For many home theater enthusiasts, TV means one thing: satellite TV. DSS (Digital Satellite Service) is the way people do satellite today (many people also call it DBS, Direct Broadcast Satellite). If you wanted satellite TV 20 or so years ago, you were stuck with something called C-Band (named after the radio frequency on which these satellites operated), which required you to put a huge (9-foot or so) satellite dish in your backyard.
DSS is a much more user- and landscape-friendly version of satellite TV. DSS dishes can be as small as 18 inches across and are much easier to integrate into the average backyard. Despite this more compact size, DSS has all the advantages that drew people to those big dishes back in the '80s - tons of channels and interesting programming you can't get from your local broadcast channels.
If your cable company offers a digital cable service, you can probably get just as many channels on that service as you can on a satellite service.
In the United States, the two main providers of DSS are DirecTV and Echostar (Echostar's service is called DISH Network), and they're pretty similar. Both services offer digital transmission of their video content. This digital transmission has advantages for both the satellite companies (because it lets them fit more TV channels into the radio waves over which their satellites broadcast) and the customer (because it eliminates the distortions that often occur in non-digital transmissions).
To decide between the two services, shop for pricing and channels that are best for you. You can look at channel lineups and prices online at DirecTV and DISH Network.
Although DSS systems broadcast all their content using digital technology, the majority of the programming sent out over these systems is the old standard analog TV, or NTSC. However, DSS systems still carry a relatively large number of HDTV stations, which is why many home theater owners choose DSS as their primary source of television. The total number of HDTV stations the systems carry is increasing month by month as new satellites come on-line, but the number of HDTV stations is still relatively low - just a small percentage of the hundreds of stations carried by these systems. But in many areas, that's more than you can find available through cable or broadcast.
Some of the key features of both DSS systems include
- Hundreds of channels, including movie, sports, and sometimes even local broadcast channels
- On-screen program guides that include all the current and upcoming (for a week or so) programming scheduled on the system
- Dozens of digital audio channels
- High-definition TV
