4 ms·

IIRC, aside maybe from some technical limitations, the reason it was not "proper" encryption where you can't make any sense of the signal is that it gave some i

by pnako 6y ago

IIRC, aside maybe from some technical limitations, the reason it was not "proper" encryption where you can't make any sense of the signal is that it gave some idea of what was playing. The sound was completely scrambled but from the picture you could tell the program and tell if it was a football game, movie, talk show, etc. I had that channel for a while and watching WWE with French commentary was a favorite when I was a kid :)

gregoriol 6y ago
The "make sense of what could be" might have been a good way to make people tempted to subscribe actually: it was so frustrating to identify a program you could be interested in and not be able to fully see it.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Yeah, a weird kind of freemium model. I am assuming it wouldn't be hard to turn off the encryption for say an hour every once in a while and advertise a 'free viewing' every once in a while to get people to subscribe.
  - dnpp123 6y ago
    That's exactly what they did and where they got most of their customers from. Those 'free viewing' (canal+ en clair) probably had one of the biggest impact on french comedy TV culture ever. Some shows of that era are still on AFAIK.
    - Totoradio 6y ago
      For the football games, they turned on the encryption shortly after the game started. This created the expression "but en clair" ("unencrypted goal") where a team would score so early that the encryption was still off.
    - PetitPrince 6y ago
      > biggest impact on french comedy TV culture ever. And french politics. French politics in the '90s and '00s wouldn't be the same without Les Guignols de l'Info.
      - anthk 6y ago
        We had Les Guinols in Spain too, in the same channel.
  - anticensor 6y ago
    There were broadcasters doing that too, such as Cine 5 in Turkey, disabling scrambling for commercial breaks.
- mshook 6y ago
  That's why at the end of the 2010's, C+ decided to reintroduce this "encryption" scheme because people changing channels would end up on a black or blank screen saying "subscribe". That wasn't really appealing to a potential customer. Now if you tune to channel 4, you get the blurred image again...
throw_m239339 6y ago
> I had that channel for a while and watching WWE with French commentary was a favorite when I was a kid :) Tu veux dire le p•rn• du premier samedi du mois ;)

by pnako 6y ago

gregoriol 6y ago

The "make sense of what could be" might have been a good way to make people tempted to subscribe actually: it was so frustrating to identify a program you could be interested in and not be able to fully see it.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Yeah, a weird kind of freemium model. I am assuming it wouldn't be hard to turn off the encryption for say an hour every once in a while and advertise a 'free viewing' every once in a while to get people to subscribe.
- dnpp123 6y ago
  That's exactly what they did and where they got most of their customers from. Those 'free viewing' (canal+ en clair) probably had one of the biggest impact on french comedy TV culture ever. Some shows of that era are still on AFAIK.
  - Totoradio 6y ago
    For the football games, they turned on the encryption shortly after the game started. This created the expression "but en clair" ("unencrypted goal") where a team would score so early that the encryption was still off.
  - PetitPrince 6y ago
    > biggest impact on french comedy TV culture ever. And french politics. French politics in the '90s and '00s wouldn't be the same without Les Guignols de l'Info.
    - anthk 6y ago
      We had Les Guinols in Spain too, in the same channel.
- anticensor 6y ago
  There were broadcasters doing that too, such as Cine 5 in Turkey, disabling scrambling for commercial breaks.
mshook 6y ago
That's why at the end of the 2010's, C+ decided to reintroduce this "encryption" scheme because people changing channels would end up on a black or blank screen saying "subscribe". That wasn't really appealing to a potential customer. Now if you tune to channel 4, you get the blurred image again...

throw_m239339 6y ago

> I had that channel for a while and watching WWE with French commentary was a favorite when I was a kid :) Tu veux dire le p•rn• du premier samedi du mois ;)