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Satellite TV is a wireless media employed in broadcasting television transmission into the subscriber house. Satellites were launched to combat the limitation of radio signal and transmission. Radio signals can only travel in straight lines which means viewers devices must be in line of sight to receive the broadcast. Skyscrapers, tall buildings, tree and other obstruction are serious limitation of this kind of broadcast. Hence the satellite transmission technology breaks this jinx. Therefore, broadcasters found the satellite as another medium to transmit their signals to the viewers.
Satellites launched in space are orbited at exactly the same rate as the Earth at the speed of 7,000 mph, at an approximate distance of 23,200 miles, thereby creating a geosynchronous orbit, where the satellites appeared as “stationary” above the Earth, hovering over a certain point. Now radio signals are sent to this satellite, which the satellite receives, amplify and retransmit this signal back to the earth. Since the satellite is so high, its footprint or viewing (coverage) area can be very large and thus a large region can receive the signals that it sends down.
The ultimate sources of these signals are the broadcasting stations mostly the service providers. They use a powerful antenna to transmit their broadcasts to the viewers. On the ground there was a need for a media device to receive these broadcasters’ signals. The satellite TV service provider is not the same company as those that produces the actual programs. It is the job of the service provider to set up the up linking stations to beam the data to the satellite. They compress the data or the satellite TV programs to reduce the bandwidth required and encrypt it so that non-paying users do not get free service. The satellite medium here is the very large satellite dishes which are programmed to decode these signals into the viewer’s final video format.
A subscriber will get satellite TV dish antenna, a receiver and other equipment that is required to convert the compressed and encoded signal back into a form that your TV uses. This are coded specifically for each subscriber. They pay a monthly rental fee or premium for this service. They also have option of choosing from wide varieties of channels for viewing.
The breaking technology of the satellite TV system that is interesting is because the receiver is always in contact with the TV service provider. Most satellite TV receivers have an in-built hard drives storage system in raid arrays – ones often found in data warehouse. With this technique, it can store about hundreds hours of video data. When on vacation, you can program your system to capture all episodes on your favorite serial or soap opera and the system swings into action.
Another benefit of this technology is that there is now available software that can allow you to watch these channels without all the above mentioned equipments - satellite TV on PC. This software works by pooling links of many channels and make them available through your media player for viewing. If you Google these channels you will find streaming videos offered through station websites like TNT.com or USA.com; yet there are still over 3,000 channels that are offering quality sports, cartoons, drama, comedy, movies and music programming. The software can be obtained with a one time fee of less $60 and with access to high-speed internet; you can start enjoying fee satellite TV. |
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In one of my previous articles I mention my experience with the performance of my PC when viewing satellite TV on it. I discovered that some stations have good quality pictures while some do not. With the thousands of channels options you have available today your PC or laptop is a potential screen for TV viewing. The quality of pictures o these channels are determine from the source. A typical 14inch monitor and the regular laptop screen of 14.5inch is more than enough minimum requirement for showing quality pictures though it ca not be compare with the resolution of the TV.
With the capacity of today's high-speed internet, it is possible to watch television through your computer. Most graphics card that comes with the PC today are better enhanced to display at higher resolution than before. They have buffering capabilities to store and buffer in the built in cache. Your graphics card and sound card are more than enough to deliver to you the same quality delivered to your system retaining 100% of the quality. You can enhance the quality by setting a higher resolution of your screen.
First let me explain satellite TV picture quality is loaded directly to your computer. Let us look at the technology of the satellite signal. The original transmission are converted into a high-quality, uncompressed digital stream containing a lot of data, and sends it at a speed of 270 megabits per second (Mbps) for each channel. The satellite receiver at your end can only receive this data was compressed and decoded in a recognized video format for your system..
The common system of compression used is the MPEG-2 compressed video format. This video format is buddle with most if not all media player you find around today. This is similar to the system used to make DVDs. A typical graphics will equally reproduce this with the help of good media player without losing quality. The provider could now reduce the 270-Mbps stream to about 5 or 10 Mbps, enabling them to transmit about 200 channels, instead of the 30 they could transmit before compression. The signal was scrambled or coded so only paid subscribers could receive it.This software pooled a list of links from many TV channels sites for one to watch instantly online and all these channels are entirely free. No need to pay the TV stations for viewing as the software receiving the transmission is Free To Air TV broadcasts. The satellite TV on PC Software has made it possible to turn your computer into a satellite television by converting the cable link to your computer. Thousands of channels are available through the internet and can turn any computer into a satellite TV. |
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