Gosh that's obvious but a better question is how or why we use D* for DirecTV? No star in the name. I used to use DTV but so many people got confused with Digital TV I stopped using it and used what others were doing D*. I do believe that in the early days of AVS forum long before we had these other sites E* was indeed first and soon after D* became that standard. Only one since was the VOOM which lasted a short while with V*. I suppose the * is just to denote a satellite in the sky as in star like. ???? Who knows, not me.