Big Dish C-Band Satellite - VideoCipher Channel Surfing, Dish Tuning 2008

Found this clip from December 29, 2008 (the VCII data shows what time it was recorded). I was currently subscribed to a few channels at the time. I think I was tuning my dish or something. Sorry, no sound, but it seems I did capture the closed captioning data - turn on CC in youtube and the captions will appear. The first half doesn't have much actual video, but shows some VideoCipher diagnostic data and some menus and info from the descrambler unit.

[@brandonbert]

The satellite scrambling wars were from about 1987 to 1992 with the VCII. (VideoCipher II) The pirates mostly won that war. VideoCipher II Plus VCII+ was introduced around 1991 and was in full use by 1993. The VCII system was then gradually fully shut down. You could still get video, but not audio. The pirates did not ultimately break the security of VCII+ as far as I know. Source: A kid who was there. Sigh. Good times.

[@mattcintosh2]

Analog scrambling was pretty much done by 2010, and the weather channel finally shut off in 2014, if i remember right (it sent data in the signal to local cable systems to show local forecasts). DigiCipher 2 was supposed to be the future and even offered HD back in 2004, but while you could get a lot of channels, there was few free ones, and many started switching to unsubscribable formats such as PowerVU and high bitrate DCII that consumer receivers could not use. They never needed to use the VCII RS smartcard, but did find a pic of one somewhere online. The descrambler even had a modem that could be used for PPV

[@sultanpasa755]

I really love! Do you have also more videocipher videos? I didn’t experienced it but I’m very interested about scrambling in general, and how much entertainment value it had, even if you don’t suscribed the channels.

[@mattcintosh2]

I have a bunch, but they compress very poorly on here and look nothing like what the scrambling actually looked like. I think at one time in the late 90s, there was around 100 channels you could suscribe to, and at least that many more that were free (shopping/educational/religious/previews). Current and next program information was embedded in the signal, as well as uncompressed digital stereo sound - even back in the 80s.with a properly tuned dish, SD content was amazing, the best possible. Some channels used the scrambling, but set it as free always, to take advantage of the digital sound. There wasnt a dish network or directtv but several companies that sold inrividual channels and packages. Want just 1 channel? Pay 80 cents to $3/mo for it. And in the internet days, you could just go to the website, enter you scrambler id, credit card info, and 5 seconds later the channel just popped in clear.

[@sultanpasa755]

Is there a option for me to see some of your videos? Also for me would interesting, if the scrambled contents had entertainment value without payment…like for example a sports event. Could you get some value though the scrambling?

[@mattcintosh2]

@@sultanpasa755 Not really, all the images would look like this and almost constantly shifting. I might be able to get the videos up somewhere else in the future i.ytimg.com/vi/kZWmMOLVaSA/hqdefault.jpg

[@sultanpasa755]

@@mattcintosh2 I would really be thankful if you could share also other scrambled Channel surfings. If you don’t like to upload here, I also can share my Mailadress :)
Thank you!

[@brandonbert]

But yeah, satellite beat the pants off cable back then. Satellite was where it was at. Especially analog c-band in the ‘80s and ‘90s.