Dish and the future

[Mike123abc]

Now that they have finished doing the massive channel shuffle there is noticable PQ improvement on E*. Especially among the movie channels. While it is still not near DVD quality, it is getting far better.

Problem is now I see Dish is stuck. They cannot really improve PQ much more without new technology. But, that new technology would require settop box replacement.

They have about 3 billion in cash now since they are not doing the merger. What to do with it?

Well they could:

1. Build 2 more satellites, one for 61.5 and one for 148. Both spot beam for LIL, many small markets would love LIL even with a second dish... They could pick up markets 80-150 or so, but probably not much lower since the backhauls cost more than the new revenue.

2. build 2 new very powerful satellites for 61.5 and 148 that can do HDTV in 16QAM. The new 6000's enhanced HDTV module should be able to do 16QAM. This would allow them to do 3-4 channels HDTV per transponder. Of course this would require a lot of power, they would probably only have 8-10 transponders per wing. But, they would then get 24-40 HDTV channels.

3. They could build a spot beam satellites for 61.5 and 148, then do HDTV for the top 40 markets ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX. They could also put a couple high power national beams to give maybe 20 channels of HDTV national networks.

4. Build a new satellite for 110. This could have a few spots and a few high power national beams that could do 4 channel HDTV. An option would be to move some of the spots off of 119 to 110 new satellite and then convert a transponder, maybe 2 back to national on E7 and give better PQ on 119 channels. But, it might just be cheaper to move AT 100 to both satellites and give free upgrade to dish 500 for people that complain they lost channels.

5. Build a 8-10 TP very high power satellite for 110 to do HDTV national. This could also make E5 a backup satellite. Then they could do 24-40 national HDTV stations. They could also build spots for 61.5 and 148 to do LIL HDTV in combination with this one for national HDTV.

[jerryez]

3 billion $ in cash makes Echostar a very large target for a buyout by a large corporation.

[minnow]

Or option #6: Do nothing. As 98% of their subscribers don't have such a discriminating eye towards P.Q. and don't have HDTV's sitting in their living rooms.

[Jacob S]

I seriously doubt that they will use that money for HD at this time. It is more of a possibility for more locals or to start up a new internet by satellite service to compliment the video service we have now or both. I doubt Charlie will sell out.

He could replace all of the satellite receivers but why? The only reason I could think of is to increase channel capacity and fight piracy better, and if it was cheaper to do it this way than to launch another satellite or two, or not much cost difference, then that should be done. If they would add satellites in the future it would bring more channels than it would in the past on the current receivers we have.

[motjes2]

I think (in my opinion) Charlie should invest in HD. Cable has taken the approach to beat satellite and they are not very far away from gaining ground on HD. As more people get into HDTV, there will be a demand for it.

[minnow]

Yes, but your talking years before HDTV comes to the masses as an affordable option. The FCC may of "mandated" 2007 as the year that all televisons must have HDTV capabilities, but until the prices come down significantly(under $400.00 maximum) and the man on the street is convinced that HDTV is more beneficial that what he has sitting in his living room right now, consumers will not have any justification to replace their sets. So the question remains as to why satellite or cable services would invest anything into this technology if the end user has not aquired the equipment to view it.

[DarrellP]

Originally posted by minnow
Yes, but your talking years before HDTV comes to the masses as an affordable option. The FCC may of "mandated" 2007 as the year that all televisons must have HDTV capabilities,
This is not true, they only mandated DTV, that's why the FAUX network is only 480p because they can get away with it. :mad:

[ericha]

I see one of the limitations of satellite HDTV being the conflict of trying to carry HDTV network programming for all of the different affiliates. Why not have a scheme where the set top box carried a national HDTV feed for network programming, but switched back to an SDTV feed for local content? There's probably a patent in that idea somewhere, for someone clever enough to make it work.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by Jacob S
He could replace all of the satellite receivers but why? The only reason I could think of is to increase channel capacity and fight piracy better, and if it was cheaper to do it this way than to launch another satellite or two, or not much cost difference, then that should be done.

An equipment swap out was going to be an eventual consequence of the merger anyway.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by ericha
I see one of the limitations of satellite HDTV being the conflict of trying to carry HDTV network programming for all of the different affiliates. Why not have a scheme where the set top box carried a national HDTV feed for network programming, but switched back to an SDTV feed for local content? There's probably a patent in that idea somewhere, for someone clever enough to make it work.


Part of the reasons that wasn't done already is because of one thing - COMMERCIALS. Advertisers that pay to have commercials in HD would cry fould at the fact that their commercials are being shown in SD.

[motjes2]

HDTVs will eventually go down in prices. But I do not think, dish needs to wait until HDTV prices fall under $400 to start offering more HD channels.

People will always buy what is satisfying to them. Just show the HD signal compare to SD. Maybe I am in the minority but after watching HD for about a month now, I say get rid of all of these poor quality SD channels and bring on more HD channels. Face it, the SD signal on dish is really poor.

If cable (like cablevision was proposing) comes up with a service dedicated to HD only that will offer more channels that any DBS provider, this will push Charlie over getting more HD and believe me people will know the difference. I'll be the first one to jump ship if there was somebody else offering more HD channels...

Again this is just my personal opinion...

[Bob Haller]

Best to concentrate on more LIL citys. We might see a new looking 500 dish to see a side slot plus 119 & 110. More than one dish for a normal sub just doesnt sell. I expect E to buy the remaining bandwidth at 61.5. Or wait for the FCC to get it back, its not enough space to put up a viable operatrion.

I hope E walks away from broadband. Its just not a profitable idea and the latency will kill it. E should work hard at being a good tv provider and not get distracted by side issues...

[Mike123abc]

The problem is that working now he does not solve todays problems but problems 3-5 years from now. You cannot just decide today to put up a satellite to serve more cities tomorrow. Look at Echostar8 it was almost a year late just launching.

So, my point is that Echostar has to be able to decide what to launch today that will be important 3-5 years from now. They decided a while ago that they do not care to add more cities to LIL. They have the capacity they already want. They made the LIL decisions 4+ years ago. All the people that whine on this board all day about their city not being served by LIL have to realize that if Dish decided to do all LIL for all cities it would be 3+ years before it happened. Even with the merger it was 36 months to get it done with the satellite planning already completed.

Right now Dish will be having to make decisions as to if things like KA band usage and such. They could be designing a KA sat that they could use with a triple dish (like direcTV) that has one sat slot that points to a KA band slot. Then they could use the new satellite to do LIL HDTV. The big question looming on the horizon is if Digital Must carry means the entire feed or a downresed version? If the analog stations are forced to be turned off will Dish/DirecTV be required to carry all LIL in the full digital signal? If so they need to be designing the capacity now.

One Ka satellite orbital position could probably do the HDTV needs of the top 50 cities, but it would most likely need to be 3-4 satellites to have enough power to feed all the spots.

Dish has to look out and see what the competitive scene is going to be 5 years from now and make the choices. Will local cable in the top 100 markets be offering all locals in HDTV with an additional 150 channels in HDTV? Most top 100 market cable companies actually have capacity for 200HDTV channels. Or maybe the market will have 500 low res stations with 10HDTV channels as all the locals decide to multicast instead of doing high resolution?

What I see is cable companies carrying locals in HDTV, and maybe up to 40 other HDTV channels. I see this happening because digital cable ready TVs are coming fast. As soon as you can just plug your cable into the TV and get digital cable (with some HDTV) and no decoder box needed it will take off like a rocket. Who wants to pay $5-$8/month for a decoder box for every TV right now? DBS will lose the advertizing edge... 150 digital channels? So what? My cable company has that to every TV in my house (throw in 4 extra TVs and cable is cheaper now too). This is what DBS will have to compete with.

[bunkers]

HD TV sets are here -- but it will be years before the average person has enought content to justify the purchase of these sets.

The misleading marketing efforts have led most non-technical folks to believe that digital IS THE SAME AS high def (HD). Yes, we know better, but so many people think the digital transmission somehow means they are getting a form of high def output (haha).

Similar to how digital cell phones were marketed as this big quality improvement over analog and never was. It certianly does benefit the cell phone providers and gives you few additional features, yes -- but improve your quality, no.

So as long as HD takes ~6 times the spectrum that a regular channel does, DISH won't be in any hurry to provide lots more content anytime soon. THe locals and additional variety are more in demand overall.

It will be 5-10 years out before we get a substantial selection of HDTV, IMHO.

I'll be buying my HDTV plasma 60" in ten years, for about $1500 or less -- thats what I'm waiting for (grin).

[minnow]

Bunkers, I agree with you 100%. This HD thing is overpriced and over hyped. Mr. and Mrs. Average American have to be convinced to replace their current televisions or buy an expensive adapter. And that has not happend yet nor will it. HDTV will only come become popular when in ten to 15 years, the MAJORITY of people replace their worn out sets with new ones. Because of the law the new sets will have HDTV capabilities.
The vast majority of people will not be racing to Best Buy solely for the purpose of replacing perfectly fine televisions to HDTV. And when push comes to shove, the government will make a hasty retreat from the timetable for HDTV implementation due to the impending backlash that will require Americans to replace perfectly functioning televisions with overpriced technogy.

[Bob Haller]

HD IS NOT REQUIRED, ONLY digital!

This must be the most common misconception of all time:(

Digital tuners oin sets werent even required till recently and the tv manufacturers are going to court to prevent that law from taking affect.

[jeffwtux]

minnow and bunkers:

that fact is that the day that HDTV is demanded by even Mr and Mrs. Average is coming, we're just debating on the date. I say 5-7. You say 10-15. That's just details. The fact is that when it does come DBS could be in trouble if they still need a receiver for each TV while cable doesn't. I'm concerned most about the cost of receivers as the detriment, not the capacity. Lauching a satellite is relatively cheap. 36 million(DirecTV and Dish combined*2 receivers per customer) million HDTV receivers are expensive. If the HDTV receivers end up costing $300 a piece, that's over $10 Billion.

[scooper]

Actually Bob - that wasn't a law - it's an FCC rule / directive.

I think the FCC should have done this when they first started mandating the DIGITAL TV transition, but oh-well...

[MarkA]

"Digital tuners oin sets werent even required till recently and the tv manufacturers are going to court to prevent that law from taking affect."

If you ask me - it's insane that TVs come with any tuner (even an analog NTSC). It's just a waste of money for people who don't use them...

[Richard King]

I wish they not only came with no tuners, but also no audio. With the number of people doing external audio systems for their television viewing, speakers are a waste for a large percentage. Since I don't even have audio feeding into my television, and I don't use the RF inputs, I have never turned on the speakers on my 35" Toshiba since I moved about 6 years ago.