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Exclusive to AVS - iN DEMAND TeamHD & GameHD each to offer 9 HD channels for cable!

post #1 of 77
6/3/11 at 10:15pm
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As privately announced on 5/25/11 by iN DEMAND, the popular cable PPV & sports provider, they will be increasing the number of High-Definition channels dedicated to the out-of-market sports packages to 18, as well as begin programming HDPPV full-time, 24 hours per day.

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iN DEMAND is the entertainment industry's pioneer and signature distributor of transactional and subscription content, providing a comprehensive portfolio of end-to-end digital video products and services, delivered with the highest technical reliability and cost efficiency.

iN DEMAND L.L.C. is owned by Comcast iN DEMAND Holdings, Inc., Cox Communications Holdings, Inc., and Time Warner Entertainment - Advance/Newhouse Partnership.

iN DEMAND programming includes movies, out of market sports packages, sports PPV, 3D, uncensored, and interactive applications.

The addition of HD channels is primarily enabled because of satellite distribution services using MPEG4, and is schedule for completion on 9/16/11.

These changes will allow the distribution of up to 9 simultaneous HD games for each sports package beginning this fall for NHL CENTER ICE, NBA LEAGUE PASS packages, and next year’s MLB EXTRA INNINGS package.

New channels configuration:
TEAMHD 1-9 (NBA & MLS)
HDPPV
GAMEHD 1-9 (NHL & MLB)
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post #2 of 77
6/3/11 at 11:17pm
This is great news. It will not be enough to offer both feeds for each game but they should be able to do most if not all games for the night. It will help cable compete in this area against Direct TV.

However, the signals need to get better. It's better than watching the SD version of it though.
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post #3 of 77
6/4/11 at 3:06am
If Verizon adds these in time for next hockey season it will be very difficult to not sign up for NHLCI in the fall. However, I have a bad feeling that these new channels will only show up on cable providers who use SDV and therefore have basically unlimited channel capacity.
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post #4 of 77
6/4/11 at 3:45am
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Originally Posted by coyoteaz View Post

If Verizon adds these in time for next hockey season it will be very difficult to not sign up for NHLCI in the fall. However, I have a bad feeling that these new channels will only show up on cable providers who use SDV and therefore have basically unlimited channel capacity.

Some cable systems have gone 100% digital which may give them enough room as well.
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post #5 of 77
6/4/11 at 9:12am
so.... HDPPV is gonna be 24/7.. not really sure why.... the scheduled PPV model is only useful for live events.

I guess there are still some local systems without any sort of HD on demand?
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post #6 of 77
6/4/11 at 11:17am
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Originally Posted by Marcus Carr View Post

Some cable systems have gone 100% digital which may give them enough room as well.

Yes, but we that still have analog locals will probably not, even in post-WoM areas like the San Francisco bay area. This has always been a drawback of Comcast for me, they don't have a real MLBEI-HD package, and it's why I still maintain a DIRECTV subscription for 6 mos out of the year. Given that we've had to lose channels(only 2 HBO-HD feeds currently) already to add others I'm not holding out any hope that we'll get these extra iN DEMAND channels here.
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post #7 of 77
6/4/11 at 11:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by coyoteaz View Post

If Verizon adds these in time for next hockey season it will be very difficult to not sign up for NHLCI in the fall. However, I have a bad feeling that these new channels will only show up on cable providers who use SDV and therefore have basically unlimited channel capacity.

I believe that to be the case as well. As I noted above, we are, apparently, already out of space on a fully upgraded Comcast World of More digital system in the SF area. SDV would seem to be the logical solution but Comcast has already stated that they've shelved plans for SDV for the time being. They will likely just further compress more channels per 256QAM to 4 instead of the current 3.
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post #8 of 77
6/4/11 at 11:31am
Cablevison still doesn't even carry the 2 HD feeds.
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post #9 of 77
6/5/11 at 3:11am
Now i can't wait for next year's Extra Innings Package and be able to view 9 HD channels, considering this year i only have GameHD1.

Also it would be nice to have more Duel Feeds on Comcast's end like DirecTV has.
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post #10 of 77
6/5/11 at 10:14am
it's about time...directv has been doing all nba league pass games in HD for the last 3 or 4 years, no sweat.

And even with this announcement, they can only do 9 games..so you'll be stuck with SD for the other 5 games, if all teams are playing on a given night.
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post #11 of 77
6/5/11 at 10:33am
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Originally Posted by Rakesh.S View Post

it's about time...directv has been doing all nba league pass games in HD for the last 3 or 4 years, no sweat.

And even with this announcement, they can only do 9 games..so you'll be stuck with SD for the other 5 games, if all teams are playing on a given night.

I don't really follow the NBA, but I would guess they would have different start times so it's conceivable that you could get more than one game per day per channel.
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post #12 of 77
6/5/11 at 11:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakesh.S View Post

it's about time...directv has been doing all nba league pass games in HD for the last 3 or 4 years, no sweat.

And even with this announcement, they can only do 9 games..so you'll be stuck with SD for the other 5 games, if all teams are playing on a given night.

-other '6' games - 30 NBA teams - 15 games max.


On the very rare night that every team is playing - you got lots of 7/7:30 start times, but you still get a bunch of 10/10:30 west coast games...

Also, on any non-TNT night (which has exclusive rights to the night), ESPN or nbatv has 1-2 games - so you can avoid showing those on an HD channel (if they bother to schedule intelligently...)

it's extremely rare to have more than a dozen games on any given day. they had all 30 teams playing on the last day of the season this past April.



(of course they have to share the HD channels with the NHL package...........)
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post #13 of 77
6/5/11 at 12:40pm
Thread Starter 
Between all the variables it will be infrequently that a cable sub with full package won't get all games in HD.
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post #14 of 77
6/5/11 at 1:36pm
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Originally Posted by Ken H View Post

Between all the variables it will be infrequently that a cable sub with full package won't get all games in HD.

It's likely going to be more a matter of available bandwidth for the channels on the individual cable systems, not the amount of actual feeds being provided by iN DEMAND.
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post #15 of 77
6/5/11 at 2:16pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by keenan View Post

It's likely going to be more a matter of available bandwidth for the channels on the individual cable systems, not the amount of actual feeds being provided by iN DEMAND.

That's why I used the term full package.

I don't know for sure, but I doubt a system will have access to just part of the 9 channels. I could be wrong about that.
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post #16 of 77
6/5/11 at 3:26pm
Anything's possible but if they are going to have 9 feeds, you would hope they would use them all.
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post #17 of 77
6/6/11 at 1:27pm
I'm on DirecTV to insure I get the most Sharks (I am out of market) games with the Sharks feed, going FIOS for internet only. Of course I could save money by going all FIOS. Probably going to keep tabs on FIOS TV schedules next NHL season to see if those feeds I want show up at even close to the same rate as on DirecTV (I realize it can't be the same exact rate, but close would be good enough). I realize this announcement probably means all games will in HD, but not necessarily home and away for each game. If that is true (not just NHL CI, but NBA LP and MLB EI), then DirecTV will still have an advantage when it comes to these out of market packages.
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post #18 of 77
6/6/11 at 1:57pm
I have been complaining to in demand and verizon since last year when i switched to verizon from directv about them not having all the games on NBA league pass in HD!!,I only hope verizon fios is able to get all of these in time for the next NBA season. I was serouisly thing of getting the lowest priced package directv has just so i could get nba league pass games in HD this year! I''ll just have to wait and see what transpires this year with verizon fios! ,either way this is good news and its about time!!!
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post #19 of 77
6/6/11 at 2:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken H View Post
New channels configuration:
TEAMHD1-9 (NBA & MLS)
HDPPV
GAMEHD1-9 (NHL & MLB)
Just for clarity, are they saying 9 HD feeds for NBA/MLS and 9 HD feeds for NHL/MLB, or is it going to be the case that in the winter the NHL and NBA will be splitting 9 HD feeds? Huge difference, obviously, between the two. If they are combined splitting 9 HD feeds, that means they won't be able to guarantee HD for any given NHL CI / NBA LP game (Assuming your cable/telco provider offers all the feeds), forget about home and away feeds.
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post #20 of 77
6/6/11 at 3:20pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pappy97 View Post
Just for clarity, are they saying 9 HD feeds for NBA/MLS and 9 HD feeds for NHL/MLB.....
Yes, 9 for each, 18 total.
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post #21 of 77
6/6/11 at 3:39pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pappy97 View Post
I'm on DirecTV to insure I get the most Sharks (I am out of market) games with the Sharks feed, going FIOS for internet only. Of course I could save money by going all FIOS. Probably going to keep tabs on FIOS TV schedules next NHL season to see if those feeds I want show up at even close to the same rate as on DirecTV (I realize it can't be the same exact rate, but close would be good enough). I realize this announcement probably means all games will in HD, but not necessarily home and away for each game. If that is true (not just NHL CI, but NBA LP and MLB EI), then DirecTV will still have an advantage when it comes to these out of market packages.
Yes, D* will have an advantage for both home & away games, but even they don't always air HD versions of both.

Other than that, it will be pretty close to the same HD access. I can see that being a deal breaker for some (out of market fans of a single team), but irrelevant for others (general fans of a sport).
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post #22 of 77
6/6/11 at 4:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken H View Post

Yes, 9 for each, 18 total.

i didn't read it that way initially...

woops..
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post #23 of 77
6/6/11 at 4:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Berk32 View Post

i didn't read it that way initially...

woops..

In re-reading my post I think I'm the one with the whoops.

Edited.
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post #24 of 77
6/6/11 at 5:34pm
will they use all 9 on each all the time or will there be dual HD feeds when there is room?

will they have OTA HD feeds? all the Canada HD feeds?

will PPV HD 2 be there for the times when there 2 live events on at the same time?
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post #25 of 77
6/8/11 at 5:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by keenan View Post

I don't really follow the NBA, but I would guess they would have different start times so it's conceivable that you could get more than one game per day per channel.

i have extra innings and 2 hd channels available. some days, there are 4 to 5 games on between the 2 channels. so with 9 channels, it wouldn't be impossible to show all or most games in hd.
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post #26 of 77
6/8/11 at 9:40am
So please forgive the stupid question....BUT....what does this mean for me as a Comcast subscriber who gets MLB Extra Innings? Does this mean that Comcast will start showing the games in HD, at least the ones provided in HD?

What is the net/net for a Comcast subscriber?
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post #27 of 77
6/8/11 at 10:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by neil0311 View Post

So please forgive the stupid question....BUT....what does this mean for me as a Comcast subscriber who gets MLB Extra Innings? Does this mean that Comcast will start showing the games in HD, at least the ones provided in HD?

What is the net/net for a Comcast subscriber?

It depends.

All Comcast systems are not created equal, so depending on the system you're in, it may get all 9 of the new HD channels for MLB, or none. Only time will tell what happens in your area. One positive sign may be if you get the TeamHD or GameHD channels now, which carry a few MLB EI games each day in HD.

As noted in my first post, unfortunately MLB EI won't be affected in any case until the 2012 season.
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post #28 of 77
6/8/11 at 10:33am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by iceturkee View Post

i have extra innings and 2 hd channels available. some days, there are 4 to 5 games on between the 2 channels. so with 9 channels, it wouldn't be impossible to show all or most games in hd.

Exactly.

You can bet somebody looked at the schedules, spoke with MLB, and came up with the 9 channel number. In other words, 9 HD channels aren't a coincidence.
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post #29 of 77
6/8/11 at 10:48am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe The Dragon View Post

will they use all 9 on each all the time or will there be dual HD feeds when there is room?

Most likely the same as it is for the SD channels now; each package only uses specific channels.

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will they have OTA HD feeds? all the Canada HD feeds?

Most likely the same as it is for the SD channels now, what ever that is.

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will PPV HD 2 be there for the times when there 2 live events on at the same time?

Good question, not sure.
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post #30 of 77
6/8/11 at 1:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken H View Post

Exactly.

You can bet somebody looked at the schedules, spoke with MLB, and came up with the 9 channel number. In other words, 9 HD channels aren't a coincidence.

Well 1 Transponder will have 9 feeds and the other one 10 so why not make both 10 or add a ppv HD 2 (there was a ppv 2 HD in the past) / Team 10 HD so all team SD have HD? Planing for PPV 3D? Game 3D? Team 3D?

http://tsq.com/alerts/HD%20Sports%20...nformation.pdf

Will this system be used for the olympics if there are any ppv planes?
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