# Pay Per View in High Def



## bmw528is (Sep 30, 2006)

Anyone notice how sparse/lame channel 99 is? I'm sure DirecTV would make some added revenue if they offered new releases and more showings of movies. I'm sure there is a logical explanation for this. I'm thinking bandwidth issues.......but that still doesn't account for the old(er) titles available. I pretty much can't watch anything on TV anymore unless it's in HD and won't order PPV in standard def.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

They probably could make more money with HD PPV movies, but they don't have the satellite bandwidth to provide many movies in HiDef. That will change when new satellites are activated early next year.


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## bmw528is (Sep 30, 2006)

...which would require a MPEG-4 compatible receiver (HR-20) without an OTA tuner and only four main HD local network feeds available when it is activated (no PBS, CW, or weather/doppler radar feeds). And to think I was psyched to ditch my archaic antenna sitting in plain sight......


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

I wouldn't even need another HD PPV channel if they just put more movies on the rotation and tried to cut back on the lame ones that hardly need DD, much less HD.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Which brings up one of my pet rants. Why does DirecTV need that many PPV channels that show the same movie except with staggered start times? Remove some of these and they might be able to free up at least enough bandwidth for one more HD channel on the 101 sat.


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## bmw528is (Sep 30, 2006)

I wonder if Time Warner Cable or any other company offers pay per view "on demand" in HD.


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## skanter (May 28, 2003)

bmw528is said:


> I wonder if Time Warner Cable or any other company offers pay per view "on demand" in HD.


Nope, at least not TWC here in NYC. But $6/mo HD package offers loads of HD movies (older ones), TV shows, nature, etc. Lots of bang for the buck.


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## Sapphire (Sep 10, 2002)

bmw528is said:


> I wonder if Time Warner Cable or any other company offers pay per view "on demand" in HD.


Cablevision in NY/NJ does.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Comcast in Howard County, MD, does.

Right now available:

10 titles available right now. Plus some free stuff.


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## bmw528is (Sep 30, 2006)

Looks like DirecTV still has some work to do as fas as HD is concerned (unfortunately).


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

JimSpence said:


> Which brings up one of my pet rants. Why does DirecTV need that many PPV channels that show the same movie except with staggered start times? Remove some of these and they might be able to free up at least enough bandwidth for one more HD channel on the 101 sat.


Agreed. I would think that enough customers now have DVRs that you wouldn't need so many showings of the same movies. Of course, I almost never buy PPV movies, so I'm not their target customer.


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## Syzygy (Aug 17, 2000)

I too would never ever pay for SD movies. In fact, I must admit I've never bought _any _ PPV stuff, but I would buy a _good _ HD movie if it cost less than $3.


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

Well, I agree that the HD movies offered simply suck - they be _old_. I don't understand why they cannot at least offer up the same thing they're currently playing on the SD PPV's. As new PPV's arrive, they keep the HD offering the same.

Makes no sense.


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

What, you don't want to see "She's The Man"?  Well, you can not want to see it again tomorrow too.  

I PPV'd HD Aeon Flux... a few months ago. I am stunned that it is still in the rotation. Is DirecTV doing the upconverting themselves and just can never get around to doing a few more? Are they being whored over on the pricing if they are getting the movies from another source?

Seriously, the only thing lamer than the HD PPV channel offerings was HD Spice (or whichever it was). I never bothered to PPV it; it appeared to be a call in show of some sort. :::yawn:::


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## GalenMD (Apr 13, 2002)

*I am so glad somebody brought this up!!*

Begs to wonder: is the HD-PPV channel sponsered by any particular studios? That may be a limiting factor.

I can't tell you how many sci-fi or epic-like films are left in SD-PPV, while so many pourly performing chick-flicks are on channel 99.


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

I have all of the premium channels, but I find myself constantly going through the HBOH and SHOH guides looking for movies to record in the coming weeks.

If D* put some of the_ premiering_ PPV's on channel 99, they'd make a few more $$ off me every now and then.

But since they do not, I just wait for them to hit HBO/SHO HD.

Their loss, but if there's no legitimate reason for them not doing this ....they really need to get off their butts and do something about it.


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## TomF (Apr 13, 2001)

Syzygy said:


> I too would never ever pay for SD movies. In fact, I must admit I've never bought _any _ PPV stuff, but I would buy a _good _ HD movie if it cost less than $3.


Same here, but I got a coupon from DirecTV for a free PPV movie. It's worth $3.99. When I went looking for HD PPV movies, I found out they charge $4.99 for HD! It would have to be an outstanding HD movie for me to pay more than I can rent the DVD for and have all the extra features in addition.


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## bmw528is (Sep 30, 2006)

LlamaLarry said:


> What, you don't want to see "She's The Man"?  Well, you can not want to see it again tomorrow too.
> 
> I PPV'd HD Aeon Flux... a few months ago. I am stunned that it is still in the rotation. Is DirecTV doing the upconverting themselves and just can never get around to doing a few more? Are they being whored over on the pricing if they are getting the movies from another source?
> 
> Seriously, the only thing lamer than the HD PPV channel offerings was HD Spice (or whichever it was). I never bothered to PPV it; it appeared to be a call in show of some sort. :::yawn:::


Funny- I also TiVo'd Aeon Flux off PPV-HD. I thought I was the only one......I was just looking for SOMETHING, and I figured that even though the reviews were brutal, anything Sci-Fi with Charlize Theron can't be too bad for $4.99 or whatever it was. PQ was pretty decent too. I also had to call in to order it (remote wouldn't work) but she didn't charge me to do so.

"She's The Man"........what a crack-up. What's up next month....."Joe Dirt" ?


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

I don't have an issue paying more for HD PPV than a DVD rental, since the HD will be, well, HD. (Don't start with me on the HD Lite stuff, please.)

I DO, however, have an issue with paying ANYTHING for a movie that's not OAR, and sadly, a lot of the PPV movies aren't OAR. (HBO-HD is also horrible about this. Showtime HD does run SOME of their movies in OAR, and they will actually tell you so on their website. HDNet is *always* OAR and as such gets my vote for "way-coolest HD movie channel.")


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## philmalik (Sep 27, 2006)

HD Net gets my vote for coolest channel as well for movies.

About a month ago, they had "2001: A Space Odyessy" on there, and you could have sworn it was a movie from 2006. Such detail, and deep rich colors.
I don't know if it was a simple upconverting or was it someone's labour of love who put a little bit more effort into it (I have no idea on the process), but the images on the screen were simply amazing.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

Not an upconvert -- it was an HD transfer from film, and yeah, it looked very nice indeed. 

--signed, a kubrick fan


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

I caught that as well and it was so stunning it even got my wife to watch.


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## skanter (May 28, 2003)

cheer said:


> I don't have an issue paying more for HD PPV than a DVD rental, since the HD will be, well, HD. (Don't start with me on the HD Lite stuff, please.)
> 
> I DO, however, have an issue with paying ANYTHING for a movie that's not OAR, and sadly, a lot of the PPV movies aren't OAR. (HBO-HD is also horrible about this. Showtime HD does run SOME of their movies in OAR, and they will actually tell you so on their website. HDNet is *always* OAR and as such gets my vote for "way-coolest HD movie channel.")


What's OAR?


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## skanter (May 28, 2003)

philmalik said:


> HD Net gets my vote for coolest channel as well for movies.
> 
> About a month ago, they had "2001: A Space Odyessy" on there, and you could have sworn it was a movie from 2006. Such detail, and deep rich colors.
> I don't know if it was a simple upconverting or was it someone's labour of love who put a little bit more effort into it (I have no idea on the process), but the images on the screen were simply amazing.


Totally agree. Even older movies usually look fantastic in HD on HDNET. And, they seem to have a diverse library of quality older and newer movies. :up:


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## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

Syzygy said:


> I too would never ever pay for SD movies. In fact, I must admit I've never bought _any _ PPV stuff, but I would buy a _good _ HD movie if it cost less than $3.


Which EXACTLY why they are doing a SLOW roll-out of additional HD content. You must remember that over 70 percent (just estimating for example purposes) of their customer base have Standard definition service. How many have DVR's? My point is that if you want to be an early adopter, you must be willing to pay a fair amount for the content. Let's say they did charge you $3.00 for the movie. How much does that leave DTV in profit to pay for the bandwith and licensing fees and revenue sharing with the studio/owner of the "rights"?

Until more customers have HDTV, DVR's and start buying PPV's, don't look for the number of HD PPV channels to increase anytime soon!

Thoughts folks?


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## kdonnel (Nov 28, 2000)

skanter said:


> What's OAR?


Original Aspect Ratio

It was shot 2.35 he wants it shown 2.35 not zoomed to 1.77 so it fills a wide screen tv.


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## skanter (May 28, 2003)

kdonnel said:


> Original Aspect Ratio
> 
> It was shot 2.35 he wants it shown 2.35 not zoomed to 1.77 so it fills a wide screen tv.


Thanks. Not sure which I like. Original 2.35 is true to the original, but looks a bit small on my 42" plasma. I could zoom it myself, so I guess I'd prefer OAR anyway.


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## Sir_winealot (Nov 18, 2000)

cowboys2002 said:


> Which EXACTLY why they are doing a SLOW roll-out of additional HD content. You must remember that over 70 percent (just estimating for example purposes) of their customer base have Standard definition service. How many have DVR's? My point is that if you want to be an early adopter, you must be willing to pay a fair amount for the content. Let's say they did charge you $3.00 for the movie. How much does that leave DTV in profit to pay for the bandwith and licensing fees and revenue sharing with the studio/owner of the "rights"?
> 
> Until more customers have HDTV, DVR's and start buying PPV's, don't look for the number of HD PPV channels to increase anytime soon!
> 
> Thoughts folks?


I'm not looking for the number of HD PPV channels to increase ....I'm looking for them to _offer something worth watching _ on HD PPV (other than _Aeon Flux _ and_ Failure to Launch_).

It's no wonder nobody orders anything, they have new movies every Friday (SD), but _none_ of them are ever offered on the HD PPV channel.

AFAIC, they may as well do away with channel 99 and free up some bandwidth unless they're gonna make some changes.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

Sir_whinealot said:


> AFAIC, they may as well do away with channel 99 and free up some bandwidth unless they're gonna make some changes.


Agreed. But remember, if they did that and used the bandwidth for another channel, some people would go ape when they had to pull the channel for a few hours during Sunday Ticket.


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## LlamaLarry (Apr 30, 2003)

I suppose some folks will go ape over pretty much anything, but in this case they would be taking away a channel that the user only cares about when they want to buy something vs something they are paying for 24x7 with their HD Package subscription. 

The difference is that it would be DirecTV's wallet getting thinner vs the consumers, thus they would never take away a channel with the potential to earn revenue vs one they've already gotten paid for.


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## bwaldron (Mar 16, 2003)

LlamaLarry said:


> I suppose some folks will go ape over pretty much anything, but in this case they would be taking away a channel that the user only cares about when they want to buy something vs something they are paying for 24x7 with their HD Package subscription.


I wasn't clear enough. I meant that some would complain if D* replaced 99 with a "full time" channel instead of the HD PPV, and then dropped it a few hours per week.

They do already pull HD PPV during Sunday Ticket, I believe.



LlamaLarry said:


> The difference is that it would be DirecTV's wallet getting thinner vs the consumers, thus they would never take away a channel with the potential to earn revenue vs one they've already gotten paid for.


True. Although why they don't provide a better selection of movies on the HD PPV channel to further increase revenue is beyond me. Since I have never ordered a single PPV in the 9 years I have had D*, I'm probably not the best person to discuss that, though


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

skanter said:


> Thanks. Not sure which I like. Original 2.35 is true to the original, but looks a bit small on my 42" plasma. I could zoom it myself, so I guess I'd prefer OAR anyway.


I just want to see the entire movie, that's all. When you zoom or crop or pan-n-scan, you cut parts of the frame out.

On a bad or stupid movie, this probably doesn't matter. I'm not worried, for example, about messing with Michael Bay's vision.

But then, I try not to watch bad or stupid movies anyway, and when I'm watching a good movie I want to see the movie as filmed/intended. I'd never bother with 2001: A Space Odyssey if the left and right sides of the image are zapped.

Of course, this doesn't always mean widescreen. For example, in later years Kubrick actually shot in 4:3 and then cropped _for the theaters,_ with the intention of restoring the full frame on video/DVD. So which AR is truly the original? I'd argue the 4:3 since that's what was shot, but you could argue the 16:9 shown in theaters was the "original" as it was the first shown to the public. Regardless, my DVD of Eyes Wide Shut is in 4:3.

(Speaking of Kubrick...Barry Lyndon is on HDNet this month...)


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## bmw528is (Sep 30, 2006)

PPV-HD will be getting better hopefully next year with MPEG-4, but then we'd have to use the HR-20.............more issues/frustration/threads.


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