One of the coolest facilities in the country occasionally opens up its doors to show people just how cool it is. I’m talking about the DIRECTV Los Angeles Broadcast Center. I toured it several years ago and came back with a great article. Now, local channel KTLA has produced a short video, sponsored by AT&T, giving you an update on what things look like four years later. It’s over at KTLA’s web site... unfortunately the embedding option of their player doesn’t seem to work. Why can’t people just put stuff on YouTube? Oh well, maybe next time I’ll be able to show it to you here.
In broadcast centers like these, DIRECTV and DISH send all their programming up to satellites where it comes back down to your receiver. It’s a pretty awesome feat of engineering… thousands of megabytes of data constantly streaming tens of thousands of miles. You don’t think about how hard it is when you simply turn on your TV, but it takes millions of dollars of equipment and dozens of people. The place looks like a nuclear launch facility and probably has just as much technology. (I’ve never been to a nuclear launch facility.
Settle back and watch the video… you’ll be amazed.
