First of all, unlike earlier satellite communications which relied on a motorized dish to chase the mobile satellites across the sky, modern satellites are placed into a geosynchronous orbit about 37,000 km (22,300 miles) up. This means that they always remain above the same point on the earth's surface. That way, all dishes on the earth can be pointed at a fixed location, and the satellite will always be there.

The signal to be broadcast originates at an "uplink center", which collects nationwide programming from cable television networks and local programming from broadcast networks and encrypts it so that the programming cannot be intercepted by non-paying users. The uplink facility uses a huge dish, 9 to 12 meters (or 30 to 40 feet) wide, to accurately send a high-strength signal to the orbiting satellite.

The satellite, in turn, converts the signal to a different microwave frequency band, so that the downlink doesn't cause interference with the uplink. The two most common frequencies used in United States satellite tv broadcasts are the "C-band" (4 to 6 GHz) and the "Ku band" (12 to 18 GHz).

* VQM - Video Quality Metric
* MPQM - Moving Picture Quality Metric
* NVFM - Normalize Video Fidelity Metric

The two most important drawbacks of this approach are
* It is unclear what exactly the "original" version of a video is.
* These algorithms are measuring visible differences not video quality.

The second type of model tries to estimate visible distortions directly from the "processed" video; instead of comparing it to the "original". In this type of model, visible distortions of a video, such as unsharpness or noisiness are predicted by estimating physical attributes of the video. The advantage of this approach is that the "original" video sequence is not needed. The uncertain translation from visible distortions to video quality is an important drawback to this approach.

Video Clarity Solution
Regardless of whether experimentation or modeling is chosen, certain features are common:
* Video must be presented in an "unaltered" state.
* Results must be tabulated and preserved.

Since processing video may take many forms: compression, video enhancements, and color space conversions to name a few, a system must be put in place to normalize the video information so that a comparison can be done. It must be remembered that the end consumer does not care if the original video was compressed with Windows Media, DviX, or MPEG-4. All that matters is whether the video left them with the desired impression.

To streamline the process, equipment for video quality testing needs to be defined, which can capture, play, and analyze multiple video sequences. Further, as new input/output interfaces are continuously under development, the test equipment should use an open-architecture approach to ease upgradeability.

Video Clarity defined the ClearView product line with these objectives in mind.
* Capture video sequences in as many formats as possible.
* Matt/Crop all video sequences to user-selectable resolution.
* Translate all video sequences to uncompressed Y'CbCr 4:2:2 or RGB 4:4:4.
* Support 8 and 10-bit data paths with upgradeability to future 12-bit modes.
* Store the video sequences as frames (fields) so that they can be played at any rate.
* Display the video sequences in real time in multiple viewing modes.

If you want to have more sports, you can use separate receivers and multiple TV's to get up to four sports events from one satellite dish. TV's like the Mitsubishi 65 inch big-screen allow you to have split screen right on the television in a native mode. This means you can have multiple satellite inputs viewed on two screens and switch between sports events on the two sides. By setting up favorites on your satellite remote, you can then quickly flip between different sports events on each one of the split-screen sides.

To get even more events you can either add additional TV's or get a different kind of TV that handles what is known as picture-in-picture. This will allow you to have multiple sports events on the screen at the same time. These TV's tend to cost a bit more money and some models are a little problematic. So be careful with which TV's you select for this particular methodology, but it can be great for watching multiple sports events.

The lesser expensive method is to simply pick up some low-end TV's to use as side monitors and have your main television showing the sports program you want to watch at the moment. Use the side TV's to monitor other sports programs on different receivers and switch to the sports event with action on the main TV when you see it happening on one of the monitors.

Using satellite TV receivers and a few TV's, you can have a home Sports Theater that will make you "The Sports Authority". So put your Sports Theater together now and start having those sports parties with all your friends.