How do local stations, cable companies, and satellite providers get their signals?

[jco]

I am curious, since the quality of the MASTER signal used by local OTA broadcasters, cable companies, and satellite providers is extremely critical
and very important, HOW DO THEY GET IT and WHAT FORMAT IS IT?
i.e. are they using phone lines, internet connections, dishes, ets to get the signals from NBC, ESPN, HBOHD, etc and is it an uncompressed professional quality signal format even better than the consumer/broadcast formats like 720p/1080i etc?
jco

[Ratman]

Depending on distance, it's normally fed via satellite or fiber. In most cases, a combination of both.

They don't use phone lines or internet.
For most transmissions, they use MPEG2, which is the standard as opposed to 'professional quality'.

What is professional quality for broadcasting?
(Not what you think it should be)

[57U]

In addition to satellite and fibre, some service providers get their local stations using large antennae and some get their programming via tapes (usually 1080/24P or 1080i/24). I believe that's all the options. There are lots of permutations though.

Fox uses the 720P format for HD.

Movie channels get their tapes from the studios (1080/24P or 1080i/24, encode them onto servers and send the signal out via Fibre or sat.

I believe the fibre signal that gets sent out by the major networks to affiliates is 1080P, which gets downconverted to 1080i or 720P for transmission OTA, or out via fibre/sat to service providers.

Lots of options.

[strangersonmyflight]

...and what about the mpeg2? Is it mpeg2 for fiber/sat, and DV for tapes (or is that mpeg, as well)?