Digital Satellite

Updated - Feb. 2012

HISTORY:  The number of digital satellite television services available in the U.S. has settled down to just two. The remaining two direct broadcast satellite companies are DirecTV and Dish Network.  The DirecTV (the original DSS name was dropped several years ago) service was the first digital satellite television service when it went on the air in 1994. A short time later Echostar began offering their Dish Network service.  The DirecTV satellites and the DirecTV programming service were initially owned and operated by the Hughes division of General Motors.  DSS started off with two program providers: DirecTV and USSB.   However, DirecTV later acquired USSB and subsequently merged the USSB programming and customer billing into the DirecTV service.  Then with a single programming provider the name was changed from DSS to DirecTV.  Also in 1999 Hughes, the owner of DirecTV at that time, purchased PrimeStar, who had been the third major digital satellite provider.  PrimeStar customers were converted over to DirecTV.  With the acquisition of the PrimeStar satellite orbital slots, DirecTV substantially increased their future capacity of offer high definition TV channels as well as more standard definition local TV channels.  DirecTV offers local standard definition TV channels in just about all U.S. markets and is in the process of expanding their local HD channel coverage with a goal of virtually complete U.S. local HD availability by the end of 2008.  Likewise, Echostar has since their initial service introduction purchased additional orbital slots for additional Dish Network satellites and currently (August 2007) offers standard definition local network channels just virtually off of the U.S. and HD local channels in a limited number of local market areas.  In late October 2001 General Motor announced plans to sell their DirecTV division to Echostar. However, in late 2002 the deal was blocked by the Federal Government on anti-trust grounds.  In mid-1994 a deal was completed that sold DirecTV to News Corp. (owner of Fox).  However, after owning DircTV for about 2 years sold DirecTV to Liberty Media.

DIRECTV:  DirecTV begun high definition TV programming in 1999 with one channel of   HDTV demo programming and pay-per-view movies (channel 199) and a high definition HBO channel (channel 509).    DirecTV subsquently expanded their HDTV offerings to include an HD package for $10.99/month that includes HDNet , HDNet Movies, Discovery HD, Universal HD, ESPN HD, ESPN 2, TNT-HD. DirecTV also carries HBO-HD, Showtime-HD and in certain areas of the country the local network HD stations.  DirecTV also offers a lot of HD sports programming within their seasonal sports packages, such as NFL Sunday Ticket.  The new owners of DirecTV are now aggressively moving forward with plans to greatly expand the HD offerings on DirecTV.  In order to provide these new services DirecTV has added 3 next-generation satellites with a 4th planned for early 2008.  Starting in September 2007 DirecTV is beginning the roll-out a many new HD channels with approx. 70 to 100 HD channels expected to be available on a national basis by the end of 2007 with up to 150 national HD channels available by the end of 2008.  While all of the original group of HD channels used MPEG-2 for the digital encoding all of the new channels, including all of the local HD channels, use MPEG-4 encoding.  The combination of the new generation of satellites and the use of MPEG-4 encoding means that a new generation of DirecTV high definition hardware is required by the consumer to be able to receive the new HD services.  Specifically a new 5-LNB dish is required in combination with a new DirecTV HD receiver.  Currently DirecTV is offering HD receivers and Digital Video Recorders and these are compatible with the new satellites and new HD services.