purchase the channel if they choose to. BHN will offer it to them if FSN agrees to let only them pay the 75cents for the channel.

 

[stevenl]

Yea, I figured as much.

Meanwhile ESPN-NEWS, CNN, USA, Sci-Fi, CNBC and others are all pumping out real hd feeds..

seems kinda a waste of space!

I been argueing that point for ever. Who cares if they dont carry HD CHannel X when that channel only has 1hr of HD programming a week anyway! Having 100 HD channels means nothing with only 20-30 of them show more then a couple HD programs a week.

 

[iceturkee]

Yet BHN continued to grow its customer base. The largest ratings the magic PLAYOFF game on Sun had was 50k viewers... thats about 5% of BHNS customer base. Call FSN tell them to let those 5% purchase the channel if they choose to. BHN will offer it to them if FSN agrees to let only them pay the 75cents for the channel.

they do have a choice....they can purchase a dish and be done with it!

 

[stevenl]

Thats true, I am sure a few hundred people have done that.

 

[skottey]

So I watched a lil bit of ABC-Family and Disney Channel last night....

What a joke!!!!!!

The only thing *hd* about them are the watermarks on the screen!

Everything was SD unconverted content.

I can understand some of their tv shows now being filmed in HD yet, but, when ABC family showed the movie "You got mail" you just KNOW there is a hd (or at least 16X9) version of the movie out there.

Has anybody seen a show in HD on these channels yet?

This is no different than many of the movies on TNT and TBS. I about cried last fall when we first got TBS HD on BHN and I turned it on to see a stretched pan and scan of National Lampoons Vegas Vacation. It was sick. I never watch movies on commercial stations anyway, but just five minutes of it made me vomit. All theatrical movies have their original aspect ratio out there somewhere. One would think that if a network pays out the nose to have rights to play a movie they would want to show it in its best available format. This means at least 16x9 720p or 1080i HD if you have an HD version of your channel. Not Turner. Idiots.

 

[Saxamoophone]

Yeah, TNT & TBS use to be pretty awful (and painful to watch) =/

But on the brightside I think they have finally gone "Real-HD" and now have phased out the stretcho-vision for probably 50% of their shows.

Because honestly, when an episode of "The Office" is filmed in 16X9 HD 1080i, how hard could it possibly be for them to air a repeat of it in the same format?

I think a lot of networks are starting to notice how ESPN's ratings went up something like 20% this past year because of HD. With something like 50% of Amercians owning at least one HDTV now, people are wanting that content. If you don't have it, or don't have it right, you're going to drop viewers.