BEST AND WORST OF TVRO 1997 =========================== As submitted by readers of the satellite newsgroups and mailing lists -=-=-=-=-=-= From: The KJB The Forever Came Early Award: To Rupert Murdoch for scrambling the FX Networks, signals which he said would be "free forever". The Hype Isn't What It Seems Award: To the 4DTV system for bringing the digital world home in an even more complicated manner than ever before. A sub 'worst of the year' award to digital broadcasting in general, for proving that inferior video quality will always sell like gangbusters to the general public. Best Marketing of the Year Award: Digital Television. The marketing geniuses who have convinced the public that the over compressing of a broadcast signal (with all it's inherent flaws and nasty video artifacts) is "CD quality" and much more preferrable to a good, clean picture and rich stereo sound. These guys could make the Black Death into a marketable commodity. Ken Bussanmas (aka The KJB osiris@idir.net) Backstage Pass -=-=-=-=-=-= From: Alan Edmonds Best New ITC Channel: M2 (or MTV2) on C/F3-16. -=-=-=-=-=-= In the "Let's wait and see if anybody gets killed" category: The 24hr/day coverage of the Portuguese? embassy coverage when the Japanese diplomats were taken hostage. I think it was on S2 C-band using up a couple of transponders for different camera angles of the embassy. They looked pretty much like stationary cameras just pointed at the building. I think they managed to miss the assault, however. Go figure. Tim Zibrat timmy_z@nauticom.net -=-=-=-=-=-= Three worsts: 1. Loss of FNL from C-band and the continual moves and problems with the program. 2. The elimination of ITC NBA backhauls due to league mandate as a means of protecting their DirecTV package (read: greed). 3. Digital. Lower costs and more channels for satellite providers, but less for TVRO home viewers to see. As an adjunct to this point: "Less See Canadian TV". No more curling, in particular. Bests: 1. The amazing array and extent of satellite coverage of Princess Diana's death and funeral. 2. Nine months off work provide a revelation: TLC and HGTV on all day, plus golf on Thursdays and Fridays! 3. PrimeStar upgrades create affordable, fixed Ku systems for TVRO fanatics. Put a dish on every Ku bird! Mike in Oregon (still haven't got my SBS6 W0KIE dish installed, sigh) -- mbn@teleport.COM Public Access User --- Not affiliated with Teleport Mike Northam coords: 123 11' 40"W 45 37'14"N O- http://www.teleport.com/~mbn/ for Blazers stuff and more [not line noise] Free Randal Schwartz! email fund@stonehenge.com for details -=-=-=-=-=-= From: "markm" Worst: 4DTV. Technology which was not user-friendly. For example, mine = on a 10' c/ku dish cannot be set for C-band LNB and Ku LNBF. Also, the = receiver is "authorized" for Star Choice (Canada) and this has = eliminated most US IPG listings, even though I try to point it at the US = IPG. Lots of other "glitches" such as inaiblity to "program" Intelsat = and PAS birds that I previously (and still) receive on a horizon to = horizon dish. I could go on....but NextLevel (GI) never bother to = answer my requests for technical information....bad, bad, product and a = bad, very bad company. Best of 97, Rick Behar of Hero Productions Miami who so kindly puts my = favourite "Smooth Jazz" station up on S-4 Tr. 12 (WLVE-FM) for about 150 = hours a week. He puts the audio up when Hero isn't transmitting = programming. Nice guy. He even "tweaks" the uplink when audio quality = diminishes. He's the best. -=-=-=-=-=-= From: Bob Just dived in to TVRO this past fall (1997), but here goes: BEST (in no particular order): NASA coverage (as usual) of shuttle missions, especially the two astronauts grabbing the spinning satellite to rescue/repair it. As Chris Farley would say: "that was... awesome!" Coverage of Iowa sextuplet birth. My wife and I watched the live feeds for info instead of waiting until the network news came on. In fact, I first heard that the birth happened while watching one of the feeds. Best Ku satellite: SBS-6. I find more sports, news, and misc. feeds ITC on this bird than any other. Best foreign program ITC: CCTV4 (Chinese Central Television) on Galaxy4. Their english programming is very interesting and a cultural experience. C-band/Ku-band satellite charts at www.satcodx.com - updated daily. WORST: Conus news feeds (SBS-6) announcer injecting his idiotic opinion in the intro to each news story. (I do watch these feeds every day, they give me the days top news two hours earlier than the networks - and without all the BS and commercials.) Megabingo on SBS-6. (Have you seen the tape of the "winners" spinning the wheel and winning $50,000-$1,000,000 - and having little or no reaction to winning? I would have a stroke!) Chinese soap operas on CTN (Chinese TV Network) on Galaxy4. -=-=-=-=-=-= From: "Warren D. Ondras" Best: 4DTV Worst: 4DTV Warren Ondras ondras@external.umass.edu ondras@aci-openpages.com -=-=-=-=-=-= From Robert Smathers (roberts@nmia.com) BEST THING IN TVRO IN 1997 - availability of digital receivers; it has improved greatly to be able to get a digital receiver for either of the major digital video formats in use; now, when a service goes digital, it is not a bad thing, it's an opportunity to continue to watch the service if they use the digital "fixed key" mode. WORST SERVICE LAUNCH IN 1997 - Eye on People Network (who knows why CBS wasted their time with this one) BEST SERVICE LAUNCH IN 1997 - (tie) CNN SI and ESPNNEWS - easily convenient sports scores and highlights SERVICES THAT QUICKLY FIGURED HOW REAL LIFE IN THE TVRO ARC IS - (tie) Computer TV Network and B-Movie Channel - both found out rather quickly that launching a service isn't cheap; both won't be around for 1998 SERVICE THAT HASN'T FIGURED OUT HOW REAL LIFE IN THE TVRO ARC IS AND KEEPS TRYING - Las Vegas TV Network - surfaced again this Summer but still never launched; they keep trying a comeback. Do they continue to make a few bucks off the hopes of people thinking they are going to launch? BEST TRY - SATELLITE RECEIVER - 4DTV. Next Level (uh, G.I.) still doesn't have a very novice friendly receiver, but it does seem to be getting a little bit closer to that with each successive firmware update. Maybe one of these years... WORST TRY - SATELLITE RECEIVER - Digicipher-2 4200 commercial units - seems to be an orphan product, a few good firmware updates with my suggested features for the updates could make this a really awesome commercial receiver (rather than just good enough to do the job) BEST SERVICE TO TVRO COMMUNITY - Turnervision putting West Virginia Public Radio on their Wisdom Network transponder - gives home dish owners a chance at hearing more good NPR programming (when these dish owners don't own a 4DTV receiver to pick up some of the NPR stations that are digital audio) BEST SATELLITE LAUNCH OF 1997 - (tie) Telstar 5 and the Delta GPS launch - Telstar 5 as it's been a very good satellite to watch transmissions from. The GPS launch as it was so spectacular (debris everywhere!) and it also was a chance to watch one of the most successful launch programs (Delta) have a launch failure - very very rare. BIGGEST NEWSFEED COVERAGE - Princess Di death and funeral. Very good coverage from Sky TV and BBC of this sad tragedy - feeds everywhere in the arc Have a happy 1998!!!! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- de fcc sgn, Robert Smathers (roberts@nmia.com) Albuquerque, NM USA Robert's Satellite TV/Baseball page: http://www.nmia.com/~roberts/ Proud owner, 4 TODYWEN(!) and 4 BUD-lites - Albuquerque Intl. Downlinkport Satellite Services Guide Manager & Co-Monitor, SATELLITE TIMES magazine