From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!houxm!u1100a!sdo
Newsgroups: net.video
Title: Re: Ripoff features of T.V. sets
Article-I.D.: u1100a.274
Posted: Tue Jan 11 15:51:02 1983
Received: Thu Jan 13 03:11:23 1983
References: hogpc.15

In Hillsborough, NJ, the cable company started scrambling the pay channels
this week.  The only way they controlled it before was to program the
cable box not to be able to select the channels.  I could receive them
on a cable ready tuner without any problem.

What people were doing to cheat the company was to only purchase
the middle of the three consecutive pay channels.  When that one was
tuned to appear on channel three of the TV, the other two could
be received on channels 2 and 4.  They were just downconverting
by a fixed amount, and not filtering all but channel 3 out.
Now, you can only descramble the selected channel.

Another annoying thing they do is to detune all the VHF channels.
Cable ready TVs now have wider AFCs to capture the detuned signals,
but I have to retune my TV if I want to watch the cable directly
with no converter box.


			Scott Orshan
			Bell Labs Piscataway
			201-981-3064
			houxm!u1100a!sdo