But all the hoop-da-la over national HD channels is just that: hoop-da-la. The average person would like more HD channels sure. But what do they watch the most? Thier local network affiliates. Just about every other house in my neighborhood has a sattelite dish on it. At the begining of the year most of these dishes were E*. Now most are D*. Why? Because long before D* came out with additional HD channels they made the smart move and offered the local stations in HD. It started a stampede. I hate to say it but my own son went over. I'm just not ready to throw 9 years and countless thousands of dollars on equiptment out the window just yet but if E* does not start coming through with their promises of more local Hd then I don't see another choice. My sister-in-law joined the direct crowd today. If direct can do it with locals why can't Dish? We are in the top 50 market by the way.
I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelling..
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Sure, what about the places where OTA reception is spotty or non-existent?
In Pahrump (exurb of Las Vegas) DirecTV 5LNB dishes outnumber Dish 1000 dishes 100 to 1 because they're the only way to get Las Vegas HD locals.
Sure, you can go grey area and "move", but most people aren't aware of the option or willing to do that.
That's exactly what I do, which means I'm paying for a single tuner receiver and a lot of network shows are recorded in SD because I have to choose which shows to record in HD and which shows to record in SD on any given night Remember that the networks are competing against each other and throw up shows against each other in the same time slot and I can only record one in HD. Only I'm paying the same amount (probably a whole lot more actually) as the guy with sat HD locals. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are a nightmare trying to figure out which shows we want to record as we are actually gone a lot and have to record for later viewing most of the shows we watch.
I mean jjust think about it, I can record the 40th re-run of Law and Order in HD and House in HD, but not House and 24 in HD. Just because all the people with HD locals are bombarding Dish with complaints of "more national HD". Makes no since. How many episodes of Law and Order, SVU can you watch in Stretch-O-Vision before you just want to commit a crime so you can be interrigated by Jane Mansfileld daughter.
I have wanted my HD locals for years. E* said they were coming . Now they don't have a clue. All I see is sports HD alternates, what a waste. I'm not paying hundreds of dollars for sports packages I'm not going to watch. If I don't get my Orlando locals
by Jan 1st, it's bye bye Dish.
by Jan 1st, it's bye bye Dish.
wayne231, I beleive your analysis is spot on. Are the figures still that just one network in primetime has more viewers than all of cable? I am lucky to be able to get OTA HD for all networks but I don't even have a Dish HD receiver because I can live without HD cable channels, just really want the network ones. (I have a separate old RCA reciever for OTA HD)
Then there are those of us that have the Network we want Uplinked(CBS,KRQE), but not available because the station owner (LIN)will not release (to both satellite providers)...The only national channel Dish doesn't carry I want is SciFi...
That doesn't hold true for me. While my recurring timers are split about 50/50 between local networks and other channels, my one-time timers are almost exclusively non-local-affiliate HD content. When I channel surf, it is also almost exclusively non-local-affiliate HD content. I never watch my locals outside of what I have timers set up for. Based on time, I watch non-local content about 70% of the time.
Non-HD:
USA
FX
Comedy Central
SCI/FI
Military Channel (in the middle of the night when everything else is infomercials)
And that is exactly what everyone is doing. Then where will you be when the customer base has erroded. Why so cavelier? I even own a good amount of echostar stock, you think I want the company to suffer?
Neither Dish nor DirecTV has all my local stations in HD. Dish doesn't have them at all and DirecTV has just a few but it's missing one of the major 3 here as well as a few of the PBS stations.
Fortunately I have a good OTA antenna and grab all locals over that.
Will there come a time when the local stations MUST allow the satellite carriers to carry the local channels? Or do the local channel owners basically have the satellite carriers by the short hairs?
Fortunately I have a good OTA antenna and grab all locals over that.
Will there come a time when the local stations MUST allow the satellite carriers to carry the local channels? Or do the local channel owners basically have the satellite carriers by the short hairs?
I will be right here...still enjoying my OTA.
I hate to see people not happy with what they are paying for. Competition is beautiful thing.
There aren't going to be any HD LiL's added to DishNetwork in the near future, so choose the solution that works for you. Feed the HDTV some HD!
It sure is easier to deal with one company to negotiate carriage of a channel vs Dish having to negotiate with probably hundreds (1) of different companies for carriage of local channels.
That said, I would still love to have Dish provide my digital locals. I also run into a few nights where we have to decide which show we want to record in HD (OTA) vs SD (satellite).
(1) 100+ markets x 3 or 4 channels per market
That said, I would still love to have Dish provide my digital locals. I also run into a few nights where we have to decide which show we want to record in HD (OTA) vs SD (satellite).
(1) 100+ markets x 3 or 4 channels per market
At least you can get all OTA. I live in an area where the VA stations don't come OTA and they are only SD on satellite (E* or D*), and the OTA that I get is from out of state. I'm limited to 3 HD channels (CBS, ABC, PBS), and at times NONE because the ABC station is so low powered, the signal is sporatic, the PBS is a "remote" station that is high powered, but looses it's reception that it relays (full scale on meter, but no pix on the HD, just on the subs) and the CBS station forgets to switch to HD. Sooooooo many times I've made the long distance call to get them to "throw the switch" and as soon as I hang up the phone, INSTANT wide screen.
Sorry for the OTA rant
Rob
edit: I can get the VA locals OTA, but it's a county owned LPT translator, analog, so the 622 won't recieve, and it is about 1 mile from my house & completely wipes out any chance of me looking around it. This is how bad it is; One of the VA HD channels is on ch 31, the local tower TX's on ch 30
Sorry for the EDIT rant, too
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It seems like the, "I can't get my locals OTA" statement comes up a lot on this forum. I'm curious to know what percentage of the U.S. population lives within OTA reception distance of their local signals. I always thought that an overwhelming percentage of the population lives within a few miles of a major metropolitan area, but maybe I'm wrong.
Just curious.
Just curious.
At least you can get all OTA. I live in an area where the VA stations don't come OTA and they are only SD on satellite (E* or D*), and the OTA that I get is from out of state. I'm limited to 3 HD channels (CBS, ABC, PBS), and at times NONE because the ABC station is so low powered, the signal is sporatic, the PBS is a "remote" station that is high powered, but looses it's reception that it relays (full scale on meter, but no pix on the HD, just on the subs) and the CBS station forgets to switch to HD. Sooooooo many times I've made the long distance call to get them to "throw the switch" and as soon as I hang up the phone, INSTANT wide screen.
Sorry for the OTA rant
Rob
edit: I can get the VA locals OTA, but it's a county owned LPT translator, analog, so the 622 won't recieve, and it is about 1 mile from my house & completely wipes out any chance of me looking around it. This is how bad it is; One of the VA HD channels is on ch 31, the local tower TX's on ch 30
Sorry for the EDIT rant, too
Well, Quit using rabbit ears and get a real antenna.
