Satellite Computer TV Blog

In the early 80s, a satellite TV system cost over a thousand pounds and was strictly for the enthusiast. There was only a very limited amount of English program material broadcast so much of the fun was in that peculiar sport called “channel hopping” which is followed so enthusiastically by men but seldom by women. If you change channel every few seconds, it hardly matters that the commentary is German, French or Swahili.

Nowadays, Europe is well served under the Astra satellites which provide hundreds of English language TV channels – mostly via BSkyB subscription – and hundreds of channels in other languages which are broadcast by Astra, Eutelsat and other satellite too.

Most people fail to realize that there are also dozens of radio channels broadcast, mostly in stereo, so you can connect your satellite receiver to your Hi Fi system and listen to TV or radio channel in glorious stereo.

Better still, you can buy used satellite receivers which incorporate their own stereo surround-sound amplifiers which will complement your existing Nicam stereo TV and video recorder, eg. SRD200 and MSS1000.

Unfortunately, many of the channels broadcast by SKY on Astra use a scrambling system which requires you to put a special plastic “Smart Card” into a slot in the receiver. You must pay a subscription fee for the card, and a “Pay per view” system is also in use, where you pay extra to watch certain programs (for example, football matches).

There are several channels which simply show movies; there are sport channels, music channels, channels which concentrate on family entertainment such as panel games and “soaps”; news channels; channels for adults and cartoon channels for children; of course, if you speak, or want to speak, a foreign language, there are plenty of those to choose from, too, but not many in the UK “Sky” package. The Sky digibox is capable of receiving satellite broadcasts from other satellites but it is not designed to do so in a user-friendly way. You must use the “Add channels” menu feature to store “bouquets” of the “other channels” (maximum of 50 other channels – but frequently much less than 50).

1. Most of the computers and TVs have S-Video ports built into them. If that’s the case, you’ll just have to plug the first end of an S-Video cable into your TV and the other end into your graphics card.
2. Second thing you need besides the S-Video cable is an 3.5mm to RCA splitter cable. Plug the first end into your sound card and the other ends behind into your television. Then change your television’s input to the one that you have plugged your S-Video cable into.
3. Make sure everything is perfectly connected. Right-click on your desktop, and choose Properties and then go to the settings tab. For most of the video cards you can enable the alternative monitor (your TV) from this tab. If that’s not the case you have to click the Advance button and configure it from there.

Hook up your computer to tv with S-video cable