Will the extra sub digital OTA channels ever be available on DirecTV?

1772 Views 20 Replies 15 Participants Last post by cartrivision, Sep 5, 2008

spartan_don

Discussion Starter · Sep 5, 2008

I am only getting the main feeds now (for example, 7-1 only available, no 7-2 or 7-3).

Also, why isn't my PBS feed (channel 56 / Detroit) in HD?

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

tkrandall

· #2 · Sep 5, 2008

I don't want DTV using up bandwidth for local sub channels.

DirecTV and PBS have or are working on an agreement to carry local PBS stations in HD but it is a national deal that I guess is not totally done yet. There may have been some handgup on the sub channels, I'm not sure.

wilbur_the_goose

· #3 · Sep 5, 2008

Spartan - no plans...

Mertzen

· #4 · Sep 5, 2008

Besides the no plans it is more a no capaity. There are still dozens of markets that need to get their HD LIL first, then more conus HD, moving stuff of 72.5, etc.

JoeTheDragon

· #5 · Sep 5, 2008

There are a few national channels that are on OTA subs.

Steve Robertson

· #6 · Sep 5, 2008

Lets hope we never see those

jdspencer

· #7 · Sep 5, 2008

JoeTheDragon said:
There are a few national channels that are on OTA subs.

We have our MyNetwork as a subchannel. And it is rumored that The CW, which is cable only, may also become a subchannel. Am I an advocate of sub-channels on DirecTV? No, I'm not. I advocate for DNS HD versions of those channels.

Also, we don't have a full power NBC OTA yet.

flipptyfloppity

· #8 · Sep 5, 2008

I hope not. In my area at least, there is no subchannel worth having.

jdspencer has a great point. There should just be a national feed for things like this. Wasn't there a national DNS HD WB at one point?

bakers12

· #9 · Sep 5, 2008

Can someone help me understand how the bandwidth gets used?

My local station sends out a whole channel worth of signal, divvied up into subchannels. DirecTV receives the whole channel, takes out the bits they want and ignores the rest. They feed the bits they want up to a satellite and send it back down here.

So what I receive is less than a whole channel, right? But, what happens to the bandwidth that's unused on the downlink? Is there a whole channel worth of bandwidth, but only one subchannel worth of data?

I assume they won't waste the remaining bandwidth, but can the "leftovers" be combined somehow into useful blocks? If all subchannels are actually sent down to receivers, is it just a question of devising a way to number the (sub)channels?

Upstream

· #10 · Sep 5, 2008

DNS would serve things like CW and MyTV subchannels. But it doesn't help for subchannels that provide local alternate programming. For instance, one of the WNBC subchannels in NYC is used for local sports which might not end up on the primary channel (things like women's college basketball, soccer, or minor league baseball).

ebockelman

· #11 · Sep 5, 2008

Yeah, there's definitely a place for the subchannels.

Most people just don't think of them, so there's not much to gain by Directv adding them.

When I had my HR10 swapped by Directv for an HR21, I called in to get an AM21. The CSR was adamant that I didn't need it because Directv offered HD locals in my area. It took me about four passes of explaining the subchannels before she put in my order for one. (I didn't think to make the PBS case at the time, which I should have considering that we have three PBS stations in our market.)

texasbrit

· #12 · Sep 5, 2008

JoeTheDragon said:
There are a few national channels that are on OTA subs.

If there is a national channel on an OTA subchannel (such as where two channels owned by the same company are on the same primary channel) then they will not both be HD anyway, because there isn't enough bandwidth. So DirecTV will probably transmit whichever one is HD, and the other digital subchannel will be used to feed the "SD channel" broadcast.
So if ABC is on 31-1 and broadcasting in HD, and Fox is on 31-2 (or is on a 31 subchannel but with a "virtual channel" of say 8-1) and broadcasting SD, the ABC channel will be in the HD locals list and the Fox channel will be an SD local.
We are likely to see very few examples if any of two national channels on the same primary channel once the transition to digital has happened, because the channels (or at least one of them) will almost certainly go back to their analog frequencies.

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Kansas Zephyr

· #13 · Sep 5, 2008

If the programming evolves on the sub-channels, creating enough customer demand. Then D* will carry what it think it needs, in order to be competitive.

If your local cable provider(s) have them, and D* doesn't, the market pressure should take care of it.

At the present time, the FCC doesn't cover the subs under must-carry. If that changes, then D* will be forced by regulation.

Kansas Zephyr

· #14 · Sep 5, 2008

bakers12 said:
Can someone help me understand how the bandwidth gets used?

My local station sends out a whole channel worth of signal, divvied up into subchannels. DirecTV receives the whole channel, takes out the bits they want and ignores the rest. They feed the bits they want up to a satellite and send it back down here.

So what I receive is less than a whole channel, right? But, what happens to the bandwidth that's unused on the downlink? Is there a whole channel worth of bandwidth, but only one subchannel worth of data?

I assume they won't waste the remaining bandwidth, but can the "leftovers" be combined somehow into useful blocks? If all subchannels are actually sent down to receivers, is it just a question of devising a way to number the (sub)channels?

D* currently "strips out" only the primary service from the local's digital datastream.

So, what is uplinked/downlinked doesn't include the sub-channel services. Keeping the bandwidth used as small as possible.

bakers12

· #15 · Sep 5, 2008

Kansas Zephyr said:
D* currently "strips out" only the primary service from the local's digital datastream.

So, what is uplinked/downlinked doesn't include the sub-channel services. Keeping the bandwidth used as small as possible.

It sounds like bandwidth is wasted that way (I'm not arguing, just ignorant) if the whole channel is allocated on a transponder, but only part of it is used.

tkrandall

· #16 · Sep 5, 2008

In the Atlanta market, CW and MyNetwork are separate stations with their own local OTA broadcast, including HD at times. DirecTV carries them in HD (7 HD non OBS channels in this market).

Kansas Zephyr

· #17 · Sep 5, 2008

bakers12 said:
It sounds like bandwidth is wasted that way (I'm not arguing, just ignorant) if the whole channel is allocated on a transponder, but only part of it is used.

No bandwidth is wasted. A transponder "channel" that is up/downlinked via the D* satellites is not the same as a OTA TV channel.

For OTA, one RF channel has one digital datastream containing all of a single TV station's services.

Via D* satellite, one transponder has one digital datastream containing several services from several different TV channels or networks.

Kansas Zephyr

· #18 · Sep 5, 2008

tkrandall said:
In the Atlanta market, CW and MyNetwork are seperate stations with their own local OTA broadcast, including HD at times. DirecTV carries them in HD (7 HD non OBS channels in this market).

You're in a very big market.

In Dothan, AL, for example, the CW and MyTV are only on sub-channels.

WTVY
4.1 - CBS
4.2 - MyTV
4.3 - CW

So, unless D* provides sub-channels to that market, the only way to get MyTV and the CW is via OTA or cable.

BattleZone

· #19 · Sep 5, 2008

bakers12 said:
It sounds like bandwidth is wasted that way (I'm not arguing, just ignorant) if the whole channel is allocated on a transponder, but only part of it is used.

With SD channels and MPEG2 encoding, about 10-12 TV channels can "fit" into the bandwidth of a single (Ku-band) transponder. That number is intentionally reduced for sports channels, which typically have programming that can't be compressed as small without significant macro-blocking, because there is so much camera motion.

For HD channels in MPEG2, you could only get 2-3 channels per (Ku-band) transponder. With MPEG4 encoding, which does a better job of compressing video, especially HD video with its higher number of pixels, you can fit 5-6 channels on the same transponder.

What we call "subchannels" are really just channels; the difference is that now, with digital transmission and encoding, more than one channel can fit in the bandwidth that used to be used for a single analog channel. In other words, broadcasters are now able to do essentially the same thing with OTA transmissions that DirecTV and Dish do with satellite transponders: put more than one channel on them by using digital compression. But once compressed, further compression isn't possible without quality loss, so DirecTV can't just take 3 already-compressed channels and futher compress them to fit where one analog channel used to fit.

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JoeTheDragon

· #20 · Sep 5, 2008

There are national channel like .2 Network · AccuWX · Bohemia · Create · CW Plus · FUNimation · ION Life · LATV · MeTV · Minnesota Channel · NBC Weather+ · PBS World · PBS YOU · qubo · RTN · This TV · ThinkBright · Wisconsin Channel · VTV · V-me
that are mostly only on subs.

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