...the FCC plans to allow DirecTV and Dish to down convert broadcasters’ HD signals to a less pristine picture resolution for several years.

The satellite giants—which combined serve about 30 million pay-TV subscribers—convinced FCC officials that they lacked the channel capacity to provide every eligible station in HD immediately. They insisted that they needed several years to prepare for a full HD carriage requirement.

HD signals stress capacity because they take up much more bandwidth than digital signal transmitted at lower resolution.http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6543480.html?desc=topstory

It's kinda hard to follow that. They seem to be talking mostly about carriage rules. The US has a huge number of local markets where they must provide 4-5 HD locals, per market. That's potentially hundreds of HD channels of mostly duplicate material. It's a real challenge for satellite providers.

-Mike

The issues are related in that U.S. satellite companies are being told to carry local HD stations for applicable markets. This means a lot of spot beam usage, with an accompanying need for more transponder space.

To provide so many HD slots on their birds, the satellite companies insisted that they'd have to keep squishing down the original HD signals to fit. Now the FCC has agreed, giving them up until 2013 to keep doing that while they get it all operational.

Can they replicate the signal to different transponders without compressing for network TV content on the local affiliates that must be carried? That is, if there are two Eastern coast stations airing Lost on ABC for example, to send the same content out two different transponders? I guess this would be the same idea as simulsub that is done here in Canada but they could potentially map one channel to another to give up bandwidth?

That's potentially hundreds of HD channels of mostly duplicate material.
It's several thousand HD and digital channels. DirectTV estimates it will be carrying over 4000 HD channels by the time all HD locals are added.

bolmsted:

No they can't. Doing that is much more complicated than you make it out to be.

That FCC policy is totally absolutely insane. It's one thing to have a feed for each network (including monor players like RTN and The CW, etc). Mandating the carraige of THOUSANDS of mostly duplicate OTA channels is mind-boggling stupidity. This is one area where the CRTC is smarter and more realistic than the FCC.

I doubt it's even possible to provide ALL the US locals in HD with current satellite technology, so the FCC really had no choice but to amend their policy. Our CRTC needs to stand up and protect Canadian satellite resources, which are going to be in high demand by Americans with deeper pockets than their Canadian counterparts.

-Mike

Why not have a proper fully functional ATSC tuner in each unit and a ZZ antenna as part of the package ? :p No band withd loss and a sollution that with a little smoke amd mirrors promo may please all ?

Why not have a proper fully functional ATSC tuner in each unit and a ZZ antenna as part of the package ? :p No band withd loss and a sollution that with a little smoke amd mirrors promo may please all ?
Thats what the H20 has and it works great, set up antenna scan and your local channels appear within the guide with data! By the way I have seen Starchoice and Bell HD but not Rogers and DirecTV blows them away in quality and quantity. With DirecTV 11 now, they have the ability to deliver 150 national and 1500 local HD channels from the fleet. About 90 national are up and going right now but not sure how many locals.

Can they replicate the signal to different transponders without compressing for network TV content on the local affiliates that must be carried? That is, if there are two Eastern coast stations airing Lost on ABC for example, to send the same content out two different transponders? I guess this would be the same idea as simulsub that is done here in Canada but they could potentially map one channel to another to give up bandwidth?

No. They have to "transmit" a particular local channel's schedule in its entirety, to customers in that market. They cannot substitute it for a signal from another market. If they could do that, the situation with US satellite TV and locals would be a lot "neater".

This is because this is how affiliates work, as they are individual stations with exclusive programming rights, and importantly, local advertising placements.

Why not have a proper fully functional ATSC tuner in each unitThe newer Echostar/Dish Networks receivers have OTA ATSC capability too, and it is definitely a better solution than having to provide HD locals on satellite.

Having an ATSC tuner is nice, but it doesn't help the guy who can see the satellite (well up in the sky, except Alaska) but has a blocked view of the OTA transmitter.

The thing is not everyone can get satilite reception and with that in mind not every would get OTA HDTV iether but it would give the satilite people a way around the band width use for local stations for the majourity.