Sky Angel HD

OneBigJedi

SatelliteGuys Guru
Original poster
Dec 12, 2005
133
0
Does anyone know if there are any current plans or even future plans to offer at least one Sky Angel Channel in HD?
 
I dont know of any "Christian broadcasters" doing true HD right now. I know TBN has some OTA ATSC digital channels up but their splitting their bandwidth and running their other channels standard def as sub channels, not doing "true" HD programming.
 
TBN's digital channel here has the following:

43-1 -- TBN
43-2 -- The Church Channel
43-3 -- JCTV
43-4 -- Enlace USA
43-5 -- Smile of a Child TV

Each channel is 480i resolution. Looks good, but nowhere near HD.

See ya
Tony
 
Iceberg said:
that mux (group of channels) is on IA5 :)

Sure is! I suspect TBN's Affiliates and O&O stations get them from either KU IA5 or over on C-Band at IA13 at 121.

I remember back in the days that TBN was on Galaxy 5 (I think that was the name of it) C-Band along side Playboy's transponder, Paul Crouch on TBN used to always tout about this durning their Praise A Thons, "those folks wanting that smut have to pass our Channel on their satellite"


--Matt
 
mattb said:
Sure is! I suspect TBN's Affiliates and O&O stations get them from either KU IA5 or over on C-Band at IA13 at 121.

I remember back in the days that TBN was on Galaxy 5 (I think that was the name of it) C-Band along side Playboy's transponder, Paul Crouch on TBN used to always tout about this durning their Praise A Thons, "those folks wanting that smut have to pass our Channel on their satellite"


--Matt

Not if you push the channel button the other way and loop around. ;)
 
I think it would be interesting to have the Worship network in HD. Also I suspect there would be interest in a Spirit HD.

But realistically I don't see religious broadcasters going for hi-def. They all are pushing for more channels, to serve a more diverse market.

SA* will probably not get anything in HD until after they convert to MPEG-4, and that will probably be a very long time coming indeed. Even then, I bet the emphasis will be on more channels, not PQ.
 
Don't expect that kind of growth from the sky angel service. After the deal with E* they only have 2 TPs to work with and are already maxed out. Once E3 dies sky angel will really have to decide what they'll have to do to continue service
 
Offical Reply From Sky Angel

I emailed Sky Angel and asked them the question, here is their reply.

At this time, and most likely well into the future, Sky Angel will not
be providing any HD content. First of all, the channel providers must
be producing content in HD, secondly we have to have the spectrum in
order to provide it to our customers.

Thank you for writing Sky Angel.

God bless.
 
Actually, the only one of those sending out HDTV at the time is....HGTV. They might still be testing.
 
Considering most religous channels would have to have more beg a thon and prayer partners to afford HD Bandwidth on satellite - and HD won't increase the amount of money the flock brings in - so why bother.
 
They may end up downcoverting future signals from HD to SD at this rate. What about those SkyAngel customers that only has SkyAngel? Will they be required to upgrade to an MPEG-4 receiver? Will they have to pay for one?
 
I say bring the old Voom boxes to life and use them in place of what's there or at least slowly switch them over. New firmware and off we go, with SA HD.
 
Well, I'm hoping that lifetime SA* subscribers (like myself :D ) would either get upgraded to MPEG-4 free, or at a substantially reduced cost, but it will probably be a very long time before SA* makes that move.
 
cablewithaview said:
I say bring the old Voom boxes to life and use them in place of what's there or at least slowly switch them over. New firmware and off we go, with SA HD.


Those were sold to StarChoice.