FTA history
From FTA Wiki
Free-To-Air satellite transmission, otherwise known as FTA or MPEG-2 transmissions, was introduced to the masses of the world several years ago on the Asian continent and quickly spread to the United States with the sales of the first FTA Satellite receivers.
Years ago, before digital satellite reception there was analog reception which is much slower than digital and was really incapable of sending much reception out at all. Analog television encodes television and transports the sound and picture information to and from as an analog signal. It does this all by varying the amplitude and/or frequencies of the signal that was originally broadcast.
Analag Television
Analog television (or analogue television) encodes television and transports the picture and sound information as an analog signal, that is, by varying the amplitude and/or frequencies of the broadcast signal. All systems preceding digital television, such as NTSC, PAL or SECAM are analog television systems. Broadcasters using analog television systems encode their signal using NTSC, PAL or SECAM analog encoding and then modulate this signal onto a VHF or UHF carrier. An analog television picture is "drawn" on the screen an entire frame each time, in the manner of a motion picture (cinematograph) film, irrespective of the picture content.
Analog television was the norm until the early 90’s when Asia and the Pacific Rim introduced MPEG-2 to the satellite market. MPEG-2 stands for Motion Picture Experts Group –2, and is a compression standard for digital television.
MPEG-2
What MPEG-2 does is it enables digital television broadcasters to transmit video streams with higher resolution and audio streams with higher quality sound while using as little bandwidth as possible. MPEG-2 is also capable of reducing the amount of bandwidth utilized by as much as 55 to 1. MPEG-2 is utilized by DVB, HDTV, and DVD MPEG-2 has been adopted as ISO Standard 13818-1.
MPEG-2 satellite reception was way faster than analog transmissions and was also far more reliable. The new MPEG-2 could even hold up to ten different television stations per one signal. These changes to MPEG-2 from analog caused a great increase in consumers purchasing satellites, thus causing digital satellites to quickly become a norm for not only people in Asia but in the United States as well. A huge change from previous numbers.
Years ago, when Satellite television first came to light one of the biggest turn offs about the entire service was the fact that consumers had to purchase massive Satellite dishes and large oversized television antennas to even make a few dozen channels work correctly. Now, satellites are inexpensive and small enough to be perched on the side of your home, easily removable and hardly noticeable. Thus, skyrocketing FTA popularity all over the world. Digital video broadcasting was already highly popular in places such as Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, but now national public broadcasters in other parts of the world have adopted MPEG-2 because it's the cheapest way to send out the signals with the lowest cost.
When it comes to public broadcasters sending out signals they can either be scrambled or in the clear depending on whether or not your satellite provided wishes for their transmissions to be encrypted or not- otherwise, paid programming or free of charge. The term "In the Clear" is known in the digital TV / DSS world as FTA ( Free-To-Air), or free.
Free-to-air is a term used to describe television and radio broadcasts which are broadcast unencrypted allowing them to be picked up by any receiver that is suitable. FTA should not be confused with what is referred to as free-to-view. FTV describes a form of television that is indeed available without a paying subscription but is encoded. This encoding can, however, restrict the transmissions geographically. Neither service, FTA or FTV, should be confused with Pay-Per-View, which is a subscription service provider that is also encrypted.
The term usually refers to delivery by satellite television, but in various parts of the world where encrypted digital terrestrial television channels exist, broadcast on UHF or VHF bands, it can also be applied to those systems.
Even though FTA channels are described as being free ultimately the consumer does still end up paying for them even if the payment isn’t straight out payment for the transmissions. Some ways that these stations are paid for are by payment of a licensing fee or by donations. Other payments are made indirectly by viewers paying for consumer products and services where the costs go towards sponsorship and/or advertising.
Now, years after the original Hyundai Satellite receiver model there are now a vast selection of receivers on the market. All of the selection available in compatible free-to-air systems has presented the opportunity for a great number of channels to become available to North American television viewers. What happens if a free-to-air channel becomes encrypted and is no longer free? When a channel becomes encrypted, arrangements are usually available with one of the small dish DBS services, like Dish Network, to sell a subsidized priced receiver when making a long-term commitment to a subscription.
With there being various satellite cable providers like Dish Network, amongst many others, there are generally always a few channels in the transition between in-the-clear and subscription transmission mode. Ultimately, these service providers aim at making all of their channels subscription based there are generally some channels that remain in-the-clear for months and even years before reverting to scrambling.
