Canal Digital moving to MPEG4?

[timo_w2s]

Got a letter in the post today saying that as a Canal Digital subscriber (in Finland) they will be sending me a new receiver shortly as my existing MPEG2 receiver will soon no longer work, even for SD channels as they are moving to the MPEG4 format.

Could be some changes at 1 °W if that's the case as I assume they'll be able to squeeze more channels into each transponder and perhaps even close some transponders altogether.

 

[Captain Jack]

Yep. And there also talk about increased security against card sharing as a result of a new receiver.

 

[timo_w2s]

Interesting times. There's been talk about card pairing for ages, but it never seemed to have been implemented, at least for me.

I suppose this means the card won't work in my TM6900 soon.

 

[Captain Jack]

Yeah, sounds like I can't reactivate my old Canal Digital Finland card either without an official box. Although, it's quite an old one now (yellow TV on it) so I guess it's dead anyway.

Shame. If a lot of providers start pairing cards to their own receivers, our favourite receivers will be useless for this, unless they introduce secure CI+ CAMs which can be used in any receiver, but only German HD+ seem to have one - and that can be used without one anyway.

 

[timo_w2s]

DVB-T2 channels in Finland use CI+ too so you can plug it directly into the back of your TV if you wish.

There's no FTV with Canal Digital Finland so unless you're paying that card will be dead anyway although I think the yellow TV cards expired quite a while ago.

 

[davidcmadrid]

Yeah, sounds like I can't reactivate my old Canal Digital Finland card either without an official box. Although, it's quite an old one now (yellow TV on it) so I guess it's dead anyway.

Shame. If a lot of providers start pairing cards to their own receivers, our favourite receivers will be useless for this, unless they introduce secure CI+ CAMs which can be used in any receiver, but only German HD+ seem to have one - and that can be used without one anyway.

Theres an interesting development on card pairing in Spain where a court has ruled that people should have the right to use " their own reciever " to get subscription channels. I dont know what hte logic of it was , but its currently being used as a loophole down here for people to get out of long terms contracts ( miminum duration ) without paying a premium. They basically call c+ and say they have their own reciever ( or sat enabled tv and ask for a cam instead of decoder and as C+ dont have one yet .. contract is null and void. ITs not clear how Canal + Spain will respond to the court ruling yet.

 

[Lazarus]

Well BSkyB produced a CAM at one point.

Just the one, mind!

 

[solly]

tv finland also move to mpeg 4 ?

 

[timo_w2s]

tv finland also move to mpeg 4 ?

Not sure, I would think that being an international channel they would keep it MPEG2 so that older receivers can pick it up easily.

There's now a new mux on 10872H on Thor 6 with all the Finnish SD channels in DVB-S2 MPEG4. I assume the two MPEG2 transponders of Finnish channels will close after a bit of dual illumination.

 

[timo_w2s]

Picked up the new HD receiver last week. It's a cheap and nasty looking pasticy Sagem ITSD81 box, which my parents already have had for a few years so I know it well. It feels very cheap, comes with a crap remote, is very slow, horrible EPG, and it hangs and reboots frequently. Luckily it is used for just a couple of Finnish channels so I can put up with it. At least it was free...

Sky UK are light years ahead when it comes to decent satellite kit and usability.

 

[Captain Jack]

I must admit, Sky UK boxes are really good for the job they are designed to do. Sure, they have (had) teething issues but I would never want to watch Sky outside its own box (and therefore don't care if they pair the card or not).

Viasat's SD box isn't too bad either but I prefer watching it in my Uno. I remember those Gawd-awful Philips Canal+ decoders - slow and horrible. Didn't think such things existed any more! I think Canal Digital (C More) will lose many customers if they force everyone to use their crappy boxes through pairing.

 

[A nonymous]

It all depends on what pairing they use. Its odds on favorite they are going to use Conax CAS7. It all depends on whether they go down the road of software or hardware pairing.

If they go down the route of CAS7 hardware paring like Digitalb are using its game over i would say, although if its CAS7 software pairing like N ITI use then it will be possible to extract the boxkey from the receiver to allow continued sharing.

To be honest the way i see it now its just a case of wait and see now. Its only a matter of time before cardsharing is a thing of the past.

Nano

 

[hairybadger]

I must admit, Sky UK boxes are really good for the job they are designed to do. Sure, they have (had) teething issues but I would never want to watch Sky outside its own box (and therefore don't care if they pair the card or not).

The current CanalSat / Canal+ (France) boxes are pretty awful - slow, prone to crash and *very* slow to restart (15 minutes sometimes). I understand that Samsung and Pace built the boxes to exactly the same specification. I have the Samsung one, which apparently is inferior (despite the identical spec). The box seemed to get worse when I added the official external HD to it. One of its "features" is an immediate reboot when you set it to record something - in this case it takes a good 10 minutes for the box to come back.

 

[Captain Jack]

Well I don't mind hardware pairing or whatever as long as they give us a choice of what receiver to use the cards in. Just give me a CI+ module and I'll happily stick it in my Uno. Just to avoid crappy C+ boxes like Timo and HB are describing.

 

[timo_w2s]

As mentioned elsewhere, some Danish regional channels are going DVB-S2/MPEG4 in March. Full details here:
http://www.telenorsat.com/wp-conten...egional-Modulation-Encoding-Change_100114.pdf

 

[hairybadger]

Well I don't mind hardware pairing or whatever as long as they give us a choice of what receiver to use the cards in. Just give me a CI+ module and I'll happily stick it in my Uno. Just to avoid crappy C+ boxes like Timo and HB are describing.

As an update (a year later!) - I've taken the Canal box out of the loop. Am still using the card (with the Solo2) but I now only turn the box de merde on when the card fails to update from time to time.