Technical question

lunchpailer

Member
Original poster
Apr 4, 2008
7
0
I'm reading through the forums and the same questions keep coming up. If these have already been answered please point me in the right direction.
1. What is Eastern Arc and how does it affect me?
2. How do I know which satellite is providing which channel to me?
3. How do I know if I'm receiving a channel in MPEG4 or MPEG2?

Thanks.

Dave
 
I'm reading through the forums and the same questions keep coming up. If these have already been answered please point me in the right direction.
1. What is Eastern Arc and how does it affect me?
2. How do I know which satellite is providing which channel to me?
3. How do I know if I'm receiving a channel in MPEG4 or MPEG2?

Thanks.

Dave

I'll try to answer the last two questions since the first one depends on where you live. East coast or West coast.

2. How do I know which satellite is providing which channel to me?

You could press Menu, 6, 1, 1, and it will display the Point Dish screen. It will show you the satellite and transponder the channel you're watching is coming from.

You could also go to ekb.dbstalk.com and see the list of channels each satellite has.

3. How do I know if I'm receiving a channel in MPEG4 or MPEG2?

As of right now, only HD channels are in MPEG4 format. There are a few HD channels that are still in MPEG2 format, Espn, HD Theater, TNT, HDNet and HDNet Movies, and HBO and Showtime.
 
I also have a question about this: With AMC-14's unsuccessful launch, will the Eastern Arc even happen now?


yes, dish has said that amc 14's failure will not affect any current plans, and with each uplink report we see eastern arc falling even more into place
 
Don't they have to have a decent satellite at 72.7 and maybe even 77 before they can hope to supply all channels in MPEG-4 via a single dish?
 
yes, it is going to be a multiple orbital system, 61.5 is seeing all of the action atm though.
WOW! That's pretty glib :)

Just EXACTLY which satellites (by names, not just locations) are going to make up this "multiple orbital system" that will be required to implement the Eastern Arc? And OBTW exactly WHEN will Dish have these sats in place?

Talon Dancer
 
Unknown, and Unknown.

Don't want much do you? Just for us to give technical specifications of a plan not seen yet by anyone outside of Echostar corporate offices, and by the way specifically which existing or future assets it will use.

Unfortunately my TARDIS is in the shop for repairs, otherwise I'd just pop into 2010 long enough to grab all those details for you off of this website: http://www.satelliteguys.us/ where they're all posted on the front page.
 
Unknown, and Unknown.

Don't want much do you? Just for us to give technical specifications of a plan not seen yet by anyone outside of Echostar corporate offices, and by the way specifically which existing or future assets it will use.

Unfortunately my TARDIS is in the shop for repairs, otherwise I'd just pop into 2010 long enough to grab all those details for you off of this website: http://www.satelliteguys.us/ where they're all posted on the front page.
My point exactly.

AFAIK no one who is posting here has admitted to being privy to Dish corporate plans/policy. Until that happens all posts not backed up by documentation on this forum are, by definition, merely SPECULATION by interested members who are somewhat informed but NOT privy to the specific facts on any subject. So anyone posting what the Eastern Arc _will be_ is posting speculation. Unless of course they want to come out of the closet and tell us their title at Dish and where they plan on looking for a new job:)

Talon Dancer

p.s. I've been having a devil of a time finding a TARDIS repair shop in my area. Mine has been on the fritz like -- forever :)
 
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Charlie Ergan made the announcement last year at Team Summit that Scott attended and reported from. I expect they will give more details this year. Given filings such as the lease agreement for 16 TPs from 72.X area and the application (later withdrawn when AMC-14 was lost) for 77, it appears that 61.5, 72.7 and 77 are the locations. Dish has a satellite build permit from the FCC for 86.5, but since the grant of the satellite build permit nothing has been reported.

61.5 has been turned into spot beam mode and a ton of local markets are being added there. The loss of AMC-14 set them back quite a ways (note they just said that it did not affect their immeditate plans, and did not comment on long term issues). After losing AMC-14 they withdrew the application to move E6 to 77. Perhaps the EA is delayed until after E11 launches. This way they will have E8 as a spare and will not have to worry so much about moving E6 out of there. Or perhaps we will suddenly get a notice that E6 is going to 72.7, this would be handled in Canada and we would not see anything filed with the FCC until it was approved in Canada.
 
Thanks Mike123abc for an excellent synopsis of the current informed speculation about how and when Dish could implement a multi-orbit Eastern Arc based on public filings etc.. It points up the uncertainty of exactly what hardware will be used and how long it may take Dish to implement an all MPEG4 service of it's current and future channels which can be seen with one dish (AKA the dish 1000.4) aimed in the general vicinity of 61.5-77w.

Hopefully DIsh will reveal more of the EA details (what, where, when and how) at the Team Summit in mid-May.

Talon Dancer
 
Charlie Ergan made the announcement last year at Team Summit that Scott attended and reported from. I expect they will give more details this year. Given filings such as the lease agreement for 16 TPs from 72.X area and the application (later withdrawn when AMC-14 was lost) for 77, it appears that 61.5, 72.7 and 77 are the locations. Dish has a satellite build permit from the FCC for 86.5, but since the grant of the satellite build permit nothing has been reported.

61.5 has been turned into spot beam mode and a ton of local markets are being added there. The loss of AMC-14 set them back quite a ways (note they just said that it did not affect their immeditate plans, and did not comment on long term issues). After losing AMC-14 they withdrew the application to move E6 to 77. Perhaps the EA is delayed until after E11 launches. This way they will have E8 as a spare and will not have to worry so much about moving E6 out of there. Or perhaps we will suddenly get a notice that E6 is going to 72.7, this would be handled in Canada and we would not see anything filed with the FCC until it was approved in Canada.
Mike, could you please add to sats names its current position - it will be much more illustrative for reading. Like E4@117W, because if you forget last move of the sat you're lost in space :).