It's all about the quantity, and screw the quality

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:
People want MORE CHANNELS.

Seen on a web forum:

- - -

I emailed DirecTV asking about the resolutions they provide on their
system, both HD and SD. Here is the reply I got:

"Dear Mr. Moore,

Thank you for asking us about the picture quality on your DIRECTV
System. In accordance with our company policy, we cannot give out the
specifics of the resolution of our broadcast signal. This is partly
because we are always fine-tuning our quality. The goal of our engineers
is to design the very best transmission operation that will bring you
extraordinary video, audio, and data along with the programming.

Though our engineers have very high standards, I'm sure you understand
that our success as a business depends in part on carrying a wide
selection of programming. Therefore, due to limitations in satellite
space capacity we must balance our desire to provide outstanding signal
quality with the demand for a wide selection of channels. We are proud
of the job we do at delivering both.

To be able to keep enhancing our signal quality AND to bring our
customers lots of choices, we are always working on upgrades to our
broadcast infrastructure that let us transmit our programming more
efficiently. In other words, we can add more channels without
sacrificing picture quality, and we can improve picture quality without
having to drop any channels.

We appreciate your patience as we adjust and fine tune our systems. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

Lyn O.
100166680
DIRECTV Customer Service"

In other words, DTV just told me "We're DirecTV and you're not, so GFY."

Sounds like pretty good advice to me. I suggest you take it.

Chip

--
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Abe wrote:
I emailed DirecTV asking about the resolutions they provide on their
system, both HD and SD. Here is the reply I got:

"Dear Mr. Moore,

Thank you for asking us about the picture quality on your DIRECTV
System. In accordance with our company policy, we cannot give out the
specifics of the resolution of our broadcast signal. This is partly
because we are always fine-tuning our quality. The goal of our
engineers is to design the very best transmission operation that will
bring you extraordinary video, audio, and data along with the
programming.

Though our engineers have very high standards, I'm sure you understand
that our success as a business depends in part on carrying a wide
selection of programming. Therefore, due to limitations in satellite
space capacity we must balance our desire to provide outstanding
signal quality with the demand for a wide selection of channels. We
are proud of the job we do at delivering both.

To be able to keep enhancing our signal quality AND to bring our
customers lots of choices, we are always working on upgrades to our
broadcast infrastructure that let us transmit our programming more
efficiently. In other words, we can add more channels without
sacrificing picture quality, and we can improve picture quality
without having to drop any channels.

We appreciate your patience as we adjust and fine tune our systems. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

Lyn O.
100166680
DIRECTV Customer Service"

In other words, DTV just told me "We're DirecTV and you're not, so
GFY."

Sounds like pretty good advice to me. I suggest you take it.
WTF is your problem? I think its pretty telling that DTV won't answer
this simple question. Why should the asker go F himself?

It was my response to Elmo, the poster, a known troll.

Chip

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Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:
In article ,
wrote:

WTF is your problem? I think its pretty telling that DTV won't answer
this simple question. Why should the asker go F himself?

It was my response to Elmo, the poster, a known troll.

You mean, someone saying things you just plain wish nobody ever brought
up.

Is this supposed to make sense?

Chip

--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB

Abe wrote:
I emailed DirecTV asking about the resolutions they provide on their
system, both HD and SD. Here is the reply I got:

"Dear Mr. Moore,

Thank you for asking us about the picture quality on your DIRECTV
System. In accordance with our company policy, we cannot give out the
specifics of the resolution of our broadcast signal. This is partly
because we are always fine-tuning our quality. The goal of our engineers
is to design the very best transmission operation that will bring you
extraordinary video, audio, and data along with the programming.

Though our engineers have very high standards, I'm sure you understand
that our success as a business depends in part on carrying a wide
selection of programming. Therefore, due to limitations in satellite
space capacity we must balance our desire to provide outstanding signal
quality with the demand for a wide selection of channels. We are proud
of the job we do at delivering both.

To be able to keep enhancing our signal quality AND to bring our
customers lots of choices, we are always working on upgrades to our
broadcast infrastructure that let us transmit our programming more
efficiently. In other words, we can add more channels without
sacrificing picture quality, and we can improve picture quality without
having to drop any channels.

We appreciate your patience as we adjust and fine tune our systems. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

Lyn O.
100166680
DIRECTV Customer Service"

In other words, DTV just told me "We're DirecTV and you're not, so GFY."

Sounds like pretty good advice to me. I suggest you take it.

WTF is your problem? I think its pretty telling that DTV won't answer
this simple question. Why should the asker go F himself?

If DTV is constantly changing their signal, how are they supposed to
answer the question?

"Larry Bud" writes:
[...]
If DTV is constantly changing their signal, how are they supposed to
answer the question?

The solution to this problem suddenly became clear about 60 seconds ago.
offer a high resolution package. The marketing folks and engineering folks
should get together to determine the price point at which it would be
profitable to set aside transponder bandwdith for a few really clean
high-resolution channels and charge appropriately for it.

The problem is, this only works if there's a reassonable demand for
such content, otherwise the price point is too high and/or won't
cover the cost of the bandwidth.
--
% Randy Yates % "She tells me that she likes me very much,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % but when I try to touch, she makes it
%%% 919-577-9882 % all too clear."
%%%% % 'Yours Truly, 2095', *Time*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

"Larry Bud" wrote:


Abe wrote:
I emailed DirecTV asking about the resolutions they provide on their
system, both HD and SD. Here is the reply I got:

"Dear Mr. Moore,

Thank you for asking us about the picture quality on your DIRECTV
System. In accordance with our company policy, we cannot give out the
specifics of the resolution of our broadcast signal. This is partly
because we are always fine-tuning our quality. The goal of our engineers
is to design the very best transmission operation that will bring you
extraordinary video, audio, and data along with the programming.

Though our engineers have very high standards, I'm sure you understand
that our success as a business depends in part on carrying a wide
selection of programming. Therefore, due to limitations in satellite
space capacity we must balance our desire to provide outstanding signal
quality with the demand for a wide selection of channels. We are proud
of the job we do at delivering both.

To be able to keep enhancing our signal quality AND to bring our
customers lots of choices, we are always working on upgrades to our
broadcast infrastructure that let us transmit our programming more
efficiently. In other words, we can add more channels without
sacrificing picture quality, and we can improve picture quality without
having to drop any channels.

We appreciate your patience as we adjust and fine tune our systems. We
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

Lyn O.
100166680
DIRECTV Customer Service"

In other words, DTV just told me "We're DirecTV and you're not, so GFY."

Sounds like pretty good advice to me. I suggest you take it.

WTF is your problem? I think its pretty telling that DTV won't answer
this simple question. Why should the asker go F himself?

If DTV is constantly changing their signal, how are they supposed to
answer the question?

THey use a complex algorithm to dynamically allocated bandwidth for
each of the 500 channels.

That's what she means by constantly changing.

for example, the weather channel, might get less bandwidth than say
Showtime, at a particular moment. Digital cable and Sat TV is not a
constant resolution.

The objective is to have as many "watchable" channels as they can
possibly transmit - its not to give you the best picture.

If they only had 50 channels, then they could give you 50 pristine DVD
quality 480i digital pictures - that's not what JQP wants, and that's
not what makes them the most money.

Randy Yates wrote:
"Larry Bud" writes:
[...]
If DTV is constantly changing their signal, how are they supposed to
answer the question?

The solution to this problem suddenly became clear about 60 seconds ago.
offer a high resolution package. The marketing folks and engineering folks
should get together to determine the price point at which it would be
profitable to set aside transponder bandwdith for a few really clean
high-resolution channels and charge appropriately for it.

The problem is, this only works if there's a reassonable demand for
such content, otherwise the price point is too high and/or won't
cover the cost of the bandwidth.

Offer all channels ala carte. The drek would be dropped or priced very
differently

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game

Offer all channels ala carte. The drek would be dropped or priced very
differently

DTV can't offer channels ala carte because they can't pay for them that
way. (i.e. if DTV wants The Discovery Channel, they also have to pay for
TLC, Animal Planet, The History Channel, etc.)

Offer all channels ala carte. The drek would be dropped or priced very
differently.

What an optimist! Odds are the drek will be retained at the expense
of the good stuff.

Kal

Kalman Rubinson wrote:
Offer all channels ala carte. The drek would be dropped or priced very
differently.

What an optimist! Odds are the drek will be retained at the expense
of the good stuff.

Put a price on each channel and find out.

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game