LIL bandwidth

[joblo]

Does anybody know of any provision in law or regulation that would require a satellite carrier to provide equivalent bandwidth for all analog locals in any given DMA? I see provisions for contiguous channel placement and non-discriminatory pricing, and SHVERA 2004 adds a one-dish requirement, but what's to stop E* from offering very blurry preachers and Hispanics?

[TNGTony]

I'm pretty sure there is an "equal treatment" clause that takes care of the bandwidth issue. Dish has to have approximately the same bandwidth available for all the locals in any one given market.

See ya
Tony

[wcswett]

Does anybody know of any provision in law or regulation that would require a satellite carrier to provide equivalent bandwidth for all analog locals in any given DMA? I see provisions for contiguous channel placement and non-discriminatory pricing, and SHVERA 2004 adds a one-dish requirement, but what's to stop E* from offering very blurry preachers and Hispanics?

There is a provision for digitals where satellite must provide the same bandwidth as the terestrial broadcast. I don't recall seeing anything in writing about analogs.

[James Long]

There is a provision for digitals where satellite must provide the same bandwidth as the terestrial broadcast. I don't recall seeing anything in writing about analogs.It's in the current law (pre SHVERA), but of course I can't find it at the moment. :lol:

JL

[wcswett]

It's in the current law (pre SHVERA), but of course I can't find it at the moment. :lol:

My locals are divided between 110 and 61.5 and in my opinion the ones on 61.5 look more compressed than on 110. Checking Lyngsat I see that there are 11 channels on the 61.5 transponder that carries Atlanta and only 8 channels on the 110 transponder that carries Atlanta. That's a pretty good case right there that less bandwidth is devoted to the "lesser" wing sat local channels (I found as many as 12 locals crammed onto one 61.5 sat transponder).

--- WCS

[James Long]

My locals are divided between 110 and 61.5 and in my opinion the ones on 61.5 look more compressed than on 110. Checking Lyngsat I see that there are 11 channels on the 61.5 transponder that carries Atlanta and only 8 channels on the 110 transponder that carries Atlanta. That's a pretty good case right there that less bandwidth is devoted to the "lesser" wing sat local channels (I found as many as 12 locals crammed onto one 61.5 sat transponder).There are plenty of spotbeams with 12 channels. There are even a few ConUS non-local-in-local filled transponders on 119 and 110 that have 12 channels. (12 real channels, not counting mirrors.)

About the only channels that get more than 1/12 of a transponder are PPV & Movie channels and HD.

JL

[Michael P]

This is why I don't subscribe to satellite-delivered locals. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to get a decent OTA signal. Once the digital transformation is completed and every station is up to full power with thier "DT" signals hopefully more viewers can take advantage of OTA.

I just started getting my locals via the 921 and have been thrilled with the PQ.

[Michael P]

There are plenty of spotbeams with 12 channels. There are even a few ConUS non-local-in-local filled transponders on 119 and 110 that have 12 channels. (12 real channels, not counting mirrors.)

About the only channels that get more than 1/12 of a transponder are PPV & Movie channels and HD.

JL
It's not the quantity of channels per transponder, it's how the channels are compressed that makes the difference in PQ.

If you look at the combination of channels found on non-local-in-local filled transponders, you willl see that they mix high demand channels (Premiums, sports, etc.) with low demand channels (low visual action such as shopping, PI, etc). They use "stat-muxes" to allocate bandwidth between all these channels to minimize digital artifacting. On LIL's, however, there is no way to determine the amount of visual action. Sporting events are all over the dial (FOX. CBS & ABC for the NFL). There are too many stations to monitor manually so I'm willing to bet that the engineers just set the stat mux for LIL's on the conservitive side.

Several years ago I saw a football game played in a Pittsburgh blizzard over a satellite-delivered CBS afilliate. The snowflakes caused so much pixillation on wide shots that the game was almost unwatchable. If it wasn't for close-up shots, the game would have been totally unwatchable

[James Long]

It's not the quantity of channels per transponder, it's how the channels are compressed that makes the difference in PQ.Less channels on a transponder does give more overhead for the moments when all the channels need an extra punch, but it's a moot point comparing 61.5-148 vs 110-119, since the compression settings for locals are about the same regardless of what bird brings them back to subscribers.

It MAY be that more people complain about the quality of the 110-119 channels than wing channels and in a complaint oriented system those channels are more likely to be noticed and adjusted. Dish is pretty good at taking a look at problems when they are reported.Several years ago I saw a football game played in a Pittsburgh blizzard over a satellite-delivered CBS afilliate. The snowflakes caused so much pixillation on wide shots that the game was almost unwatchable. If it wasn't for close-up shots, the game would have been totally unwatchableI get that on local OTA-HD during auto racing and other fast moving shows (the game show Pyramid when the strobes are flashing). All that bandwidth and it still looks poor. It's all in the compression.

JL