SatSig topic:

Satellite TV in Scotland

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Oct 25^th, 2008 at 10:29pm

I recently moved into a new house and can't get Sky installed due to high fir trees at the back of my property - no signal.

I went the BT Vision route via broadband, but I only get a 1MB signal which isn't strong enough to get TV on demand - my beloved sports is no longer available.

Does anyone out there know an alternative?

Oct 26^th, 2008 at 10:22pm

Put the Sky dish further away where it can see the satellite. For extreme cable lengths you can get 16 dB slope amps from Global that go part way along the cable. I did a 300m cable once with several such in-line amplifiers.

Sky is fine for broadcast since very many viewers, each paying a small amount contribute to the large cost of the service.

Using satellite internet to watch video at bit rates of 1 Mbit/s on an on demand basis where you get a dedicated video stream from a video server somewhere to your IP address is very expensive, like thousands of times as expensive as Sky reception. Satellite internet video can only justified if many people want to watch the same broadcast, typically using multicast addressing. We have tested and demonstrated this IP-TV system using CDM570L modems but the problem is finding enough initial simultaneous customers to make the broadcasts pay. Transmission costs for one 1 Mbit/s IP/TV programme for one month about $7000 send using a multicast IP address. Sport and other broadcast licences fees need adding to this.

Best regards, Eric.