DirecTV's Christmas Wish
Ahh Christmas time, a time to wish for what you want. Some folks are dreaming of a new big screen television, others don’t want much and want to give to others while other are wishing for their two front teeth.
DirecTV has one big Christmas wish this year and that wish is for a successful and on time launch of its new DirecTV 12 satellite. The new satellite is scheduled to take off next week December 28th at 7:22PM Eastern Time from Launch Pad 39 from the Baikonur Cosmodrone in Kazakhstan.
The satellite is slated to be lifted into space using a Proton M / Breeze M rockets and was manufactured by Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems.
According to reports DirecTV 12 will help expand DirecTV’s HD capacity by up to 50 percent so that DirecTV can offer more then 200 national high definition channels. The satellites home will be at 102.8 degrees West Longitude and is expected to serve 15 years for DirecTV. With a successful launch DirecTV hopes to have the new satellite in service by March.
I know if your a satellite junkie like I am you will be tuned in to watch it lift off and take DirecTV forward in the ever growing HD race. The launch will be available on DirecTV and also via the web at http://www.ilslaunch.com.
Here’s to one Christmas Wish that we hope comes true this year for DirecTV. GO DIRECTV 12!
BBC America HD on Dish?
Whats the deal with BBC America HD coming to Dish Network? A few weeks ago the HD channel showed up in channel listings on Dish Networks commercial sales website. (And then a day later the listing was pulled) and now there are ads running for the HD channel which are being inserted by Dish Network. The ads for for the new BBC America HD service and at the end even give the channel number on the screen with the BBC America HD logo on the screen, yet however as of this writing the HD channel is not available on Dish Network. Will Charlie Ergen play Santa and give us this HD channel as a holiday gift? If not then why does Dish Network keep teasing us with this channel?
Go XStreamHD!
What appeared the past few years to be smoke and mirrors looks like it could be for real soon. XStreamHD which showed of its service the past two years looks like they may be getting ready for launch.
XStreamHD put out press releases letting us know that manufacturing has started on its media boxes in preperation of a 2010 launch. A company called Jabil Circuit has begun the production of XstreamHD’s state of the art HD Media Server and Pro Media receiver hardware. The boxes will offer true 1080p with lossless 7.1 DTS Master Audio to customers of the XStreamHD service and also delivers content to other DLNA enabled devices in your house.
We have heard at CES that XStreamHD will be announcing their launch date for their 1080p movie service. I hope at CES they will also have some announcements of content providers, as no matter how great the hardware is, its is worthless without the great content to go along with it.
I am scheduled to sit down at CES with XStreamHD CEO George Gonzales and am looking forward to hearing what he has planned for us.
Merry Christmas!
To everyone that read The Satellite Dish, I would like to say THANK YOU and wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, happy holidays or just best wishes in this holiday season! Unless there is some breaking news in the world of Satellite then we won’t be back with another edition of The Satellite Dish until next week. Again all the best, thanks for reading!
RSN commented:
DirecTV already has most of the RSN's 24/7, the only ones they're missing is the former Rainbow owned FSN stations who still use Rainbow's uplink facility on Long Island instead, which doesn't have the capacity to do more than just games in HD. And with FSN starting to produce more of their national programming in HD, and considering that unless you subscribe to Sports Pack the only RSN you'll get is your local one, yes people need their RSN's in HD 24/7. Just because YOU don't watch it doesn't mean others don't either. They have 16 million other customers to cater to, not just to YOU. As for HD PPV, it's because satellite cannot support HD movies on demand for all customers like cable can where each headend serves a limited ammount of HD customers so they can offer a dedicated stream to most of them, satellite only has one "headend" servicing all 16 million customers, so the on demand distribution system cable uses for non-DVR boxes will not work. This may be hard for you early adopters to grasp, but not everyone shelled out the money for an HD DVR, many customers just have the basic H2x series. Not to mention broadband isn't available everywhere, especially in rural areas where cable isn't even an option and the central office for the telco is too far away for DSL, so even if they do have an HD DVR they won't be able to access HD on demand content. It's the same reason why DirecTV still has the multiplex PPV channels, while cable based providers like iNdemand and TVN now focus on events channels and distribute movies via On Demand.
vurbano commented:
wow 200 more PPV and RSns
icudoc commented:
If DirecTV's customers would get a Christmas Wish it would be that the TiVO-DirecTV HD box would finally be available!! Only waiting for it now for 15 months!!
DirecTV commented:
DirecTV had it with 264 on the bottom. Nearly every station distributes brandable ads to cable and satellite providers for local insertion where they can add local sponsors and a place to add the specific channels.
TVG commented:
Directv might of aired it too but I'm sure it didn't have channel 135 under it??
DirecTV commented:
That's the ad BBC America has been distributing to all affils. DirecTV aired the same one with the BBC America HD logo too.
tvboy commented:
Tv-One For Dish network...........