NPS to up bitrate in March

[tvropro]

NPS is planning on changing there G3 uplink symbol rate from 19510 3/4 FEC to 29270 3/4 in early March. This should help with picture quality.

Here's a bit of technical info from the NPS website on the G3 uplink:

"We receive each programmers signals on a commercial satellite receiver where the signals are output analog and then converted to digital to feed into an older Motorola DCII system. Unfortunately we don't have the ability to keep the signals in the original digital format. The Motorola encoder system is utilizing stat muxing. This Motorola encode system has very little pre processing to help with the inbound signals and that have already been compressed by the programmers. We do plan on making a modulation change in March that will increase the amount of information rate available for the stat-mux to allocate more data to each channel which will improve the macro blocking that you are seeing. Most of the macro blocking occurs at the minimum data rate setting. which we should be able increase when we have additional throughput from the modulation changes. Please feel free to give us feed back once we make these changes in early March."

I hope it turns out good

 

[truckracer]

Thank God LOL

 

[skysurfer]

NPS is planning on changing there G3 uplink symbol rate from 19510 3/4 FEC to 29270 3/4 in early March. This should help with picture quality.

yes, it should turn out good. It'll up the average bitrate of each channel to 3mbps, which is fairly good. The problem will be if they add more channels to either mux, but it appears they won't be adding any channels.

I wonder how much the uplink fee is going to increase because of the move....

 

[dunnsept]

'bout time.. I've been watching G3 lately and the picture stinks compared to the others.. more so with that macro blocking nonsense.

yea, skysurfer, unfortunately you're probably right with the price.. seems that's the norm. add a channel or two and up the price.. but with G3 we're stuck with NPS

 

[emuman100]

I don't see why they just can't pick out the audio and video elementary stream and remultiplex that. I cannot believe their DCII encoding system is that old that it accepts only analog signals.

 

[tvropro]

I don't see why they just can't pick out the audio and video elementary stream and remultiplex that. I cannot believe their DCII encoding system is that old that it accepts only analog signals.

Knowing NPS and it's cost cutting measures they have some old beta testing surplus unit that they got at a garage sale LOL. But seriously I don't think Crawford has a clue of how to work this equipment let alone hook it up. I noticed that after they added the Turner channels there audio levels are messed up on some channels again. Time for Crawford to run down to the local dollar store and pick up some 99 cent patch cables :shocked :yikes

 

[tvropro]

I wonder how much the uplink fee is going to increase because of the move....

I was reading the NPS chat log from yesterday and someone brought up cost of tier bit fee etc. Mike went on to say our contracts will not allow us to disclose any information about that. Come on NPS were not stupid we know your padding that tier bit / uplink fee for more profit. Mike needs his golden parachute bailout fund.

 

[truckracer]

i can't believe they would have to convert those channels to analog and re encode them to digital. that would be like having a rack of dsr-905's or 410's - one for every channel receiving the masters and running composite audi0/video cables out into encoders and multiplexing it all back up into a mux with D* or E* style bandwidth.

wonder why they didn't just buy them from a pizza dish company...it wouldn't look much worse. I have noticed a while back about the audio being crappy.

 

[tvropro]

i can't believe they would have to convert those channels to analog and re encode them to digital. that would be like having a rack of dsr-905's or 410's - one for every channel receiving the masters and running composite audi0/video cables out into encoders and multiplexing it all back up into a mux with D* or E* style bandwidth.

Thats what there doing it sounds like. From what I know about the DC-2 system they can pass the true original digital form from the decoder back into the encoder and be transparent. The PowerVu channels they may have to convert to HDMI, Component or S then encode them. What there doing is composite between decoding and encoding and probably using crappy cables at at that.

 

[Radioguy41]

Thank God LOL

X2

 

[JosephB]

i can't believe they would have to convert those channels to analog and re encode them to digital. that would be like having a rack of dsr-905's or 410's - one for every channel receiving the masters and running composite audi0/video cables out into encoders and multiplexing it all back up into a mux with D* or E* style bandwidth.

wonder why they didn't just buy them from a pizza dish company...it wouldn't look much worse. I have noticed a while back about the audio being crappy.

Then what's the point of subscribing to NPS in the first place? Why not just put up a mini-dish and get DirecTV or Dish Network? I thought the whole selling point of keeping C-Band around was to get the first generation signal.

 

[tvropro]

Then what's the point of subscribing to NPS in the first place? Why not just put up a mini-dish and get DirecTV or Dish Network? I thought the whole selling point of keeping C-Band around was to get the first generation signal.

Since the whole digital thing started some channels have been reuped by HITS or NPS, This has a few reasons. Some channels are in PowerVu or DC2 Megapipe that the 4DTV cannot decode. Others the programmers won't allow us to sub to the masters anymore. We have the dirty little dish and cable to thank for what's happened to C band. Dish Network and Charlie Ergen is one of the biggest jerks against the C band industry. By buying out SSC/Netlink/Turnervision and lieing to C band subscribers, then strong arming them into his pie plate he put a big dent in C band subscibers which hurt us. I for one will never own a little dish because of these reasons. I would rather give my money to NPS & SRL and help them keep C band going. NPS is slowly coming around and moving in the right direction again by the change to the modulation mode in March for a better picture. C band still has the most movie channels and there ALL first generation masters. I think theres something like 83 channels of movies. Can the pie plate do that and give a first gen quality? I don't think so.

C band still has it's good points and Im a firm supporter. :up

 

[dunnsept]

amen brother!

now as the proud owner of a (lil ol 24") 1080P LCD I just wish there were more HD channels available..
Oh well, if I can help it, I'm with you. NO MORE PIZZA PAN DISHES

 

[JosephB]

Since the whole digital thing started some channels have been reuped by HITS or NPS, This has a few reasons. Some channels are in PowerVu or DC2 Megapipe that the 4DTV cannot decode. Others the programmers won't allow us to sub to the masters anymore. We have the dirty little dish and cable to thank for what's happened to C band. Dish Network and Charlie Ergen is one of the biggest jerks against the C band industry. By buying out SSC/Netlink/Turnervision and lieing to C band subscribers, then strong arming them into his pie plate he put a big dent in C band subscibers which hurt us. I for one will never own a little dish because of these reasons. I would rather give my money to NPS & SRL and help them keep C band going. NPS is slowly coming around and moving in the right direction again by the change to the modulation mode in March for a better picture. C band still has the most movie channels and there ALL first generation masters. I think theres something like 83 channels of movies. Can the pie plate do that and give a first gen quality? I don't think so.

C band still has it's good points and Im a firm supporter. :up

Business is business, and I can understand not subscribing to Dish Network because Charlie is a jerk (which is why I have DirecTV), but why go with an inferior picture just to make a point? Now, you can spend your money on whatever you want, but wouldn't it make more sense to have DBS for stuff that is now getting retransmitted and then use 4DTV/NPS for just the movie channels or just the exclusive stuff?

 

[Radioguy41]

To get ALL the channels with a pizza dish that I now get with C-band would cost almost 50% more and then I would have to put up with frequent signal lose due to weather. Been there, done that. Never again.

 

[tvropro]

Business is business, and I can understand not subscribing to Dish Network because Charlie is a jerk (which is why I have DirecTV), but why go with an inferior picture just to make a point? Now, you can spend your money on whatever you want, but wouldn't it make more sense to have DBS for stuff that is now getting retransmitted and then use 4DTV/NPS for just the movie channels or just the exclusive stuff?

The pictures on W5 are better than Direct tv and Dish network. They are part of the HITS distribution package for cable headends. Even though they are second generation they still have a better picture. The only poorer pictures are the NPS reuplinks because they are working with a low SR and FEC to satisfy people with poorly tuned dishes & installs. By a lot of pressure from C banders they will rectify the poor compression problem when they go to 29270 vs 19510 SR. In fact by using 29270 they may even look better than HITS on W5 since they will be using a higher SR.

Actually for me currently the G3 NPS reuplinks aren't that bad (as for others) in there current state. I use a special video processer I designed that addresses the digital over compression problem. I am an Electronic tech that loves to design and build circuits. When I got into digital some 4 years ago I started looking at what can be done to improve the picture of over compression. With over 3 years of R&D, adding, changing, and modifying the circuit design. I came up with a neat toy that does a really nice job. In fact on the HITS W5 channels with my processor in line the picture can rival the first generation masters. This is what I set out to do when I got the idea and achieved it by long hours of working with and tweaking the processed video signal in the S video state with electronic circuitry. When NPS increases the bitrate it will add icing to the cake for me since only so much can be done with a signal once its so over compressed on the cleanup end.

As far as direct tv goes there are some who have to have specific channels that we currently cannot subscribe to such as ESPN. Since some can't do without them, direct or the other services are the only choice. When you do that though you add $$$ to the enemy so they can use it to hurt us more. (that's my view) I am happy with what I can get on C band for the most part. I can always look for backhauls with DVB for that special game and the LSD/Cable cartel gets nothing $$$ wize.

 

[tvropro]

To get ALL the channels with a pizza dish that I now get with C-band would cost almost 50% more and then I would have to put up with frequent signal lose due to weather. Been there, done that. Never again.

Two good points, lets see the LSD perform in a very heavy down pour, my C band laughs at it

 

[JosephB]

To get ALL the channels with a pizza dish that I now get with C-band would cost almost 50% more and then I would have to put up with frequent signal lose due to weather. Been there, done that. Never again.

Well, see that's the point. I don't necessarily mean replace C-Band with DBS. Get the 'mainstream' stuff you can with DBS and supplement that with C-Band (to get your 85 movie channels, for example).

If they are fixing the picture quality, then more power to them, but to me the point is content and picture quality. I don't need politics to get into my TV subscription choices.

 

[B.J.]

Two good points, lets see the LSD perform in a very heavy down pour, my C band laughs at it

Interestingly, a heavy downpour doesn't affect my DirecTV that much. What affects it are the storm clouds that are 15-20 miles away. Ie a lot of water droplets close by don't disperse the signal that much, but a lot of water droplets in a cloud at a distance will.
I've found it interesting that when a storm is coming in from certain directions, that I'll get the rain outage before it even starts raining, and often by the time the rain starts, the signal has come back.
Also, almost never do we get an outage on both the main (101) sat, and the local channel (119) sat at the same time. Typically, we'll lose the local channel sat first, as the storms come in from the west, then lose the 101 sat, and get the 119 sat back.
Anyway, in my experience, it's not the local downpour that affects reception, it's the clouds, that could be miles away.
Not that it makes a difference..... it's still a rain outage.

 

[Corrado]

Currently, my C band sub channels come from 105°, 133° and 135°W. The picture quality and especially the package prices suit my needs perfectly. I have no need to pay for HD at this time. I receive the nets OTA probably better than what I could possibly pay for.

Should the day come I want HD, perhaps Skyvision or SRL, NPS or some C band friendly provider may have a solution. I plan to support them for as long as they survive.

I prefer to be different, sort of like living off the grid, so to speak. Having been a C band user and subscriber for 21+ years now, I'm not going to give in without a fight.