[B] Hi-Tech: Dishing up is hot alternative to cable TV
By Jon Healey, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Digital satellite TV service, one of the hottest consumer-electronic
products in history, just got hotter.
Already, more than 10% of all US homes have the small-dish services from
DirecTV and Dish Network. Those subscribers signed up even though many of them
could not get the major TV networks via satellite.
Now, lawmakers have cleared the way for satellite companies to offer local
TV channels in addition to the hundreds of sports, entertainment, movie and
pay-per-view offerings already in the line-up.
As a result, analyst Sean Badding of the Carmel Group, a satellite research
and consulting firm in Carmel-by-the-Sea, said digital satellite companies are
likely to sustain their phenomenal growth for the next several years. The
availability of local channels "is just going to add more fuel to the fire," he
predicted.
But is a satellite dish the right choice for you? That depends on how you
feel about 5 aspects of the service that are different from cable TV--some
clearly better, others clearly worse.
Dish Network and DirecTV plan to offer local channels only in a few dozen
markets. That's because the law requires them, by 2002, to carry every broadcast
station in any market where they offer local service--a dozen or more stations
in most metropolitan areas. The 2 companies don't have the capacity to do that
all across the country, at least not until new satellites arrive that can
broadcast signals region by re
gion.
Federal regulators have a year to write the final rules governing which
local stations must be carried and who can qualify for non-local stations.
The new law allows the big-dish satellite services to carry local channels,
too, but industry officials say they don't expect to see that happen. Instead,
the best hope for viewers in rural areas may come in a few years. Capitol
Broadcasting of Raleigh, N.C., hopes to launch a new service called "Local TV on
Satellite," which will retransmit the nearest local stations from second-tier
markets to small-dish owners.
One area where satellite beats cable, hands down, is in the sheer number of
channels offered. Sure, AT&T's "digital cable" package helps close the gap by
squeezing a dozen networks into the space of one conventional channel, but AT&T
just can't match the volume of choices available from DirecTV with more than 210
channels, or Dish Network with 350 to 400. The typical, upgraded AT&T network
provides a maximum of about 120 channels today.
How many channels do you really need? Analysts say the typical viewer
watches only about 7 networks on a regular basis. Still, your 7 probably aren't
the same as your neighbor's.
There are about 175 non-broadcast networks operating today, ranging from
mainstream fixtures such as CNN to niche products such as Speedvision, a
car-racing channel, and foreign-language services. The satellite services offer
more of those networks than the typical cable system does, so i
f you're tastes run to ethnic or obscure programming, chances are that satellite
will give you more of what you want.
Movie and sports aficionados also will also find more options on the
satellite services. DirecTV offers viewers the unique ability to view just about
any major-league game in the country in any sport, along with any televised
college football or basketball game, although prices can be steep. Both
companies also have dozens of pay-per-view movie channels, with hit movies often
playing on multiple channels at 15-minute intervals. That way, if you want to
watch one of those movies, you won't have to wait more than a few minutes for it
to start.
Cable will probably respond someday with a true video-on-demand service,
enabling viewers to start, pause, rewind and replay movies as if they were on
tape. Consumers in Novato have that service today. But Dish Network is including
a digital recorder in its DishPlayer receiver that will do the same thing with
any program, using technology developed by Microsoft's WebTV unit in Mountain
View. And DirecTV plans to do the same next year, using technology from TiVo
Inc. of Sunnyvale.
Another small-dish attribute is high-quality broadcasts. The services are
popular with home-theater aficionados for just that reason: they deliver clearer
and more detailed pictures than cable or over-the-air broadcasters, along with
superior, cinema-style sound.
The primary reason is the digital broadcasting technology used by the
satellite services. Instead of transmitting pictures and sound as electronic
pulses prone to interference and fading, they translate them into the ones and
zeros of computer language before beaming them to viewers. That technique means
the pictures and sound arrive in your home in the same condition that they left
the transmitting station.
AT&T offers some digital channels as well, but picture quality isn't quite
as good as satellite. That's because the cable company transmits fewer picture
details than the satellite companies do, for the sake of squeezing more networks
onto its systems.
The ultimate in digital picture quality is high-definition TV, which can
transmit 5 times as much picture detail as the best conventional broadcast. So
far, AT&T Cable hasn't started offering any HDTV channels, mainly because it's
waiting for new cable converter boxes to arrive, spokesman Andrew Johnson said.
DirecTV is carrying HBO's HDTV feed and a pay-per-view HDTV channel. Dish
Network is now also HBO's HDTV feed, but viewers need a top-of-the-line receiver
and a $300 adapter.
The satellite services tend to cost less per month than cable for each
channel provided. AT&T charges $31 to $35 per month in the Bay Area for its full
lineup of non-premium channels, plus $10 per month for the digital package.
DirecTV and Dish Network charge $30 per month for about 100 non-premium
channels, plus $5 to $6 per month
for local signals.
The catch is, the cost to get started with satellite service may be
significantly higher than with cable. AT&T Cable offers to install its service
for as little as $5, then charges $3 per month for its converter boxes. The
satellite dish-and-receiver combinations start at about $100, plus $75 or more
for a professional installer. And if you want the ability to watch on more than
one set, each TV in your house will have to be equipped with a separate
receiver. Both digital satellite companies frequently offer promotions to cut
the price of their equipment--with Dish Network, in fact, you can get the dish
and one receiver for free if you sign up for a year's worth of service at $49
per month. So the initial cost is hardly the barrier it was when the small-dish
services debuted in 1994, charging $1,000 for their equipment.
What's more, some residents simply cannot install a satellite dish in a spot
with a clear view of the satellites overhead. For example, apartment and
condominium dwellers have the right to put dishes on the property they rent or
own, but not necessarily on a shared roof or wall. So if you live on the ground
floor of a 3-story building and your patio faces north, you may be out of luck.
Beyond that, there's the risk of obsolescence. Television has changed so
slowly over the years, people didn't have to worry about their new $500 set ever
being out of date. But now that digital technologies are seeping into broadcast
and cable TV,
the pace of change is accelerating.
The digital cable box that arrived in your home yesterday won't be able to
deliver many of the services that AT&T plans to start trying out next year.
Similarly, the digital satellite receivers that DirecTV and Dish Network sold
early this year can't provide some of the most interesting new services that the
two companies are developing.
So, if you want the latest and the greatest, you might be safer renting
equipment from AT&T than buying it from a satellite service. On the other hand,
you'll probably have to wait longer for AT&T to try something new and innovative
in the video arena than Dish Network or DirecTV. End
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Dec-09-1999 18:03 GMT
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