What is DTH service? Explain.

Hint: You could give a brief description on what exactly DTH service is along with the requirements for installation, etc. Then you could also give its advantages as well as disadvantages. You could thus explain why DTH service is preferred to cable connection. Also, give a brief note on its working.

Complete solution:
The Direct to home or the DTH technology makes it possible for a broadcasting company to directly beam the signal to the TV set that is present in our house with the help of an installed receiver. Thus, the necessity for separate cable connection will not be there anymore.

In order to set up a DTH connection we would require a set that includes a dish and receiving set as provided by the broadcasting company. After this installation, an encrypted signal is beamed by the company which can only be received by the set installed in your house.

The DTH service is known to have both advantages and disadvantages. Let us first discuss the advantages of the DTH service. The DTH is known for being user friendly as we could choose the channels as per our choice and thus paying only for those channels. Whereas, cable connection provides the channels as per the operator’s choice and quality is also poor. Since, in the case of DTH service, the signal is not split through cable, the quality is found to be superior.

The major disadvantage is known to be the huge installation cost for the DTH service. Setting up a receiving apparatus at the subscriber’s end doesn’t come at low cost.

Note:
All throughout India, we use MPEG-4 standard for signal compression. Though there are still some DTH connections that use MPEG-2 but upgradation can be done to MPEG-4 by changing the set top box. Each transponder is permitted to carry only 20 SD channels approximately in the case MPEG-2 while 50 in case of MPEG-4.