Descrambling the pay channels during the 80's/90's only involved a VCR, and setting your TV on lower channel from the coaxial setting you have had your set to play from (to your tv). At age 8, I just turned my TV channel 2, and tuned my VCR to the premium channel. That is, if I normally could view my VCR on channel 3. If my VCR was set to coaxial channel 4, I'd tune the TV to channel 3. Yes, it was that simple to descramble the pay channels.
My household in Memphis was one of the 1 million or so households in America that had one of those HUGE moveable (via remote control) satellite dishes in our backyard. When the scrambling started, my dad got a descrambler...a hacked one, of course. He kept getting updated chips for the rest of the 80's through the early 90's from my uncle. Eventually he gave up on trying to defeat the system around 1993.
This TV special was only aired once with no reruns or re-releases, probably taken down by General Instruments. Luckily I programmed my VCR to record it and only just refound the tape, so you're gonna have to do deal with the bad quality.
One can decode nearly perfect digital respresentation of magnetic surface of the tape captured with cheqp hardware and preserve all details needed to recover extra signals needed to drive old hardware decoders or teletext data. The other can generate any TV signal defined and depending on needs it can include many scrambling systems and even activate PayTV cards with original decoders.
In the early 80s, the cable company provided an Oak mechanical dial 35-channel decoder box. The tuner mechanism had internal mechanical switches as part of the tuner. If you tuned to a scrambled channel, you could pull on the dial and insert a playing card to set the internal switch to unscramble that channel. It took some fiddling to find the exact point so we would try to keep the playing card in while changing channels using two hands. And at the time, we had an early 1970s Panasonic tv with a great "fine tuner" in which you could turn automatic gain control off and adjust it to "kind of" get the picture. It wasn't great but just good enough to see what your parents didn't want you to see. ;) The "brighter" the scene, the better it came in. One of the channels was "in the clear" until 8pm when it would switch to the scrambled Playboy Channel. It seems that the scrambling was turned on manually by either by an actual person or an imprecise timer. Many nights, the first few minutes would be unscrambled or occasionally not scrambled. (I can almost hear the manager yelling to a tech., "Get down there and flip that switch!"
I think everyone who had one of those OAK boxes learned the "Index Card" trick. I almost bought one of those boxes off eBay just to open it up and see inside to figure out what magical switches the folded-over index or playing cards were actually touching.......we had those for years, and then the day finally came when they went digital in the 90's and that, as they say, was that. :)
@@HeadRusch1 It makes me wonder if the cable guy "programmed" the box by flipping mechanical tabs or switches behind the dial. Being 1980 or so, I don't know if they had affordable programmable logic to set which channels were subscribed. I remember not being able to remove the screws on the front plate. They just turned freely.
There is a frequency gap between the upper edge of analog channel 6 (88 MHz) and lower edge of channel 7 (174 MHz). FM radio occupies 88-108 MHz and the FCC assigned other services to frequencies in that gap. Cable TV companies found that they could insert premium channels in that band and ordinary TV sets could not receive them. As long as the signals didn't leak from the cable system into the air, these signals would not interfere with services using that band. The varactor tuner for consumer products was introduced about that time. It could be programed to be frequency agile on VCRs, for timer recording of programs on different channels. The user turned an adjustment knob to tune in the channel for each channel position. Some tuners had separate ranges for VHF-LO (channels 2-6) and VHF-HI (7-13) but the manufacturers also developed a tuner for the full range 2-13, tuning in the hidden channels between 6 and 7 as well. If the word got out that the VCR received cable TV premium channels, sales were enhanced. Buyers could offset the expense of a VCR by cancelling subscriptions to premium channels or justify the expense because the VCR provided access to those channels. On some TV sets, it was practical to modify the tuner to receive the hidden channels. Another trick was to use a UHF block converter to translate all the VHF channels from the cable into the UHF band, and then tune the channels using the TV set's UHF tuner. Block converters were readily available in Canada, but electronic hobbyists could construct their own. This didn't last forever. Cable TV companies added "scrambling" to the hidden channels. Eventually, standards were established for the frequency assignments of these channels and they became part of the lineup as the systems added channels. "Cable ready" TV sets were introduced to tune these channels.
Hacked Videocipher boxes were very popular in Mexico. You could always find someone who had one back then. Small closed-circuit community cable systems were started in small towns, with all the premium channels.
Yep, the old systems used key pullers to extract the keys from RAM used to decode the audio. The video was easy to descramble as only the sync pulse missing to make the rolling screen. Due to computing power limit, they could not do digital video encryption only the audio. I think I still have the full set of service manuals somewhere. I used paint stripper from a local automotive store to strip away the potting compound over the RAM / ROM area of the PCB.
@@Mario_N64That was pretty standard to offer that, because a lot of customers would feel ripped off paying for key reloads. On the rare time the hardware would break, I would just swap it out and give the customer a new unit and fix/re-mod the old one even though hardware failure was not tied to de-programming. Not until the DVB cards, did hardware lockout occur to "loop" the smart cards as a countermeasure or ECM to free viewers. I started out using a C-64 with J&R EPROM burner to make the ROMS. Good old memories!
I had a cable descrambler box all throughout the 90s up until around the early 2000s when everything went digital. Just paid for basic cable and the descrambler gave me all the rest like the movie channels and PPV channels.
A little known thing is the highest rated bowl game during the daylight on New Year’s Day was the game that was on Regular TV. People are getting fed up with paying for everything and hopefully the media companies take notice
I do remember as a kid in the 90s seeing black boxes I didn't have a clue at the time they were illegal. My employer that I use to work with told me at the time it created controversy and people use to get busted for having illegal boxes on their analog TV I did read that in 1991 or 1992 300 subscribers got caught.
Hey, great video! You can tell you’ve put a lot of time and research into this, and I found it genuinely fascinating. Honestly, you’ve gotten me interested in the topic as a whole 😄 There were a few times I couldn’t quite make out what you were saying, but it wasn’t that much of an issue. That’s all, good luck with your future videos!
Thanks, it means a lot! I'm planning on doing a similar video on the history of electronic dance music from the 60s to 90s if you wanna see me do similar nerding out about music, but it will probably be out early next year :p
@@ForestWhitakerTulpa Don’t stress over it too much, it’ll be worth the wait no matter how long it takes! We’ll be hyping up for more of your content in the meantime ^^
This was a great documentary and I like how it was put together artistically I sure learned a lot , being someone who grew up during the Napster and p2p Sharing programs , and now Torrents , it's sure interesting to know that back then they had some things that were somewhat similar . And I really appreciate all the Pirates out there who have shared so much with others . And all the people that have tried to stop the Pirates I can understand they are just doing their job . But I think there will always be some sort of pirates who are a few steps ahead of them . Brilliant thinkers are only brilliant when they share their ideas with others , in my opinion .
Hey would you mind adding sources for the videos you use, particularly at 15:40. I'm aware that editing on your part is required, but you cut off part of the anti-piracy message. In the words of my grandfather I was watching that.
I used to love visiting my late aunt and she had channels like these she would tune in or have channels descrambled I was pretty young and kinda enjoyed the fuzzy pictures as my aunt tuned the tv or descrambling channels
I was mowing the lawn when i was a teen and found 6 different coax encoders laying in the grass, i almost ran them over. at the time i did not know what they were but thought i would try putting them on the back of our tv. they wound up working and we had hbo showtime etc for a while.
God I wish this could be a weekly series. You killed it man! Damn, the memories. I got a VCII so that I could bypass sports blackouts. And a cable descrambler out of the back of Electronics Now magazine. Siiigh, so long ago. 😞
16:53 Pretty sure that is 100 percent false. Since a descrambler doesn't transmit anything, there's no way you can track it. The tv signal is one way. It's not like the internet where packets are being sent back and forth. It's funny to watch these early anti pirate PSAs. I know the PC game industry was rife with piracy and just copying disks. And we all know the debacle trying to just show P2P file sharing(think Napster) turned out to be. At the end of the day, fighting piracy seems to be a losing battle and methods to combat it either cost more than the revenue lost(i.e. the money that would have been paid by the pirate) or are so over the top, it hurts legit consumers far more than pirates(think securerom). It's why many companies just bake in theft/piracy into their financial projections.
What's funny is those of us that grew up in the 70's were used to shows looking like this from our antennas, lol. We were happy to watch a whole movie through this crap.
I showed footage of the commercials for the porn channels, the one commercial showing the videocipher II was actually just a commercial for Exxxtasy, I felt the information that they had scrambled porn channels was implied and I felt it wasn't that important to verbally say like, a paragraph or two about it. It's more the history of scrambling as a whole, not about the content that was shown, which was just movies and porn.
There are videos of WWF shows where the person recorded the satellite feed so you would get the announcers talking to the back about production items. It's amazing that television signal producers wouldn't mute the signal's audio when it wasn't meant to be seen.
I remember how Stupid it was for the TV Scramble the Signal.... I remember we had to Upgrade the Receiver To get The Station.... This what Killed the Satellite Reciver Sales.... because of stupidity it was no longer worth anything.... because it because a Rigamarole!!!!....I ended up using it for receiving International Stations...but even to get The Networks like NBC...so Something that would of worked for the good was Killed because of this....If they did this to the Net...It would Die in no Time ☹️👎....I hope thay do not 👎....The Net is a Great Tool for All TV and Radio Media!!!!
Ummm, cool video but you left of black cable boxes with the VC2? In the 90s there were a ton of off brand options that would descramble everything(to varying success as some were still partially scrambled or the audio muffled). You also didn't really go into how these newer boxes worked.
TV scrambling is a form of encryption, specifically for keeping some channels inaccessible to nonsubscribers. It is called that because it would created a "scrambled" effect if you saw the channel without decrypting it.
Dude how do you get those effects in your videos, I have a whole VHS setup copying tapes for generation loss effects but you got a whole other thing going on
@@ForestWhitakerTulpa Thank you!) Are you the owner of this video or you know the owner. we are ready to buy it. Unfortunately it's not so easy to find "historical" videos about scrambling TV and piracy
![[[OFFICIAL MV]] เอิ้นขวัญให้อ้าย- อ๊ะอาย สกุณาพร | ค่ายเพลงเป็นหนึ่ง](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/83x6L3X3qh0/mqdefault.jpg)
Dad had a descrambler box… click of a button all the PPV and adult channels completely free. Was a magical time.
Descrambling the pay channels during the 80's/90's only involved a VCR, and setting your TV on lower channel from the coaxial setting you have had your set to play from (to your tv). At age 8, I just turned my TV channel 2, and tuned my VCR to the premium channel. That is, if I normally could view my VCR on channel 3. If my VCR was set to coaxial channel 4, I'd tune the TV to channel 3. Yes, it was that simple to descramble the pay channels.
Wish I had known this as a kid in the 90s haha
Really, so the VCR could adjust the amplitude to descramble it?
You mean I could’ve easily watched all the wrestling PPVs I wanted?
OMG! That took me back. There was always one kid in school with an older brother or a cool uncle that knew this stuff. Good times!
You'd be surprised how flimsy a barrier can be and still keep enough people from doing it to make it worth it for them.
I never get tired of the American Exxxtasy descrambler video.
My household in Memphis was one of the 1 million or so households in America that had one of those HUGE moveable (via remote control) satellite dishes in our backyard. When the scrambling started, my dad got a descrambler...a hacked one, of course. He kept getting updated chips for the rest of the 80's through the early 90's from my uncle. Eventually he gave up on trying to defeat the system around 1993.
Me too. Loved a peak under the tent at backhaul uplinks of sports. Loved it!
This TV special was only aired once with no reruns or re-releases, probably taken down by General Instruments. Luckily I programmed my VCR to record it and only just refound the tape, so you're gonna have to do deal with the bad quality.
I guess you will find VHS-Decode and HackTV software interesting.
One can decode nearly perfect digital respresentation of magnetic surface of the tape captured with cheqp hardware and preserve all details needed to recover extra signals needed to drive old hardware decoders or teletext data. The other can generate any TV signal defined and depending on needs it can include many scrambling systems and even activate PayTV cards with original decoders.
Which TV program??
In the early 80s, the cable company provided an Oak mechanical dial 35-channel decoder box. The tuner mechanism had internal mechanical switches as part of the tuner. If you tuned to a scrambled channel, you could pull on the dial and insert a playing card to set the internal switch to unscramble that channel. It took some fiddling to find the exact point so we would try to keep the playing card in while changing channels using two hands.
And at the time, we had an early 1970s Panasonic tv with a great "fine tuner" in which you could turn automatic gain control off and adjust it to "kind of" get the picture. It wasn't great but just good enough to see what your parents didn't want you to see. ;) The "brighter" the scene, the better it came in.
One of the channels was "in the clear" until 8pm when it would switch to the scrambled Playboy Channel. It seems that the scrambling was turned on manually by either by an actual person or an imprecise timer. Many nights, the first few minutes would be unscrambled or occasionally not scrambled. (I can almost hear the manager yelling to a tech., "Get down there and flip that switch!"
I think everyone who had one of those OAK boxes learned the "Index Card" trick. I almost bought one of those boxes off eBay just to open it up and see inside to figure out what magical switches the folded-over index or playing cards were actually touching.......we had those for years, and then the day finally came when they went digital in the 90's and that, as they say, was that. :)
@@HeadRusch1 It makes me wonder if the cable guy "programmed" the box by flipping mechanical tabs or switches behind the dial. Being 1980 or so, I don't know if they had affordable programmable logic to set which channels were subscribed.
I remember not being able to remove the screws on the front plate. They just turned freely.
There is a frequency gap between the upper edge of analog channel 6 (88 MHz) and lower edge of channel 7 (174 MHz). FM radio occupies 88-108 MHz and the FCC assigned other services to frequencies in that gap. Cable TV companies found that they could insert premium channels in that band and ordinary TV sets could not receive them. As long as the signals didn't leak from the cable system into the air, these signals would not interfere with services using that band.
The varactor tuner for consumer products was introduced about that time. It could be programed to be frequency agile on VCRs, for timer recording of programs on different channels. The user turned an adjustment knob to tune in the channel for each channel position. Some tuners had separate ranges for VHF-LO (channels 2-6) and VHF-HI (7-13) but the manufacturers also developed a tuner for the full range 2-13, tuning in the hidden channels between 6 and 7 as well. If the word got out that the VCR received cable TV premium channels, sales were enhanced. Buyers could offset the expense of a VCR by cancelling subscriptions to premium channels or justify the expense because the VCR provided access to those channels.
On some TV sets, it was practical to modify the tuner to receive the hidden channels. Another trick was to use a UHF block converter to translate all the VHF channels from the cable into the UHF band, and then tune the channels using the TV set's UHF tuner. Block converters were readily available in Canada, but electronic hobbyists could construct their own.
This didn't last forever. Cable TV companies added "scrambling" to the hidden channels. Eventually, standards were established for the frequency assignments of these channels and they became part of the lineup as the systems added channels. "Cable ready" TV sets were introduced to tune these channels.
Hacked Videocipher boxes were very popular in Mexico. You could always find someone who had one back then. Small closed-circuit community cable systems were started in small towns, with all the premium channels.
Yep, the old systems used key pullers to extract the keys from RAM used to decode the audio. The video was easy to descramble as only the sync pulse missing to make the rolling screen. Due to computing power limit, they could not do digital video encryption only the audio. I think I still have the full set of service manuals somewhere. I used paint stripper from a local automotive store to strip away the potting compound over the RAM / ROM area of the PCB.
@@JoseLopez-hp5oo The businesses that sold them in Mexico guaranteed that they could always fix them if they were blocked.
@@Mario_N64That was pretty standard to offer that, because a lot of customers would feel ripped off paying for key reloads. On the rare time the hardware would break, I would just swap it out and give the customer a new unit and fix/re-mod the old one even though hardware failure was not tied to de-programming. Not until the DVB cards, did hardware lockout occur to "loop" the smart cards as a countermeasure or ECM to free viewers. I started out using a C-64 with J&R EPROM burner to make the ROMS. Good old memories!
I had a cable descrambler box all throughout the 90s up until around the early 2000s when everything went digital. Just paid for basic cable and the descrambler gave me all the rest like the movie channels and PPV channels.
A little known thing is the highest rated bowl game during the daylight on New Year’s Day was the game that was on Regular TV. People are getting fed up with paying for everything and hopefully the media companies take notice
I do remember as a kid in the 90s seeing black boxes I didn't have a clue at the time they were illegal. My employer that I use to work with told me at the time it created controversy and people use to get busted for having illegal boxes on their analog TV I did read that in 1991 or 1992 300 subscribers got caught.
Hey, great video! You can tell you’ve put a lot of time and research into this, and I found it genuinely fascinating. Honestly, you’ve gotten me interested in the topic as a whole 😄 There were a few times I couldn’t quite make out what you were saying, but it wasn’t that much of an issue. That’s all, good luck with your future videos!
Thanks, it means a lot! I'm planning on doing a similar video on the history of electronic dance music from the 60s to 90s if you wanna see me do similar nerding out about music, but it will probably be out early next year :p
@@ForestWhitakerTulpa Don’t stress over it too much, it’ll be worth the wait no matter how long it takes! We’ll be hyping up for more of your content in the meantime ^^
Great video. Enjoyed the pay tv stations of the early 80's like Starcase, Preview, StarTV and ONTv. Great memories.
This video is an underrated gem.
This was a great documentary and I like how it was put together artistically I sure learned a lot , being someone who grew up during the Napster and p2p Sharing programs , and now Torrents , it's sure interesting to know that back then they had some things that were somewhat similar . And I really appreciate all the Pirates out there who have shared so much with others . And all the people that have tried to stop the Pirates I can understand they are just doing their job . But I think there will always be some sort of pirates who are a few steps ahead of them . Brilliant thinkers are only brilliant when they share their ideas with others , in my opinion .
Analog piracy wasn't for brainlets.
Long live kane!
Hey would you mind adding sources for the videos you use, particularly at 15:40. I'm aware that editing on your part is required, but you cut off part of the anti-piracy message. In the words of my grandfather I was watching that.
I watched the Gulf war live on Intelsat beamed by CNN from Baghdad to Atlanta.... I used to record them too
I used to love visiting my late aunt and she had channels like these she would tune in or have channels descrambled
I was pretty young and kinda enjoyed the fuzzy pictures as my aunt tuned the tv or descrambling channels
Very interesting. And well done.
I never knew about ONTv and american exxxtasy, seems like some channels just came and went.
Many gave it a shot, but few had a long term plan like HBO and survived.
Those old scrambled clips have cool music, nice to be aware of.
1:45 wait, the box had a tape recorder in it too? Must know more!
God, I hope you make more videos like this. Is there a copy of the "Book of Revelations" out there? I want to see more from Shaun Kenny.
Shawn was a true American hero sadly missed
In the 70s 80s it took about 2 years before a theater movie was shown on TV. And it was a big event. Most of the time on Sunday around 7 or 8.
I was mowing the lawn when i was a teen and found 6 different coax encoders laying in the grass, i almost ran them over. at the time i did not know what they were but thought i would try putting them on the back of our tv. they wound up working and we had hbo showtime etc for a while.
God I wish this could be a weekly series. You killed it man! Damn, the memories. I got a VCII so that I could bypass sports blackouts. And a cable descrambler out of the back of Electronics Now magazine. Siiigh, so long ago. 😞
I wish it could be a series too :p
16:53 Pretty sure that is 100 percent false. Since a descrambler doesn't transmit anything, there's no way you can track it. The tv signal is one way. It's not like the internet where packets are being sent back and forth. It's funny to watch these early anti pirate PSAs. I know the PC game industry was rife with piracy and just copying disks. And we all know the debacle trying to just show P2P file sharing(think Napster) turned out to be.
At the end of the day, fighting piracy seems to be a losing battle and methods to combat it either cost more than the revenue lost(i.e. the money that would have been paid by the pirate) or are so over the top, it hurts legit consumers far more than pirates(think securerom).
It's why many companies just bake in theft/piracy into their financial projections.
ty for doing all this research 👍 perfect and underrated video
I watched 4 other videos that were of people hunting down pirate TV stations today
13:26 trippy man........
I broke my back, THpinal.
What's funny is those of us that grew up in the 70's were used to shows looking like this from our antennas, lol. We were happy to watch a whole movie through this crap.
hi 80sgamr have you become a flat earther yet?
No mention of porn? That's how I watched when I was a preteen.
I showed footage of the commercials for the porn channels, the one commercial showing the videocipher II was actually just a commercial for Exxxtasy, I felt the information that they had scrambled porn channels was implied and I felt it wasn't that important to verbally say like, a paragraph or two about it. It's more the history of scrambling as a whole, not about the content that was shown, which was just movies and porn.
There are videos of WWF shows where the person recorded the satellite feed so you would get the announcers talking to the back about production items. It's amazing that television signal producers wouldn't mute the signal's audio when it wasn't meant to be seen.
I remember how Stupid it was for the TV Scramble the Signal.... I remember we had to Upgrade the Receiver To get The Station.... This what Killed the Satellite Reciver Sales.... because of stupidity it was no longer worth anything.... because it because a Rigamarole!!!!....I ended up using it for receiving International Stations...but even to get The Networks like NBC...so Something that would of worked for the good was Killed because of this....If they did this to the Net...It would Die in no Time ☹️👎....I hope thay do not 👎....The Net is a Great Tool for All TV and Radio Media!!!!
Very cool and informative video. Thanks for sharing.
Black box OG right here.
fire ass video
this should have a seizure warning!! those scrambled clips fucked up my head
Thanks guy. very cool
Ummm, cool video but you left of black cable boxes with the VC2? In the 90s there were a ton of off brand options that would descramble everything(to varying success as some were still partially scrambled or the audio muffled). You also didn't really go into how these newer boxes worked.
I never grew up with any of this and it was all research I did online, think of it more as a general overview and not to get really specific
Please explain the difference between Scrambling and Encryption.
TV scrambling is a form of encryption, specifically for keeping some channels inaccessible to nonsubscribers. It is called that because it would created a "scrambled" effect if you saw the channel without decrypting it.
Pirates won in the end.
Wow I had no idea the history of pay TV went that far back in the USA, I don't think there was anything like this in the UK until the 80s.
closed captioning this video would be of great help.
When you bring the video title what song plays sounds so familiar?
Nice retrospective of satellite cable and piracy
It gives me vibes of oddity archive
i would like to watch those videos from the VCII modding community, where can i find them?
boresight.ripco.com/
Great video! RETRO 80s 👍🏻🇺🇲
I'm a glitch artist and this is actually interesting. Was originally used to not make it enjoyable, but here we are in 2023 and it's considered art.
Dude how do you get those effects in your videos, I have a whole VHS setup copying tapes for generation loss effects but you got a whole other thing going on
Hi! Could please help me? I would like to get this video for the Museum in Moscow.
what museum
I'd like to, how can I help?
@@ForestWhitakerTulpa Thank you!) Are you the owner of this video or you know the owner. we are ready to buy it. Unfortunately it's not so easy to find "historical" videos about scrambling TV and piracy
I made the video yes, and narrate it.
@@ForestWhitakerTulpa So how we could collaborate with you?) My e-mail zakharova.maria@gmail.com. If it is be more comfortable
this is super interesting omg
I didn't know Elmer Fudd had a TH-cam channel.
are those 3 VC Bible videos anywhere?
neat
What was that clip at 13:42 from?
You trying to trick me? Etc?
What do you mean?
awfully difficult to understand ... a wuwal area ??
*rural area
2:50. Well that didn't age well at all...
this could have been such a good video, IF it was understandable
TwT
devil
I pirate iptv and get all usa premium channels for free😂
Queria em português 😔
You sound like elmer fudd?
1st?
im sorry
gross
Someone needs to descramble your voice ffs