DIRECTV Transponder Map ~ Data 5/29/2024

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

I found NewsMax's January 25th takedown through the thumbnail server.

 

[doctor J]

DirecTV Satellite Transponder Updates for Jun 28 2023

Comparison of Transponder Data for Jun 28 2023 vs Jun 21 2023:


No changes in system tables for any transponder tuning parameters.

Stream (PID) counts:

LIVE Streams​	National​		Spot Beams​
	Count​	Change​	Count​	Change​
4K​	4​	1​	​	​
HD​	279​	​	1446​	​
SD mpeg4​	139​	​	198​	​
SD mpeg2​	403​	​	440​	​
RB​	​	​	​	​
Audio​	89​	​	​	​
Push​	31​	​	​	​
Slate​	21​	​	1​	​
​

TEST Streams​	National​		Spot Beams​
	Count​	Change​	Count​	Change​
4K​	​	​	​	​
HD​	​	​	​	​
SD mpeg4​	1​	​	​	​
SD mpeg2​	​	​	​	​
RB​	​	​	​	​
Engr Work​	49​	​	​	​
​

The PID count Excel workbook provides much more count detail.

Newly updated tables of Streams on each transponder are available in the DataDigesters TPN Grids

More details of changes in individual channels will follow in the Weekly Analysis
and Gary Toma's Domestic TPN Map Excel files
Diamondback channel in test
A few LIL reshuffles
Enjoy and Stay Safe
From your DataDigesters

 

[doctor J]

Weekly Analysis for 6/28/2023:

 

[KyL416]

In addition to the previously mentioned changes involving the removal of the remaining residential NFL Sunday Ticket channels:

*DBACKS is in test mode on channel 686-3
*TWINS is in test mode, replacing Bally Sports North Extra 3 on 668-3

Subchannel relabels hit Utica
Updating KFBB-D2 Great Falls and KTMF-D2 Missoula to solely be listed as FOX affiliates because they dropped MyNetworkTV last year.

Roland-Garros->Wimbledon for Puerto Rico, and prep for the experience by having KABC and WABC move to less populated transponders.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

Updating KFBB-D2 Great Falls and KTMF-D2 Missoula to solely be listed as FOX affiliates because they dropped MyNetworkTV last year.

The decline of MyNetworkTV continues…

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

KyL416
Yet another problem with the new online streaming guide, at random the channel guide will erroneously show the guides of ALL the channels and not just the streaming ones even if you already have it set to show just the channels you can stream. This causes it to be all out of wack, like for example 44 WVIA is showing the listings for 38 WSWB, 56 WOLF is showing the listings for 44, and so on.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

Not really a don't call us slide, but they do insert a graphic when there's reception issues with the feed. Like this is what WBRE's stream had when an overnight storm temporarily knocked them off air for a few hours on 4/30:

How come a storm can knock WBRE off-air yet no storm here has never knocked WNEP off-air? (I live just 5 minutes away from WNEP's studios and about a half hour away from WBRE's studios, as well as both their transmitters)

 

[KyL416]

WNEP's transmitter has a backup generator, mainly because they are now on WVIA's tower and WVIA-FM is the primary EAS station for the Scranton area. But WNEP (and WVIA) have also been knocked off air before:

View: https://twitter.com/WviaEng/status/1248322674880806912

On Christmas Eve 2020, the storms that night took out all the stations for a few hours. WBRE, WYOU and WOLF were off air entirely, while WNEP's signal remained on air, but nothing was being fed to their transmitter.

There was also the December 2007 ice storm which caused WNEP's analog tower to collapse, and in the process sheered the top off of WVIA's tower, smashed WNEP's doppler radar, and knocked out the power to the other Penobscot stations.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

On Christmas Eve 2020, the storms that night took out all the stations for a few hours. WBRE, WYOU and WOLF were off air entirely, while WNEP's signal remained on air, but nothing was being fed to their transmitter.

I do remember that. DirecTV was being lazy as they never put up "no need to call us" slides on any of the stations.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

*DBACKS is in test mode on channel 686-3
*TWINS is in test mode, replacing Bally Sports North Extra 3 on 668-3

DBACKS will go live on July 1st or probably the day before, PioneerDJ already linked an article saying the D-Backs won't be on Bally after that. Not sure about TWINS.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

Not really a don't call us slide, but they do insert a graphic when there's reception issues with the feed. Like this is what WBRE's stream had when an overnight storm temporarily knocked them off air for a few hours on 4/30:

I wonder if (for satellite) it's up to the local receive facility or the LABC to put up the don't call us slides. I would have to guess the LRF because the LABC is definitely not within beam A1B1 of D12 which has Scranton's locals in addition to Harrisburg's and Baltimore's locals.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

Like I guessed, it's now impossible to order a PPV online so it will appear on all of your receivers, or specify a different payment method for the PPV instead of billing it to your account. i.e. try looking for a way to order tonight's AEW Forbidden Door PPV. On the stream/guide page you get a result if you search, but no option to order, while on the main directv.com site no results at all.

It's also now impossible to set remote recordings for channels it doesn't list in the guide (i.e. PPV/Adult, Out of market sports, channels it incorrectly thinks you don't get, etc).

On the plus side, the VOD library seems to be in sync compared to what it was like when the unified app first launched. Like tonight's new episode of Raven's Home appeared at midnight ET on both satellite 1290 and the website. The poster based navigation where everything is in a random order instead of A-Z is still horrible though. Most of the VOD only channels in the 1800s and 1900s like Stingray Karaoke, Common Sense, Anime Network are still missing too.


It's not just an iPhone issue, the site is a bloated mess on desktop too since the moment you visit the site, it loads and buffers the last live channel you streamed in the background (even if you turned off the live TV on launch option) and since it's DRM protected video, it's rendered via software by the DRM library instead of via hardware by your GPU.

It's also impossible to watch in home only channels or view VOD versions of your DVR library via the browser since it doesn't use the plugin the old site used to detect your receivers, and all current browsers prevent internet based pages from communicating with LAN IP addresses. (They really should come out with a native Windows/Xbox and MacOS app that gets around these limitations if they want their online presence to be streaming centric)


On a side note, with web access it was a lot easier to examine the API. I did discover through the thumbnail server that they DO have streams for the out of market national versions of YES and the Bally RSNs on the server but for whatever reason the API still only provides the localized in market feeds. There's also streams for other channels not currently available to stream like the 3 Stadium College Sports channels, MavTV, NHK World, FETV, Outdoor Channel and MLB Strike Zone, and the stream for AMC+'s Walking Dead Channel is still live even though it was dropped from satellite in February 2022. Also I got to see what the Padres and Strike Zone look like when there's nothing airing, along with what's currently showing on the REDS feed that almost had to go live a few months ago. EDIT: I also threw in the 2 channels that are currently internet/stream only.

I also noticed it doesn't have different locals based on (I assume) your IP address. I tried using a VPN chrome extension to change to a NYC-based IP and I still got Scranton locals without a blackout message.
That might be an inconvenience for the few people who travel frequently and have cellular modems on their laptops that they take with them.

 

[PioneerDJ]

The court hearing scheduled tomorrow between Diamond Sports Group and MLB/D-backs was postponed to Monday July 17th, so the D-backs will remain on BSAZ for the time being

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

Anything about the Twins?

 

[Tom Speer]

I wonder if (for satellite) it's up to the local receive facility or the LABC to put up the don't call us slides. I would have to guess the LRF because the LABC is definitely not within beam A1B1 of D12 which has Scranton's locals in addition to Harrisburg's and Baltimore's locals.

There is no one at the the local receive facility to do that. The local receive facility just takes the signal, either from direct feed from the station, or off the air in soime cases, and feeds it into DirecTV's giant nationwide fiber optic ring. Looking at the satellite transponder tables, TID 152 which serves your market, is uplinked to the satellite from the NEUF in New Hampshire. But the the LABC controls that feed through the ring and can insert a slate, if a failure is detected.

 

[Tom Speer]

The Diamondbacks and Twins channels (686.3 & 668.3) are still in test this morning, but they have been remapped from offline slates to specific Individual PIDs normally used for part time sports and the cinema channels.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

Those PIDs must be showing the slates from this post

 

[KyL416]

I'm not sure exactly when he did the test grab, but at 11:29am ET the feeds were in the middle of showing MLB Network's Phillies @ Yankees telecast from April 3rd, and then they reverted back to the slates shortly after 12:53pm. So it looks like the coordinated test broadcasts are still going on even though the hearing for the Diamondbacks have been delayed, and nothing new has come out for the Twins.

Diamond Sports has until July 1st to make the full payments to the Diamondbacks, Twins, Guardians and Rangers. The latest reporting still says that only the Rangers got their payment, but as of now there's no Guardians feed in test.

 

[DirecTVFanSince2016]

It looks like Stream has their own object IDs for their channels, per the thumbnail links.
This is a WNEP thumbnail link, with what I'm talking about highlighted:

https://dfwkeyframe-v1-cw.secure.footprint.net/thumbnails/

3204/main/360/keyframes/20230609/T182030Z.jpg
3204 looks to be the Stream object ID for WNEP, so do you happen to have the Stream object IDs for these game feeds? I assume they're all listed in the API

 

[KyL416]

The lineup API includes a "ccId"', which is used to make a seperate call to the authorization API that returns the URLs and DRM tokens if you are authorized to stream that id. That authorization API also includes a "feedId" which doesn't always match the "ccId". Like most of the RSNs, Spanish, International, and "A3 SD" CW and MNT stations have different feedId values compared to their ccId values.