It seems the Sesame Street gang is pissed at DISH Network. Once the analog shutoff occurs next year, FCC Chairman Martin wants to hold DirecTV and DISH to a "non-discrimination" rule -- they cannot carry some HD locals, but not others. However, if a carrier can demonstrate that it has limited capacity that prevents it from going live with all the channels at once, the FCC can grant a waiver. As the FCC is getting ready to vote on these waivers, PBS and the Association for Public Television Stations (APTS) have taken the opportunity to point out that DISH has "...refused to negotiate in good faith for carriage of local public television signals in HD." The real salt in the wound is that PBS can point to its
carriage deal with DirecTV as a counter-example, but we'll see how this is balanced out against PBS's announced HD rollout
plans.
[Image courtesy
Cynical-C]
posted Mar 5th 2008 4:22AM
man, that photo's hilarious!
Hmm, FCC tells stations to start using their TV airwaves or lose their digital licenses. So, my two PBS stations simply take the analog transmission and feed it onto the digital carriers. Nice fuzzy analog boxed transmission brought to you digitally. Then, PBS is not considered as a local in HD on DirecTV, which I can see the point in not doing as its worthless in quality (makes TBS stretch-o-vision look good).
PBS has not ground to stand on, and especially no laurels to rest upon.
You must live in a place where the local PBS affiliate sucks. In Kansas City, we have four SD sub channels during the day all in clear 480i. After 6PM, we have one 480i that is a mirror of the analog channel and we have a PBS HD channel. The quality is great. I have watched several programs in HD and they are top notch in quality.
Huh. I get KQED, which at one time was the premiere HD station (not just premiere PBS HD station) in the country! And we have the same setup, and it's a disaster. The first SD channel is okay, the other ones are way overcompressed. If the camera moves, the image breaks into blocks until it is still for a little bit again.
5 SD channels don't work very well on one 6MHz (14-15mbit) transmitter.
Sorry PBS, but any business that has to go to the government to try to get the law changed to preserve their business model isn't doing business well. Either make your product better so that people demand your product or cut your prices to match what you're offering. Trying to get the government to mandate that companies have to buy your product is absurd.
absurd, yes. uncommon, no. washington is full of lobbyists who schmooze the government into serving the specific interests of a given company or industry.
No, not those Sesamstraat (is that Sesame Street in Dutch?) gangstas again! LOL
PBS only plays one HD show a day on their HD channel here some kid show so who gives fuck.