Talk:Satellite television

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Satellite television article.
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Contents

[edit] Review page contents

The content of this page should be reviewed.

1) Why link commercial services - Is this advertisment or wikipedia?

2) Why exagerating the influence of pay-tv services, e.g. sky television? Well they were the first who signed a contract with SES-Astra to rent a transponder. But there were many others at the same, including many free tv-stations. This article suggests that satellite-tv is always pay-tv.

3) DBS has many synonyms. The first DBS-System-Provider calls it DTH Direct to Home.

4) The distinction between DBS and TVRO-Systems is weird. It first suggests that TVRO-Systems are analog and one way. Aftwerwards it points out that digital tv like DVB is a TVRO-System. DK: TVRO is for TeleVision Receive Only. In that sense, yes it is a one-way communications path. They may be analog or digital, but that depends on the source of the signal being transmitted.

Agree. 18.24.0.120 23:05, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. I was just about to comment on the proliferation of commercial links as well. I think possibly we should cut them all - the ones that are worthy of being linked are probably also worthy of their own articles, so the external links can go there, as is the case with British Sky Broadcasting, for example. - IMSoP 15:29, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Television

There should an article or a detailed information procedure about HOW SIGNALS UPLINK. i.e from SDI or analog signals what are the other devices involved in the uplinking for example multiplexer to modulator to equilizer to upconvertor to HPA then go to satellite.

DK: I can provide an extremely detailed an explanatory diagram on how the signals are sent from the ground station to the satellite and downlinked to the receiving stations. I can provide as much information as is requested for all users. 12/26/2007

[edit] Grey Market

The much more common situation now is for americans to want canadian programming -- canadian satellite services provide more channels for better prices and often include british and australian programming not available in the US.

Not sure how to edit this in.

  • I believe the term "reverse grey market" is used to describe these systems, although the lack of choice of providers for premium movie channels, the more limited sports coverage, the inferior selection of ethnic and Spanish-language channels would be a severe downside. The only advantage (other than price) offered by the Canadian system is in BBC and CBC news or perhaps in French-language programming. --carlb 05:11, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Extraneous links

Following my comments above, from a long time ago, I've got rid of all the external links that just point at one commercial site. The individual companies nearly all have their own Wikipedia articles, so the links should be in those; in case some of them aren't, I'll put all the links I removed here so the information isn't "lost". - IMSoP 00:33, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Too much Pay-TV

I agree, this page looks like a commercial for pay-tv-services.

1) the distinction between TVRO and DTH is totally obsolete, cause the market share of non-KU-band sattelite TV-homes is almost 0%. Looks more like: DTH pay-tv = good - TVRO Free-to-air = bad.

2) Pay-TV services are totally exagerated. OK in the US most DTH-Services are Pay-TV.

But in Europe they are not. DTH is simply one possibility (like cable-tv, terrestrial antennas, or ADSL) to receive TV-Programmes. And its not True for Europe, that DTH uses proprietary receivers, most just use standard DVB-S. Even if you receive TV-Programmes via cable, you often primarily pay for the transport service not the content. In many countries there are broadcast stations regulated by public law. these are often free-to-view and often have a quite attractive programme, e.g. in UK BBC1-4, BBC World-Service or in Germany ARD and ZDF with its over 20 broadcast stations. In some countries there are dozens of free-to-air broadcast stations, that can be viewes via DTH. With DTH you can subscribe additional pay-TV-content from any Pay-TV-Service you want, somethimes single TV-Stations, sometimes big packages. OK, some Pay-TV-Services force you to use proprietary-equipment to rule out competitors, like BSkyB does.


So my point is: This Wikipedia-article reflects only the view of US-Pay-TV-Services, but not the general nature of satellite television, which is more: You can receive anything from anywhere.

[edit] Overly North American centric

This article is overly north-american centric and makes huge assumptions about satellite systems that are only applicable in North America.

I'm going to completely rewrite the article in a few days if nothings done, this is advanced warning. --Kiand 14:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Rather than a complete re-write, could I suggest you instead break it down into appropriate sections and add to the article as warranted? Seems as though that would be better.
On a related note, though, to be fair, the satellite TV thing (at least, mass-market satellite TV) did get its start with North American companies, so it's at least understandable that the majority of the discussion here is centered on that region.--chris.lawson 03:07, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
By what, two/three years? Its also far less common, far less standardised and far less exploited in North America than in Europe these days.
Some sections of this article need to be either just removed or split off - and the whole DBS/TVRO stuff is terminology used solely in North America - possibly because generally half the channels in a 'package' here are free to air anyway. Expanding is, generally, not an option when an article is utterly slanted. --Kiand 07:23, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Critism??

The critism as it stands is veyr poor. "slow menus" ? Totally personal. There is no reason to explain why cable systems have faster screens then satellite recievers.

Something about economics? Something about long contracts? Something about expensive upgrade-plans? Channel selection versus alternatives? Quality?

All of this is USA specific, how are other countries with regards to this?

I have deleted the entire section as it was indeed not clear how this is a criticism of satellite television per se; for reference, it consisted of these two sentences:
Satellite receivers have had slow channel menus that customers have had to wait several seconds to go through while searching for their favorite channel. Other cable receivers have fast menus that satellite reveivers can't match their pace with.
There may of course be a clearer way of making whatever point the original author intended here, in which case by all means add it back in... - IMSoP 14:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Caption needed

The link to Image:Antenne-toroidale.jpg needs a caption, but I'm not sure what it's there to illustrate. -- Beland 05:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] some countries hate ku?

At "get around legislation by some countries against reception of K[u]-band transmissions." say why those countries have that legislation.

Say how many MHz is each band at.

[edit] Weasel Words

In section "Satellite television by continent and country" quite many weasel words are used, like "unquestioningly," "up to a million by some estimates" and "often heated debate". I have marked the offending section--it needs major non-POV work. --KJRehberg 20:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Satellite HD-TV Broadcast Resolution

What resolution HD signal do satellite companies broadcast in their HD-TV programs? (Emk52 01:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC))

== More on history and some links I've added some history of the evolution of satellite TV and LNBs. Also I've added the link to Steve Birkill's history (one of the key people in the creation of the DTH satellite television industry in the 1970s and 1980s.)

Some of the links need a bit of cleaning. I've deleted a linkspam for DirecTV. It has been a few years since I wrote about satellite television technology.--Jmccormac 20:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Home satellite dishes

Can a person turn a home dish into usable solar energy, like a solar panel? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.118.120.190 (talk) 22:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

I suspect you'll have more success with your questions at the Science help desk. Antonrojo 13:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Migrated editorial comment

This comment was included in article text, so I moved it here for discussion. I think editoral comments only belong if they are commented out or indicated with templates:

Copyright violation text removed from this location, discussing growth and decline of TVRO satellite television in the United States from 1980 to today. Please rewrite this section.

Antonrojo 13:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I've cleaned up some of the external links (removed one link to an article on how satellite tv works and a link to a page on a particular class of satellites. Wikipedia is not a links directory.--Jmccormac 18:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proprietary?

"DBS systems are generally based on proprietary transport stream encoding and/or encryption requiring proprietary reception equipment."

DVB-S is an open standard. I've removed the whole paragraph. Totsugeki 09:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added the reference to DVB-S and also clarified the use of Conditional Access Modules as add-ons for a basic receiver.--Jmccormac 00:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)