Satellite TV Receiver

The Receiver is whats visible inside the house (the satellite dish is located outside of course!) it resembles a small DVD player connected to the video input of the TV. It has its own remote control and special features on its own.

The main function of the receiver is to get the digital MPEG2 signal (I'm gonna check this out) and convert it to analog where the TV is most use to. It also de-crypt some encrypted signals, these are the pay-per-view thing. It has to have a decoder chip which communicates with the received signal from the satellite. I think this would be the card which I see on the receiver, this would also be the one they are all been talking about hacking (well! enough about that for now). Another function that is very helpful during set-up is the signal and quality indicator, the indicators tell us if the Satellite TV set up is optimized or needs some fine tuning (satellite dish adjustments). The last and my favorite is that is also pick up programming schedule signal which you can always check from the remote control to check the programming guide.

Some frequently ask question (that i know cause I ask them too!). Can we use 2 TV with 1 receiver (just like a cable TV)?. Normally one Satellite dish set has a receiver, if you want to split the signal ( for 2 TV's) and you only got 1 receiver this will work but both TV set would have the
same TV program all the time since only 1 receiver is controlling it ( never tried this one yet), the rule is you can't watch two different programs on two TVs hooked up to the same receiver. The only way to do this is to have 2 receivers for each TV (which I have already tried - it will work), even if there is one Satellite dish it will work just fine. I've read somewhere that there are other receivers that have upgraded its function, one example is that there are receiver already in the market that have a hard disk for recording programs, and who knows the receiver technology may improve a lot (let's check it out!).