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Other ways of cable theft were using a cable TV converter box (also known as a descrambler or "black box") to steal all channels and decrypt pay-per-view events, whereas a normal converter would only decrypt the ones paid for by the customer. The cable companies could send an electronic signal, called a "bullet", that would render illegal ...
Star TV: 1984: San Francisco over-the-air channel like ONTV via KTSF-TV. Named Super Time during the late 1970s and Star TV in the early 1980s. SuperTV: Subscription TV of Greater Washington, Inc. March 31, 1986: Launched on November 1, 1981. Z Channel: American Spectacor June 29, 1989: Launched in 1974. Wometco Home Theater: Wometco ...
Pay TV only began to become common after the widespread installation of cable television systems in the 1970s and 1980s; early premium channels were most often movie broadcasters such as the US-based Home Box Office and Cinemax, both currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Signals were obtained for distribution by cable companies using C ...
Earlier this year the FCC voted on a plan to fix crappy cable boxes. Dubbed "Unlock the Box," the plan would make cable companies open up their services for use on boxes made by other companies.
Videocipher II satellite descrambler stand-alone box sold by General Instrument. VideoCipher is a brand name of analog scrambling and de-scrambling equipment for cable and satellite television invented primarily to enforce Television receive-only (TVRO) satellite equipment to only receive TV programming on a subscription basis.
The prevention of piracy on cable and satellite networks has been one of the main factors in the development of Pay TV encryption systems. The early cable-based Pay TV networks used no security. This led to problems with people connecting to the network without paying. Consequently, some methods were developed to frustrate these self-connectors.
The digital TV transition went live almost a year ago on June 12, 2009, when the FTC flipped the switch and turned off the analog television signals that many consumers relied on for entertainment.
The clunky old cable box doesn’t make sense anymore. Big, ugly, and heavy, they seem to have about as much place working with a modern TV as a DVD player. Cable companies are trying to catch up ...