Charlie Chat and Voom 21

[Sean Mota]

Charlie mentioned Voom 21 and said something like they looked interested but do not expect any HD from E* until MPEG-4 is in place. He also said the September Charlie Chat will be the HD chat but we all have heard that before and the HD chat became nothing. MPEG-4 transition for E* is supposed to start Late Fall or early Winter...

 

[Sean Mota]

Sorry posted in the wrong forum...

 

[GreatMac]

Hm, I've had 7 years of Charlie chatting.

That's a lot of chatting, but little doing. Give him another 5 years of chatting, then maybe we'll see couple of extra HD channels.

Of course, he'll compress the hell out of them, so they all look like c**p, so we'll all be forced to pay $5 for PPV to get a decent PQ.

Barf :-((=

 

[BFG]

If you're with Dish no need to get all excited and start making changes to directv until D* actually puts up channels that you want, so for now I'm sitting with dish. I may go back to cable once they carry all my locals, so right now it's a race between dish directv and cable. Sorry if I was off-topic.

 

[ksload]

I've been contemplating my move and decided on my local cable company. Pricing is actually less than DISH with more channels...unfortunately the picture quality won't be as good. On the up side....no equipment investment and no contract.

 

[BFG]

right now my cable carries everything dish has minus tnt, but I get the bonus of inhd 1 and 2, but they dont have my local cbs yet. Also no pbs and upn, but I guess those dont really count

 

[vurbano]

Charlie mentioned Voom 21 and said something like they looked interested but do not expect any HD from E* until MPEG-4 is in place. He also said the September Charlie Chat will be the HD chat but we all have heard that before and the HD chat became nothing. MPEG-4 transition for E* is supposed to start Late Fall or early Winter...

LMAO D* will have 3 more birds in the air by then broadcasting HD. Charlie is pathetic.

 

[TheForce]

"MPEG-4 transition for E* is supposed to start Late Fall or early Winter..."

Sean- He said several times, "MP4 introduction not until late this year which is November or December."

Frankly, he won't put up any MP4 channels until they have their new line of receivers out for MP4 and then the new DVR will come later. I don't expect MP4 until after CES2006. That is where the new hardware will be shown and become available about a year from now. Good news is the 942 owners will get a few more months use out of their new investment before it is obsolete. Even if they are stuck with only 7 HDTV channels.

 

[weagle]

this is ridiculous if they knew they were going to switch to mp4 they shouldn't brought out the 942 receiver and still selling the 811/921's. Still its a smart move in a sense that he'll probably not move the standard definition channels to mp4 since theres just too many receivers out there to replace but to replace the hd ones for the sake of more channels is worth it in the long run for him when hd starts to get more popular and get out of its infancy stage.

 

[BFG]

they don't have the mp4 chips yet though.

 

[klen]

LMAO D* will have 3 more birds in the air by then broadcasting HD. Charlie is pathetic.

D* will have 3 more satellites in the air by this winter?
Is that true? That many, that soon?

-k

 

[Carter]

They will be up before winter:

Spaceway 1 = April 26

DirecTV 8 = May 21

Spaceway 2 = June

 

[bratboy]

They have sats going up but as a DTV CSR told me....we have no dates for actually using/carrying more HD Just sometime this yr. Such comments are not a reason, for me at least, to invest in $1K of equip. Maybe once they are actually up n running and they know what their doing THEN I consider it

 

[jmd102354]

If you're with Dish no need to get all excited and start making changes to directv until D* actually puts up channels that you want, so for now I'm sitting with dish. I may go back to cable once they carry all my locals, so right now it's a race between dish directv and cable. Sorry if I was off-topic.

You are right ! The minute directv adds HD channels I am gone from Dish !

 

[klen]

They will be up before winter:

Spaceway 1 = April 26

DirecTV 8 = May 21

Spaceway 2 = June

So, deosn't it stand to reason that they will be able to blow away E* on HD content, or is all the space to provide HD locals?

Am I missing something here?

-k

 

[ChetK]

Of course, he'll compress the hell out of them, so they all look like c**p, so we'll all be forced to pay $5 for PPV to get a decent PQ.

Barf :-((=

I doubt it. Who do you think they are? Voom?

 

[Sean Mota]

I doubt it. Who do you think they are? Voom?

My guess is that you haven't read that E* is joining the HD Lite club....

 

[Sean Mota]

Just in case you doubt me E* joins the HD-Lite Club

 

[James Long]

this is ridiculous if they knew they were going to switch to mp4 they shouldn't brought out the 942 receiver and still selling the 811/921's.

The 942 had too much development going in to it to simply throw it away. It was already very delayed - and at least E* isn't selling THIS one as "the last HD reciever you will ever need". People keep buying the 811/921's despite the problems reported on appropriate forums. Do you think E* should take the year off and not sell any HD recievers until MPEG4?

Still its a smart move in a sense that he'll probably not move the standard definition channels to mp4 since theres just too many receivers out there to replace but to replace the hd ones for the sake of more channels is worth it in the long run for him when hd starts to get more popular and get out of its infancy stage.

Just the hassle factor for the customer is enough to keep the standard channels on MPEG2.

The card swap is a small example - E* changed something and if the customer doesn't go with the flow they lose their service. Fortunately it is a simple change and the majority of E* customers self migrated to the new card by upgrading their recievers over time (or by joining after the new technology surfaced). (Also the card swap is for a future change that E* has been planning for years.)

Customers are willing to go through a little more grief if there is a benefit. People will lose a day of work waiting for cable or satellite to be installed. But if there is no instant benefit the grief threshold is lower. Getting something cool like more HD raises the grief barrier. They will suffer through a box change - even if it is to replace their "new" 811/921/942 if it means many more channels.

Perhaps when MPEG4 is perfected we will see all receivers include the code. And in a few years when normal wear and tear has migrated enough customers to the new MPEG4 receivers there will be a trade out program there and ALL receivers will go MPEG4 (as well as all transponders). But I agree that won't be happening soon. Only the new HD will go 8PSK/MPEG4 and perhaps a year later the old HD will migrate to MPEG4.

JL

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

"MPEG-4 transition for E* is supposed to start Late Fall or early Winter..."

Sean- He said several times, "MP4 introduction not until late this year which is November or December."

Frankly, he won't put up any MP4 channels until they have their new line of receivers out for MP4 and then the new DVR will come later. I don't expect MP4 until after CES2006. That is where the new hardware will be shown and become available about a year from now. Good news is the 942 owners will get a few more months use out of their new investment before it is obsolete. Even if they are stuck with only 7 HDTV channels.

Did you notice that the numbers "942" were never mentioned on the chat last night.

I think the 942 is going to have a short lifespan. Although I believe the MPEG4 version will be based on the 942.