My town, Fort Wayne, was announced at CES a few weeks ago to be getting locals sometime this year. Has their been any indications as to how soon things might start rolling?
Talking with several station personal at my local PBS several weeks ago, they mentioned that DirecTV had been talking with the area stations for close to 6 months and was expected to turn on the signal to the uplink facility a few weeks after E* had locals available. That went live (Feb 12th), if not sooner.
The press release from CES mentions that I'll be on the yet-to-be-moved 72.5 DirectTV 5 once 7S gets launched. I'd imagine that once 7S is launched (Feb 15 I beleive currently) it will take a few weeks for the bird to nest itself in it's new home and get acquainted with everything, then they move 5 (pending approval from the FCC). So realistically, I'll probably be looking at what...close to 2 months at least, if not significatly more? Am I being overly optimstic? Overly pesimestic? Dished anounced early 2Q last year that FTW was getting locals last year...and here we are in 2004 so I know how schedules and plans change.
The reason why I ask (other then being anxious) is that I really would like to get a PVR. The Tivos are more appealing to me due to several features that the Dish PVRs don't have (mainly expandability, season passes, and [inexpensive] dual tuners). If I don't wait and go with Dish locals and one of their PVRs, I'm stuck with them for at least 1 year (commitment w/ required SuperDish for locals).
Programming would be close to a wash either way and a few bucks difference isn't a huge issue. Locals either way won't be an issue in the long run. So I guess it basically comes down to a PVR which D* comes out slightly ahead over Dish.
Talking with several station personal at my local PBS several weeks ago, they mentioned that DirecTV had been talking with the area stations for close to 6 months and was expected to turn on the signal to the uplink facility a few weeks after E* had locals available. That went live (Feb 12th), if not sooner.
The press release from CES mentions that I'll be on the yet-to-be-moved 72.5 DirectTV 5 once 7S gets launched. I'd imagine that once 7S is launched (Feb 15 I beleive currently) it will take a few weeks for the bird to nest itself in it's new home and get acquainted with everything, then they move 5 (pending approval from the FCC). So realistically, I'll probably be looking at what...close to 2 months at least, if not significatly more? Am I being overly optimstic? Overly pesimestic? Dished anounced early 2Q last year that FTW was getting locals last year...and here we are in 2004 so I know how schedules and plans change.
The reason why I ask (other then being anxious) is that I really would like to get a PVR. The Tivos are more appealing to me due to several features that the Dish PVRs don't have (mainly expandability, season passes, and [inexpensive] dual tuners). If I don't wait and go with Dish locals and one of their PVRs, I'm stuck with them for at least 1 year (commitment w/ required SuperDish for locals).
Programming would be close to a wash either way and a few bucks difference isn't a huge issue. Locals either way won't be an issue in the long run. So I guess it basically comes down to a PVR which D* comes out slightly ahead over Dish.
