HD local stations/Cleveland

[radrb8]

What a great forum you have here, I've spent the last couple of hours reading different threads, very entertaining! I've had Dish for about 3 yrs. now and recently upgraded to their HD package and though it provides great viewing I am quite disappointed because the local stations are only available in SD without an OTA. After talking to several CSR at Dish, still no information on a tentative rollout for local HD programming. WHAT IS THE BIG SECRET?

 

[webbydude]

WHAT IS THE BIG SECRET?

Umm....because they're clueless about the situation. Most often the CSR's find out the same day the channels roll out.

 

[radrb8]

What is the situation? I would think that a company like Dish would have a tentative rollout schedule for all large markets in the works.

 

[mecro]

What is the situation? I would think that a company like Dish would have a tentative rollout schedule for all large markets in the works.

There are more problems. Echostar is facing some serious HD capacity problems right now, which they are working on with more satellites and new encoders. Also, Echostar is having trouble negotiating contracts to carry local channels in HD for many 'planned' cities. The FCC is trying to fix the latter.

Call me a liar, but I think Echostar is trying to get out of the practice of giving us false hopes...

 

[Hall]

Most often the CSR's find out the same day the channels roll out.

Ummm, try 3-4 days after !!

 

[Hall]

I would think that a company like Dish would have a tentative rollout schedule for all large markets in the works.

Pretend there are (4) major networks in Cleveland and Dish can only come to an agreement with one or two and the others aren't budging... Does Dish move on to the next city where they're making progress or do they potentially waste time and effort on Cleveland ?? Of course, people in the Cleveland market will have a different answer than those outside of that market !

 

[radrb8]

So what you are saying is some of the local stations maybe playing hardball in working out a contract? Obviously, the local stations don't want to leave any money on the table but, if D... breaks off contract talks with the local stations as far as providing HD nobody really wins. Consumers are stuck with putting up an antenna, local stations receive no income from D... and D... looks bad for not working out a contract and in my mind appears to be insensitive to what their customers want.

 

[smakovits]

DirectTV now offers local HDs in Cleveland and to be honest this is a big thing for me. OTA means another cable another device to make clutter. All I hear is D* stalling all the time and the 100 HD are a lot of channels i may not watch, especially during hockey season. I just want versus HD, NHLCI in HD and locals in HD. Dish offers most of these except the Locals and that makes me want to go to D*. UH, this makes my decisions so hard because neither will make me happy at this rate. I know D* just got them recently so does this mean there is some bit of hope with Dish to follow

 

[JamesJ]

I would expect to see Dish put up cleveland Locals early next year when the new sat goes up. Now is that a promise that something is going to happen, No...but again I see them going up early next year.

 

[cparker]

Buffalo, NY HD locals were supposed to happen like a year and a half ago or something. I no longer CARE since I have excellent OTA working. I don't mind having an antenna. Took me one afternoon to go buy it, install it, run cable, and hook it up.

If I have a local station that's not playing nice with Dish, and if enticing them to play nice would raise my bill, then the heck with them. I'll keep OTA.