How long will it take Dish to pull Sky Angel's bandwith

[TheKrell]

First of all I would like to gloat by saying "I told you so!" (I voted in the distinct minority for April 1.)

Secondly, the poll should be closed NOW since we already know the answer.

I am surprised they would wait until Wednesday. I would think they would take them today (well Tuesday, still Monday here). If they really are going to get new ESPN/DISNEY up on Wednesday they need to get a move on and move the content from 19 and 23 to these exSA TPs ASAP. Then move 16's content to a spot. This would give them TP 16 for national HD this week.

I am struggling to understand what you wrote above. I think SA transponders were 25 and 32, with 32 already being pretty empty. (Why is that BTW?) Also, spot beams don't exist on Rainbow 1 for 25 or 32 (correct me if I'm wrong), so your comment above means that what's currently on 19 and 23 will likely be moved to 25 and 32 so that 19 and 23 can be converted to spots.

OK, so far so good. But that only gives Dish 2 transponders to use (and reuse) in spots, and those are only good for LiL. The comment about 16 moving to spots then frees up only 1 transponder (not 2) for national HD. Are there no other conus transponders which would make good candidates for spots?

 

[mike123abc]

First of all I would like to gloat by saying "I told you so!" (I voted in the distinct minority for April 1.)

Secondly, the poll should be closed NOW since we already know the answer.



I am struggling to understand what you wrote above. I think SA transponders were 25 and 32, with 32 already being pretty empty. (Why is that BTW?) Also, spot beams don't exist on Rainbow 1 for 25 or 32 (correct me if I'm wrong), so your comment above means that what's currently on 19 and 23 will likely be moved to 25 and 32 so that 19 and 23 can be converted to spots.

OK, so far so good. But that only gives Dish 2 transponders to use (and reuse) in spots, and those are only good for LiL. The comment about 16 moving to spots then frees up only 1 transponder (not 2) for national HD. Are there no other conus transponders which would make good candidates for spots?

E12 can do 1-23 odd TPs in spot. Right now they have 1-15 odd in use. NY and Boston are sitting on 17 and 21, so they could convert to spot. That leaves 19 and 23 that have CONUS content on them, but they might want to make them spot beam too (they have promised a lot of markets). So, they could move the content from TPs 19 and 23 to the freed up SA TPs, allowing then 19 and 23 to go to spot beam also. TP 16 has the Rhode Island locals on it, so they could be moved to spot beam, freeing up TP 16.

Yes they only net 1 free new TP. But, they have some room on other TPs that they could also use for HD.

The question comes down to how many of the possible spot TPs will they use on R1. The full potential will probably be needed up in the NE, so they could end up doing all 13 TPs. I speculate they were planning on all of them, but they were also planning on AMC-14.

 

[TalonDancer]

First of all I would like to gloat by saying "I told you so!" (I voted in the distinct minority for April 1.)

Secondly, the poll should be closed NOW since we already know the answer......

Congratulation's on getting the right answer.

BTW it probably helped that you actually read the poll question, that only asked when the SA channels would go dark Not the more interesting question, of when they would be lit up again with new content

Talon Dancer

 

[TheKrell]

E12 can do 1-23 odd TPs in spot. Right now they have 1-15 odd in use. NY and Boston are sitting on 17 and 21, so they could convert to spot. That leaves 19 and 23 that have CONUS content on them, but they might want to make them spot beam too (they have promised a lot of markets). So, they could move the content from TPs 19 and 23 to the freed up SA TPs, allowing then 19 and 23 to go to spot beam also. TP 16 has the Rhode Island locals on it, so they could be moved to spot beam, freeing up TP 16.

You missed the opportunity to say, "You were spot on!"

OK, back to transponder assignments. Depending upon how many transponders need to be assigned to each beam for the NE, Dish may not need any more transponders than those they already have in spot mode, which is 8. For the Washington DC area, the magic number seems to be 2 transponders/spot. I showed elsewhere mathematically that, assuming only 2 transponders are needed for locals in a particular spotbeam, at most 8 transponders would be needed to prevent interference from adjacent spots. And lo and behold, I can see all 8 spotbeam transponders on 61.5 from northern VA.

You say above that Boston and New York are now consuming only 2 conus transponders, so those could be moved to spotbeams right now using 2 of the 8 odd transponders now operating in spotbeam mode. This should only perturb those who have "moved" to NY from well beyond the spotbeam for NY. And I assumed there are no R1 hardware limitations. If R1 can't put any odd transponder on any spotbeam, that would require more transponder consumption as you proposed above.

If R1 has the spot hardware capability, then 16, 17, and 21 could have been moved to spots months ago. I think it likely that my assumption about R1 is probably wrong, or Dish would have done this already. Either that or they're asleep at the uplink center.

 

[digiblur]

R1/E12 is limited in what TP's it can transmit on and also by spotbeam.

 

[mike123abc]

The holdup is the third downlink which serves a particularly dense area of the NE. It can only downlink on TPs 1,3,7,15,17, 19 and 23.

So, they would need 17, 19 and 23 in spotbeam mode. Remember if they want to do service from an Eastern Arc they would need all the locals, the standard def ones too on the spot. So a DMA like NYC would need probably 1 for the HD and 1 TP for the standard def locals.

 

[mike123abc]

FYI

01: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17
02: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21
03: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
04: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21
05: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
06: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
07: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21
08: 5, 9, 11, 13
09: 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 17, 19, 23
10: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
11: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21
12: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
13: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
14: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
15: 5, 11, 13, 21
16: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
17: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21
18: 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 17, 19, 23
19: 5, 11, 13, 21
20: 5, 11, 13, 17, 21
21: 1, 3, 7, 15, 17, 19, 23
22: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21

So if 17, 19, 21, & 23 do not go spot beam a lot of the spots lose 30-40% capacity.

 

[TalonDancer]

FYI
...
17: 5, 9, 11, 13, 21
....
So if 17, 19, 21, & 23 do not go spot beam a lot of the spots lose 30-40% capacity.

Please forgive these nOOb questions. Let me see if I understand this, using Spot Beam 17 as an example...

All the transponders in the list for spot beam 17 can be seen equally within the area of the spot. But each transponder broadcasts a different set of channels (i.e. Austin's HD locals are only on TP 5, Houston's HD locals are uplinked on TP 13 etc.). So by losing "30-40% capacity" you mean that fewer channels can be broadcast by that spot beam.

And by inference, the extra capacity freed up on the Sky Angel TPs is likely going to be used for SD (and HD) locals required to implement a 'single dish Eastern Arc' that does not include 110, 119.

Is that correct?

TIA - Talon Dancer

 

[digiblur]

Yep, you got it. Each beam has the capability to transmit on the transponder frequencies listed above. If the corresponding CONUS beam is not cut off then each spotbeam can not re-use the frequency across the US. Basically part of the spotbeam will be "dark".

Typically we are seeing each DMA market on one transponder. So if a beam is missing two frequencies then that's two DMA martkets that it could be transmitting on. Now, that's if they have the retransmission agreements, OTA signals, backhaul, and uplink ready to go.

 

[TalonDancer]

Thanks digiblur & mike123abc for finally getting through my thick head the significance of of the transponder list w.r.t. spot beams.

And now i think I know why we should expect yet more locals tomorrow*

Talon Dancer

* Yes I know I've been very vocal is wanting my Austin HD locals ASAP. But hey, now I have them (as of last Sat AM) so...
I got mine. Lets get on with the National HD roll out already

 

[TheKrell]

So if 17, 19, 21, & 23 do not go spot beam a lot of the spots lose 30-40% capacity.

Very nice rollup of what's really going on, Mike. Thanks. This afternoon I was wasting valuable time at work looking for that list, without success. (Don't tell Uncle Sam...)

 

[mike123abc]

What is amazing is just how powerful the R1 satellite is in spot beam mode.

TP01 reused 12 times
TP03 12x
TP05 10x
TP07 12x
TP09 9x
TP11 10x
TP13 10x
TP15 12x
TP17 13x
TP19 11x
TP21 9x
TP23 11x

119 spot TPs. That is a lot of potential capacity.

 

[JohnL]

The holdup is the third downlink which serves a particularly dense area of the NE. It can only downlink on TPs 1,3,7,15,17, 19 and 23.

So, they would need 17, 19 and 23 in spotbeam mode. Remember if they want to do service from an Eastern Arc they would need all the locals, the standard def ones too on the spot. So a DMA like NYC would need probably 1 for the HD and 1 TP for the standard def locals.

Mike,

Why does Dish need the Locals in SD as well as the HD locals. Dish currently has NO MPEG4 SD receivers. Since this is the case it does NOT make any sense to carry both SD and HD signals for the same stations. Sure, Dish should carry SD Locals if they are NOT carrying that Stations HD signals.

John

 

[Pepper]

I think they would only need the SD locals where there is no HD local available. Also, they don't need SD versions of the national channels such as USA, SciFi, CNN, etc.

 

[mike123abc]

Mike,

Why does Dish need the Locals in SD as well as the HD locals. Dish currently has NO MPEG4 SD receivers. Since this is the case it does NOT make any sense to carry both SD and HD signals for the same stations. Sure, Dish should carry SD Locals if they are NOT carrying that Stations HD signals.

John

If they want to do a single dish solution that does not point to 110/119 they will need the rest of the SD locals copied over to 61.5 area (perhaps including 72.5 and 77) for must carry reasons.

 

[JohnL]

If they want to do a single dish solution that does not point to 110/119 they will need the rest of the SD locals copied over to 61.5 area (perhaps including 72.5 and 77) for must carry reasons.

Mike,

No, Dish does not need to carry BOTH SD and HD versions of the same channels at 61.5, 72.7, or 77.

Must carry just specifies how a local Market channel elects to be carried from a Third Party provider (DirecTV or Dish Network). There are two choices; 1) Retransmission consent Agreement (Under a retransmission consent agreement Dish must pay said channel a fee of that channels carriage, or 2) select Must Carry (Under Must Carry Dish is required to carry all Full Power local market channels in each market that request that type of carriage, if Dish carries ANY local market signals). Since Dish would already be carrying a local Markets HD signal it does NOT mean Dish (Must Carry) a SD version of the same channel, hence WASTE bandwidth for nothing. Just for your knowledge, very few of all the Dish Local into Local channels selected Must Carry. Over 95 percent of the Local into Local Channels available from Dish requested a retransmission agreement, which means Dish pays the Local affiliate a fee for each Local into Local subscriber Dish has.

Remember that Eastern Arc from 61.5, 72.7, and 77 will be MPEG4. Currently the only MPEG4 Dish receivers are HD receivers, why waste bandwidth on a SD version of the same EXACT HD channel, considering the HD version is already carried. All subscribers pointed to Eastern ARC would have access to the better HD version all the time, again since the only receivers using Eastern ARC will be MPEG4 HD receivers.

It make absolutely NO SENSE what so ever to carry multiple HD and SD feeds for each local market signal when the higher quality signal would be available to any and all receivers receiving a signal from the Eastern ARC.

John

 

[mike123abc]

The big broadcast nets have the power to demand payment for retransmission, so why not, it is free money to the station. The smaller stations have to demand must carry, since who would pay for the infomercial are us channel? But, when Dish carries a market they have to carry all the channel and they cannot discriminate on the bit allocation or reception equipment (remember Dish lost that fight too where they put the big ones on 110/119 and minors on wings). Dish cannot provide a single dish solution that does not carry all the must carry stations (i.e. say you can get everything on the eastern arc but if you want indyX channel you have to put up a second dish pointing at 110/119).

With HD they got the FCC to approve a plan of phased in carriage. They can put the big networks up for now but eventually they will have to carry all the smaller stations that demand must carry in HD too, even if it is just upconverted SD infomercials.

 

[vegassatellite]

The big broadcast nets have the power to demand payment for retransmission, so why not, it is free money to the station. The smaller stations have to demand must carry, since who would pay for the infomercial are us channel? But, when Dish carries a market they have to carry all the channel and they cannot discriminate on the bit allocation or reception equipment (remember Dish lost that fight too where they put the big ones on 110/119 and minors on wings). Dish cannot provide a single dish solution that does not carry all the must carry stations (i.e. say you can get everything on the eastern arc but if you want indyX channel you have to put up a second dish pointing at 110/119).

With HD they got the FCC to approve a plan of phased in carriage. They can put the big networks up for now but eventually they will have to carry all the smaller stations that demand must carry in HD too, even if it is just upconverted SD infomercials.

All stations in a market must be accessible from the same dish for the same resolution. That means no splitting locals across two separate dishes. However, those stations don't have to be on the same dish as national programming.

 

[mike123abc]

All stations in a market must be accessible from the same dish for the same resolution. That means no splitting locals across two separate dishes. However, those stations don't have to be on the same dish as national programming.

That is true, but my point is that Dish cannot start offering a single service dish pointed east offering just some of the channels in a market. If they want a single dish pointed towards the Eastern arc they will have to copy all the SD channels over to meet the SD must carry requirements.

 

[vegassatellite]

That is true, but my point is that Dish cannot start offering a single service dish pointed east offering just some of the channels in a market. If they want a single dish pointed towards the Eastern arc they will have to copy all the SD channels over to meet the SD must carry requirements.

Eastern Arc is intended for the HD service. Also, DISH can just carry the HD version of each local and just have the receiver down-res it to SD if need be to eliminate duplicate channels. They just have to make sure that any receiver intended for Eastern Arc has the ability to receive the MPEG4 8PSK signal.