[TowerTalk] HD Over-the-air TV

[VR2BrettGraham]

N6RK added:

> > There WAS a source for DVB-T and DVB-S gear for experimenters and amateurs
> > in Europe, but last I checked, they had gone away.
>
>In 1996 I borrowed a DVB encoder and receiver and tried to hack it
>to send my own digital video.  There was a showstopper problem having
>to do with the encryption.  Even if you wanted to send video in the
>clear, you still needed authorization of the receiver.  To get the
>passcodes, you had to pay a big licensing fee to the holder of the
>encryption technology rights.  Is there a workaround for this?

First, there are plenty of vendors of kit that could be used for digital
ATV which is meant for the lower end of CATV & SMATV trade.  The
market for this is very much not NA, so may be hard to find there.

N6RK's experience is not DVB - that's just a proprietary implementation
similar to that employed by a big company that recently bought
something from another big company starting with the letter H & if I
say any more the Mossad will be paying me a visit...

Because of need to subsidize STBs in earlier days of going digital,
various hobbling techniques have been applied by some platforms
to ensure the box they helped to pay for only watches them.

Also, watch for different receivers working with more or less of the
SI than others - another trick in the early days to thwart reception
of unencrypted services thanks to leaving out a non-mandatory
table here or there.

I see many no-brand-name tuner/demod modules in the cheaper
receivers today.  Anyone playing around with this stuff should
bear in mind that there is a lot of junk out there that sells because
of how high-margin Ku-band DTH allows for slopiness.

Bolt-together DVB-S linking on our 2.4 Gc band is becoming
rather popular out this way & is being heavily promoted as
solution to various applications within the installation industry.

73, VR2BrettGraham