Thursday, April 21, 2011

Digital Satellite Television

By Bobby Lee


In numerous ways, digital satellite Television is comparable to conventional tv broadcasts in that its content is transmitted via the airwaves and captured by an antenna (in the case of traditional Tv) or satellite dish (in the case of digital satellite Tv). Also, the types of content that can be broadcast by each systems are analog and digital.

Unlike conventional tv, nevertheless, digital satellite Television is able to deliver digital broadcasts at more practical prices due to its significant coverage advantage. 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 tv that are, at best, 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 just before broadcast. These broadcasts are transmitted from satellite ground stations to the satellites, that are, in turn, "blindly" transmitted by the satellite to all areas within its "footprint". These compressed and encrypted signals are received by satellite dishes which are installed at the households and, with regards to 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 Television, digital satellite Tv has the following advantages:

Practicality

Digital satellite TV's main benefit over Cable Television is that it costs much less to preserve the service simply because there are only 4 points of failure; i.e., the ground station, the satellite, the satellite dish, and also the television itself. In Cable Tv, there are several kilometers of cable that need to be examined when a specific subscriber loses his service, apart from trouble at the cable Television headend, other distribution points, and the tv set. This benefit permits digital satellite Tv service providers to charge less for digital content than cable Tv providers.

Wider Coverage

Among the three broadcast media (digital satellite Tv, traditional television broadcast, and Cable Television), Cable Tv has the smallest coverage reach. This means that the addressable market is also 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 buy is a satellite-band compatible satellite dish, a provider-issued set-top box along with a subscription strategy with the digital satellite Television provider to enjoy the service.

There are several digital satellite Television providers that a potential subscriber might avail of. Among these are VOOM, DirecTV and DISH Network. These providers offer service packages that consist of high-definition Tv channels and info apart from the regular packages that cable Television 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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