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Reimagining the future of satellites all started with three guys, a few Macintosh computers, and sketches in a notebook.
ViaSat-3 rendering
For a long time, Viasat was more known for its defense products than anything else. That all changed when Viasat delivered the highest capacity broadband satellite of its time – ViaSat-1. Soon after came ViaSat-2 with even higher capacity. Now each satellite in the ViaSat-3 constellation is anticipated to deliver at least 1 Terabit of data throughput per second (1Tbps) to its wide range of global customers –on the ground, in the air and at sea.https://www.youtube.com/embed/lFRxFu2xTzI?enablejsapi=1
Seasoned satellite telecommunication professionals Mark Dankberg, Steve Hart and Mark Miller established Viasat in 1986. Together they were critical behind-the-scenes players in the satellite communications world. They delivered solutions for the military, commercial customers and even internet service providers (ISPs), building vital modems for fighter jets that transmitted real-time information to pilots, and ground stations that connected rural homes to the internet.
Expanding its focus in 2008, Viasat stepped into the spotlight when it announced the build of its own satellite, ViaSat-1, the first generation of Viasat's satellite evolution. It is important to note that VS-1 is not just any satellite. A company press release issued at the time said the $400 million ViaSat-1 would be "the world's highest capacity broadband satellite."
Viasat systems engineer Aaron Mendelsohn, who's played a pivotal role in the development of ViaSat-1, ViaSat-2 and ViaSat-3, said the company innovation that followed helped change the overall perception of satellite communications.
"Before ViaSat-1 came along, communications satellites had pretty low bandwidth capacity, and weren't really designed for large-scale consumer services," he said. "So Viasat walks in the door and has an idea of how to actually do it. That required vendors to change their thinking of what was possible.
"It was really Viasat that pushed the existing technology that was being used in space to its maximum. Viasat provided the idea for reconfiguring it, and getting higher capacity, and ViaSat-2 pushed it further."
ViaSat-3 will push it further still.
Some may wonder what prompted the company 14 years ago to make a leap many saw as risky.
CEO Mark Dankberg saw a consumer need for more affordable bandwidth. The initial idea was to create more broadband for rural North American customers. By 2008, Viasat had been a nearly decade-long supplier for Denver-based ISP WildBlue Communications.
WildBlue launched its service in 2005, and in less than five years, became one of the top 20 broadband U.S. ISPs. The company used the then-new Ka-band spot beam satellite technology, which dramatically lowered the cost of providing high bandwidth internet access.
Dankberg saw the response to WildBlue's service as the tip of the iceberg. By 2008, high demand for Ka-band services had exceeded the bandwidth supply and capped growth. In Dankberg's view, the market was large and in serious need of connectivity — which could only be supplied by another, high-capacity satellite.
"We knew it was a big step for us," he told the San Diego Union Tribune in 2009. "But we didn't see anyone else aiming to do it."
Viasat was taking its first steps on the path to becoming a major global satellite operator.
ViaSat-1 was among a new generation of satellites built around the lesser-used Ka-band portion of the radio spectrum, dividing its coverage into spot beams — concentrated areas of satellite signal strength, each covering a particular geographic area. At the time, it offered more gigabits per second than all other communication satellites over North America combined.
Viasat's move to finance the building of its own satellite took the industry by surprise.
One publication described Viasat's decision as an "in some eyes risky foray for what had traditionally been a terminal manufacturer with a steady stream of U.S. government and consumer business."
Dankberg was confident the investment would be worthwhile for both underserved households and Viasat stakeholders, and that Viasat was the company to do it.
"This is a technology opportunity that is right in our sweet spot," he said in 2008. "We provide ground systems for many commercial and government satellites, and as our activity in satellite payloads has increased, we realized that we could make a major breakthrough by simultaneously designing the spot beam satellite and the ground segment.
Adding Viasat-1 to WildBlue's network not only provided the bandwidth it needed to grow, but enabled customers to get higher speeds needed for easier video downloads and other online experiences.
In 2009, a year after announcing the construction of ViaSat-1, Viasat bought WildBlue. The acquisition gave Viasat a partner with an already established distribution channel, billing system and customer service. WildBlue's subscriber base and revenue also helped offset ViaSat-1's development and brought more subscribers to ViaSat-1.
When ViaSat-1 launched in 2011, it won accolades from far and wide.
Guinness World Records named ViaSat-1 the highest-capacity communications satellite in the world — a designation now held by ViaSat-2.
"If we hadn't done that, either someone else would have, or the satellite industry would be dead," said Kristi Jaska, Viasat's Vice President of Customer Experience. "In general, the other satellite operators and providers were busy servicing their current customers, but not really keeping up with the trends in more and more internet usage."
In an October 2013 article, Forbes magazine praised Viasat for upending what had been the flagging reputation and pace of satellite communications.
"Powered by the success of its ViaSat-1 satellite, CEO Mark Dankberg has become famous for betting the company on ViaSat-1 and winning," said the article entitled 'This High Speed Satellite Company Is Defying The Naysayers And Changing Everything.' "It's a powerful reminder, at a time when mobile wireless technologies are all the rage, that there is a huge opportunity for new business models to emerge around satellite communications. They are the communications pioneers of our day."
Key to Viasat's success in satellite construction then and now is its vertical integration. Company engineers designed ViaSat-1 and ViaSat-2, and built the ground systems. Viasat also provides the service, creating a highly optimized communications system.
By early 2017, ViaSat-1 was at capacity. The response affirmed Dankberg's belief that the market was vast and needed still more bandwidth. And Viasat was ready to help meet that demand.
ViaSat-2 launched that year, and ViaSat-3 payloads were already under construction in Tempe.
"The better we can make our service, the bigger our market," Dankberg said in a February 2017 interview. "But that doesn't mean we are going after people who have Google Fiber. What we are trying to do is go after a bigger segment of people who don't have those speeds."
ViaSat-2, launched in 2017, broadened ViaSat-1's coverage, enabling faster speeds and increasing monthly data allowances so subscribers could do more streaming.
It also expanded the footprint of broadband services across North America, Central America, the Caribbean, a portion of northern South America, as well as the primary aeronautical and maritime routes across the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe.
Rather than fixed coverage areas, ViaSat-2's technology also enabled the company to shift capacity to where it was needed most. That allowed flexible coverage to airlines, ships and other mobile users, and bolstered its residential and business internet services.
From ViaSat-1 to ViaSat-2, the company also moved from a hardware-based set up to cloud computer architecture, creating further cost savings and efficiency.
"That gave us a lot of flexibility," said Carlin Charteris, Viasat's vice president of global networks and technology. "We use a lot of our sophistication on the ground to provide incremental and substantial leaps in capacity improvements, and make it more valuable over time."
ViaSat-3 marks a major engineering accomplishment for Viasat. ViaSat-3 Americas — the first of the three-satellite global constellation — is also the first of our satellite payloads constructed by Viasat employees at a company facility.
The ViaSat-3 constellation is expected to boost total capacity by 600%.
"ViaSat-3 is a whole different animal," Mendelsohn said. "The complexity of the ground system is much higher, and so is the satellite. We had to help the satellite vendors uncover things they didn't know they could do, but we knew they could."
Companies helping to build ViaSat-3 include Boeing and other manufacturers that produce components for the satellites.
"We had to convince them we could make an even bigger satellite with much greater capacity," he said. "And we did that with electric propulsion."
Electric propulsion reduces the amount of mass taken up by fuel, which allows for a larger satellite. According to Boeing, ViaSat-3 is the largest satellite in both size and power that it has built.
Viasat has focused even further on putting bandwidth where it's most needed using beam technology, which transmits signals to a specific geographic area on earth.
"There's a thread that started with ViaSat-1 and continues to today, and that is putting capacity where people use it," said Viasat systems engineer Bill Halstrom. "On ViaSat-1, we did that by locating beams where the users were. On ViaSat-2, we did that by moving capacity between existing beams. With ViaSat-3, we'll actually be moving beams.
"That's three evolutions of increasing our ability to put capacity where it's really needed. It's a big part of our satellite story, and it's what we're best at."
Such flexibility doesn't come just from the satellites, but the ground network. On the ground, Viasat's satellite access nodes (SANs) are strategically placed to maximize the capacity and availability of the satellite's bandwidth –creating a more powerful and reliable network overall.
Viasat's decision to become a satellite manufacturer has proven enormously successful.
"Twelve years ago, we were not a satellite operator at all," Dankberg said. "Now we operate all over the world in some of the most exciting applications."
With the upcoming ViaSat-3 global constellation, Viasat will soon be much bigger.
"The broadband space is going to change very substantially when we continue our shift from U.S. residential to global," Dankberg said.
"All of this is part of Viasat's constant evolution."
"With ViaSat-3, we're working on the hardest problems we've ever worked on" Viasat co-founder and chief technical officer Mark Miller said. "Other managers would look at that and get nervous. Our engineers look at it as a challenge, a challenge that motivates them. And that's what makes it fun."
The post Viasat's evolution from a small defense contractor to global satellite operator appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
Continue reading...
ViaSat-3 rendering
For a long time, Viasat was more known for its defense products than anything else. That all changed when Viasat delivered the highest capacity broadband satellite of its time – ViaSat-1. Soon after came ViaSat-2 with even higher capacity. Now each satellite in the ViaSat-3 constellation is anticipated to deliver at least 1 Terabit of data throughput per second (1Tbps) to its wide range of global customers –on the ground, in the air and at sea.https://www.youtube.com/embed/lFRxFu2xTzI?enablejsapi=1
Seasoned satellite telecommunication professionals Mark Dankberg, Steve Hart and Mark Miller established Viasat in 1986. Together they were critical behind-the-scenes players in the satellite communications world. They delivered solutions for the military, commercial customers and even internet service providers (ISPs), building vital modems for fighter jets that transmitted real-time information to pilots, and ground stations that connected rural homes to the internet.
Expanding its focus in 2008, Viasat stepped into the spotlight when it announced the build of its own satellite, ViaSat-1, the first generation of Viasat's satellite evolution. It is important to note that VS-1 is not just any satellite. A company press release issued at the time said the $400 million ViaSat-1 would be "the world's highest capacity broadband satellite."
Viasat systems engineer Aaron Mendelsohn, who's played a pivotal role in the development of ViaSat-1, ViaSat-2 and ViaSat-3, said the company innovation that followed helped change the overall perception of satellite communications.
"Before ViaSat-1 came along, communications satellites had pretty low bandwidth capacity, and weren't really designed for large-scale consumer services," he said. "So Viasat walks in the door and has an idea of how to actually do it. That required vendors to change their thinking of what was possible.
"It was really Viasat that pushed the existing technology that was being used in space to its maximum. Viasat provided the idea for reconfiguring it, and getting higher capacity, and ViaSat-2 pushed it further."
ViaSat-3 will push it further still.
Filling a bandwidth gap
Some may wonder what prompted the company 14 years ago to make a leap many saw as risky.
CEO Mark Dankberg saw a consumer need for more affordable bandwidth. The initial idea was to create more broadband for rural North American customers. By 2008, Viasat had been a nearly decade-long supplier for Denver-based ISP WildBlue Communications.
WildBlue launched its service in 2005, and in less than five years, became one of the top 20 broadband U.S. ISPs. The company used the then-new Ka-band spot beam satellite technology, which dramatically lowered the cost of providing high bandwidth internet access.
Dankberg saw the response to WildBlue's service as the tip of the iceberg. By 2008, high demand for Ka-band services had exceeded the bandwidth supply and capped growth. In Dankberg's view, the market was large and in serious need of connectivity — which could only be supplied by another, high-capacity satellite.
"We knew it was a big step for us," he told the San Diego Union Tribune in 2009. "But we didn't see anyone else aiming to do it."
Viasat was taking its first steps on the path to becoming a major global satellite operator.
ViaSat-1 was among a new generation of satellites built around the lesser-used Ka-band portion of the radio spectrum, dividing its coverage into spot beams — concentrated areas of satellite signal strength, each covering a particular geographic area. At the time, it offered more gigabits per second than all other communication satellites over North America combined.
Viasat's move to finance the building of its own satellite took the industry by surprise.
One publication described Viasat's decision as an "in some eyes risky foray for what had traditionally been a terminal manufacturer with a steady stream of U.S. government and consumer business."
Dankberg was confident the investment would be worthwhile for both underserved households and Viasat stakeholders, and that Viasat was the company to do it.
"This is a technology opportunity that is right in our sweet spot," he said in 2008. "We provide ground systems for many commercial and government satellites, and as our activity in satellite payloads has increased, we realized that we could make a major breakthrough by simultaneously designing the spot beam satellite and the ground segment.
Adding Viasat-1 to WildBlue's network not only provided the bandwidth it needed to grow, but enabled customers to get higher speeds needed for easier video downloads and other online experiences.
In 2009, a year after announcing the construction of ViaSat-1, Viasat bought WildBlue. The acquisition gave Viasat a partner with an already established distribution channel, billing system and customer service. WildBlue's subscriber base and revenue also helped offset ViaSat-1's development and brought more subscribers to ViaSat-1.
The communications pioneers of our day
When ViaSat-1 launched in 2011, it won accolades from far and wide.
Guinness World Records named ViaSat-1 the highest-capacity communications satellite in the world — a designation now held by ViaSat-2.
"If we hadn't done that, either someone else would have, or the satellite industry would be dead," said Kristi Jaska, Viasat's Vice President of Customer Experience. "In general, the other satellite operators and providers were busy servicing their current customers, but not really keeping up with the trends in more and more internet usage."
In an October 2013 article, Forbes magazine praised Viasat for upending what had been the flagging reputation and pace of satellite communications.
"Powered by the success of its ViaSat-1 satellite, CEO Mark Dankberg has become famous for betting the company on ViaSat-1 and winning," said the article entitled 'This High Speed Satellite Company Is Defying The Naysayers And Changing Everything.' "It's a powerful reminder, at a time when mobile wireless technologies are all the rage, that there is a huge opportunity for new business models to emerge around satellite communications. They are the communications pioneers of our day."
Key to Viasat's success in satellite construction then and now is its vertical integration. Company engineers designed ViaSat-1 and ViaSat-2, and built the ground systems. Viasat also provides the service, creating a highly optimized communications system.
Expanding coverage with ViaSat-2
By early 2017, ViaSat-1 was at capacity. The response affirmed Dankberg's belief that the market was vast and needed still more bandwidth. And Viasat was ready to help meet that demand.
ViaSat-2 launched that year, and ViaSat-3 payloads were already under construction in Tempe.
"The better we can make our service, the bigger our market," Dankberg said in a February 2017 interview. "But that doesn't mean we are going after people who have Google Fiber. What we are trying to do is go after a bigger segment of people who don't have those speeds."
ViaSat-2, launched in 2017, broadened ViaSat-1's coverage, enabling faster speeds and increasing monthly data allowances so subscribers could do more streaming.
It also expanded the footprint of broadband services across North America, Central America, the Caribbean, a portion of northern South America, as well as the primary aeronautical and maritime routes across the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe.
Rather than fixed coverage areas, ViaSat-2's technology also enabled the company to shift capacity to where it was needed most. That allowed flexible coverage to airlines, ships and other mobile users, and bolstered its residential and business internet services.
From ViaSat-1 to ViaSat-2, the company also moved from a hardware-based set up to cloud computer architecture, creating further cost savings and efficiency.
"That gave us a lot of flexibility," said Carlin Charteris, Viasat's vice president of global networks and technology. "We use a lot of our sophistication on the ground to provide incremental and substantial leaps in capacity improvements, and make it more valuable over time."
Going global
ViaSat-3 marks a major engineering accomplishment for Viasat. ViaSat-3 Americas — the first of the three-satellite global constellation — is also the first of our satellite payloads constructed by Viasat employees at a company facility.
The ViaSat-3 constellation is expected to boost total capacity by 600%.
"ViaSat-3 is a whole different animal," Mendelsohn said. "The complexity of the ground system is much higher, and so is the satellite. We had to help the satellite vendors uncover things they didn't know they could do, but we knew they could."
Companies helping to build ViaSat-3 include Boeing and other manufacturers that produce components for the satellites.
"We had to convince them we could make an even bigger satellite with much greater capacity," he said. "And we did that with electric propulsion."
Electric propulsion reduces the amount of mass taken up by fuel, which allows for a larger satellite. According to Boeing, ViaSat-3 is the largest satellite in both size and power that it has built.
Viasat has focused even further on putting bandwidth where it's most needed using beam technology, which transmits signals to a specific geographic area on earth.
"There's a thread that started with ViaSat-1 and continues to today, and that is putting capacity where people use it," said Viasat systems engineer Bill Halstrom. "On ViaSat-1, we did that by locating beams where the users were. On ViaSat-2, we did that by moving capacity between existing beams. With ViaSat-3, we'll actually be moving beams.
"That's three evolutions of increasing our ability to put capacity where it's really needed. It's a big part of our satellite story, and it's what we're best at."
Such flexibility doesn't come just from the satellites, but the ground network. On the ground, Viasat's satellite access nodes (SANs) are strategically placed to maximize the capacity and availability of the satellite's bandwidth –creating a more powerful and reliable network overall.
Viasat's decision to become a satellite manufacturer has proven enormously successful.
"Twelve years ago, we were not a satellite operator at all," Dankberg said. "Now we operate all over the world in some of the most exciting applications."
With the upcoming ViaSat-3 global constellation, Viasat will soon be much bigger.
"The broadband space is going to change very substantially when we continue our shift from U.S. residential to global," Dankberg said.
"All of this is part of Viasat's constant evolution."
"With ViaSat-3, we're working on the hardest problems we've ever worked on" Viasat co-founder and chief technical officer Mark Miller said. "Other managers would look at that and get nervous. Our engineers look at it as a challenge, a challenge that motivates them. And that's what makes it fun."
The post Viasat's evolution from a small defense contractor to global satellite operator appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
Continue reading...
0 Replies
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323 views
I'm having trouble finding a for sure answer on this. When I first started diving back into satellite stuff I noticed the GT Media V8 Finder2 which looks pretty cool and relatively low price point. But I can't find an answer, seems like some people (and Amazon's own AI guesser-bot) say it doesn't support motors.
The manual itself (the PDF that I found is named 20220718043903GTMEDIAV8FINDER2.pdf and it's on page 6 of 8) does show on the installation screen a "Motor Setup" menu item and says "If select DiSEqC1.2 or USALS, we can press ◀︎▶︎ to select IF Channel, and use number key to input Center Frequency."
Which…… the USALS part seems promising, but I don't know what IF and Center frequencies have to do with anything? Can it drive the motor off its battery for one, and does it have options for e.g. using the ◀︎▶︎ arrows to change the aim and save adjustments?
The closest I've found to real-world experience here is in Long shot with TBS6909X card where someone is talking about a different rotor and says:
> when I connect my V8 Finder 2, it immediately moves the dish if it's not in the correct position
which seems really promising! Moving the dish is what I'm after here, with something newer than the old MPEG-2 receiver I have now. Even for other receivers its really unclear if motor support is just pretty much a safe assumption that they don't even mention it anymore?
The V9 Prime actually looks pretty nice too and assuming it runs motors maybe that'd be better than the V8 Finder 2 for actual long term use since it has networking. But I'm having trouble finding listings for it (and actually most other receivers I see mentioned here) on Amazon or eBay or even Aliexpress. I'm wanting a DVB-S2 receiver for at least MPEG-4 with H.264/AVC and maybe should just get H.265/HEVC while I'm shopping. Main criteria:
* run my "Goto X"-era SG-2100 rotator
* be able to view most/all modern FTA satellites
* ideally a scheduled DVR feature and/or network would make it more useful
* I don't mind if it has… "alternative" firmwares or features but just for broader compatibility/interest
My main goal is I guess just exploration, seeing what's up there. Honestly not a big TV guy and definitely not into infomercials but if I can time shift the occasional Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, or catch some world events as they're being uplinked, that sort of thing might be interesting. (Honestly main goal started out as weather satellites but this is kinda a warmup excercise for what will likely be a separate setup due to the frequencies.)
My dish is kinda far from my house and even farther from my "radio shack" so if I could just run a PoE ethernet line to something in a box below the dish, or a coax only to the crawlspace where I have 110V but either way would need it full remote including changing between satellites. To avoid having to buy and pull tons more coax up and down through the house. I'm into open source and real standards, so I'd much rather something that I can say use with VLC or go2rtc via a raw IP address and protocol rather than some convenient but proprietary iOS cloud app thingy.
The manual itself (the PDF that I found is named 20220718043903GTMEDIAV8FINDER2.pdf and it's on page 6 of 8) does show on the installation screen a "Motor Setup" menu item and says "If select DiSEqC1.2 or USALS, we can press ◀︎▶︎ to select IF Channel, and use number key to input Center Frequency."
Which…… the USALS part seems promising, but I don't know what IF and Center frequencies have to do with anything? Can it drive the motor off its battery for one, and does it have options for e.g. using the ◀︎▶︎ arrows to change the aim and save adjustments?
The closest I've found to real-world experience here is in Long shot with TBS6909X card where someone is talking about a different rotor and says:
> when I connect my V8 Finder 2, it immediately moves the dish if it's not in the correct position
which seems really promising! Moving the dish is what I'm after here, with something newer than the old MPEG-2 receiver I have now. Even for other receivers its really unclear if motor support is just pretty much a safe assumption that they don't even mention it anymore?
The V9 Prime actually looks pretty nice too and assuming it runs motors maybe that'd be better than the V8 Finder 2 for actual long term use since it has networking. But I'm having trouble finding listings for it (and actually most other receivers I see mentioned here) on Amazon or eBay or even Aliexpress. I'm wanting a DVB-S2 receiver for at least MPEG-4 with H.264/AVC and maybe should just get H.265/HEVC while I'm shopping. Main criteria:
* run my "Goto X"-era SG-2100 rotator
* be able to view most/all modern FTA satellites
* ideally a scheduled DVR feature and/or network would make it more useful
* I don't mind if it has… "alternative" firmwares or features but just for broader compatibility/interest
My main goal is I guess just exploration, seeing what's up there. Honestly not a big TV guy and definitely not into infomercials but if I can time shift the occasional Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, or catch some world events as they're being uplinked, that sort of thing might be interesting. (Honestly main goal started out as weather satellites but this is kinda a warmup excercise for what will likely be a separate setup due to the frequencies.)
My dish is kinda far from my house and even farther from my "radio shack" so if I could just run a PoE ethernet line to something in a box below the dish, or a coax only to the crawlspace where I have 110V but either way would need it full remote including changing between satellites. To avoid having to buy and pull tons more coax up and down through the house. I'm into open source and real standards, so I'd much rather something that I can say use with VLC or go2rtc via a raw IP address and protocol rather than some convenient but proprietary iOS cloud app thingy.
3 Replies
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108 views
Thanks, great tips and yeah when I'd read how the H/V bias worked I wondered if the higher voltage was ever useful for better power transfer 
It was perhaps slightly impulsive (though I guess not too late to cancel) but instead of the Finder unit I ended up going for kinda the opposite: a completely faceless USB tuner box (TBS5930) which should have RF support all the way up through DVB-S2X. If I'm understanding correctly the actual video/audio will then be whatever I can get software/GPU support for so my hope is that any unencrypted MPEG-2/AVC/HEVC feed can be viewed with VLC or whatnot. As well as access to what I assume is pure data like the Blockstream stuff just for example. (They had a lot of good resources for reception of their own signal in lots of various interesting ways and is kinda how I found the TBS options.)
And I think I will be able to control DiSEqC stuff through Linux including motor commands. So the idea is kinda what I mentioned, hoping this can just get chained in to an old thin client PC or if there's any Raspberry Pi that doesn't cost triple digits these days, somewhere physically convenient and then run it all over LAN from my laptop.
All this is somewhat theoretical of course based on what I'm piecing together but at a certain point I usually have to close all the browser tabs and just commit to try *something* that looks promising and go from there.
It was perhaps slightly impulsive (though I guess not too late to cancel) but instead of the Finder unit I ended up going for kinda the opposite: a completely faceless USB tuner box (TBS5930) which should have RF support all the way up through DVB-S2X. If I'm understanding correctly the actual video/audio will then be whatever I can get software/GPU support for so my hope is that any unencrypted MPEG-2/AVC/HEVC feed can be viewed with VLC or whatnot. As well as access to what I assume is pure data like the Blockstream stuff just for example. (They had a lot of good resources for reception of their own signal in lots of various interesting ways and is kinda how I found the TBS options.)
And I think I will be able to control DiSEqC stuff through Linux including motor commands. So the idea is kinda what I mentioned, hoping this can just get chained in to an old thin client PC or if there's any Raspberry Pi that doesn't cost triple digits these days, somewhere physically convenient and then run it all over LAN from my laptop.
All this is somewhat theoretical of course based on what I'm piecing together but at a certain point I usually have to close all the browser tabs and just commit to try *something* that looks promising and go from there.
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VVvKL573guE
Direct YouTube Link - AI That Learns YOU!
Jensen Huang Loves It! #shorts
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VVvKL573guE
Direct YouTube Link - AI That Learns YOU!
Jensen Huang Loves It! #shortsTWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
0 Replies
·
0 views
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ctuZx2SesL0
Direct YouTube Link - AI Worm: The Unstoppable Cybersecurity Threat Explained #shorts
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ctuZx2SesL0
Direct YouTube Link - AI Worm: The Unstoppable Cybersecurity Threat Explained #shorts
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
0 Replies
·
0 views
Lon.TV
Time for another AWESOME video from Lon Seidman of LON.TV!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZX9ePUKo00
Direct YouTube Link - Let's Talk About Windows 11's Bloated Notepad and a Fix!
The Official LON.TV Website
Lon on Facebook
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZX9ePUKo00
Direct YouTube Link - Let's Talk About Windows 11's Bloated Notepad and a Fix!
The Official LON.TV Website
Lon on Facebook
0 Replies
·
1 views
Mexico takes on South Africa to open the World Cup Final (it is called the Final... this just isn't the World Cup Final... Final). The tournament has been plagued with rife malfeasance as FIFA has been committing all sorts of fraud with the ticket sales. Hotel rooms have gone unfilled as the prices to attend a game and stay somewhere are through the roof. I swear this is impacting Mansfield, OH hotel rates which are higher than average for the Indycar race. And there is a broadening VAR presence which will ruin things as nothing worse now when scoring a goal and knowing you can't quite celebrate yet as they check to see if a player was offside by a pixel a half-hour ago.
The Group Stage used to mean something, but now 32 of the 48... yeah, 48 teams are going to the Knockout Round. Getting into the Knockout Round used to be a big deal, even for the US. But now... if you don't lose all of your group stage games, you get to move on. Oi! And this is avoiding all the political stuff!
I have never been so unexcited for a World Cup before. Every game used to matter. But FIFA be darned if they don't try to squeeze out every dime they can out of the players, refs, and fans.
The Group Stage used to mean something, but now 32 of the 48... yeah, 48 teams are going to the Knockout Round. Getting into the Knockout Round used to be a big deal, even for the US. But now... if you don't lose all of your group stage games, you get to move on. Oi! And this is avoiding all the political stuff!
I have never been so unexcited for a World Cup before. Every game used to matter. But FIFA be darned if they don't try to squeeze out every dime they can out of the players, refs, and fans.
1 Replies
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16 views
Supporting Founder
Lifetime Supporter
I was reading this article
thehill.com
That said this-
Last summer, for the first time, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime claimed the largest share of the television viewing audience, surpassing both cable and broadcast TV. Streaming captured 34.8 percent of July viewers, according to Nielsen data, compared to 34.4 percent for cable and 21.6 percent for broadcast.
And then, sometime in the second half of 2022, cord-cutters became the majority. The share of cable and satellite television subscribers dipped to 48 percent, according to a report from Samba TV, a television technology company.
Now I do not consider those with YTTV and the likes, Cord Cutters, but they still do not have Traditional Cable/Satellite delivered Live TV, so I decided to do the math.
There are, now, 129 Million Households in the United States.
In 2015, there were 100 Million Cable/Sat Subscribers , no streaming Live TV Service.
Today, there are 66 Million Live TV subscribers, including Cable, Satellite and Streaming.
Roughly, Streaming Live TV has 14 Million subs including all of them.
So that means, Cable/Satellite now has, roughly, 51 Million Households
So in just 8 years, lost 49% of their subscribers and by the end of this year, expected sub count to be, roughly, 45 million households.
That means a total loss of 55% since 2015 at the end of 2023.
But out of 129 Million households, 45 million will mean only 35% will get Cable/Satellite Delivered Live TV by the end of 2023.
Imagine what 2024 will be like.
Cable TV ‘cord-cutters’ became the majority in 2022
The steady decline of cable and broadcast television, and the rise of streaming services, reached a sort of inflection point over the past year. Last summer, for the first time, streaming ser…
thehill.com
That said this-
Last summer, for the first time, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime claimed the largest share of the television viewing audience, surpassing both cable and broadcast TV. Streaming captured 34.8 percent of July viewers, according to Nielsen data, compared to 34.4 percent for cable and 21.6 percent for broadcast.
And then, sometime in the second half of 2022, cord-cutters became the majority. The share of cable and satellite television subscribers dipped to 48 percent, according to a report from Samba TV, a television technology company.
Now I do not consider those with YTTV and the likes, Cord Cutters, but they still do not have Traditional Cable/Satellite delivered Live TV, so I decided to do the math.
There are, now, 129 Million Households in the United States.
In 2015, there were 100 Million Cable/Sat Subscribers , no streaming Live TV Service.
Today, there are 66 Million Live TV subscribers, including Cable, Satellite and Streaming.
Roughly, Streaming Live TV has 14 Million subs including all of them.
So that means, Cable/Satellite now has, roughly, 51 Million Households
So in just 8 years, lost 49% of their subscribers and by the end of this year, expected sub count to be, roughly, 45 million households.
That means a total loss of 55% since 2015 at the end of 2023.
But out of 129 Million households, 45 million will mean only 35% will get Cable/Satellite Delivered Live TV by the end of 2023.
Imagine what 2024 will be like.
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Comcast Corporation, one of the largest telecommunications and media conglomerates in the United States, has shed more than 13 million pay-TV subscribers since reaching its zenith in the late 2000s. The company's video subscriber base, which includes traditional cable television services, stood at approximately 24.2 million customers toward the end of 2008. By the close of the first quarter of 2026, that figure had plummeted to roughly10.95 million, representing a loss of about 13.25 million subscribers, or more than half of its historical peak.
cordcuttersnews.com
Comcast Has Lost Over 13 Million TV Subscribers Since It Peaked Back in 2008 - A Look Back At This Historic Fall That Saw It Lose More Than Half of Its TV Subscribers | Cord Cutters News
Comcast Corporation, one of the largest telecommunications and media conglomerates in the United States, has shed more than 13 million pay-TV subscribers since reaching its zenith in the late 2000s. The company’s video subscriber base, which includes traditional cable television services, stood...
cordcuttersnews.com
Comcast Corporation, one of the largest telecommunications and media conglomerates in the United States, has shed more than 13 million pay-TV subscribers since reaching its zenith in the late 2000s. The company's video subscriber base, which includes traditional cable television services, stood at approximately 24.2 million customers toward the end of 2008. By the close of the first quarter of 2026, that figure had plummeted to roughly10.95 million, representing a loss of about 13.25 million subscribers, or more than half of its historical peak.
Comcast Has Lost Over 13 Million TV Subscribers Since It Peaked Back in 2008 - A Look Back At This Historic Fall That Saw It Lose More Than Half of Its TV Subscribers | Cord Cutters News
Comcast Corporation, one of the largest telecommunications and media conglomerates in the United States, has shed more than 13 million pay-TV subscribers since reaching its zenith in the late 2000s. The company’s video subscriber base, which includes traditional cable television services, stood...
Couldn't happen to a nicer company!
The average monthly cost of cable television in the United States has climbed to $147, marking a significant increase that reflects broader trends in media consumption and rising operational expenses for providers. This figure represents the baseline expense for standard television packages across major cable operators, excluding additional fees for premium channels, equipment rentals, or taxes that often push household bills even higher.
This is without Broadband services ( bundled), also, paying a lot more for a lot less new scripted content and now….sports.
cordcuttersnews.com
This is without Broadband services ( bundled), also, paying a lot more for a lot less new scripted content and now….sports.
The Cost of Cable TV Has Jumped Almost 55% Over the Last 10 Years | Cord Cutters News
The average monthly cost of cable television in the United States has climbed to $147, marking a significant increase that reflects broader trends in media consumption and rising operational expenses for providers. This figure represents the baseline expense for standard television packages...
cordcuttersnews.com
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Anybody been following the Tournaments? I've been watching all weekend on the various ESPN's...
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Last weekend I got in on a MLB game top of the 8th 1-1, first thought was extra innings... 
and it actually went extra after the 9th.
Catching a little of the AUSL, something to watch when I can't get into anything else.
and it actually went extra after the 9th. Catching a little of the AUSL, something to watch when I can't get into anything else.
Wasn't there a law passed a long time back mandating service providers level the sound from one ch. to the next? Or was that just for within any single given ch., and not letting commercials be boosted? Regardless it's a pain on DiSH with some ch's way louder than others, and having to jockey the sound up & down. Is there some fix? Can some TVs compensate for this?
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maybe he should post his gear so we could look into it
.. t.v. soundbars AVR whatever he's running.. our home theater has volume leveling but so does our soundbar in the bedroom
T
Most stuff has all this volume leveling, almost all them dont work the way should or advertised as. maybe "ai" versions of volume level will work closer to way we would like to which make all channels and inputs same defualt sound level, including commercials
There is reason my entire mp3/audio music collection on my pc was changed to have same defualt "dB" for all files via something like MP3Gain so there all same defualt volume level and there for I never have to play around with my volume. I know Winamp could change dB defualts but never worked as good as just manual changing all the audio/mp3/music collection files to just be all the same
maybe he should post his gear so we could look into it
Most stuff has all this volume leveling, almost all them dont work the way should or advertised as. maybe "ai" versions of volume level will work closer to way we would like to which make all channels and inputs same defualt sound level, including commercials
There is reason my entire mp3/audio music collection on my pc was changed to have same defualt "dB" for all files via something like MP3Gain so there all same defualt volume level and there for I never have to play around with my volume. I know Winamp could change dB defualts but never worked as good as just manual changing all the audio/mp3/music collection files to just be all the same
S
That's a fundamental issue with volume levels - it's not just that people want some "level" but that the material itself can demand (or at least so says the creator) a wide dynamic range or a smaller one. ie: do you boost the typical conversations upward and use most of your range just for voices? Or do you leave room for the explosions and jet engines. Creators and viewer/listeners all vary in their priorities, and most volume-leveling products are trying to do things in real time so they have very little context to work with. Even when using a tool that reads a whole file and displays a peak volume, you can wonder how often such a volume occurs and then you can disagree on how important it is for something like an explosion to have any clipping/distortion.
I think the OP refers to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, AKA the CALM act. But as the name suggests, I think it only has to do with commercials and not different sources.
By the way, if you watch westerns with realistic gunshot sound levels, I recommend hearing protection.
I think the OP refers to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, AKA the CALM act. But as the name suggests, I think it only has to do with commercials and not different sources.
By the way, if you watch westerns with realistic gunshot sound levels, I recommend hearing protection.
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Cutting Edge
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
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2662323 views
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This is a thread that will keep you apprised of 4K events that will be showing on Dish channel 540. Keep looking here for information.
As of today, 9-27-17, there are no scheduled events posted for the next 2 weeks. That is subject to change on a daily basis.
As of today, 9-27-17, there are no scheduled events posted for the next 2 weeks. That is subject to change on a daily basis.
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164672 views