DIRECTV replacing MUSIC CHOICE channels with XM Radio!

[dbfresh23]

Just got this in an email from Directv:

We have some exciting information to share with you. On November 15, DIRECTV will be replacing the MUSIC CHOICE® channels with the music and entertainment channels of XM Satellite Radio – the nation's #1 satellite radio service.

With XM Satellite Radio, you'll enjoy a huge variety of radio stations with an incredible selection of music genres, talk shows and more.

[insomniac]

amuzing that Direct, which owns Dish is doing XM. Dish on the other hand does Sirius.........

If you want Howard stern, your going to have to go Dish/Siri

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by insomniac

amuzing that Direct, which owns Dish is doing XM.

I don't believe DirecTV owns Dish Network, I don't think that merger ever happened.

[dbfresh23]

I don't think it did either. Newscorp owns Directv, Foxtel, Sky and Sky Italia according to their site. No mention of Dish Network.

[stanger89]

There was talk of a merger, and I thin Newscorp does want to "merge" DTV and DN, but I think the FTC has either shot them down, or is still looking.

[zz5]

It's been a long time now since they were attempting the merger. It never happened. I don't think it's actively being attempted now. If the merger had gone through, there would only be one satellite service - either Dish or DirecTV - because that was one of the major reasons Dish Network wanted DirecTV - they wanted more satellite space.

Another thing, you won't get Howard Stern on Dish Network because you only get the music channels.

[insomniac]

I would be surprised if stern's 5 channels werent added to the dish lineup, being that they are audio. although siri has already announced that they will have video content soon.

I could swear that they purchased dish. I can see the pushback on the merger though. That would pretty much be a monopoly in NA. Ill have to read up on the dtv\dish thing...

[phenixdragon]

Originally Posted by stanger89

There was talk of a merger, and I thin Newscorp does want to "merge" DTV and DN, but I think the FTC has either shot them down, or is still looking.

That is correct, the Feds stopped the buy out of DTV to The Dish Network. When that happened News Corp stepped in and bought DTV from Hughes.

[cmaffia]

Awesome!! My dual tuner system has both DishNetwork and DirectTV so now I will have Serius and XM on the same program guide

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

Just got this in an email from Directv:

We have some exciting information to share with you. On November 15, DIRECTV will be replacing the MUSIC CHOICE® channels with the music and entertainment channels of XM Satellite Radio – the nation's #1 satellite radio service.

With XM Satellite Radio, you'll enjoy a huge variety of radio stations with an incredible selection of music genres, talk shows and more.

[Kanati]

I have XM in my car and Siri on my Dish network setup... I gots the best of both worlds.

[Brent94Z]

Hmm...

The current DirecTV music channels come down in pretty darn high quality audio. XM audio quality is only marginally better than FM radio. Do some research on this and you'll see that XM "clips" the frequency in order to save on bandwidth. I've got an XM PCR with TOSLink output and also TimeTrax. Worked good but quality wasn't acceptable. That's when I found out there was nothing wrong with my setup... it was "just the way it is".

I no longer have DirecTV but if I did I might have to be a bit upset about this... unless they up the quality of the XM signal but I wouldn't expect that.

[phenixdragon]

I don't think this has anythign to do with quality. I am not sure who owns their current music channels but basically it is outsourcing their music to XM which means DirecTV just has to make the connection happen from XM, they don't have to manage anything and it could just be cheaper. But quality is digital, so it's the same.

I love my XM radio in my car, better talk channels and I can rewind what I just listened to and I also have displayed what is playing and my receiver even tells me when certain artisit or songs are playing on other channels.

[briands]

Originally Posted by phenixdragon

...
But quality is digital, so it's the same.
.....

Boy that's what a lot of marketing types want you to believe.

There are a lot of ways for compression to F#*& up the quality of content that was at one time analog. MP3 at 64 is digital and so is an SACD. Surely you don't think they are the same.

[phenixdragon]

Still is sounding great to me! I haven't listened to normal radio in forever now and am planning on taking out the atenna for it.

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by phenixdragon

Still is sounding great to me! I haven't listened to normal radio in forever now and am planning on taking out the atenna for it.

Right... it does sound pretty good in a car... but listen to the same song in your car and then immediately turn around and listen to that same song on a CD. You will be able to HEAR the difference.

I suppose it will all depend on how/where the interface takes place and exactly how XM decides to "pipe" the stations to DirectTV.

I just know there is a large difference in sound quality between DirectTV and XM. I can hear it on my cheaper system and when I compare the two on my high end home stereo with good speakers, the difference is so big that it makes me want to NOT listen to XM on my home stereo. Granted, it is GREAT for the talk type shows and stuff you can't get otherwise but speaking only about MUSIC and the frequency range when it enters your house (via XM's sat) it is not even close to that of a CD or DirectTV sound quality.

I don't see DirectTV "screwing" this up so I'm assuming they'll get the XM content from XM before it goes through all the compression and clipping and whatever else they do

[phenixdragon]

I dunno, I hear the same CD quality from a CD as I do from XM. My car system is most likely better then any home system out there and I do have a kick @$$ home system too.

But the only time I heard quality issues is before I piped the receiver into my aux on my deck and used the tape or the FM tuner. Actually then talk radio sucked because quality matters more on talk then it did on songs. Songs was less noticeable, but talk was sometimes hard to understand because it wasn’t clear.

I wonder though, when XM adds video, what they will do. Maybe they will take feeds from DirecTV which would be cool. Who knows, maybe XM will be bought out by News Corp also if the feds let it happen.