DirecTV Plans 1500 HiDef Channels by End of 2007 295
doormat writes "DirecTV plans on launching four Ka-band satellites by 2007. This means local HiDef channels over satellite for the biggest markets by the end of 2005, with room for 500 HD channels. Plus 1000 more HD local channels and 150 national HD channels by the end of 2007. Thats a total bandwidth of 34Gbit/s, which is about 10 times the bandwidth they currently have in the Ku band (the band they use now for direct-to-home TV service). The bandwidth crunch for satellite providers is over, and the Ka band is the answer."
Ka? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ka? (Score:2, Funny)
Sure, announce it to the world why don't you? Now every cop around here will start carrying a cable broadcast satellite in the back of the patrol car just to stop people like us. Way to go!
Re:Ka? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Screw DirecTV (Score:2)
I'm sure they couldn't give a shit about this one loss of a customer, but in the corporate world we vote with our wallets, so there's the one vote I'm allotted. I'll look at Dish Network instead when I move into my new place next week.
By the way, my third thought was "Oh shit, my radar detector's gonna go nuts!"
Re:Screw DirecTV (Score:2)
If you have to be legit though, check out Voom. They're the third US satellite provider (til one of the others buys them out).
Re:Screw DirecTV (Score:3, Informative)
No, although it is pricey.
By extortion, I mean that they are suing owners of certain programmable PC smart cards that can be used to hack a DTV receiver box to pirate the signal.
They are doing this with no regard to the actual use of the card. They've sued actual pirates, they've sued loyal customers who have always paid for their service and they've sued people who have never used DTV service at all, paid or pirated.
The card in question is perfectly legal and has numerous legitimate uses. Owne
Rain Fade (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rain Fade (Score:3, Interesting)
DIRECTV 10 and DIRECTV 11, to be built by Boeing, will be among the largest and most powerful Ka-band satellites ever launched.
Re:Rain Fade (Score:5, Interesting)
All in all, I doubt it can put out 1000 watts of RF power 24/7. Compare that to your local FM station that probably broadcasts with 100,000 watts and only serves an area with an 60 mile or so radius. At high frequencies, you don't need a large dish for high gain (doubling the frequency generally doubles the gain), so the little dishes do the job.
Still, that's pretty impressive. 4.3 kW of power for a satellite? And the new ones are likely to be even bigger. (For comparison, Voyager broadcasts with 13 watts of power. Of course, it's power source is probably nuclear.)
With 4.3 kW of power coming in at peak (and never mind that solar cells aren't very efficient, so there's several times that amount of heat being collected by the solar cells), I wonder how they keep it cool. In space, you can't just tack on a big fan ... you need to radiate your heat into space.
Re:Rain Fade (Score:5, Informative)
So, I think it's fair to assume that they spend most of their time in the light soaking up power. Also, solar cell panels on large expensive satellites are usually computer guided. They deploy and then track the Sun so they'll get most of the power most of the time.
The link you gave only mentions the three existing satellites. They generate 4.3kW of power. Those sats, however, are almost 10 years old now. The article doesn't say, but I would guess that these new sats generate even more power (more efficient and/or bigger cells).
Re:Rain Fade (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I hadn't taken that into consideration. I was thinking that since it rotated along with the Earth (being geosynchronous and all) that it got 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night. Obviously wrong, considering how far it is from the Earth.
Obviousl
Re:Rain Fade (Score:2)
Just thought I'd throw out a thanks for the insight!
Re:Rain Fade (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rain Fade (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe the systems used to talk to submarines using the extremely low frequency bands (ELF) use something like three megawatts of power ...
Re:Rain Fade (Score:3, Interesting)
It is true that the satellites need battery power for when the earth eclipses its access to the sun. Fortunately the batteries never need to last much more than an hour, and this is only for a few weeks on either side of each equinox. Access to the sun isn't a huge problem for these satellites until the quality of the batteries declines from too many cha
Re:Rain Fade (Score:5, Informative)
Nominal power ratings for satellites assume sun-normal orientation of the solar arrays, which is actively maintained by the satellite. The satellite receives 100% illumination by the sun during most of the year, the exceptions being the spring and fall eclipse seasons, when the satellite transits the Earth's penumbral and umbral regions for up to a couple of hours per day. During these events, solar array power is augmented with battery power. Bus voltage drops and current draws increase, but transmitted powers generally stay the same. Yes, over the life of the satellite (10-15+ years) batteries degrade somewhat, though battery reconditioning techniques are employed to mitigate this. With today's designs, running out of fuel is usually what limits mission life.
The reason terrestrial radio stations require the power levels they do is that they typically transmit more or less omni-directionally (or at least toroidally), as opposed to how geo satellites use highly-directional (high gain) antennas for CONUS (or whatever) coverage. The effect of the differences between these two antenna types (tens of dB in gain) far outweighs the 20 dB power difference you mention (1 kW vs. 100 kW). The high gain antennas for DBS allow multiple channels of high bandwidth at reduced power vs. their terrestrial brethren. They're really two totally different kettles of fish.
Finally, thermal management is an important part of modern satellite design. Heat pipes, thermal radiators (mirrors), finishes, and other techniques are all used to collect, distribute, and reject heat. The effectiveness of these techniques can limit a design, and how capable a company is at dealing with thermal problems can determine the capabilities of its offerings relative to those of its competitors.
BTW, the current commercial satellite models offered by Boeing are based on the 702 bus, which supercedes the 601. Both of these designs were the product of Hughes Space and Communications Co. (part of the old Hughes Aircraft Company), now Boeing Satellite Systems (Boeing bought HSC in 2000).
Re:Rain Fade (Score:2)
'Finally, thermal management is an important part of modern satellite design. Heat pipes, thermal radiators (mirrors), finishes, and other techniques are all used to collect, distribute, and reject heat. The effectiveness of these techniques can limit a design, and how capable a company is at dealing with thermal problems can determine the capabilities of its offerings relative to those of its competitors.'
You seem to know what you are talking about. Mind fielding a question for me?
I know
Re:Rain Fade (Score:4, Interesting)
While I cannot claim to be an expert on thermal analysis, I have been working as a software expert in ESA's spacecraft testing centre [estec.esa.nl] for the past six years, writing and maintaining the software used to gather, process, and present thermal data during thermal testing. The big device in the top-left corner of the image is ESA's Large Space Simulator, and the little room a little to the right of that is my office ;-)
A thermal test typically lasts a few weeks, and we would typically be gathering data from 1500-2000 sensors (mostly thermocouples and PT100's) on the spacecraft, plus another 1000-1500 from the facility itself (depending on configuration). This adds up to a couple of gigabytes worth of data.
Right now the first ATV (the Autonomous Transfer Vehicle that is scheduled to bring freight to ISS starting next year or so) is being prepped for testing, somewhere at the end of this year.
Since this is /., I should probably add that for presentation and control of the system we use a mix of HP-UX (for historical reasons) and Windows XP PC's. Our main server is an aging HP-UX machine, which we will soon be replacing by a Linux solution. I've been gently pushing Linux for a while now, but one of my problems is that many of the acquisition systems require GPIB support which is hard to find under Linux (there are no drivers available for HP cards).
There are guided tours from the Space Expo [spaceexpo.nl], if you are interested.
Re:Rain Fade (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Rain Fade (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rain Fade (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the primary reason for C band's superior performance w.r.t. rain fade is the reduced atmospheric attenuation associated with lower frequencies, in general, and, in particular, with C band's frequencies vs. K band's frequencies. The atmosphere has different effects at different frequencies. The reduced attenuation at C band allows for greater link margin and, therefore, greater link robustness vs. rain.
The gains of a 1.8m dish at C band and a DirecTV dish at K band are similar. (Higher frequencies require smaller dishes for the same gain.)
If you aimed a 1.8m dish at one of the DTV birds, you wouldn't have a problem with rain fade either. (you'd have a bigger problem keeping it properly aimed, btw.)
Very true. Of course, the dish (antenna, in general) would have to be designed to operate at K band frequencies. It's not a given that you can just swap reflectors around. Antenna design at microwave frequencies is complex.
Re:Rain Fade (Score:4, Informative)
(DTV/DISH dishes larger than 18" are available -- up to 35" as I recall. But the aiming sensitivity makes them less desirable for general use.)
Re:Rain Fade (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of rain fade, I barely ever see it. When the eye wall of Hurricane Frances went over my house, that wasn't enough to do it. It has to be a really thick drenching rain, and even then we're only talking about a few minutes of fade per year. Cable craps out more often than that, and costs more.
Re:Rain Fade (Score:2)
We've heard this before... (Score:4, Funny)
Such little insight...
Of course, next week we'll be hearing about KBv6 (Ka-Band v6)
1500 channels and nothing to watch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1500 channels and nothing to watch (Score:5, Funny)
The Star Trek Channel, the A Team Channel, the Quantum Leap Channel, the Will and Grace Channel, the Cowboy Neal Channel....
Re:1500 channels and nothing to watch (Score:2)
Add pay-per-view channels, interactive services (BBC has a good set up here), and that band
Re:1500 channels and nothing to watch (Score:5, Interesting)
Plain and simple, there are people out there who don't get local channels. There are people out there who do get local channels. As no action has been taken, we can only assume you to be wrong on this point.
What you probably meant is that if Dish provides NBC, ABC, CBS etc for the Atlanta area, they have to make the same pricing scheme available to other local channels in the Atlanta area. They can't just carry the big names and shut the little guy out. They also can't charge lower interest channels a premium rate to be uplinked.
That does make for ugly bandwidth problems, but remember this is directional. Dish (for example) has satelites at the following orbital locations 119 110 61.5 148 121 105. The doubleing capacity attainable by opening up another band there is huge. More to the point though, is that those low demand channels aren't on the valuable realestate (119 110), they get shunted over to the wings (148, 61.5). There's not as much of a crunch as you think...
Re:1500 channels and nothing to watch (Score:2)
The official company policy is that we have to mention the channels you'd be missing if you don't get the 2nd dish, but that we shouldn't encourage customers to get this dish. ("Well Sir, you'll be getting all your local channels except a UPN station and a few inde
Re:1500 channels and nothing to watch (Score:2)
1500 channels and STILL nothing on... (Score:5, Funny)
The Survivor Channel. The Paris Hilton Sex Tape Channel. The Dixon-Ticonderoga #2 Pencil Channel. The Slashdot Channel.
Etc, etc...
Re:1500 channels and STILL nothing on... (Score:2)
Cowboyneal in hot grits? Those sick, sick bastards!
Re:1500 channels and STILL nothing on... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1500 channels and STILL nothing on... (Score:2)
Wouldn't want people to be turned off by the track marks they can no longer hide, or the pus-filled giant pimples on these skank's asses, you know?
DirecTV will compress the hell out of them (Score:5, Insightful)
But, HD shows on DirecTV (and a lot of the other satellight providers) are being squished down into 14Mbps or less. It's like they don't get it - HDTV is about the HIGH DEFINITION not the LSTCTV (lots of stupid channels tv). People who pay for high def want the best possible picture quality, not the most possible crappy looking channels.
Leave the crappy picture quality to the standard def channels where people have already given up on ever getting it look good again (once upon a tv, early in the mini-dish era, the standard-def channels had so much bandwidth available that they often looked at least as good as DVD and lots of times they would even look better, but it hasn't been like that for years).
Re:DirecTV will compress the hell out of them (Score:5, Informative)
Estimates put the total capacity for SPACEWAY at around 500 full-bitrate HD channels. Multiply by two satellites (the third is a spare), and that's 1000 HD channels (note that this figure is based on a 25/75 mix of 720p to 1080i).
There are around 1800 channels in the country, but at least half of those (religous channels, shopping channels, etc.) have no plans to broadcast HD in the immediate future.
Re:DirecTV will compress the hell out of them (Score:2)
Re:DirecTV will compress the hell out of them (Score:2)
But classic syndicated shows aren't in HD, so.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But classic syndicated shows aren't in HD, so.. (Score:4, Funny)
With 1700 channels, everything that was ever shown on TV could be rebroadcast on a regular basis-- there could even be multiple Love Boat channels, a channel for each Star Trek season, one for the good Star Trek movies, and one for the bad...
That's great actually (Score:2)
For example I'm a Law and Order nut. It's my favourite show and I can watch the espiodes over and over. I would love a Law and Order channel, that just showed it 24/7. Then, whenever I decided I wanted to see it, I could sit down and do so.
You are right that as the number of channels go up, the crap wil
Re:That's great actually (Score:2)
They're not going to do that -- it'll cut into sales of the DVDs. The trend these days is to show fewer and fewer repeats. Look, for instance, at 24 and Alias. No repeats this year -- just realy quick full-season DVDs.
Re:That's great actually (Score:2)
Also, please tell me that you only like the newer seasons with Jerry Orbach. His partner doesn't matter so much, but that first guy was just awful. Whathisname the DA, Jack Malone.. also superior to the original character. If only all lawyers were half as wise, or 1/100th as ethical...
Wrong! (Score:4, Informative)
ostiguy
Re:But classic syndicated shows aren't in HD, so.. (Score:2)
Re:But classic syndicated shows aren't in HD, so.. (Score:2)
Ka-Band Report (Score:5, Informative)
# They will lead to a fundamental restructuring of the world's communications satellite industry and lead to the development of global satellite operators with integrated L-band, C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band systems, using geostationary and low and middle earth orbits.
# This will reinforce the dominance of the United States in the provision of space and ground infrastructure, information technology and services.
# It looks likely that either low earth or middle earth orbiting satellite systems will have a major competitive advantage over geostationary systems. Such Ka-band networks will, in the long run, be integrated with Big LEO mobile satellite networks.
# Geostationary Ka-band satellites will be ineffective in providing a platform for ATM services because of the time delay in a signal being transmitted from one ground station to another through such a satellite. The problem is likely to be addressed by using low or medium earth orbit satellites.
# Current regional or major domestic satellite operators will only survive in this market if they tie closely to the dominant global operators. Use of inter-satellite links will facilitate this.
# If they do not cooperate, they are faced with the option of getting into the US marketplace or getting out of the satcoms business altogether.
# There is no one clearly identified "killer application" for Ka-band satellites but provision of high speed Internet and associated services is likely to be a major short to medium term lead market. Ka-band satellites can provide the cheapest and most quickly available of all options (high speed cable modems, ADSL and ISDN) in providing such high speed access.
# Ka-band satellites are likely to find a role in the mass consumer markets with "Home-use VSAT" sales running into, perhaps, millions per year. Consumers are also likely to be offered combined Ku-band/Ka-band dishes capable of receiving digital satellite television services and providing two-way services.
# Ka-band satellites will offer the best of 21st Century communications services to underdeveloped regions of the world.
# The policy and regulatory issues behind Ka-band satellites are far more complex and demanding than those that have hitherto faced any form of satellite communications including DTH and DBS TV, VSATs and PCS mobile communications satellites.
# The United States is arm twisting the rest of the world to open up the global telecommunications market place to allow Ka-band satellite operators to compete with local telecoms and satellite interests.
# The Ka-band Report contradicts the conventional wisdom that Ka-band satellites will come later rather than sooner. Behind closed door developments facilitating Ka-band communications are happening right now - with the satellite operators, the
# European Commission, the World Trade organisation and elsewhere.
# The first orders for broadband Ka-band satellites are likely to be placed this year.
# There will be a considerable shakeout of the current number of plans for Ka-band satellite systems with only the stronger or more entrepreneurial projects surviving. Even so, some major satellite operators remain woefully unprepared for the Ka-band era.
# The world's satellite operators should be looking to Ka-band services, not digital satellite television, as their next great market opportunity.
# They will need to develop new marketing policies and customer bases and cultivate new partners both amongst existing and new telecoms operators.
# Europe remains way behind the United States in developing the appropriate satellite technology (on-board processing, switching, antennas) and ground stations (phased array antennas) needed for the Ka-band environment.
Source: http://www.mindbranch.com
Re:Ka-Band Report (Score:3, Funny)
So
I hope there’s not a market for these new cha (Score:5, Insightful)
It just saddens me to see such an investment in entertainment. Especially since entertainment doesn't have any kind of economic return for the individual. I'll agree that entertainment is necessary for humans to enjoy life, but 1500 channels is beyond excessive.
Re:I hope there’s not a market for these new (Score:3, Informative)
Which shows that you are confused on the issue.
You see, you aren't getting 1500 channels when you get DirecTV. In fact, most of them I wouldn't call "channels" so much as "placeholders". I say that because a great number of these channels are Pay-Per-View stations. They are nothing but placeholders because they are blank 99% of the time, and only once a week or so will you see any programming on one particular PPV channel.
In addition,
Re:I hope there’s not a market for these new (Score:2)
Re:I hope there’s not a market for these new (Score:2, Flamebait)
It has a huge return for the advertisers. Stay tuned people! Consume!!!!
People watch TV because they don't know what else to do. I know a lot of people who cannot relax in a sitting room with the TV turned off. Most rooms are laid out to worship the TV.
You think this generation is bad? Wait until you see our kids generation! The internet might be th
Ah! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ah! (Score:2)
Slam Dunk for Mark Cuban (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slam Dunk for Mark Cuban (Score:2)
I just wish there was more content in HD right now. It's pretty sad how little there is, but those 5 channels sure are nice.
Re:Slam Dunk for Mark Cuban (Score:2)
Actually, I'd take a 720p video over a 1080i video.
This is really the single biggest mark of stupidity in the HDTV standard... Just because many displays can't handle 1080p doesn't mean you should limit the standard to that... They should have made it 1080p, and just let the reciever convert it to interlaced and display it.
That way those of us with better monitors (projectors!) can get a great quality signal... and in 10 years when people
Re:Slam Dunk for Mark Cuban (Score:2)
The Future is TiVo (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure there will be stuff on 1700 channels 24/7, but who is going to watch it? I bet the most views they will get will be from PVRs; either in people's computers, TiVos, or the combination thereof. Heck, even with regular digital cable, I wish I had a Tivo...who knew Law and Order was on at least 4 times a day. And that's only on 1 channel.
Then comes the fact that everyone will need to buy different equipment. And the manufacturers will either make a killing on it, or it will be a commodity, giving it a
Playboy in Hi-Def...... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Playboy in Hi-Def...... (Score:3, Informative)
When will we get Hustler TV? Or SCORE TV? A real, no holes barred, hardcore porn channel with closeups, penetration and moneyshots?
How about a 24hr Pussyman marathon?
Why is it that a $10 PPV version of a porno shows almost nothing, when a $3 rented dvd version of the same porno is a full blown version that shows everything?
Since when do the FCC decency regulations apply to closed circuit PAID TV? And on that subject, who's idea of decency is the gold standa
Re:Playboy in Hi-Def...... (Score:2)
Some of the porn you can pick up with generic (non-dish) DVB equipment and 1 mete
Re:Playboy in Hi-Def...... (Score:2, Insightful)
- automatic zit removal
- wrinkle reducer
- cellulite softener
- razor burn & stubble removal
- etc.
Big numbers (Score:2, Funny)
The possibilities are endless.
Re:Big numbers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Big numbers (Score:2)
Communications has always used 1000 bits per kilobit, unlike the 1024bits per kilobit (traditionally) used in computing.
Re:Big numbers (Score:2)
Don't know if people said this... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't know if people said this... (Score:2)
Re:Don't know if people said this... (Score:2)
Maybe your regulatory body sucks ass down there, and won't let them do this?
Re:Don't know if people said this... (Score:2)
Also, why do they do french channels? Wouldn't it be more effective to beam down seperate video and audio, and have the reciever combine them? It would nearly double available bandwidth, and the quebecistanis could still hear their dubbed over parlesvous.
This will be the killer application for satellite (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, HD looks GREAT on a SD TV. I have been a satellite subscriber since day one because local cable was aweful. It used to have a great picture, but the channel squeeze forced bit rates down so low it was like watching a good streaming internet image (crappy).
But I now have HDTiVo hooked up to a very nice SD set (XBR2) and a very nice HD projector (NEC HT1000). The projector is great for movies, but is just too big for watching TV. But HD channels on the SD set are some of the best quality TV around.
This will benefit all subscribers by getting high enough bandwidth for all stations, and more HD than will be provided by my local provider. I am just disappointed it is going to take 3 years to get up and running.
Re:This will be the killer application for satelli (Score:2)
They already have football in HD (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm drooling already waiting for Sunday.
All the channels and only commercials to watch (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All the channels and only commercials to watch (Score:2)
Scientific Satellite Interference (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Scientific Satellite Interference (Score:4, Informative)
Many techniques exist for reducing or eliminating interference, not just frequency separation. Polarization schemes are a big part of the solution, but there are others (spatial isolation, of course, and coding schemes with digital systems).
If your data transmission is at all on the radar, so to speak, I think it'd be safe to say people are designing new systems to be compatible. Or so we think.
500+ Channels of HDTV all sitting idle (Score:2, Interesting)
Being a student, HDTV is a small part of that somewhat distant dream of a futuristic geek friendly home.
Yes there are those of us who regard the number of TV channels we can receive as a mark of our success. But there is one fairly obvious question: What are they going to show on all these channels?
1) Thousands of new, good quality, entertaining TV programs. - I should stop dreaming here.
2) Go the way of digital telivision and show repeats or shopping channels 24/7. - Nice idea, but there are two pr
I'll say it now... (Score:4, Funny)
34 Gbps should be enough for anyone.
1500 channels: the Romans called it... (Score:2)
Or, in more contemporary terms, it's Neo's red-pill / blue-pill choice.
Optimistic (Score:2)
Piltdown Man (Score:3, Insightful)
This model is limited to offering what broadcasters want to air on their particular channel allotment. This stems from the fact they've only got a finite amount of bandwidth available. With a huge amount of bandwidth available DirecTV could really shake up the traditional broadcast model.
Instead of leasing channels to broadcasters DirecTV could instead sell bandwidth to content distributors. Say you wanted to watch a particular episode of the Sopranos. You'd tell your DirecTV DVR what episode you'd like to watch and it would consult a big broadcast content index. It'd find that episode 6 of the Sopranos would be downlinked from 6:45am to 7:45am on channel 751 on Monday. At 6:45am on Monday it would tune to channel 751 and record episode 6 of the Sopranos. You've now got an HD copy of the Sopranos, episode 6, on your DVR that you could watch whenever you wanted.
Instead of leasing a whole channel for HBO to use they could simply sell HBO a bandwidth alotment. HBO could then broadcast an entire season of the Sopranos on whatever channel and whatever hour they wished. Subscribers could pick and choose which episodes they wanted to watch out of those and have their DVR record them. Channel 751 later that day might be downlinking Gilligan's Island episodes for all HBO cares, they're only concerned with the bandwidth they paid for to distribute the Sopranos that week.
Any given week this proposed set of satellites could beam an obscene amount of data down to recievers. I think assigning such bandwidth to a rigid set of virtual "channels" would be a bit ridiculous. We're in the age of smart peripheral devices, televisions are no longer simply dumb boxes that convert radio signals to color pictures. Digital recievers can parse through a large amount of data to find specific things a person is looking for. There's enough computing power in my iPod to search through thousands of songs and pick out particular ones based on my criteria so it can't be terribly difficult to apply this idea to digital satellite broadcasts. Instead of looking through a miniature hard drive the system instead scans thousands of data streams.
what about Canada (Score:2)
but my question is, does anyone know about what internet connection services it will provide? At what cost? And, most important, when will it be available?
Re:what about Canada (Score:2)
I'm sure they'll continue to overcompress HD (Score:3, Insightful)
There is quite a difference in quality. Make no mistake, they both look great, but the signal over DirecTV is far more compressed. There's more compression artifacts, less detail, and a generally softer picture.
It's great that DirecTV is taking the lead in HD... and this will only accelerate my desire to pick up a DirecTV-HD-TiVo... but I hope they take quality very seriously rather than just trying to stuff as many HD channels in their bandwidth as possible, damn the consequences.
-S
Ob Pink Floyd ref (Score:2)
Who watches TV these days?
Voom (Score:2)
It's got many more HD channels than any competitor, good content, and the system is designed from the ground up to accomodate HD.
I had some installation problems (which are really the fault of the subcontractor who did the install) but once installed, I can now say that I wholeheartedly recommend them for anyone looking to have HDTV right now.
I love the Voom-specific channels. They basically get thier own HD content and make there own st
Re:Voom (Score:2)
Re:Yes but ... (Score:2)
Silly Coward!
Re:DirectTV HDTV (Score:2, Informative)
also, if you are an NFL Sunday Ticket subscriber, you get access to over 100 HD football games this year, even if you don't subscribe to the HD package.
Re:DirectTV HDTV (Score:5, Interesting)
At that time,
ESPN
Sucked. 90% of their programming was SD upconverts. Worse, they streeeeetched the image to 16:9 which distorted the picture and made it physically painful to watch. They had some nicely done Sunday night football games last year.
Discovery HD
Nice, but incredibly repetitive. The channel was on a 4 hour loop most of the time.
HDMovies (Movie channel showing various movies from classics to recent favorites)
Sucked in a major way. 90%+ old retread movies. Sure, "Endless Summer" was cool to watch, the first of the 7,312 times they broadcast it.
HDNet - pretty much a worthless channel showing repeats of recent Nascar Races, Horse, Races, and concerts. They also have some original series on it (I think).
Good for MLS games, if you're into that, which I am.
Now they've added BravoHD to the $10.99 HD package, which was part of a deal they had with NBC over the Olympics. Rumor has it they're going to push some SciFi channel programming onto Bravo, which would be cool.
CBSHD - I live in Utah and they allow me to pick up the CBS HD feed from LA. This is great because I can watch my shows an hour later in HD without needing the off air ant.
Don't knock OTA antennas, if you can get a signal. A one-time expense of under $100 and a few hours installing an antenna in my attic got me perfect recepton of ABC, CBS, and NBC digital broadcast. The picture from local stations is typically compressed less than DBS signals, and it's free.
It's too bad that getting a waiver from a local station, even if you can't get their signal, is a nightmare most places. I can't get Fox, at all, and I'm not real hopeful about being able to get it over DirecTV, even when they start offering it.
I also enjoy watching Golf in High def on the weekends. You can tell a HUGE DIFFERENCE between the shows in HD and regular shows. People come over and just say WOW to the sporting events. Movies are not that much different.
I agree, HD is incredible. I could watch paint dry in HD, but I'm not sure if I could make myself watch golf.
Cons:
No STINKING TIVO!!!!!! I can't wait for the HDTivo to be affordable.
Agreed. They need a standalone HD DVR model that doesn't force us to hock our existing HD STBs on eBay.
Re:DirectTV HDTV (Score:2)
Re:DirectTV HDTV (Score:3, Funny)
Are you kidding? that's a feature
Re:DirectTV HDTV (Score:4, Informative)
Re:1500 channels... (Score:2)
Re:Ahat about (Score:3, Informative)
"Plus 1000 more HD local channels and 150 national HD channels by the end of 2007"
Re:What about the clouds? (Score:2)
- Antenna size/geometry
- Preamp noise figure
- Pointing accuracy
The first two are cost-sensitive. A cheap dish may not perform as well as a more expensive model. The last is dependent on the stability of the antenna mount and proper installation.Re:No No NO! (Score:3, Informative)
Oh yeah, cable also gives me a cheap HD DVR box. That'll trump the $1000 HD Tivo anyday.