Re: Dish adding 22 new HD channels

On Thu, 15 May 2008 10:43:46 -0700 jack ak <akjack@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
| HD Matt wrote:
|> In article<g0h79g22rge@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,<phil-news-nospam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
|> wrote:
|>
|>> <snip>
|>
|>> I'd like to know if the picture quality of the locals HD programming
is as
|>> good via satellite as is via terrestrial (aside from your antenna
issue).
|>> I worry that both satellite and cable will try to over compress these.
|>>
|>> OTOH, neither DishNet nor DirecTV will provide my locals via the
satellite.
|>> So OTA is the only option for me.
|>
|> IN a word "no." I have DTV and OTA and OTA beats Direct hands down
|> almost everytime. The local stations have the option of either
|> compressing and having lots of subchannels or not compressing and using
|> the full available bandwidth. My local FOX affiliate shuts down all the
|> sub channels for major s****ting events such as Football, BBall, and
|> NASCAR.
|>
| 
| All HD signals are compressed.
| The bandwidth for OTA transmission is limited to 6MHz.
| Most OTA channels are 6MHz above or below an adjacent channel.

And that is fine for HD.  But when those signals are carried on the
satellite,
they squeeze in dozens on the same transponder.  They have to overcompress
to
get them all to fit.  If you can get the stations actually OTA, then doing
so
will get you their signal best.

In the case described about Fox, if they have programming on a subchannel,
that takes away some of the 6 MHz (19.39 mbps) bandwidth, so the HD
program
gets less.  By shutting down the subchannels, the Fox affiliate can commit
the entire bandwidth to the one major program.

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