D
| Decoder | Piece of equipment which, normally in conjunction with a smart card, decodes the scrambled signal and allows the user access to the service. In the case of digital reception, the decoder is integrated in the receiver - IRD |
| Digital | A system in which information is processed by electrical "on-off", "high-low" or "1/0" pulses instead of continuously varying signals as in an analogue one. |
| Digibox | A popular term for a digital receiver for satellite, terrestrial or cable television. May contain a decoder. |
| Digital compression | The reduction of the data needed to be broadcast (video, audio or data) giving minimum loss of received quality so as to make maximum use of the available transmission capacity. Thus, several digitally compressed TV channels can be transmitted in the space required for a single uncompressed analogue TV channel. The main way that compression works is by eliminating some of the redundant data in the signal. |
| Digitise | To convert analogue signals into digital signals. |
| Diseqc™ | Digital Satellite Equipment Control, DISEQCTM .A standardised "communication protocol" to control external switches or LNBs from a satellite receiver, for example. Makes installation easier, since more than one LNB or dish can be connected to a satellite receiver via an aerial cable. |
| Dish | Satellite dish. Part of satellite reception equipment which reflects and concentrates at its focal point the signal coming from the satellite. |
| Downlink | The signal path from the satellite to all kinds of reception sites on earth. |
| DTH | Direct To Home. The reception of satellite programs with a personal dish in an individual home. |
| DTV | Digital television |
| DTO | Direct To Office. The reception of satellite programs with an individual dish or shared dish in an office. |
| DVB | Digital Video Broadcasting Group. A group of over 200 organisations from 23 countries which developed system specifications for the transmission of MPEG-2 digital signals by satellite, cable and terrestrial links. These specifications were passed to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to form an ETSI standard. www.dvb.org |
