Dish HDTV details coming in clearer

When we last left "As the Dish Turns," the leading man (played by Charlie Ergen) was reciting his lines about local HD channels and MPEG-4 transitions. In today's episode, the swashbuckling leader provides some additional lines details on what we can expect. A total of seven markets will have high-def locals by the February 1st episode, all of which will use MPEG-4 compression. By the end of the season year, Charlie will have 50 "angels"; that is: 50 local markets will have high-def availability.

If you're not interested in purchasing new equipment, have no fear, Charlie is here! Leasing options for the new MPEG-4 receivers will be available. The ViP 221 lease is expected to cost just $49.99, while the ViP 622 can be borrowed for $299. Stay tuned for Charlie's first full-length feature film, "I lost 12Mbps around my waist and you can too!"

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 23rd 2006 3:49PM]

i have the dish hd pack which is only 5 channles and i cannot get voom channe;s becuase i will need a seperate dish which i can't becuase i live in a apartment. If i do upgrade to the new equipment will i get the voom channels or just the new hd channels?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 23rd 2006 4:24PM]

I have the same problem, although my reasoning is just that I dont want to pay them the extra 100 for something they should give me, but anyway, I dont think the new equipment will help because the reasoning for the extra dish has to do with satellite location, not encoding. Now maybe by using mpeg-4 they can free enough bandwidth to add the VOOM channels to another satellite, but I wouldnt bet on it.