Re: Backhauls?

["J. Mark Estepp" <esteppjm@conrad.appstate.edu>]

At 08:42 AM 8/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Everyone,
>
>  Please excuse my stupidity, but what exactly is a backhaul?  I don't own a
>  DSS or a Big Dish, I just have regular old cable.
>
>  Thanks in advance for the info.
>
>Shawn
>

A backhaul is the signal being sent from wherever the game is being played,
up to the satellite, where it is then beamed to the folks paying for the
service. 

Back in the good ole days, almost everything being beamed up the satellites
was in the clear, since few people had the BUD technology to "steal" the
signal.  Movies, sports, "wild feeds" of all kinds of tv shows, adult
programming.

When you picked up the backhaul, you got no commercials, since they were
inserted locally after the signal was beamed from the satellite to the
subscribers.  During the commercial breaks, the announcers would comment on
how they REALLY felt about the game, sometimes being very candid.

I remember that the former producer of Celtics away games ("Sweet" Lou
Shuman, I believe they called him) would have the cameraman pan the audience
during the timeouts, when the paying audience was watching some commercial.
He would have him zoom, and I mean ZOOM, in on some beautiful girl, or at
least certain parts of a beautiful girl.  The color guy (can't remember his
name) would say, "their you go, satellite viewers!"

It was definitely not PC...




Mark Estepp				704 262 3111
Appalachian State University			704 265 8696 (fax)
Esteppjm@AppState.edu