Moving was a good thing !!!

sprintcarcrazy

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Dec 18, 2003
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Well I just moved 150 miles west to Kansas City area ! :rolleyes: Now I get locals in HD from satellite.

And guess what, several things that our local OTA stations were showing such as Wheel Of Fortune, where not carried in HD for some reason. Now since moving :rolleyes: , I get these in HD. What is the deal with stations not showing things in HD. I had to call our local CBS station over 20 times in 7 months, they finally started showing Letterman in HD just a few weeks ago when it's been available for months. And the person who said the KC picture quality was good, you are right on !!!!

And congress won't let us pick our stations, what a bunch of crap !
 
Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy are syndicated shows. Not all local stations have the equipment necessary to record these shows in HD and then rebroadcast them. Most of the HD on local stations is just passed through. These actually have to be recorded and then rebroadcast.
 
Exactly the response I got when I emailed the station, they do not have the budget to buy the equipment needed to record these broadcasts in HD to retransmit them later.
 
They can't afford a few $1000 capture card and a PC????? :confused:

The guy I contacted at my local station said that only the top 20 or so markets were able to capture HD and then rebroadcast it.

Here is the exact email I got back from him:

WGFL said:
Hello

Thanks for your interest in our programming.
Jeopardy is available in HDTV but we are unfortunately not contracted to carry it in this format. There is a significant cost attached to making this program available to viewers in HDTV so it may be quite some time before we will be able to make this full transition cost effectively.

The basic problem is that we are able to pass through HDTV from CBS using a technique that requires only a moderate equipment investment. Programs such as Jeopardy are syndicated programs that are delivered to our station overnight and we have to process them for airing later. To process HDTV shows in this manner would require that we replace virtually every piece of equipment in the station. There would be well over a million dollars of investment and no practical possibility of additional revenues from advertisers. It's a difficult situation that will take some time to resolve.

We are actively working towards replacing equipment that will be compatible with HDTV programming and should be able to do this with reasonable capital investments spread out over time. This full transition to an HDTV facility will be the most costly part of our transition. Some techniques will be employed to work around the long term required for full transition but it will be difficult to say when we would be able to bring syndicated shows to viewers with costs reasonable enough to be covered exclusively through advertising. In order to provide free programming to viewers, we are tied to keeping the cost of programming within these advertising budget constraints.

Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are the first syndicated programs being offered in HDTV and top 20 market stations have advertiser revenues far in excess of our 162 ranked market. These larger market stations could easily afford the equipment because their much greater advertising revenues. This is why these shows are being produced in HDTV, it is not expected that a station in a market of our size would currently be equipped to broadcast this show in HDTV format. Unfortunately they still promote HDTV within the content of the show even though it is not applicable to the majority of markets in the USA.

We currently do not have a time table for making programming other than CBS network available in HDTV. The good news is that since we were the first to bring digital broadcasting, HDTV and multicasting to this market, chances are we will also be first to accomplish syndicated programming in HDTV as well.

I hope this information helps answer your question.


Terry Blakeney
CBS 4 - My 11
Gainesville, Florida
(352) 375-5300 phone
(352) 371-9353 fax
 
I'm still trying to figure out where I need to move to to get the HD locals. I live about 65 miles north of Little Rock, AR. If anyone has a suggestion as to where I should "move", please feel free to met me know. I have the vip622 and Dish1000.

Thanks,

Scott
 
I live in Lubbock TX and have no hd available through dish. I have sats 110, 119, 129, and 148. I have considered changing my address to my cabin in TN to pick up Nashville in HD. I understand that their HD is on 129 so I know that I will pick up abc, cbs, nbc, and fox in hd. I am a little confused on spot beams and how they work. If I make this "move" what channels will I get and what channels will I lose. Will my other sd recievers pick up Nashville sd channels? I do know that I will lose fox sports southwest but get fox south. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
 
I am a little confused on spot beams and how they work. If I make this "move" what channels will I get and what channels will I lose. Will my other sd recievers pick up Nashville sd channels?

spotbeams are used so Dish & Direct can reuse the same transponder in different parts of the country.

As an example, my locals are on satellite 110 transponder 4 (Minneapolis, MN). The spotbeam (think flashlight...aim it at a wall. If you are in the bright spot, then thats the spotbeam. If you're in the dark, then you're outside of that). So as long as I am within that spotbeam, I can see Mpls locals (the spotbeam covers MN and a smidge in NW Iowa. Someone in Madison, WI cannot see Minneapolis locals. Milwaukee is also on transponder 4 but a different spotbeam.

The HD locals for Nashville are CONUS (Continental US). The spotbeam for Nashville doesn't even make it to Memphis so no it will not work in Texas
 
I live in Lubbock TX and have no hd available through dish. I have sats 110, 119, 129, and 148. I have considered changing my address to my cabin in TN to pick up Nashville in HD. I understand that their HD is on 129 so I know that I will pick up abc, cbs, nbc, and fox in hd. I am a little confused on spot beams and how they work. If I make this "move" what channels will I get and what channels will I lose. Will my other sd recievers pick up Nashville sd channels? I do know that I will lose fox sports southwest but get fox south. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
As said above, Nashville SD locals are carried on a spot beam on 110 so you will not have any locals on your sd receivers.

On your HD receiver you will get Nashville HD, because they are broadcast to the entire CONUS, and also your real local OTA channels.
 
When you move, do you have to unplug your 622 so they won't detect the difference in area code? I want the move to Chicago. I have the 129 so I'm good to go. Just got HD yesterday. How long until I should consider the move and do I need to keep the telephone line plugged in?

My understanding is to change the service address and tell them I set the equipment up myself.
 
You can change your address without changing your telephone number. Simply say that I already moved to new SERVICE address and I have a dish installed , but I need to keep my BILLING address and phone number the same as it was. If you don't keep your phone line plugged in to the 622 you will face a $5.00 charge and possibly a call from the DISH audit police too. I have done this several times and moved to different states and I have never changed my phone once. They do not care about this.
 
Just call now and say you want to update your service address, it's not right. Then wait 24 hours and call back and say you are not getting your locals. Then make sure they are giving your locals for the new address. I had to call in about 3 times before they got it straight for locals with new address, I am glad I did this, I am getting things in HD I never did before, Like FOX, also I can record 2 networks at 1 time, like CBS/NBC at same time, since I lost cbs HD distant, it was an issue, but now it back to normal. My HD locals are out of KC in MPEG 4 and I must ssay, switch back and forth, I can't tell the difference, the sound is actually better on the Satellite side.
 
Anyone willing to tell me where I should "move" to to get local HD?

How do you come up with a address in your new locale?

Thanks in advance for any help & suggestions.

I'm still trying to figure out where I need to move to to get the HD locals. I live about 65 miles north of Little Rock, AR. If anyone has a suggestion as to where I should "move", please feel free to met me know. I have the vip622 and Dish1000.

Thanks,

Scott
 
The guy I contacted at my local station said that only the top 20 or so markets were able to capture HD and then rebroadcast it.

My station has been doing it since day 1 (I think we are #15), an engineer for the station said they simply record the show on to video tape, he acted like it was no big deal but it could be because of our unique time zone situation all of my locals have HD delay equipment (even MNTV).
 
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