DISH TV

DISH TV

What went wrong with old roof top antenna we use to have years back?

Roof top antennas are made of aluminium and catch nearby TV station signal which is free of charge in India. Telecast is done by Doordarshan. These antennas catch analog signal which is not of good quality. Many of hilly region, valley houses or remote houses do not get good signal quality. There are not many channels available with old aluminium pipe antennas.

How does Cable TV work?

Cable TV was invented to solve the problem of the people who live in valley or remote locations where signals are not strong. Cable operator use to put antenna up on hill and send amplified signal to multiple houses in valley.

Nowadays cable operators installs Big dish antennas to receive TV broadcast from channels and pays on behalf of us to TV channel network. Cable Operator receives many channels through multiple dish antennas and puts them into single wire with different frequencies. You can take the same cable to multiple TV sets in the home and play different channels by paying minimum charge or no extra charge.

What is Set Top Box (STB) for Cable TV?

CAS is set top box for conventional cable TV. Years back Indian Government tried to enforce consumer rights with the help of CAS (Conditional Access System). With the help of CAS on cable tv it is possible to offer different set of channels for each consumer. in 2001 Government attempted to bring Free To Air channels to subscribers for as low as Rs. 80. Because of issues from cable operators, Satellite TV operators, set top box manufactures & political parties CAS didn't succeed. This has given great opportunity to Satellite TV operators to increase their penetration in ever growing Indian Television Market.

What is DTH Dish Television?

DTH stands for Direct To Home service which is terminology for Satellite Television. Compared to Cable TV here you have your very personal equipment which allows you to speak to distributor directly through Satellite. No hassles or chaos of Cablewalas.

Advantages	Personal Equipment to directly speak to Satellite for TV Broadcast. Digital signaling gives you great quality when you connect your TV with AV cable or connect your 5.1 speakers with STB. Facilities like Movie on Demand and Active/Interactive Services. Some DTH vendors also offer Radio services. Latest movies can be viewed at nominal cost (Kills the piracy) You may actually save money
Disadvantages	During the monsoon season if there are thick clouds above your Dish Antenna, there will be reception problem. Television in multiple rooms will require additional Digicomp and service charge. You will miss local news channel

What you need to have to receive Satellite TV signal (DTH Dish)?

You need to have these

• Digicomp set top box.
• Dish Antenna (LNB).
• An account with Service Provider (Smart card).

What is IP TV?

IP TV runs on ethernet network. There is better uplink bandwidth available in IP TV which assures more interactivity. There are limited vendors offering IP TV. 

What is DVR ?

DVR stands for Digital Video Recorder. This is special set top box, which is also doing recording while you are watching any channel. So you can pause the channel and resume where you left. You can also do recording of some other channel while you are watching different channel. Tata SKY Plus was first to be offered in this category. Each DVR box comes with different quality of content to be stored and limits on hours of recording.

What is HD set top box?

Usual Television set with CRT tube is not capable of producing picture more than 480 lines with limited depth of colors. New Generation LCDs can reproduce image quality upto 1080 lines detailing and beyond. If you have LCD with 1080i or above resolution, this is known as High Defination television. 1080i gives you 5 times clearer picture quality. Unfortunately Cable Transmission or Regular DTH dish tv transmission is not capable of utilizing your LCD capability. Old standard transmission works with 4:3 aspect ratio which is like square where as HD offers you 16:9 aspect ratio which is like rectangle the way LCDs are designed today. Old starndard give mono or stereo sound output. HD offeres you 5.1 audio output. This goes to two rear left+right speakers, two front left+right speakers one center and one to woofer. Giving you realistic natural sound quality. Earlier TVs were connected with RF cable, current set top boxes offer 3 pin AV cables. For HD you need to have HDMI port on television. HDMI port is essential part of HD set top box.

If you do not have LCD with 1080i resolution or 5.1 music system, you wont be able to take advantage of HD channels. Regular CRT television is not made for HD transmission. Currently there are only few channels which are offered with HD broadcast. So if you think you are ready to experiment with this new technology you can go ahead with this.