Rough guide to the DMAC system & Variants (Deceased 3rd July 2006)

[Kay B]

Yes, the old days when D2-MAC was still active at 5° East and 1° West.

I've uploaded the shutdown of the very last D2-MAC signal in 2006. It was DR2 at 1° West which was scrambled in Eurocrypt but broadcast in clear for the last couple of month.

http://www.techwatch.co.uk/forums/at...5&d=1204138389


It is said that D2-MAC (and MAC in general) allowed smaller dishes than NTSC, PAL or SECAM. In my opinion, the opposite was the case. The dish had to be bigger to avoid grainy pictures. When using a 60 cm dish for 1° West the D2-MAC pictures were grainy whereas PAL pictures (e.g. TV4) were free of any noise. To enjoy the benefits of D2-MAC a bigger dish was necessary.

[kerrywez]

Hi Kay B,
I was in a house yesterday and there was a D2 Mac receiver in the TV cabinet and the guy who owned it did not know what it was. The thing was brand new and had never been used. The old days came right back to me there and then.

Very best regards Wez

[Kay B]

@ kerrywez

> I was in a house yesterday and there was a D2 Mac receiver in the TV cabinet and the guy who owned it did not know what it was. The thing was brand new and had never been used.

Why did he buy an expensive D2-MAC receiver if he hasn't been using this device at all? Maybe to make his TV cabinet look more sophisticated.

[kerrywez]

Originally Posted by Kay B

@ kerrywez

> I was in a house yesterday and there was a D2 Mac receiver in the TV cabinet and the guy who owned it did not know what it was. The thing was brand new and had never been used.

Why did he buy an expensive D2-MAC receiver if he hasn't been using this device at all? Maybe to make his TV cabinet look more sophisticated.

He apparently wanted to get the free stuff back in those days when D2 Mac was going and there were hacks for the Nordic channels, but never got things sorted out.

It was me who got him to but the box, but then he wanted to get everything with a botched up dish, the more I told him he needed a good dish the more he insisted that the scrapper he had would do fine, so in the end I left him to it. He was the type, and still is, who knows everything about everything, when he knows very little about anything, he is an expert in everything he has ever heard of.

As a point of interest I had the set up that Nano was describing, in a previous post, with a 1Mtr dish, polar mount and a 12ins actuator. Those were the days and, as Nano say, I think that I also liked D2Nac better than this digital we have now, at least you either had a picture or not, not as we have now with the picture break up.

Very best regards Wez

[Kay B]

Here are two screengrabs of TV3 Danmark at 1° West. As you can see in the first screengrab, the D2-MAC signal was a little grainy which must have been a "bug" of D2-MAC if the signal level was not at the top.



Obviously, this "bug" was known by manufactors since my Salora decoder allowed sharpness adjustment. The picture was washed out if sharpness (Schärfe) was set to the lowest level, but the grain was almost gone as you can see in the second screengrab.

[Likvid]

I never liked D2-MAC, it was inferior to other MAC standards.

As you say it was noisy and not nice at all, i have never seen a D2-MAC picture i liked with the decoders i used and seen.

Best of all was the Aurora D/D2-Mac decoder from a Swedish company.

It was a big downgrade in picture quality when TV3 moved from B-MAC to D2-Mac.