3rd channel status - FTA,scrambled & Viewable? (1 Viewer)

[kellizer2]

Hi All,

whats your thoughts on having a 3rd channel status in the tv3 setup dialog called viewable (for want of a better word) that shows if a scrambled channel can be viewed. this would allow you to delete the true scrambled channels but not the viewable ones.


this functionality could be achieved by iterating over each channel to confirm/test it's true viewing status and marking the channel accordingly (may need to be user invoked as it could take a long time).


Ian

 

[evgeninikolo]

I agree. This is definitely a very useful option. But it should be controlled by the user, because it would take much more time in order to scan all the channels IMHO.

 

[Frodo]

Sounds nice, but a big problem is:

Detection whether channel is scrambled:

- many broadcasters announce their channel as FreeToAir, while in reality it is scrambled
- some tv channels are scrambled for only a specific period of the day

Even if we detect which channel is scrambled or not then another problem exists:
For scrambled channels you need a subscription (smartcard)
Sadly there is no method in windows to read the smartcard and determine
which pay tv channels you are entitled to watch.

Frodo

 

[evgeninikolo]

Frodo,

Exactly that is the point - when I scan the channels on one transponder I get a list containing both scrambled and unscrambled channels. However I cannot rely alone on that list, because:

a. As you said there are some channels which are announced as FTA but they are
scrambled.
b. There are some channels that are scrambled but I have subscription to them, so from my point of view they are "viewable".

As far as I understood there is now "cheap", in terms of time, way to tell if one channel is viewable, "de-scramblable" or FTA. Well, then under certain conditions I am ready to "pay" the price in waiting an hour or so until the program tries to tune-up every channel in order to see if AT THAT MOMENT the channel could be watched or not. Of course this could be misleading as you already said, because some channels ar FTA just for certain period of time. I can leave with this - if the channel is of interest for me I would check this by myself.

So in two words I would propose the following - to my opinion it would be very useful if during the channel setup the user can choose to "deep scan" all the found channels in order to mark them as "viewable".

BTW, along with this the setup program could store the signal level and its quality. This is sometimes useful for debugging purposes.

Evgeni

 

[pastimer]

Hi,

It would be enough to have an manual override on the systems determination of scramble/not scrambled.

In that way, you could mark your pay-tv as not scrambled and then delete all scrambled.

Eppo