Why not 24/7 RSN?

[janko]

Can someone explain me,why we dont have 24/7 RSN HD on Dish???What is the problem???

 

[SpaethCo]

What is the problem???

In a word: bandwidth.

Not enough transponder space to make it happen with how things are allocated across the current satellite fleet.

 

[goaliebob99]

Transponder space, They only have a certain size pipeline, and its already full for the most part. I do think they need to seriously address this issue in the next few months, like before baseball! They need to have the top 10 HD RSN's up untill they can get more space to fill the rest. I have even brought up the idea of spot beaming them temporary, but I have no idea how much data a spot beam could have regionally as they would have to spot beam atleast two rsn's (primary and secondary) That as well as pbs and my network should be coming if were lucky. .

 

[Mr Tony]

easy

bandwidth.....Dish only has a couple transponders for HD RSN's so they shuffle the various RSN's to that transponder when they need to show a game.

Sadly when the TP is full there are some games missed.

edit: DAMN we all responded at the same time....different variations of the same answer

 

[janko]

Thanks for quick reply,will they make it possible sometimes in the near future?

 

[SpaethCo]

I guess that depends upon how you define "near future."

In the next 3 months? No.

In the next 10-24 months? Maybe.

 

[goaliebob99]

espaeth, they need to deal with this alot sooner that 10-24 months... IE 3 to 6 month time frame.

 

[SpaethCo]

espaeth, they need to deal with this alot sooner that 10-24 months... IE 3 to 6 month time frame.

I wish we had 24x7 HD RSNs more than anything today, but I'm not sure how they could pull it off in that timeframe.

E*14 is launching in March, so the soonest it would be available to start taking on programming is April. That's going to the 119° orbital location where Dish can already only use transponders 1-21 (22 - 32 are owned by D* at that orbital location). Dish also is limited in transponder space on 110° due to D* holding some of the transponder licenses there.

Dish still has issues at the 61.5° orbital location and needs a replacement for the failing E*3 and crippled E*12 currently on station. This is where AMC-14 was going to go before it failed to reach orbit; E*15 is going to be the replacement for AMC-14 but it's not going to launch until the end of 2010. The launch of E*14 might free up a bird to be parked at 61.5° to add some additional programming in the short term -- but Dish didn't move E*6 from 72.7° after Nimiq 5 got on station to take over so I'm not sure what they are planning on doing there.

As I see it, Dish has a couple options to get to full-time RSNs:

1) Get full transponder capacity at 61.5° so that it can mirror 129° for HD coverage.

2) Change the modulation on the 110°/119° transponders to get more bandwidth, requiring receiver swaps for all the Dish receivers not able to do 8PSK. They can then use their transponder space at 72.7° & 77° to mirror that content to get the RSNs up to full time HD.

I just don't see either of those options happening in 3-6 months.

 

[mike123abc]

I speculate that they will put some RSNs full time. Note just some. Having some full time will cut down on the overflow. I think it will be a while before they carry them all HD full time.

 

[db2]

Those of you saying bandwidth being the limitation are only partially right. Dish is limited by the TP bandwidth THAT DISH CHOOSES TO ALLOCATE to HD RSN's. In the past Dish has had plenty of overall bandwidth and if Dish wanted they could simply allocate more TP's to HD RSN's and never have to miss any HD events.

This was the case last summer during baseball. I haven't looked at the current state of the satellites to see if the total bandwidth situation has changed.

 

[jimijam28]

seem like dish is getting better with not missing a game- we get all nuggets and avalanche games in hd, and they have not missed one game - even if there playing at the same time (alt hd.) i hope its like this for baseball season

 

[jrbdmb]

I wish Dish would use that available HD space *all the time* - i.e. why not show replays in HD if nothing else is going on? I understand the squeeze on transponder space in the evenings, but why must every replay be shown in SD?

 

[goaliebob99]

I wish we had 24x7 HD RSNs more than anything today, but I'm not sure how they could pull it off in that timeframe.

E*14 is launching in March, so the soonest it would be available to start taking on programming is April. That's going to the 119° orbital location where Dish can already only use transponders 1-21 (22 - 32 are owned by D* at that orbital location). Dish also is limited in transponder space on 110° due to D* holding some of the transponder licenses there.

Dish still has issues at the 61.5° orbital location and needs a replacement for the failing E*3 and crippled E*12 currently on station. This is where AMC-14 was going to go before it failed to reach orbit; E*15 is going to be the replacement for AMC-14 but it's not going to launch until the end of 2010. The launch of E*14 might free up a bird to be parked at 61.5° to add some additional programming in the short term -- but Dish didn't move E*6 from 72.7° after Nimiq 5 got on station to take over so I'm not sure what they are planning on doing there.

As I see it, Dish has a couple options to get to full-time RSNs:

1) Get full transponder capacity at 61.5° so that it can mirror 129° for HD coverage.

2) Change the modulation on the 110°/119° transponders to get more bandwidth, requiring receiver swaps for all the Dish receivers not able to do 8PSK. They can then use their transponder space at 72.7° & 77° to mirror that content to get the RSNs up to full time HD.

I just don't see either of those options happening in 3-6 months.

Dish was testing out a turbo encoded fec over at 77 wich could have netted maybe 1 more channel HD per tp. I know EA has the room right now, WA is the problem. If that happened, that could net enough channels for HD rsn's possibly if loaded right. I wonder if dish has some software that automatically calculates load and where to place what channels where. It would be cool to play around with such load program. Also, I do agree about putting programming on those channels when there is nothing running. I know there is alot more HD programming on those RSN's than games.

 

[Jeff Blank]

On a somewhat related subject, last week I complained to DISH about blacking out a SJ Sharks game for me (I live in San Jose). It took several days, and this is the response I received:

Jeff,

Comcast SportsNet California has recently changed the delivery method of their HD broadcasts of San Jose Sharks games on the days when there are conflicting HD broadcast of the Sacramento Kings from the network. Dish Network is currently working on system changes that will allow us to carry these HD broadcasts. The support for carriage of these additional games requires some changes in equipment and connectivity at our uplink facilities and we expect to have everything in place sometime by the end of this month. Once I hear anymore information I will let you know.

Thank you

Matt Kliewer
Executive Communications
DISH Network L.L.C