Videocon is coming with their Direct To Home venture D2H with tag line of “Direct hai Correct Hai”. So far hardly few information available on internet about this product but atAmitbhawani.com, we found some key information about this DTH player and I hope this information will be useful for you. Before you read the information, I want to say that all information which we collected from our source might not be right so readers co-operation will needed.

First thing which we get idea that they are making their Set Top Box in India which will help to offer cheap entry price and due to this Videocon is coming with an attractive offer at launching time. Our source suggests us that you will get your DTH connection of D2H in 1,000 Rs including installation charges and 1 or 2 month free viewing. Their base price will be around 100 Rs which have over 60 channels including some pay channels and news channels in the pack and their biggest pack will be near 350 Rs which will have 130 around channels including sports channels and pay channels. They might not give all channels which you want due to limited space but you will get leading channels.

Also one of their advantages is their Television sets will be best option if you not going to take Set Top Box and it will help you to save some money when you are buying new connection. Their Set-Top Box will be MPEG-4 digital satellite receiver and they are using IRDETO CAS system as encryption system. They will also use service of ARION Technology a Korean world-leading digital set-top box manufacture. ARION will be able to secure stable incomes from royalty on Videocon set-top box sales in India market.

So, which option did we go for? We went for Airtel IPTV.

Tata Sky India is a Direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service provider in India. Tata Sky TV is a product from a 80:20 joint venture between Tata Group India and Star TV. Tata Sky connection is provided through Sky Band that is owned by British Sky Broadcasting. Tata Sky offers a truly world-class television viewing experience in a DVD picture quality that is unprovided for through the usual cable television services prevalent in India.

One can avail various channels on Tata Sky in categories including Entertainment, sports, movies & music, news, infotainment etc. New channels are continually being added to the Tata Sky Packages. The Tata Sky Channels offer DVD quality for the picture and CD quality in the sound. Besides this the Tata Sky Subscribers get the convenience of choice and control over the daily Television viewing.

Tata Sky reviews just narrate the success story It is already making. Along with this, the interactivity feature of Tata Sky TV and wide programming range only adds to the preference Tata Sky would receive by the viewers for DTH services. Operating on world-class digital infrastructure in partnership with global digital technology leaders is an advantage that Tata Sky has been bestowed with.

To buy Tata Sky cable, you can either get it online through the Tata Sky Website or get a Tata sky Dealers list through the Customer Care mentioned here. A 24-hr Tata Sky helpline has been provided by the company, that enables troubleshooting at anytime of the day. You can also buy Tata Sky hardware and pre-paid recharge vouchers through various electronic stores across the country for an in depth customer reach.

Tata Sky Recharge facility is also available online through the official website. Tata Sky online payment schedule enables you to make convenient payments online like any other online banking transaction. To get detailed info on the promotional offers available on Tata Sky connection, new channels on Tata Sky or locating your nearest Tata Sky Dealers, login to their official website.

Dish TV is the first DTH home entertainment service in India. It is a Zee Network Enterprise. Dish TV packages offer state-of-the-art television viewing experience through digital technology. Dish TV network enables high quality broadcast of programs with absolute control over the daily TV viewing experience. Dish TV DTH service gives you the freedom to choose and control what you want to watch, straight from the satellite.

Any high-end television set is incomplete without a well-organized and complete Satellite TV Service and what could be more than what Dish TV DTH offers. Get Dish TV Pay Per view (PPV) facility where you can choose and pay only for the channels you wish to view. Another added feature would be Dish TV Movie on Demand and the various Hindi Channels dedicated to exclusive Hindi programs – a favorite among most Indian households.

Dish TV Channels

Through the Dish TV official website, you can download the Dish TV schedule and get the listings of the various channels available and the individual channel guide citing the timing of various shows. All is required is you contact the nearest Dish TV dealers or buy online through the Dish TV official website. Their network in India provides 24 hour customer care service for any tech support or troubleshooting.

Get a Dish TV set up box installed and avail the benefit of up to 400 channels, interactive Television programs, games, movies on demand, parental lock and complete electronic Dish TV channel guide. Dish TV Channel listings now extend to national as well as international channels that makes it parallel to any global entertainment services providers. Whats more, the Dish TV bill payments and renewals have been made easy with online bill payment solutions.

Satellite Television in India dates back to January 1991 when Transnational Satellite Broadcasting debuted in India with reception of CNN (Cable News Network) covering the Persian Gulf War. The foremost among satellite channels in India was Star TV that initialized broadcast of serials like “The Bold and the Beautiful” and some MTV programs in India. This pioneered the revolution of Satellite broadcasting with local entrepreneurs entering the markets and erecting Dishes as satellite receivers and transmitting the signals via cable television.

Doordarshan was the only free to air satellite channel in India, with advent of Star TV and Zee TV, Sun TV and various other satellite channels, its market was majorly captured by the private channels for Satellite TV in India. Then came DD metro, the entertainment based channel by Doordarshan that became a rage in places that did not receive cable TV.

In India, Direct-to-home or DTH Satellite Television is a recent phenomenon. The key players in the market for Satellite TV in India include DishTV and Tata Sky . These dish satellite television are becoming increasingly popular due to the several problems cable television had been giving in large doses. The quality of signals, availability, pirated channels, and professionalism prevalent among Cable service networks and providers had become a nuisance. The Dish TV, Tata Sky and other such DTH service providers would provide an efficient solution to this problem.

The first satellite television signal was relayed from Europe to the Telstar satellite over North America in 1962. The first geosynchronous communication satellite,Syncom 2, was launched in 1963. The world’s first commercial communication satellite, called Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird), was launched into synchronous orbit on April 6, 1965. The first national network of satellite television, called Orbita, was created in Soviet Union in 1967, and was based on the principle of using the highly elliptical Molniya satellite for re-broadcasting and delivering of TV signal to ground downlink stations. The first domestic North American satellite to carry television wasCanada’s geostationary Anik 1, which was launched in 1972. ATS-6, the world’s first experimental educational and Direct Broadcast Satellite, was launched in 1974. The first Soviet geostationary satellite to carry Direct-To-Home television, called Ekran, was launched in 1976.

Free-to-air (FTA) describes television (TV) and radio services broadcast in clear (unencrypted) form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscription (or other ongoing cost) or one-off fee (e.g. Pay-per-view). In the traditional sense, this is carried on terrestrial radio signals and received with an antenna.

FTA also refers to the concept of channels and broadcasters providing content for which no subscription is expected, even though they may be delivered to the viewer/listener by another carrier for which a subscription is required, e.g. cable, satellite or the Internet. These carriers may be mandated (or opt) in some geographies to deliver FTA channels even if a premium subscription is not present (providing the necessary equipment is still available), especially where FTA channels are expected to be used for emergency broadcasts, similar to the 112 emergency service provided by mobile phone operators and manufacturers.

Free-to-view (FTV) is, generally, available without subscription but is digitally encoded and may be restricted geographically.

These channels are described as free, but are more accurately described as free to receive. In many cases the viewer does in fact pay for them, by various means:

• Directly
  • by levy of a license fee (as in the case of the BBC) or
  • voluntary donation (in the case of educational broadcasters like PBS)
• Indirectly
  • Consumer products and services where part of the cost goes toward television advertising and sponsorship (in the case of Japanese television broadcasters like TV Asahi and TV Tokyo which relies on sponsorship heavily, similar to Philippine Television like ABS-CBN, and GMA)
• Direct & Indirect
  • One further variation is in Canada, where the CBC Television/Télévision de Radio-Canada network is partly funded by taxpayer dollars, and otherwise supports itself with commercial advertising revenues as it competes with other free over-the-air commercial networks.

Free-to-air is often used for international broadcasting, making it something of a video equivalent to shortwave radio. Most authorized FTA retailers list free to air channel guides and content available in North America for free to air use.

Satellites used for television signals are generally in either naturally highly elliptical (with inclination of +/-63.4 degrees and orbital period of about 12 hours, also known as Molniya orbit) or geostationary orbit 37,000 km (22,300 miles) above the earth’s equator.

Satellite television, like other communications relayed by satellite, starts with a transmitting antenna located at an uplink facility. Uplink satellite dishes are very large, as much as 9 to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) in diameter. The increased diameter results in more accurate aiming and increased signal strength at the satellite. The uplink dish is pointed toward a specific satellite and the uplinked signals are transmitted within a specific frequency range, so as to be received by one of the transponderstuned to that frequency range aboard that satellite. The transponder ‘retransmits’ the signals back to Earth but at a different frequency band (a process known as translation, used to avoid interference with the uplink signal), typically in the C-band (4–8 GHz) or K_u-band (12–18 GHz) or both. The leg of the signal path from the satellite to the receiving Earth station is called the downlink.

A typical satellite has up to 32 transponders for Ku-band and up to 24 for a C-band only satellite, or more for hybrid satellites. Typical transponders each have a bandwidth between 27 MHz and 50 MHz. Each geo-stationary C-band satellite needs to be spaced 2 degrees from the next satellite (to avoid interference). For K_u the spacing can be 1 degree. This means that there is an upper limit of 360/2 = 180 geostationary C-band satellites and 360/1 = 360 geostationary K_u-band satellites. C-band transmission is susceptible to terrestrial interference while K_u-band transmission is affected by rain (as water is an excellent absorber of microwaves at this particular frequency). The latter is even more adversely effected by ice crystals in thunder clouds.

Last not least, there will be a sun outage when the sun lines up directly behind the geostationary satellite the reception antenna is pointing to. This will happen twice a year at around midday for a two-week period and affects both the C-band and the K_u-band. The line-up swamps out all reception for a few minutes due to the sun emitting microwaves on the same frequencies used by the satellite’s transponders. This happens in the spring and in the fall.

The downlinked satellite signal, quite weak after traveling the great distance (see inverse-square law), is collected by a parabolic receiving dish, which reflects the weak signal to the dish’s focal point. Mounted on brackets at the dish’s focal point is a device called a feedhorn. This feedhorn is essentially the flared front-end of a section ofwaveguide that gathers the signals at or near the focal point and ‘conducts’ them to a probe or pickup connected to a low-noise block downconverter or LNB. The LNB amplifies the relatively weak signals, filters the block of frequencies in which the satellite TV signals are transmitted, and converts the block of frequencies to a lower frequency range in the L-band range. The evolution of LNBs was one of necessity and invention.

The original C-Band satellite TV systems used a Low Noise Amplifier connected to the feedhorn at the focal point of the dish. The amplified signal was then fed via very expensive and sometimes 50 ohm impedance gas filled hardline coaxial cable to an indoor receiver or, in other designs, fed to a downconverter (a mixer and a voltage tuned oscillator with some filter circuitry) for downconversion to an intermediate frequency. The channel selection was controlled, typically by a voltage tuned oscillator with the tuning voltage being fed via a separate cable to the headend. But this design evolved.

Designs for microstrip based converters for Amateur Radio frequencies were adapted for the 4 GHz C-Band. Central to these designs was concept of block downconversion of a range of frequencies to a lower, and technologically more easily handled block of frequencies (intermediate frequency).

The advantages of using an LNB are that cheaper cable could be used to connect the indoor receiver with the satellite TV dish and LNB, and that the technology for handling the signal at L-Band and UHF was far cheaper than that for handling the signal at C-Band frequencies. The shift to cheaper technology from the 50 Ohm impedance cable and N-Connectors of the early C-Band systems to the cheaper 75 Ohm technology and F-Connectors allowed the early satellite TV receivers to use, what were in reality, modified UHF TV tuners which selected the satellite television channel for down conversion to another lower intermediate frequency centered on 70 MHz where it was demodulated. This shift allowed the satellite television DTH industry to change from being a largely hobbyist one where receivers were built in low numbers and complete systems were expensive (costing thousands of Dollars) to a far more commercial one of mass production.

Direct broadcast satellite dishes are fitted with an LNBF, which integrates the feedhorn with the LNB.

In the United States, service providers use the intermediate frequency ranges of 950-2150 MHz to carry the signal to the receiver. This allows for transmission of UHF band signals along the same span of coaxial wire at the same time. In some applications, (DirecTV AU9-S and AT-9) ranges the lower B-Band and upper 2250-3000 MHz, are used. Newer LNBFs in use by DirecTV referred to as SWM, use a more limited frequency range of 950-1800 MHz.

The satellite receiver or Set-top box demodulates and converts the signals to the desired form (outputs for television, audio, data, etc.). Sometimes, the receiver includes the capability to unscramble ordecrypt the received signal; the receiver is then called an Integrated receiver/decoder or IRD. The cable connecting the receiver to the LNBF or LNB should be of the low loss type RG-6, quad shield RG-6 or RG-11, etc. RG-59 is not recommended for this application as it is not technically designed to carry frequencies above 950 MHz, but will work in many circumstances, depending on the quality of the coaxial wire.

A practical problem relating to satellite home reception is that basically an LNB can only handle a single receiver. This is due to the fact that the LNB is mapping two different polarizations – horizontal and vertical – and in the case of the K-band two different reception bands – lower and upper – to one and the same frequency band on the cable. Depending on which frequency a transponder is transmitting at and on what polarization it is using, the satellite receiver has to switch the LNB into one of four different modes in order to receive a specific desired program on a specific transponder. This is handled by the receiver using the DiSEqC protocol to control the LNB mode. If several satellite receivers are to be attached to a single dish a so-called multiswitch will have to be used in conjunction with a special type of LNB. There are also LNBs available with a multiswitch already integrated. This problem becomes more complicated when several receivers are to use several dishes (or several LNBs mounted in a single dish) pointing to different satellites.

Satellite television is television delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an external set-top box or a satellite tuner module built into a TV set. Satellite TV tuners are also available as a card or a USB stick to be attached to a personal computer. In many areas of the world satellite television provides a wide range of channels and services, often to areas that are not serviced by terrestrial or cable providers.

Direct broadcast satellite television comes to the general public in two distinct flavors – analog and digital. This necessitates either having an analog satellite receiver or a digital satellite receiver. Analog satellite television is being replaced by digital satellite television and the latter is becoming available in a better quality known as high-definition television.