i've got great OTA HD locals, will I ever need the 5LNB dish?

[epeters]

title line says it all.

apart from locals, will there definitely be additional HD content via MPEG-4?

Eric

[duanej]

Most likely. Time will tell..........

[bigpuma]

title line says it all.

apart from locals, will there definitely be additional HD content via MPEG-4?

Eric

Eventually yes, but when is anyone's guess.

[newsposter]

all new national HD, (natl geo, food, a&e etc) will be in mpeg2 until they turn it off and only send out mpeg4. you have to decide when that will be as no one knows for sure, not even directv. That would require swapping out a lot of boxes.

[TyroneShoes]

all new national HD, (natl geo, food, a&e etc) will be in mpeg2 until they turn it off and only send out mpeg4... That is the assumption on this forum, but I don't think I'd bet my HR10 on it. DTV has never, afaik, stated that in so many words. Painting themselves into that corner would make very little sense.

If the conversion to M4 goes slower than they wish, for instance, it would make sense for them to start putting new popular HD (or SD) channels up only in M4 to help drive the conversion. The quicker they entice everyone to leave M2 behind (go to M2/M4 STBs and Ka dishes), the quicker they can turn that off and reuse the spectrum for more M4, and I would expect there is a logical point in time that this would make a great deal of business sense for them.

That point in time will likely coincide with the life expectancy of the current Ku sats (IOW, if they haven't a reason by then, the eminent demise of the Ku sats will force the issue). Sats last about 8-10 years, so take that figure and subtract the launch dates, and that will give you a ballpark idea of when this will occur, if not significantly sooner than that.

[Runch Machine]

I didn't think they had the band width to add any more channels on the MPEG2 sats. How can they add more HD channels with no more capacity?

[newsposter]

That is the assumption on this forum, but I don't think I'd bet my HR10 on it. DTV has never, afaik, stated that in so many words. Painting themselves into that corner would make very little sense.

.

I asked about a month or so ago

Dear Mr. ,

Thank you for writing. The programming that we currently offer in HD, not including locals, will continue to broadcast in MPEG-2 format until all of our customers have been converted to MPEG-4 technology. For customers that currently have MPEG-4 technology will still be able to view TNT HD just in the MPEG-2 format.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. Thanks again for writing and stay tuned to DIRECTV.com for the latest in news and information about our service.

Sincerely,


DIRECTV Customer Service