Is D* doing some True HD again????

[digiblur]

I was going to actually write about this today. I got to sit down last night and was flipping around on DirecTV and stumbled upon Discovery Theater HD and was STUNNED by the picture quality.

TNT HD and Discovery HD are on one TP locked in solid at 13.7 mbps a piece.

Showtime HD, HBO HD, and HDNet Movies are crammed together into one 30 mbps transponder. And no, that's not 30 mbps just for video. You do the math...

Universal HD and ESPN HD are on one TP locked in solid at 13.3 mbps a piece.

ESPN2HD and HDNet are on one TP locked in solid at 13.3 mbps a piece.

 

[Ramy]

How are they able to do this now? What have they gotten rid of to be able to do this?

 

[FlyingJ]

How are they able to do this now? What have they gotten rid of to be able to do this?

When you were 5 did you ask your momma to explain how Santy was getting all of those gifts to all those people in such a short amount of time?

Damn it Ramy, Its magic! Next question!

 

[bonscott87]

How are they able to do this now? What have they gotten rid of to be able to do this?

Well, they have been moving several channels around to different sats (like HBO used to be on 101 I believe). Most likely in preparation for Sunday Ticket. And while they did that they found a way to increase PQ on some of the channels. Could even be that Discovery complained and so they accomidated.

Who really knows and as stated above, doesn't really matter so long as they keep it up.

 

[ScoBuck]

How are they able to do this now? What have they gotten rid of to be able to do this?

They wouldn't have to get rid of anything to do testing or other similar things. None of the providers FULLY utilize ALL of their bandwidth - they leave some capacity for emergency and testing type usage.

 

[riffjim4069]

Damn it Ramy, Its magic! Next question![/B]

"This whole case is an illusion, a magic trick. It has to be an illusion, 'cause...I mean nobody - pulls the wool over the eyes of a Gambini, especially this one."

 

[Ramy]

When you were 5 did you ask your momma to explain how Santy was getting all of those gifts to all those people in such a short amount of time?

Damn it Ramy, Its magic! Next question!

Did someone pee in your cheerios this morning?

 

[vurbano]

Did they turn off PPV channels or finally reallocate the bandwidth for STHD channels while they are not on?

 

[harshness]

Who really knows and as stated above, doesn't really matter so long as they keep it up.

Rest assured that once football season starts, they'll probably have to temporarily shut most of the current HD channels down (other than HBO-HD and SHO-HD) to do the Superfan feeds.

 

[FlyingJ]

Rest assured that once football season starts, they'll probably have to temporarily shut most of the current HD channels down (other than HBO-HD and SHO-HD) to do the Superfan feeds.

Doubt it, don't care either. If your not watching football on a Sunday afternoon in the fall, get out of the house and do something! Or better yet, get back in the kitchen and make something tasty for those of us that are too busy watching football.

 

[ScoBuck]

Rest assured that once football season starts, they'll probably have to temporarily shut most of the current HD channels down (other than HBO-HD and SHO-HD) to do the Superfan feeds.

i'm gonna guess that since MPEG4 bandwidth won't be an issue that ALL the legacy MPEG2 channels will be mirrored in MPEG4. Only subs who haven't upgraded would be in any way affected.

 

[Brewer4]

I really do hope they are mirrored at MPEG4 from the start.

 

[bonscott87]

Rest assured that once football season starts, they'll probably have to temporarily shut most of the current HD channels down (other than HBO-HD and SHO-HD) to do the Superfan feeds.

Most likely they will have to. And those channels should be available in MPEG4 so if someone calls to complain they'll send out an MPEG4 receiver post haste.

 

[RealityCheck]

I really do hope they are mirrored at MPEG4 from the start.

Sounds good

 

[Ramy]

Sounds good

I agree with the previous post.

 

[vurbano]

They still need to turn the bitrate up on DiscoveryHD. Watching "Miracle of Pantanal" and it macroblocks badly in the water scenes where the alligators are eating the fish. It was pretty ugly.

 

[atp1313]

They still need to turn the bitrate up on DiscoveryHD. Watching "Miracle of Pantanal" and it macroblocks badly in the water scenes where the alligators are eating the fish. It was pretty ugly.

The PQ or the savagery of nature?

 

[GeorgeLV]

Aren't there people in O&O markets that cannot receive OTA? These are there for them permanently I believe.

I'm pretty sure that with the exception of the Ocala-Gainesville Fox station, all markets with O&O's have HD LiLs available on DirecTV.

 

[ScoBuck]

But not all people in an O&O market can receive all of the OTA signals due to mountains, and other factors, such as distance. They are eligible for waivers.

 

[cbearnm]

Probably the biggest contributor to the higher bit rates lately is the content providers themselves. When D* signed on for all the Discovery channels, Discovery probably made them commit to full (or close to) bit rates. They were probably getting many inquiries about their lower image image quality.

Then the other providers made sure that they wouldn't be compressed for the sake of Discovery, so they made the same deals with D*.

Yet another case of free market competition being good for the consumer.

Some of the recent volatility is probably due to D* tweaking the formulas for their transmission side and compression algorithms.