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DirecTV's 1st MPEG4 Satellite Launch Successful
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Apr 27, 2005 09:38 AM
from the final-frontier-seems-a-little-boring-lately dept.
from the final-frontier-seems-a-little-boring-lately dept.
tivoKlr writes "Looks like the 1st Spaceway satellite to provide "1500 channels of HD" has made it successfully into space. MPEG4 compression and local HD channels, something that the cable company can't offer in my area." Unfortunately the new satellite obsoletes the HD Tivo, and there's no word on when there will be a new one.
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Full HDTV Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the content will have to be in HD as well. But this always has been the chicken and the egg problem, without a network to broadcast HD content, why create it?
jason
Re:Full HDTV Finally (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Full HDTV Finally (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Full HDTV Finally (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.directv.com/voom/
For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:4, Interesting)
-Jesse
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:5, Informative)
I believe the High Def Tivo uses MPEG2 for its data streams, won't be capable of decoding the MPEG4 streams.
Parent
I wish (Score:3, Interesting)
Not in a hardware-based solution like their current chipset... and don't think that my HD TiVo and I don't wish otherwise.
You can bet I'll be on the phone with a CSR to get some free, upgraded equipment and/or hefty credits. I'm not too worried, though. DirecTV been pretty fantastic about that sort of problem in the past and their publicist has already said they're going to attempt to make everyone happy about the changes.
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:2)
You can read more here @ PVRBlog [pvrblog.com]
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:2)
Anyhoo, pipedream anyway. FYI, I believe it is "this obsolesces the HD Tivo". Then again, my spelling is probably wrong.
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:2)
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:2, Redundant)
MPEG decoding in the DTivo boxes is done in hardware, so a software update isn't possible.
There are plently of $1000 HD Tivo owners pissed off about it.
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:4, Insightful)
Look up the words "Monopoly" and "Oligopoly"
Short answer is, they dont *have* to care. You want them more than they need you.
Parent
Re:For someone not hip on the lingo (Score:2, Informative)
HD DirecTiVos will be obsolete next year.
In this kind of setup... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In this kind of setup... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:In this kind of setup... (Score:2)
Satellites are linear not digital (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Satellites are linear not digital (Score:5, Informative)
The only reason they are able to do this is because they are going to be transmitting using a different band - KA. The current DirecTV sattelites transmit in the KU band. So they'll be using their existing orbital slots 101, 110, & 119 to broadcast on a different wavelenght.
Unfortunately this is going to be mean a larger dish will be required. Google dish network superdish for an idea of how big it is. Dish Network already does broadcast some local channels in KA band.
Parent
Re:Satellites are linear not digital (Score:2)
The real problem with them (and DirecTV is going to have this problem as well) is that they're a royal pain in the ass to point.
Realisticly, the consumer won't be able to realign his system anymore.
Re:Satellites are linear not digital (Score:5, Funny)
I've re-mounted my 3LNB D* dish several times, and I always take out a receiver and an old 13" TV with me to do the job. It may take 30 minuts or so to get it just right, but hey, I' mostly sitting on my butt drinking a beer and watching TV (well, the set upscreen).
Besides, nothing gives the new neighbors a first impression like seeing the "new guy" sitting on his roof watching TV and drinking a beer.
Parent
Re:Satellites are linear not digital (Score:3, Interesting)
What I do know, is that analog channels on cable, look like utter and complete crap on an HD monitor. That, and the Sci-Atlanta box that COX uses upconverts about as well as a OU plays in the Orange Bowl... Digital cable is such a misnomer, I can't believe they get away with selling it as digital.
Re:Satellites are linear not digital (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Satellites are linear not digital (Score:3, Informative)
The funny thing is that MPEG-4 streams are carried within the same 188-byte packet MPEG-2 transport stream that normal MPEG-2 live video streams use.
Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to imagine that by recompressing into MPEG4 from MPEG2 (the format the signals are provided in, at least currently), some quality would be lost. The question is, how much quality is DirectTV prepared to sacrifice in order to say that they have the entire country covered with HD locals?
Personally, I'm sticking with cable because I want the original MPEG2 stream passed through without any recompression, and I don't want to watch TV without DVR features.
Re:Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:2)
Do you think that DVR features are unique to Cable only? I have a Dish Network DVR522 and love my dual tuner Satelite DVR fun. They also have the DVR942 now which gives you all the power of 522 with the addition of HD.
Re:Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:3, Interesting)
I expect that, like MPEG-2, we will see MPEG-4 encoders doing a better job over time, and I suspect that eventually the best MPEG-4 encoders will be doing a similar quality to the best MPEG-2 encoders at half the bitrate. But that is in the future, especially for HD!
Re:Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:4, Informative)
mecro: The FCC only gave broadcasters a small chunk of the spectrum to broadcast, which means the MPEG2 signal is compressed somewhere between 49-55:1.. That's insane, and MPEG 4 will hopefully lessen the compression ratio.
flimflam: Yes, though not at the specific data rates used for broadcast. In general MPEG4 is vastly superior to MPEG2, however. Also, an MPEG2 stream would never be recompressed as MPEG4, the broadcaster would feed the uncompressed signal into the MPEG4 compressor. All in all this is a move to increase quality at the same bandwidth.
For OTA signals, DirectTV and Dish currently have an antenna in the city that receives the analog OTA signal, which they compress for transmission. They only have a direct connection to the national signals they provide to people too far from local affiliates (I believe from NY and LA). It's unlikely they will obtain a more direct connection for digital OTA signals. So it's almost certain that the video will be doubly compressed--MPEG-2 by the channels, MPEG-4 by DirectTV.
Satellite channels (ESPN-HD, etc.) are currently pulled off of the high bitrate (MPEG-2) satellite feeds and compressed to low bitrate MPEG-2 by DirectTV and Dish. The encoder will likely be MPEG-4 for these types of sources.
jchapman16: Note that cable providers recompress the original MPEG2 streams themselves to reduce bandwidth used by HD channels.
I can't speak for every cable provider, but stream analysis done by those of us with FusionHDTV cards (capable of recording cable's QAM modulated HD streams) have shown that the video is not recompressed. It is re-wrapped, with much of the transport stream adjusted, but the data itself is not decompressed and re-compressed.
Xesdeeni
Parent
Re:Quality of MPEG4 signals? (Score:3, Informative)
Ka spot beams (Score:5, Informative)
The spot beams are formed using a 1500 element phased array. The array can form as many as 780 downlink spot beams and 112 uplink spot beams across the US. Compare this with a typical Ku-band (~12 GHz) satellite which has a single beam over the entire US.
Spaceway uses digital regenerative switching of up to 10 Gbps, as opposed to the analog transponders of most geosynchronous communications satellites (despite the fact that most of those transponders are used with digital services these days).
Spaceway was originally supposed to provide satellite point-to-point and point-to-multipoint IP connectivity, but that was dropped in favor of providing massive localized HDTV capacity using spot beams.
Unfortunately, Ka band is more sensitive to rain fade outages than Ku band.
Re:Ka spot beams (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
the more HD, the merrier (Score:3, Interesting)
With HD "supposedly" defined to be 16:9, I sincerely despise all those major networks - CBS ABC and NBC that broadcost most of their HD content in 4:3. Only Discover and PBS has true 16:9 HD around the clock.
Watching Olympics opening ceremony on HD is simply gorgeous. The only thing I need now is CNN HD.
156 deg West? (Score:2)
Who asked for higher resolution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm biassed because I'm in the UK and therefore have 625 lines instead of the appauling 480 line TVs the poor Americans have to put up with (no wonder they're screaming for HDTV!).
My worry is that even with MPEG 4 (which will probably be recompressed MPEG 2 sources anyway for quite a while) they may not have enough bandwith to send me a 1080 line picture without artifacts...
Maybe with Fiber To The Home we might actually get enough bandwidth to watch the channels we want at the resolution we want, without thinking that it looks like your TV has gone though 4 copes of RealPlayer...
Re:Who asked for higher resolution? (Score:3, Informative)
No, it doesn't. A clean analog signal looks better than an overcompressed digital signal, true. But a truly "clean" analog signal doesn't exist.
Compare the quality of DVD to the much-vaunted Laserdisc. LD is about as close as you can get to a "clean" analog signal, and it still had a number o
footprint (Score:3, Interesting)
Since I live in the US heartland, I find this very disheartening...
Let's see... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Satellite cannot give me high speed internet or phone service. In fact, I can get phone over cable or voice over IP or both simultaneously.
3. Satellite cannot give me interactive video-on-demand including gaming and information services such as those being rolled out now in various systems which will become the normal across the US in a few years.
Yeah, I really need Murdoch to give me DiVX-style video over satellite loaded ongoing with DRM and compatibility issues and on top of it I have to buy a box that I will need to replace at my cost when they change the technology; and that's going to make me just drop everything else that cable has to offer that DBS doesn't, right? I don't think so.
I'm a DBS and cable installer as well as support tech and after over a thousand installs, would never switch to DBS so it isn't as though I don't have direct exposure to the technology. It just doesn't appeal to me. I'll wait till we see the fabled LEO constellation of birds giving me high bandwidth and lower latency to portable devices wherever I go, but I won't hold my breath.
Re:Let's see... (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the issues you raise in point 1 deal with the transition from NTSC to digital in general. The monitor is still the largest single expense, so it doesn't matter if the transmission medium is OTA, DBS, or cable. And there should be exactly one encode at the uplink/headend, and one decode at the customer's tuner. If your provider of choice is recompressing mid-stream, they've screwed something up.
These gaming and information services you speak of are already the norm. Perhaps you've heard of the Inte
Re:Who does the sky belong to? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Who does the sky belong to? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Who does the sky belong to? (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, given the previous slashdot article [slashdot.org] about the Bush adminstration's policy on IATC meeting attendees, only Republicans will be allowed to watch HD satellite tv. And only if they donate $1000 to the GOP.
Parent
Re:Who does the sky belong to? (Score:3, Interesting)
Say a satellite is 10 feet wide, you could fit over 11,000,000 in a straight line from the earth to orbit and still probably wouldn't be able to see the line.
You can only fit under 8,000 1/64 inch pieces of lint in a straight line on a 10 foot bed sheet
Re:Who does the sky belong to? (Score:5, Insightful)
You make an interesting point, but after considering it carefully, I respectfully disagree with everything you just said.
They provide a service that I'm willing to pay for -- media content delivery. If you don't want it, don't pay for it. I don't want the government launching these satellites, because I don't want the government controlling the content. Furthermore, since governments don't own satellite airspace, governments don't get to license it. This leads me to some other questions for you: Because airplanes fly over your airspace, should they be made available to all citizens? It's really only wealthy citizens, businesses, and governments who can own and operate these vehicles -- very similar to satellites. What's the ultimate difference between a company launching a dozen satellites in geosynchronous orbit versus building a vast terrestrial distribution network? Should only governments be allowed to build these networks? In both cases (satellite and wired), the businesses own the infrastructure, and the consumer simply pays for service. It covers both media licensing and distribution costs. This way, the networks are able to get around government censorship of what they broadcast -- terrestrial television and radio broadcasts are still subject to this censorship. I generally do not patronize those services due to this censorship. Personally, I find the censorship far more obscene than the content they are trying to protect me from.
As far as the service rendered, it's entertainment. Does it benefit us? It depends on how much you value entertainment. One man's junk is another man's gold. When we buy it, it's a choice. When the government provides it, we're all paying for it whether we like it or not.
Finally, as far as I know, the sky is open to anyone who wants to put something up there (providing that they acquire the necessary licenses from whatever applicable aerospace governing administration for their launch vehicle). There are two problems: building these communication devices is very expensive and putting them in place is extremely expensive. The only groups who seem to have the cash to do such a thing are goverments and businesses. It sounds an awful lot like you're begrudging them of their money and their ability to send up satellites on their whim.
Parent
Re:What about receivers? (Score:2, Funny)
Bwahahahahahahahaha! Bwahahahahahaha!
You're a funny guy kusanagi374 (776658)!
Re:What about receivers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Sat better than cable? Whatever... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen my (new) local Adelphia service, and SD looks about the same. I can't say how reliable it is vs D*, as I don't subscribe to cable (a friend has it). If it's anything like the cablemodem sevice, I can live without it. I probably lose 10% of my surf time in any given month to cable outages. In five years with D*, I've lost signa
Re:Sat better than cable? Whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:IT's ALL LOCAL TV !!! -- WHO CARES! (Score:3, Informative)
I do not live in a major metropolitan area, so I do not get a very good signal (analog or digital) from the local stations. Many people also have issues due to terrain. With satellite, line of sight is much better (either you get it or you don't), and barring severe weather, the signal is much more dependable.
I currently get my locals on Dish, just not in HDTV. And due to market rules, I do not qualify to receive the distant network HD feeds.