USA Network Sci-Fi residential?

[AntAltMike]

I just received this notice from WSA LLC (formerly WSNet, World Satellite/)Heifner Communications


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WSA LLC received the below notification from NBC Universal Television Distribution:


You are currently receiving C-Band analog transmission of the USA Network and SCI FI Channel programming services from the following satellites and transponders:

Galaxy-14 Transponder 10 (USA Network)

Galaxy-14 Transponder 18 (SCI FI Channel)


Unfortunately, NBC Universal Television Networks Distribution (“NBCU”) has determined that it will be unable to continue the analog transmission of the USA Network and SCI FI Channel services to C-Band Subscribers.

This constitutes written notice that, effective April 30, 2007, the analog transmission for USA Network & SCI FI Channel on Galaxy-14 Transponder 19 and 18, respectively, will be terminated.

At the current time, NBCU does not support the 4DTV consumer digital receiver technology, and has no plans to do so in the future.
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As a commercial dealer, I pay little attention to the 4DTV market, so I'm not really sure what goes on there, but I thought that I had read that a few other fairly popular "basic cable" type satellite channels already were no longer available to residential customers. I thought maybe Discovery was one of them.

Are USA and SciFi playing chicken with someone, or is this the ushering in of the end of big dish residential satellite?

 

[tdti1]

The analogs are going soon, the notice you got is not 100% correct, most of NBC's mux's are Megapipe but they have a mux on Galaxy-15 C-band that has sci and usa along with other channels that are compatible with 4dtv, NPS is trying to get these channels for us, NBC may not wish to make there distibution feeds avalable to backyard dish owners and if that happends we will get the feeds off HITS

I am hoping to get the master feeds.

 

[jself1982]

All that seems to be left worth anything in the movie channels.

 

[chefwan]

is usa and scifi still going to be on KU?

 

[scottc98]

Scfi is available on KU (X-4)

 

[chefwan]

so the Cband is all going to Ku Band Now? am i right or wrong? that's stupid

 

[Kb Cool]

so the Cband is all going to Ku Band Now? am i right or wrong? that's stupid

Some programmers don't want to sell their channels to 4DTV subscribers even though the channels are still on c-band. So big dish owners have to get the re-uplinked versions from Hits on KU. It really sucks that these company's "refuse" to sell to us anymore. Or maybe they just don't like NPS or SRL? ..... I don't know

 

[chefwan]

Some programmers don't want to sell their channels to 4DTV subscribers even though the channels are still on c-band. So big dish owners have to get the re-uplinked versions from Hits on KU. It really sucks that these company's "refuse" to sell to us anymore. Or maybe they just don't like NPS or SRL? ..... I don't know

What is Hit?

 

[voomvoom]

What is Hit?

http://www.hits.com/

Al

 

[WyrTwister]

so the Cband is all going to Ku Band Now? am i right or wrong? that's stupid

Perhaps a better way of putting it is analog C & Ku are slowly going away . I doubt that digital C band ( in some form ) will disappear ?

wyr

 

[tdti1]

so the Cband is all going to Ku Band Now? am i right or wrong? that's stupid

With 90000 subs I guess the programmers do not want to put in the effort to allow us to get the master feeds, like I say if anyone has the ability to sub to something on big dish do it, it will help the numbers and help us get masters and new channels.

 

[chefwan]

yeah. im currently in the process , anyone know of any good packages out there? if so let me know

 

[WyrTwister]

With 90000 subs I guess the programmers do not want to put in the effort to allow us to get the master feeds, like I say if anyone has the ability to sub to something on big dish do it, it will help the numbers and help us get masters and new channels.

You don't recon the big boys ( DTV & DN ) apply some pressure in this issue ?

Wyr

 

[tdti1]

You don't recon the big boys ( DTV & DN ) apply some pressure in this issue ?

Wyr

Dish did a big part in killing off a very large number of subs when they use to advertise on C-band analog with the doom and gloom storys that big dish would be dead by 2000, then they killed off thousands of more subs when they bought YSP.

To be honest now I don't really think Dish and DTV really care about what 4dtv could have done to them, now that its so small.

A dude in the 4dtv forum did bring up something today that could also be a reason, Comcast ownes HITS Comcast also ownes the ACC now, maybe they could have rased the teir bit fees for the programmers and in turn they would not want to support the consumer C-band market and so the providers like NPS and SRL will go to HITS (Comcast) to get there channels, still though NPS did offer to pay to cover the costs for Viacom and they still said no, so who really knows whats going on, it is very sad to see master feeds go when the 4dtv is still able to get them.

You never no whats going on when it comes to money.

 

[truckracer]

They want all of us on their over-compressed digital cable for overcompressed fees. Screw them, I'll just watch what's free. It does not bother me.

 

[Davage]

I may be way out in left field on this one, but possibly one reason why the programmers aren't going with the 4DTV Digicipher technology is because they are still bitter at Ma-Com/General Instrument/Motorola for the compromised Videocipher II technology that cost them millions in the 80's and early 90's. That Videocipher system was so badly compromised that at one point in the late 1980's (according to a Boresight news episode) there were 1.3 Million Videocipher descramblers manufactured, but only 300,000 were actually authorized. 1 Million of those decoders we can assume were stealing programming. Even into the late 1990's and the 2000's there are still Videocipher Analog channels that are being hacked. (autoroll chips etc are still available) If I was a programmer and after having my signal stolen for 15 or more years due to a bad scrambling technology, I'd be bitter and would be looking for alternatives to the Videocipher/Digicipher.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[voomvoom]

As far as I know, Digicipher was never compromised. Sure Videocipher was, but any programmer could have went to Digicipher just as well. Many did and still do use Digicipher, the Viacom mux that is currently being refused to NPS is a good example of that. It's a Digicipher signal that's being used by Viacom and 4dtv'ers are fully capable of receiving these signals, but Viacom won't let them. So why should they be bitter, they are still letting other Viacom muxes which are Digicipher to be used by NPS and others. Makes me wonder how long that will last?

Al

 

[tdti1]

I may be way out in left field on this one, but possibly one reason why the programmers aren't going with the 4DTV Digicipher technology is because they are still bitter at Ma-Com/General Instrument/Motorola for the compromised Videocipher II technology that cost them millions in the 80's and early 90's. That Videocipher system was so badly compromised that at one point in the late 1980's (according to a Boresight news episode) there were 1.3 Million Videocipher descramblers manufactured, but only 300,000 were actually authorized. 1 Million of those decoders we can assume were stealing programming. Even into the late 1990's and the 2000's there are still Videocipher Analog channels that are being hacked. (autoroll chips etc are still available) If I was a programmer and after having my signal stolen for 15 or more years due to a bad scrambling technology, I'd be bitter and would be looking for alternatives to the Videocipher/Digicipher.

Just my 2 cents.

DCII and VCII+ have never been compromised, the tech is just old and new stuff is out and programmers can compress more and save more money, and to be honest many channels are compatible with 4dtv, if you look at Lyngsat I would say 90% of the DCII programming can be used with 4dtv, not many are Megapipe.

Keep in mind that Dish and Bell are hacked big time more than C-band ever was and channels are still being added to there line up.

Basically what is happening is programmers do not think it is worth the investment to offer there distibution feeds to backyard dish owners, the fact that our numbers are so small the profit is not much if any and the programmers don't want to waste there time, if we had 500000 subs or 1000000 it would be much different.