When will HD channels be lost on HR-10-250

Local channels that you get 'over the air' no time soon (i.e., you'll keep getting them over the air and still be able to record them as you currently do).

Other channels -- MPEG2 high-def channels that are sent over satellite -- is anyone's guess really, but.... most people don't expect the channels that are there currently to be phased out too quickly.

It will take time for DirecTV to replace equipment for customers that want to replace it, and for as long as customers can get channels that they will pay for, there really is no reason for DirecTV to rush into eliminating channels until they really have to.

The people receiving MPEG4 channels will get them from another satellite, that is parked in another location in space, so there's no immediately conflict on needing to eliminate current channels in order to get new ones sent down from the sats.

So, wait, wait, and wait more for official announcements. And keep in touch here, and/or over at http://www.dbstalk.com and other similar sites.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you Earl, but I would expect that some channels will be moved quicker than others with the main driver being how many customers can be kept as paying subscribers for the longest period of time without having to replace too many receivers. Replacing receivers costs money while having a large majority of customers keep paying because there is enough value there makes money for DirecTV.

There's a balance there that I'm sure that the people crunching numbers at DirecTV have thought about and will work with. They'll offer credits perhaps, and reduce the number of channels that are there in MPEG2 over time (as you said, probably by making the same channels available in MPEG4 before killing the MPEG2 copy) so they can reduce the bandwidth they are using over time.

Certainly by football season 2008 makes sense, and perhaps by New Years of 2008 even makes sense, but I expect some channels will still there be there in MPEG2 for a while because DirecTV can keep making money on them.

Actually, it kind of makes me think that perhaps the earliest channels to go would be something like Showtime or HBO. Eliminate Showtime, as an example, and DirecTV can keep charging the same $10 for the suite of other channels that are in hi-def (MPEG2) for now. DirecTV'll still get back bandwidth, but not tick off that many customers initially.

If that goes ok, then they might take a swing at HBO in the same manner.

As either of those two channels is moved, the fans of those channels get pushed into upgrading their equipment in some way or another.

Showtime has fewer subs (or least normally has fewer paying subs), so starting there kind of makes sense.

I don't remember the math, but it used to be something like 4 - 6 SD channels fit into the space where 1 HD channel was. So, losing a couple of channels frees up space fairly quickly while keeping that stream of paying customers there while DirecTV gets people to upgrade.

ebonovic said:

But on the flip...

Move them too slowly... and chop away at the channels in the $9.99 pack... you are going to get more and more complaints that they are paying the $9.99 for them, but don't get the same number...

So it is a double catch...

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was trying to say above. If DirecTV moves too quickly, they will tick off those paying customers, but if they move too slowly they don't free up bandwidth and they'll keep having customers complain about 'HD-Lite' and other problems that have existed because of cramming too much into too small a pipe.

The pay channels (HBO and Showtime) make some sense to lose first because they traditionally weren't part of the separate HD package. While DirecTV would make customers that pay for those premium packages just to get the hi-def versions of those channels mad, they could probably make that up with credits for Showtime for free for some period of time combined with sweet heart pricing to get the customer to move to HR20, HR21, or other MPEG4 hi-def receiver. Once that customer is moved, they will no longer care where the hi-def comes from.

Repeat that same process with HBO and when done DirecTV will likely have moved a healthy portion of their hi-def customers off of MPEG2 over to MPEG4 and then they can deal with the other channels fairly quickly while continuing to give out credits for programming that people are losing and/or continuing to offer low cost system upgrades to get people moved.

If they (DirecTV) handle it right they can minimize the complaints and yet still move people to MPEG4 as quickly as possible.

Personally, I'm thinking that if DirecTV is able to drop 2 or 3 MPEG2 hi-def channels, they'll be able to improve the picture quality all around (if they reallocate that bandwidth). It would help them be able to minimize the need to whack channels during the Sunday Ticket and ESPN Gameday packages and that too helps eliminate problems with customers crying that they are losing programming that they are paying for.

As seen in threads over on http://www.dbstalk.com every year the complaints return about channels like TNT-HD (Stretch-o-vision) that get whacked to make room for Sunday Ticket. Last year it drove me a little crazy as there was stuff on TNT that I wanted to see (NASCAR as an example). This year, not so much. Still, you (Earl) know that there's plenty of complaints any time a channel is removed -- including the pay-per-view channels where customers pay for an all-day rental only to find that the channel disappeared for part of the all-day that they thought they had.