I was visiting family in New Hampshire and noticed another indie wrestling outfit, "Paragon Pro Wrestling," running in the top one-quarter of the screen on a channel called POP, whose main function appeared to be as an old-fashioned program guide. The action was virtually unwatchable in this ultra-squeezed format. With program schedule info readily available by hitting "Guide" on the remote, why is this relic even needed on a modern Comcast system, and who watches program content squeezed into such a small portion of the screen?
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Which Cable Channel will close first?
- Thread starter TVCOOL
- Start date
I was visiting family in New Hampshire and noticed another indie wrestling outfit, "Paragon Pro Wrestling," running in the top one-quarter of the screen on a channel called POP, whose main function appeared to be as an old-fashioned program guide. The action was virtually unwatchable in this ultra-squeezed format. With program schedule info readily available by hitting "Guide" on the remote, why is this relic even needed on a modern Comcast system, and who watches program content squeezed into such a small portion of the screen?
POP is the channel previously known as TV Guide Channel. I'm surprised some cable systems still keep the on-screen guide.
You don't think Disney would return the channels used for ESPN Classic, ESPN News, and alternate feed allocations to the cable companies in exchange for adding the ESPN-3 on demand/live streaming app to the set top box? Same with Disney's children's channels. Much of the children's programming targeting 3+ year olds would work fine in an on demand format. It seems like ESPN and Disney apps on the set top box would be more valuable than a few extra lineal channels.
In this type of case I can see dropping channel allocations as part of negotiations as viable.
In this type of case I can see dropping channel allocations as part of negotiations as viable.
My guess is the higher tiered channels. I predict that Fuse would be shut down, maybe A&E's fyi, another lifestyle channel. But who knows?
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
If Disney had wanted those channels available that way, they would have already negotiated for it. You're talking about a company with clout.
So ... no, I do not think they would do as you suggest.
When Comcast killed G4 did they reuse the transponder for something else or was that a clean channel dump? The same with Disney and SoapNet? Was the spot repurposed?
Wikipedia (yeah, I know) indicates that the Esquire Network was to replace G4, but wound up replacing Style instead, The article doesn't say what happened to G4's transponder. Likewise, the article on SoapNet gives no clue to the fate of the transponder, just that "General Hospital" faded to black and a generic "channel no longer available" card went up.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
I recall that the original plan was to launch Disney Junior as a full-time channel* in 2012 using the SoapNet transponder, but the shutdown was delayed to the end of 2013 (11:59pm on December 31, in fact) and the startup had happened on schedule (March 23, 2012).
Perhaps this was a case of Disney Junior operating with one feed nationwide and the SoapNet transponder becoming the west coast feed sometime in 2013? I don't remember one way or the other.
*-It had been airing as a block of time on the main Disney Channel for about a year at that point.
The space occupied by G4 HD was replaced with a west coast feed of E! HD. The space occupied by the standard definition east and west feeds of G4 has not been reused.
The space occupied by SoapNet has not been reused, at least not by Disney. They had east and west feeds of SoapNet on a transponder that also housed standard definition east and west feeds of Disney XD. When SoapNet went off the air, the Disney XD feeds stayed by themselves on the transponder for a while, but eventually they were placed with other Disney-owned cable channels on a different satellite and the original space that held the Disney XD and SoapNet feeds was relinquished.
While we are talking about HD vs standard feeds. Does ESPN operate a standard feed anymore of is it just a HD feed broadcast on basic at this point?
I believe Disney only provides a dedicated standard definition feed for ESPNU, ESPN Classic, and the ESPN Premium/PPV services these days. Everything else ESPN is HD only, although Comcast's Headend in the Sky (HITS) service intended to deliver channels to small, cash-strapped cable operators still provides ESPN 2, ESPNews, Longhorn Network, and SEC Network in SD.
ESPN transitioned from the older SD MPEG2 feeds to solely MPEG4 HD feeds about four years back; this is what most networks have done, so that cable providers have to do the 480i downscaling at their headend themselves.
I've had this debate with people at the Cable Co before. Why do they still push SD and HD channels separately. Just shut off the SD and free up the bandwidth. Every station broadcasts in HD now, so why the need to keep the SD feeds up and running.
Because they can (and most do) charge an extra fee for HD.
I thought that was still an FCC mandate for all systems that don't require a cable box for all services, aka those who pump straight NTSC RF to their customers.
The headend could still down scale HD. No reason for 2 simultaneous feeds.
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I agree with you totally, especially now in 2015. Something that is starting to be done, but not quite a solution is implementation of "auto-HD". Time Warner Cable started doing that on its systems within the last year, and DirecTV has done it for a couple years even before that. Especially for cable, a lot of SD simulcasts of many channels that also broadcast in HD can be freed-up for additional other networks (especially those multicast networks that are fighting for carriage).
and is the HD feed of ABC Family legally separate channel from the SD ABC Family which is contractually obligated to keep airing the 700 Club (and was thought to be required to keep "family" in the name)?
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Is the auto HD process from Time Warner similar to how Charter has an option on their digital tuners to automatically switch to the equivalent HD channel when the SD channel is picked? It's an option that can be turned off for older SD sets, but I've found out that sometimes the on an older show that on the SD channel it will be postage stamped with black bars on all 4 sides on an SD set while the HD version will be letterboxed on the top and bottom only, which looks better to me. At least with the way Charter's tuner works in most cases I'd rather watch the HD channel.
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