free to air or fta receiver is a satellite tv receiver designed solely to receive
unencrypted broadcasts.
While older fta receivers relied on analog satellite
transmissions which have declined rapidly in recent years. Overwhelmingly,
fta receivers are manufactured in South Korea and China.
In some countries, it is common for mainstream broadcasters to broadcast
their channels over satellite as fta. Most notably, in the German speaking
countries, most of the main terrestrial broadcasters, such as adr das erste, zde
and orf offer fta satellite broadcasts, as do some of the more recent satellite
rivals such as Sat. 1, 3sat and rtl.
The satellites on which these channels broadcast, at Astra's 19.2° east
position, are receivable throughout most of Europe.
In the UK, three of the
original five terrestrial broadcasters, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV1 broadcast fta on
digital satellite, including many of their regional variations. In some countries,
it is not the norm for mainstream channels to broadcast on fta satellite
television.
The widespread popularity of fta receivers is due in part to their use of the
same technology employed by Echostar's Dish Network and bce's bell tv.
often, hackers are able to reverse engineer the software and add the
necessary coding to allow unauthorized reception of all channels offered
by dish network, including premium movies and pay per view.
Manufacturers, importers, and distributors of fta receivers do not condone
this practice and some will not sell to individuals who they believe will be
using their products for this purpose. Use of third party software usually
voids any warranties.
Unlike traditional methods of pirate decryption that
involve altered smart cards used with satellite receivers manufactured and
distributed by the provider, piracy involving fta receivers require only an up
date to the receiver's firmware.
Electronic countermeasures that disable access cards have no effect on fta receivers because they are not capable of being updated remotely. The firmware in
receivers themselves cannot be overwritten with malicious code via
satellite as provider issue receivers are. The receivers also have the advantage
of being able to receive programming from multiple providers plus legit fta dvb
broadcasts which are not part of any package, a valuable capability which is
conspicuously absent from most package receivers sold by dbs providers.
DVB-S is an international standard the restriction that a bell tv receiver is
somehow not interchangeable with a dish network receiver and not
interchangeable with a globecast receiver is an artificial one created by
providers and not respected by either pirates or legit unencrypted fta viewers.
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