Newsgroup: it.hobby.satellite-tv
Titolo: British Digital Satelite Recivers

Can you pease answer a question that has been on my mind for a while
now. I have a motorised satelite system and with the sale of the new
digital satelite recivers that go on sale at the end of this year,
would I be able to recive stations that are already in the digital
format but not scrambled i.e. The Music Factory, Live TV and The
Parliment Channel. Or will these recivers be made that they will only
be able to pick the Astra Satelite Systems.
Martin A Bishop
Airdrie, North Lanarkshire Scotland
e-mail: 
Martin...@btinternet.com
http://www.btinternet.com/~martin.bishop/The_Bish.html

be able to pick the Astra Satelite Systems.
As I understand it, a digital receiver for the English market will only
acknowledge the existence of English channels.
A digital receiver for the Dutch market will only acknowledge the
existence of Dutch channels, a unit for the Italian market will only
'see' Italian channels etc etc.
However, as the digital satellite world is new and still evolving, I
wouldn't be *too* surprised if someone eventually brought out a unit
that would acknowledge different countries channels.
But, TTBOMK such a receiver is not yet around - at least for the
domestic viewer.
 
== 
 
Ray 
 
 
 
   E-mail : 
raym...@airtime.co.uk
      WWW : 
http://www.webcom.com/raymondw/
 
 
 

 be able to pick the Astra Satelite Systems.
Here's a list of sites I've discovered recently that together, give a 
pretty good overview on the receivers.
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mcnair.co/dbox.htm
The Unofficial d-Box Page
This is a site that's been on-line for a while. Very useful!
http://www.bwltd.demon.co.uk/
Bentley Walker.
These guys import and mod the d-Box. Very clued up people and
definately worth talking to.
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/4747/
The Digital-TV Home Page
This is new, mostly in German, but lots more coming.
http://www.eurosat.com/digital/digital.html
Defiant's Digital Home Page
Offers a modified d-Box for £399.
http://members.aol.com/grusat/home.htm
Mascom Home Page
Good for German speakers ;-)
http://www.dtn.net.uk/
Digital Terrestrial TV Home Page
Not satellite, but interesting reading (if you've a few hours to spare!)
Cheers ... Chris

SNIP
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Would you care to say where we might get one from, and how much it costs 
? ...

 ? ...
I would not be in such a rush to get one John.
As someone who has had digital satellite TV (MPEG-2 DVB) for nearly
two years now, I can summarise the whole format in a single word:
DISASTROUS.
If anyone wants an education into how the average consumer who has
experienced this "new technology" feels about digital TV, read
za.tv.satellite.
South Africa was the first country in the world to introduce DTH
digital satellite TV using the MPEG-2 DVB format, using IRDs
produced by Pace, Panasonic and Samsung. After the initial
euphoria of being able to experience more than three channels in
the home died down, the harsh reality of the disadvantages of
MPEG compression started to be realised. We were promised the
world; laserdisc quality video, CD quality audio, in excess of
thirty channels off 5 half-transponders, electronic program
guide, numerous interactive features - including the Internet.
That was nearly two years ago.
Well, we have approximately thirty channels (the fact that most
are not worth watching will not come into this argument), offered
by MultiChoice (now called MIH, owned by Canal+, was called Nethold).
Since launch, this technology has been fraught with numerous technical
problems. We understand that as the first, we would undoubtedly have
some problems, but when, after all this time the problems are no
better than when the bouquet first rolled out, one has to wonder
about the general stability of MPEG-2 DVB.
The IRD equipment originally purchased is already partially obsolete,
we're told that subscribers are soon going to have to cough up more
money for RAM upgrades, and new firmware changes - on IRDs which
are still being sold as I write this. New IRDs are being sold with
CA Modules containing new hardware and software every time a new
shipment arrives, and still they can't seem to get the bugs ironed
out. But I've only just started.
If anyone is used to analogue satellite TV transmissions, they are
in for a nasty shock the first time they try the new "digital TV
revolution". First off, you can forget the very basics. Gone are
features like Teletext and Closed Caption. Next you'll discover
a new word - artefacts. Get used to the word, because you'll never
get used to the pixellisation, coloured blocks, green squares,
while balls, and other general crap which continually destroys
your viewing pleasure. While we are on the video, the claim of
laserdisc quality is a downright lie. As a laserdisc aficionado,
I'd rate South Africa's DStv video quality as worse than a poor
VHS tape played in a machine with worn out heads. The video quality
is simply crap. A feature called MPEG-2 "shimmer" constantly
reminds you that you are watching a picture which is trying to
be generated in real time, from information whose original source
has been cropped by up to 80% You can never get something for
nothing, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Then the audio. The claim of CD quality audio is a blatant lie.
No CD I know of was ever compressed with MPEG. This results in the
following *major* problems; you can forget Dolby Pro-Logic Surround
Sound on digital TV. Until the broadcaster allows a separate bit
stream to accommodate this sort of feature (something they seem
very reluctant to do considering that it consumes valuable bit
rate which can be used for "more important" video information), it
will not happen. We are lucky to have finally forced Nethold to
offer basic stereo on some of the channels on the bouquet, but the
crosstalk is so bad, surround sound encoding is out of the question.
The distortion is the first thing they need to fix.
Then there are the audio artefacts. Sometimes they coincide with
a video artefact, but sometimes they just blow your speakers
without any warning. They consist of ear splitting squeaks and
squawks which jar your teeth.
Familiar with rain-outage? Well with good old analogue, the
sparklies come and go - an inconvenience, but not the end of
the world. Well, digital TV either works or does not. At the
slightest hint of rain, the IRD displays "NO SIGNAL". Being
digital, it either can decode your picture or it can't. Granted,
the rain in sub tropical Africa is undoubtedly heavier than Europe,
but it does not rain here that often - still we get a NO SIGNAL
indication for 1% of our viewing time. Work it out, it does not
sound a lot, but when you're sitting there staring at this sign,
it seems forever. So there you are, last over, ten runs needed,
and it starts to rain at the uplink site (600 km away) - screen
immediately goes blank, and a big white sign appears: "NO SIGNAL".
This sort of thing does not make you just want to say "damn!". It
makes you want to take the IRD back to the broadcaster and insert
it somewhere very awkward.
Since its inception in South Africa, not *ONE* of the "interactive"
features originally promised by Nethold has been implemented.
Although the IRDs all have a 19.2 k serial port on the back,
so far it's all just a dream. Also just like every other
country on the planet where digital DTH satellite TV has been
introduced (except Japan), the sales of IRDs have been less
than *HALF* those predicted by the broadcaster. This is due
mainly to the word-of-mouth drubbing the technology has taken,
and the very high costs of the IRDs. Coupled to this, the threat
of upgrades always being imminent makes you very cautious about
spending the family fortune on a box from a broadcaster who may
decide to pack it all in if his venture does not start reaping
profits in the near future.
Most pundits believe that digital TV will be the format of
the future, but they also say that it's still three years away
from being viable to the consumer. At the moment the *only*
people who benefit from MPEG compression is the broadcaster -
he can save a fortune in satellite transponder leases, but
because of this the poor consumer is forced into buying a
dirty great big computer to put into his living room to enable
him to unscramble the digital mess that the broadcaster needs
for him to unravel (complete with Forward Error Correcting
overhead) that he sends him. Not fair on the consumer.
Then the bad news. Unlike "good old analogue" where your receiver
can be used to receive a picture from any old broadcaster (within
reason), these MPEG-2 IRDs with their sneaky CAMs, only allow you
to view the bouquet offered by the company that made the CAM. You
can't even use them to get free-to-air signals... I could go on
and on about IRDs freezing, painfully slow operation, IR remotes
that clash with analogue receivers..., but digital satellite TV
in South Africa is becoming less and less popular, to the point
where the National Broadcaster (after reviewing all the options),
has decided to launch a new satellite TV bouquet using the good
old tried and tested *analogue* format. Enough said...
I'd suggest that anyone considering changing to digital satellite
TV in Europe, to just be patient. When your neighbour has had it
for a couple of months, go and a have a heart-to-heart with him.
He'll be reluctant to admit that he wasted all that cash on a
technology which is basically disappointing, but if you were to
hear the crescendo of discord coming from Southern Africa about
this crappy technology after two years, you might get the idea to
be a bit more circumspect before trashing the "old" analogue
format.
Just for the record; South Africa also uses PAL terrestrial
transmissions (like the UK), the minimum dish size in South Africa
is 90 cm, but the average is 1.2 meter.
Bottom line. Knowing what I know now, I would *NEVER* have bought
into digital satellite television.
Ian.
--
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....
That might be true as a PC-like syndrom. On the other hand the Nokia d-box
available in Europe can have the software updated so at least some problems 
can be cured. Are the d-boxes available in SA downloadable too?
Irek Defee

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