Another new HD channel added

JPL

Discovery Kids HD was added today to channel 789. My kids will be happy... Well... actually they won't care (they watch SD versions of channels on our HD TV), but if I have to sit through some of those shows, I'd rather they be in HD.

prisaz

Yea I wish they would put the SD and HD channels side by side, and we could choose to disable the SD version or what ever other channels we do not want in our guide. But that is me. I have a Tivo and it will allow me to disable channels. But the lineup is just that.

It amazes me how they can add these, but not a simple SD channel like NASA. Perhaps NASA will not provide a fiber feed. But I hardly figure that all those international channels are over a fiber feed. Perhaps IP and not SAT.

JPL

To be honest, I don't know why they don't carry NASA. It seems really odd. NASA is a free channel - it costs Verizon nothing to carry it. Also, the content providers don't offer up fiber distribution of their channels. That's not how this all works. Channels (with exception to some regional sports networks) are distributed via satellite. Cable companies have large satellite dishes that receive the channels, and they then get funnelled over to the cable distribution network. FiOS is no different. They have 2 Super Head Ends (SHEs), which receive the channels via a series of satellite dishes. From there, the channels are fed, by fiber, to the Video Head Offices (think regional cable offices), and from there to individual cable offices, and to your home, along the way, more channels are added to the mix. So, the SHEs get the national cable channels (ESPN, e.g.), then local channels and RSNs get added at the VHO level, and then local access channels get added at the CO level. The feed from content provider to Verizon, though, isn't done by fiber. That just isn't practical.

I understand that NASA is available for free on the web, or via a satellite dish, but I don't know for sure. Meaning that if you have a dish that can receive the channel, you can pick it up without having to pay for it. I think you can get to it over the web too, but I'm not sure. I know you can do that with channels like C-SPAN, which I've watched on line.