> How much would've have cost GI to add the VCII+/RS to
> the internal design of the 4DTV?
Not much, but maybe they are afraid that the Digicypher
is not going to be a big seller.  Why spend any money
on integrating VCII into digicypher if few are going
to be sold?
> they want to eventually get rid of the VCII+ datastream.
As long as a large number of C-band dish owners continue to
subscribe to programming, GI will continue to make money
from their scrambling and authorization service.  The numbers
will have to go way down before GI will want to give up that
revenue.
> It depresses me that some of the hobbyist
> "leaders" are already telling us to
> line up and get a 4DTV.
Who is saying this?
> Not only have they won the war, but the newbies in the
> hobby don't even know that there ever was a war.
GI and programmers' greed has wounded the big dish industry,
but the "war" has not been completely lost yet :)
If big dish owners could have bought programming for only 2
times what cable companies paid for it, the big dish
business would have been so healthy that the little dish
systems may not have been feasible.  Even though the little
dish companies have the expense of a dedicated satelllite
system, they can still sell programming for just a little
more than big dish owners pay.
I am still amazed that so many big dish owners cannot (will not?)
understand that they have been paying way too much for programming.
Whenever Rural TV and others have complained about this, congress
and the FCC were not motivated to do anything about it.  Why
should they?  Most big dish customers were satisfied with paying
7 times more than cable customers.  They don't care about the
cost per channel, all they care about is their total bill.
Another blow to the home dish business and even C-band data
was the change to 2 degree spacing.  Even a 15 foot dish can
have trouble receiving some of the data streams.
A "convenient" side effect of the change to 2 degrees was
that home dishes had to be bigger to receive a clear
interference-free picture.  Now that the industry wants
to send data to many small dishes, C-band is useless.
There are even interference issues with Ku-band.
Who would have thought the time would come when Ku-band
time would cost more than C-band?  Well that is the way
it is now in the world of 2 degree spacing.
Perhaps one day the FCC will admit that 2 degree spacing
was a mistake.  Even if they admitted it tomorrow, it would
take years to correct the problem.
> An expensive 4DTV won't help TVRO.
> And at this point we need some strong stimulants.
Years ago a Canadian company was going to compete with GI's
authorization business.  GI sued, and the potential competition
was killed.  With no competition and no incentive to lower
programming prices to be comparable to what cable companies
pay, I don't see any strong stimulant in the future.  However,
the decline of the big dish may be slow.  Big dishes will
probably still be around for a long time :)
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