Why DirecTV is the HD Leader (Video)
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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It's not going to be in its ''home' location until Mid-September. It will be in a nearby 'testing' orbit starting around August 10th I believe, then after testing (around September 12th IIRC) it will be moved over to its GEO permanent slot.
Don't expect any programming before September 15th at the earliest.
Don't expect any programming before September 15th at the earliest.
Compression is a necessary evil. A non-compressed HD channel is 1.5Gbps. Cable delivers that content on MPEG-2 at 12Mbps, MPEG-4 Advanced Video Compression, which D* is now using, can deliver better PQ at half the bit rate. The only problem D* is having is the fact that they chose Tandberg for MPEG-4 encoders, which are sub-standard. This shows up very badly in local channels that have to be encoded locally, then transported via fiber to Wyoming for uplink. Long-haul transport really magnifies the problem. That will change soon, as companies like D* and AT&T change their encoders out about every other year. I'm confident D* will get it right. Now that John Malone is in there, it will rise to the top of the heap.
D* noticed this quite awhile back and has changed out a lot of their encoders already, not all of them but many of them.
I do not see them having signal loss going out to Wyoming as you mentioned, as they are being sent via fiber.
Jimbo
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