Impact of Satellite Communication

Impact of Satellite Communication

 Satellite broadcasting technology will greatly impact the evolution of the mass-
media industry by changing its commercial system into a modern industry. It will
simplify the production process, save cost and time and minimize human resources.

 Advertising through DBS has a distinct advantage, because its signal can reach
audience across national borders. Just one advertisement via DBS can be received
by billions of people in various countries. This aspect of DBS may provide a
rationalization for standardized advertisement.

 Application of a remote printing system for the newspaper industry by satellite
broadcasting will effectively save on operational cost and human resources and
shorten delivery time even for remote customers thus increasing customer demand.

 Distance education bas also been made easier with satellite broadcasting which
enable remote student to acquire the latest information.

 From the perspective of the viewers, the advert of BBC and CNN is a long waited
boon. It will broader their choices fro well produced sources of news and
information from all over the world without any prior censorship.

 Satellites enable coverage to be extended to rural and island communities,
eliminating the high cost of bringing the service to such areas through
terrestrial system.

 Most national broadcasters operate no more than one or two channels, offering a
mixture of programmes to audiences with diverse interesting and tastes. There is
only so much and can do with one or two basic channels. Often enough, the result
is that national broadcasters are unable to satisfy a composite audience
consisting of those who think that there is too much of a particular type of
programming and those who think that there is not enough. Satellite
broadcasting, especially when coupled with digital compression technology, offers
a convenient solution for the delivery of plural services catering to different
requirements including narrow casts to special interest groups.

 No national broadcaster can hope to be able to produce quality programming to
fill the entire air time, either in house or through contractional arrangements
with local production facilities. Much of the programming can be acquitted at
relatively little cost from international broadcasters.

 Satellites provide the means for national broadcasters to extend their reach in
international audiences.

 Satellite technology enables television and radio news to be gathering in real
time from remote locations which might otherwise be impossible.

Kheda Experiment

Kheda Experiment

Kheda is a small district in central Gujarat surrounded by two predominantly tribal district of Ahmedabad and Baroda. 607 community television set have been istalled here in 443 villages and are owned by the community, but maintained by the state government.

The programmes are produced by Doordarshan and the Space Application Centre. They have their origin in the lives of the local people and air in simple Charotari, a dialect of Gujarati. They are not telecast till pre-testing in the field is done and feedback obtained. There have been numerous occasions when the programmes have been drastically receive or even dropped altogether.

One of the early serials “Chatur Mota” on the subjects of dowry and widow remarriage. It provide to be an extremely popular serial. The intention was to highlight the dominance and authoritarianism of the conservative chatur as head of the family and to shoe the growing challenge to him of younger and more enlightened people.

Social researchers stationed in the villages also found that the majority of viewers were from the poorer classes and women and children were more regular viewers than men. Indeed, in the early months of the project, over 50% of the audience was made up of children. Accordingly, a series for children was launched.

The focus of Kheda Project
 Exposing the oppression and bondages in the present social and economic system in
such a way as to heighten understanding.
 Mobilising the community and the individual himself to break away from these
bondages.
 Promoting self-reliance among the individuals and the community.

SATELLLITE INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION EXPERIMENT SITE

SATELLLITE INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION EXPERIMENT SITE

In 1969 the Department of Atomic Energy entered into an agreement with the Naitonal Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) of the US for the loan of a satellite free of cost for one full year starting from August 1975. it was the first experiment ever to relay educational television programmes direct from a satellite to receivers in 2400 villages scattered over six selected regions in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The four-hour telecast beamed every day from earth station at Delhi and Ahmedabad concentrated on programmes on education, agriculture, health and family planning.

The ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) set up its own Audio-Visual Instruction Division to plan and produce programmes according to schedule.

Satellite had only one video channel and two audio channels. It could transmit just one picture at a time with synchronised sound in two different languages.

SITE had an ambitious goal in promoting new agricultural practices. It broadcast programmes on agriculture from 30 minutes each day for each linguistic group, plus 30 minutes entertainment programmes in Hindi.

Objectives of SITE:
• Gain experience in the development, testing and management of satellite-based
instructional television system particularly in rural areas and to determine
optimal system parameters.
• Demonstrate the potential value of satellite technology in the rapid development
of effective communications in developing countries
• Demonstrate the potential value of satellite broadcast TV in the practical
instruction of village inhabitants
• Stimulate national development in India, with important managerial, economic
technological and social implications.

Systems management
The TV sets, augmented with 10 feet parabolic antennae and front-end converters, had been placed in isolated villages in parts of six states in India - Rajasthan, Bihar, Orissa, Madyha Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Pij village in Gujarat acquired the first rural TV transmitter in India which provided programmes in local language along with common programmes from Delhi via satellite. TV sets in and around Delhi and Amritsar also received programmes beamed from Ahmedabad via satellite in addition to those telecast locally.

While most community sets were deployed in electrified villages, about 150 battery operated sets were deployed in unelectrified villages as part of the experiment. In addition to the Direct Reception system/Set (DRS), some conventional transmitters also rebroadcast the satellite programmes. An elaborate system was setup to deploy, maintain and operate the community sets. The maintenance was found to be extremely successful and ensured very high availability figures.

It was during SITE that special attention was directed towards children in the age group of 5-12. A systematic credo was worked out, and programmes were produced, mainly with the objective of helping children to learn community living skills; installing habits of hygiene and healthy living; promoting aesthetic senility; and making children aware of the entire process of the modernization of life and society around.

Science education programme
The scientists of Space Applications Centre Ahmedabad, and the Indian Space Research Organization ISRO thought that one thing really worth giving to the rural child, would be an awareness of his/her surroundings and an understanding of what it is all about. Science education programmes were conceived with the following aims:
• To make children realize that science is everywhere; that their immediate
environment can be questioned, understood, explained and manipulated by them,
using the scientific method.
• To emphasize the learning of the scientific method, more than mere transfer of
information.

These programmes were produced at a studio in Mumbai. 160 science programmes of about 10-12 minutes each were produced in Hindi and dubbed in Oriya.

Almost 1200 minutes of Gujarati programmes for Pij transmitter were also produced.

These science programmes were protested at Madyha Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, and Mumbai.

An important feature of the science educational programme was the inclusion of a behavioral scientist/developmental scientist in the production team to do formative research.

Major findings emerging from the evaluations were:
It is possible to deploy operate and maintain community TV sets and DRS even in remote areas of a country, and that too with an availability of 80-90%

Community viewing is possible, and that average audience sizes of 80-100 can be expected.

Instructional programmes were preferred in comparison to pure entertainment programmes

Community access to TV tends to narrow the communications- effects gap.

Overall SITE established that the extension of communications infrastructure to remote is not only feasible, but that it can contribute concretely to promoting national development.

Lessons
The experiment was considered as a learning experience to design, produce and telecast relevant educational and developmental programs to widely spread areas with different problems and languages using, on a time sharing mode, a single broadcast channel.

Many of the viewers of SITE programmes were first generation mass media participants, in the sense that they were never exposed to radio, newspapers or cinema. Most of the first generation mass media participants were illiterate and came from the poorer sections of the rural society. SITE was more effective than all other media in attracting the female audience.

The experiment was particularly successful in focused programmes such as those involving teacher training and training of field workers. It might be mentioned that 50,000 rural teachers were exposed during SITE to a multi media package for training in teaching of science and Mathematics.

A number of lessons were learnt on efficacy of various types of programmes the use of inexpensive portable equipments for decentralized participatory programme production, and in regard to problems of programming in situations where rural and urban audiences are mixed.

SITE was an exhilarating experience for everyone involved. It brought a large number of scientists, engineers, sociologists and programmers close to the rural reality. It provided a practical example of how a large number of agencies with different basic disciplines can work a close partnership. The happening of SITE gave permanent rural orientation to Indian Broadcasting.

25 years of Satellite broadcasting in India (1975-2000)

25 years of Satellite broadcasting in India (1975-2000)
(source: Yatra - a recent publication of DECU ISRO Ahmedabad)

Credit for first visualization of a space station that can facilitate global communication goes to Arthur Clarke. In his paper at the Wireless World 1945, he first presented the thought of a geosynchronous satellite and said that three such satellites could provide global communication.

The advantages of the space station briefly summarized by Arthur Clarke:
• It is the only way in which thru world coverage can be achieved for all possible
types of services
• It permits unrestricted use of a band at least 1, 00, 00 Mc/s wide, and with the
use of beams an almost unlimited number of channels would be available.
• The power requirements are extremely small since the efficiency of illumination
will be almost 100 percent. Moreover the cost of the power would be very low.
• However great the initial expense, it would only be a fraction of that required
for the world networks replaced, and the running costs would be incomparably less.

Coming to the Indian scenario, the great visionary scientist Dr Vikram Sarabhai advocated the use of satellite communication to reach out to remote areas. To him it was a system for social transformation for the under privileged.

The wisdom of Dr Vikram Sarabhai:
There are some who question the relevance of space activities in developing nations. To us there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets, or manned space flights. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society, which we find in our country.

" In any developing country, one of the prime ingredients of development is the dissemination of information: information about new fertilizers, seeds, insecticides, cropping patterns, new technology, new findings and discoveries in all fields new goods and services, new living patterns, etc. The process of education is basically related to an information dissemination/transfer process. for the rapid and sustained growth of developing countries, the urgent need to disseminate information to the masses is obvious."

LAND MARKS OF SATELLITE BROADCASTING
1975 SATELLITE INSTURCTIONAL TELEVISION EXPERIENT LAUNCHED
1978 FIRST LIVE TELECAST OF CRICKET MATCH FROM PAKISTAN
1982 NATIONAL PROGRAMME: COLOUR TRANSMISSION AND NETWORKING THROUGH SATELLITE, LIVE
TELECAST OF ASIAN GAMES
1984 COUNTRY WIDE CLASSROOM OF UGC LAUNCHED
1986 FIRST REGIONAL SATELLITE NETWORK IN MAHARASTRA
1990 LIVE TELECAST OF GULF WAR BY CNN
1991 STAR TV, THE PRIVATE CHANNEL BEAMED FOR INDIA ON A BIG SCALE
1992 ZEE TV, LAUNCH OF FIST HINDI CHANEL
1993 EXCLUSIVE SATELLITE CHANNELS BY DD
1993 REGIONAL LANGUAGE SATELLITE CHANNEL BY SUN TV FOLLOWED BY OTHERS
1993 REGIONAL LANGUAGE SATELLITE CHANNELS BY DD
1995 TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION CHANNEL TDCC LAUNCHED
1997 PRASAR BAHRATI - AUTONOMOUS BROADCASTING CORPORATION OF INDIA
2000 GYAN DARSHAN CHANNEL LAUNCHED BY IGNOU

Camera Movements

Camera Movement

Pan - A shot taken moving on a horizontal plane (from left to right, right to). If you want to show a frisbee flying across a field, you might use this shot to follow the frisbee from one person to another.

Tilt - Camera movement in a vertical plane. (up or down) If you want to show a tall building but you can't get it all in your shot, you might start at the bottom of the building and go up to the top.

Zoom - This shot moves you closer to the subject, into a Medium Shot or Close Shot. If you are looking at the Golden Gate Bridge, and you want to see individual people walking across it, you might zoom in.
Reverse Zoom - This shot moves you farther away into a Medium Shot or a Wide Shot. If you have a close up shot of a flower, and want to see the entire field that the flower is in, you will reverse zoom.

Three notes about shot movement:
1 - A note about photographer responsibility - you owe it to your viewers not to make them motion sick, unless, of course, that is your goal! Rapid pans, tilts, repeated zooms can make a person feel woozy, and may also prevent them from clearly seeing the video you collected.

2 - The standard rule with moving shots is this: whenever possible, start your sequence stationary on a subject, then pan/tilt/zoom/reverse zoom, then hold stationary again. This helps enormously for editing purposes. For example, if you want to move your camera from one end of a mountain range to another, start focused on one side of the mountain range and hold that shot for three seconds (stationary position), then pan to the other side (slowly enough so the video won't be a blur), then stay focused on the other end of the mountain range for three seconds (stationary position). If you edit or cut away in the middle of a pan/zoom/tilt/reverse zoom, you may make your viewer disoriented.

3 - In general, use shots with movement sparingly. Try to put a still shot (no pan, tilt, or zooming) in between two pans/tilts/zooms. This gives the viewer a moment to get their bearings.