Showtime still available from Skyvision?

[lonewolf454]

I thought it was said when Showtime Networks decided not to sell to 4dtv'ers that the W5 reuplinks were going away too. I notice they are still listed at lyngsat and for sale at skyvision via dsr410. So it appears if you have a dsr410 you can still sub to Showtime. I wonder what that will mean for folks that convert their dsr905/922 after January 1 to the new service.

What was puzzling me was, with all the talk about channels unavailable to us after January 1, (ie FoodNetwork, Discovery, FoxNews, CNN) if Comcast had 12 spare slots on W5 which were previously Showtime, maybe someone such as Skyvision could get them to use these spare slots for above mentioned networks, as well as others that are missing. I guarantee subs would go up, and with all programming on one satellite, would be a plus for people with inoperative actuators.

Is there plans to leave Showtime on W5? If not I might contact Comcast myself and request FoodNetwork and Discovery be put on W5 in QPSK.

Also, I have seen a -few- good movies on Showtime, but keyword is FEW. I, and I am sure thousands of others, would much rather have these 12 or so slots utilized for missing networks. Wouldn't it be nice to have these after 12-31?

FoodNetwork E
Discovery E
CNN
FoxNews
TBS
WeatherChannel
Hallmark
CMT
Nickelodeon
CartoonNetwork
Lifetime
USA

 

[sonyajon]

totally agree

 

[tvropro]

I think what's happening with the Showtime thing on HITS is it's still available to cable customers but not us. It's probably still up there on W5 if you look with a generic map.

The only slot I know open is the old ALTV slot on W5 at this point. Will HITS do anything with it who knows.

I think Showtime is working on dumping the DC-2 masters as we speak. It may have something to do with my post in WUT. The old 19510 QPSK master stuff is finally going to get the axe.

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

I thought it was said when Showtime Networks decided not to sell to 4dtv'ers that the W5 reuplinks were going away too. I notice they are still listed at lyngsat and for sale at skyvision via dsr410. So it appears if you have a dsr410 you can still sub to Showtime. I wonder what that will mean for folks that convert their dsr905/922 after January 1 to the new service.

I just re-newed my DSR922 SyFy sub with Skyvision. Even though it was originally a 12 month sub they're only renewing my sub up to December 31, 2010. Apparently, the details for moving the 920/922 subs after December 31 haven't been ironed out yet.

 

[ikki]

Whats interesting for me at least is this. Comcast is a large company and is for the most part rather stable financially. They have been expanding their cable TV business for years in many markets. If they played this W5 deal, or better yet a whole new satellite using modern equipment they could also compete head on in the DBS market. It will also give them leverage against the DOJ and the FCC with their pending merger of NBC Universal.

I wish they would try the KU band market again like Shaw, Dish, Bev, and Direct. I think there is a market there.

I also think that being a KU Band provider and a traditional cable company at the same time will be a blessing in the future. Move your locals to the coax, expand your internet to ultra speeds, and provide your video on KU.

 

[wildbill47]

The cable co's it appears that they find KU unstable compared to C band. I have seen some outages on my 36" KU dish even at night. I realize they have bigger dishes but they want 100% up time C band provides. I sub to the C band package that has discovery channels ie travel, animal etc. will miss that and hope the channels will be provided but do not expect it.
When I visited a head end recently they had all supplier provided receivers. The techs I found out call each suppler separately now.

 

[ikki]

In my vision I am not talking about reusing the HITS system. I understand cable providers insist on C Band. I would like them to see them deploy a KU only system using modern day receivers. If they did something with S2 Meg4 on KU they could compete against the DBS providers.

 

[tvropro]

One of the reasons they migrated HITS to C band was because of rain fade. All Ku has rain fade, it's a fact of life. A ku system makes it more marketable to the consumer because of dish size though. I agree that Comcast should get involved and expand HITS for us since they can compete directly with DBS that way. It's probably the reason they are still selling to us now since they pick up subs for doing almost nothing.

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

The cable co's it appears that they find KU unstable compared to C band. I have seen some outages on my 36" KU dish even at night. I realize they have bigger dishes but they want 100% up time C band provides.

There's no such thing as 100% uptime. Various issues reduce the reliability to 99.999%. With a large enough dish, they can reduce Ku rain fade issues to get over 99% reliability. When NBC went to Ku in the early 80's, they used mainly 6 meter dishes and didn't have many rain fade issues - the vast majority of problems were with snow and ice. As a matter of fact, NBC went with the larger antennas to help combat rain fade. Today, there are much higher powered sats which helps reduce rain fade. With C band, they have to use deicers in the latitudes where snow and ice are issues or they'll lose the sat signal. Deicers are, of course, necessary for Ku also. Small cable companies probably don't spend the bucks for a deicing system. Anyway, I don't know what the current stats on Ku band performance is (such as uptime). But, it would be nice to have a smaller dish footprint in my backyard.