Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Digital Satellite Television

By Bobby Lee


In many ways, digital satellite Television is comparable to conventional television broadcasts in that its content is transmitted through the airwaves and captured by an antenna (in the instance of conventional Tv) or satellite dish (in the case of digital satellite Television). In addition, the kinds of content that can be broadcast by each systems are analog and digital.

Unlike conventional television, however, digital satellite Tv is able to deliver digital broadcasts at more practical prices because of its significant coverage benefit. This benefit is brought about by the fact that in the satellite broadcasting the content is positioned thousands of kilometers over the ground (unlike the radio transmission towers utilized in traditional television which are, at greatest, just hundreds of meters above the ground), which translates to a a lot wider "footprint" and economies of scale that is placed on its pricing consideration.

Digital satellite Tv compresses and encrypts the digital signals of the information prior to broadcast. These broadcasts are transmitted from satellite ground stations to the satellites, that are, in turn, "blindly" transmitted by the satellite to all areas inside its "footprint". These compressed and encrypted signals are received by satellite dishes that are installed at the households and, depending on the authorizations given based on the subscriptions availed of, get decompressed, decrypted, and displayed from the digital satellite Television set-top boxes which are connected to the television sets.

Compared to an erstwhile entertainment favorite, Cable Tv, digital satellite Tv has the following advantages:

Practicality

Digital satellite TV's primary advantage over Cable Television is that it costs less to preserve the service because you will find only four points of failure; i.e., the ground station, the satellite, the satellite dish, and the television itself. In Cable Tv, there are several kilometers of cable that need to be examined when a particular subscriber loses his service, apart from trouble at the cable Television headend, other distribution points, and also the television set. This benefit allows digital satellite Television service providers to charge less for digital content than cable Tv providers.

Wider Coverage

Among the 3 broadcast media (digital satellite Tv, traditional television broadcast, and Cable Tv), Cable Tv has the smallest coverage reach. This means that the addressable market can also be the smallest for Cable Tv, which limits the number of subscribers it can provide service to. In contrast, digital satellite Tv only has 1 requirement, i.e., the region it will serve has a direct line of sight to the satellite. All a subscriber needs to purchase is a satellite-band compatible satellite dish, a provider-issued set-top box and a subscription plan with the digital satellite Television provider to enjoy the service.

There are several digital satellite Television providers that a possible subscriber may avail of. Amongst these are VOOM, DirecTV and DISH Network. These providers offer service packages that consist of high-definition Tv channels and information apart from the standard packages that cable Tv companies provide. All of these without hurting your wallet any more than it would if you continued with your Cable Tv service.






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