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The Joys Of Playing Internet Poker
By By Steve Hill
I started playing poker on the internet about six months ago and I must say I absolutely love it.I had had no real interest in poker until I watched it at a friends house on satellite Read more...
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Satellite Tv | Directv
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How To Shop For Satellite Tv Receivers And Dishes
By Sarah Gustafson, Fri Dec 9th
Let’s face it, Internet readers, most of us are guys. And asred-blooded American guys, we all have men’s desires, men’sneeds. Don’t play coy. You know what I’m talking about. We wantit faster, more creative, more imaginative, and not to put toofine a point on it, slimmer. We know we’ll have to pay for iteventually—we always do—but we’d rather not break the bank justfor a little nighttime fun. There’s a wide variety out there tochoose from, so point us in the right direction and we’llhappily engage in the hunt. But why do they make us work so hardto get it? Sure, we’re tech-savvy geeks, even nerds, but doesthat mean everything has to be some huge intellectual puzzle? Isthere a way to make these people give up the goods with a bareminimum of confusion? I’m talking, of course, about homeconsumer electronics, specifically satellite television systems. Look, I’m sorry if I led you on, but I hope I’ve provided a moreinteresting introduction to the world of home satelliteequipment than most industry vendors have. Take a look, forexample—if you dare—at RapidSatellite.com, a one-stop Internetshopping point for satellite TV. A recent search turned up thefollowing entries: DIRECTV DVR80 3-Room 70 Hour DVR Satellite TV System w/TiVo (1) DVR80 (2) D10 with Standard Dish, Multi-Switch &Standard Installation
DIRECTV DVR80 3-Room 70 Hour DVR Satellite TV System w/TiVo (1) DVR80 (2) D10 with Triple LNB Dish & StandardInstallation DIRECTV 3-Room 70 Hour DVR System w/ TiVo (2) TiVoReceivers (1) Hughes Director Receiver with Standard Dish,Multi-Switch & Standard Installation DIRECTV 3-Room System (1) HR10-250 200 Hour (STD) 35 Hour (HDTV)DIRECTV High Definition DVR w/ TiVo (2) Receiver Systemwith Triple LNB Dish & Standard Installation A little help here? Those ads are about as welcoming as a brickwall, and they present us with more acronyms than the U.S.military. For pure reading pleasure, they rank somewhere betweenFinnegans Wake and the book of Leviticus. Am I buying satelliteTV service, or naming robots for science fantasy sequels? Relax, Luke Skywalker. Scanning through orbital space may not belike dusting crops, but we’ll work our way through this thingtogether. Let’s start with the first ad. DIRECTV DVR80 3-Room 70 Hour DVR Satellite TV System w/TiVo (1) DVR80 (2) D10 with Standard Dish, Multi-Switch &Standard Installation Okay, first things first. is a national satellite TVsubscription service owned by Hughes Electronics and, in largepart, Fox Entertainment. In order to watch programming,one must first by a dish to collect the signals beamed to Earthby the satellite. Then one must buy a set-top box to decodethose signals. Lastly, one must have a TV of some kind todisplay the imagery represented by those signals. The first adis trying to sell us a hardware package that’ll allow us towatch DirecTV, but it adds a few nifty bells and whistles. Forexample, this package includes another device called a DVR80.And what exactly is that? It looks like a license plate. Good guess! No, a DVR80 is a brand of receiver manufactured andsold by RCA. To be more precise, it receives signals aswell as TiVo interactions. TiVo is a kind of DVR, or DigitalVideo Recorder, manufactured by the TiVo company. A DigitalVideo Recorder does exactly what it claims to do: It recordsvideo, not on tape as a VHS video recorder would, but as digitaldata in a dedicated hard drive. The DVR80 is capable ofrecording up to seventy hours of digital material, just aspromised obliquely in the ad. What the ad doesn’t make clear isthat the amount of material the hard drive can store depends onhow detailed the information is. Just as a VHS tape can holdanywhere from two to six hours of material, depending on theimage quality, so do DVR image recordings suffer when recordedat the seventy-hour setting. The DVR80 has Dolby Digital soundcapability and comes with a universal infrared remote control.When sold separately, it retails for anywhere between $100 and$150. The comparison to VHS tends to minimize what TiVo can do. Thehardware and allows for instant replays of live TV, plus theability
to skip through commercials while a program is airing.The Season Pass feature tracks the user’s favorite shows, evenif they change network time slots, and records them each weekautomatically. It’s even capable of predicting which unfamiliarshows the user might like, based on his or her previousrecordings. Simply put, TiVo is neato. But what in blue blazes is a “D10?” Isn’t that Eminem’s Detroitrap posse? No, that would be “D12,” Slim Shady. A D10 is nothingmore than the set-top box that receives signals. Itfeatures an Advanced Program Guide interface, and is capable ofreceiving signals from several satellites to the tune ofover 225 channels. The box itself costs about $50 retail. A“multi-switch” is, well, a switch designed to allow more thanone set-top box to receive information from the same satellitedish receiver. Some models feature built-in amplification. Themodel offered with this package has three different outputs tosend video to TVs in three different areas of a house. Othermulti-switches are designed to allow one satellite dish receiverto provide video to more than one home. As might be easilyguessed, does not encourage the sharing of its videoofferings by entire neighborhoods of houses. It does, however,promise to install these devices for you, at a combined packagecost of only $47.95. What a bargain! It’s a good thingRapidSatellite doesn’t charge by the acronym. The second ad presents only one new complication, the “TripleLNB Dish.” A Triple LNB Dish, also known in parlance asa Phase III Mulitsatellite Dish, is an 18” by 20” dish receiverthat collects broadcast signals from three different satellites.Customers with high-definition TV sets will definitely want toupgrade to Triple LNB, because without it, it’s impossible toreceive satellite broadcasts in HDTV. “LNB” stands for“low-noise block.” It’s the device that hangs off the arm of thesatellite dish and looks sort of like a flashlight. So what doesit do? To find out, we first have to crane our necks and stareup into orbit. The satellite at 101 degrees has 32transponders, numbered 1 to 32 for some reason, each of whichsends a group of channels. Back on Earth, an LNB converterresponds to changes in the voltage transmitted by the DirecTVreceiver by looking at either the odd- or even-numberedchannels. A Triple LNB Dish, not too surprisingly, includesthree LNB converters, each operating independently of the othertwo. That way, three different receivers can look atthree different stations on three different transponders. Longstory short, it means Mom can watch HGTV while Dad checks outSports Center. Meanwhile, their progeny have gathered around athird TV set to enjoy Aqua Teen Hunger Force, all at the sametime. Thanks to DVR and TiVo technology, it’s entirely possiblethat all three programs were recorded weeks ago. As for the third ad, a “Hughes Director” is the standardreceiver offered with basic packages. How standard? ManyDirecTV vendors are now offering the device free with purchaseof a dish receiver. Still, it’s a perfectly adequate receiver,with many of the features offered by the snazzier DVR80. Whileit can’t record video, it does offer a WatchWord search featurethat scans through program menus and alerts the userwhen favorite shows are about to come on. The “HR10-250” receiver is a much pricier alternative, cashingin at somewhere around a thousand bucks. Still, as FerrisBueller once noted, “It is so choice. If you have the means, Ihighly recommend picking one up.” It contains four tuners and abuilt-in DVR with TiVo. These four tuners allow for two HD showsto be recorded at once, even as the user watches a thirdprerecorded show. The 250 gigabyte hard drive holds about 30hours of HDTV, or as many as 200 hours of non-high-def video (at480 lines of pixels). PCWorld critic Cathy Lu’s review of theHR10-250 decided, “Cost aside, the HD DVR is the bestway that I've found to watch and record HD.” She gave it fourand a half stars out of five. That’s pretty good for a machinewhose profoundly uninspired name makes it sound like a tax form. About the author:Sarah Gustafson is a freelance writer and contributing author tohttp://www.dishtvreview.com, a site that provides satellite TVnews and consumer buying advice.
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Start Of Nfl Football Season Causes Mass Exodus Of Customers
By Kenneth Waugh, Sat Dec 10th
I don't believe there is any doubt left in anyone's mind of theextra value you get over cable TV (yes even digital) when yousubscribe to Satellite after you get a cable bill charging$45.00 dollars Read more...
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Radio By Satellite
By Corbin Mathieson, Sat Dec 10th
Satellite radio has become more and more popular these last fewyears and one of the reasons is the quite and static freereception enjoyed by the listener even in remote locations. Ifyou have ever Read more...
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