VUDU vs Satellite

[HeadHodge]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

I wonder what that means for my existing 8-way multi-switch. Will it continue to work as my only multi-switch and splitter? Do I need to add the new SWM also? If I do, will my old multi-switch act as an 8-way splitter or would I need to replace it with a new 8-way splitter? If I need to add the SWM it will be a pain because I don't have room for it and splitters where my current multi-switch is.

I really want to know the answers to this before I let a technician come out and upgrade me for free.

I don't really know the full answer.

But I'm pretty sure Directv has manfuctured an SWM-8 switch that can be obtained where it takes the 4 coax wires from the LNB 5 dish as inputs and then take 2 outputs from the switch, connect it to a splitter then run a single coax to the receiver and connect it to the SWM input connector on the receiver.

What I'm not sure about is if you could connect multiple receivers to that single coax run or not. I "think" you can because they are claiming it as a solution for MRV (multi room viewing).

The other thing I've heard is that you can get a new LNB 5 dish that has the SWM switch built into the dish. And that only one wire comes out the dish to feed all your receivers.

I have 5LNB dishes but not that kind. So I don't want to mislead you, but it's definitely worth looking into before you upgrade your dish to 5 LNB.

Regards

[redwein]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

I wonder what that means for my existing 8-way multi-switch. Will it continue to work as my only multi-switch and splitter? Do I need to add the new SWM also? If I do, will my old multi-switch act as an 8-way splitter or would I need to replace it with a new 8-way splitter? If I need to add the SWM it will be a pain because I don't have room for it and splitters where my current multi-switch is.

I really want to know the answers to this before I let a technician come out and upgrade me for free.

[RonV]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Things are a chaning in the DirecTV world. Most of the new receivers now support SWM or Single Wire Multiswitch:

http://www.weaknees.com/swm-directv.php

This setup will also allow "Spiltters" in line since the real switch is in the bus of the 5 LNB dish.

The old Multiswitch stuff has now been demoted to "Legacy" support.

Here is a basic description:

http://www.pdisat.com/assets/DIRECTV_MFH2tm_PDISAT.pdf

[NA9D]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

When I had Dish Network it had a multi-LNB on it. If you wanted to add another dish, then you used what was called a Multi-Switch. Each box would send a signal to the Mult-Switch and it would determine how to multiplex the LNB signals.

[redwein]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

It looks like it requires a special splitter to split the one wire into 2. It doesn't sound like traditional splitting where both outputs are duplicate copies of the input.

[aaronwt]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

So how do they split the new signals. With DirecTV and the new receivers and 5 LNB dishes they have splitters that allow you to go to multiple boxes. And then each box can take that one cable and split it for two tuners. I know when I had DirecTV it wasn't this way but that was when they had the 3 LNB dishes.
here is a link to the Single wire multiswitches and splitters for DirecTV.
http://www.weaknees.com/swm-directv.php?code=93295

[NA9D]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

But do you think that it is technically feasable to capture the whole satellite spectrum via (let's say) 5 LNB's and convert it to (let's say) 256 channels of CATV??

Well, it certainly could be done. OK, you could only pick 256 channels of satellite!

But to say it could be done vs. getting a commercially made product to do it is another matter.

[HeadHodge]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Actually for DirecTV it is more complicated than this. The receiver sends a different voltage up to the satellite dish to indicate which polarity it wants. Each LNB in the satellite dish can only get half of the channels at one time. This is why you can't just "split" the satellite signal. For multiple boxes, you need to use a multi-switch and use at least a dual LNB dish.

In the pre-HD days, the multi-switch would get half of the channels from one LNB and half from the other. Then each box would indicate what it needed for the channel being tuned and the multi-switch would give it the correct ones. Nowadays it is more complicated because there are up to 5 LNBs and more satellites but I'm pretty sure it is basically the same thing.

This is also the reason that even the DirecTivo box had to have 2 physical satellite feeds, one for each tuner. This is in contrast to how cable TV can be split and why the cable DVR boxes need just one. Here is a link that describes it:

http://www.hometech.com/learn/dss.html

But do you think that it is technically feasable to capture the whole satellite spectrum via (let's say) 5 LNB's and convert it to (let's say) 256 channels of CATV??

[NA9D]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Actually for DirecTV it is more complicated than this. The receiver sends a different voltage up to the satellite dish to indicate which polarity it wants. Each LNB in the satellite dish can only get half of the channels at one time. This is why you can't just "split" the satellite signal. For multiple boxes, you need to use a multi-switch and use at least a dual LNB dish.

Yeah true. I was thinking of a single LNB. For an individual LNB, it's how it works!

[NA9D]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Wow!! That's cool stuff. Thanks!!!

Now I know I why I have no need for Google or Wikepedia.

But you didn't answer the submarine question. i.e. traveling waves through a denser medium via very low freq transmission and content preservation. I'm guessing that you could send a HD VUDU movie to a sub via downconversion but it would take the sub about a week to get the whole content.

Also you didn't address pink grapefruit. Is it really pink or is it yellow??

First of all, pink grapefruit really is pink. There is grapefruit that is not pink grapefruit that could be considered yellow or even white.

As for submarines, water is a tremendous attenuator of RF energy. So if a submarine is deep under water, the communication options are rather minimal. The way that they are communicated with is via VLF range frequencies in the kHz range. These frequencies are the only ones that can basically travel through the ground and under water. Because of the low frequency, the available data bandwidth is extremely low. So the communication is typically done by an extremely low baud rate radio teletype or Morse code (generally it's teletype). It can take minutes to maybe even an hour or more for a single message to get across. Not much communication goes on then with submarines deep under water. The Navy maintains some rather large transmission stations for this purpose. Mainly, the communication would be used for something like "launch the missles." For higher rate coms, the submarine would need to get near the surface where they can then launch tethered antennas that would float on the surface or just under it and then they can receive the higher frequencies and communicate more easily. It's a big challenge...

[redwein]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Now what your satellite receiver in your house does is take and convert a selected channel in that 400 MHz to 1 GHz range down to channel 3 which is somewhere around 65 MHz (give or take - I forget the exact frequency and am too lazy to look it up).

Actually for DirecTV it is more complicated than this. The receiver sends a different voltage up to the satellite dish to indicate which polarity it wants. Each LNB in the satellite dish can only get half of the channels at one time. This is why you can't just "split" the satellite signal. For multiple boxes, you need to use a multi-switch and use at least a dual LNB dish.

In the pre-HD days, the multi-switch would get half of the channels from one LNB and half from the other. Then each box would indicate what it needed for the channel being tuned and the multi-switch would give it the correct ones. Nowadays it is more complicated because there are up to 5 LNBs and more satellites but I'm pretty sure it is basically the same thing.

This is also the reason that even the DirecTivo box had to have 2 physical satellite feeds, one for each tuner. This is in contrast to how cable TV can be split and why the cable DVR boxes need just one. Here is a link that describes it:

http://www.hometech.com/learn/dss.html

[HeadHodge]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Obviously, the higher you go in frequency, the more bandwidth you have to work with. So for example, TV signals have a bandwidth of about 6 MHz. Well, if you tried to transmit a 6 MHz signal at a frequency of 10 MHz, you'd take up a high percentage of the spectrum that low in frequency.

But at 500 MHz, 6 MHz is a fairly small percentage bandwidth of the frequency.

Still, frequency conversion goes on all the time. That's the basic principle of radio receivers. You receive at one frequency and this is at the end, down converted to audio or video signals. The idea of a radio receiver in general is to take a specific signal out of a chunk of signals at a high frequency, filter it and convert it down to a lower frequency where it is more easily dealt with and converted to another format (ie: audio, video or data).

In my example of the satellite, system, where it would break down with the block converter is that some of the UHF television channels overlap with the down converted signals coming from the satellite dish. You'd probably have to change the entire architecture of the system to do it the way I wish it could be done, but it would be great but yet a lot more expensive.

And to answer your question about conversion of yellow light to blue light, that would not be a down conversion but an up conversion. The light spectrum goes from lowest frequency to highest frequency:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

So if you did up-convert yellow to blue, yes, it would be blue. And yes, this sort of thing can be done and is done.

Wow!! That's cool stuff. Thanks!!!

Now I know I why I have no need for Google or Wikepedia.

But you didn't answer the submarine question. i.e. traveling waves through a denser medium via very low freq transmission and content preservation. I'm guessing that you could send a HD VUDU movie to a sub via downconversion but it would take the sub about a week to get the whole content.

Also you didn't address pink grapefruit. Is it really pink or is it yellow??

[NA9D]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

Obviously, the higher you go in frequency, the more bandwidth you have to work with. So for example, TV signals have a bandwidth of about 6 MHz. Well, if you tried to transmit a 6 MHz signal at a frequency of 10 MHz, you'd take up a high percentage of the spectrum that low in frequency.

But at 500 MHz, 6 MHz is a fairly small percentage bandwidth of the frequency.

Still, frequency conversion goes on all the time. That's the basic principle of radio receivers. You receive at one frequency and this is at the end, down converted to audio or video signals. The idea of a radio receiver in general is to take a specific signal out of a chunk of signals at a high frequency, filter it and convert it down to a lower frequency where it is more easily dealt with and converted to another format (ie: audio, video or data).

In my example of the satellite, system, where it would break down with the block converter is that some of the UHF television channels overlap with the down converted signals coming from the satellite dish. You'd probably have to change the entire architecture of the system to do it the way I wish it could be done, but it would be great but yet a lot more expensive.

And to answer your question about conversion of yellow light to blue light, that would not be a down conversion but an up conversion. The light spectrum goes from lowest frequency to highest frequency:

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

So if you did up-convert yellow to blue, yes, it would be blue. And yes, this sort of thing can be done and is done.

[HeadHodge]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

You don't have to pitch underhanded to us...

I'll pitch any way you want if you catch!

My real question is if you take an angstrom stream of yellow light waves and downconvert to the blue light wave freq, is it still yellow light or now blue light????

[Nded]

Re: VUDU vs Satellite

....snip .... Am I on the right track of understanding Master or just whacko?

You don't have to pitch underhanded to us...