Spaceway 2 Launch thread - It's up!
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Just to clarify, are you guys saying that SW1 and SW2 will just be 2 giant spots, with no further division per sat? i.e. I can hypothetically get Philly Locals from Florida?
GhostDog69 said:
Yup that is about right. If D* had a software glitch that allowed everything to be turned on than yes you could get everything on the eastern or western US. Now the issue with this is that the channels below 100 will be used for HD locals in all markets so your account information on file with D* will tell the box via the access card what specific local channels it will tune in. But yes hypothetically you could receive the Boston locals in Miami or vice versa.
That's one big butt payload! 
The D*TV bird alone is a huge one, without even considering the other piggy-back toy riding below....
Hope all goes well.
The D*TV bird alone is a huge one, without even considering the other piggy-back toy riding below....
Hope all goes well.
hdtvtechno said:And lets hope for a Safe Landing in its proper slot
And it doesn't take 4 months to get there
LonghornXP said:
Here's a weird question Longhorn: If the next year sunday ticket HD games will be in MPEG 4 with all the boxes swapped out for customers. Will this deal also apply to the customers that are grandfathered in under the alacarte rule (meaning only subscribe to the sunday ticket and no other packages)?
Ariane 5 ECA launch of Spaceway 2 and Telkom 2 set for November 10.
Arianespace has scheduled the next Ariane 5 launch for Thursday, November 10. An Ariane 5 ECA launcher will orbit the Spaceway 2 and Telkom 2 satellites. Liftoff is scheduled within the following launch window:
8:44 to 9:29 pm on Thursday, November 10 in Kourou, French Guiana
7:44 to 8:29 pm in Washington, DC
23:44 to 00:29 GMT, November 10-11
12:44 to 1:29 am on Friday, November 11 in Paris.
Follow the launch live on the internet: http://www.videocorner.tv/index.php?langue=en
Arianespace has scheduled the next Ariane 5 launch for Thursday, November 10. An Ariane 5 ECA launcher will orbit the Spaceway 2 and Telkom 2 satellites. Liftoff is scheduled within the following launch window:
8:44 to 9:29 pm on Thursday, November 10 in Kourou, French Guiana
7:44 to 8:29 pm in Washington, DC
23:44 to 00:29 GMT, November 10-11
12:44 to 1:29 am on Friday, November 11 in Paris.
Follow the launch live on the internet: http://www.videocorner.tv/index.php?langue=en
ocnier said:
As others have said because you won't be able to get NFL Sunday Ticket without a total choice package next year they will start giving away free HD boxes to current Sunday Ticket only customers with a two year agreement. If they do decide to allow all customers to get Sunday Ticket only expect to pay full price for all hardware including your dish and any installation costs. Also expect an HD DVR by itself to cost over a grand with the installation of the new dish. Today that two year agreement will reduce the price of these boxes by a great amount and also allow them to rent the boxes. They will base their rent prices on the two year agreement.
Either way your going to be better off just getting a total choice package unless your made of money. I know this isn't fare but sadly we can't do much to change this without every customer pretty much dumping Sunday Ticket.
Companies only do what we allow them todo.
hancox said:
I think the point is many of us could care less about HD Locals. I get around 30 HD and digital locals now. D* giving me 4 of the 30 I already have is meaningless. I will not even use the ones from D*. The original locals I receive OTA now are first generation broadcasts not a second generation rebroadcast. I understand that a lot of people are not currently set up to receive locals OTA and are waiting for D* to put them on satellite, but I would rather see D* work toward offering things like TNT-HD, Movie Channel & Starz HD, more sports in HD along with any other available HD broadcasts, before they worry about giving us something many of us already have. We have been waiting a long time for more HD programing.
I still applaud D* for their efforts but wanted to put my two cents in. Hope all goes well with the launch.
Longhorn, I spoke to a D* CSR about a month ago or so and asked her about what is ahead. I will relay what she said and would like your opinion on it.
She said that many channels were already being tested in their final phase and that early next year (February) new national HD channels would be added. I asked her about specific channels and she would not answer to any specifics, but she did say that one type of channel I am interested in, the regional sports channels that offer HD content, would be eventually in the mix.
My question to you is if you have heard any of this. For me, I would love NESN and Fox Sports New England so I could get the Red Sox and Celtics in HD. From what I have read, it sounds like this is going to happen late next year. To me, this is what is going to make sales take off more than anything, because a major weakness with D* is that they do not offer this, and for those living in the localities, they will not want to give that up. I have to believe the the execs understand this and will want to address this sooner than later.
I am also glad to see the new boxes will be available before the locals come to markets because my box is starting to cause me problems and I would like to get the HD channels without them being dummed down.
Thanks
She said that many channels were already being tested in their final phase and that early next year (February) new national HD channels would be added. I asked her about specific channels and she would not answer to any specifics, but she did say that one type of channel I am interested in, the regional sports channels that offer HD content, would be eventually in the mix.
My question to you is if you have heard any of this. For me, I would love NESN and Fox Sports New England so I could get the Red Sox and Celtics in HD. From what I have read, it sounds like this is going to happen late next year. To me, this is what is going to make sales take off more than anything, because a major weakness with D* is that they do not offer this, and for those living in the localities, they will not want to give that up. I have to believe the the execs understand this and will want to address this sooner than later.
I am also glad to see the new boxes will be available before the locals come to markets because my box is starting to cause me problems and I would like to get the HD channels without them being dummed down.
Thanks
Longhorn,
Not really trying to question your understanding of how the Spaceways will operate, but I think you may have partially misunderstood what you were told about the 2 big spots.
The Spaceway birds were originally designed to provide satellite internet service via DirecWay. ie a lot of small spot beams with multiple ground locations. They also have in-flight configurable spot beams. They do not have CONUS capability as we know it. For a SW bird to do CONUS, they would need to use several transponders drawing big spots that overlapped to cover the entire US. This presents a couple of problems in that they will have to use several transponders and those transponders can no longer be used for spots and as you make each spot bigger, it requires more power. And once you use a transponder for CONUS, you can't reuse it for a spot. This is important.
But by D* using both SpaceWays to provide some CONUS coverage, it does a couple of things. Keep in mind Longhorn's theory of 2 big spots. For CONUS coverage, each SW should be able to use a few transponders to cover half the country. But then, each SW can also reuse these transponders as spots on the other half of the country.
With all their capacity, even the SW's don't have enough transponder space to do 700 HD-LIL's without using spots.
Not really trying to question your understanding of how the Spaceways will operate, but I think you may have partially misunderstood what you were told about the 2 big spots.
The Spaceway birds were originally designed to provide satellite internet service via DirecWay. ie a lot of small spot beams with multiple ground locations. They also have in-flight configurable spot beams. They do not have CONUS capability as we know it. For a SW bird to do CONUS, they would need to use several transponders drawing big spots that overlapped to cover the entire US. This presents a couple of problems in that they will have to use several transponders and those transponders can no longer be used for spots and as you make each spot bigger, it requires more power. And once you use a transponder for CONUS, you can't reuse it for a spot. This is important.
But by D* using both SpaceWays to provide some CONUS coverage, it does a couple of things. Keep in mind Longhorn's theory of 2 big spots. For CONUS coverage, each SW should be able to use a few transponders to cover half the country. But then, each SW can also reuse these transponders as spots on the other half of the country.
With all their capacity, even the SW's don't have enough transponder space to do 700 HD-LIL's without using spots.
gchasse said:
I'm unaware of what specific channels might be on the birds for testing because my contacts don't deal with this aspect but only with the contracts themselves. I can say that many national HD channels are being worked on at this time and we will see a few of them on the current birds after football season. Now what those channels will be is unknown at this time. Most new channels after that will require the new dish and HD boxes.
Customers will get many of their RSNs in HDTV along with their HD local channels shortly after they get their HD locals up and running. Shortly means within three or so months. Now as always if your RSN isn't delivered via satellite D* won't be able to offer it to you. Comcast SportsNet Philly is one example of an RSN that isn't delivered via satellite (ie Comcast has it on their closed network most likely via fiber from the sports complex to your home) so this means that D* has no right to carry this channel if Comcast doesn't want them to.
herdfan said:
The point you have to understand is that this satellite will not be used for conus delivery. Also power isn't much of an issue at this point. Now one satellite will be used for one side of the state. If one of the satellites was being used as a conus bird it would cover the entire US not just one half of it.
So with that said a national channel will be sent and treated just as a local HD channel. The only difference is that a national HD channel has to be sent out on both satellites to get full coverage. Just understand that these satellites just don't work like anything that is out today.
I completely understand that these satellites are very different. A few years ago when the Spaceway's were going to be used for internet service, I was very excited about them. There were long threads over at dslreports.com discussing their capability. At the time I was on satellite internet and was hoping for anything that could improve DirecWay. I have since gotten cable so when D* took them over from HNS, it was no longer a big deal for me, but there were howls from the satellite broadband crowd.LonghornXP said:
From what I remember reading about these satellites, the notion of using it to draw one big spot to cover half the country doesn't make sense given its ability to draw very small spots, and do so from space. Also, its ability to uplink from a much large number of sources unlike 7S, which IIRC can do 4, makes its ability to reuse its spots over and over the reason it will have the capcity it will have.
Perhaps the "two big spotbeams" is a temporary move until 2007, when the second set of new satellites will be launched. At that time, the national channels could be handed over to them and the SW birds get flipped to being local HD birds only. Just a thought...
From my understanding, each of the Spaceway satellites are capable of many steerable, resizable spots. Therefore, serving half of the US with each satellite is a bit of a stretch.
One of the other forums posted the tentative list of markets the Spaceways will serve by the end of June, 2006. There were quite many markets on that list. There isn't any other way, other than both Spaceways having spot-beams, to get that broad of coverage.
And I'd believe it is entirely possible that the steerable, resizable spots would allow for DirecTV to show some CONUS on one or both of the Spaceway birds. If DirecTV states they'll offer 150 national HD channels by 2007, and there aren't any new CONUS additions by 2007, then DirecTV 10 and 11 will have the CONUS beams for the newer HD channels. It will be quite a while before all of the MPEG2 HD receivers are swapped out.
One of the other forums posted the tentative list of markets the Spaceways will serve by the end of June, 2006. There were quite many markets on that list. There isn't any other way, other than both Spaceways having spot-beams, to get that broad of coverage.
And I'd believe it is entirely possible that the steerable, resizable spots would allow for DirecTV to show some CONUS on one or both of the Spaceway birds. If DirecTV states they'll offer 150 national HD channels by 2007, and there aren't any new CONUS additions by 2007, then DirecTV 10 and 11 will have the CONUS beams for the newer HD channels. It will be quite a while before all of the MPEG2 HD receivers are swapped out.
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