Television Options

Satellite
If students in an online course have access to a satellite dish you can refer them to educational programming to supplement the course. Many educational stations publish directories of upcoming programs, offer printed supplements for classroom use, and even web sites with many interactive and searching features, such as http://www.discovery.com for the Discovery channel.

If you were to send your own live or taped video via satellite the cost ranges from $500-$1,500/hour for the uplink and transponder charges. This is only cost effective when hundreds of access sites need to receive the programming. For lesser numbers a mailed videotape is more cost effective, though making large number of videotapes requires specialized mass copying facilities which are not commonly available.

Satellite signals, particularly subcarrier frequencies, can be used to send computer data and software. Internet newsgroups can be received via satellite at little or no cost for local access via bulletin boards. Real time stock quotes and agricultural data can also be received. Large amounts of educational data have been successfully transmitted to large numbers of educators via this method.

Low Earth Orbit Satellites (LEOS) might soon offer two-way video and high bandwidth Internet from laptops or hand held wireless computers located anywhere on the globe. Microsoft is exploring plans to launch 800 basketball sized LEOS to provide such access to any point on the globe. Hughes Aircraft and Motorola have similar plans.

Cable
TCI is a major cable provider now offering diverse educational programming with print and Internet supplements. TCI will give a Primestar satellite dish free to any school in its service area currently not cabled into their infrastructure.

TCI intends to offer high bandwidth Internet via its cable infrastructure to schools, businesses and homes.

Both satellite and cable programming companies plan to offer "video on demand" which will allow us to potentially select what we want to watch when we want to watch it.

Compressed Video
Compressed video systems offer two-way video conferencing over dedicated phone lines with the option to also send computer data. Compressed video sites include two or more TV monitors, two or more video cameras, an opaque projector, and multiple microphones. A Codec compressed video unit is the "black box" that completes a given site's setup. Total costs range from $50,000-$100,000 per site with usage costs depending on how many other sites are included in a given session. Costs of $150/hour are not uncommon.

A more recent technology showing great promise is desktop video conferencing based on desktop computers. Though best with dedicated high bandwidth phone lines, such as T1 lines (which can cost $1,000 or more per month) 14.4 modems can be used with a reduction in picture and motion quality.

Desktop video conferencing currently can allow six video windows simultaneously. Modem-based video conferencing is currently of low quality with jerky movements and grainy pictures. The compression software is steadily improving however, creating increasingly quality at lower speeds.

The ultimate potential for two-way desktop video is home-based learning with full multimedia capabilities supplemented by CD ROMS, quality software, satellite video/data and Internet multimedia.

CUSEEME is a public domain videoconferencing program which can be combined with a video camera costing as little as $100. (Quickcam by Connectix Corp. 800-839-3628, info@connectix.com) (Access http://www.gsn.org for information on K-12 applications of CUSEEME.)