AT&T / DIRECTV reach Entertainment Studios Accord - 5 more HD likely

uverse added all of them this a.m. except justice central...we been having that one for over a year now

 

Current SD channel contract agreements may be the reason for their not being upgraded to HD and may have to be negotiated.

 

Are these channels going to be on DTV?
If so what channel numbers.

 

382 - Comedy.TV

383 - Justice Central

Both are live right now.

 

Yeah, it's not like HD or Directv being involved in HD is some recent development over the past few years. I mean they were a leader of the marketplace (MPEG4/etc.) from day one. It makes little sense to me that SD to HD conversions were not addressed in previous contract negotiations with the content providers of the channels we still don't have the HD versions of. I'm not saying it's their "fault" (or that of the individual content provider's for that matter). But, as an outsider, there sure as hell looks to have been a lot of short-sightedness/short-term thinking going on by each of the sides all these years later...

 

I agree, it is hard for me to comprehend that Directv wouldn't have wanted to address HD carriage in the contracts so they'd be able to carry it in HD when they were ready. Even if they couldn't come to an agreement enabling future HD carriage in all cases, you'd think that would be true in some of them.

 

We did get several channels mid-contract like MTV2 HD, Nick Jr HD and NBC Universo HD, so at least some broadcasters are doing it. On the otherhand, if the HD feed didn't even exist last time the contract was signed (i.e. American Heroes or Discovery Life) or the current parent company didn't even own the channel at the time (i.e. Pop), it could be a while.

Also pay attention to the current bandwidth allocation. Right now there's only 3 HD Cinema placeholders left on D12, with a potential for 12 more with the recently vacated D11 transponders. (Which is likely why DirecTV only picked up Comedy.TV and JusticeCentral.TV for now, while U-Verse picked up all of the ES.TV channels) The new satellites aren't just additional bandwidth like previous launches, they are providing mirroring for Puerto Rico, while D15 is also replacing existing bandwidth. In order to use them shuffling has to go on first.

Chances are they already have future carriage deals in place for even more channels, but are waiting for everything to be done with the Puerto Rican related migrations before pulling the trigger. (i.e. if they also clear out Spaceway 1 like the current trend seems to be showing with the latest migrations, they'll have 8 additional Conus transponders available from D15) If they filled every slot immediately, they wouldn't have had room for "surprise" additions as a result of lawsuit settlements (The ES.TV channels, Reelz, Ovation, Al Jazeera America), contract renewals that might have had some conditions on it (i.e. if AMC Networks pushed for immediate HD carriage of WE and Sundance as a condition of picking up BBC World News), disputes (Disney Junior, Weathernation), or new launches (SEC, TWC Sportsnet, TWC Deportes, Root Southwest, etc), as well as channels we almost got until talks broke down like Pac 12.

 

I agree these do sound voomish lol anyway they have another called automotive.tv that part of it to though sounds like cars.tv

 

Automotive.TV is the network they created for OTA subchannels, seperate from Cars.TV, so far no one picked it up:
http://www.es.tv/networks/automotive-tv/

 

I was looking foward to Justice Central but then found out all the court shows on their are scripted and have paid actors. They aren't like People's Court, Judge Mathis, Hot Bench and Judge Judy. Now the main channel I still hope for is METV and the rest of the SD channels to have their HD counterparts.

 

These channels will be totally worthless after a couple months since the repeated just about everything it seems. They are worthless to me on day one. Seriously? Scripted court in the format of judge judy? How stupid can you get?

I am sure the only reason they are on is because it stopped the dang court fight. I doubt DIRECTV is paying them for these channels.

 

I still wish they'd show C-SPAN in HD.

 

It was also a race-sensitve issue, so needless to say AT&T and DIRECTV pretty much just chose the safe course and shied away from the whole controversy by just agreeing to carry the channels.



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The channels where trying to make it one I'll grant you that. But I dont think it ever actually was. Not if you read the articles that discussed the entire thing.

 

Am still waiting for Epix and the Pac-12 Network to launch on DirecTV.
Everything else they've been launching is junk..

 

I do t see either coming for a long long time. Pac12 till all their current deals end which evidently is a very long time away and epix I kind of doubt will ever show up.

 

Both of these channels kind of suck. Comedy.TV only has two shows and the other one only has canceled "court" shows. What a waste of channel space.