Will Verizon Be Santa or Scrooge this XMas with new HD Channels?

[charliewatts]

It's Christmas.  Hannukah.  Kwanza.  Festivus (12/23).

What's it going to be Verizon?  Gifts under the tree ... or coal in the stocking?

BBCAmerica HD?

Ovation HD?

TV Land HD?

Cartoon HD?

OWN HD?

Cooking Channel HD?

HLN HD?

CurrentTV HD?

[film111]

You left out FearNet HD. The answer is...none of the above!  But you can expect...(wait for it)....MORE sports!   And even those won't be until after Xmas.

[charliewatts]

What other Sports channels are even left?  GOL HD, I think.

BBCAmerica HD should be a priority.

[TomSal]

I'm tired of asking.  My kids ask all the time.  Sad thing is that crap cable like RCN has most of them and Tivo.  Sad very SAD

[prisaz]

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@film11 wrote:

You left out FearNet HD. The answer is...none of the above!  But you can expect...(wait for it)....MORE sports!   And even those won't be until after Xmas.

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IF THEY ADD MORE SPORTS, IT SHOULD BE A WHOLE DIFFERENT PACKAGE! Even for NY! Yes I was yelling!

Cut my costs and take me back to the good old days. Let me have ultimate without sports. Oh wait, that used to be Extreme pre 20??

[celticpride1]

I'm actually seriously considering switching back to directv because verizon doesnt carry all  the regional sports networks inHD like directv does. I never realized how much i would miss comcast sports new england! that and the fact that verizon does not show all the nba league pass games in HD!!!

[prisaz]

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@celticpride wrote:

I'm actually seriously considering switching back to directv because verizon doesnt carry all  the regional sports networks inHD like directv does. I never realized how much i would miss comcast sports new england! that and the fact that verizon does not show all the nba league pass games in HD!!!

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Yes I realize there are many fans out there. If they would include all non premium channels in the extreme bundle, then have ultimate, and ultimate sports, or just a Sports bundle that had everything sports, I believe people would be much happier. Sports used to be seperate for everyone but NY. If the sports bundle included everything sports and it was at a decent price, I don't think people would mind paying. You know Extreme and pay extra for Sports like it used to be. NY used to have sports included in thier Extreme as part of the franchise agreement I believe.

But problem is Verizon is out about of space on the fiber network. Unless they get rid of all the old STBs and DVRs and go mpeg4 where they may get room for a few more channels. Verizon used to add no additional compression on thier feed, which gives you the best available HD picture as it comes from the provider. The drawback is you can only fit so much in the standard bandwidth allocated for QAM. I know of a few channels that the provider now adds compression before they send it to Verizon, is that Verizons request? Your guess is as good as mine. If you figure mpeg4 takes less bandwidth, one could say that if it is converted to mpeg3 at the same size, you are not adding compression, but the provider is compressing it. To the best of my knowledge Verizon would take mpeg4 and convert it to mpeg3 and allow the required bandwith to grow with the less efficient format. Now is it still done that way?

I believe as Verizon adds lower cost more energy efficient STBs to thier customer base, and gets rid of all their older 6xxx and 7100 P1 series hardware, we will get more channels. The hardware shown on youtube. The old hardware is not capable of new technologies required to provide all content available. I seem to remember DTV going though the same pains with their satelite dishes and STB/DVR hardware. I know they compress the bleep out of the feed. Not to mention sidnal degradation on the downlink.

[charliewatts]

Nothing under the tree???

[Keyboards]

I believe Ebeneezer is alive and well and running Verizon FiOS HD additions.  They need to bite the bullet and retire the old 6xxx hardware (just like they did with the SD only 2500s - well almost, they no longer offer them).  All the 7xxx and Cisco boxes support MPEG4.

Currently for other than the primary feed for each of the premiums the rest of the premium channels are received by Verizon in MPEG4 and have to be trans-coded to MPEG2 for distribution - a waste of bandwidth and added equipment expense for Verizon.

If FiOS is going to stay with the 860 MHz QAM limitation they have several choices to stay competitive (and one of them I don't consider a choice):

1. Go to a full MPEG4 system - efficiency of the algorithm allows same quality signal in less bandwidth (more HD channels per QAM channel than the current 2 that MPEG2 in most cases requires).
2. Swap out any remaining SD only boxes (and that would include the DCT-700 digiatal adapters) for HD boxes and drop any duplicated SD / HD channels carrying only the HD version (the HD boxes all support SD TV sets).
3. Add new channels via IP (in essence making the channel On-Demand)
4. ABSOLUTE WRONG CHOICE - Stick with MPEG2 and do ala Comca$t by adding additional compression to the feed and putting more channels per QAM.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now and wait for the 3 ghosts to appear (actually 4 if you count Jacob)

[charliewatts]

Coal.  Nothing but coal.

I hoped for some new HD channels.