Sub Channels

[LoTech]

Does anyone know (or care to make a guess) as to whether Dish will ever offer sub-channels for customer's locals? The reason I ask is that we recently got one CW sub channel through Dish. I am too far away from my local providers to get any OTA reception, and I still don't get any MyTV, AntennaTV, MeTV, etc... that are carried as local subs.

Anyone care to speculate on the odds that Dish will add any of these?

 

[Mr Tony]

My Network...maybe
the others...never

The only reason Dish and DIrectv add subchannels are
-the station is associated with the Big 4 (pretty much guaranteed carriage)
-the station is associated with CW or My (kinda hit and miss)
-the station "mothership" forces the provider to carry the subchanel in exchange to carry the main network

 

[harshness]

I would imagine that they might consider such things after everything WA goes MPEG4 but not until.

 

[Mr Tony]

Why would they wait until WA goes MPEG4? They could do it on EA RIGHT NOW as its MPEG4...but they aren't

 

[3HaloODST]

Why would they wait until WA goes MPEG4? They could do it on EA RIGHT NOW as its MPEG4...but they aren't

Not everybody is on EA? Same reason they don't add more national HD. The arcs are mirrored for the most part.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using SatelliteGuys

 

[Mr Tony]

Not everybody is on EA? Same reason they don't add more national HD. The arcs are mirrored for the most part.

not for locals. If a market is EA they could do it bandwidth withstanding on the spotbeams
WA they usually cant as its 12 SD channels per TP in MPEG2

But they could do like Directv does and make them MPEG4. Directv carries a subchannel here in Minneapolis (The MN Channel...a PBS subchannel). Its on 17-2 and you need a HD receiver to see it. Its in SD only

 

[GaryPen]

Not everybody is on EA? Same reason they don't add more national HD. The arcs are mirrored for the most part.

These are locals. So, things can be done locally on one arc, and not the other.

 

[3HaloODST]

These are locals. So, things can be done locally on one arc, and not the other.

Hence "for the most part." Point was that Dish wouldn't just give sub channels for one arc and not the other. Now granted, spotbeam capacity is not the same as CONUS capacity, so I don't know. Don't know the bandwidth situation with their spotbeams. My guess would be they don't have many issues with bandwidth on the spotbeams on either arc.

Sent from my iPhone 4S using SatelliteGuys

 

[Mochuf]

To be honest, sub-channels aren't that important to me. A lot of the stuff found on Antenna TV and the rest can be found at places like Crackle or Hulu or even the network sites for free (cbs.com FTW). And if you're subscribing to sat service, you can find some of that stuff there also. But maybe I don't care because most of that stuff doesn't appeal to me anymore. I watched an episode of Barney Miller on Crackle a few weeks ago and it, to me, was not that funny.

What burns me is the fact that Dish doesn't have PBS, or The CW in hd locally. I'm using a usb pc tuner stick to record my local PBS and CW programs in hd since Dish only has them in sd. Lets get what we have in hd before adding anything else. :rant:

 

[boba]

Does anyone know (or care to make a guess) as to whether Dish will ever offer sub-channels for customer's locals? The reason I ask is that we recently got one CW sub channel through Dish. I am too far away from my local providers to get any OTA reception, and I still don't get any MyTV, AntennaTV, MeTV, etc... that are carried as local subs.

Anyone care to speculate on the odds that Dish will add any of these?

Have you tried www.tvfool.com or the OTA forum on this site, you may be able to get your missing channels. Of course there are places where OTA is impossible like in apartments, mountains & valleys or 100 miles away but it is possible where many thought it wasn't.

 

[harshness]

Why would they wait until WA goes MPEG4? They could do it on EA RIGHT NOW as its MPEG4...but they aren't

Because they can't justify giving something to EA customers that they can't give to WA customers? I think you answered your own question in Post #6.

 

[ScottChez]

That is why Dish is working on an USB OTA Tuner so everyone can get the local sub channels on the Hopper. It was to be out this summer according to a quote from Dish at CES, I am not sure why the big delay.
It is already avl for the other models.
Today you cant watch Star Trek on METV on a Hopper as there is no OTA Turner and the channel is not on the SAT

 

[Mochuf]

That is why Dish is working on an USB OTA Tuner so everyone can get the local sub channels on the Hopper. It was to be out this summer according to a quote from Dish at CES, I am not sure why the big delay.
It is already avl for the other models.
Today you cant watch Star Trek on METV on a Hopper as there is no OTA Turner and the channel is not on the SAT

But if you can get METV ota, then why not connect an antenna directly to your tv. If you're lacking a ATSC tuner in your set, get a digital converter and connect to that. If you want to record that channel, you can always do what I do and use a usb pc tuner stick connected to a pc/laptop. You can get one for $50 @ Newegg. And if you don't want to do that, walmart.com is selling Magnavox dvd recorders with a 320gb hdd for $228.

Why wait for Dish to sell you an ota tuner? Where there is a will, there is a way.

 

[eacalhoun]

not for locals. If a market is EA they could do it bandwidth withstanding on the spotbeams
WA they usually cant as its 12 SD channels per TP in MPEG2

But they could do like Directv does and make them MPEG4. Directv carries a subchannel here in Minneapolis (The MN Channel...a PBS subchannel). Its on 17-2 and you need a HD receiver to see it. Its in SD only

Here in North Carolina, the Statewide Public TV Network (UNC-TV)) which carries PBS has gotten creative in "forcing" providers like DISH to carry a sub-channel. For example, I live in the Charlotte DMA and there are two full-power UNC-TV stations in the market - one is in the higher mountains (ch 17) and the other is in the Charlotte Metro (ch 58). I can receive both channels OTA and both transmit 3 streams of programming - the primary (PBS), PBS Kids, and UNC-EX which is mostly NC (locally-produced) programming. However, the channel locations of these are different between the two stations. For channel 17, it's 17-1 UNC-EX, 17-2 Main, 17-3 Kids; for channel 58 it's 58-1 Main, 58-2 UNC-EX, 58-3 Kids. Notice the Main and UNC-EX are on different channels. Since both are full power stations, UNC-TV just juggled things to force carriage of Ch 17 and the UNC-EX programming which is technically a "sub-channel". Until about 3 years ago, DISH NEVER carried Ch 17, but did carry Ch 58 because prior to that, both stations sub-channels were in identical positions on both stations. UNC-TV has done this in a few other areas where two full power stations are in the same DMA.

Clarification before someone locally corrects me - Channel 58 maps to channel 4 because it's the flagship of the UNC-TV network originating in Chapel Hill.

 

[Mr Tony]

Because they can't justify giving something to EA customers that they can't give to WA customers? I think you answered your own question in Post #6.

again we are talking about LOCALS which in most cases is arc specific.

 

[DWS44]

Obviously this could never work for the big networks, but what are they odds we might just see a single national broadcast channel of the newer smaller ones like AntennaTV, MeTV, RetroTV, etc? Aren't they basically the same broadcast schedule across all their affiliates?

 

[LoTech]

Have you tried www.tvfool.com or the OTA forum on this site

I am one of those unfortunate people that can't get OTA (or not much). Thanks to the folks on the OTA forum I was able to get one local CBS channel (although it isn't one of my Dish Locals) that is about 19 miles away with no subchannels. It took a whopper of a VHF antenna and a good pre-amp to get decent reception. The rest of my locals are behind a 2500 foot mountain, another 4000 foot mountain behind that, and about 75 miles away.

 

[blue_dude]

I've been wondering the same thing about Directv.
WVVA here has a CW sub channel, and I would love to see this on Directv. Using OTA is not that great here, it pretty much sucks. I can't even get WVVA NBC that good with an antenna and I live just a couple minutes from the station

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I do wish that DISH (and DIRECTV) would provide the common subchannels, such as the MeTV, TNN, RTV, THIS TV, Antenna TV, PBJ, THISCOOLTV and Bounce ad then map them as subchannels in the areas where the subchannels are available. This way they could provide a lot of the subchannels out there without using a lot of bandwidth.

 

[TheKrell]

I do wish that DISH (and DIRECTV) would provide the common subchannels, such as the MeTV, TNN, RTV, THIS TV, Antenna TV, PBJ, THISCOOLTV and Bounce ad then map them as subchannels in the areas where the subchannels are available. This way they could provide a lot of the subchannels out there without using a lot of bandwidth.

I think they are doing this very thing to deliver my local Ion affiliate main channel. Unfortunately they don't offer Qubo or the other subchannel (which name escapes me) via sat. AND the guide info is missing for my ION subchannels OTA.