# 'Free-to-air' powering growth of satellite TV boxes



## Chris Blount

Shipments of set-top boxes that receive signals from digital satellites will continue to grow worldwide through 2008, fueled by increasing demand for "free-to-air" boxes, according to a new report.

In a survey released Wednesday, researcher In-Stat/MDR said the popularity of FTA boxes, which pick up free programming as opposed to subscription fare such as that offered by DirecTV, will carry overall shipments of set-top boxes to 65 million this year, and to 71 million units by 2008.

*More*


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## JohnH

I have 3 FTA boxes and 2 PCI cards which are FTA receivers.

I have the International feed of the Yankees game tonight on IA 7.

Earlier was watching the Astros/Cardinals game and the Red Sox/Yankees warmups in HD on this PC.


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## Scott Greczkowski

John what are you using for a HD FTA Card?

I want one of those.


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## JohnH

Scott Greczkowski said:


> John what are you using for a HD FTA Card?
> 
> I want one of those.


After you put up your C/Ku BUD with analog receiver, get a Twinhan 1020A(uses Windows Media Player). Also, some brand of Blind Scan FTA box is nice to find the feeds. 

Of course, need bunches of PC power to make it work. P4 2.8Ghz with about 500 Megabytes memory and fast HD.

Hopefully up there in Connect you can see the arc at least from IA 7 to PAS 9.


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## Scott Greczkowski

JohnH said:


> After you put up your C/Ku BUD with analog receiver, get a Twinhan 1020A(uses Windows Media Player). Also, some brand of Blind Scan FTA box is nice to find the feeds.
> 
> Of course, need bunches of PC power to make it work. P4 2.8Ghz with about 500 Megabytes memory and fast HD.
> 
> Hopefully up there in Connect you can see the arc at least from IA 7 to PAS 9.


I just purchased a new 3 GHZ Machine with 1 gig of ram and nice fast SATA drives.

Up until a few weeks ago I could barely see the DBS slots, but then mother nature helped me out by blowing down the big tree that was blocking most of the arc for me.

I am going to order me up a horizion to horizion dishes. I want a C Band Dish, but my wife said we already look like ESPN.


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## chenrikson

John -- But I'll bet that 95%+ of the new FTA is KU band -- and most is in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In the US FTA is mostly a hobby for those of us who enjoy playing with dishes. I loved my BUD back when there was lots of good free programming - but that is no longer the case as most suppliers have gone to encoded KU band broadcasting.

Hang in there!

Craig


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## JohnH

Well, I have not seen many HD feeds on Ku Band. Most have been on C band to provide the most reliability. The FOX feeds tonight were on G3C - C 2 and 3 at SR 30000. Most of the ESPN HD feeds are on G3C - C band as well. The MLB International SD feeds were on IA 7 - Cband and I-805 Cband as well. Granted, there are lots of feeds on Ku band, but we were talking HD feeds.

As far as wildfeeds go there is not much encryption happening. And there are more wildfeeds on C and Ku band free than there used to be, both analog and digital. Many may think it is encryption, but it actually is 4:2:2 digital which can be viewed on a computer quite economically.

Regular network stuff is not as prevalent as in the past, but you can still find first run series backhauls and sometimes first run movie backhauls.


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## wcswett

Chris Blount said:


> In a survey released Wednesday, researcher In-Stat/MDR said the popularity of FTA boxes, which pick up free programming as opposed to subscription fare such as that offered by DirecTV, will carry overall shipments of set-top boxes to 65 million this year, and to 71 million units by 2008.


I would think that the fact that half a dozen FTA receivers have been hacked in the past year to break Nagravision 1 would be a very big factor in FTA sales to North America. Apparently either the NA imports are still a drop in the bucket or they just didn't want to mention that.

--- WCS (Enjoying free Chinese package preview on Echo 9)


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## Jacob S

I think there will be more demand for the FTA receivers when there is more content available that more would like to see. To some it is still not enough to pursue purchasing the FTA receivers and many want it to be able to replace their subscription service completely if not a lot of it.


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## keith cornett

I just got my HD TV. I am looking to buy a Motorola HDD200 to connect to my 4DTV receiver for HBO and Discovery HD. I am a sports fan so would be interested in how to rcv the ESPN HD feeds. Thanks!



JohnH said:


> Well, I have not seen many HD feeds on Ku Band. Most have been on C band to provide the most reliability. The FOX feeds tonight were on G3C - C 2 and 3 at SR 30000. Most of the ESPN HD feeds are on G3C - C band as well. The MLB International SD feeds were on IA 7 - Cband and I-805 Cband as well. Granted, there are lots of feeds on Ku band, but we were talking HD feeds.
> 
> As far as wildfeeds go there is not much encryption happening. And there are more wildfeeds on C and Ku band free than there used to be, both analog and digital. Many may think it is encryption, but it actually is 4:2:2 digital which can be viewed on a computer quite economically.
> 
> Regular network stuff is not as prevalent as in the past, but you can still find first run series backhauls and sometimes first run movie backhauls.


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## xxxx

keith cornett said:


> I just got my HD TV. I am looking to buy a Motorola HDD200 to connect to my 4DTV receiver for HBO and Discovery HD. I am a sports fan so would be interested in how to rcv the ESPN HD feeds. Thanks!


Checkout www.satforums.com Many of the DCII HD feeds are in Megapipe DCII which 4DTV receivers CANNOT receive.

Many of us have added a 400 series StarChoice receiver to receive Detroit/Seattle HD + Rogers Sportnet HD. The HDD200 is shared between the 2 boxes.


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## keith cornett

I am interested to know how to decode the ESPN HD feed(s). I went to the forum and can't find such info. Any other suggestions?



xxxx said:


> Checkout www.satforums.com Many of the DCII HD feeds are in Megapipe DCII which 4DTV receivers CANNOT receive.
> 
> Many of us have added a 400 series StarChoice receiver to receive Detroit/Seattle HD + Rogers Sportnet HD. The HDD200 is shared between the 2 boxes.


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## S.C. Am

keith cornett said:


> I am interested to know how to decode the ESPN HD feed(s). I went to the forum and can't find such info. Any other suggestions?


DirecTV or Dishnetwork or VOOM


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## chelsea

All Seattle Mariners home games are filmed in HD for Japenese NHK.
This is the feed given to Rogers for SC's HD & BEV's SD, along with Comcast HD cable, using mariners announcers with NHK HD production.

PanAmSat 8 166E & PanAmSat 9 58W both have NHK, are they
showing baseball feeds in SD, on their sats? Any foreign HD on the ocean sats would have slipped out by now?

H-4040 1110 3/4 26.470 1260 1220 NHK WORLD TV - NTSC Video Japan 1220 APID = English 1222 APID = Japanese 
1360 1320 NHK WORLD TV - PAL Video Japan 1320 APID = English 1322 APID = Japanese 
1460 1420 CHANNEL J feeds 


H-4060 1090 3/4 26.470 1260 1220 NHK WORLD TV (NTSC Video) Japanese audio APID 1222 has English audio when available 
1360 1320 NHK WORLD TV (PAL Video) Japanese audio APID 1322 has English audio when available


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## PSB

I for one could live without pay TV! Now we are getting ALL the networks on FTA I am set, hopefully we are headed toward a national FTA service much like the BSKYB and BBC "Freeview" service in the UK, when the pay market is saturated its going to be the only way forward, IMO.


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## Ray_Clum

Getting mine installed today. Gotta be able to catch U of L football & basketball when they aren't on ESPN/ABC/CBS...


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