# DIRECTV Wins Legal Battle Over HDTV



## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

*DIRECTV Wins Legal Battle Over HDTV*



> A federal judge has rejected Time Warner Cable's request to bar DIRECTV from airing a TV spot that said it would "soon" have more High-Definition channels than cable.
> ...


See the rest of the store at: *TVPredictions*


----------



## Newshawk (Sep 3, 2004)

Sanity wins out!

BTW, this appears to be an interesting twist on what is known as SLAPP suits-Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The Wikipedia defines a SLAPP this way:


> A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation ("SLAPP") is a form of litigation filed by a large organization or in some cases an individual plaintiff, to intimidate and silence a less powerful critic by so severely burdening them with the cost of a legal defense that they abandon their criticism.


Doesn't this sound like what TW has been trying to do to D*?


----------



## ScoBuck (Mar 5, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> *DIRECTV Wins Legal Battle Over HDTV*


No surprise here. TWC should clean up their own mis-statements before goiong after anyone else IMO.


----------



## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

Very good news! The lawsuit was bogus.


----------



## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

What I find funny... "We will prevail at trial".

By the time the trial occurs, and finishes... it possible that the "facts" will be up in the sky, and not even worth the time or effort.


----------



## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

It would be so funny if DirecTV would countersue for all the bogus cable ads touting that your sat signal goes out if it's just cloudy outside.


----------



## ansky (Oct 11, 2005)

I don't get it. Where are these ads being aired? If they are being aired on networks like NBC, CBS, CNN, etc., how would Time Warner have any ability to stop these ads since it is the networks that are being paid by Directv for the ad.


----------



## Elistan98 (Sep 18, 2006)

They sued D* and a court put out an injunction making them stop the commercials. Time Warner basically said D* was lying about having twice as much HD this year than cable can offer. This decision removes the injunction stating the Time Warner was unable to prove the statement untrue


----------



## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

ansky said:


> I don't get it. Where are these ads being aired? If they are being aired on networks like NBC, CBS, CNN, etc., how would Time Warner have any ability to stop these ads since it is the networks that are being paid by Directv for the ad.


The ads are being aired on the networks you listed, and more. They don't have the ability to stop the ads themselves, that's why they're suing DirecTV.


----------



## PoitNarf (Aug 19, 2006)

So I guess we'll start seeing Charlie Sheen again beaning the baseball player in the Major League spot fairly soon :lol:


----------



## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

PoitNarf said:


> So I guess we'll start seeing Charlie Sheen again beaning the baseball player in the Major League spot fairly soon :lol:


That ad doesn't mention anything about future capacity, and they've been showing it all along.


----------



## PoitNarf (Aug 19, 2006)

Jeremy W said:


> That ad doesn't mention anything about future capacity, and they've been showing it all along.


Ah you're right, I never noticed that! Guess they'll start showing Christopher Lloyd again then (as if they didn't overplay the Back To The Future spot enough) :lol:


----------



## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

PoitNarf said:


> Ah you're right, I never noticed that! Guess they'll start showing Christopher Lloyd again then (as if they didn't overplay the Back To The Future spot enough) :lol:


Yep, that's the ad that will be coming back. I personally can't wait for the ads that are advertising the 100 HD channels we actually have, though.


----------



## coldsteel (Mar 29, 2007)

Strange, the Chris Lloyd ad kept playing here in Oklahoma...


----------



## Blurayfan (Nov 16, 2005)

coldsteel said:


> Strange, the Chris Lloyd ad kept playing here in Oklahoma...


I saw it just this week on one of my programs.


----------



## JLucPicard (Apr 27, 2004)

I think the only place where the injunction applied was in TW territories. Now having said that, someone will prove that wrong. I live in an area serviced by Comcast and these spots have been airing all along.


----------



## Newshawk (Sep 3, 2004)

JLucPicard said:


> I think the only place where the injunction applied was in TW territories. Now having said that, someone will prove that wrong. I live in an area serviced by Comcast and these spots have been airing all along.


No, IIRC the only area the injunction applied was in the area encompassed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.


----------



## ProfLonghair (Sep 26, 2006)

JLucPicard said:


> I think the only place where the injunction applied was in TW territories. Now having said that, someone will prove that wrong. I live in an area serviced by Comcast and these spots have been airing all along.


I'm in TWC country, and have been getting everything but the Jessica Simpson ad, which I miss much more than I would the Lloyd or Sheen commercials, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Not that there's anything wrong with that


----------



## eahmjh (Dec 2, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> It would be so funny if DirecTV would countersue for all the bogus cable ads touting that your sat signal goes out if it's just cloudy outside.


It's funny everytime I drive by the TWC office and what do I see in the parking lot. Mummmmmmmm. Satellite dishes that on a cloudly day are just a prone to signal loss. I bet they don't disclose that in their ads.


----------



## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

eahmjh said:


> It's funny everytime I drive by the TWC office and what do I see in the parking lot. Mummmmmmmm. Satellite dishes that on a cloudly day are just a prone to signal loss. I bet they don't disclose that in their ads.


Does TW really receive its satellite signals via Ka/Ku?

Every cable headend I've seen is C-band, and although cable in my area is terrible, I've never seen signal loss due to rain fade.


----------



## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

paulman182 said:


> Does TW really receive its satellite signals via Ka/Ku?
> 
> Every cable headend I've seen is C-band, and although cable in my area is terrible, I've never seen signal loss due to rain fade.


I've seen rain fade on Comcast before. I was watching an analog channel, and there was a very large thunderstorm approaching. The picture was macroblocking badly, and eventually went out completely for about 10-15 seconds.


----------



## thxultra (Feb 1, 2005)

I have also seen rain fade on comcast in storms. Glad to hear d* won this as it was such a stupid thing to sue over.


----------



## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

I've had rainfade on cable back in the day. I've also been on cable systems where the whole system would come out every time it rains and would be out for half a day while it "dried" out. Never could get the cable company to fix their obvious bad cables.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

paulman182 said:


> Every cable headend I've seen is C-band, and although cable in my area is terrible, I've never seen signal loss due to rain fade.


I've witnessed cable outage due to a heavy slop storm in my area.

The flaw in the previous poster's logic was that it didn't take into account the size of the dishes that cable companies use. They're usually pretty huge.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

There needs to be some serious discussion in terms of ironing out what "soon" means. In the context of television in general, six months to a year isn't too bad, but in the context of HDTV, six months is a much larger percentage of time.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

thxultra said:


> Glad to hear d* won this as it was such a stupid thing to sue over.


It is only stupid if it isn't true. It is one thing when you can demonstrate a distinct advantage of a competitor and quite another when your comparing what you hope to be able to do versus what you think the competition can do. Think of it like Honda claiming that their 2010 car line will get three times the fuel economy of Toyota's 2010 car line.


----------



## ScoBuck (Mar 5, 2006)

harsh said:


> There needs to be some serious discussion in terms of ironing out what "soon" means. In the context of television in general, six months to a year isn't too bad, but in the context of HDTV, six months is a much larger percentage of time.


Are you the one that determines what is soon now also?


----------



## loudo (Mar 24, 2005)

TWC needs to stop wasting their money filing lawsuits and use it to improve their systems. I am sure they are going to need it, to keep up with satellite.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

ScoBuck said:


> Are you the one that determines what is soon now also?


No, are you?

I'm advocating that if competitors are going to use the word to describe something that is supposed to give them a serious competitive advantage, that it should mean something. As it is, soon seems to have decayed to mean "we plan to deliver something along these lines when we get enough of it figured out".


----------



## Jeremy W (Jun 19, 2006)

harsh said:


> As it is, soon seems to have decayed to mean "we plan to deliver something along these lines when we get enough of it figured out".


In this case, soon means "once we get the satellites off the ground and running". It's not like they're still trying to figure out the plans, they're just waiting for things to happen that are completely out of their control.


----------



## ScoBuck (Mar 5, 2006)

harsh said:


> No, are you?


I'm not the one that said it - YOU are.


----------



## Newshawk (Sep 3, 2004)

harsh said:


> There needs to be some serious discussion in terms of ironing out what "soon" means. In the context of television in general, six months to a year isn't too bad, but in the context of HDTV, six months is a much larger percentage of time.


Tell me, Harsh, just how did you come up with this determination? What is the difference between "television in general" and "HDTV"?


----------



## HarleyD (Aug 31, 2006)

Newshawk said:


> Tell me, Harsh, just how did you come up with this determination? What is the difference between "television in general" and "HDTV"?


About 600 lines of resolution.


----------



## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

harsh said:


> There needs to be some serious discussion in terms of ironing out what "soon" means.


Well, Dictionary.com defines it as "in the near future" or "within a short time period after this or that event".

If you take the roll out of the new HD channels in stages, "soon" works for me from the time counting from when the ads were airing touting greater capacity for HD channels:

When is the satellite being launched? Soon. 
When will they be tested? Soon after the launch.
When will the HD channels be turned on? Soon after they are tested.
etc.

See? Several "near-future" events. 



harsh said:


> In the context of television in general, six months to a year isn't too bad, but in the context of HDTV, six months is a much larger percentage of time.




What? 6 months is not bad for TV, but 6 months is more than 6 months when we're talking about HDTV??


----------



## simonkodousek (Feb 20, 2007)

Hi,

TWC is such a pathetic company for taking something this minor into court. Trust me, don't believe much that TWC says.

~Simon


----------



## ScoBuck (Mar 5, 2006)

drew2k said:


> What? 6 months is not bad for TV, but 6 months is more than 6 months when we're talking about HDTV??


After reading a couple thousand of his DirecTV posts you're confused? I find them amusing actually.


----------



## toy4two (Aug 18, 2006)

good, I thought they won the court battle over HD-Lite.


----------



## Ernest (Oct 9, 2006)

While I think the lawsuit was bogus, I don't like Dtv advertising. I have had Dtv for 7 years and everything was fine until HDTV. I am staying with them to see if they come through on there ads, but I hate every commercial I see. They advertise while I am watching the Rangers playoffs in SD because there is no MSG-HD feed yet. This is frustrating that they can place these ads with the word "soon". I mean soon every channel in the world will be in HD, and since all cable, satellite and phone companies are currently working on increasing HD, they can all claim more HD channels are coming "soon". Which makes the ads useless. But they have seemed to work because I will wait and see what happens. If Dtv does not come through we'll see what deal FIOS and Cablevision will do.


----------



## LGM2007 (Dec 17, 2006)

Ernest said:


> While I think the lawsuit was bogus, I don't like Dtv advertising. I have had Dtv for 7 years and everything was fine until HDTV. I am staying with them to see if they come through on there ads, but I hate every commercial I see. They advertise while I am watching the Rangers playoffs in SD because there is no MSG-HD feed yet. This is frustrating that they can place these ads with the word "soon". I mean soon every channel in the world will be in HD, and since all cable, satellite and phone companies are currently working on increasing HD, they can all claim more HD channels are coming "soon". Which makes the ads useless. But they have seemed to work because I will wait and see what happens. If Dtv does not come through we'll see what deal FIOS and Cablevision will do.


Actually only OTA signals need to be converted to digital. For a while most cable companies will still be in SD. Where I live there is no way to send a an HD signal via cable, or FiOS, as they don't exist. So yes satellite will be the only way to get HD anytime soon if at all.

As for no MSG-HD, blame the Dolan family for not allowing DIRECTV to broadcast it.


----------



## ApK (Mar 6, 2006)

thxultra said:


> I have also seen rain fade on comcast in storms. Glad to hear d* won this as it was such a stupid thing to sue over.


Our Comcast service went out in the rain a lot. It was one of the reasons we went to DTV. I don't know if it was 'rain fade' or just 'poorly protected cables' but the effetc was the same.


----------



## HarleyD (Aug 31, 2006)

Don't forget, the mandate is that all broadcast signals be DIGITAL by 2/17/2009.

DIGITAL DOES NOT MEAN HD! These terms get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing at all. You could continue to get an SD picture on a digital signal.

Many channels already broadcast SD in a digital format and that is ALL that is required. In the Tampa DMA you have channels like 3-1, 8-2, 16-1 28-2 and 38-2 to list but a few that are digital, but they are also SD

That isn't to say many channels won't be making both conversions but that is not what the government is mandating. A digital 480i broadcast meets the the government's requirements.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

HarleyD said:


> Don't forget, the mandate is that all broadcast signals be DIGITAL by 2/17/2009.
> 
> DIGITAL DOES NOT MEAN HD! These terms get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing at all. You could continue to get an SD picture on a digital signal.
> 
> ...


And if they stay SD, they can have five channels of SD.


----------



## HarleyD (Aug 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> And if they stay SD, they can have five channels of SD.


Four infomercials and Judge Judy. :lol:


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

HarleyD said:


> Four infomercials and Judge Judy. :lol:


Dr Phil and more home shopping...:lol:


----------



## CB44 (Mar 5, 2007)

bonscott87 said:


> It would be so funny if DirecTV would countersue for all the bogus cable ads touting that your sat signal goes out if it's just cloudy outside.


I still remember the Comcast rep saying "You know if you switch to satelite you'll lose your signal in bad weather" to which I replied, "So what's your excuse?"


----------



## Ohioankev (Jan 19, 2006)

harsh said:


> There needs to be some serious discussion in terms of ironing out what "soon" means. In the context of television in general, six months to a year isn't too bad, but in the context of HDTV, six months is a much larger percentage of time.


It's like the Food4Less here in town, they've been selling sausage at a temporary reduction of $.98 for about two years now. How long is soon and how long is temporary, quick someone find the original Webster dictionary! The one written before America became "Dee Dee Dee"


----------



## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

HarleyD said:


> Don't forget, the mandate is that all broadcast signals be DIGITAL by 2/17/2009.
> 
> DIGITAL DOES NOT MEAN HD! These terms get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing at all. You could continue to get an SD picture on a digital signal.
> 
> ...





veryoldschool said:


> And if they stay SD, they can have five channels of SD.


The digital SD stuff looks a hell of a lot better than the analog SD on my set. I'd take five SD digital channels over one analog channel anytime


----------



## HarleyD (Aug 31, 2006)

machavez00 said:


> The digital SD stuff looks a hell of a lot better than the analog SD on my set. I'd take five SD digital channels over one analog channel anytime


For what it's worth, if you have D*, your channels are digital already.


----------



## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

HarleyD said:


> For what it's worth, if you have D*, your channels are digital already.


Yeah, but the difference between an OTA 480i signal and D* SD is much greater than the difference between OTA HD and D*HD.


----------



## DishCSR (Jan 14, 2004)

CB44 said:


> I still remember the Comcast rep saying "You know if you switch to satelite you'll lose your signal in bad weather" to which I replied, "So what's your excuse?"


roflmao


----------



## mrdbdigital (Oct 3, 2004)

It takes some serious rain to black out the average commercial quality C Band satellite dish. I've seen it happen a few times, even on 7 meter dishes. More likely, the rain is fading some of the microwave paths that cable companies use to distribute their signals between head ends. Of course, this is only done in large cities with multiple distribution head ends, like Atlanta.

db


----------

