Chat Transcript for October 27, 2008

 moderator  Welcome to the monthly c-band chat. We would like to welcome your questions.
 Mike_Mountford  Hi everyone!
 wtkflhn  Mike. It looks like the troops are kinda thin this month!
 Mike_Mountford  It's the world of C-Band these days
 wtkflhn  Thakns for getting NFL fixed so fast!!
 Mike_Mountford  You're welcome
 4dtv  anything new with getting any channels?
 Mike_Mountford  Right now we're concentrating on getting the remaining analog channels onto digital and renewing contracts with many who are currently up there
 Lobo  What news about IPTV?
 Mike_Mountford  There is no new news with IPTV. We are investigating another possible single satellite solution for C-Band.
 Lobo  How are you going to handle baseball blackouts on TBS next season, because you said that you will re-uplink it?
 Mike_Mountford  I believe the folks in Atlanta will either control that or work with us to control it.
 4dtv  is that the HITS feeds using the Starchoice receivers?
 Mike_Mountford  Yes, that's what we're working on.
 wtkflhn  TBS has Blackouts? I thought those were national games.
 Mike_Mountford  I don't know for sure. Until we have to get into it, we won't know.
 4dtv  cool would be nice to aceess all the HITS channels on there few satellites.
 Lobo  Will the Turner networks be available in mini-packs? Or will they be available on an Ultimate Digital package only?
 Mike_Mountford  Depending upon the channel it'll probably be in most all of our digital packages.
 moderator  Are there any other questions from the room?
 4dtv  will the HITS feeds include the HD ones?
 Mike_Mountford  all the HD ones which a 4DTV receiver can get...which is not many, unfortunately.
 4dtv  I mean with a Starchoice clone box?
 Mike_Mountford  I don't know at this time.
 Lobo  Keep up with the good work at NPS.
 Mike_Mountford  Thank you. We're trying.
 4dtv  Try to push for getting allthe HITS feeds on all the birds this will keep C band alive and well into the future!
 Mike_Mountford  Okay! We are working on it!
 wtkflhn  Amen to that..
 4dtv  Great Mike
 Lobo  Do you know the posible locations for the analog channels that will go digital on new years day?
 Mike_Mountford  Are you asking for the transponder assignments for the digital channels?
 Lobo  Yes
 Mike_Mountford  I don't know the channel assignments, but the turner channels would be on our C3 satellite where our uplink channels are. As for the weather channel...I don't know.
 wtkflhn  I think cNN is in the HITS feeds on W5.
 Mike_Mountford  Well, if that's the case we won't need to uplink them...that would be great.
 4dtv  CNN is on a hits feed its megapipe though...
 Mike_Mountford  Megapipe won't work
 wtkflhn  They will have to be mapped for us. I did see CNN listed on the HITS website.
 12345  did you mean g3 to uplink them on
 Mike_Mountford  Yes, I meant G3
 wtkflhn  It's listed with other chanels we're getting. I don't think it's megapipe.
 Mike_Mountford  Well, I'll find out for certain.
 4dtv  quite a few HITS channels are out there although at least 40 to 50% are Megapipe.
 Mike_Mountford  Yes, I know. We won't limit ourselves just to the HITS channels. The C-Band user has always wanted the option of scanning the skies and we want to keep it that way.
 4dtv  It's a shame some companies wont sell us the C band Masters like Disney, Viacom and NBC Universal.
 Mike_Mountford  Just as a point of clarification, Viacom and NBC Cable have not withheld anything from C-Band that made sense to us.
 12345  will the new receiver be able to get megapipe feeds
 Mike_Mountford  We don't even know if there's a new receiver. In fact, probably not. If we do have a HITS solution it will probably be with a currrent receiver that they have.
 moderator  If there are no more questions from the room, we will wrap up for the day. Thank you for your participation.
 4dtv  Yes but Viacom turned off the MTV suite and the USA masters were never given to us.
 Mike_Mountford  I'm not sure what you mean by the USA Masters and we are still getting most of the MTV Suite along with several other programs from Viacom.

 

Excerpt from a private message chat:

[GHS]  Hi Mike. First off thanks for the fast work on getting NFL Network SD back of after it was off because of they swiched transponders; I would like to know did the ACC decide to stop the analog channels OR was it the programmers themselves?

[Mike_Mountford]  It was the ACC, but it would have happened anyhow.

[GHS]  Does that mean there will be NO analog at the current analog channel locations or will they still be broadcasting but us C-band subscribers can’t get them?

[Mike_Mountford]  I don’t believe that Turner will continue to broadcast analog channels which would leave only the weather channel and I’m not sure about their intentions.

[GHS]  Mike can you talk to the weather channel people and see if they will use the current analog location on C3 to do a digital SD and HD channels in split mode so that C-band can subscribe to the SD AND the HD.

[Mike_Mountford] It’s something I can ask them but I don’t’ think that our number of subs would make it economically viable for them.


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