| moderator | Welcome to today's C-band chat with Mike Mountford. We would like to welcome your questions. |
| tek303 | Whats up with the HITS move to AMC-18 |
| mike_mountford | Hello - We don't really know. That's an internal hits thing. The good consequence of this action should be that more of our customers will be able to receive Hits channels because they're going to be in Cband and not KU band |
| mike_mountford | Well since no one is asking a question at this time, let's talk about IPTV. |
| mike_mountford | I had a conference call with the manufacturer of the receivers and the providers of the conditional access system last week and it went pretty well. Of course, the next step won |
| mike_mountford | won't happen as fast as we all would like. |
| mike_mountford | The next step is that the receiver manufacturer is going to make a few modifications on the receiver so that it will work with the IPTV Avail platform. |
| mike_mountford | If I were an engineer I could tell you more specifically about what those mods are, however, that one is over my head. |
| tek303 | Time frame on Rollout of IPTV |
| mike_mountford | I wish I knew and could give you a timeframe. If the modifications to the receiver go well, I assume there will be a production time for the receivers. We will have to marry the CA and get it all uplinked. Just my guess, but probably no quicker than mid to late summer. |
| mike_mountford | Please do not hold me to that... |
| mike_mountford | However, if it goes beyond the end of this year. I think we will know it won't work by that time. |
| mike_mountford | Right now I'm confident we will have something, I'm just gun-shy about predicting when. |
| tek303 | Will NPS abandon 4dtv when IPTV becomes a reality? |
| mike_mountford | Absolutely not! |
| mike_mountford | Our plan is to sell the IPTV along side 4dtv as a way of increasing the amount of channels and adding HD channels. |
| mike_mountford | Our thought is that a consumer will have both 4dtv and IPTV receivers on input 1 and input 2 to his TV. |
| DRLev | Any idea when Mot will map C-Band satellite for AMC-18? |
| mike_mountford | No I have not discussed that with them. |
| mike_mountford | I'm sure they will do it before the current HITS channels are taken down. |
| lonhilliker | do you think there will come a time when c band will not be? |
| mike_mountford | It all depends on how you define Cband. The Avail IPTV platform utilizes Cband satellites for transmission. So, in that sense I don't think so. |
| mike_mountford | However, if you're talking about signals that are received by a 4dtv receiver that is different, but again I don't see how they can totally go away when HITS is using it. |
| wolfman | The guide is all messed up, what is the latest on the Canadan sat interference, can we shoot down the sattelite or what ? |
| mike_mountford | We just lol'ed |
| mike_mountford | I hadn't heard about the guide being messed up, but I will try to find out more. |
| tek303 | howabout using a starchoice reciever for doing megapipe the new ones do Im told. |
| mike_mountford | We had looked into this a couple of years ago and got nowhere with either Motorola (who makes the receiver) or Starchoice. I don't exactly remember why, but I think it's because Starchoice uses a proprietary encryption system. |
| wolfman | thanks |
| cowboy | Any news on WGN ? |
| mike_mountford | No, they have not called me back. I have tried a couple of times, and I will try again. |
| dabec | with the hits move to c band will that change what is uplinked by nps on g3 like tvland |
| mike_mountford | If it's going to be on HITS, then we will take down our uplink on that channel and use it for other channels. |
| Kathy Morgan | do we need new digital TV for Cband |
| mike_mountford | No, not for Cband. However, you will need a digital tuner for your local off-air channels which have never come through the 4dtv receiver. You will still continue to receive the distant networks out of Atlanta, New York, and Denver if you have subscribed to them in the past. |
| scottiedo | is comedy centrol a active channel on g3 |
| mike_mountford | Yes, we turned it up last week I believe. We also fixed the problems with WPIX and that is on the air again. Thanks for asking - I almost forgot to say that! |
| cowboy | Is there any hope for Golf Channel this spring? |
| mike_mountford | There should be. I met with their reps - they visited me here in Indianapolis, they said everything should go smoothly and that was before Christmas. I followed up in January and basically they said the same thing and blamed the delay on their lawyers being busy with bigger deals. |
| mike_mountford | I hear that a lot lately. I guess we're just not a big deal... |
| lewand | Mike, could you please provide a little more detail on what IPTV is? I have a rough idea, but would like to hear your vision of the service. |
| mike_mountford | IPTV is just a transport mechanism, similar to HITS. They use Cband so their signal is actually collected in your Cband dish and amplified by your LNB and sent into your 4DTV receiver along with all the other signals. However, that is where the IPTV signal stops since the 4DTV receiver can not decode that signal. Our vision is to make available an alternative receiver that understands those IPTV signals and decodes them so that you can see them on your TV. |
| mike_mountford | I know the engineers would shoot me for that description, but that's my layman's way of understanding it. |
| DRLev | I reloaded the guide less than an hour ago with no problems. |
| mike_mountford | Great! Guide problems appear to be fixed. |
| lonhilliker | what is HITS you are speaking of? |
| mike_mountford | HITS is a service of Comcast that they send channels out and the 4DTV can receive them so we use this service for channels that are not available otherwise in a 4DTV format. |
| moderator | Do we have any other questions from the room? |
| mike_mountford | Thank you for joining us and we'll look forward to getting back to our regular schedule on February 18th. Hopefully I'll have some more updates on IPTV and channels. |
| cowboy | |
| jcp | |
| jcp |