You now own all the satellite equipment you need to start receiving satellite TV broadcasting and the longer it sits in your garage the more frustrated you become. Many satellite service companies are offering free satellite TV installation along with free equipment when you agree to keep a certain level of programming for a certain amount of time. However, some people just do not want to wait and buy their own equipment and install it themselves.
Contrary to popular belief, satellite TV installation is not all that difficult if you can use a few basic tools and a have some understanding of how to run wires through the house without leaving them lying on the floor. The most difficult part of satellite TV installation is in aligning the disk to point at the satellite.
When you receive satellite TV the signal must come from somewhere. But where? It comes from satellite dishes rotating the earth that companies and other people paid for to put up there for you to watch these shows regardless of where you live. The people that provide you with these channels and movies are called satellite TV service providers. These men and women work day and night to bring you high quality analog and digital cable and only ask for a small amount of money in return.
In the next few minutes you will have learned what a satellite service provider is and isn't and how that moving picture gets to your television screen.
What does a satellite TV provider do?
A satellite TV descrambler is also called "legal boxes". Some satellite channels (such as HBO) are encrypted and authorized users only can access them. If you are to watch such channel, you will need a satellite TV descrambler to decode the signal. A satellite TV descrambler can be bought by an authorized reseller, however you will need a valid subscription with your satellite television provider as well.
In certain cases, you will not need a separate satellite TV descrambler as it might be built in your receiver. A tip for the ones that are not technical savvy – such receiver will be caller IRD or Integrated Receiver Descrambler. There is one thing you should consider in case you are offered to get an IRD. Make sure you are buying a VC-II RS integrated receiver descrambler. VC-II RS is a forthcoming broadcasting system so you should be prepared or at least have an RD that can be upgraded to VC-II .
In this world there are many ways to get things for free, little are legal ways. When satellite TV was first invented you had the right to watch the broadcasts for free because of the broadcaster's right to broadcast them. When the broadcasters where told this they didn't like it very much and decided to take action in order for them to stay in business.
The following paragraphs will let you know why signals aren't free, how they can be, and how they become available to you through paying.
Why it INS'T call free satellite TV
This question is an easy one to answer. It applies the same concept of why food isn't free. For one, it pays the workers who get it to your television set. It keeps the broadcast running so you may watch the shows that they deliver. Also certain signals require a decoder that allows the television to read and understand the scrambled data and allows it to form a picture. In the beginning satellite TV was free because the invention of encrypted signals had not been developed yet.
Satellite TV used to be considered a luxury just a few years ago. Cheap satellite TV was just a fantasy. The prices of a system with a satellite TV dish and electronic boxes ranged from $2,000 to $10,000. The installation cost was another few hundreds dollars.
With so many TV satellite companies competing for getting more customers, cheap satellite TV has become a reality, and guess what, the installation is generally free.
Satellite TV Systems
Here are the things you can usually get from a satellite TV company:
* A free satellite TV dish, as well as mounting stand
* Several free receivers and universal remote controls
* Free installation in several rooms
* Free digital video recording receivers to record your favorite shows
* Optional HDTV receivers for high definition reception.
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A free to air satellite TV is a satellite television you can receive without subscription. You will see it as FTA satellite TV as well. Unlike other subscription-based services (such as the Direct TV or Dish Network services), you can watch a variety of programs with no monthly cost.
Something else interesting to be pointed out is that there are certain channels are advertised as free to air satellite TV channels but in fact, they are paid. Some of them depend on donations, for others the consumer should pay a license fee (such as BBC).
If you are eager to try this option, here is a list of the equipment you will need.
The Satellite dish
Just about fifty years ago, people were wondering who would actually pay for television. Nowadays, there are millions of subscribers worldwide and cable companies are competing with satellite TV providers, offering hundreds of channels and interactive services to get more customers.
Here is a cable vs satellite TV review referring to the companies that provide television services in the United States and Canada.
Prices
The pricing is very important in a cable vs. satellite TV review. As satellite companies don't have to pay any taxes to the local governments and have smaller infrastructures, customers get a better price-quality balance. Although the low-end price for cable TV is now better, it only has a third of the channels and it can't compete with the most affordable package from satellite TV.
Edge: Satellite
Programming
No matter how good your system may be, you will never see a picture without the installation of a valid satellite TV card. Only about the size of a credit card, they slip into a spot, usually in the front of the satellite receiver and contain a small chip that can be programmed over the satellite with the information about your programming choices. Without the satellite TV card in place and registered with the satellite TV company, your system will not function.
Many people however try to beat the system on a consistent basis by buying a satellite TV card and programming equipment that allow them effectively to steal satellite service, receiving all channels being broadcast by the satellite company. To help deter this theft, satellite providers have developed what they call electronic counter measures to render the cards useless. Satellite service providers keep in communication with the programming cards through the satellite system and can send out the system essentially to erase the programming authorizations on the card.
What A Descrambler Does
A satellite TV descrambler is a satellite receiver which transmits the free to air signals to the television set; free to air is often called FTA and descramblers are also known as FTA receivers. FTA signals are unencrypted signals that travel freely over the air waves and may be picked up by the satellite dish and then transmitted to the receiver and the television.
Availability
Some channels are always encrypted and others are only encrypted for a time; there are websites which will tell a FTA satellite owner which channels are likely to work in which areas, these websites aren't always the most accurate and may not be updated regularly.
Time Warner Company, HBO, and others always encrypt their television channels; while many international channels never encrypt their channels. To pick-up the channels two pieces of information much be entered into the receiver for the satellite television descrambler to work properly.
There are many bargains when it comes to shopping for something that you really need and desire, and a good deal is a great thing to come by. Almost daily, calls go out by telemarketers across the world offering incredible savings on almost anything imaginable, from phone bills to life insurance rates. When shopping for a great deal, one has to always be wary of reading the "fine print," as some deals can be too good to be true. When looking for a good satellite TV system, it is very important that one ends up with both a quality product and a good, money-saving bargain as well. Finding a satellite TV deal is a great way to save on your entertainment and television viewing recreation time. Enjoying your satellite system while paying a low price is the smart and cost-effective way to go, so let's take a look at how to get a satellite TV deal.
HDTV or also known as High Definition Television means broadcast of television signal with a higher resolution than the traditional formats. Today many satellite TV service providers offer HD satellite TV to their users. HDTV is broadcasted digitally.
What are the benefits?
There are some benefits of HD satellite TV that will provide you with amazing home theater experience. The most important ones are:
- Greater image quality compared to traditional television formats (PAL, SECAM or NTSC). In addition, there is no quality drop in case of bad signal.
- More realistic and sharp colors.
- Significantly increased clarity and detail which is a vital feature of users using larger screen sizes.
- Two to five times more visual information thus less or no gaps between scanning lines. This feature practically allows you to watch a film with the same quality as it was shot.
In order to get Satellite TV on your personal computer you need to purchase a Satellite DVB Card. These cards are pretty similar to TV Tuners, except they only work with satellite reception. And the video data doesn't go into an analog phase, its digital all the way, so the image and recording quality is identical with the source broadcast quality.
Skystar2 cards are the most popular you can use for PC satellite TV. Having the card and the proper software you can get quite a lot of content in many video and audio encodings. Skystar2 cards also allow the handling of motorized and multi dish setups.
Minimum hardware requirements viewing PC satellite TV content include a 1GHz processor with a powerful graphics card (AGP2x or more).
If you're a couch potato and a computer addict, combine your two loves and watch satellite TV online instead! You see a lot of technological convergence in products today with gadgets like Apple's iPhone, which was unveiled early in 2007. This tech toy blends telephonic capabilities with music playing and websurfing, to name just three of its features.
The computer has even more capabilities with VoIP, music downloading, games, etc. For some time now, computers have been capable of playing cable TV by using special video cards. But now you can get satellite TV online too and watch from the convenience of your computer chair!
Putting Together Your Online Home Theater
To watch satellite TV online, you will need several things. The most important components are the satellite dish to pick up broadcasts, the DVB-PCI card (which will allow your computer to read the signal), and some sort of software program that will provide you with an interface. You can find any number of multimedia players online.
The TV signals transmitted through the satellite dish and LNBs are in a format that no television can decode and display – you need a satellite TV decoder for that. Even though television networks are usually similar in many aspects, they often differ in the type of decoder they are offering.
Some networks maintain a high level of control over the satellite TV decoder business and only sell their own brand of decoders directly to the customers. Although they offer a full range of satellite TV decoders, your choice is limited to the ones provided by the television network. The DISH Network in the United States has such a policy.
Other television networks, like DirecTV, have a more open policy concerning the satellite TV decoder business and are partnered with several manufacturers, providing a built-in decoder on many TV sets. DirecTV is partnered with companies such as Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Panasonic, Samsung, RCA, Sony, Zenith etc.
There are many programs broadcast by satellite that are considered Free To Air (FTA) that you can pull in at watch for free, without the need to pay a satellite television company for the privilege. There are also programs and equipment available to let you watch satellite TV on computer monitors without the monthly service charge to the satellite companies.
How many channels that are available under the FTA rules will depend on where you live and whether certain satellites are available for receiving the signals. Requirements for free satellite TV on computer are a computer with a Pentium II processor or higher, an open USB slot and Microsoft Operating System such as Microsoft 200 or XP, a sound card and a CD ROM drive. You will also need a satellite box to connect your satellite to your computer and the software needed to drive it on your system. You can pick up a satellite TV on computer kit, which contains everything except the computer and components needed for about $100.
When you are looking into buying and using a satellite television system, keep in mind the whole world is going digital and it probably will not be long before a digital satellite TV system will be a necessary part of your viewing pleasure. Currently, only people with a high definition television set worry about receiving digital signals but the day is rapidly approaching when all broadcasts will be in digital.
Currently most satellite receivers can convert the digital signal sent out by satellite into analog mode to be able to be viewed on most television sets. While analog is capable of being seen on a high definition television, the picture clarity is not as good. By starting out or upgrading to a digital satellite TV system you will be ready for the digital revolution when it does finally arrive.
Even though you may not know it, satellite TV is a complicated process. It's more than recording and sending it to you. There are actual orbiting the earth that send you radio, and satellite TV. There are a couple of basic components we must go over before you can understand how this works. The first thing involved in this line of production is the programming station. This gets all the code and videos set up to send to the broadcasting station. The broadcasting station then sends those files to the satellite that is orbiting the earth up in space.
The satellite that orbits the earth is capable of sending and receiving information. This is what makes it possible for you to view something that may be going on in a different country. From this satellite, the information is sent to your or your buildings satellite dish. This satellite dish must be strategically placed in order for you to receive the best quality of video from your broadcasting service. Bad weather may hinder your video which is one of the downsides of having a satellite dish. From this satellite dish the information is transmitted to the satellite TV receiver.
Compared to the complexity of creating and producing television programming, the sci-fi sounding prospect of transmitting them over satellite TV equipment is much simpler. After all, every type of television program presents its own type of problem while all satellite television is pretty much alike. Once the satellite itself is orbiting the earth, there's nothing to it.
Up, Up And Right Here
The very difficult process of selecting the channels that will be included in the subscription package is usually the hard part. The programming people who create the content for those channels all do the same thing. They use an uplink to encrypt, compress and send the programming to the appropriate satellite. This process is the same for taped dramas as for live sports.
In modern times, television has become a staple in homes across America and even the rest of the world. Homes in the outermost regions and distant lands with dirt floors often have a television set nestled into one corner of the home, no matter how primitive a setting it may be. Television has opened up many avenues that were previously unavailable to people before, such as learning about what is happening in other places around the world, as well as weather events in our own areas and beyond. Entertaining and educational programs have been created for both pleasure and to teach people all over the globe. The two main ways that shows are transmitted are through cable and satellite TV systems. There are advantages and disadvantages to both that we will explore.
Ups And Downs Of Cable And Satellite TV
For those on the go who want to maintain their satellite television service, there are options available to establish portable satellite TV service. Since adjusting the satellite dish to the correct height and azimuth can be a little tricky, there are motorized systems on the market to enable you remotely to adjust the position of the dish to receive a strong signal.
Equipment such as the Marine Pro, which also comes with a clamp system to enable the 16-inch dish to be mounted to any flat or round stationary pipe, has made it easy for people to take their satellite with them on their boat or recreational vehicle. Once the portable satellite TV is hooked up and aligned on your vehicle or boat, you can aim the receiving dish and receive your programming package from anywhere you can establish a straight-line view to the satellite.
