Official: D10 in orbit testing, national beams ok, problem with spotbeams

[flyingtigerfan]

Is D10 Broken? I Have A Bad Feeling.

It's not broken. They just had to send someone up there to pull the starter rope - forgot to do that prior to launch.

If I remember correctly, D10 and D11 are pretty flexible satellites. I have to think that whatever they lost with the D10 spotbeam capability they can probably adjust for by using D10 and D11 differently, along with the Spaceways.

[LameLefty]

Rather I suspect some system problem has occured that limits the total number of spot beams that can be used at one time, such as a power distribution issue.

My information indicates that the problem was mechanical with one of the reflectors, not power or control. That said, those can sometimes be worked around or even fixed over time, depending on the exact nature of the issue (which I have no further details about).

[donshan]

My information indicates that the problem was mechanical with one of the reflectors, not power or control. That said, those can sometimes be worked around or even fixed over time, depending on the exact nature of the issue (which I have no further details about).

Thanks, that is good news compared to power or control problems.

[TBoneit]

3 out 4 are available to the majority of the population; only FiOS is difficult to find at the moment.

That being said, if my local cable company offered a competitive lineup (not just HD, but SD too) then I would probably swap to them just to have locals and storm-fade-free service. Instead, they offer most channels in snowy analogue and only premiums and PPVs in digital. To top it off, they only offer one local in HD and a few national networks. For the same price of D*'s Premier package. Thanks but no thanks.

Now if FiOS were on offer here, I'd jump ship so fast it wouldn't be funny. All digital, compression-free TV? Oh hell yes. The few lineups I've seen in Texas had tons more channels than the cable companies and even more than D* offers now, outside of sports programming. And in San Antonio, they had quite a nice HD lineup when I checked last year.

For most folks, the HD choice is simply between D* and E*. And right now E* is really stealing D*'s thunder when it comes to HD. It doesn't help that their HD lineup looks bigger thanks to all those VOOM exclusive channels they carry.

Yup my cable companies analog locals look like garbage until you get up to channel 9. Fortunately the HD Channels are OK since the analog channels that are bad are the ones with ABC, CBS, NBC & Fox.

As for the Voom channels being eclusive to E*? The last time I looked at the cable company HD lineup they had some of the Voom channels. BTW if it were reversed and D* had them and E* didn't do you think D* wouldn't be trumpeting them? I think it was a shrewd move on E* to pick them up when it did. It didn't help D* that they were saturated in terms of capacity and E* had room to add HD channels.

Sometimes being the first isn't best.

[DawgLink]

I still stand by that Cox Cable in New Orleans is the single worst TV provider in the history of man-kind

Terrible support, Terrible-Terrible Public Relations team, Terrible HD

[Zyg]

That being said, if my local cable company offered a competitive lineup (not just HD, but SD too) then I would probably swap to them just to have locals and storm-fade-free service.

It is my experience that when a storm causes disruption to the satellite service, lightning will cause problems to the cable service.

Luckily the satellite signal returns in minutes, whereas the cable signal returns in hours or more after the burnt out electronics are replaced..:eek2:

[jash]

It's not broken. They just had to send someone up there to pull the starter rope - forgot to do that prior to launch.

If I remember correctly, D10 and D11 are pretty flexible satellites. I have to think that whatever they lost with the D10 spotbeam capability they can probably adjust for by using D10 and D11 differently, along with the Spaceways.

get the damn space shuttle up there, stat! don't they know how important this is for all of us hd geeks?

also, whatever happened to quality control? boeing, you suck ass!

please yank their contract d*, asap, loral is more than hungry enough to take this business away from them

[Alan Gordon]

please yank their contract d*, asap, loral is more than hungry enough to take this business away from them

LOL!! Funny you should mention Loral... you obviously don't remember what happened with D7s, or was not a subscriber at the time...

A LOT of angry folks in those days...

~Alan

[LameLefty]

FACT: ALL satellites have failures at some point, period. It's why you have spare transponders and backup satellite control processors.

You just hope a failure is not critical (and there are things that could fail that would seriously damage the bird's usefulness) and that it's far enough out that a replacement is provisioned and ready to go, or at least pretty far along in getting ready.

FACT: This impacts ALL providers, DBS broadcasters are more alike in this than different.

[jash]

LOL!! Funny you should mention Loral... you obviously don't remember what happened with D7s, or was not a subscriber at the time...

A LOT of angry folks in those days...

~Alan

hi alan,

no, i was not with d* back then. this is my 7th year after spending 3 with dish. i am not too happy with either. so many promises and problems and wasted potential, in my opinion. same for the set top box guys, all around. this industry really needs a shake up, from top to bottom.

[mdicki01]

I still stand by that Cox Cable in New Orleans is the single worst TV provider in the history of man-kind

Terrible support, Terrible-Terrible Public Relations team, Terrible HD

I agree but it's not just New Orleans I'm here in Oklahoma City and they are the worst here as well. They are the only cable company in Oklahoma, so they charge what ever they want and get away with it:nono2: :mad:

[donshan]

FACT: ALL satellites have failures at some point, period. It's why you have spare transponders and backup satellite control processors.

You just hope a failure is not critical (and there are things that could fail that would seriously damage the bird's usefulness) and that it's far enough out that a replacement is provisioned and ready to go, or at least pretty far along in getting ready.

FACT: This impacts ALL providers, DBS broadcasters are more alike in this than different.

And why DirecTV ordered the the D12 ground spare satellite when they ordered D10 & D11. It is a duplicate spare copy of D10 & D11, but probably capable of being re- configured to replace anything they need as quickly as it could be launched.

[Alan Gordon]

hi alan,

no, i was not with d* back then. this is my 7th year after spending 3 with dish. i am not too happy with either. so many promises and problems and wasted potential, in my opinion. same for the set top box guys, all around. this industry really needs a shake up, from top to bottom.

If this is your 7th year, than you were with DirecTV 7s when it happened, but it probably didn't affect you much at the time.

DirecTV put in a order for a spot-beam satellite with Loral (their 2nd spot beam satellite), and announced a whole boat-load of SD-LIL DMAs as coming soon. Not long after, Loral began going through a bankruptcy. I don't remember if this caused a delay in the construction of the satellite itself, but it didn't help.

Charlie (Dish Network) was most likely still smarting over the failed merger and wanted to get back at Rupert, as well as wanting to stall DirecTV's upcoming SD-LIL roll-out as it would affect DMAs that Dish was already serving, or would soon serve... plus, DirecTV had some SD-LIL DMAs up on CONUS that could move to spot-beam satellites and allow DirecTV to add more HD channels... so Charlie offered to buy the currently in production from Loral for more money than DirecTV contracted Loral to build it for in hopes of the person/persons overseeing Loral's bankruptcy issues would accept it due to monetary gain over DirecTV purchasing it.

Long story shorter, DirecTV ended up with the satellite, they added more SD-LIL and HD channels, but not before Dish Network already got a firm presence in the DMAs DirecTV were about to roll-out.

Part of me wants to say the whole thing was about a 9-12 month delay from when DirecTV wanted to have the SD-LIL DMAs up to when they were eventually offered, but I'm not positive.

If anyone can correct any inaccuracies or additional information that I failed to mention, please reply... but I think I got the majority of the point across.

~Alan

[dirchm0628]

I agree but it's not just New Orleans I'm here in Oklahoma City and they are the worst here as well. They are the only cable company in Oklahoma, so they charge what ever they want and get away with it:nono2: :mad:

That's the reason I've been a D* customer for 6 years, because of Cox's "GREAT" customer service. I still use them for Internet though. No other choice where I live.

[dirchm0628]

That's the reason I've been a D* customer for 6 years, because of Cox's "GREAT" customer service. I still use them for Internet though. No other choice where I live.


That being said I hope D* will get local HD channels to the Norfolk area soon. My OTA is great for Fox and NBC but subpar for the rest.

[kenn157]

Do we know what the channel numbers are going to be for the rollout tomorrow?
Should I enable "all channels"?

[mcbeevee]

Do we know what the channel numbers are going to be for the rollout tomorrow?
Should I enable "all channels"?
I read somewhere that TBS and Starz would be part of the first wave. I'll be checking for a double listing of channel 247 around 6am Wed!
:)

[azarby]

Do we know what the channel numbers are going to be for the rollout tomorrow?
Should I enable "all channels"?

The complete rollout will actually occur over the next few weeks/ months. It is reccomended that you use all channels until you know what the actual channels are and can add them to your favorites.

bob

[kenn157]

The complete rollout will actually occur over the next few weeks/ months. It is reccomended that you use all channels until you know what the actual channels are and can add them to your favorites.

bob


Will do! Thank you!

[harley3k]

So....um...

Given the "Subject to Change" disclaimers, and the request to not ask "What went wrong", is it okay to ask or speculate on what exactly caused the "Change" ?

-h

[Cru Jones]

I have a serious question. Once the new HD lineup is available, do I need to do anything else? I already have their HD channel package so does this mean I automatically get the new programming or do I have to call in and request (and pay) more?

I went to channel 499 and it says "searching for signal on satellite in 1... (771)" which is what DirecTV says it's supposed to do.

Am I missing anything else?

Thanks guys!!!

[donshan]

So....um...

Given the "Subject to Change" disclaimers, and the request to not ask "What went wrong", is it okay to ask or speculate on what exactly caused the "Change" ?

-h

They had a carefully prepared plan. The one thing no plan is ever prepared for is the "unexpected" event that then requires modifications to the plan.


That villain "unexpected" changes people's plans everyday! D* is not immune. DBSTalk recently upgraded the servers for higher traffic. Did DBSTalk.com expect yesterday that there would be server issues today bad enough to require shutdown and changes or did "unexpected" strike again?

[JoeNY72]

This is a link to the D* HD area in their site, saw it just now and
wanted to send the link out. They are saying many new HD channels
in September. The more in October. So they are making a statement
that they expect to have some HD up by the end of the month. Then will
go along from there. Now my point in other posts is if you have a problem
meeting this time frame, put it on the site as an update to this information.
Is that too much to ask of the company to pass that along to it's subscribers ?
Remember, many people pay their bills online and check their accounts, so they
have seen this news, even if they do not come to the forums day to day.

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageNR.jsp?assetId=P4360042&CMP=ILC-Q407-Film-100HD

[JohnL]

get the damn space shuttle up there, stat! don't they know how important this is for all of us hd geeks?

also, whatever happened to quality control? boeing, you suck ass!

please yank their contract d*, asap, loral is more than hungry enough to take this business away from them

Jash,

You do realize the Space Shuttle can't reach the "Clarke Belt" which is almost 23 thousand miles (Where all Geostationary Satellites reside) from the surface of the Earth.

The Space Shuttle can only reach 200 Miles above the Earth's surface.

John

[ShiningBengal]

get the damn space shuttle up there, stat! don't they know how important this is for all of us hd geeks?

also, whatever happened to quality control? boeing, you suck ass!

please yank their contract d*, asap, loral is more than hungry enough to take this business away from them

What makes you think Boeing had anything to do with the (supposed) problem? Why do you exempt the launch vehicle from your condemnation?

(And Loral has had more than its share of problems.)

[rock819]

with the new bird going live soon i hear all this talk about mpeg4 and mpeg2 i know that the mpeg4 will be better because of little or no compression what i want to know is. Is all the hd we have now in mpeg 2 (i just bought a 42" sony projection and even the hd chnls really look bad with all the pixleation and im running a hdmi cable directly from my hr20.

[LameLefty]

Current HD is a mix of MPEG2 (premiums like HBO and Showtime, Discovery HD Theater, HDNet, etc) and MPEG4 (local spotbeamed nationals in many markets). MPEG4 is not "little or no compression" it's "better picture quality at the same bandwidth as compared to MPEG2".

[rock819]

thanks lamelefty is there anything i can do to make the picture quality better like a more expensive hdmi cable or is this just a side effect i have to get used to ?

[LameLefty]

Image quality like that is usually the sign of a poorly-aligned dish. What are your signal strengths for each satellite you receive?

[rock819]

they are usually somewhere between 70 to 95 on each sat it almost seems like the tv cant keep up and if it is a fairly still scene or shot its not bad but on football its horrible

[rock819]

i just went from a 32" lcd and the picture seemed fine but then again i guess it wouldnt be that noticeable with the screen that small

[JDubbs413]

I was just doing some signal testing on 103b. It seemed each time I did it another odd transponder went out. (I have had no problems with getting signals before). Looks like they are working on the sat and specifically odds.

[dakeeney]

:hurah: :lol: It's not broken. They just had to send someone up there to pull the starter rope - forgot to do that prior to launch.

If I remember correctly, D10 and D11 are pretty flexible satellites. I have to think that whatever they lost with the D10 spotbeam capability they can probably adjust for by using D10 and D11 differently, along with the Spaceways.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: GO TIGERS!!!!!!! I guess the crying towels will be out
in Columbia tonight:hurah: :hurah: :hurah: :hurah: