# HDNet Channel 79 Unavailable 6AM - 6:30 PM ET 09/17 & 09/24



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

Heads-up ...

In order to make room for NLF-ST in HD, DirecTV has had to turn off several channels on Sunday. Last week, DirecTV turned off PPV and TNT-HD, but this Sunday (09/17) DirecTV *turned off HDNet* from 6 AM to 6:30 PM ET. The channel will again be unavailable next week, Sunday 9/24.

I called to ask if any other HD channels could be turned off without advance notice, and the CSR said only TNT-HD and HDNet were mentioned. I inquired if DirecTV had any plans to announce this on their web site or to send emails to the HD Package subscribers, and she said she would forward that as a suggestion.

I then asked if DirecTV would be pro-rating the HD package price for dropping the HDNet channel for the two Sundays, expecting a one-time $1 discount, but instead for my inconvenience I am getting $5 off for 6 months!


----------



## rbitting (Oct 4, 2002)

I wonder if this is even legal. How can they charge for a package of channels and remove them at will so they can use the bandwidth for other money making entertainment. Then the ones who know something is up and call to complain get a credit to shut them up. Just seems wrong to me. DirecTV is going downhill in my opinion.


----------



## jimborst (Aug 30, 2001)

I've had DishNetwork for a long time but if they started turning channels off to allocate more to sports, I would not be happy. I know I don't have the ability to subscribe to Sunday Ticket , but at least they have never pulled this kind of thing.


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

rbitting said:


> I wonder if this is even legal. How can they charge for a package of channels and remove them at will so they can use the bandwidth for other money making entertainment.


I'm normally against jumping into taking legal action for every little thing. However, I think you bring up a very valid point. Taking a service away without giving a credit so that you can re-sell it sounds highly illegal. It's like a car rental place taking your rented car back for a day without your permission or compensation so that they can rent it to someone else just because they don't have any more on the lot.


----------



## broken back (Nov 30, 2004)

They are giving me Bull and saying its Tech problems.
I do not think so.
Will not pro rate bill. Even its it is Tech , still should be prorated for a channel I pay for.


----------



## TomK (May 22, 2001)

How can it be technical problems if it's already scheduled to happen next weekend too? Ask for a supervisor...that may help. It will at least make sure that Directv knows about it.


----------



## MisterEd (Jun 6, 2001)

They'll give you $5 off for 6 months even if you call them and tell them you don't like the color of their receivers. That's free hush money for the CSRs to give away. 


drew2k said:


> I then asked if DirecTV would be pro-rating the HD package price for dropping the HDNet channel for the two Sundays, expecting a one-time $1 discount, but instead for my inconvenience I am getting $5 off for 6 months!


----------



## Philly Bill (Oct 6, 2004)

LOL. This is a repeat of last weeks 'WHAT they turned of TNT-HD???? How am I going to watch the race?' thread...

Only a lot less people care.


----------



## nelsonrl (Jan 7, 2005)

I think this practice is insane. I sent an email to directv tonight complaining and will call tomorrow. Taking away channels I am paying for so they can sell the bandwidth to someone else? 

This is getting VERY close to the final straw


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I sent another email to those ***holes. They are really on the verge of pushing me to cable.


----------



## CessnaDriver (Oct 25, 2003)

Yeah, we are mad here too.

I am not certain I would have watched anything on HDNet today, but its the principle of it all.

I wonder if Mark Cuban knows this happened? I am going to send him an email tomorrow for the heck of it -- right after I call D**


----------



## barracuda3443 (Feb 15, 2004)

CessnaDriver said:


> I am not certain I would have watched anything on HDNet today, but its the principle of it all.
> 
> I wonder if Mark Cuban knows this happened? I am going to send him an email tomorrow for the heck of it -- right after I call D**


That was exactly my 1st thought, I wonder if Cuban knows about this? I'm no Cuban fan, but I can't imagine him being thrilled about this & I bet his email box if full tomorrow morning about it.

I'm a ST subscriber, but D* needs to get their act together. This is wrong on every level.


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Just shut down ALL of the PPV channels! At least they wouldn't be screwing customers that have paid for service already.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Sigh.

I am SURE Mark Cuban knows about it. He probably even volunteered, knowing that it was better overall for HD that people who want HD for Nascar and the NFL are getting it while HDnet stuff is rerun multiple times a week.

As for the legality, last week the user agreement was posted and, yes, it is legal. They can pull stations for any reason.

Finally, I asked this last week and got no reply. Any of you complainers subcribers to Sirius? They pull stations all the time.

And cable companies did it for years when they had limited bandwidth. They would "share" stations.

The only thing D* did wrong is that they should announce this far more in advance. So, put a little asterisk on the webpage and they are fine.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

They have shutdown MOST of the PPVS... and the Mix Channels and the Active channels.

If you have been around the forums at all the last 5 days.... It has been posted NUMEROUS times that HDNET was going down today and next week... so that NASCAR via TNT-HD can be aired.


Here is a solution.
Turn TNT-HD off for the next 18 weeks (till football season is over)... and I don't just mean on Sundays... All week... 

I mean... they added TNT-HD to the hd package, and then LOWER the price of the package by a $1... So let's just pull it off...

What did you miss today on HDNET ? Seriously... a repeate of a show from teh 60's ?
Or the music video concerts that play three-four times a week...

So call... ask for your $0.03 credit on your account (the calculated fraction of your $9.99 HD package... if you are evening paying full price for it), that you didn't "receive"


Seriously... we went through this crap last week.... 
It was posted all over the internet about the bandwith shortage...

So yah know what? If you don't like it...
Sell your HR10-250 or any of your other receivers... argue to get out of your contract... 
And switch to a different carrier/provider....

Very simple.

And to all those that think they should start a lawsuit.... call a class action attorney...
In about 3-4 years... the "affected" customers may get about a $0.20 credit, probably a $1.00 for the easy of billing...

As you are really not getting $0.015 per 8 hour block in the HD package.

Welcome to the reality of the bandwith crunch.

You figure 10 people that pay the extra for Superfan in HD... at $100 a pop.
$1000 revenue, will probably pay for all the credits they dished out to people... (just a guess).... but you can figure where I am going.

So I hope the "time" you spent on the phone, or drafting a letter or an email... today...
Was worth the $0.20 ... You could have used that time to watch HDMovies or Universal, or Discovery...... or heck even the NASCAR in HD... Or one of the counteless other channels you "weren't" watching today.

There is no perfect solution to the problem. But hell.... In the bigger picture... I too would have chosen to have the LIVE NASCAR-TNT event aired, instead of Hogans Heros.

And if you don't think HDNet was consulted before making the decision..........
Just like if you think TNT didn't know they where going to be shutdown..........


----------



## barracuda3443 (Feb 15, 2004)

They shouldn't have to shut down a single channel, they should have the bandwidth they need. I don't give a crap about HDNet, but if it's part of the package, it should be there. I don't care if it's been discussed here for a week, I don't care if D* personnally called every HD subscriber and told them 5 days in advance. The point isn't which channels they are turning off, *it's that they have to turn them off to begin with.*

Earl, just because there is a "bandwidth crunch" doesn't make it right. And. I agree, a class action isn't going to happen or even be worth the effort, but that doesn't discount the fact that many subs have a problem with their actions & they need to be called on it. I'm sure their belief is that "Joe Sub" isn't smart enough to care, that doesn't make it right either.


----------



## Runch Machine (Feb 7, 2002)

Earls's right and the rest of you people should get a life. With all due respect, there is limited band width on both satellite and cable. I'd rather have extra HD channels most of the time and lose one now and then then not have a given channel at all. As to those of you who want an adjustment, are you really going to get this upset over a few cents of lost value. The HD package costs $10 for the package. One channel being out for a few hours is worth pennies. 

I support the decision Directv made in regard to pulling HDNET. Now, if you want to get me going on Directv, ask me how frusterated I am that they are no longer selling any HD Tivo DVRs.


----------



## old7 (Aug 7, 2002)

I want more HD football. I can think of a few more channels they can get rid of on Sundays...


----------



## markrubi (Jan 27, 2006)

I am glad to see that HDNET is taking one for the team instead of TNT-HD. I watch more TNT than HDNET. This is most likely a temporary problem until everyone is on the new mpeg4 stuff.


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

If it's any consolation to all you p*ssed-off people, the HD football games looked pretty darn good today!


----------



## nelsonrl (Jan 7, 2005)

ebonovic said:


> They have shutdown MOST of the PPVS... and the Mix Channels and the Active channels.
> 
> If you have been around the forums at all the last 5 days.... It has been posted NUMEROUS times that HDNET was going down today and next week... so that NASCAR via TNT-HD can be aired.
> 
> ...


I did not spend as much time on my note as you did in your reply. Guess when you feel strongly about something it is more important to be heard than worry about the monetary value you would expect or the time you spent crafting your note. I do not expect nor am I asking DirecTV for a discount - I just want them to know I am extremely unhappy with the way they are making decisions right now.
I really do not think they can mount a valid moral defense to what they are doing to their long time subscribers.


----------



## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

What I'm about to say is moot.

DirecTV wouldn't be in this situaltion if they weren't forced to provide every local in the country to their respective locales. I'll say it again. Except to protect the ad revenue for locals, why on earth with today's technology do we need 210 versions of the networks? And now we're going for the HD ones. 

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

ebonovic said:


> What did you miss today on HDNET ? Seriously... a repeate of a show from teh 60's ?
> Or the music video concerts that play three-four times a week...


And what would a football fan miss if they left their HD channels intact and just DIDN'T show a game or 2 in HD? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because the game is still available in SD.

It goes both ways. What Directv is doing is wrong, plain and simple. If they don't have the space to be offering these types of things(which it's obvious they don't), then they shouldn't be offering them, until they do get the space and not have to penalize the rest of their (HD) customers.



Runch Machine said:


> Earls's right and the rest of you people should get a life. With all due respect, there is limited band width on both satellite and cable. I'd rather have extra HD channels most of the time and lose one now and then then not have a given channel at all. As to those of you who want an adjustment, are you really going to get this upset over a few cents of lost value. The HD package costs $10 for the package. One channel being out for a few hours is worth pennies.
> 
> I support the decision Directv made in regard to pulling HDNET. Now, if you want to get me going on Directv, ask me how frusterated I am that they are no longer selling any HD Tivo DVRs.


Then how about this, lets drops a few games next week from the HD Sunday Ticket, so people can watch their HDNet and TNT-HD. Hey, there's a bandwidth crunch so every has got to suck it up, right? If this did happen, I bet you'd be PO'd when your favorite game isn't in HD next week, even tho you paid money for the HD games.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

markrubi said:


> I am glad to see that HDNET is taking one for the team instead of TNT-HD. I watch more TNT than HDNET. This is most likely a temporary problem until everyone is on the new mpeg4 stuff.


I watch more HDNet than TNT-HD. Everyones viewing tastes are different. Everyone doesn't watch football all day on Sunday or NASCAR. If I wnat to watch Hogans Heroes or Jake 2.0(which I did want to watch) is my decision. It shouldn't be DirecTVs.
With the Series 3 available the main thing holding me back from going to cable is actually HDNet/HDNet Movies.


----------



## willardcpa (Feb 23, 2001)

ebonovic said:


> .... If you don't like it...
> Sell your HR10-250...........


That's not a very viable option. I know this one guy who was trying to sell his a week or so ago and wasn't getting any takers.


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

To all those people *****ing at the people *****ing about losing a channel .... why? 

You don't think people have a right to be upset that they are not getting what they paid for? Or they don't have a right to feel they deserve at least courtesy notification from DirecTV that specific channels will be pre-empted on such-and-such date? 

Forget the money argument - that's irrelevant. Do you think the football fan is any more deserving to watch their content than someone else whose channel was cut off? 

Sorry, folks, but everyone is entitled to their beliefs and feelings. The TNT-HD fans were pissed off last week, a different group is pissed off this week. Next week it could be an entirely different group. You don't like reading "this crap" about people being pissed off? Then SKIP OVER THE THREAD! I'm tired of people thinking their way is the right way or the only way. How is it even remotely constructive to post that if you don't like that channels are pre-empted you should turn around and sell your HR10-250? Sounds like some pent-up frustration, if you ask me. 

By the way, I'm sure there will be quite a few smart-ass "yes" answers to my questions, so have fun answering. Karma will get you...


----------



## moonman (Jul 21, 2004)

First off let me say that I e-mailed Mark Cuban and the President of Programming @ HDNet
last Thursday, when I became aware the HDNet was going to "take one" for it. They have not at this hour, answered the e-mails, so they are aware of it. Let me
say that I have a more perplexing and pressing problem with what D* is doing by taking
the bandwidth...The first week of NFL Ticket, when they pulled TNTHD, I was not able to
see any of the H/D games(Superfan) on my RCA 3810 TV which has a built in D* receiver
(a RCA DTC-100)..my Tivo received them fine. Called D* and they had me jumping thru
all the hoops...unplug this; re-set that, re-hit card etc...nothing worked...sorry jack.
Several hours later after they said they would escalate it, the H/D channels returned.
Week2...pulled HDNet...slide said back by 6:30PM...Still not back for me...still no joy...
now TNTHD after one more week by HDNet will be gone for the rest of the football
season...It is obvious to me that D* is doing something, that is only harming the DTC-100
RCA receivers. If they pick on any other one's to pull, I may not have any channels in my
H/D pak.....


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

drew2k said:


> To all those people *****ing at the people *****ing about losing a channel .... why?


Because some of us feel that it's totally ridiculous that people are threatening lawsuits over a TV station that they probably weren't even going to watch not being available for a few hours.


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

ebonovic said:


> So yah know what? If you don't like it...
> Sell your HR10-250 or any of your other receivers... argue to get out of your contract...
> And switch to a different carrier/provider....


I think DirecTV should save money by firing you. You're getting to be a really annoying shill for them.


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> If I wnat to watch Hogans Heroes or Jake 2.0(which I did want to watch) is my decision. It shouldn't be DirecTVs.


My wife and I have actually gotten in the habit of watching Hogan's Heroes on HDnet. It looks amazing all widescreen and remastered, and it's still funny as hell. Today we were trying to figure out why there weren't any episodes on the TiVo.

DirecTV sucks.


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

Howie said:


> Because some of us feel that it's totally ridiculous that people are threatening lawsuits over a TV station that they probably weren't even going to watch not being available for a few hours.


Not everyone who has posted in this thread has threatend lawsuits. I for one also think the lawsuit talk is ridiculous, but more than likely, the threat of a lawsuit will be just that - only a threat.


----------



## BillyT2002 (Oct 19, 2002)

All I can say is - if the Sci-Fi channel or Discovery-HD go dark for football - I'm as good as gone - on that very day. And, I'll never look back.


----------



## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

BillyT2002 said:


> All I can say is - if the Sci-Fi channel or Discovery-HD go dark for football - I'm as good as gone - on that very day. And, I'll never look back.


I think Sci-Fi is pretty safe, being there is no HD available.

Discovery-HD on the other hand.



phox


----------



## az_double_eagle (Aug 14, 2006)

I agree with *drew2k*.

The problem is the fact that they are blacking out bandwidth on ANY of the HD package channels without alerting the customers at all.

I switched to not receiving a paper bill recently, and they e-mail me to say that my "bill is ready for viewing". Why couldn't they have e-mailed (or even snail mailed) all of the people who pay for the HD package (can you say database query <well, maybe not, they probably use Siebel for the CSR interface  >) to say what was going to happen? Seems like they have some e-mail type technology that works (sort-of).

For me, it's not TNTHD, HDN, or even the lame-o UHD. It's the fact that I pay for these channels at a premium level, and they should be there 24/7 unless one of those free bolts from the International Space Station space walk hits one the D* birds.

If you (D*) are going to jack with the bandwidth on the HD package channels, then stop charging us for it at all.

Whew, I feel better.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Arcady said:


> I think DirecTV should save money by firing you. You're getting to be a really annoying shill for them.


Hmm... they wouldn't be saving a dime, since I don't get paid anything.......
'wish I did, as it feels like I work an extra 60 fraking hours a week in these forums...

Where I am getting tired with this shill sh*t is this......

Why do you all insit that I am a shill? Because I write a point of view that simply points out some rational (usually), explanaitions of why things are the way they are?

Because I say and writing things in a manner then tend to work with in the decision that DirecTV has done?

Oh wait... is it because for the last 9-12 months I have posted information that has panned out to be right?

or is it just because I don't spout out every other post... Kiss TiVo, Inc's ass they can't do no wrong, and anything DirecTV does must be wrong...

Well guess what....... if you would take a step back, study an ECON101, CS101, and TECH101 course... you will find that is only so much bandwith to go around, customers dropping $350+ for 18 Sunday's of extra coverage of footbal signficant out weights credits and the "few" people upset that a few hours of re-runs (HDNET) or UpConverts (TNT-HD) make a lot more business sense....

Yes, DirecTV needs to work on the communication with their customers... and I don't think anyone disagrees with that... but looking over the last year... they have taken strides in that way... be it through this forum, dbstalk, their own forums... their redesigned website, the press releases.... Is it where it needs to be ... no

So before you go throwing out the "shut the frack up shill", look in the mirror... and make sure you don't see a shill in the reflection.....

And if you don't like what I am writing.... I am not a Mod here... so the ignore button works pretty well... Here is the link: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/profile.php?do=editlist

And the user id is: ebonovic


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

willardcpa said:


> That's not a very viable option. I know this one guy who was trying to sell his a week or so ago and wasn't getting any takers.


yah I know..

Gues the beloved, perfect, TiVo powered HR10-250, doesn't have any value at all...... guess there are other things out there people are intrested in...


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

drew2k said:


> To all those people *****ing at the people *****ing about losing a channel .... why?
> 
> You don't think people have a right to be upset that they are not getting what they paid for? Or they don't have a right to feel they deserve at least courtesy notification from DirecTV that specific channels will be pre-empted on such-and-such date?
> 
> ...


Your right... it is some pent up frustration...
As I sit and read, and answer, and read, and answer, and read and answer the same frakign threads over and over and over.

I hate DirecTV.... They suck... We should sue.... This POS X,Y,Z...
Yes, it gets EXTREMELY frustrating....... and I have tried to keep a level head... but hey.......

We went through this last week... and you know what...... same reasons as last week. bandwith.

Is football more important then re-runs of Hogan's Heros...... well... actuall in this country... SPORTS drives a lot of $$$... and Footbal being the #1 viewed sport in the US... yah... from a $$$ it is...

There is no perfect solution.... but there had to be a solution... so they took the one with the least "costs" involved in it... they got the NASCAR up there, and the Football....

So why do I post complaining about those that post....
Well when someone who DOESN'T frequent the forums, may come in here tonight. or tomorrow, or it hits the Google Search.... and all they will see is the negatives, or one side of the picture... And while it isn't my "job", to a degree... I try, and try hard to at least have the other half of the discussion out there....

Do I think people should be upset for not getting something they paid for... certaintly... but get upset over $0.015 of what they have paid for? Is it fair for a die-hard Hogan's Hero fan? No... But bottom line, it is... and always will be about $$$$$$$$

Why do I say box up the HR10-250 and sell it... well if DirecTV is this bad, and can't care about their "customers"... then look for a provider out there that has 100% satisfacton with 100% satisfaction of their customers........ And I'll show you a company that has 1 customer.

Lately... DirecTV does everything wrong, TiVo can't do anything wrong, Dish is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and FIOS is the savior product that most parts of this country won't see for a decade or two.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

nelsonrl said:


> I did not spend as much time on my note as you did in your reply. Guess when you feel strongly about something it is more important to be heard than worry about the monetary value you would expect or the time you spent crafting your note. I do not expect nor am I asking DirecTV for a discount - I just want them to know I am extremely unhappy with the way they are making decisions right now.
> I really do not think they can mount a valid moral defense to what they are doing to their long time subscribers.


 Side effect of being able to type 125+ words a minute... a lot can come out in a very short period of time...

But see that is where I look at it differently... are they picking on you... nelsonrl individually... no..... you where the casualty of a decision (that had to be made), that regardless which direction it went... some customer wasn't going to be happy...

Should communication could have been better... most certainly.
But what is being forgotton, is that communication from these forums (TCF, DBSTalk, AVS, Forums.DTV, SatGuys), and phone calls from last week... is what got NASCAR on this week.


----------



## xsirenonthe101x (Jul 10, 2006)

Earl has a great point. strictly looking from a business view, D* makes the big bucks on the football package, and I don't think they figured the few people that did, would notice this. It's kinda wrong that they did this, but if you complain enough, you should be able to get something outta it.

I wasnt watching any game, or any HDNet or anything really the past two weekends.

But if D* is dishing out credits, (no matter how small) to hush hush this issue, you bet your A** that i'm first in line..

....5 dollar credit for 6 months means I get a receiver in the basement, free for 6 months!


----------



## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

ebonovic said:


> Why do you all insit that I am a shill? Because I write a point of view that simply points out some rational (usually), explanaitions of why things are the way they are?


Nope. Because no matter how badly DirecTV screws something up, you are always ready with a new excuse for them.

I don't care if they are out of bandwidth. How many satellites do they have now? 5 or 6? And they can't find the space for all the channels they advertise? Why didn't they put the new HD sports stuff on a new satellite last year when they added it? They could have required a new box along with "superfan hd" or whatever it is called. Or they could move some local channels to another satellite other than 101, 110, and 119.

The picture quality has been declining steadily for years, but they weren't pulling these antics like removing whole channels from for-pay packages in the past.

The whole reason I got DirecTV in the first place was because it had a vastly superior picture to cable, the channel numbers stayed the same no matter where I moved, and they had content I couldn't get on cable. The later addition of DVR's that recorded the digital stream were plain brilliant. Guess what? I don't care about channel numbers any more, since I watch everything pre-recorded by my DVR, the picture quality is horrendous compared to digital cable, and they have virtually no extra content compared to cable (and what they do have is shut off for fracking sports, which I care nothing about.)

Yes, I do like TiVo better than D*'s DVR. TiVo also does things that are annoying (like no MRV on the S3, etc.) But I don't sit around on here coming up with excuses for every mistake TiVo makes. When someone comes on here trying to sing the praises of a company, no matter how much they screw over their customers, they will be seen as a shill.

I still don't see why D* can't continue to offer a TiVo as a premium device, along with their own units. I have that choice on cable. I also don't see why they can't manage to offer all of their channels in full quality with 5 times the number satellites they had ten years ago, without having ten times the channels.

As far as leaving D*, I'm afraid that the lack of features on the S3, plus the fact that I have TWC in this area (with the SDV fears) makes me stuck with D* for the time being. But if the MRV and SDV issues get solved, I'm gone.

My HR10-250 will make a nice media player to transfer video onto from my computer. The rest of my Dtivo's will be snapped up on ebay by people who are avoiding the DTV DVR's like the plague.


----------



## kbohip (Dec 30, 2003)

ebonovic said:


> Well guess what....... if you would take a step back, study an ECON101, CS101, and TECH101 course... you will find that is only so much bandwith to go around, customers dropping $350+ for 18 Sunday's of extra coverage of footbal signficant out weights credits and the "few" people upset that a few hours of re-runs (HDNET) or UpConverts (TNT-HD) make a lot more business sense....


I see what you're saying Earl, the fact that some Directv customers pay more for certain services like Sunday Ticket means that other lesser paying customers shouldn't complain when a channel they like to watch gets pulled for a while because Directv doesn't have enough bandwidth. This kind of screwing the regular customers is fine, as long as there's not competition from Dish Network that offers WAY more HD content and doesn't seem to have to resort to pulling channels because of piss poor planning. Is Directv run by the U.S. Senate?

I really hope for Directv's sake they get those MPEG4 sats up quickly, because if this channel pulling bs goes on for too much longer, they'll start losing customers. I guess they don't care though as long as it's not Sunday Ticket customers.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

kbohip said:


> I see what you're saying Earl, the fact that some Directv customers pay more for certain services like Sunday Ticket means that other lesser paying customers shouldn't complain when a channel they like to watch gets pulled for a while because Directv doesn't have enough bandwidth. This kind of screwing the regular customers is fine, as long as there's not competition from Dish Network that offers WAY more HD content and doesn't seem to have to resort to pulling channels because of piss poor planning. Is Directv run by the U.S. Senate?
> 
> I really hope for Directv's sake they get those MPEG4 sats up quickly, because if this channel pulling bs goes on for too much longer, they'll start losing customers. I guess they don't care though as long as it's not Sunday Ticket customers.


No... that isn't what I am saying..

You have all the right in the world to complain... and if the 30 minutes or so on the phone is worth the time... go right ahead.

What I am saying is that when they throw all the options up on the board...
The Sunday Ticket $$$ is a major factor in the decision making.

The MPEG-4 Sats are set for Late Q1 Early Q2 in 2007, the second being around Q3. I would almost bet that next season... Sunday Ticket-HD is MPEG-4

With that...
Earl has left teh building, they keys and the remote to garage up on the counter.


----------



## ayrton911 (Sep 4, 2000)

What's worst, I keep losing my season passes, when DirecTV pulls TNT-HD or HD Net. Shows that were to record, when they get pulled, stop recording even in future days.


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> As for the legality, last week the user agreement was posted and, yes, it is legal. They can pull stations for any reason.


Umm... Just because a company posts something in their user agreement does not make it legal. If that was the case, we would not have contract lawyers and contract dispute lawsuits.

Now, I'm not advocating a lawsuit (yet), but I don't think that re-selling the bandwidth would hold up in court. It's one thing to pull a channel to replace it with another in the *same* package. But to sell it under a *different* package is just not right and IMO not legal.


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I didn't lose my HDNet season passes after yesterday.


----------



## nelsonrl (Jan 7, 2005)

Is this an emotional issue? Of course it is. In my mind, DirecTV simply does not have the technology for HD. Not enough bandwidth, compressed signals and unreliable receivers (replacing my third 250 this week with what appears to be disk failure) and as a result they play a bit of a shell game. Before someone recommends taking the drive and checking it - I only have laptops at home, and quite honestly feel that if DirecTV thinks that is a requirement to keep these running, then they should add a keyboard port.

"Mr. Customer, we have this great HD package" but compress the signal and take away channels for football season. I got DirecTV because of the Tivo capabilities. Now I wiil soon be able get more HD (networks for instance) from my cable with a Tivo. I will hold off a while until the Series 3 stabilizes as I do not care to be an early adopter of what has turned out to be a box as reliable as a beta level system. 

A lawsuit over this- of course not. Class actions are useless except for the lawyers and the initial one or two plantifs. I am sitting here looking at my 50 credit at the apple store for IPOD batteries and wondering what I am supposed to do with it. I will be leaving directv. Loosing business is the only thing most companies understand anyway.

Bottom line, I keep hoping DirecTV will get their acts together., but they haven't. The promise of HD with DirecTV has been unfulfilled for a long time. Cable companies have the content, but until now have not had the hardware, now they have both.


----------



## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

ebonovic said:


> Do I think people should be upset for not getting something they paid for... certaintly... but get upset over $0.015 of what they have paid for? Is it fair for a die-hard Hogan's Hero fan? No... But bottom line, it is... and always will be about $$$$$$$$
> 
> Lately... DirecTV does everything wrong, TiVo can't do anything wrong, Dish is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and FIOS is the savior product that most parts of this country won't see for a decade or two.


This statement misses the point ...it's _not_ about the $$$$ to us as _individuals_, and I don't think _anybody_ is getting "upset over $0.015."

If you want to talk about the $$ end of it, and they're gonna do this each week for the entire football season we're talking $.06 a month X however many folks who have the HD pkg (so if there's 100K people paying for the pkg, then $6,000 per month).

As well, it's nothing to do with _DirecTV vs TiVo _ either.

I really don't watch HDNet, so this doesn't bother nor effect me and my viewing habits, but that too misses the point.

That D* has chosen a channel to shut-down for the day to accomodate a portion of their viewers while _taking something away_ from _another_ portion of their viewers while not notifying them in advance is not acceptable.

Let's turn this around w/a little anology.

Although I have the HD package and pay for it, I've decided that since I'm not going to watch UHD one time a week ...heck, I'm gonna remove it from my channel guide each time ...I'm going to deduct that $0.06 ($0.015 x 4) from my payment to D* when I send the check in each month.

Without saying a word to them.

Would that be okay with D*?


----------



## notmestl (Jun 28, 2001)

drew2k said:


> You don't think people have a right to be upset that they are not getting what they paid for? Or they don't have a right to feel they deserve at least courtesy notification from DirecTV that specific channels will be pre-empted on such-and-such date?


I am right there with ya, that is really the main reason I am upset, they have the ability to send notifications - why not do so? Instead of Surprise! no more channel you loser no football watchin geek... lol. 
I already know of one friend who cancelled directv and went to dish because of the loss of nascar in hd. He was so mad at the lack of information before and after it happened and at the attitude of Directv in general as to how they are behaving towards the general TV viewer he left. I mean, they were just plain rude!
Seriously, if I did not know about this forum and called Directv about the loss of the HD channels how many different answers would I get? Would I ever get the truth?
All they had to do in the first place was sent a message to the system saying, "Hey football makes us more money, so for the next few months the following channels will be removed." (ok, maybe not in those words...)
At least we would know.... Then we could again decide on the new value for what we are paying in HD from this service and know what and when this "issue" was going to occur.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

ebonovic said:


> Well guess what....... if you would take a step back, study an ECON101, CS101, and TECH101 course... you will find that is only so much bandwith to go around, customers dropping $350+ for 18 Sunday's of extra coverage of footbal signficant out weights credits and the "few" people upset that a few hours of re-runs (HDNET) or UpConverts (TNT-HD) make a lot more business sense....


And if you would take a step even further back, you would find that Directv THEMSELVES created the bandwidth crunch. If they didn't have enough bandwidth, then they shouldn't be offering packages(ie. Superfan) that force them into this situation of having to double sell their bandwidth. They shouldn't be playing games with their customers on who gets to see what they paid for. They should be waiting until they get enough bandwidth, before offering what they do.


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Arcady said:


> I don't care if they are out of bandwidth. How many satellites do they have now? 5 or 6? And they can't find the space for all the channels they advertise? Why didn't they put the new HD sports stuff on a new satellite last year when they added it? They could have required a new box along with "superfan hd" or whatever it is called. Or they could move some local channels to another satellite other than 101, 110, and 119.


Yes, because they had a DVR up and ready in time for this season and, of course, it makes sense to have to swap out and upgrade thousands of customers rather than shut one channel off for a few hours a week.

Logistically, that makes no sense. Financially, that makes no sense.



Arcady said:


> I also don't see why they can't manage to offer all of their channels in full quality with 5 times the number satellites they had ten years ago, without having ten times the channels.


Come on now. They have much more than you are giving them credit for. There are more channels nationally than there were 10 years ago. The HD channels they have up take up much bandwidth and they have 142 markets of local channels. Just because you can't get them all doesn't meant hey don't exist and that the bandwidth is not being used up. It is obvious that it is being used up.

What you are seeing is the kind of crunch that every provider will go thru at some time. The demands for bandwidth continue to grow and the infrastructure needs to be redone to meet the demand. For satellite companies, it means they need to buy or create bandwidth.

As for the channels going on and off, why does everyone ignore that cable companies do this, also. There are many (including Comcast installs) that turn off channels for special events (like inHD2 is replaced by local RSNs in some places).

The ONLY thing D* has done *wrong* in this situation is that they haven't communicated the situation very well. They are making tough business decisions that have many factors involved, including the deployment of MPEG4 and the new satellites that are not up yet.

Now, their dumping of TiVo is a different issue. They should not have done that but I am not ticked off about it. It is a business decision that I will adjust to and make my decisions without (faux) profanity or deriding other invididuals on the internet.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

Howie said:


> Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!


WOW, great contribution to the thread.


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

Chuck_IV said:


> WOW, great contribution to the thread.


As was yours!


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

Earl, I can't argue with a lot of the stuff you wrote, and seeing how you've been unfairly singled out as the second coming of the Anti-TiVo-Overlord for the last coupe of months, I understand your frustration. I do however disagree with the following: 


ebonovic said:


> Is football more important then re-runs of Hogan's Heros...... well... actuall in this country... SPORTS drives a lot of $$$... and Footbal being the #1 viewed sport in the US... yah... from a $$$ it is...


Before you ask is it more important, you have to consider who you're asking. If you're asking a football fan or NFL-ST subscriber, of course the answer is YES. If you're asking someone who hates sports (and this is not me) and prefers to laugh, the answer is NO. Everyone has their own priorities and attaches their own level of importance to channels and programs, so for the person who doesn't want to watch football and who knows they can't watch a channel because that bandwidth was allocated to football, they of course will be pissed. 


ebonovic said:


> Lately... DirecTV does everything wrong, TiVo can't do anything wrong, Dish is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and FIOS is the savior product that most parts of this country won't see for a decade or two.


I guess you haven't visited the S3 forum lately?  Whoo, boy. TiVo is in DEEP doo-doo over there!


----------



## parzec (Jun 21, 2002)

"Turd Bird"


----------



## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

It's not the question of what's more important football or something else, it's does Directv really need to drop something to add all the HD football channels on Sunday.

If they really do need the space at this time, then they're going to have to drop something.

Something some people are going to not want them to drop.

Besides getting more birds up, what is another solution for right now?

-smak-


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

smak said:


> It's not the question of what's more important football or something else, it's does Directv really need to drop something to add all the HD football channels on Sunday.
> 
> If they really do need the space at this time, then they're going to have to drop something.
> 
> ...


There really isn't one, but some people don't care.

DirecTV could either have one fewer HD channel all of the time, or simply turn one off for 12 hours a week during football season. Once the new satellites are up next year, this issue should be moot.


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

What DirecTV should have done, at a minimum, is to proactively credit all customers with the HD package for the channel(s) that are shut down. But running the numbers, it doesn't add up to very much - there are 7 HD channels, for $9.99 per month, right? That's a little less than $1.43 per channel per month. That's not very much to me. If they only credited the customers for the actual days that a channel was shut down, then it drops to about 5 cents per channel per day. And if they only credited for the 12-hour window that the channel was actually off, then you're looking at 2-3 cents per affected channel per Sunday during football season.


----------



## parzec (Jun 21, 2002)

But did you ever see Superman IIII?? All those small amounts add up to alot of money in the aggregate and DirecTV is the one profiting from it. These customers paid in advance for their monthly DirecTV service and simply are not getting what they paid for. You know when people hacked their cards to watch DirecTV the term "stealing" or "theft of service" was commonly thrown arround -- Isn't DirecTV now doing the same thing to the customer?


At the very least, DirecTV should compensate them for the actual time lost plus a "theft deterrent charge", of say $25 per incident of channel theft. Of course, these charges will be multiplied by the number of receivers mirrored in the household. Maybe DirecTV should also allow those customers to view the broadcast that is made possible by the theft of their channel?

What surprises me most about this thread, though, is that more customers aren't supporting the customer's position.


----------



## CessnaDriver (Oct 25, 2003)

BrettStah said:


> What DirecTV should have done, at a minimum, is to proactively credit all customers with the HD package for the channel(s) that are shut down. But running the numbers, it doesn't add up to very much - there are 7 HD channels, for $9.99 per month, right? That's a little less than $1.43 per channel per month. That's not very much to me. If they only credited the customers for the actual days that a channel was shut down, then it drops to about 5 cents per channel per day. And if they only credited for the 12-hour window that the channel was actually off, then you're looking at 2-3 cents per affected channel per Sunday during football season.


It's not the money, it's the principle.

What came first chronologically? I don't know the answer.

They sold one package, and then later decided to sell another package even though they were out of bandwidth - and they are taking away from the first group of customers that they have a committment to.

Ahhh but then there's the terms of agreement - they don't really have a committment to any of their customers.

Ok, so what's reasonable? What if they decide to add other types of packages and then disable the HD package and/or the NFL package "for a few hours at a time"? Where does it end?

Again, its the principle, they are reselling bandwidth that they have already sold to other customers. If I am renting a room at the Marriott and the hotel staff knocks on my door without notice and says that someone else is going to take a nap in my room for a few hours, I would be a little upset.

I am really disappointed that Earl has taken such a hard line on this. While I do understand that 95% of the posts on here are complaints, problems, and whining, and that he gets tired of it, I think this is a pretty serious issue.


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

CessnaDriver said:


> It's not the money, it's the principle.


I don't want to stick up for DirecTV here, per se, but would people rather that DirecTV NOT have TNTHD at all, or HDNT at all? The fact is that DirecTV doesn't have all of the bandwidth that they need for the channels that they have on Sundays during football season. Every other day of the year? They have the bandwidth. Could/should DirecTV handled it differently? I think so.


> Ok, so what's reasonable? What if they decide to add other types of packages and then disable the HD package and/or the NFL package "for a few hours at a time"?


I don't know what is currently available in HD that would require the entire HD package to be disabled, and the NFL Sunday Ticket is not something they're going to turn off.


> Where does it end?


Next year, when their new satellites are up and running, giving them the ability to add over 150 national HD channels, plus 1,500 spot-beam local HD channels. That should last them a decent amount of time.


> Again, its the principle, they are reselling bandwidth that they have already sold to other customers. If I am renting a room at the Marriott and the hotel staff knocks on my door without notice and says that someone else is going to take a nap in my room for a few hours, I would be a little upset.


I completely understand, although don't think the analogy is completely accurate. But DirecTV, from the indications that I've seen, are compensating customers above and beyond what the credited amount technically should be - $5 discount per month for 6 months, Showtime free for one or more months, etc. It's not ideal, but the current facts don't allow for the ideal (the ideal that I am referring to would be for DirecTV to have the bandwidth for all HD channels right now, 24/7 every day, including during football season).

I am really disappointed that Earl has taken such a hard line on this. While I do understand that 95% of the posts on here are complaints, problems, and whining, and that he gets tired of it, I think this is a pretty serious issue.[/QUOTE]


----------



## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

BrettStah said:


> What DirecTV should have done, at a minimum, is to proactively credit all customers with the HD package for the channel(s) that are shut down. But running the numbers, it doesn't add up to very much - there are 7 HD channels, for $9.99 per month, right? That's a little less than $1.43 per channel per month. That's not very much to me. If they only credited the customers for the actual days that a channel was shut down, then it drops to about 5 cents per channel per day. And if they only credited for the 12-hour window that the channel was actually off, then you're looking at 2-3 cents per affected channel per Sunday during football season.


No, they should drop the charges for the HD package during the football season if they are going to continue doing this. There are those of us that absolutley detest football. There are things on the channels that where dropped that some of us had set to record.


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

sjberra said:


> No, they should drop the charges for the HD package during the football season if they are going to continue doing this.


If they were disabling the HD package during the football season, that would make perfect sense. But they aren't doing that. They aren't shutting down anything for the entire football season - they're shutting down one channel, for about 12 hours each Sunday. So the $5 discount per month for 6 months that many folks have gotten seems more than sufficient, in my opinion. That's $30, or the equivalent of 3 months of the HD package.


> There are those of us that absolutley detest football.


So what? It doesn't matter _why_ DirecTV is disabling one of their 7 HD channels for 12 hours each week - they just are, due to bandwidth limitations. They overcommitted on bandwidth, and the SUnday Ticket is obviously a lot more valuable than the HD channel that they're disabling. The solution is to either do what they're doing now, or to just have 6 HD channels permanently, or at least during football season.


> There are things on the channels that where dropped that some of us had set to record.


That does suck - luckily it appears that DirecTV is compensating people who call to complain... but it's better to have that channel the rest of the week, versus not having it at all, right?


----------



## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

BrettStah said:


> If they were disabling the HD package during the football season, that would make perfect sense. But they aren't doing that. They aren't shutting down anything for the entire football season - they're shutting down one channel, for about 12 hours each Sunday. So the $5 discount per month for 6 months that many folks have gotten seems more than sufficient, in my opinion. That's $30, or the equivalent of 3 months of the HD package.
> So what? It doesn't matter _why_ DirecTV is disabling one of their 7 HD channels for 12 hours each week - they just are, due to bandwidth limitations. They overcommitted on bandwidth, and the SUnday Ticket is obviously a lot more valuable than the HD channel that they're disabling. The solution is to either do what they're doing now, or to just have 6 HD channels permanently, or at least during football season.
> That does suck - luckily it appears that DirecTV is compensating people who call to complain... but it's better to have that channel the rest of the week, versus not having it at all, right?


Nope - if it is not available when I want it if I pay for it, then it might as well be not available at all. Sorry, if I pay for something that is supposed to be available 7x24x365 I expect it to be available during that time period unless there is an technical issue that affects it, it is unacceptable if they shut it down just to broadcast something else. I suspect we will never see eye to eye given your personal icon.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

sjberra said:


> Nope - if it is not available when I want it if I pay for it, then it might as well be not available at all. Sorry, if I pay for something that is supposed to be available 7x24x365 I expect it to be available during that time period unless there is an technical issue that affects it, it is unacceptable if they shut it down just to broadcast something else. I suspect we will never see eye to eye given your personal icon.


Do you refuse to pay your entire electric bill if service is out for a few hours one month?

Your argument is just plain silly.

What D* did wrong is not publish this in advance and part of that publishing is making sure the guide data is right so you didn't pick the program to record in the first place.

Now, is the program you wanted to record NEVER shown again? Or is it shown again and your DVR picks it up anyway.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> Do you refuse to pay your entire electric bill if service is out for a few hours one month?
> 
> Your argument is just plain silly.


Actually, if your electricity is out, for ANY reason, then you AREN'T paying for it, since it is metered.



> What D* did wrong is not publish this in advance and part of that publishing is making sure the guide data is right so you didn't pick the program to record in the first place.


What D* did wrong was DOUBLE sell their bandwidth, and put themselves in this position, in the first place.



> You are making a mountain out of a molehill.


Funny, a lot of people said the same thing, when D* started their signal compression causing PQ issues. They started with just a little compression and PQ degradation and now look where some channels are at. Need I say more?

D* is opening another can of worms with this because who's to say they stop here? They didn't with other things.


----------



## Skankboy (Nov 20, 2002)

I pay for both packages. (NFL ST and HD) When there are no games I want to watch I usually look at what's on the HD package as in the case of yesterday. Apparently this was not an option on Sunday even though I paid for it. 

The analogies to the electric company are weak at best. I have never heard of a power company intentionally causing an outage without advanced notice. 

DTV dropped the ball on this one. Most people agree to this except for Earl of course, but oh well.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

Skankboy said:


> The analogies to the electric company are weak at best. I have never heard of a power company intentionally causing an outage without advanced notice.


I have. When they do rolling blackouts on those hot days, when they don't have enough power, for all those air conditioners, to go around. However, again, since your power is metered, if you are blacked out, you aren't paying.


----------



## Skankboy (Nov 20, 2002)

Chuck_IV said:


> I have. When they do rolling blackouts on those hot days, when they don't have enough power, for all those air conditioners, to go around. However, again, since your power is metered, if you are blacked out, you aren't paying.


Ok I will concede on that point. They'd probably be in trouble if they did the rolling blackouts because they didn't want to turn off the energy hungry Pay Per View movies.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Chuck_IV said:


> Actually, if your electricity is out, for ANY reason, then you AREN'T paying for it, since it is metered.


You are responding to this out of context. The poster was saying that if it is not available ALL THE TIME, he doesn't want to pay for it at all because it is useless to him. Therefore, it is apt to ask if electricity is useless to him because it goes out occasionally.

I think that we have established that if the channel taken out was metered that he would be entitled to all of 15 cents.

(Oh, and the electric company NEVER compensates me for the quart of milk that goes sour if the power doesn't come back on. This all or nothing attitude is just plain dumb.)



Chuck_IV said:


> What D* did wrong was DOUBLE sell their bandwidth, and put themselves in this position, in the first place.


I don't agree. If they can give you TNT or HDnet for all but a few hours about 10 days of the year, they didn't double sell anything.

I repeat....since nobody listens. Cable companies do this all the time. They shift channels. They have channels share the same number. It is not new and it won't go away as long as there are any physical limits and a way to make money and please customers.

Also, Sirius does this with every sports package they have. I don't hear anyone making that into a federal case.

But, the biggest difference is that the cable companies and Sirius PUBLISH the downtimes. That is why I say that is what D* did wrong.



Chuck_IV said:


> Funny, a lot of people said the same thing, when D* started their signal compression causing PQ issues. They started with just a little compression and PQ degradation and now look where some channels are at. Need I say more?
> 
> D* is opening another can of worms with this because who's to say they stop here? They didn't with other things.


Ah, yes, the old "domino theory" argument. Very weak. Let's see. D* isn't launching satellites left and right and is putting nothing into their infrastructure, including pioneering MPEG4 distribution for their own amusement. They are doing it to deliver services at the best quality they can.

Odd, you just gave an example that would say that if they cared nothing about quality, they would have just bit-starved all the channels. They made a decision to keep quality up for those few hours and now you are complaining that they did what they could do.

Again, is it better to have a channel 99% of the time or not at all? D* is in a squeeze right now (and every provider will find themselves in one at some time) and they are trying to make reasonable decisions.

I repeat, the ONLY thing they did wrong IN THIS CASE (do not bring other decisions into play....this is its own case) is not publish what they were going to do (and that includes removing programming from the guides since that is the source of information for most people using their products).

BTW, two shows I had planned to record from HDNET were missed. I can live with it. I understand the decision they made. It is not one I would want to make.

For the rest of you that don't understand, maybe D* should just drop a channel full time. Seems that would make you happy.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Chuck_IV said:


> I have. When they do rolling blackouts on those hot days, when they don't have enough power, for all those air conditioners, to go around. However, again, since your power is metered, if you are blacked out, you aren't paying.


Rolling blackouts are a near-perfect analogy.

They are cause by overdemand on a system not able to handle it. They are encouraged and happen because the power company is selling product.

Yes, your usage is metered (where the analogy breaks down) but if we are going to talk cost, then again, you are whining over 15 cents on your bill with programming that is usually repeated at other times. (And I could argue that other potential losses because of lost electricity are not factored into my metered cost, including the extra power it takes to cool off the house because you lost power for a certain amount of time.) I could understand the meanness of making you getting the show from another time, if you weren't on a TiVo bulletin board!

Anyway, the analogy was brought up because the poster indicated that the service is of no use if not available 24/7/365. In that case, electricity is the perfect example of that fallacious reasoning.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

99.906% hours of the year for HDNet (excluding leap year, down 16 hours in 8544 hours in a year)

98.595% hours of the year for TNT-HD (assuming that it will be off 15 sundays, 8 hours, excluding leap days)


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

Skankboy said:


> I pay for both packages. (NFL ST and HD) When there are no games I want to watch I usually look at what's on the HD package as in the case of yesterday. Apparently this was not an option on Sunday even though I paid for it.


They aren't turning off "the HD package". They are turning off one HD channel out of the 7 HD channels in the package, for which you're paying $1.43 per month ($9.99/7 = ~$1.43). For people bothered by this, call DirecTV, and they'll most likely give you a $5 discount for 6 months, or something similar, which would seem to be a decent arrangement, given the known facts. The alternative would be for them to only offer 6 HD channels 24/7 during football season.


----------



## Skankboy (Nov 20, 2002)

BrettStah said:


> They aren't turning off "the HD package". They are turning off one HD channel out of the 7 HD channels in the package, for which you're paying $1.43 per month ($9.99/7 = ~$1.43). For people bothered by this, call DirecTV, and they'll most likely give you a $5 discount for 6 months, or something similar, which would seem to be a decent arrangement, given the known facts. The alternative would be for them to only offer 6 HD channels 24/7 during football season.


Defend them all you want, they know of the bandwidth issue, I want a fix not a credit. My complaint is valid.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Skankboy said:


> Defend them all you want, they know of the bandwidth issue, I want a fix not a credit. My complaint is valid.


And you will get that fix in 2007 when the new sats are up and SundayTicket-HD is converted to MPEG-4


----------



## Skankboy (Nov 20, 2002)

ebonovic said:


> 99.906% hours of the year for HDNet (excluding leap year, down 16 hours in 8544 hours in a year)
> 
> 98.595% hours of the year for TNT-HD (assuming that it will be off 15 sundays, 8 hours, excluding leap days)


I only rob banks 16 hours out of a year. Come on judge, I am law abiding 99.906% of the time.


----------



## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

SouthWest Airlines pulls this kinda crap all the time and _they_ get away with it too!


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Won't it be 17 Sundays since there are 17 weeks of regular season football?


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

Skankboy said:


> Defend them all you want, they know of the bandwidth issue, I want a fix not a credit. My complaint is valid.


OK, the fix is to either:

1) disable on one of the HD package channels on Sundays during football season, giving some sort of compensation to complaining customers (or to all HD package customers automatically, which is my choice)

2) drop one of the HD package channels permanently, at least during football season, possibly discounting the package slightly.

3) drop one of the HD football games that's part of the NFL superfan package.

Which one do you pick? The football-detesting people would choose #3. Guess what? That's not going to happen - the Sunday Ticket customers are way too valuable to DirecTV.

So that leaves #1 or #2. Which one of those do you pick?

Like I wrote above, I would choose #1, but would have automatically credited all HD package customers somehow, and would have notified them ahead of time.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> Won't it be 17 Sundays since there are 17 weeks of regular season football?


For two weeks HDNet was bumped for TNT (because of NASCAR)
2 and 15


----------



## Skankboy (Nov 20, 2002)

BrettStah said:


> OK, the fix is to either:
> 
> 1) disable on one of the HD package channels on Sundays during football season, giving some sort of compensation to complaining customers (or to all HD package customers automatically, which is my choice)
> 
> ...


Your options are limited.... They could take off a few of the PPV channels. Since there has been a good movie out in months I doubt they would lose all that much money.

Advanced notification would be nice.


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

Skankboy said:


> Your options are limited.... They could take off a few of the PPV channels. Since there has been a good movie out in months I doubt they would lose all that much money.
> 
> Advanced notification would be nice.


My understanding (and hopefully if it's wrong someone will correct me) is that they are pulling other channels too - the HD PPV channel, possibly some SD PPV channels. But they still apparently need more bandwidth.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Skankboy said:


> Your options are limited.... They could take off a few of the PPV channels. Since there has been a good movie out in months I doubt they would lose all that much money.
> 
> Advanced notification would be nice.


They have done that.... They took off most of the PPV.
And all of the MIX and Active channel content.

Advanced notification though... yes... If that would have occured... are we having as much of a length discussion as we are?


----------



## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

If they would blank out the guide data ahead of time we would know that is not available ahead of time.


----------



## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

aaronwt said:


> If they would blank out the guide data ahead of time we would know that is not available ahead of time.


Exactly correct ....and no recordings could even be scheduled, thus no disappointments.


----------



## Skankboy (Nov 20, 2002)

ebonovic said:


> If that would have occured... are we having as much of a length discussion as we are?


Considering this is a discussion forum, probably. 9,581 nuggets of wisdom, each more compelling than the last.


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

BrettStah said:


> OK, the fix is to either:
> 
> 1) disable on one of the HD package channels on Sundays during football season, giving some sort of compensation to complaining customers (or to all HD package customers automatically, which is my choice)
> 
> ...


There's actually a 4th option if it's possible: compress all of the channels even MORE than they are now compressed. This may allow DirecTV to keep the HD-package channel on 24/7, but would piss off a LOT of people even more than they are now pissed off.

I definitely do not want #4 or #2. I know NFL fans would hate to have an HD game moved to SD-only, but they would still have the game, so I can see Option #3 is viable. That being said, I don't think DirecTV would ever do option #3 as I laid it out, as NFL-ST is a big money-maker and they would lose some of their marketing muscle if not all games were available in HD.

That leaves me with Option #1, because I can live with the over-compensation I've already received. My issue still is the lack of notification. *DirecTV should send messages to all HD receivers and notify their customers whenever a channel will be temporarly shut-down.* In addition, DirecTV should mark their channel lineups and add footnotes to specific channels that may be shut-down temporarily, just like the cable companies do.


----------



## NYHeel (Oct 7, 2003)

ebonovic said:


> They have done that.... They took off most of the PPV.
> And all of the MIX and Active channel content.
> 
> Advanced notification though... yes... If that would have occured... are we having as much of a length discussion as we are?


I'm actually not upset about the HD channel thing since I don't usually watch those channels then but I don't understand using bandwith as an excuse. Fact is as a paying customer I don't give a rat's a$$ about bandwith problems. All I care about is the final product on my screen. If I think Fios offers me a better picture and channel options then I'm going to switch to them without caring why Directv can't get better.


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

Fios is another pie-in-the-sky. People will complain about that, too, when they finally get it.


----------



## rbitting (Oct 4, 2002)

I got a call from DirecTV tonight. First they said that HDnet was not taken down over the weekend and that ONLY TNT was going to be taken off each weekend during football. They told me I must be having technical difficulty and I should reset the receiver (guess we all just imagined it). Then I asked about compensation or credit for what they were doing (whether it is TNT or HDnet doesn't really matter) and they basically said NO and no and I said I'd have to consider dropping the package and THEN they said we can do that for you right now. I suppose it isn't so much the loss of the channel but the way they have done it AND the attitude. So much for customer satisfaction.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

NYHeel said:


> I'm actually not upset about the HD channel thing since I don't usually watch those channels then but I don't understand using bandwith as an excuse.
> 
> ....
> 
> If I think Fios offers me a better picture and channel options then I'm going to switch to them without caring why Directv can't get better.


That is the thing.... it is not an "excuse"... it is the reason.

And that is your right as a paying customer....


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

drew2k said:


> There's actually a 4th option if it's possible: compress all of the channels even MORE than they are now compressed. This may allow DirecTV to keep the HD-package channel on 24/7, but would piss off a LOT of people even more than they are now pissed off.
> 
> I definitely do not want #4 or #2. I know NFL fans would hate to have an HD game moved to SD-only, but they would still have the game, so I can see Option #3 is viable. That being said, I don't think DirecTV would ever do option #3 as I laid it out, as NFL-ST is a big money-maker and they would lose some of their marketing muscle if not all games were available in HD.
> 
> That leaves me with Option #1, because I can live with the over-compensation I've already received. My issue still is the lack of notification. *DirecTV should send messages to all HD receivers and notify their customers whenever a channel will be temporarly shut-down.* In addition, DirecTV should mark their channel lineups and add footnotes to specific channels that may be shut-down temporarily, just like the cable companies do.


The only problem with the SD-only for the football game is that people are paying an extra $99 for the "super fan" add-on to the NFL Sunday Ticket, specifically for the privilege of watching the all of the available HD games in HD.

Otherwise, I agree with everything you said...


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

BrettStah said:


> The only problem with the SD-only for the football game is that people are paying an extra $99 for the "super fan" add-on to the NFL Sunday Ticket, specifically for the privilege of watching the all of the available HD games in HD.


At least they would have a game to watch.



BrettStah said:


> ...people are paying an extra $99 for the "super fan" add-on to the NFL Sunday Ticket, specifically for the privilege of watching the all of the available HD games in HD.


People are paying an extra $10 for the "HD" add-on to the package they have, specifically for the privilege of watching all of the available HD channels.


----------



## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

Mark Lopez said:


> At least they would have a game to watch.


They already get the games in SD without the extra super fan package.


Mark Lopez said:


> People are paying an extra $10 for the "HD" add-on to the package they have, specifically for the privilege of watching all of the available HD channels.


Obviously the super fan customers are more valuable.

Like I said above, if faced with the same set of circumstances, I would probably do the same thing (cut off one HD channel package during the Sundays which conflict with football games), BUT I'd notify customers and proactively compensate them for the temporary loss of service.


----------



## Chuck_IV (Jan 1, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> You are responding to this out of context. The poster was saying that if it is not available ALL THE TIME, he doesn't want to pay for it at all because it is useless to him. Therefore, it is apt to ask if electricity is useless to him because it goes out occasionally.
> 
> I think that we have established that if the channel taken out was metered that he would be entitled to all of 15 cents.
> 
> (Oh, and the electric company NEVER compensates me for the quart of milk that goes sour if the power doesn't come back on. This all or nothing attitude is just plain dumb.)


I interpreted it differently. I didn't get that he didn't want to pay anything, but he said it should be available at all, if it can't be 24/7, but whatever. Getting too technical.



> I don't agree. If they can give you TNT or HDnet for all but a few hours about 10 days of the year, they didn't double sell anything.


They absolutely did. If they have to take away bandwidth from other channels, in order for others to be operational, then that is double selling.



> I repeat....since nobody listens. Cable companies do this all the time. They shift channels. They have channels share the same number. It is not new and it won't go away as long as there are any physical limits and a way to make money and please customers.
> 
> Also, Sirius does this with every sports package they have. I don't hear anyone making that into a federal case.
> 
> But, the biggest difference is that the cable companies and Sirius PUBLISH the downtimes. That is why I say that is what D* did wrong.


Well, for one, I don't have Siruis and 2, that's one of the reasons I no longer have cable. There were a few channels that were split, when I did have cable, however, I knew this BEFORE I signed up. After I signed up, the started doing it with a channel I liked, thus that and a few other things(dropping channels, altogether and crap service) led me to Directv.



> Ah, yes, the old "domino theory" argument. Very weak. Let's see. D* isn't launching satellites left and right and is putting nothing into their infrastructure, including pioneering MPEG4 distribution for their own amusement. They are doing it to deliver services at the best quality they can.
> 
> Odd, you just gave an example that would say that if they cared nothing about quality, they would have just bit-starved all the channels. They made a decision to keep quality up for those few hours and now you are complaining that they did what they could do.


Not following you here. They ARE bitstarving all the channels already, including the HD(HD-Lite anyone). It's not about what they are doing, in the future, it's is what is happening NOW. As I said prior, in this thread, Directv should either be offereing 1 less HD NFL game or waiting till next year, when they really do have the space, to offer the Superfan pack.



> Again, is it better to have a channel 99% of the time or not at all? D* is in a squeeze right now (and every provider will find themselves in one at some time) and they are trying to make reasonable decisions.


They are in a squeeze, by their OWN choice. That is part of the problem. They didn't need to put themselves in this position, especially when they knew they had more space coming soon. Instead, they got greedy and now some of their customers are being penalized, because of it.



> I repeat, the ONLY thing they did wrong IN THIS CASE (do not bring other decisions into play....this is its own case) is not publish what they were going to do (and that includes removing programming from the guides since that is the source of information for most people using their products).


Nope, the thing they did wrong was putting themselves into this popsition by promising too much, when they were already out of bandwidth and thus having to double sell it.



> BTW, two shows I had planned to record from HDNET were missed. I can live with it. I understand the decision they made. It is not one I would want to make.


To me, it's not about the decision they made, it's about WHY they were forced to make it.



> For the rest of you that don't understand, maybe D* should just drop a channel full time. Seems that would make you happy.


As I said, what they should have done, was not promise so many games in the Superfan yet, until they really do have the space, most likely next season with MPEG-4.


----------



## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

TonyD79 said:


> Do you refuse to pay your entire electric bill if service is out for a few hours one month?
> 
> Your argument is just plain silly.
> 
> ...


Not sure about yours, but mine runs through a meter that if nothing is drawing from the main lines the meter is not spinning there for I am not being charged for it. If the power is off to the house, I don;t pay for it.

It does not matter if it will ever be shown again or not, they dropped access to a channel because they oversold the bandwidth for HD stations, if they are going to continue doing that they need to drop the charges for the HD addons until the load extra load is done with.

There is no technical difficulty with the channels, it is just their greed that is the issue. Future resource planning is a normal business practice in todays world, they knew it was going to occur and they figured they could get in under the wire and no one would complain.


----------



## rbitting (Oct 4, 2002)

What if the customer only has an HD receiver and NOT an HD recorder plus a show he/she wanted to watch was on the channel that got taken down on that day. I'm sure a lot of people travel a lot and perhaps they'd want to watch something in HD while at home so it isn't right or fair to arbitrarily remove channels in order to repackage the bandwidth for higher paying revenue. It may make business sense in the short term but in my opinion eventually competition will be the ultimate deciding factor. I'm not wild about cable but they are beginning to offer more HD channels and a much lower cost for their HD DVR ($12 a month). Granted the quality of the recorder is not equal to the HR10-250 in my opinion but newer and better models are due out this year. 

So I suppose that DirecTV is well aware of this and expects to lose some customers due to these things and no doubt they figure that HD football will be much more revenue than the potential loss of some customers. I do think it would make more sense to notify customers in advance AND offer some sort of compensation no matter how small. I realize that is old fashioned and the new way of business is the customer is NEVER right and making more money is NEVER wrong.


----------



## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

Haven't seen this mentioned so here goes.

This is NFL week 3. 

4 teams are on bye, meaning two less games, meaning do they need to black anything out?

So far:

Week 1 - 9 early, 3 late (1 Thursday, 1 extra Monday)
Week 2 - 9 early, 5 late
Week 3 - 8 early, 4 late
Week 4 - 8 early, 4 late
Week 5 - 8 early, 4 late

etc...

Why would they need to make anything unavailable now, it seems like they have 1 less HD game per time period.

-smak-


----------



## moonman (Jul 21, 2004)

I count 9...am I missing something??
Regional HD games for Week 3: (DirecTV Sunday Ticket HD channel number)
N.Y. Jets at Buffalo CBS 1 PM (719)
Jacksonville at Indianapolis 1 PM CBS (720)
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh 1 PM CBS (721)
Green Bay at Detroit 1 PM FOX (722)
Washington at Houston 1 PM FOX (723)
Chicago at Minnesota 1 PM FOX (724)
Carolina at Tampa Bay 1 PM FOX (725)
Philadelphia at San Francisco 4:15 PM FOX (726)
New York Giants at Seattle 4:15 PM FOX (727)


----------



## Mark Lopez (Jan 1, 2000)

I wonder how those who are defending this would feel if they 'stole' one of the other channels during one of your favorite shows. Would you still say 'Oh it's ok and it only $.15'.


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Mark Lopez said:


> I wonder how those who are defending this would feel if they 'stole' one of the other channels during one of your favorite shows. Would you still say 'Oh it's ok and it only $.15'.


Sure...

But that is one of the things.... The shows that where on those two times where repeats or shows that are shown multiple times in a week.

hence the switch up from TNT to HDNET so the live NASCAR event could be shown.

It is not like they shutdown HBO while the premier of Sapranos was on.
Still doesn't make it right though.


----------



## moonman (Jul 21, 2004)

ebonovic said:


> Sure...
> 
> But that is one of the things.... The shows that where on those two times where repeats or shows that are shown multiple times in a week.
> 
> ...


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Yes... I know there is a bigger issue with the "reinstating" of the channels..
And that a lot of those shows don't repeat, and not everyone has a DVR


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

ebonovic said:


> It is not like they shutdown HBO while the premier of Sapranos was on.
> Still doesn't make it right though.


They shut down HDNet while the premieres of "Jake 2.0" and "Arrested Development" were on. Sure, they're old shows, but if I've never seen them before, they're new to me.


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

drew2k said:


> They shut down HDNet while the premieres of "Jake 2.0" and "Arrested Development" were on. Sure, they're old shows, but if I've never seen them before, they're new to me.


I don't know about Jake 2.0, but I recorded the premiere of Arrested Development on HDNET. Funny show - I never saw it in 1st run.


----------



## yaddayaddayadda (Apr 8, 2003)

drew2k said:


> They shut down HDNet while the premieres of "Jake 2.0" and "Arrested Development" were on. Sure, they're old shows, but if I've never seen them before, they're new to me.


Arrested Development premiers are on Wednesday nights at 10 :up:


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

The initial airing of Arrested Deveopment was on Sunday at 1 PM, IIRC, and that is the time slot I had chosen to record Arrested Development before the channel was temporarily suspended.


----------



## bidger (Mar 30, 2001)

No drew, the premiere was last Wed. as yadda... says. There are repeats on Fri. (7 & 7:30PM) and Sun. afternoons.


----------



## rbitting (Oct 4, 2002)

Well that is one of the reasons that having a good HD recorder is important. I know a lot of people who travel or work odd hours and overtime and without a way to timeshift the HD channels it may very well be important to somebody to be able to watch a show at a certain time AND a certain day. Hopefully one day everybody can have and afford an HD recorder but that day isn't here yet. 

Funny how it was great to actually have 2 HD tuners but now I'm thinking 4 of them would be even greater


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

rbitting said:


> Funny how it was great to actually have 2 HD tuners but now I'm thinking 4 of them would be even greater


It is...... 
Having the 4, I am catching all of my shows in HD... last year I had to balance between HD and SD


----------



## rbitting (Oct 4, 2002)

No I mean 4 HD tuners in ONE box


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

I have no doubt Arrested Development is and was available at the times you mention, but folks, I'm telling you ... HDNet also had it on their schedule to show the pilots of both Jake 2.0 and Arrested Development on Sunday 9/17, during the day, and I had chosen to record them at that time.

It's no longer on their web schedule, but they absolutely were schedule for Sunday. I even posted about it here in the "TNT-HD & D* calling me" thread on 9/17.


----------



## rbitting (Oct 4, 2002)

Yes I'm sure it was and said it was the 'premier' episode even if it was a repeat of the premier episode that premiered earlier (is that confusing or what?).

That is one of the problems I see with the guide data. Some are never marked as repeats so the box grabs all of them and I'd rather not have the repeats and such. The Tonight show is like that I think. After the new show they do a repeat from the week before but the recorder thinks it is a new episode since the guide data has no information to tell it otherwise. It would be nice too if the guide data updated at regular intervals so that when football or something runs over time the recorder can adjust accordingly. Doesn't seem like it should be hard to do now since the new recorders are able to download direct from the net without doing the phone thing.

I'm also very TIRED of the networks trying to skew start and stop times to defeat PVR technology. They can try to screw up recordings by causing overlap but what it really makes me wind up doing is NOT recording shows when they conflict like that so I don't see how it is helping them by doing that practice.


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

drew2k said:


> I have no doubt Arrested Development is and was available at the times you mention, but folks, I'm telling you ... HDNet also had it on their schedule to show the pilots of both Jake 2.0 and Arrested Development on Sunday 9/17, during the day, and I had chosen to record them at that time.
> 
> It's no longer on their web schedule, but they absolutely were schedule for Sunday. I even posted about it here in the "TNT-HD & D* calling me" thread on 9/17.


The episodes scheduled for Sunday the 17th were repeats of the premieres shown on Wednesday the 13th.


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

Howie said:


> The episodes scheduled for Sunday the 17th were repeats of the premieres shown on Wednesday the 13th.


So what? I don't get why this is a big deal, but it doesn't matter that they were repeats on Sunday! I may have been wrong calling it the "initial" showing, but again, so what? I was scheduled to record Sunday the 17th and could not. That's what matters! Let's not take our eye off the ball, people!


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

drew2k said:


> So what? I don't get why this is a big deal, but it doesn't matter that they were repeats on Sunday! I was scheduled to record Sunday the 17th and could not. That's what matters!


I was only responding to your use of the word "premiere" in your original post. I now understand that you were using the word "premiere" to mean any showing of the original pilot episode. I took "premiere" to mean the first showing on HDNet. It's just a matter of semantics. No reason to get all in a hissy.


----------



## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

Howie said:


> I was only responding to your use of the word "premiere" in your original post. I now understand that you were using the word "premiere" to mean any showing of the original pilot episode. I took "premiere" to mean the first showing on HDNet. It's just a matter of semantics. No reason to get all in a hissy.


LOL! 

You think that's a hissy? Thanks for the smile.


----------



## scottjef (Sep 21, 2006)

Like others, I am also outraged at the way D* blithely cut off the channel(s) without warning us, but I have not seen any posts that describe the problem that it caused me.

When D* dropped TNT-HD for the first weekend, it also screwed up my Season Passes that were tied to that channel (75 I think). The result was that the following Sunday (9/17) I had nothing in the To Do list, even though I had an active NASCAR SP for TNT-HD. Thankfully I was able to catch it in time, but I ended up re-adding the SPs after re-adding 75 to the CYR list to make it happen.

I am hoping that it was a 1-time mistake, as this past Sunday they didn't remove the HDNet channel from CYR and just put up a slide on it saying it was unavailable.

IMHO the whole thing is a "Holy crap, we gotta do something!" result of the additional HD bird launch delays. I suspect that when TNT-HD was added, D* fully expected to have another bird or two in the air to handle the NFLST-HD bandwidth. Since that didn't happen they had to make the best of a bad situation and borrow from Peter (me) to pay Paul (NFLST-HD subscribers).

A little Public Relations 101 would have been nice, though...


----------



## Howie (May 3, 2004)

drew2k said:


> Thanks for the smile.


Don't mention it!


----------



## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

rbitting said:


> No I mean 4 HD tuners in ONE box


Oh... you mean the Home Media Center that will have 9


----------

