"Is this group still live?" may not be a proper question. I searched
Usenet and found no group that have "satellite" in name still active in
recent years. Is there someone interested in the topic, and prefers
newsgroup?

--
Regards,
Lu Wei
IM: xmpp:luweitest@riotcat.org
PGP: 0xA12FEF7592CCE1EA

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On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 09:53:43 +0800, Lu Wei <luweitest@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there someone interested in the topic, and prefers
newsgroup?

TVRO usenet group (rec.video.satellite.tvro) was specific to those who
had a big dish (aka BUD: Big Ugly Dish).

There are a few forums dedicated to those with BUDs.

Those "pizza dish" companies, along with a decrease in subscription
programs and the higher cost for a BUD system, took out most all BUD
users.
=======================================

NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:49:22 -0500
From: Ron Purdue <ronpurdue@myclearwave.net>
Newsgroups: rec.video.satellite.tvro
Subject: TVRO in the year 2014
...
...
In the year 2014, 5 years from now, the Big Dish will be extinct. The
cause: Cable-TV and the Pizza Dish has won the battle against the BUD
since 1986 when the "battle" begun and believe-it-
or-not, 99% of all BUD owners are extremely lazy as Keith Lamonica of
FM America puts it: They sat on their lazy butts and the BUD owners
did nothing to save the BUD Industry from dying.

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On 2022-6-7 11:38, JAB wrote:

On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 09:53:43 +0800, Lu Wei <luweitest@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there someone interested in the topic, and prefers
newsgroup?

TVRO usenet group (rec.video.satellite.tvro) was specific to those who
had a big dish (aka BUD: Big Ugly Dish).

There are a few forums dedicated to those with BUDs.

Those "pizza dish" companies, along with a decrease in subscription
programs and the higher cost for a BUD system, took out most all BUD
users.

Does "pizza dish" mean the smaller dish used for Ku band receiving? I
see no reason to rule them out. They are more convenient for users with
limited space in city, and cheaper.

--
Regards,
Lu Wei
IM: xmpp:luweitest@riotcat.org
PGP: 0xA12FEF7592CCE1EA

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On Tue, 7 Jun 2022 14:57:46 +0800, Lu Wei <luweitest@gmail.com> wrote:

Does "pizza dish" mean the smaller dish used for Ku band receiving?

Correct..."cable on a stick"

In beginning days, a person had to buy the pizza dish/electronics,
which was about $1k. This was cheaper than a BUD system, but with
"free" dish/installations, then consumers snapped up their offer.

With first DBS company, they had excellent video quality, but when
DISH Network fired up (competition), video quality was degraded. DISH
offered more channels, which brought about degraded video.

HDTV was not around then, so only SD. Originally, HD was suppose to
have a bitrate of around 19mbps, but this too was sized downward. Even
HBO reduced bitrate to 12-16mbps back then with MPEG-II.

Better codecs exist today, but I'm not current on what they are using.



Sep 30, 2008
#7
According to Engadget HBO HD Mpeg4 streams at 8 Mbps and mandates that
carries can not lower quality. https://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/what-is-the-bitrate-of-dish-hd-shows.150030/

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The codecs I see most for HDTV is MPEG4, H.264, and some H.265.

--
Regards,
Lu Wei
IM: xmpp:luweitest@riotcat.org
PGP: 0xA12FEF7592CCE1EA

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On Wed, 8 Jun 2022 19:41:57 +0800, Lu Wei <luweitest@gmail.com> wrote:

The codecs I see most for HDTV is MPEG4, H.264, and some H.265.

AV1 is royality free, but hardware video processing is better. I
don't know how DBS's set-top boxes are designed in terms of CPU and
video processing.

10 April 2019
https://www.ibc.org/trends/av1-codec-wars-erupt/3737.article

Vimeo does AV1, but not all vids are AV1 encoded. Watch a vid, and
press "d" on your keyboard.

https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/videos

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JAB wrote:

On Tue, 7 Jun 2022 14:57:46 +0800, Lu Wei<luweitest@gmail.com> wrote:

Does "pizza dish" mean the smaller dish used for Ku band receiving?

Correct..."cable on a stick"

Well, there's DBS (DreckTV, etc), then there's generic MPEG-fta. I'm
inclined not to include the latter in the k-bull on a stick category.

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On Wed, 8 Jun 2022 23:06:37 -0500, Brian Patrie <bpatrie@bellsouth.spamisicky.net> wrote:

then there's generic MPEG-fta. I'm
inclined not to include the latter in the k-bull on a stick category.

generic MPEG-fta.

Consumer usage came later in time (after DISH/Direct).

stick category

C-Band industry attempted (or had the idea) of using one bird for
cable on a stick when DBS rolled out. Too many years ago, but I think
Galaxy 5 was the bird; it was loaded with some 24 C-Band channels

For the other poster who started this topic

https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?status=active

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I still have a movable 10-foot dish with C/Ku and use it daily. Everything seems to be now MPEG digital, but there are plenty of interesting channels, feeds and radio services available. Much of this can be received with a
3-foot Ku-only dish.

The problem is that there are no more satellite dish-installers or experts
who repair dish setups.

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On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 20:10:04 -0000 (UTC), mediaeater <xxx@xxx.xxx>
wrote:

The problem is that there are no more satellite dish-installers or experts >who repair dish setups.

A search engine, like Google's, can fetch a lot of information.

I never used a dish installer, and installed several BUD dishes at
different locations.

A 7.5' hydro dish, I found, was better than those mesh or fiberglass
dishes.

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JAB <here@is.invalid> wrote:

A search engine, like Google's, can fetch a lot of information.

I googled for Ku FTA and found 57 channels in English.
I saw some PBS channels, but they are also available
OTA and via PBS.org. I suppose that most of the other
channels are religious?

Back in the 80's Galaxy 1 carried east west feeds for
all the common PayTV channels. C band systems with a
tripod mounted 6ft dish went for a few hundred dollars.

Then the videocypher wars began.

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On Fri, 10 Jun 2022 19:27:36 -0000 (UTC), root <NoEMail@home.org>
wrote:

Then the videocypher wars began.

"Videocipher II, was the primary encryption scheme used by major cable
TV programmers to prevent TVRO owners from receiving free terrestrial television programming."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videocipher

It was a means to use one encryption method. I had no complaints on
this topic since programming was cheap.

Otherwise, the video industry could have used various encryption
methods so we could not watch it....as is done today.

I suppose that most of the other
channels are religious?

SEE: https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?status=active

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On 2022-6-9 19:53, JAB wrote:

...
For the other poster who started this topic

https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?status=active

Thanks. That has been in my bookmark. And I'd like to push another: https://www.lyngsat.com/

--
Regards,
Lu Wei
IM: xmpp:luweitest@riotcat.org
PGP: 0xA12FEF7592CCE1EA

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