# HD Only



## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

Just a questions to throw out there and get ya'lls thoughts: How many years are we away from channels dropping their SD Feeds? Or, will it ever happen? Will HD become the norn like Digital beat out analog or will channels always carry an SD feed?


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## rey_1178 (Dec 12, 2007)

i think eventually it will happen but not soon :nono:


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

It sure will be nice when HD is not an upgraded service. Should drive the price down


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

IMHO, in about 5 years or so, on DBS and cable we will see a single set of feeds, with the set-top-box producing an HD or SD signal to the set as selected in the set up menu. It certainly makes no sense to feed a double set of channels. This, once the swap outs are completed, would create a massive bandwidth gain.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

jclewter79 said:


> It sure will be nice when HD is not an upgraded service. Should drive the price down


Probably not... as we slowly reach the future when there will be more HD channels (not necessarily more content) than SD channels... we will also slowly be increasing the bills over time anyway... so I expect that whenever the time comes, the bill will just become the bill and may be itemized differently when HD overtakes SD, but realistically don't expect the prices to go down when people have already been paying that for years by then.


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

Thats kinda what I was thinking myself Sam, just hope that can come to be as quick as you think.


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

i understand what you are saying HDme I guess what I meant was not really cheaper but one price, one feed, your ability to receive HD programming will be dependant on what your equipment can do not the extra $20 a month you spend


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

jclewter79 said:


> i understand what you are saying HDme I guess what I meant was not really cheaper but one price, one feed, your ability to receive HD programming will be dependant on what your equipment can do not the extra $20 a month you spend


Yeah... there will probably be a middle-ground point where the HD standalone package is about the same price as the HD+SD... at which point anything after that will probably end up being the reverse of what we have today (today=mostly SD with some HD, future=mostly HD with some SD) and a reverse pricing structure where the remaining SD channels cost extra if you want to add them to your service.


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## grog (Jul 3, 2007)

Right now the idea of HD only does not seem a good option even looking forward.

Sure I like watching in HD but recording is another matter.

I record in HD if I am recording an event that HD matters, special events, movies RAVE!

I record "Let's make a deal" and "The Price is Right". Both of these shows I record in SD. Now I could record "The Price is Right" on the local HD channel but I would just get black bars on the side since it is SD show right now. Even if the show was HD I don't see any reason to record it in HD. I can see the Blinko chip just fine in SD.

SD takes a lot less storage when recording. 

If we do go all HD in the future I hope there is a recording option to reduce quality to save space when recording!

Who knows, by the time we get there the issue of hard disk space may be moot anyway.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

grog said:


> If we do go all HD in the future I hope there is a recording option to reduce quality to save space when recording!
> 
> Who knows, by the time we get there the issue of hard disk space may be moot anyway.


I have to 750GB external hard drives and a 722, but that option sounds like a good idea to me.


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

Good point grog, but i am sure thats how it will be. We were able to set recording quality on our VCR's 25 years ago so I am sure our DVR's can be made to do the same thing when the time comes that it matters. It sure would be nice to convert an HD picture to 480i to save space but still have the wide screen aspect ratio. On the other hand maybe they will come up with a way to compress the HD so that it does not take as much space on the hard drive in the first place


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

At the moment satellite DVRs are pretty stupid ... all they do is copy the received STREAMS from satellite and digital OTA to the hard drive with no further compression or alteration. The good part of that is that one gets the same picture on replay that they would have received on live play. The bad part is that there is no "downrez to save hard drive space" setting. I expect one will be added in the future, if there is enough demand, but it will take extra processing to do something with the signal other than just spool it to the drive.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Some Satellite channels will be SD until the cost of HD comes way, way down.

We have a contribution based SDTV religious station here that is part of a satellite system of 30-40 low power stations for a 300 mile radius around the mothership.

They barely afforded the digital jump - HD is out of the question.

The next big bundle of HD channels is going to be the QVC, Home Shopping and so forth bunch. They make their money selling stuff on TV and HD will make it look so much better - mark my words.


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## Henry (Nov 15, 2007)

grog said:


> _[...]_ If we do go all HD in the future I hope there is a recording option to reduce quality to save space when recording!


Sorta defeats the whole purpose, no? It's like listening to a stereo in mono, or watching a color movie in B&W. I mean, the whole purpose of HD is to "improve" PQ and sound, not degrade it for the sake of disk space.


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## grog (Jul 3, 2007)

For sound quality I see no reason to record "Deal or No Deal" in HD. I do however see the need to record RAVE in HD for sound quality.

For video PQ I see no reason to record "Deal or No Deal" in HD. I do however see the need to record "The Mountian" on EQUTR in all it's HD glory.

This could be the reason why shows such as "Deal or No Deal" only broadcast in SD. Still I like to watch "Deal or No Deal" so I record it on the SD local. Why record from the HD local. I will get a pretty black bar on the sides of the screen and really for this show I really only want to hear and "sorta see" what is going on.

What I am saying is it really depends on the content.
And yes.. Deal or No Deal would be fine in Mono.... RAVE must be 5.1... It's the content that drives what we need not the transport layer used!



HDG said:


> Sorta defeats the whole purpose, no? It's like listening to a stereo in mono, or watching a color movie in B&W. I mean, the whole purpose of HD is to "improve" PQ and sound, not degrade it for the sake of disk space.


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

good point grog. I am sure we will see all kinda of advances in HD DVR's in the near future.


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## robertoh (Mar 19, 2005)

When i bought our HD set in December at Sears I noticed in the TV dept.,that there was only a hand full of SD sets in the dept.and they were only portables. The change over will come faster than we think,when set makers drop SD's altogether,and some are doing that now.


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## Henry (Nov 15, 2007)

grog said:


> For sound quality I see no reason to record "Deal or No Deal" in HD. I do however see the need to record RAVE in HD for sound quality.
> 
> For video PQ I see no reason to record "Deal or No Deal" in HD. I do however see the need to record "The Mountian" on EQUTR in all it's HD glory.
> 
> ...


I see your point, too ... but I still insist that if the program is in HD and I tape it, I want to watch it in HD. I don't watch Deal or no Deal. The last time I glanced at it, it was in SD, no diff than The Colbert Report - which I sometimes record, watch and delete. I'm not privy to your viewing habits, but my DVR is not for archiving. I record something for the sole purpose of watching it at a time of my choosing. Once watched, I deep six it.

I suppose adding the functionality to downgrade the PQ of a program so it takes up less space would be a useful feature for some. Not for me. To me it defeats the purpose for which I bought HD TVs and upgraded all of my Dish equipment.


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## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Storage Capacity, is an issue, but in around 24months, we will all have access to 
2TB drives in the $300 range. E* and D* will find 1TB drives for inside the DVR's much cheaper, and we can have external 2TB's. So long before we will have to worry about HD only channels, Storage Capacity will already be there. Western Digital, and Hitachi are already putting Blu-Ray techology to its best use, and creating LARGE capacity drives. Granted I would rather have more spindles than drives for storage, but that is a different arguement.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

grog said:


> For video PQ I see no reason to record "Deal or No Deal" in HD.


Excuse me?!?!?! Just 2 words for needing HD.... Howie's Girls!


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## jclewter79 (Jan 8, 2008)

[email protected]


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## Henry (Nov 15, 2007)

jclewter79 said:


> [email protected]


Second. :lol:


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## lamp525 (Nov 3, 2006)

installer came today..did not have that cable but I have a defect..receiver just keeps shutting off and starting up..hope this is a rare happening..bad receivers


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