# Just a hypothetical question about satellite tv



## mkdtv21 (May 27, 2007)

I don't ever want to try this or ever want to in the future and don't know if it's even possible. I would just like to know if some one had the money and lots of land could they set up a system to legally receive channel's from the master satellite feeds from the content providers? How many satellite's would you need? How much would the satellite's cost and what kind of equipment would you need and how much would you have to pay the content providers to decrypt all the channels.


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## RBA (Apr 14, 2013)

Your question doesn't make much sense. A dish of less than 30 inches can receive the satellite signals from DISH or Directv a subscription fee of less than $150 can probably cover the channels you would want to subscribe to.

Now if I took your question literally buying satellites would cost millions of dollars.


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## SamC (Jan 20, 2003)

If you are asking "how much to eliminate the 'middleman' of DirecTV, DISH, cable, etc and just receive the signals the way they do?" Then that is, essentially, what Sat. TV was in the BUD era. BUD equipment is still out there, and you could pretend it is 1985 and there you go. But the technical limitations would make it unpleasurable.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

And isn't less and less of it transmitted over satellite? There also are encryption issues.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

At least some of the channels send their signals to Dish by fiber-optic direct feeds I believe... so there would be no way to pick those up via satellite if they aren't transmitted that way.

That said... no matter how you slice it, it seems like even if possible it would be more costly than just subscribing to Dish or DirecTV.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

I think you guys are missing his question. 

And I believe the answer is no. Almost everything is encrypted now so you'd need a decoder for it al. And no channel
Is going to give that description ability to any consumer. 

In the olds days yes because they didn't even encrypt it. but not now.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

There's also multiple modulation and encryption formats out there. Even if you get past the hurdle of getting channels to sell to you directly, you'll need recievers capable of receiving and decrypting multiple formats like Digicipher, PowerVu, Director and Videoguard if you want to use the master feeds and not get everything repackaged by HITS. Back in the BUD days all you got were channels using Videocipher and Digicipher, if a channel was using anything else you couldn't get it unless your supplier made a deal with a redistributor like HITS.

The receivers used by cable and satellite headends aren't exactly home viewer friendly as they're designed to be used for one channel only or send a digital transport stream of multiple channels to the rest of the plant. Fox Sports and ESPN distribute their own receivers so they can handle blackouts and alternate feeds remotely, those receivers have to be plugged into multiple satellites at the same time and won't work with a BUD where you need to rotate the dish on a regular basis.


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## mkdtv21 (May 27, 2007)

I always knew it would be very complex and impractical but was just curious if someone was rich enough and an ultra geek would it be possible to do so.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

It depends what you want, if you want everything it will be a lot cheaper just to get the highest package from a cable or satellite provider.

For individual channels it varies on the channel and what is needed to receive it. If money, property and zoning is no problem, the hardest part would be finding the right people to talk to at the networks who will take you seriously. You might run into roadblocks though as the receivers they authorize are designed for headends and only have baseband SD video for analog and raw transport streams for digital, which could be a problem in a residential setting for channels that require HDCP.


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

So, with the answer to the OP being no, what other more practical way would you like to spend a few millions??


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

I do think it'd be fun to try if I had the money. . But then I'd spend it in some other silly project like my own satelite for perfect cell reception everywhere!


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Anything is possible with the right amount of money. 

As far as general market ... here is one site a quick Google search returned:
http://skyvision.com/programming/index.html


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

inkahauts said:


> I think you guys are missing his question.
> 
> And I believe the answer is no. Almost everything is encrypted now so you'd need a decoder for it al. And no channel
> Is going to give that description ability to any consumer.
> ...


No.. we didn't miss anything. In his first post he specifically mentioned that he knew he would have to pay and decrypt the signals and asked about factoring that into the cost of everything.


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## dmspen (Dec 1, 2006)

mkdtv21 said:


> I always knew it would be very complex and impractical but was just curious if someone was rich enough and an ultra geek would it be possible to do so.


If you had enough money, you could just buy DISH or DirecTV! DONE!


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

dmspen said:


> If you had enough money, you could just buy DISH or DirecTV! DONE!


awesome!!!!! hey is only 38 billion dollars. That should be pocket change...

Sent from my iPhone 6 using Tapatalk


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## richyrich (Dec 14, 2014)

mkdtv21 said:


> I don't ever want to try this or ever want to in the future and don't know if it's even possible. I would just like to know if some one had the money and lots of land could they set up a system to legally receive channel's from the master satellite feeds from the content providers? How many satellite's would you need? How much would the satellite's cost and what kind of equipment would you need and how much would you have to pay the content providers to decrypt all the channels.


If you could; it would be possible to clone directv and dish network STUDIOS and then broadcast the clone as a cable company from a far off land or the US; they will hunt it down, and @#$% it! However, this is exactly what internet tv is today!

At all of the major "broadcast" studio's; or Broadcast centers, they use the same equipment (this is not why). This equipment is not available to Homeowners and only Commercial; nor do other Countries use our air to broadcast (.

As a matter of intelligence, this is all they have to clone must have been done before, before these days of what cloning a technology is and how they accomplished it in the past. The past record of technology and the tv with a remote control is the arena they play in.


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2009)

mkdtv21 said:


> I don't ever want to try this or ever want to in the future and don't know if it's even possible. I would just like to know if some one had the money and lots of land could they set up a system to legally receive channel's from the master satellite feeds from the content providers? How many satellite's would you need? How much would the satellite's cost and what kind of equipment would you need and how much would you have to pay the content providers to decrypt all the channels.


1

Land is not the issue.

A 7 meter Simulsat will fit on land smaller than virtually any lot a house is on.

Figure rack space at 10 IRDs w/ decryption per rack (even though you could easily fit more in per rack) and assume you would want 500 channels, that would be 50 racks of equipment.

19" rack space, 21" per rack total = ~50 feet of rack if one on both side (with open path to the rear) or ~25 feet if you go 4 deep.

Again, not that big of a building.

IRD with encryption - figure an average of $7500 as a good estimate x 500 = $3.75M

Racks, wiring, cable, misc, electrical, heavy duty HVAC.

Could probably be purchased and installed for around $6M total, not including the land, which as you can see, would not need to be that large.

Of course, this does not include actual subscription/decryption to the channels, which you would not be able to obtain - so no way to price that, but if you are playing Fantasy, take the total Programming Costs for a year from any of the public Companies and divide it by the number of video customers. Finally divide that by 12 months.

This usually ends up in the ballpark of $40 regardless of which Company you use, which includes VOD, Special Events, all the Sports packages, etc. Just using BASIC programming packages (not premium) this would be about 45% of this amount (or $18-$20), if you wanted to calculate it that way in your fantasy.

As in your fantasy you would have all RSNs etc - and the above is wholesale, $200 a month would be a good estimate for your fantasy, especially as VOD is not included.

If you just wanted basic programming, cut that down to $50 given a much higher markup than what MVPD Customers see.


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## mkdtv21 (May 27, 2007)

SomeRandomIdiot said:


> 1
> 
> Land is not the issue.
> 
> ...


Thank you for your explanation. I didn't know paying the content providers would be the cheapest part and the equipment was the expensive part. I thought it would be the other way around.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

mkdtv21 said:


> Thank you for your explanation. I didn't know paying the content providers would be the cheapest part and the equipment was the expensive part. I thought it would be the other way around.


Read carefully:


SomeRandomIdiot said:


> Of course, this does not include actual subscription/decryption to the channels, *which you would not be able to obtain - so no way to price that*,


Despite an attempt to provide a "fantasy price" it is clear that getting the content is the "priceless" part of the setup - as in "not available at any price". Channel providers may sell to individuals through distributor companies ... But writing a check to ABC/Disney/ESPN for $10 per month is not going to get ESPN activated on the fantasy monster dish system described. Channel providers are looking for the million dollar checks covering a hundreds of thousands of subscribers ... not small checks.


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

Yep, in order to defray the cost of the multi million dollar equipment and multi million dollar rights contracts, you'll need to sign up many thousands of others to split the cost. Then you'll be a small cable TV operator fighting against Comcast and TWC! :bang


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