DIRECTV motors local HD to Detroit

DIRECTV is revvin' their local HD engines it seems. We got a tip from SolidSignal that the local channels for The Motor City of Detroit are now available in high-definition. I'm not sure if the implementation is a news flash or this is a re-run, but if I were Dish Network, I'd hop in the car and drive outta town.

I did a search on DIRECTV's site to see what local channels were available in HD for the Detroit area and it's confirmed by the following message: "HD Local Channels:
High-definition (HD) local channels from DIRECTV are also available in your area. To receive them you will need an HD system." Unfortunately, the DIRECTV channel line up just shows the SD availability and not the HD availability of any local stations.

There's some additional information on the required receiver over at AVS Forum; you'll likely need a new set-top box since this is the beginning of the MPEG-4 transition for DirecTV. Various sources are indicating that DirecTV is offering a $200 rebate on the upgraded equipment; roughly equal to three tanks of gas in Detroit.

 

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 2nd 2005 11:59AM]

DirecTV made an excellent decision to migrate to MPEG4 right now as HDTV is just getting hot. Dish is really going to struggle to keep up with DirecTV...they better get on the ball and move to MPEG4 as well. I switched to Comcast because their HDTV offering is the best available right now, mostly because their HD DVR is only $9.95/month instead of $699 for the DirecTV HD Tivo....which is useless for MPEG4. Once DirecTV completes their transition to MPEG4 AND has a new HD DVR, it will be very tempting to switch back.
Another great thing about MPEG4 that I don't usually see mentioned is it's going to double the capacity of your DVR. If you currently have a 160GB hard drive it holds about 13 hours of HDTV, with MPEG4, that will magically double to 25+ hours with the same size hard drive....nice bonus for the end user! Of course, you will need a new DVR that is capable of decoding MPEG4....

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 5th 2005 5:48PM]

Does anyone know -- is this flavor of Mpeg4 using H.264 (which is Mpeg4 part 10 I think??) or another variation?