Any timeline on TWC's HD adds?

[Skipjack]

Hi all, I'm a noob to this forum.  I've been hanging around http://www.hometheaterforum.com">The Home Theater Forum (I highly recommend it) for all my HD info up till now.

I'm glad to see TWC's announcement for NBC HD on the 15th.  However, have they released any sort of timeline explaining when they would acquire ABC, CBS, etc.. ?

Also, I've heard ESPN will offer HD sometime next year.  

TWC's website kind of just breezes over the subject of HDTV saying that everyone will need to invest in a new TV and their digital cable is good quality anyway (blech! their digital cable looks like crap after witnessing the glory of 1080i)

I just hope to have Monday Night Football in HD on TWC by next season.

[Gregg Lengling]

These negotiations between the stations and the cable operators are sometimes tedious and they don't usually release information until a deal is done.  However it has been stated on this forum by a person in the know that ABC (12) will be added to Warners package in the next month.  However the talks that have been going on for over 1/2 year with CBS58 haven't been as fruitful.

Part of this is due to Warner requiring the station to provide the programming via fiber nowadays.  This can lead to delays in getting the fiber installed.

As to ESPN-HD , you look in the news release section of this forum you will find in the last couple weeks I posted that they plan on turning it on in April of 2003, HOWEVER, you never know when someone is going to pick it up.  Case In Point, Discovery HD, the only outlet I've found for that is Dish Network and they charge an extra $10.00 a month for that.....Duh?

That's all for now...but remember this is rampup time and you'll be seeing more and more HD offerings and channels coming everyday.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[Pat]

I'd be interested in the economics of the relationship between a local station and a local cable company, especially for stations that cable need not "must carry."

In the past, when cable wasn't so ubiquitous, a local station gained no viewers by allowing its signal to be carried.  But there was not much cost, if any, to do so, so why not?  As time went on, the "must carry" rule came into being.

Today, most people have no antenna at all, I suppose, and if the station is not on cable, they won't get it.  Also, it seems the stations must pay to get carried -- not sure to what extent this is true, but apparently it is true for stations without "must carry."

HDTV could be a vehicle to compete (struggle) with cable more effectively, either by extracting a fee from cable, or by having exclusivity for a lot of desirable content.

The viewer is probably low on the priority list compared these kinds of considerations.

[Gregg Lengling]

Cable technology has changed over the years also.  The first cable system around here was in Hartford Wisconsin in the 60's and they and others got all their signal feeds off the air.  Nowadays they get most of the feeds via fiber, it was a pain for the Cable HeadEnd Engineers to clean up the signal and remove all ghosting and other problems.  You will notice nowadays even if an OTA station loses main power and their transmitter is off the air, the cable signal is still they, because usually the station control center is on back-up power.  I don't know of any station that has full backup power to enable their transmitter to stay on the air.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
HiDTV Pro 2 computer reciever card
glengling@ameritech.net

[Skipjack]

Thanks for the info, guys.  The reason I asked is because I was kicking around the idea of dropping my TWC HD box and possibly getting an OTA converter... until I saw the prices on the OTA's.. then I thought I might hang onto TWC's meager HD feed a little while longer.  

[btbowen1]

I'm a cable subscriber and I also own a Samsung OTA tuner. I personally think that the OTA tuner is better the anything TW offer right now. After watching HD OTA, I just can't watch overcompressed cable anymore. As a comparison, Every so often channel 10 will show the HD demo loop on OTA channel 10-1 and TW's 710 at the same time, a perfect opportunity to compare the two. Channel 710 looks good but channel 10-1 even look better. Channel 710 looks a little grainy and the colors are less vibrant. Even the SD programs look better OTA than on cable because the Samsung box upconvert SD to 480p.
THe Sopranos on HD HBO does look good but not better than some movies such as Saving Private Ryan did on channel 12.
I would worry TW might not give the local HD channels the bandwidth they need.

[ReesR]

btbowen1:

You have come to the same conclusions we have.  Adding Satellite to the mix, there is no contest.  HBO Showtime high def via satellite is better, not to mention HD-Net.

Nice to know you have reached the same conclusions about cable.

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Rees Roberts
Racine, WI
reesr@wi.net

HDTV Receiver:  Sony KD-34XBR2 16X9
Bi-directional AntennaCraft VHF Yagi Model #2260P
+
2 Winegard PR9022 UHF yagi's pointing N & S
Antennas at about 30 feet
Samsung SIR-TS160 HD Directv receiver