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From the Studio to Your Living Room:Receiving The Morning News at Your Home Via Satellite Television92710939165Josh MillerMeredith Viera and Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today. The morning show is the most watched morning news show and airs at 7 AM every day of the week.(Photo FromImage Management Consultant at Conselle Institute) Every morning, NBC’s popular morning show Today starts broadcasting from New York city at 7 AM with the famous words: “This is the Today Show with Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera, live from Studio 1A in Rockefeller Plaza.” These words can be heard out of your television set and can take many routes to get from the studio set to your living room. One of the popular methods you might receive this is through a satellite television company such as DirecTV or Dish Network.57842316457200987425If you live or have lived in a suburban or rural area, you are probably familiar with (at least the idea of) satellite TV and the “dish” antennas attached to the outsides of homes. The signal that is received by that antennathe antenna recieves makes a very long trip to get to your television set, a process that is described within this document. Overview of the general process of signal transmission from the source to your home.(Courtesy of )Steps Through the Transmission System:Signal is created at the studioStudio transmits signal to private repeater satelliteSatellite transmits signal to satellite provider’s stationSatellite provider transmits signal to their satelliteSignal is broadcasted from satellite back to earthOutdoor antenna at your home receives the signalSet-Top Box converts received signalTelevision displays signalSignal is created at the studioThe signal gets created somewhere; the studio of the content provider or network comes into play at this stage. At the studio, the production staff mix the video signals from the cameras that capture Matt and Meredith sitting at the news desk. It’s now ready to be sent off for broadcasting.231140368300Control room located in NBC Studio 2K for the Studio 1A where Today is broadcasted. Here, the camera feeds, audio feeds, remote feeds and extra programming (commercials, recorded segments, layover graphics) are mixed and combined live in real-time for broadcast throughout the world.(Copyright by Dennis Degan, ) Studio transmits signal to private repeater satelliteOnce the final video feed is mixed together, it is sent to the SATOPS center (Satellite Operations Center and Transmission Room) within the BOC (broadcast operations center) on another floor. Here, the signal is transmitted (or uplinked) to a satellite orbiting approximately 25,000 miles above the earth dedicated to relaying network feeds.The NBC Broadcast Operations Center on the second floor of the GE Building in Central Manhattan. Seen here is the Satellite Operations Center and Transmission Room that controls the uplink signals for retransmission to content providers throughout the world.(Copyright by Dennis Degan, ) Satellite transmits signal to satellite provider’s stationOnce the signal from the ground has reached the network satellite, the satellite amplifies the signals from the multiple uplink centers and re-transmits them back to earth for the satellite programming providers such as DirecTV and Dish Network to receive at their ground stations for transmission to customers.2702560497840204470501015Satellite provider transmits signal to their satelliteThe DirecTV and DISH Network (left and right, respectively) head-end uplink stations, both located in California. Multiple antennas facilitate the reception of signals from multiple satellites transmitting programming from many content providers throughout the world.(Bartlett Home Theater, E. Schoenherr, ) At the service provider’s ground station (or head-end,) multiple antennas and equipment exist for receiving signals from many content providers. The signals from different news networks such as NBC, ABC, FOX and programming networks such as HBO, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, etc. are received and combined together to form the channel lineup found on your TV when you bring up the programming guide. This is when the programming you receive takes shape in a familiar format. The head-end station then uplinks the final signal to the service provider’s satellite.Signal is broadcasted from satellite back to earthAfter having made another 25,000 mile journey back to space, the final signal is amplified and retransmitted by the service provider’s satellite to houses across the United States. By being in a high orbit, the satellite is “seen” by many customers across the continent, enabling the service provider to use one satellite for a good portion (or even all) content delivery.Outdoor antenna at your home receives the signalIn order to receive the signal from the service provider’s satellite overhead, you must have one of those (sometimes unsightly) dish antennas outside your home. Since the received signal can be about -206 dB less than what was seen at the satellite transmitter 25,000 miles away in the sky (-206 is about 2.5×10-21 times or 0.00000000000000000025% of the original signal strength!) you need a high-gain antenna to receive this signal.The parabolic (or “dish”) antenna works by using a large reflector to gather the signal and focus it at a point so that the antenna at the feed horn can receive a stronger signal level.(Courtesy of ) 1244600-38227010966451053465The feed horn on the antenna contains an LNB (Low-Noise Block Downconverter) to amplify the incoming signal before sending it out over the coaxial cable in your home. Without this part of the antenna, the extremely weak signal present would never propagate and be seen by the set top box connected to the coaxial cable that decodes it.A general coverage map for DirecTV service. The strongest signals can be seen in the central US and get weaker around the fringes of the continent. This map shows the minimum size that the antenna has to be in order to receive the signals.(Lounge0101, ) Set-Top Box converts received signal7378701120140Inside your home connected to the coaxial cable after the antenna is a Set-Top Box (or STB for short.) This component takes the signal from the antenna outside and deciphers the encrypted signal to recover the TV channel data. Channels are encoded to prevent non-subscribers from receiving and viewing channels without paying for access to them.A typical DirecTV satellite system Set-Top Box (STB) used for decodingand displaying received channels on a television.(iSuppli, ) Depending on which channel you have selected to watch, the STB decodes a certain portion of the incoming signal and then outputs just the portion you want to watch over the video output to your television. Because of this, each TV that you want to watch separate channels on must have its own STB.Television displays the signalFinally, after making such a long journey in less than a few seconds, Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera are displayed on your can share your morning on your TV screen. The television takes the output from the STB in many possible formats and displays it on the screen for your enjoyment.It is amazing that those famous opening words go from the studio, to a repeater satellite, back to the ground, sent to another satellite, received at your home, decoded and heard in less than a few seconds after having traveled over 100,000 miles! ................
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