Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Digital Satellite Television

By Bobby Lee


In many ways, digital satellite Television is similar to conventional television 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 both systems are analog and digital.

In contrast to conventional tv, nevertheless, digital satellite Television is able to deliver digital broadcasts at more practical prices due to its significant coverage benefit. This advantage is brought about by the reality that in the satellite broadcasting the content is positioned thousands of kilometers above the ground (unlike the radio transmission towers utilized in conventional television that are, at best, just hundreds of meters above the ground), which translates to a a lot wider "footprint" and economies of scale that's 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, which are, in turn, "blindly" transmitted by the satellite to all areas within its "footprint". These compressed and encrypted signals are received by satellite dishes that are installed at the households and, depending on the authorizations given depending on the subscriptions acquired, get decompressed, decrypted, and displayed by the digital satellite Television set-top boxes that are connected to the television sets.

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

Practicality

Digital satellite TV's main benefit over Cable Television is that it costs less to maintain the service simply because you will find only 4 points of failure; i.e., the ground station, the satellite, the satellite dish, and the television itself. In Cable Tv, there are many kilometers of cable that have to be examined when a specific subscriber loses his service, aside from trouble at the cable Television headend, other distribution points, and the tv 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 tv broadcast, and Cable Television), Cable Television has the smallest coverage reach. This indicates that the addressable market can also be the smallest for Cable Tv, which restricts the number of subscribers it can offer service to. In contrast, digital satellite Television only has one requirement, i.e., the region it'll 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 and a subscription strategy with the digital satellite Tv provider to appreciate the service.

There are many digital satellite Tv providers that a potential subscriber might avail of. Among these are VOOM, DirecTV and DISH Network. These providers provide service packages that consist of high-definition Tv channels and info aside from the standard packages that cable Tv companies offer. All of these without damaging your wallet any more than it would in the event you continued with your Cable Tv service.






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