The downfall of British Satellite Broadcasting.

[merlodlliw]

Originally Posted by Likvid

It's chilly today and snow.

Dishes covered, LNB heated.

18.42 zulu its still snowing, but melting. Out of interest what is the price of a litre of diesel and a litre of Whisky or Whiskey if its Irish in your Country.

In the UK a Litre of Whisky without tax is £1.50 with tax £15.


Bob

[Likvid]

Oh i don't know about prices on alcohol in my country as i never drink it.

[merlodlliw]

Originally Posted by Likvid

Oh i don't know about prices on alcohol in my country as i never drink it.

Ok, snowing again this morning here, three inches as we say in £sd.



Bob

[orbitalzone]

Originally Posted by Kay B

@ orbitalzone

Yes, there was an additional data service. But was it really only active when the channels were off air? There should has been a lot of space in the D-MAC signal, even if the channels were on air. Like D2-MAC, D-MAC offered serveral audio tracks, but BSB should not have needed more than one audio track for each channel leaving lots of space for other data transmissions.

Has anyone tried to connect the BSB receiver's data port (a round socket, probably compatible to RS-232) with a computer?

Sorry for the long time in replying!

I can't actually say for sure whether the dataservices were available all the time or not.... I do remember see the movie channel displaying a 'BSB Datavision' screen during mornings but you might be right about them using additional data although I really don't know. I just thought I read that the data services were early AM only.....

As for hooking up the data port, I never tried it and I had a feeling that the BSB receiver only gave data on specifically authorised boxes so the normal boxes were non functional, data wise.

[Kay B]

@ orbitalzone

> I do remember see the movie channel displaying a 'BSB Datavision' screen during
> mornings but you might be right about them using additional data although I really don't > know.

I guess the data channels were (or at least could be) on air 24/7, but, just like you, I don't know. Maybe the 'BSB Datavision' screen was for promotion of this service.


> I had a feeling that the BSB receiver only gave data on specifically authorised boxes so
> the normal boxes were non functional, data wise.

Oh, yes, I forgot. The receivers were authorised.



BTW:

This site
BSB and Squarials
shows that old BSB receivers could be converted to D2-MAC.

According to this site, even Eurocrypt was supported after the conversion to D2-MAC. I wonder how this was possible. As far as I know, BSB used Digicypher to encrypt their signals. Is it possible, that the encryption system was only a matter of firmware?

[Revolter]

Anyone have any pics of their old setup? will upload some tomorrow.

[Kay B]

@ Revolter

Where are the pics?

[Terrence99]

rupert murdoch!

[RayB]

Not seen this thread before.

There was an "extra" channel aimed at businesses/education/government on BSB called "The Computer Channel". It was special subscription only and programmes were transmitted something like one morning, once a week.

We were instructed to put the sports channel on about half an hour before the broadcast was due to start and then at the appointed time, the picture would scramble and whatever we were waiting for, would appear.

From what I remember, the content was not up to much and the service folded as soon as the merger took place. I do remember calling the "help" number in order to get our subscription refunded and was told by BSkyB that we could have a Sky box and dish installed instead and a credit applied to our account with whatever remained. As I recall, the sum was in the order of £900, so I asked for a cheque to be sent - I recall having to get quite forceful with the person on the other end, it was pretty clear that they didn't want to refund, but when he looked up the account details and saw who "we" were, he promised to send the cheque ASAP. (A Govt. Dept. is all I can say :-) )

We continued to pipe the few Sky channels that found their way onto Marcopolo around the site until the big cheese started complaining.