Pay TV offers clearer pictures

Pay TV, also called Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV, has increasingly become part of the lives of the people in the big cities of the country.

One factor behind its growth is that UHF/VHF antennas are unable to properly pick up local TV signals due to high-rise buildings and other physical obstructions.

Aside from clear local TV broadcasts, Pay TV subscribers can also watch world-class programs from popular TV stations like CNN, ESPN, HBO, Animal Planet, TNT & Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, Star Movies and Nickelodeon. Even local radio stations, such as Radio Pelita Kasih, Trijaya FM and so forth, are available when you subscribe to a particular Pay TV provider.

In Indonesia there are several Pay TV service providers, including the best known Indovision, which uses the Cakrawarta satellite, and Kabelvision, which uses a cable for its transmission. Telkom and Indosat also have Pay TV services called Telkomvision and IM2 respectively. Indovision and Kabelvision services have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Indovision provides its customers with a decoder (for decoding and streamlining its broadcasts), an ID card (to activate the functions of the decoder) and a dish antenna (80 cm in diameter). As it uses a satellite capable of transmitting very powerful signals, the user needs only a mini dish antenna. Indovision can reach every part of Indonesia. Kabelvision, however, makes use of electricity poles owned by the state electricity company PLN, or telephone poles owned by Telkom. So, the distribution capacity depends on the length of the cable.

The audio and video quality of Indovision broadcasts is adequate. Indovision uses an MPEG2-DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) compression system. This digital system ensures that the video quality of the pictures will be the same as the quality of the original pictures when they are distributed. As for the audio quality, Indovision uses a digital stereo system the quality of which is on a par with that of a CD. Or, in terms of a home theater application, Indovision is capable of bringing to you Dolby Surround Prologic sound.

If you subscribe to Kabelvision, you can surf the Internet and download MP3 files. The download speed via cable is higher than that from a dial-up connection. In addition, the quality of the pictures that our television set receives through a cable TV broadcast is better because an optic fiber cable and a coaxial cable are used. In this way, all channels broadcast remain stable and uniform in quality in terms of both sound and pictures.

Some of the broadcasts transmitted by these providers can be received by a free-to-air (FTA) dish antenna. Technically, a FTA dish antenna can receive more broadcasts than a DTH antenna given the former's larger size. However, many of the broadcasts are often scrambled by TV stations, whose broadcasts have been purchased by a provider.

Aside from the three providers referred to above, there are other providers in the market: Astro, Sky Net and UBC. Their presence is still cause for debate. Some people say that Astro is illegal because its operational territory is in fact Malaysia. The question is, how does Astro recruit subscribers in Indonesia?

You can watch Astro broadcasts using an FTA dish antenna. A source has said that some Astro subscribers copy the broadcasts and resell them at a lower price. So, whoever purchases these broadcast copies is not registered as a member of Malaysia's Astro. However, according to another source, who copies Astro broadcasts, to be an Astro member in Indonesia is legal on condition that a subscriber has their own PIN!

Astro gives its subscribers a PIN of six digits that must be changed every month. An Astro subscriber only has to buy an antenna, decoder, actuator, positioner and a cable for between Rp 2 million and Rp 3 million. No other fee is payable. When you've got all this hardware, it becomes free-to-air. Easy, right?

-- Doharto J. Simatupang