DirecTV goes to 3 HD channels per transponder! - Page 2  

I agree that they should. I don't know who "all of you" is but I never disagreed with that idea.

what is her position at DirecTV?

No offense, I should have phrased that differently. It just upsets me that every source OTA, sat is slowly turning our expensive HDTV's and other equipment into something more like EDTV's

using my hdtivo right now I am getting 1920 x 1088i , 16x9, 29.97fps.
this is on the hbo hd channel.

many people all along have been saying D* would be the leader in HD....well, they are finding a way and I am not so sure most of the mass public beside the few on this forum care as long as the screen is filled and the pic is prettier than their old picture.

On a side note. Ken H and another fella each owe me from a bet we made a couple months ago about D* adding a certain amount of HD. I say most of their HD now is not HD so I win...

I'll still enjoy Sunday tickets games in HD on D* but now I will be watching all my other HD on Voom........

When was the last time you counted how many channels per bandwidth there is on Voom?

I don't want to bug these people but please post their responses here. The NFL season is definitely not "temporary" enough for my tastes. Egads that's what, six months? That's a lot of hours of HBO watching to me.

Oh wait, or is the idea that we should all complain to both parties to get something done about it? If that's the case, count me in.

And to think I was going to go out tonight and buy an HDTivo and hook DirecTv back up.

Wayne

Voom has 3 Mr Darin per transponder..big difference though is Voom has 50 Mbps per trans...not the 29 like D*.....

YOu are too touchy...I am being a smartass about D* cause I have been with them since 1994 and it is my right to rip them if they deserve it. Does anyone really think they were going to add all this football HD for Sunday Ticket and not shove 3 per transponder?

Darin, I have D*, Voom, Expressvu and Comcast. Voom is my fav for paychannel hd such as showtime and such, hence my I'll be wathing Voom for those, (which I always have since I have had voom)....But wasing over $260 a month for all this HD is getting old....but if you think I don't know what I ma looking at or otherthings as far as HD you need not worry. I have had HD for 4.5 years now. I sure hope someday I can only carry D* but that would probalby only be the case if they buy out Voom, or maybe in a couple years after D* puts up more sats next year and then the many month or years wait to get them going how they choose...

Senior Vice President, Programming

E-mail away.

Yes, I know Voom gets more bandwidth per transponder, which is why, to be fair, I said channels per bandwidth, not per transponder. If you do the math, Voom and DirecTV are now pretty close, at least on the three channels that are on one transponder. Technically, DirecTV still has some HD that is two per transponder. But on the other hand, Voom is probably able to save some bandwidth on their proprietary content. A lot of their proprietary channels are movies, which take less bandwidth.

And replying to you makes me touchy?

As I post this message I am on hold with Comcast - waiting for my install...

All this BS about spot beams not wasting bandwidth just flew out the window... Yea the spot beams have made DirecTV the leader in HD at least in turning HD into SD!

The HD quality was fairly low to begin with and now it is just plain unacceptable. This just proves that DirecTV doesn't care about picture quality... And I thought Dish Network was bad!

I'd like someone from DirecTV to explain to the family why we won't have Tivo any more.... I'm sure as hell not looking forward to it!

Well my Comcast install is scheduled for Wednesday - I wonder if those losers will even show up?

This sucks....

I dont know how both systems work but does voom have more than 3 per transponder? It would seem to me that voom would be able to have much more bw per channel if that was true. Since voom doesnt release its true bw numbers Ive always heard they run at 12.5 (50/4) which would mean 4 per transponder but still thats open to debate.

vs the 9.67 (29/3) D* is now employing (and its my belif that this will be the norm on D* for a long time if the planned # of channels turns out to be true)

My picture via D* on a 65" DLP at 9' looks better than my HD locals from my cable co in QAM. Both are through a DVI switch.

Boy, you must have one crappy cable co... Who is it?

Cox with an LG tuner, and you're over-reacting.

PS... Enjoy that spiffy piece of crap subscriber quality box they'll be giving you. I hope it holds the channels an doesn't randomly drop to a PPV channel that's muxed with it.

I don't know how they have their channels mixed up, but they have 37(?) HD channels, and roughly 90 (?) SD channels, on 13 transponders (they are still using the two unassigned transponders, right?).

You also have to keep in mind that the 50Mbps is the gross bandwidth, not the final net Cheezmo is reporting based on the file sizes of recordings. Using the same math that gets you to 50Mbps for Voom gives you 34Mbps for DirecTV. There may be other overhead (packet headers, etc.) that cut into the gross numbers, and isn't usable for video.

The whole point is, don't look at three channels/transponder on DirecTV, and think that it's worse than Voom... it's not (in fact, slightly better by my questionable math). Beyond strict numbers, the quality of the encoders also comes in to play.

Hmm. What does he mean by "over"? Will we have crappy PQ for four months of the year, or just during the weekend for four months of the year? IMO, both options suck.

leslie nielsen flick on HDNet Movies looks like DVD(very soft) to me right now...i don't know if that's the age of the film or bitrate...maybe someone that managed to watch it before this 3 on a transponder fiasco could comment on it

So what transponders will the ST games be on - surely not all on the same transponder or they would be stealing bw from each other.

As the Stat Muxes are supposed to be pretty good it would seem more sensible to have two regular channels (HBO, HDNet etc.) plus one ST channel on each transponder. Then for 90% of the week the two active channels would get all the bw and for 3-4 hours on Sunday, the third channel would be active and thus steal the bulk of the bw on the transpoder.

Surely that would have less impact than shuffling all the other channels together at one end andall the ST channels at the other,so to speak.

R

Showtime HD is definitely not HD now. The absolute worst HD PQ I have seen from DirecTV. If this continues, Showtime HD will be discontinued really quickly and the reason communicated to DirecTV. What a mess and what is DirecTV thinking?

Chris

I really have no idea how vooms system really works but in the past but people on here have said there was almost no difference between vooms HD and D* when it was on 2 chan/transponder.... so you drop it to three and I would bet you will notice a large difference between comparable channels now.

Regardless 6.5 and 7.8 mbit are beyond horrible for HD.

Mike, seriously, don't you think you are jumping the gun a bit here?

Dear Ms Campbell

I've found it increasingly harder to remain loyal to Directv now that there are a lot of High Definition options available from other sources. I find the reduced picture quality of HBO and HDNET to be unnacceptable since you moved multiple HD channels to the same transponder this morning. Such a reduction of bandwidth is not being true to HD. It has been speculated your company did that to make room for your HD NFL broadcasts, but for whatever reasons I find that unacceptable and may well switch to a competing provider if this situation remains for more than a few days.

Sincerely
Greg F"

Dudes, I think you guys are missing the worse part of this...

This affects the other broadcasters, too

D* is going to demand filtered to heck transfers from HBO, Showtime, worse yet, HDNet, Discovery, etc, so as to prevent total glitch city...

this means what is going on with PBS, where, now, even if the station is full bandwidth, the content is muzzy, like on soundstage (oddly enough shelby lynne was not heavily filtered, like the others).

This means on Cable, Dish, Voom, we will all fall prey to the heaviest compressor as everyone will get the same transfer, the one that passes the lowest bar.

You need to also complain to HBO, Showtime as well. They should be responsive as they are not in packages...

Darius