PBS stations around the country

Moseskatz

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Original poster
I subscribe to Dish,and am living on West Coast. I contacted Dish and asked them if I could get extra PBS stations around the country, the answer was negative, however I could get TV .superstations in New York and elsewhere.This does not make sense. What says you?
 
PBS

I subscribe to Dish,and am living on West Coast. I contacted Dish and asked them if I could get extra PBS stations around the country, the answer was negative, however I could get TV .superstations in New York and elsewhere.This does not make sense. What says you?

Supers aren't a network plus E* isn't allowed to give distant nets. PBS also isn't carried but in a very few areas. It has to do with the PBS gets a large part of it's $$ from local donations.
 
sure it makes sense.
Super-stations have a set of rules that allows Dish to carry and offer them to their customers for a price, as they do not fall under network channels.
PBS has a set of rules and under those rules with Dish someone on the west coast isn't allowed to view a PBS station from the east coast.
 
You can get the national PBS feed (channel 249 in SD) if in a so-called "white zone." I prefer it over my two local PBS stations. The signal is better and the News Hour comes on at 4PM Pacific Time. I'd watch the locals if they ever came in HD though.
 
You can get the national PBS feed (channel 249 in SD) if in a so-called "white zone." I prefer it over my two local PBS stations. The signal is better and the News Hour comes on at 4PM Pacific Time. I'd watch the locals if they ever came in HD though.

What he means is if you don't have a local PBS station already offered on Dish as an LIL or if you are a rural resident for whom the national PBS feed is designed.
 
Supers aren't a network plus E* isn't allowed to give distant nets. PBS also isn't carried but in a very few areas. It has to do with the PBS gets a large part of it's $$ from local donations.

Bingo! The $$$ during local fundraisers is exactly why PBS and the local stations have an absolute attitude if you already have a local PBS offered as a LIL on Dish: that is absolute NO! PBS and its stations make the NAB look like they have lax attitudes about the rules:). Under the rules and old Distant Nets rules offered by Dish, I could get waivers from the local commercial nets, but the local PBS was never an option presented. As far as the local PBS stations are concerned, their view is "T.S. You can donate your money to us and get public TV programming." The irony is that very few local public TV stations air the entire PBS line-up. So, in a way, we the taxpayers, who provide the biggest subsidy to PBS and the local stations, can't even view the entire line-up that we pay for. PBS national feed should be offered to all who want it because we have paid for it. And if the locals want even more of our $$, then they can produce some worthy local/community programming.
 
I dream of the day when all the major networks provide national HD feeds as if they were "cable only" channels. Yes, a dream the local OTA stations will fight to the death.
 
I dream of the day when all the major networks provide national HD feeds as if they were "cable only" channels. Yes, a dream the local OTA stations will fight to the death.

The internet will be the death of local OTA.. hulu.. cbs.. abc.. youtube.. eventually how we watch tv is seriously going to change.. weather they like it or not..
 
One local PBS station has four, countem' 4 high definition feeds. The other one we can pick up locally splits their feed into three channels. In other words, both stations are a pixelated MESS most all the time due to bandwidth choking. I would actually PAY to receive a pristine national PBS channel. They have the programming we want to see, but we are not will to pay the price of watching CRAP because local PBS station bandwidth is split and shared over so many channels.
 
Also, it would be fairly silly to put however many dozens of PBS stations there are on national transponders wasting space that could be used for HD or other content.

Actually, very few PBS stations across the country air the entire PBS line-up. So, there really is some diversity to each PBS station in that they air either locally produced shows or pick and choose from providers OTHER than PBS. But still, I agree with your overall point about PBS national feed as an option for all who want the entire PBS line-up.
 
I dream of the day when all the major networks provide national HD feeds as if they were "cable only" channels. Yes, a dream the local OTA stations will fight to the death.

A great idea. I would propose that the programming could air a few days AFTER the premier on the local OTA's. Would that placate the locals and NAB? I would be willing to wait and DVR the shows a few days delayed. Or how about just ONE channel showing all the major nets prime-time shows 24 hours a day, delayed a few days, and we could DVR some stuff at 3AM or whatever.
 
The internet will be the death of local OTA.. hulu.. cbs.. abc.. youtube.. eventually how we watch tv is seriously going to change.. weather they like it or not..

Not until we can get it to our expensive HD TV's in true HD. That could be the casein a few years. There are some companies developing STB's to do just that. Right now Hulu, et al. is for the geeks and kids (young adults), for the rest of us--and them geeks and young ones as they get older--we want to be in our puffy chair in front of the 1080i HDTV with the same experience we have today with cable or sat in HD without the streaming interruptions. Hey, some broadband providers are putting limits on customers that will hurt your vision, and the whole point of the internet, of all of us watching via the internet. Seriously, this stuff has to be addressed and fixed for the consumer.
 
One local PBS station has four, countem' 4 high definition feeds. The other one we can pick up locally splits their feed into three channels. In other words, both stations are a pixelated MESS most all the time due to bandwidth choking. I would actually PAY to receive a pristine national PBS channel. They have the programming we want to see, but we are not will to pay the price of watching CRAP because local PBS station bandwidth is split and shared over so many channels.

Yeah, that is true here in Los Angeles, as well. The problem is that the former head of PBS had a vision of the ATSC providing---not of really great quality HD--but of multiple channels to serve various parts of the PBS audience. One channel for the kids, another for foreign language (V-me) another for this and for that and of course that PBS World channel. Boy, he was singing all about it to congress back then. So, PBS sees ATSC as something quite different than the best HD PQ possible. The question is, do people really watch those "sub" channels that much? Do they really serve a need, or do they make PBS look like they are serving more "communities" or parts of the population? Junk, junk, junk on those "sub" channels. PBS World provides the latest of shows that were aired years ago. What a bonus!
 
You can get the national PBS feed (channel 249 in SD) if in a so-called "white zone." I prefer it over my two local PBS stations. The signal is better and the News Hour comes on at 4PM Pacific Time. I'd watch the locals if they ever came in HD though.

I don't know what the white zones are, but I get channel 249 for a dollar a month in addition to my SD LIL (Albany, NY DMA) which includes the local PBS. I have been getting this channel since I first got dish in 97 and had east and west network feeds. When they took all that away and I got LIL it was the only one I got to keep.
 
The internet will be the death of local OTA.. hulu.. cbs.. abc.. youtube.. eventually how we watch tv is seriously going to change.. weather they like it or not..

Agreed. I set up a home theater pc recently and the quality of HULU/ABC/FOX/CBS is comparable to superior to Dish's SD feed. I can now watch them on demand and with only a couple of commercials in each episode. I still prefer the HD with DVR combo but this does ok in a pinch.

Broadcast tv is dead! (ok, so I may be a bit premature but it is going to happen)
 

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