SATELLITE DIRECT REVIEW

 Today we reviewed Satellite Direchannels, check if it´s  really one of the best services on the Inct Services - This is a blockbuster of TV broadcast with more then 3500 tv and radio channels.

 Today i´m going to review one of the best Online TV Services that has lots of users and claims to be the best product of his segment, well we´re going to find out all about Sattelite Direct.

Let´s start...

Sattelite Direct is as product that basically will streams more then 3.500 TV channels in a proprietary plataform, with recording capabilities , internet radio stations, movie trailers, plugins, live update, etc.

We´re going to thest the following:

- Interface Platform.

- TV channels image and Sound Quality.

- Radio Channels sound quality.

- Recording Quality.

- Products offered.

FIrst of all , there are 2 distinct products that Sattelite Direct sells.

Sattelite Direct bundle: This product has access to more then 3500 tv channels. The price is very appealing since you pay just once to have the product and compared with the competition this is a must , the price is USD $49.95 instead of the normal price USD $149.95 so you get a 70% discount.

Sattelite Direct Advanced Version: This product is suitable for the persons who travels a lot and don´t have time to watch live channels, so the recording feature has been implemented, radio channels its also a plus. For last but not least there is also movie trailers. The pricing has a different business model: first month USD $4.95 , 2nd to end of contract USD $9.95.

Since i´d prefer to review the bundle with all the features available i´ve got a trial of Sattelite Direct Advanced Version to review.

The instalation:

The instalation - After buying and downloading the product you will have a setup file that is very easy to install. Just execute it and click next , next and finish it, then you will have the program ready to work.

The Sattelite Direct Platform:

The Platform - The platform has a nice layout and everything works smoothly as you can see on the next picture.

About the platform you´ve the following buttons:

1) Play - It´s used to start and stop watching a TV channel, Radio Channel and movie trailers.

2) TV Channel - Its used to view the list of Tv channels. 

3) Radio Channels - Its used to view the list of radio channels.

4) Full Screen - Here you can maximize the broadcast to full screen.

5) Movie Trailers - Here you have a list of trailers that you can watch.

6) Plugins - Here you have the choice to download codecs and players that can be necessary to have installed (until now i didnt need any codec or player to watch a TV Channel)

7) More - Here you have the following extra options: Online Help, Download Plugins, Add New Channel, Check for updates, Contact Support, Send Feedback.

The GUI:

The GUI is pleasant to see and have very nice options, the recording is available to Live Broadcasts, for what i´ve seen not all the broadcasts are live. The TV Channels listed on the site state 3500 and sincerely i don´t know if there are +3500 but there are a lot of them, what i sincerely liked very much was the filters available, they´re to very useful to reach the right channel in a question of seconds. 

The Filters:

    We can choose from Country and on each country we can choose by category (entertainment, comedy, news, movies, etc, etc) its a plus having these filters to take us to the right channel.

Image and Sound Quality:

    The image and sound quality here we´ve a mixed bag becuase it depends on so many variables, the Internet connection we have (and i have a 30 Mbit Fiber Connection), the stream bitrate , Videocard quality and of course the screen quality.

    Well i´ve found broadcast with excellent quality and others with a lousy quality but i believe that is not because the GUI and i sincerely believe the issue is on the stream quality. About the sound quality since the feed is a mix broadcast of Video and Sound if the bitrate is high you have a good video and sound quality but if the bitrate is lousy both sound and video will be very lousy, so i believe the blame is for the TV channels that should improve the bitrates of the streams and in nowdays that is not as expensive as it was a few years ago.

Recording feature:

    About the recording this is only available on Live broadcasts and works fine, i´ve tested one or two recordings and were with good quality for these standards (have in mind that we´re not talking about Blu-Ray quality ehehe, but its a decent quality for an online service.). WHat i think that recording should have would be Recording Scheduling, you want to record a channel at midnight of tomorrow , this feature is not available, you only can record when the program starts. Its something that should be improved to be an added value to the customers.

Radio Channels:

    About the radio channels , i believe there are a few hundreds of channels available, they´re also filtered by country and music category so its very nice to have these filters available. The quality of the sound is very good to say the least, because comparing with many radio streams i´m used to listen the channels have excellent quality.

Movie Trailers:

    About the movie trailers i´ve tried to watch them but my windows was trying to close the application. I´m using Windows 7 Home Premium edition 64 Bits and probably the issue is with my windows version and much probably beeing a 64 Bits version, that normally is not compatible with many applications.  To me as a TV Consumer having movie trailers its nice but wiill not be what leads me to buy this product.

Conclusion:

     I think this product is very good to the majority of the audience, the GUI is very nice, the number of channels stated are extraordinary and having the filters are a big plus for searching for our favorite channels. About the streams well its a mixed bag as i´ve stated earlier but on average i believe that is very positive. The radio Channels are good, well the radio its nice to have but our goal is to watch TV channels so its an extra for free.

    About the Movie trailers i could not played them and so i cannot verify the quality of the movies but i assume that my problem was not based on the application but on my computer OS as stated earlier, eventhough i believe that trailers are nice but not the goal here.

About the product to pick if you wish to buy this service i believe the Sattelite Direct without extras ($49.95) is the right choice because in the end you want to watch tv channels and not having a bundle that probably you won´t use often. 

    For last but not least you can buy it with total confidence because you have 60 days to try it and if you´re satisfied you will be refunded without any questions about it.

Ratings:

GUI design: 9

TV channels Image Quality: 8

TV Channels Sound Quality: 7

Recording Quality: 8

 Radio Channels Sound Quality: 10

Total Score: 8

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED