# MPEG 2 HD going away as of Sept 17th



## tsmacro (Apr 28, 2005)

Memo we rec'd today:

"As you know Dish Network is working to upgrade all of our MPEG 2 HD customers to MPEG 4 by September 17th. 

To help speed this process along we will begin converting some MPEG 2 HD channels to MPEG 4 to prompt the remaining MPEG 2 HD customers to upgrade. As each channel is converted to MPEG 4, the channel will disappear completely from the EPG on any MPEG 2 HD receiver. We will be following the conversion schedule listed below.

8/13: TNT HD 
8/20: HBO HD and HDNet 
8/27: ESPN HD 
9/3: HD Theatre and Showtime HD 

All ViP series MPEG 4 receivers will continue to receive these channels. 

Additionally, an MPEG 2 virtual channel will be made available to the MPEG 2 customers while they wait for their upgrade. Customers will only be informed of the virtual channels when they call in for an upgrade. 

If a customer calls in missing these channels on their MPEG 2 receiver, transfer the customer to a DISH Partner Agent to participate in the MPEG 2 to MPEG 4 Discontinued Receiver Upgrade promotion."


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## bjwilson (Feb 14, 2008)

I hope the "Discontinued Receiver Upgrade Promotion" is something better than just offering to lease an MPEG-4 receiver at current market price, which is the deal I got from D* to replace my DirecTivo. That's the reason I'm with E* now!


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Well I should have a complete collection of Hogan's Heroes in MPEG-2 by September 3. Now to find the time to burn them to DVD's.


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## jkane (Oct 12, 2007)

ROFL! I have 41 that I have not watched yet. Gonna run outta disk space if they keep recording faster than I can watch them! I try to get to 1 or 2 a day.


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## dishpco (Mar 31, 2006)

tsmacro said:


> Memo we rec'd today:
> 
> "As you know Dish Network is working to upgrade all of our MPEG 2 HD customers to MPEG 4 by September 17th.
> 
> ...


Where did this memo come from?


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## tsmacro (Apr 28, 2005)

dishpco said:


> Where did this memo come from?


From our contact at Dish. I work for a phone company and we sell Dish. We get e-mails from Dish letting us know what's going on from time to time. Sometimes I even get the info before reading here, but not often.


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## davcole (May 6, 2006)

Is there anyway to confirm if those channels are now mpeg4?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

The last uplink report seemed to indicate that they were still MPEG2, just had flags changed to make them visible only to the ViP receivers.

As long as they still allow the MPEG2 receivers to see the channels, even in a "temporary preview" mode, they will probably stay MPEG2. I suspect they haven't yet decided to make a hard cutoff and risk alienating some customers who have not yet upgraded (or maybe installs are backed up in some areas and not all upgrades can be completed).

I do look forward to the day when they do the cutover since we should get slightly higher quality, less space on the DVR used, and more potential bandwidth for some new HD channels on the birds.


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## springdale_sam (Jan 14, 2006)

I just upgraded to Dish HD. I currently have a 322 and a 625 and I upgraded to a 722 I was going to send back my 322 and keep the 625 for the kids room. They told me that they have to take the 625 as well and give me a 622 for it. I was blown away and they are giving me HBO and STARZ for three months free. All it cost me was a hundred bucks for the 722 because they waived some 25 dollar fee.


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## snowcat (May 29, 2007)

springdale_sam said:


> I was blown away and they are giving me HBO and STARZ for three months free. All it cost me was a hundred bucks for the 722 because they waived some 25 dollar fee.


You probably had to sign a 2 year contract as well, didn't you?


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

Are the 6201-6204 channels still MPEG-2?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Jim5506 said:


> Are the 6201-6204 channels still MPEG-2?


Yes ... and so are the 9400's that match those channels (the 9400's are marked ViP receiver only). The 6200's are there as a "last chance" for those still with MPEG2 equipment and HD. When the 6200's go away the 9400 channels should go MPEG4. (There is no reason to uplink both MPEG4 and MPEG2 versions.)


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## BillJ (May 5, 2005)

There will still be some customers who procastinate and then complain when they lose the channels. Same people you see mailing their tax returns at 11:59 PM on April 15.


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## Donp (May 2, 2006)

OK back when I said I was told by a CSR that the 811 was going to door stop ststus because mpeg 2 was going to go away was correct it seems.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

I thought the 811's will become 381's or something like that. Basically a SD IRD with dvi and component out with a ATSC tuner.
No?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Not a door stop ... just not as useful as it was in the last era.


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## RTCDude (Feb 3, 2005)

BillJ said:


> There will still be some customers who procastinate and then complain when they lose the channels. Same people you see mailing their tax returns at 11:59 PM on April 15.


You mean after the extension on Sept 15th (now how would I know exactly what that date is?) ;-)


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## Presence (Mar 14, 2004)

BillJ said:


> There will still be some customers who procastinate and then complain when they lose the channels.


I look forwards to those threads.


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## Bobby H (Mar 23, 2008)

I'm kind of wondering when all the SD channels will be switched to MPEG-4. It would figure a lot of bandwidth would be saved by converting those channels at some point.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Bobby H said:


> I'm kind of wondering when all the SD channels will be switched to MPEG-4. It would figure a lot of bandwidth would be saved by converting those channels at some point.


For new Eastern Arc customers, they will start out that way.

For everyone else, it will be many years because before Dish could stop the MPEG2 SD channels they would have to upgrade all receivers in the field... and with 13+ million subscribers and probably an average of at least 2 receivers per customer, that's a lot of upgrades!

Even if they did it for free and started today, the sheer magnitude of the quantity of receivers would take a long time... then you factor in customer and service person availability + hardware availability and this is something that probably would take years to complete.


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