What's with the compression?

It is called "must carry" suddenly they have to put on a bunch of channels that they thought they could get by not putting on... They lost the court cases... now it is pack em in until more birds get up to handle it.

There is no reason for it... E* can carry the entire city, choose not to carry it, or add it when they have reasonable bandwidth. E* is back to competing with *D, I have a feeling that the merger will not happen -opinion- , and hope that it does not.

so you guys have noticed this too?

Though I have not analyzed it by channel, overall PQ on Dish has gone to crap! -again- I don't know if they are having trouble with E*7 or just cramming channels. The great PQ was wonderfull while it lasted.

They're moving channels all over the place again and making transponders go dark. This must be in anticipation of the E*8 launch.

-Lyle J.P.

Houston locals on tp 5 @ 119 have been so bad that for the first time I wondered if DirecTV would look any better.

I've been happy with Dish through the good and bad PQ times but this last week has been the worst.

IMHO The PQ on E* isn't all that bad when compared to the compression levels on some of the providers on Telstar 5. Out of all the satellite multichannel providers Pittsburgh International has by far the worst PQ of them all.

IMHO, I also don't think that the PQ on E* is all that bad. Of course, PQ is subjective and depends on the equipment that you are using to view E* (Large screen home theater vs. 25 or 27" TV). I am using a 27" two year old philips and to me, it doesn't look that bad but, that's just my personal opinion.

With all the transponder swapping taking place, I'm led to believe that the launch of E8 must be close. Has anyone heard anything about a possible launch date?

JohnH posted that E* is moving channels all over the place. I've noticed that when they're doing that the PQ usually suffers. YMMV

Channel shuffling would be premature as E*8 is going to sit at 129 for awhile.

Well the portland locals are looking really good right now. I'd agree about the moving around of channels. It seems the technicians need a little time once the moves are completed to tweak the equipment and the picture quality back. Porbably just a short term problem.

I installed a Dish system for a customer last Saturday who replaced AT&T digital cable (I love doing that). He watches on a 50" Toshiba and said he was amazed at the improvement in quality when the install was done. The worse channel on the Dish (a WPB local) was about the same as the typical non premium digital basic channel. All others channels at that time appeared to be much improved over digital cable.

Originally posted by Marcus S
Channel shuffling would be premature as E*8 is going to sit at 129 for awhile.

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Maybe, maybe not. E* could vacate some TPs at 110, test there, and put E*8 into service quicker. Instead of testing at 129, then moving to 110, then testing further.

E* doesn't have to test at 129, they just have authorization to test there if they want to.

Bryan, I suspect the same given that the launch has been delayed so long. In-orbit testing at 129 would have been ideal, but given the time issue, I don't expect it to happen

I don't believe that is an option considering that E* has to file plans in advance with the FCC and thus a launch of Aug and move to 110 in Oct, which aligns with the previous plan and time frame of 90 days from launch to move to 110.

Summertime and Christmastime are probably the best time to make channel moves, partially because 95% of the programming outside of sports are repeats.

Marcus, testing at 129 doesn't have to be done. Yes, papers were filed with the FCC, but it just authorizes testing at 129. It doesn't demand testing at 129. It has happened before in all the satellite services, where a satellite doesn't test at it's authorized test location and just goes to it's licensed location for testing.

If I recall that was done when there was not a significant number of adjacent satellites at that oribital location. I don't think E* would want to take a chance and knock down say *D's bird if solar panels did not deploy, boosters did not fire correctly, or onboard computer problems surfaced. No doubt we would all like to see an earlier production deployment date, but I don't think we will as E* is also having to insure there own birds these days.

Originally posted by Marcus S
I don't think E* would want to take a chance and knock down say *D's bird if solar panels did not deploy, boosters did not fire correctly, or onboard computer problems surfaced.

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There is just as much chance that they could do the same thing to the Telstar 7 bird at 129. In other words, the chance is slim enough that it's just not a factor in the decision on where to test it.

And if I remember correctly, Hughes tested and peoployer their first spotbeam sat (DirecTV 5?) right in the 101 slot.

-Lyle J.P.