Right now HD make up less than 5% of the subscriber base. The cost of providing HD locals to all DMAs right now would be more than the cost for the entire Dish system built to date. There is no way Dish could absorb such a cost right now and still stay in business.
So they work on ways to deliver at a much lower cost. That will most likely be via MPEG4. But right now Dish is reporting that their tests on MPEG4 are yielding results well below what will be needed.
Through the use of the extra transponders gained by the Rainbow-1 acquisition, the satellite at 129, and through intermediate transmission standards like 8PSK-turbo, Dish does have some bandwidth that could be used to offer more HD channels. We've heard strong indications that some of these will be the additional VOOM channels, and we are hoping for a few additional national HD channels.
It is possible that Dish may use some of this bandwidth to offer HD Locals to a few of the major markets. They are certainly feeling some heat from DirecTV already moving in this direction. They could try to use Rainbow-1 to hit some of the East Coast cities with spotbeams. I think many of us will be surprised if they can do any more than this over the next year, and possibly 2 years.
Personally, I hope they concentrate on offering national channels. I believe the collective national market for the leader in HD national channels could more than offset losing some subs for the lack of HD locals in a few markets, particularly given that in those markets a lot of people can get their locals via OTA.
Certainly Dish has to be working on a long-term solution for HD locals, and have a much strong solution in place for them by 2009. MPEG4 should be much more efficient by then, which will significantly reduce the number of satellites needed. Undoubtably they have several plans under consideration.
Now whether this means that Atlanta will have Dish supplied HD locals in the next 6 months is an unknown to me. If I had to bet, I'd bet against it, but it could happen.