wots talkback?

[DAVEYEFF]

i keep hearing aboot talkback on this forum, but ive yet to hear an explanation of wot that actually is, am i to assume that set top boxes tell your provider wot ur watching etc, i was under the impression they havent a clue wot ya watching if ya not connected to the phoneline, and if ya watching an illegal box, ya hardly likely to hook up to the phone are u. ive tried lookin it up on wikipedia withoot success, can anybody clue me up. ta.

[jbegsi2007]

talk back is a track inside your stb and it allows virmin media to access what you are watching if you have a phone line or not talk back must always be cut you will get caught

[ryanrandom]

By phone lines, you are thinking of sky satellite.
Satellite to homes is typically one-way so sky use the phone so that their boxes can "talk back" to them.
It'll just send statistics on viewing and ppv information for example.
Now, with cable, you aren't getting your TV over a one way satellite system, you are connected to the cable company by a cable, upon which information can be sent both ways.
So your box can send the information straight back down the cable without any add-ons etc. This is talkback.
The term 'cut talkback' means to stop it from talking back to them, which is usually done by cutting something inside the box. Essentially giving the box the snip.
The box cant talk back to the cable company when you have done this and therefore it cant go telling them about your card in the front, which could be a funcard for example.
Therefore they cant send a message to the box telling it to change its details (like a software self destruct) (often referred to as a hit) so that you can't use it for anything dodgy, or anything at all.
If talkback isnt cut then your box potentially can be sent a hit and will become a nice doorstop.
From my experience, Pace boxes usually have a track in the circuit board that you have to slice through and the samsungs have a small black thing (forgotten the word) that you just force of with a screwdriver.

Hope this explains it.

[sqwidge]

its called a resistor lol

[DAVEYEFF]

thanx m8, u have explained it perfectly and i understand it now, but it begs the question, if u have a 'talkback stb' and then all of a sudden it isnt talking, then surely vm alarm bells would start ringing, or at least arouse their suspicions. also, do eurovox, dbox, starview etc have talkback.

[addyb]

no, becuase u do it to an ex subscription box, so one u pick up from a car boot or ebay... never do it to a subbed box, eg one you are currently paying for from virgin...

but i am still to hear of one single case of a person who has been caught with talk back on... i dont recomend having talkback connected, and never have myself, but it just seems its something thats been passed through the ages, rather than people actually ahving any info about it... for example, the guy that posted before, jbegsi2007. he's been on here a month, has 16 posts and is telling you if you dont cut talk back you'll get caught... now i'm not having a go as this guy, but surely he doesn't know this is fact, just what he has been told, and what the people that told him were told...

as i said before, i have never used a box with tb connected, i have heard rumours that if u use a switch and dont order movies, but just watch the free stuff, then your ok...

there have been many people come through here, bragging about them having tb connected, and i'll admit, i've been one of the first to come down on them, but now i have to think to myself that, fair enough, they are trying something they are told they shouldn't, but in all honnestly, if it wasn't for people breaking the rules and trying something they shouldn't, then NONE of us wouldd have these boxes...

i'd love to here some feed back from people thought hat have used tb, and as i said in another post, i'm still waiting to here of one person to get in trouble for it...

MAKE SURE YOU CUT TALK BACK

[Hennah04]

I have used a box that hasn't had tb cut before, I didn't have any problems, it meant I was able to use the on demand service (I never used this service for ppv programs only for the free, tv od service, repeat programs etc.) One day this service just became unavailable and I couldn't get it working again, I always got a message "this service is unavailable, pelase call virgin media on blablabla quoting blablabla". All the other channels were fine but nothing I did could get the od service working again, I unplugged the box and tried it again a month later, having removed the jumper and it still had the same problem. Considering that my subbed box (which has not been modified) works fine with the od service I have come to the conclusion that it was somehow due to tb relaying information about my use of od.
One might ask that if that was the case wouldn't my box have been "hit" but od is not run by virmin media themselves but by another company, so it seems the od company monitors the tb feeds but I don't think virmin do to the same extent.
All my boxes have fb cut now but it was good to test it out, no risk no glory and all that.