[xxxx]

Say goodbye to 4DTV or say hello to the next Charlie-Rupert race.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Except in the broadcast realm of things Motorolas satellite offings and business has dried up.

Can you imagine that Charlie Ergan selling cable converters to the cable companies? (The Digital Cable boxes from Motorola are basicly the same as their satellite receivers and both use the same Digicypher II security which has not been hacked)

Can you imagine that if Echostar took over the making of Motorola products, how many unhappy cable subs would there be?

 

[Guest]

We are the Ergen. You will be assimilated.

 

[Nick]

"... how many unhappy cable subs would there be?"

Hey Scott, cable subs are ALREADY unhappy, what were you thinking?

 

[markh]

Originally posted by austinsho
We are the Ergen. You will be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

 

[TNGTony]

It's nice to see that Charlie, the once loved folksy satellite guy from Tennessee will acheive the same status as Bill Gates when it comes to being reviled.

It's interresting. I'd like to know the point at which "Little guy takes on the big, bad corporate world and wins" becomes "Big bad corporate guy is trying to take over the world and we need a little guy to slay him".

See ya
Tony

 

[Richard King]

What's the source for this "information"? I couldn't find it anywhere (besides here).

Imagine the secure box that could be built if Dish did buy the former General Instruments. I could invision a 4DTV type box that could receive from both C/Ku FSS services and Dish/DTV. It could be an interesting proposition actually.

 

[Tim]

Rking take a look here.

Scroll down a few stories for the "details"....

 

[Richard King]

Amazing. I don't think that either Echostar nor Rupert would be a good buyer of these assets. The business with the cable companies would drop to zero with either of them. Cable cos would be trying to change out to different digital formats as soon as word was official. Interesting though.

 

[Richssat]

Like it wasn't trying to be a monopoly already.... Hopefully the powers that be see what ol Charlie is up to and doesn't allow him to merge with/ buy out anything. This industry has more then enough problems without Charlie being the ONLY satellite provider in North America.

 

[mnassour]

Actually, it makes a lot of sense for Charlie (in his eyes) to wind up with this prize as well.

BOTH DirecTV and Dish have signal integrity problems and the DCII system is, so far at least, unhacked. The question is...is it cheaper for New Echostar to develop its own line of receivers and pray the don't get hacked, or go for an already-developed system that as of yet is still secure?

As with everything that concerns Charlie, it boils down to a matter of dollars and cents.

One possible problem....this would lead to Charlie being the sole equipment supplier to StarChoice up in Canada, an oddball relationship since he would then be the equipment supplier to the competitor of his partner up there, ExpressVu.

And we may want to remember that New Echostar may not be buying DC for its business (i.e., the cable company sales) but rather the product for the DBS market.

In any of these articles, has anyone mentioned a purchase price for Motorola's DC Division?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Mike since it appears that Starchoice is up for sale, I don't think that equasion really facors in. Especially if the rumor is correct and that Bell ExpressVu wants to buy Starchoice and switch all of its Echostar equipment to GI/MOTS Digicypher system.

BTW most Digital Cable systems use Digicypher II Technology as well and it still has not been hacked.

 

[mnassour]

Hmmm....that's right Scott, I forgot that SC itself is on the block! Has there been any confirmation that BEV will switch out the equipment? If nothing else, this means we'll finally see a DC box combined with a PVR, something the SC folks have been waiting for for a long time!

 

[Guest]

DCII would work with existing E*/D* boxes?

I don't think so.

 

[mnassour]

No, no, Zuma, no one said that.

I'm saying that a DC PVR is something that the SC folks have been waiting for. The SC subscribers have wanted one ever since BEV launched the 5100 months ago....and there's technical no reason a combined E/SC company couldn't produce one.

In this land of what-ifs, each and every DirecTV, Echostar and BEV box gets replaced by a DC box. Charlie's already said the DirecTV boxes are gone if the merger goes through. Given the piracy problem, I wouldn't be surprised if some version of this scenario is on the table.

 

[Jacob S]

Then how come is DirecTv replacing their H and HU cards with a P4 card if this merger would go through and none of the DirecTv systems would not be used?

 

[mnassour]

Charlie said immediately after the merger agreement that equipment changes were probable. Also, it's widely known that the aborted agreement for News Corporation to merge with Echostar was killed because Murdoch wanted Echostar to switch to the DirecTV type receivers. At that time, those had been compromised and Echostar had not.

The current release of new DirecTV cards is, IMHO, a stopgap measure designed to knock back piracy a bit. Remember, if the merger is approved, it will still be many months before any equipment changes take place.

Whether the card swap suceeds in stopping the pirates or not, we'll see. But the NDS equipment (used by DirecTV) has been compromised almost since day one....and Ergen won't tolerate that.

 

[Jacob S]

I can see them swapping the H cards but not all the HU cards when it was not long ago when they were replacing those H cards with the HU cards and this merger is soon apon us. Before they would have them all swapped or just shortly thereafter they would have to be swapped again for another new standard.

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by mnassour

One possible problem....this would lead to Charlie being the sole equipment supplier to StarChoice up in Canada, an oddball relationship since he would then be the equipment supplier to the competitor of his partner up there, ExpressVu.

And we may want to remember that New Echostar may not be buying DC for its business (i.e., the cable company sales) but rather the product for the DBS market.

In any of these articles, has anyone mentioned a purchase price for Motorola's DC Division?

It is reported in BCE paper The Globe & Mail that BCE owned Expressvu is in merger talks with Shaw owned Star Choice.

The driving forces are:
a) continuing mounting loss at Expressvu
b) cost to upgrade 1.1 M Expressvu subs to dual sat operation next year
c) losses due to ongoing hacking of Nagravision

Moving to DCII on Anik C/Ku birds makes sense because Canada has 4 adjacent C/Ku slots that can be "seen" using Star Choice's existing elliptical dishes - only LNBF upgrades needed.

In addition, by the end of 2003, BCE owned Telesat will have 3 new high powered Anik satellites (F1, F2, F3) in 3 of the 4 slots plus ANIK E2 available to move to 114.3

The sticking points are Canadain government approval for merger, plus Industry Canada will be concerned about potential loss of 91 and 82 DBS slots due to lack of use.

 

[mnassour]

Originally posted by Jacob S
I can see them swapping the H cards but not all the HU cards when it was not long ago when they were replacing those H cards with the HU cards and this merger is soon apon us. Before they would have them all swapped or just shortly thereafter they would have to be swapped again for another new standard.

The reason is that the Hu card is as badly compromised as the H card ever was. In fact, BOTH of the DBS systems have severe security problems....hence, the interest in Digicipher. Hu users on other boards have already reported receiving the new card, so the swap is indeed under way.