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JerseyMatt said:
Don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out. Why should we suffer with SD because people like you are too stubborn to let go of your 27" Zenith console with the green tinge in the picture from the failing red gun? It's not that they DECIDED that everyone needs HD, it is textbook technological evolution. Eventually they have to throw out the old to bring in the new. It happened with analog cellular 4 years ago, it happened with analog/NTSC broadcast TV 2 years ago, and it is already in progress on cable and satellite. Wake up and smell the 21st century.
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Long time subs should not be forced to spend money on new receivers and dishes and pay for installation AND be stuck with a two year contract because Direct TV did not have the foresight to provide enough satellite space to keep both SD and HD . It is Direct TV's problem not ours. We just had rate increases and now forcing subscribers to spend money on new equipment ..especially in this economy is a bad idea. If Direct hopes to keep loyal customers like us for another ten years, they are going to provide the required equipment at their expense...not ours. We didn't make the mistake, and should not have to pay for theirs. Regarding the NTSC/ATSC broadcast changeover, there were digital converters that were mostly subsidized and consumers were not forced to buy new TV's if they chose not to.
 
Maybe instead of an extra fee for HD the providers should start charging a fee for carrying SD since that is no longer the standard and I don't think you can even buy a new SD TV anymore.
 
Well Comcast has been doing a digital transition of their own, and even our small cable company where I live (Service Electric Cablevision) did a digital transition. Basically to get any channels over 27, you need a small DTA.

Here's the difference between cable's solution...
You get 2 DTA's for FREE.
Additional ones are $1.99 a month.
You can get them shipped, or pick them up at a local office
There are NO CONTRACTS.

This has been very successful, and the Comcast system a mile from me went from 30 HD channels to 105 HD channels because of the bandwidth savings. The cable company in my neighborhood went to about 110 HD channels because of the bandwidth savings. Not to mention now they both have multiple data channels for DOCSIS 3.0 high speed internet, and also more channels devoted to VOD, so they have been bumping up their HD-VOD offerings as well.

The problem with DirecTV (if they do an mpeg4 swap) is
1. You pay for the new box
2. Your contract is likely extended.

If DirecTV wants to do an MPEG4 migration, they need to follow the cable companies successful tried and true migration strategy. You have to remember, this upgrades the MSO's network, it's a cost to the MSO, not the customer. For Cable, DTA's were cheaper and easier than ripping out the system and running FTTH or some proprietary dual line system. For DirecTV it could rival the cost of the additional Satellite's they would need to launch to maintain their bandwidth quota.
 
Bill_KY said:
Long time subs should not be forced to spend money on new receivers and dishes and pay for installation AND be stuck with a two year contract because Direct TV did not have the foresight to provide enough satellite space to keep both SD and HD . It is Direct TV's problem not ours. We just had rate increases and now forcing subscribers to spend money on new equipment ..especially in this economy is a bad idea. If Direct hopes to keep loyal customers like us for another ten years, they are going to provide the required equipment at their expense...not ours. We didn't make the mistake, and should not have to pay for theirs. Regarding the NTSC/ATSC broadcast changeover, there were digital converters that were mostly subsidized and consumers were not forced to buy new TV's if they chose not to.
Click to expand...

My personal thought is nobody should have funded giving people those boxes. If you can't afford it than tough. As you stated in these tough economic times our Government should start to spend wisely and cut the garbage. Don't get me wrong there is a percentage of people who truly need the support but a large section don't. I am with TS7, time to start charging for Analog transition. HD TV's are so cheap not mention more energy friendly than most peoples old tube TV's.
 
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cypherstream said:
This has been very successful, and the Comcast system a mile from me went from 30 HD channels to 105 HD channels because of the bandwidth savings. The cable company in my neighborhood went to about 110 HD channels because of the bandwidth savings.

Snip!

The problem with DirecTV (if they do an mpeg4 swap) is
1. You pay for the new box
2. Your contract is likely extended.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by bandwidth savings?

The same applies to E* if there is a "forced" upgrade, new 2-year contract.

Cable quality in my area sucks. One reason cable cos don't force a contract is because there is no competition and all houses are prewired. Most areas are divvied up to a sole cable provider. Doesn't anyone find it strange how they advertise "1800 ok cable"' like buddies? because they don't compete against each other. You won't see sat cos running "1800 ok satel" ads unless they merge at some point.
 
Yes, I have been saying that for a long time. It's time to dump the standard duplicates and just go HD. Any one with non HD TV's can let the box down convert for them. Besides I can't remember the last time I was in an electronic store and even saw a non HD TV for sale. All Uverse boxes are HD and everyone uses them even people with the old standard tv's.
 
Russell Jorgensen said:
Yes, I have been saying that for a long time. It's time to dump the standard duplicates and just go HD. Any one with non HD TV's can let the box down convert for them. Besides I can't remember the last time I was in an electronic store and even saw a non HD TV for sale. All Uverse boxes are HD and everyone uses them even people with the old standard tv's.
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The problem with the argument of everyone is that the elimination of SD channels isn't going to give the capacity to replace them all with an HD counterpart. Sure they would have space for more HD channels but not a replacement for all. They would have to eliminate less popular SD channels all together in order to go HD for channels like AMC that they are still missing if they took the SD capacity away. That wouldn't fly with HD or SD crowds that still watch channels that may be eliminated like ID or other specialized channels they would have to leave out of the HD upgrade getting rid of SD.
 
I may be wrong, didn't Dish allow for attrition to take care of most of the non MPEG2 receivers, so that Dish bore minimul costs in switch to H.264? I don't seem to remember a cost to subscribers for that shift. H.264 has been around several years and surely Direct has been dealing with a similar solution.:D
 
skottey said:
The problem with the argument of everyone is that the elimination of SD channels isn't going to give the capacity to replace them all with an HD counterpart. Sure they would have space for more HD channels but not a replacement for all. They would have to eliminate less popular SD channels all together in order to go HD for channels like AMC that they are still missing if they took the SD capacity away. That wouldn't fly with HD or SD crowds that still watch channels that may be eliminated like ID or other specialized channels they would have to leave out of the HD upgrade getting rid of SD.
Click to expand...

Yes it will, and then some. First of all, you can't tell me that getting rid of 100+ SD duplicate streams won't free up a huge amount of bandwidth in and of itself. Then there's the fact that MPEG-4 (HD) uses bandwidth almost 70% more efficiently than MPEG-2 (the current SD compression). You can fit almost two SD MPEG-4 channels into the same bandwidth of one SD MPEG-2 channel.

Nobody is saying anything about just removing the SD channels. The argument is that DirecTV needs to migrate everyone over to the HD equipment that can receive the MPEG-4 signal, then they can do the downconversion to SD at the receiver level, (because carrying SD duplicates is an enormous waste of bandwidth). Once this is in place, all of the SD duplicates can be deleted, and the SD-only channels can be changed over to MPEG-4. Then as the HD agreements for the current SD-only channels go into effect, the channel is simply switched over to HD, rather than having to still carry the SD version of it. This would be invisible to people with SDTVs (since their boxes are downconverting), while those of us with HDTVs would reap the benefits as soon as they flip the switch.
 
Bill_KY said:
Long time subs should not be forced to spend money on new receivers and dishes and pay for installation AND be stuck with a two year contract because Direct TV did not have the foresight to provide enough satellite space to keep both SD and HD . It is Direct TV's problem not ours. We just had rate increases and now forcing subscribers to spend money on new equipment ..especially in this economy is a bad idea. If Direct hopes to keep loyal customers like us for another ten years, they are going to provide the required equipment at their expense...not ours. We didn't make the mistake, and should not have to pay for theirs. Regarding the NTSC/ATSC broadcast changeover, there were digital converters that were mostly subsidized and consumers were not forced to buy new TV's if they chose not to.
Click to expand...

Bill,
What D* is doing is NOT a mistake in any way.
Have you happened to notice yet that alot of your normal everyday stations are now doing away with the SD 4x3 format ?
That is because the broadcasters are all moving to the 16x9 format.
D* would be very smart to continue its progress to swapping areas out.

You keep saying your a LONG time sub and thats GREAT .... Have you tried CALLING them and politely talk with them about upgrading and see what kind of a deal they can make for the LONG time subs ?

Long time subs DO get better deals, also ones that accounts are up to date help as well. (Not implying your isn't).

Also, your not being forced to buy new sets at all, all D* recvrs can also handle a SD TV.
 
ts7 said:
Maybe instead of an extra fee for HD the providers should start charging a fee for carrying SD since that is no longer the standard and I don't think you can even buy a new SD TV anymore.
Click to expand...

You are correct, you can no longer buy a SD TV.
 
JerseyMatt said:
Yes it will, and then some. First of all, you can't tell me that getting rid of 100+ SD duplicate streams won't free up a huge amount of bandwidth in and of itself. Then there's the fact that MPEG-4 (HD) uses bandwidth almost 70% more efficiently than MPEG-2 (the current SD compression). You can fit almost two SD MPEG-4 channels into the same bandwidth of one SD MPEG-2 channel.

Nobody is saying anything about just removing the SD channels. The argument is that DirecTV needs to migrate everyone over to the HD equipment that can receive the MPEG-4 signal, then they can do the downconversion to SD at the receiver level, (because carrying SD duplicates is an enormous waste of bandwidth). Once this is in place, all of the SD duplicates can be deleted, and the SD-only channels can be changed over to MPEG-4. Then as the HD agreements for the current SD-only channels go into effect, the channel is simply switched over to HD, rather than having to still carry the SD version of it. This would be invisible to people with SDTVs (since their boxes are downconverting), while those of us with HDTVs would reap the benefits as soon as they flip the switch.
Click to expand...

I like your thinking here.

I think at one time they were saying that 4 SD channels = 1 HD channel, but that may have been the discussion when they were changing from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4.
 
Yeah I think in MPEG-2, 4SD=1HD. In MPEG4, it's more like 2-2.5SD=1HD. MPEG4 can cram a lot more data per kbps than MPEG2 can. The tradeoff is MPEG-4 requires more powerful decoding equipment to unpack it into something you can watch.

If you've ever ripped a DVD, the copy named .MP4 is just over half the size of the one named .MPG and the quality is indistinguishable. But while an MPG will play on almost anything, an MP4 will likely skip and stutter on a less powerful machine. It's the exact same thing with the satellite receivers. The older receivers just don't have the horsepower to decode MP4, so it's not as easy as a firmware push. They have to upgrade the receivers.
 
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