# How Long until Everything is HD?



## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Just how long is it going to take to get everything in HD? 

If I remember right, color took mo' than a decade - from the late 50's to the late 60's for everything to be broadcast in color.

The only exception was those artsy productions that did B&W for it melodrama effects. And I can't see that being the case for for doing any SD production.


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## bmuone (Sep 4, 2008)

A very very long time, especially when they can charge for HD as an extra.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Drucifer said:


> Just how long is it going to take to get everything in HD?
> 
> If I remember right, color took mo' than a decade - from the late 50's to the late 60's for everything to be broadcast in color.


When do we start the clock? With the first HD broadcasts in 1996 or later?

Everything in HD is probably another decade away.



> The only exception was those artsy productions that did B&W for it melodrama effects. And I can't see that being the case for for doing any SD production.


I've seen a few times where "VHS Grade" quality was resurrected for a scene in a movie or TV show. A movie like "Blair Witch" made today might dip below current technology to add an artistic flair. But I'd be surprised if they didn't just film it in Hi-Def and add the graininess in post production - and still master the output in HD so one could see every speck of the distortion intended.

HD still costs money ... as the price of cameras, editing equipment and storage falls HD production will be easier.

The final issue is the cost of transmission. HD is more data and requires more space on a satellite feed. We may see situations where everything is HD except the final link from the programmer to carriers, due to the expense of the feed.

Existing programmers have been able to cut transmission costs by going from analog feeds to digital feeds. HD increases the costs. Unless the money to pay for HD feeds SD will be around until it is no longer watched. People still watch B&W so I expect SD will remain "forever".

Major commercial channels have the resources to convert and may feel left behind if all of their competitors have converted. We're probably looking at five years for the last of the commercial feeds to have a HD version available. Many non-commercial channels have also converted. But there is still a role for SD channels, and expect there will be for at least the next decade.


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## SIvie1 (Jun 15, 2010)

I think that everything in HD is probably only five years away. I am curious as to what the future of 3Dtv is. I think it will be more of an over hyped fad than anything.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

SIvie1 said:


> I think that everything in HD is probably only five years away.


For the mainstream channels, yes. We're at a point now most channels are available for carriage in HD ... For example, DISH has 107 full time HD channels in their top package (not counting part time sports and PPVs). There are ~32 channels with HD feeds available that DISH does not carry and ~32 channels carried that do not have HD feeds but likely will within the next year. So we're looking at a situation where if bandwidth was available, all channels with a HD feed were carried in HD and all expected launches occur "everything in HD" could be reached within a year.

But I say that with two caveats. First, there are channels that don't have the budget to provide a HD feed for others to pick up. Channels that don't provide a HD feed can't be carried in HD. (Fortunately most of these channels are "public interest" or other must carry channels that most subscribers don't care about.) The second caveat is the desire for carriers to keep their costs down and SELECT the HD that they provide to customers. Even DirecTV has made statements about paring back programming options. For years they have competed by being "more channels than cable" but with advances in cable delivery they are losing that edge. So now the focus will be better channels than cable.

And the other problem with "everything in HD" is customers with SD only equipment. All the core channels must also be available in SD for the millions of customers who have not been upgraded to new enough equipment to get HD. Swapping out receivers will take years and billions of dollars. The SD feeds need to stick around until that conversion is complete. If DirecTV and DISH stop placing SD only equipment it will take about five years to churn through their accounts.



> I am curious as to what the future of 3Dtv is. I think it will be more of an over hyped fad than anything.


For now. It being an extension of HD I expect that it will become "normal" faster than HD did - but that isn't hard to say. At the moment it has limited content and limited value.

One thing to watch out for is 3D conversion. We see it a lot in HD ... HD channels that stretch and distort SD signals to fill a screen and call that HD. HD channels like SyFy who are currently playing Enterprise in postage stamp format on their HD feed. (SD>HD display of a HD>SD letterboxed image.) Expect a lot of "3D" to be converted from 2D sources.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

James Long said:


> All the core channels must also be available in SD for the millions of customers who have not been upgraded to new enough equipment to get HD. Swapping out receivers will take years and billions of dollars. The SD feeds need to stick around until that conversion is complete. If DirecTV and DISH stop placing SD only equipment it will take about five years to churn through their accounts.


As of the middle of this year, Dish has been installing HD equipment almost exclusively on new accounts, with the exception of folks on the "Flex24" (read: bad credit) plan, where HD equipment costs extra. Anyone who can pass the credit check will get nothing but HD equipment on their install, whether they subscribe to HD or not. And they are being installed with HD-capable dishes (1000.2 or 1000.4). This is a GOOD THING, as it will speed the day when Dish can turn off the SD feeds and redeploy that transponder space for HD.

DirecTV is still installing SD systems for standard accounts, though as you would imagine, most customers today are going HD from the beginning anyway, and MRV has resulted in a HUGE number of HD upgrades.

Both companies, then, are making fairly good progress along the path to retiring SD, but as you pointed out, we are still a few years, and many millions of receivers, away from being able to shut off SD/MPEG2.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

BattleZone said:


> As of the middle of this year, Dish has been installing HD equipment almost exclusively on new accounts, with the exception of folks on the "Flex24" (read: bad credit) plan, where HD equipment costs extra. Anyone who can pass the credit check will get nothing but HD equipment on their install, whether they subscribe to HD or not. And they are being installed with HD-capable dishes (1000.2 or 1000.4). This is a GOOD THING, as it will speed the day when Dish can turn off the SD feeds and redeploy that transponder space for HD.
> 
> DirecTV is still installing SD systems for standard accounts, though as you would imagine, most customers today are going HD from the beginning anyway, and MRV has resulted in a HUGE number of HD upgrades.
> 
> Both companies, then, are making fairly good progress along the path to retiring SD, but as you pointed out, we are still a few years, and many millions of receivers, away from being able to shut off SD/MPEG2.


All well and good - When do you think they will go back and start updating old accounts who are currently SD only ? I realize right now they are still in the "get the customer to pay for it as an upgrade" mode, but at some point it will make sense to get those last few holdouts (such as me). The 311 receiver I got now is light years ahead of the 4900 it replaced, but I was half wondering why didn't Dish just take the opportunity to do the HD with a 211 / 211k instead ?


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## TheRatPatrol (Oct 1, 2003)

If you ask me everything should have been in HD by now. If you look over the past ~5 years a lot of programming has gone HD. The problem is getting the providers upgraded and providing those HD channels. From here on out all new channel carriage agreements should be for the HD channel only. No more SD channels!


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

BattleZone said:


> As of the middle of this year, Dish has been installing HD equipment almost exclusively on new accounts, with the exception of folks on the "Flex24" (read: bad credit) plan, where HD equipment costs extra. Anyone who can pass the credit check will get nothing but HD equipment on their install, whether they subscribe to HD or not. And they are being installed with HD-capable dishes (1000.2 or 1000.4). This is a GOOD THING, as it will speed the day when Dish can turn off the SD feeds and redeploy that transponder space for HD.


That is good to know. I'm in an Eastern Arc market so we've had MPEG4 only equipment on new installs for a couple of years. As an older account I still have a couple of MPEG2 receivers active. And the last offer I got from DISH (a couple of months ago) to upgrade my 501 was to get a 522. Yes *5*22 ... didn't make much sense.

Zero SD only installs is step one. Stop offering SD equipment for upgrades and all new installs. Wean people off of the MPEG2. Dropping MPEG2 opens up a lot of needed bandwidth.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Folks in good standing can do a lease upgrade once a year. The cost of upgrading most receivers to HD versions is the cost of a tech roll (read: $95 without the service plan, $15 with).

If you "upgraded" from a 4900 to a 311, recently, then you kind of screwed yourself by not asking for an HD receiver instead. If, on the other hand, they replaced a defective receiver, it gets replaced with an equivalent model (a 311 in this case). An upgrade comes with a 2-year commitment, while a defective receiver replacement does not.

Again, what I'm saying is, at this point, Dish is practically offering *FREE* lease upgrades to HD for ALL of your equipment, though I believe you can only get your first HD-DVR for free - the others you'd pay an upgrade fee for, currently. We do these all day long, and I'm sure Dish has been scrapping those old receivers by the container-load...


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

James Long said:


> Zero SD only installs is step one. Stop offering SD equipment for upgrades and all new installs. Wean people off of the MPEG2. Dropping MPEG2 opens up a lot of needed bandwidth.


SD equipment is still *offered*, but HD equipment is there for the asking. Really; try it.

Keep in mind that Dish hasn't purchased a new SD receiver in at least 2 years, when all manufacturing was switched to HD equipment. All SD equipment being installed today is refurbs. Those receivers, while they still have some life left, are, at minimum, halfway through their lifespans, and many are much older than that. Attrition is killing them off quickly (most DVRs only last about 5 years). I doubt SD equipment will still be offered for upgrades by the end of next year.

Dish is ahead of the game in moving to HD/MPEG4 equipment only. Unfortunately, a huge number of those receivers are Duo receivers, which have the SD-only TV2 albatross around their neck. Dish really needs to get their "Whole Home Server" solution out, so that ALL outputs are HD-capable. That's one of the reasons Dish is losing ground; most other providers can provide "HD at every TV" service, but Dish is effectively limited to 3 HD TVs.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

BattleZone said:


> SD equipment is still *offered*, but HD equipment is there for the asking. Really; try it.


I shouldn't have to. DISH should be the proactive ones seeking out out-of-contract customers and upgrading their equipment. Before they hear that said subscribers are happily moving on to another provider. Retention responding to a cancellation call is too late. And expecting existing customers to be savvy and seek offers that benefit the company (by moving closer to the no SD only equipment goal AND locking customers in for another two years) seems wrong. Don't make good customers look for deals. They might find one elsewhere!



> All SD equipment being installed today is refurbs.


So they are wasting money on refurbs instead of moving ahead with new receivers? How about putting in a refurbed 622 when a 522 breaks? Make progress with every re-install.



> I doubt SD equipment will still be offered for upgrades by the end of next year.


That is still a couple of years late, in my opinion. I hope DISH is saving enough money by placing SD equipment to pay for the coming HD equipment swaps.



> Dish is ahead of the game in moving to HD/MPEG4 equipment only.


It could be worse, but to me it seems that their answer is more satellites a few years away. "Reverse DBS" and more locations instead of doing all they can to free up the the space tied up by MPEG2.



> Unfortunately, a huge number of those receivers are Duo receivers, which have the SD-only TV2 albatross around their neck.


Depending on who you believe...
Sept 21, 2010: "According to the latest look at TV viewing from the Nielsen Company, 54.2 percent of U.S. television households are HD receivable in 2010."​May 6, 2010: "Two-thirds of U.S. households now own a high-definition television, and more Americans plan to buy one in the coming months, according to a report from the Consumer Electronics Association.

The Arlington-based group says video products continue to be the top consumer electronics device U.S. consumers own, with 65 percent of U.S. homes now owning at least one HDTV set, up 13 percent from a year ago. Consumers are also buying HDTVs as secondary sets. The average household now has 1.8 high-definition televisions, up from 1.5 percent a year ago."​
The average is less than the three duo (six tuner) limit. And it would be easy to eliminate the arbitrary limit on tuners - although I believe that is rooted in the use of 1000.2 and 1000.4 LNBs with three outputs (one for each duo). The bigger issue of sharing a receiver that I have run in to is wanting to use BOTH tuners on TV1 for PIP and recording competing programs. (I use mine for recording overlapped OTA programming ... including back to back programs on the same channel. Just set one event to the mapdown and the other event to the four digit channel and one can record the overlapping minute.)

Get r done ...


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

BattleZone said:


> If you "upgraded" from a 4900 to a 311, recently, then you kind of screwed yourself by not asking for an HD receiver instead. If, on the other hand, they replaced a defective receiver, it gets replaced with an equivalent model (a 311 in this case). An upgrade comes with a 2-year commitment, while a defective receiver replacement does not.


It kind of comes into a grey area - 
I kept frying Dishpro Legacy adapters so I took the swap so I wouldn't have to screw around with them any more. The 4900 had been working fine, it was the adapters that were the problem. That said - the 311 is much better (except for not having the UHF remote and Dolby Digital) - you actually get a usable guide.

Instead of the 311, I probably could have looked for a Legacy TWIN/QUAD and that would have solved the issue as well, except the tech probably didn't have one.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

A semantic reminder...

It is entirely possible that we will NEVER see a day when everything is shot in HD.

We still see new black&white content shot today.... many many years after color television was invented. I feel certain that there will always be a place for some intentionally lower-res productions for cinematic effect.

With that said... the real discussion here is not over the programming, but the transport method... When will SD-only transmissions stop.

Again, that depends. It is likely that some of the smaller channels will never have the money to upgrade to an HD transmission. If people keep watching their programming, then there will be no reason for them to upgrade.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

scooper said:


> It kind of comes into a grey area.


Not really. In this case, it was a replacement instead of an upgrade, so there's no cost and no commitment. Had you gone for the HD receiver, they'd have given it to you, but you'd be in a commitment (but likely still no up-front cost). They'd have gotten you set up with an HD dish setup too.


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Stewart Vernon said:


> A semantic reminder...
> 
> It is entirely possible that we will NEVER see a day when everything is shot in HD.
> 
> ...


Most likely with a color camera that has a B&W setting.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

> DISH should be the proactive ones seeking out out-of-contract customers and upgrading their equipment.


The <**ONLY**> way I'll upgrade is if I get a lifetime guarantee that I will not be charged a DVR fee. I will not waver on that under any circumstances. If they try to force me to upgrade and won't waive the fee, I'm gone after more than 10 years of loyalty.

And as noted below and as I've stated here before, I don't give a flying fig about HD. They can eliminate all HD as far as I'm concerned and go SD only

.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Drucifer said:


> Most likely with a color camera that has a B&W setting.


I own DVDs of B&W TV programming. Just because something was filmed in B&W does not mean it will never air or be viewed again.

There are decades of decent SD programming that will still see broadcast for decades to come. We may be watching it on upconverted channels in a few years, but it is still SD. (And it will not be in a remastered form as has been done with some film based shows.)

I wonder how many years it will be until "I Love Lucy" is remastered in 3D?


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

SayWhat? said:


> The <**ONLY**> way I'll upgrade is if I get a lifetime guarantee that I will not be charged a DVR fee. I will not waver on that under any circumstances. If they try to force me to upgrade and won't waive the fee, I'm gone after more than 10 years of loyalty.
> 
> And as noted below and as I've stated here before, I don't give a flying fig about HD. They can eliminate all HD as far as I'm concerned and go SD only


If that's true, it's only a matter of time before you won't be a Dish customer anymore. Of course, all the other providers will have the same policies.

HD isn't going anywhere, but SD certainly will be largely gone in 3-5 years.

Do you ride a horse to work, and light your house with candles, too? :lol:


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

> Do you ride a horse to work, and light your house with candles, too?


If I could, yes, but it's a bit too far.

No, but I have lanterns and candles ready if needed and I'm using wood to heat with so far this year.

But, back on track ..................... I'll stay until they cut me off, or I can't afford it any more. I'm guessing it will be the latter though.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

BattleZone said:


> If that's true, it's only a matter of time before you won't be a Dish customer anymore. Of course, all the other providers will have the same policies.
> 
> HD isn't going anywhere, but SD certainly will be largely gone in 3-5 years.
> 
> Do you ride a horse to work, and light your house with candles, too? :lol:


*This* is from one of my daily newsletters. I've seen several reports that put the number of people who watch HD TV regularly at about 20%. Sounded hard to believe the first time I read such a report, but I've seen so many now that I've got to give that figure credence. I had two HD TVs for a couple years before I made the transition.

Rich


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

Drucifer said:


> Just how long is it going to take to get everything in HD?
> 
> If I remember right, color took mo' than a decade - from the late 50's to the late 60's for everything to be broadcast in color.
> 
> The only exception was those artsy productions that did B&W for it melodrama effects. And I can't see that being the case for for doing any SD production.


Probably a decade. There still be SD channels however.


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## lee635 (Apr 17, 2002)

I think there are really two distinct questions here:
1. When will all the channels convert to HD only feeds; and
2. When will E* or D* stop carrying duplicate HD/SD feeds of the same channel.

I think the answer to #1 is that SD feeds will be around virtually forever. I could see barker channels, niche religious channels, etc never converting to HD.

For # 2, that's a more interesting question. So long as the receiver is HD capable, it can downconvert the HD signal to SD for the coax output. Then, the provider can delete the duplicate feeds. Of course, for Dish the duplicate feed might be the HD feed like with Disney, so this could go the other way.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

lee635 said:


> 2. When will E* or D* stop carrying duplicate HD/SD feeds of the same channel.
> 
> For # 2, that's a more interesting question. So long as the receiver is HD capable, it can downconvert the HD signal to SD for the coax output. Then, the provider can delete the duplicate feeds. Of course, for Dish the duplicate feed might be the HD feed like with Disney, so this could go the other way.


Replace a few million receivers at the cost of a few billion dollars and the SD feeds would no longer be needed (except for networks that use stretch-o-vision where the viewer would rather watch the SD channel upconverted proportionally by their receiver than the network's stretchy "must fill screen" version).

As for the Disney comment ... the discussion has just begun on what channels DirecTV will be trimming from it's lineup, perhaps instead of carrying in HD, when they restructure their packages. I believe we are at the beginning of a period where overall channel counts will go down as both satellite providers get away from the "must carry everything" battle.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Add 5 years on to whatever date that companies announce that they will only have HD equipment going forward.

As far as DirecTV goes I'm sure Sixto or someone equally intelligent could run the numbers to see when it could, potentially, become more cost effecient to move everything to MPEG 4 compared to replacing some older satellites when they start to reach their EOL.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

It's not an issue of the Satellite, in general - it's more of a customer receiver issue. The satellites will simply send back whatever is sent to them, in whatever format it's in. 

As James has said before - D* and E* need to stop putting SD receivers out for new installations and try to persuade customers to upgrade to the MPEG4 HD equipment on their own at first, then towards the end it will be "forced" upgrades (not quite in that language, something that sounds nicer).


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Shades228 said:


> Add 5 years on to whatever date that companies announce that they will only have HD equipment going forward.
> 
> As far as DirecTV goes I'm sure Sixto or someone equally intelligent could run the numbers to see when it could, potentially, become more cost effecient to move everything to MPEG 4 compared to replacing some older satellites when they start to reach their EOL.


Once "SD" gone DirecTV will be able to use their DBS space at 101 and 119 for additional HD (110 is being used for Latino HD). It is a good question whether the massive spot beam capacity they have will be replaced when the satellites reach EOL or if more basic satellites are constructed. Personally, I expect another massive spot beam satellite that will complement all the non-DBS birds and allow continued expansion of HD local carriage.

As for DISH, which is an all DBS satellite company (except for international channels on 118 and Echostar's non-consumer Ku operations on 105 and 82), if they were able to magically drop all MPEG2 immediately it would be the best way of increasing capacity. But they can't do that ... so it looks like more new satellite locations and market shifts to Eastern Arc until they can finally pull the plug on MPEG2.

There are days when I wonder why any market other than the largest markets are on both arcs. I'd like to see DISH make the Eastern Arc markets MPEG4 only and kick the MPEG2 locals off of the Western Arc. Repurpose those spot beams for other market's HD locals (although DISH is doing fairly well in that area - and Eastern Arc won't help the local bandwidth problems western US).

Killing off the MPEG2 SD will help DISH add more HD on Western Arc. But as noted, killing MPEG2 is years away. Being all MPEG4 is more important than being all HD to make room for more HD. Once MPEG4 is there having the SD versions doesn't do a lot of harm.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

I would say that the new installs with SD equipment for Dish are between 5-10% of all installs. And as the attrition of SD equipment continues (most of it is 5+ years old, which puts it on the far side of the bell curve for failure rate), that number will be further reduced. At the same time, existing SD customers are upgrading in droves, with a large number of them getting free or nearly-free HD upgrades (only one free HD-DVR at a time, though). Overall, Dish is making some good progress.

DirecTV is still installing lots of SD receivers on new accounts, even though most accounts have one or several HD receivers on them. I'd guess that this is simply due to the limited availability of HD equipment; they have expanded production and it still isn't meeting the demand. Perhaps they'll add a 4th or even 5th contractor and further increase production.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

scooper said:


> It's not an issue of the Satellite, in general - it's more of a customer receiver issue. The satellites will simply send back whatever is sent to them, in whatever format it's in.
> 
> As James has said before - D* and E* need to stop putting SD receivers out for new installations and try to persuade customers to upgrade to the MPEG4 HD equipment on their own at first, then towards the end it will be "forced" upgrades (not quite in that language, something that sounds nicer).


The satellites don't care but MPEG 4 takes less space. This means at some point it will be cheaper to swap out non MPEG 4 receivers than to build a new bird. Whether or not they look at it that way is up to them.



James Long said:


> Once "SD" gone DirecTV will be able to use their DBS space at 101 and 119 for additional HD (110 is being used for Latino HD). It is a good question whether the massive spot beam capacity they have will be replaced when the satellites reach EOL or if more basic satellites are constructed. Personally, I expect another massive spot beam satellite that will complement all the non-DBS birds and allow continued expansion of HD local carriage.
> 
> As for DISH, which is an all DBS satellite company (except for international channels on 118 and Echostar's non-consumer Ku operations on 105 and 82), if they were able to magically drop all MPEG2 immediately it would be the best way of increasing capacity. But they can't do that ... so it looks like more new satellite locations and market shifts to Eastern Arc until they can finally pull the plug on MPEG2.
> 
> ...


I don't see either company going away from spot beams. There will never be too much bandwidth and using spots allows them to conserve a lot. It also helps stop fraud which both companies can be held accountable for.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Shades228 said:


> The satellites don't care but MPEG 4 takes less space. This means at some point it will be cheaper to swap out non MPEG 4 receivers than to build a new bird. Whether or not they look at it that way is up to them.


I don't know.

We have speculated before... with Dish having 14 million or more subscribers, most of whom are still SD-only customers AND many HD customers still having SD receivers in service.

Say there are 10 million SD receivers in service that need to be replaced... and say the cost of the cheapest comparable HD receiver is $100 to Dish to manufacture.

That's 1 billion dollars just to do the swapout... and that doesn't count postage for shipping receivers, salary to contract workers for installations IF installations are needed OR costs of additional satellite dish/switch upgrades that might be required for some customers.

How much would it cost to launch another satellite into space for additional bandwidth?


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I don't know.
> 
> We have speculated before... with Dish having 14 million or more subscribers, most of whom are still SD-only customers AND many HD customers still having SD receivers in service.
> 
> ...


I think back around 2000-2003 or so the cost of the satellite itself was about $250M - and you know they have only gotten more expensive, especially spotbeam birds, which tend to be more complicated anyway. $500M would not surprise me as the cost for E15.... then you have the buildout for ground facilities.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

scooper said:


> I think back around 2000-2003 or so the cost of the satellite itself was about $250M - and you know they have only gotten more expensive, especially spotbeam birds, which tend to be more complicated anyway. $500M would not surprise me as the cost for E15.... then you have the buildout for ground facilities.


The trouble is satellite companies need BOTH MPEG4 and advanced spotbeam satellites to meet the demand for LIL in HD. It isn't a choice between costs - both must be done.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

James Long said:


> The trouble is satellite companies need BOTH MPEG4 and advanced spotbeam satellites to meet the demand for LIL in HD. It isn't a choice between costs - both must be done.


No argument here - just throwing out some very rough ballpark figures for the satellite side of it. I happen to agree with you.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I don't know.
> 
> We have speculated before... with Dish having 14 million or more subscribers, most of whom are still SD-only customers AND many HD customers still having SD receivers in service.
> 
> ...


I agree I don't think either company is near to that point yet. I think they will need to have 2-3 more satellites get to EOL before they are in that scenario.

The main thing that would say that we are within 5 years, to me, would be no longer sending out non mpeg 4 equipment. DirecTV is starting to do 2 of 6 in non MPEG 4 markets. All new local markets are MPEG 4 but they are smaller markets in general. They could in theory start slowing migrating other DMA's to MPEG 4 slowly as well.

Either way this is all well off into the future and has more to do with MPEG 4 than HD.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I think all of us (except apparently Dish and DirecTV) agree that they should have stopped installing SD-only receivers a couple of years ago.

That should have been step #1... once they had the MPEG4 receivers out and had a few models, so that the oldest of which had been around long enough to be made cheaper... at that point, they should have just put that basic MPEG4 HD receiver into ever new customer OR existing customer upgrade/repair scenario from that point forward.

That way, they would not be constantly increasing the existing SD-receiver installed base.

Cable has the same problem with analog vs digital cable... as there are still a lot of people without converter boxes on legacy analog cable systems AND some customers with secondary rooms that don't have converters.

Cable needs to get cable boxes installed in all of those customers' homes before they can shut down analog cable and recoup that bandwidth for more digital channels.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I think all of us (except apparently Dish and DirecTV) agree that they should have stopped installing SD-only receivers a couple of years ago.


I don't. I feel that HD should be an added cost option for the forseeable future (5 years at least).

Those that want to lease a Mercedes should understand they have to pay a higher price over those of us who are content with our Fords.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

SayWhat? said:


> I don't. I feel that HD should be an added cost option for the forseeable future (5 years at least).


For the past couple years in Eastern Arc markets DISH installed MPEG4 HD receivers whether or not the customer subscribed to HD. Unfortunately they still allowed Western Arc upgrades and installs in those markets. If they would have drawn the line at no new MPEG2 installs/upgrades years ago we'd be years closer to transition.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

SayWhat? said:


> I don't. I feel that HD should be an added cost option for the forseeable future (5 years at least).
> 
> Those that want to lease a Mercedes should understand they have to pay a higher price over those of us who are content with our Fords.


I never said there should be extra cost to the customer!

I said, Dish should have phased out their SD receivers and just installed receivers that have HD capability so it is already there in the home.

Forget Mercedes... If you buy your car in the winter, don't you expect that it already has a/c built in so that when summer comes you don't have to upgrade to have cool air?


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

BattleZone said:


> DirecTV is still installing lots of SD receivers on new accounts, even though most accounts have one or several HD receivers on them.


The other side of the coin is that DIRECTV is having to replace a lot of SD receivers with new ones capable of SWiM so they've doubled the problems.


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

harsh said:


> The other side of the coin is that DIRECTV is having to replace a lot of SD receivers with new ones capable of SWiM so they've doubled the problems.


That's going on the assumption that people only get equipment swapped out while doing MRV rather than upgrading. There was a reason that HD receivers were back ordered and they cited MRV. I'm not saying that everyone is upgrading to HD from SD with MRV but if they can get 1-2 upgrades per account while doing it they're actually winning in the long run.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> I never said there should be extra cost to the customer!
> 
> I said, Dish should have phased out their SD receivers and just installed receivers that have HD capability so it is already there in the home.


That would have definitely resulted in "extra cost to the customer." Dish has accelerated the rollout of HD equipment as the price of that equipment came down. 3 years ago, the cost to build an HD-DVR was more than double what it costs today, maybe triple. Dish couldn't just absorb that cost; they'd have had to pass it on to their customers, which would have made them uncompetitive in the market.

Trust me: both companies have well-paid accountants who run the numbers for many scenarios, and figure out which can be done with minimal disruption to other areas of the business.

GM could have tried to keep customers by giving folks Cadillacs at Chevy prices, but those Caddy's cost a lot more to make than a Chevy, and while it might have made them popular in the short run, they'd have gotten to bankruptcy a lot faster.


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## MattScahum (Oct 27, 2010)

in the new setup dept I have noticed with D* at least that more markets are starting to roll out MPEG 4 upgrades to markets. I think right now their focus is getting all the local markets to have HD, which from what I've seen isn't scheduled to be until the middle to end of 2011 or beyond. Once that happens, I think it only would make sense to start upgrading areas that are less populated first as to slowly start the move. Once they get most of those markets done then they can focus on their big markets. I'd say honestly we are about 7 years until everything is HD. I hope sooner but they need more than they average of 1 HDTV in a home across the country before that will happen and that will take another year or 2.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

SayWhat? said:


> I don't. I feel that HD should be an added cost option for the forseeable future (5 years at least).
> 
> Those that want to lease a Mercedes should understand they have to pay a higher price over those of us who are content with our Fords.


Spoken like a true SD-luddite :lol:

Are you one of those that thinks HD is all smoke and mirrors?


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

CCarncross said:


> Spoken like a true SD-luddite :lol:
> 
> Are you one of those that thinks HD is all smoke and mirrors?


I don't know whether he's yanking our chains or is serious. Why wouldn't you watch HD if you could? Yet another thing I don't get... 

Rich


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