Better Television Experience Through Satellite TVAt present, more and more people have subscribed to satellite TV simply because it has become increasingly convenient to do so. Whereas it involves the installation of large and heavy satellite dishes in the past, the opposite is true today. Compact satellite dishes are already commonplace in the United States especially in distant areas that cable companies do not serve. In fact, satellite TV companies gain more and more customers with their promises to give them a wider selection of channels showing movies, sitcoms, sporting events, documentaries, news and others. Before satellite TV became popular, most television viewers have problems picking up broadcast signals from their television antennas. This dilemma is attributed to range, which is the biggest disadvantage of broadcast television. For its operations, broadcast stations use a great antenna to create radio waves and transmit these to the area surrounding it. However, in order for these signals to be picked up, television antennas should be in its line of sight. It is a disadvantage because the Earth is not flat and some places cannot receive signals from these broadcasting stations because they are not in the straight line of their signal. Another limitation of broadcast television is its distorted signal. In order to obtain a clear signal, the viewer should be located near the station and there should be no obstruction to the signal like trees, tall buildings and others along the way.
Satellite TV became popular because this television solution solves the range and distortion problems evident in broadcast television. This is done through the use of satellites that are launched to the sky. These satellites are in what we can refer as geosynchronous orbit, which means that relative to the Earth, they stay in one place in the sky. Since this is the case, more customers are in their line of sight. These satellites transmit signals that can be picked up easily by satellite TV dishes that are installed in the homes of satellite TV subscribers. The main competition of satellite TV is cable TV. Direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers like DirecTV and the Dish Network trump their competition by coming up with television packages consist of selected programs from hundreds of television channels to their subscribers. There are 2 major sources of programming for this satellite TV providers. These are national turnaround channels and local channels. Examples of the former are ESPN, HBO and CNN. Examples of local channels, on the other hand, are CBS, NBC, PBS, ABC, and Fox. Turnaround channels are also shown in cable television. Local channels, on the other hand, usually broadcast their shows over the airwaves. Moreover, Satellite TV providers access the programming of turnaround channels by using large satellite dishes that can pick up signals transmitted by a geostationary satellite. This is the scenario because distribution centers of most turnaround channels broadcast programming to this geostationary satellite. To obtain programming from local channels, satellite TV providers use a special equipment or device that can receive signals from local channels through an antenna or through a fiber-optic cable. |