E* and D* sharing LiL facilities?

[Tower Guy]

Can anyone confirm the rumor that DirecTV and Echostar will be sharing LiL collection points in some markets?

 

[Mr Tony]

They probably already are in some markets

 

[voomvoom]

They do in my market, but I think it's more like, they both use the same local station to uplink there signal from. It's not like they are working together, it's more like the local station is working for them. At least I think it's that way. But, everhow it is, they are both uplinked from the same station.

Al

 

[Stargazer]

They don't in my market because DirecTv did not choose as good of a site and could not get the local WB-30 station here and had to get one in another market in its place.

 

[BrettTRay]

Do they get the Local station signal the same way CATV headends do, off antenna?

 

[Stargazer]

Yes

 

[BrettTRay]

I've seen lots of CATV headends in different towns and cities but have never seen a Dish/Directv headend.

 

[Tower Guy]

I've seen lots of CATV headends in different towns and cities but have never seen a Dish/Directv headend.

A Dish/DirecTV head end can be at a TV station with a tower in the back yard or at a data hotel such as Level 3 Communications. One antenna for each VHF station and a Scala broadband log periodic for UHF stations are typical. The signals are encoded, multiplexed, and sent via a DS3 fiber optic data circuit back to the DBS uplink.

In Albany, NY the Dish LiL is at the CBS station, WRGB; DirecTV has been using WXXA, the FOX station.

 

[digiblur]

In some areas they receive the signals via fiber from the facilities.

 

[BrettTRay]

I know these CATV headend have some expensive antennas. I've seen all kinds of Lindsay, Wade, Blondertongue, Scala, and many others. I have some friends that work at Charter and they were upgrading their towers and they gave me some of these antennas. Some where barely a year old. I've always wanted to get my hands on one of lindsay's parabolic antennas. For about $1300 they will give you one!!!!!!

 

[dishrich]

Do they get the Local station signal the same way CATV headends do, off antenna?

And, not all CATV headends use off-air antennas to pick up the local stations - like DBS in some markets, they too use direct feeds to the headend, to avoid the various problems in off-air pickup. (like ghosting, co-channel interfearance, etc)

 

[Spike]

You know, it will never happen, but it would sure save space on satellites if these two would agree to beam say the top 60 city locals to one satellite and share the signal for individual transmission.

*Awakes from his Dream*

 

[jmcgee_jr]

You know what they should do is put up a new sat or 2 or 3 together for LIL and share the costs. I mean if thats all they put on there was HD LIL and no other progromming then they could save money that way.

 

[Pepper]

You know, it will never happen, but it would sure save space on satellites if these two would agree to beam say the top 60 city locals to one satellite and share the signal for individual transmission.

You know what they should do is put up a new sat or 2 or 3 together for LIL and share the costs. I mean if thats all they put on there was HD LIL and no other progromming then they could save money that way.

except for the minor inconvenience that the two systems are encoded in a completely incompatible way, meaning even on a shared satellite they would have to have duplicate copies of everything.

 

[jmcgee_jr]

IM sure they could work something around on that but just wont

 

[Pepper]

One of two things would have to happen. Either Dish would have to modify its receivers to decode DBS, or DirecTV would have to modify theirs to handle DVB. Most likely this would require a hardware modification and couldn't be done completely in software, so the cost would be prohibitive.

 

[markfp-1]

They are both receiving the signal for this market from the same station too. I understand that they asked for bids and this one was the lowest.

 

[hdtvtechno]

I've seen lots of CATV headends in different towns and cities but have never seen a Dish/Directv headend.

Directv headend listed at http://www.directv.com/lrf/lrf.html

 

[pestie]

OK, I made it to the end of the thread and wasn't able to figure it out, so I'll ask - what does LiL stand for?

 

[RBBrittain]

OK, I made it to the end of the thread and wasn't able to figure it out, so I'll ask - what does LiL stand for?

Local Into Local. Refers to taking a "local" signal and retransmitting it by satellite back "into" the "local" market.