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Had a sales person call me from DirectV last night (in violation of that new do not call law). We fussed for a while, with him *insisting* that they are now carrying local station HD feed in some areas (though he couldn't tell me which ones).

Since I really don't like my digital cable, I'm intriqued by this claim.

1) Is it true.
2) I assume it's false, so what do I *really* need for local HD programming with satellite TV?

I have an HD *ready* TV (no built in decoder), it works fine with the Time Warner HD cable box. If I have a DirectV HD box, will it's internal decoder be able to handle the local broadcast signals?

Also, is anyone watching local stations this way, and if so, how is the reception (I'm in southern Durham for what it's worth).

Scott

Wow, might actually know what I am talking about on this one. Been a DirecTV customer since 1995 or so. Have had HD for a few years now.

Ok, here is the deal...

No local HD via DirecTV here in the triangle (yet?). DirecTV does offer some HD content, but not locals (yet?). I think they have worked a deal with at least CBS that for the CBS "Owned and Operated" markets, that they will allow you to get the national HD feed. I am pretty sure this does not include our area. I probably can find a URL for the details on this, but like I said I am pretty sure it is not for our area yet, so I haven't dug very deep.

Rumors abound regarding additional HD content on DirecTV including locals. DirecTV (now owned by Rupert Murdoch/News Corp) has a new Sat that is set to launch soon. It could provide the ability for HD locals in some larger markets. Nobody knows for sure. HD requires more sat bandwidth than regular non-HD, sat bandwidth is precious, etc. You see the problem here.

Dish currently probably provides slightly more HD than DirecTV, but no locals as well. I expect that with the new owners they are going to put more HD on DirecTV to directly battle Dish. There is also an upstart sat provider that I think is actually owned by a large cable company called “Voom”. Tons of HD content, but again, no locals (yet). Jury is out on “Voom” right now.

Regarding local reception...

A HD DirecTV receiver will be able to accept the OTA (over the air) signal via a built in tuner. But that is not compatible with what Time Warner provides. Basically for the near future, you have to use their box to decode the signal. If you want to put up an antenna you could use the DirecTV box. Even then, it depends upon where you live, etc. regarding the type of antenna you need, etc. In other words, the antenna solution is going to be much more complicated than your current cable setup. As much as I love DirecTV and hate cable, I would say stick to cable if you want local HD.

To add some FUD to this, the entire copy protection thing is still not 100% worked out with regards to HD broadcasts. This alone is a topic that would take pages to jump into. Basically "things are still a changing".

One extra that you didn't mention. Don't know if you have a TiVo or if you ever wanted one, but DirecTV and TiVo are currently beta testing an HD PVR for DirecTV. Like above, it will also record OTA (but not via cable system).

Long term there is a new standard called "Open Cable". The idea is that when cable companies move to this standard (I think there is an FCC mandate for this) that you would be able to buy a decoder box from anyone, but that your cable company would provide you with a security card (much like DirecTV and Dish already does). When this happens (2+ years from now?) you will see more and better options than you have now.

If anyone else is curious, Email or PM me for more info.

_________________
Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

On a sorta related topic,
I was part of the WRAL "field trial" for HD a few years ago. Local Meredith College prof presented a paper at a NAB conference on the results. WRAL installed a temporary UHF antenna on our deck (NW Raleigh about 6.5 miles NE of RDU) which worked fine for local reception. No cable, no satellite, just a plain old YAGI like one of these :

http://www.antennasdirect.com/MediumRangeAntennas.htm

WRAL has provided the HD set. Serial number 0005 IIRC.


Currently, Charlie Ergen (Dish CEO) is also petitioning the FCC to be allowed to carry the LA and NYC HD feeds to folks who don't have access to local HD (a spin back to when Dish provided almost anyone with LA and NYC local stations). He'll probably lose this one, but he is a character.

Frank
Longtime Dish customer ....

To add fuel to the fire...

I have a fairly complex system, so bear with me...I have one sat dish and one HD antenna. They are located at a fairly high (for my property) site. Based on what I know of elevations here, I'd say they are at about 570' above sea level. I'm located on the Haw River about half way between Graham and Pittsboro.

There was concern before installing my system that I wouldn't be able to get HD feeds reliably due to the distance from most of the antennas that we are located. But we set up a fairly high quality antenna, pointed it, and then fed it into the antenna in on the sat mux. The sat mux then feeds out to an amplifier, which connects to about 800' of *fat* coax to connect over to my house (there was no location at my house where I could really put a dish with a clear view of the southern sky). It then goes into two more muxes where it is split out to 8 different receivers. Several of those are HD/Sat boxes.

So, with all said and done, I get very good HD reception. I *occasionally* have some trouble with ABC, but not often (and not really recently, so something may have changed somewhere).

I don't think my 570' above sea level altitude is very good, either. Could be wrong on that as I haven't looked at topo of the greater Triangle area. Higher is *way* better, that much I know.

Oh, I have a mountain house that happens to face Charlotte in Blowing Rock. That's *many* miles further than the HD signal is supposed to travel, but it's also at like 3,000' above sea level and I get most of the stations pretty dang good there. One has occasional glitches, but nothing horrible. The CBS station (channel 3) also has a sound sync issue...the sound is usually behind the video by a quarter second or so. Same hardware I use around the house here (Hughes Sat/HD box) with no problems, too.

I'll be upgrading at least four receivers to the new Tivo/Sat/HD box as soon as it is released. I can't wait.

(I only throw out the complexity of my system to show that the signal has a ton of places it could be lost and yet it *still* works well.)


--Donnie

I think Tarheel needs a F1 meeting at Donnie's house!

8 feeds should be enough for 60 people, right?

--Kevin H.

_________________
2003 WRX (again!)

Yeah, but you should see the size of my DirecTV bill!


--Donnie

Donnie,

You visit the TiVo Community Forum http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/ at all? Especially the one devoted to the DirecTV HD TiVo box?

I am still on the fence regarding the new HD TiVo. Right now, we don't watch much HD due to the lack of TiVo for that TV.

Richard

_________________
Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Haven't paid much attention to that, no. I do know the new HD/Sat/Tivo box is gonna be really expensive (almost $1000, basically), but I'll be getting them as soon as they are available. I don't watch too much TV, but all my sets are now HD capable and I really do prefer the HD broadcast when available, especially with sports. As far as TV goes, I watch a lot of basketball and then NYPD Blue, The Sopranos, and Alias is about it for regular viewing.

I do use a standard DirecTivo box occasionally now as my backup for when I have to miss one of my favorite shows, but I really hate having to watch stuff that way, even though I can skip commercials.

Not much excites me about TV these days, but finally having an HD/Sat/Tivo in one box is pretty high up there for recent events.


--Donnie

One million dollars?

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.