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It had to do with screwing around with the vertical blanking interval. TV's had no issue with it, but VCR's would fail. Cable TV "scrambling" was similar back
by bb88 5y ago
It had to do with screwing around with the vertical blanking interval. TV's had no issue with it, but VCR's would fail.
Cable TV "scrambling" was similar back in the day as well. It wasn't so much that the signal was "encrypted" as it was "modified" in such a way it wouldn't play on a normal tv anymore. Over time they could modify the scrambling technique so that any box you did buy to descramble a signal would be worthless in a few months when they changed the method.
The only way to really descramble Pay TV was to be an electronics guy who could reconstruct the video signal. Usually you needed the minimum of an oscilloscope to analyze the timing signals, and then the ability to create a circuit to fix it -- it wasn't exactly easy.
- rOOb85 5y agoMy dad had a black box that worked awesome. It had a little dial in the back that you could twist to dial in a channel to be super clear.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoIn the early 80s where I lived, there was some kind of filler that, once removed, allowed you to watch HBO. It was housed in a green box exterior to each house, where the cable left the street and entered your house. I don’t know if it was a filter really. It was just an electronic component of some kind that screwed on/off. When you ordered HBO, someone visited your property to remove this thing.
- bb88 5y agoBack when TV stations were broadcast on frequencies, it would be as simple as a notch filter to block out that particular frequency that HBO/Skinemax was on.