| moderator | Welcome to the monthly c-band chat. We would like to welcome your questions. |
| johnnyglobal | I realize this may have been covered many times before, but I would like to know if there is any chance that we may see a new type of reciever that would allow us to get more channels in the near future? |
| mike_mountford | We have been working on this issue for a long time. Currently our prospects are not too bright. If there is a possibility of a movement, we will be on top of it. |
| mike_mountford | Right now we have to deal with what we've got and make the best of it. |
| moderator | Are there any other questions from the room? |
| mike_mountford | Well I guess it's a slow day. If no one else has a question, we are going to wrap it up for now. |
| mike_mountford | On a positive note, up through last Thursday, we had only lost 10 c-band subs since December 31st. |
| mike_mountford | We hope that you were able to follow the changes with the Turner Networks, CBS and ABC going from New York to Atlanta. |
| 4dtv | Where will the weather channel be located on C4 or G3? |
| mike_mountford | I don't know. The Weather Channel is doing their own uplink and we thought that we would have it on by now, but their lawyers and the lawyers from Motorola are still in discussions on the agreement. I will be following up on that this week. |
| johnnyglobal | I had read online that our friends in Canada use similar technology as the 4DTV and I was thinking along with a lot of other people, if there is a way to get motorola to make some boxes for us since they use update versions of what we have. |
| mike_mountford | We have explored that with Motorola and it was a dead end, I am sorry to say. |
| 4dtv | Any chance for Nicklodeon ever? |
| mike_mountford | I would never say never, however, all of our transponder space is full right now.In fact, it is so full that we are struggling with signal qualiry. I apologize for that and we have our technical team working on it "as we speak". |
| johnnyglobal | What about the weather channel? Any news? |
| mike_mountford | We have covered this. We are still working on it. |
| johnnyglobal | Are we going to be able to see any "West Coast Feeds?" |
| mike_mountford | Denver is the furthest west coast feed that we can currently provide. |
| moderator | [lowslowpilot] I don't recall much about ala carte programming, but would there ever be a chance to pick let's say 10 or 15 , maybe 20 to 25 channels and just have to pay for them, as I don't even watch a lot of what is included in the Absolute Digital Pack |
| mike_mountford | Unfortunately, no. By contractual arrangement with programmers, that is not allowed. |
| 4dtv | why did contracts change so much with digital? |
| mike_mountford | The contracts didn't change, it's just that the analog tierbits were shut down and we couldn't use them. |
| franklin | Hi Mike. |
| johnnyglobal | Any new channels on the horizon that you can tell us? Maybe an expected date? |
| mike_mountford | I don't see any new channels in the near future. However there is a cable show in May and things come out at that show. |
| 4dtv | so in theory alacarte would be possible if someone allowed the digital tier bit access |
| mike_mountford | No, alacarte would be possible if the programmer' s contracts allowed it. We do have some channels like that including WPIX and all of the network channels. There are a few others, but I can't think of them right now. |
| franklin | Just tuned in and must get used to chat (don't hit the enter button for new line. I have a campaign going and next entry is the text of it. Sorry so abrupt but it's my passion at this moment. I have been a satisfied customer of NPS for a long time and I do appreciate what you try to do for C-band. |
| franklin | My biggest campaign at the moment is trying to get someone to fix NPS's screwup with the SF networks (Pacific time zone) feeds. NPS purchased a transponder, put these feeds up to service Dish's qualified long distance network customers, as NPS can qualify those better than anyone in the business and saved Charlie's butt over that lawsuit. Dish and their customers are paying for that mux. However, the feeds are DVB with PowerVu encryption, when NPS should have put it on DCII, 4dtv compatible, and offered them to us as well. For blackouts just leave it at 11000 SR as it is now and the 920s with the blackout bypass would not receive those channels. So now the word is NPS is going to fiber distribution on those channels and NPS is going to drop that transponder, keeping us away from the SF networks and possibly a few extra channels that need blackout capability such as TBS. Are you willing to try to work this out for us, remembering that your comments about this matter are much the same as a vision for the futur |
| mike_mountford | This is a C-band chat and I appreciate your passion, but what we do for Distant Networks is a completely separate business and I don't want to go in to all the reasons why we do what we do for Distant Networks. We would have never put the San Francisco channels up for C-band as it would have been highly uneconomical. |
| 4dtv | who controls the tier bits comcast? |
| mike_mountford | Comcast controls the HITS tier bits. |
| johnnyglobal | That is what I was trying to get at with the "West Coast Feeds." I too, really appreciate what NPS does, but what about some of the channels I hear about that are in "Combo Mode" on AMC 10 (135 Degrees West) from NBCU? I read online that we might be able to use some of them, which include MSNBC, and that would also free up some space on G3. Any chance of doing that maybe? Just a question. |
| mike_mountford | I am not techical, so I don't know exactly what you are referring to. I do know that NBC uses Megapipe encryption which the 4DTV can't get. That's why we uplink MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and others. We wish we didn't have to. |
| franklin | But you did put the SF channels on satellite, Dishnet can convert DCII to his format, he's paying for the transponder already, and you can get more money from qualified C-band subscribers as a bonus. I agree if it was just for C-band subscribers it would not be economical, but think more like HBO and their G1 feeds. |
| mike_mountford | Franklin, we are going fiber on those and that's that. |
| 4dtv | The G1 mux from NBC U is in 4DTV mode with USA Sci Fi Sleuth and Oxygen. |
| mike_mountford | It's not in a 4dtv mode. We have worked with their engineers. I am not technical, but trust me on this. We wouldn't be uplinking those channels if the 4DTV could get them. |
| franklin | And that IMO is the future of C-band. Way to go Mike. |
| mike_mountford | Well I am sorry, Franklin. We have tried as hard as we can and we continue to try every day. We have got C-band this far and some would say that that is a miracle. Hang in there, baby. Even so, we are not going to have the west coast feeds. |
| mike_mountford | I want to thank you for participating today. I want you to remember that we are working hard for C-band every day. It's not easy. The numbers are down, therefor the leverage is not what it used to be. Hang in there, add customers, and maybe we can get this thing moving in the right direction again. |
| moderator | That's all the time we have today. Thanks for joining us today. |
| johnnyglobal | Mike I appreciate you and your wonderful staff. Really I do. I just had to hear (read) it from you. Thank you |