Bill.Satellite wrote:
The fact that DTV is going to end SD transmissions is NOT unsubstantiated. It is only unknown when and what (if anything) will be broadcast from the 101 satellite when they do. Those of us using a Winegard Trav'ler could care less (but I will miss being able to switch to SD in a really bad rain storm!) but dome users are likely in for a very big surprise when it happens.
You likely don't remember 2000 (or 01) when DirecTV initiated their spot-beam broadcasts of local Networks. I DO! One day we were watching NBC from FL while in WY and the next day ALL Network programming was gone. No warning, no previous information. They were just gone. It took some time for us to find out what happened. I believe it's about to happen again but this time we will have had some warning mixed in with a lot of bad information about the drop dead date.
The mere fact that CURRENT DTV receivers use MPEG4 encoding and MPEG4 can be encoded as SD or HD means that they can stop "duplicated" SD and HD channels and and absolutely no one will ever know the difference unless you are completely stuck with getting only the 101 sat AND have a receiver that cannot decode MPEG4.
Keep in mind though, they can easily change the 101 to HD with MPEG4 so as long as you have a CURRENT MPEG4 receiver, you will notice absolutely nothing during the change over other than fewer channels.
The sat doesn't care what they send to it, it is nothing more than a "repeater", send SD up, it sends down SD.. Send HD up and it sends HD down..
The main thing is to have a receiver that handles the type of encoding they plan to use..
Direct in some respects may not be able to fully eliminate SD uplinks. The reason is to go 100% HD they WILL have to severely reduce the quantity of channels offered since they can uplink many more SD channels than they can with all HD.. One also need to take into consideration, not EVERY channel offered is offered in "HD", there are many program channels that are SD only and makes zero sense to use up the entire transponder bandwidth on programming that is in SD only..
Think of it like the OTA channels, you have a certain defined bandwidth to transmit on. With OTA the broadcaster can have up to two full HD digital channels in the same band size as the old analog.. Or they can have one main full HD, plus up to 3 additional SD sub channels to broadcast.. Same thing happens on the sat transponders..
Found a article
HERE stating 10-13 SD channels per transponder using MPEG2, MPEG4 is more efficient compression which will allow them to TRIPLE SD channels per transponder making it 30-39 channels per transponder..
Space is money and if they can fit that many SD channels on one transponders they may have a very difficult time justifing removal of ALL SD channels because they will now be down to perhaps 8 HD channels per transponder if they are lucky.. which means much less revenue and the only way to offset the loss is to raise prices and offer less channels or leave the current SD crop along and go on in life..
Putting up new additional sats is expensive, adds a lot of expense to the operation, new births are difficult to get and even if they could might not be able to get all the birds with one dish..
Money talks, Direct knows this..
The rumor of Directs SD channels demise has been greatly exaggerated..
Nothing behind the curtain, nothing to see, move along..