Videocrypt revival

veso266

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Been playing with PPV on series 10 card...

I know this topic is a bit old but I wanted to know how does PPV work

If you have some tokens loaded into your Sky10 Card, and you put it in while PPV program is broadcasted using HackTV, do you spend this tokens and you cannot try again, or is there a way to load more tokens into SkyCard?

How did this work back in the day, did you call some number that loaded tokens into your card, because if its PPV, I guess you spent them when watching the program and then you didn't have any on the card anymore
 

Captain Jack

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This card does not use tokens as such, just program IDs/tiers. As long as the PPV program is broadcast with that ID, the card will continue to work.

I do have an unreleased version of HackTV that *does* use tokens for 09 series cards which requires you to press the authorise button.


You can see that P(rogram) 30 has 127 T(okens), which gets reduced to 97 after authorise is pressed.
 

veso266

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This card does not use tokens as such, just program IDs/tiers. As long as the PPV program is broadcast with that ID, the card will continue to work.

I do have an unreleased version of HackTV that *does* use tokens for 09 series cards which requires you to press the authorise button.


You can see that P(rogram) 30 has 127 T(okens), which gets reduced to 97 after authorise is pressed.
Oh, so I guess back in the day you only needed to pay for specific ID once, then once you spent 30 tokens you didn't need to do this again

and if I understand you corecly once you reduce your token count on the card they are gone and the card has to be trown into the trash

BTW: its realy interesting that you can also use the phone card to view PPV:

I guess the cards shared the same chip or the decoder and the phone used the same system

I am wondering how are the pins on the card mapped to the PIC inside?
Can you use a regular SmartCard reader like this: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004RL6QUQ/electronicfro-20
to program them or at least comunicate with them if programming is not possible

Also what chips does the VideoCrypt decoder support
I saw there are many cards like Gold Wafer Card, Silver Wafer Card, Funcard7 Wafer Card but they all have a little different chips inside (Gold and Silver Wafer all have PICs, whle Funcard7 has an Atmel)

Not sure maybe this forum already has a SmartCard section and I should post in there :)
 

Captain Jack

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The phone card is a dumb token card (aka T1G) and was never used in real life as they were/are incredibly insecure.

The PPV on 09 card used rechargeable tokens, which could be 'loaded' over the air (or HackTV). Once a program is authorised, it doesn't need a repeat authorisation. I am not sure if the feature was ever used either...

10 series cards didn't use tokens - just program ID afaik.

The chip used is irrelevant. As long as you have some firmware that supports Videocrypt, it will work. My repo has firmware for a PIC card that you can flash.
 

veso266

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The phone card is a dumb token card (aka T1G) and was never used in real life as they were/are incredibly insecure.

The PPV on 09 card used rechargeable tokens, which could be 'loaded' over the air (or HackTV). Once a program is authorised, it doesn't need a repeat authorisation. I am not sure if the feature was ever used either...

10 series cards didn't use tokens - just program ID afaik.

The chip used is irrelevant. As long as you have some firmware that supports Videocrypt, it will work. My repo has firmware for a PIC card that you can flash.
Nice, so if I understand this right, 33year old Thomson SVA1 for instance can comunicate fine with a modern smart card, as long as its running VideoCrypt firmware (I mean the Thomson would descramble the signal, the smartcard would just send the OK signal or something to the reciever I guess), is there any souce code floating around for VideoCrypt firmware for the PIC?

Your hacktv repo only has binaries

I did find VideoCrypt 1 firmware for Atmels on one of your repos: GitHub - captainjack64/vc-s-funcard (did you write this yourself, or be lucky to get it somewhere?, do you have a video of it working with hacktv?)

not sure if you have anything for the PIC, but I guess it would not be that hard to port

still wondering what is the best smartcard to get (most memory, best uC inside, I guess something that I could repurpose for VideoCrypt as well as other things like a generic Java card)

Now I am starting to wonder, if they ever did any Smartcards with modern programable chips like STM, all the cards I found eather are running the java program on some unknown uC to make them java card, or they can be programmed but have PICs (Wafer cards (Gold, Silver)) or Atmels inside (Funcard)

You got me a lot to think, I wonder how easy would it be to program a regular sim card (it comes in similar formfactor when new) to become VideoCrypt compatible one, but one problem I would surly have is that I have no idea what uC is inside a regular mobile operators sim card :) (even google has no anwsers on this one :) )
 

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Nice, so if I understand this right, 33year old Thomson SVA1 for instance can comunicate fine with a modern smart card, as long as its running VideoCrypt firmware (I mean the Thomson would descramble the signal, the smartcard would just send the OK signal or something to the reciever I guess), is there any souce code floating around for VideoCrypt firmware for the PIC?
See attached. It's the PIC source code for "The Adult Channel" that was in VC but, other than the keys, it's identical to what was used elsewhere.

I did find VideoCrypt 1 firmware for Atmels on one of your repos: GitHub - captainjack64/vc-s-funcard (did you write this yourself, or be lucky to get it somewhere?, do you have a video of it working with hacktv?)
It's from GitHub - neo7530/vcfun - which was originally ported from @fsphil's earlier efforts. If you compile that and flash it to a "Funcard", it'll work.

Now I am starting to wonder, if they ever did any Smartcards with modern programable chips like STM, all the cards I found eather are running the java program on some unknown uC to make them java card, or they can be programmed but have PICs (Wafer cards (Gold, Silver)) or Atmels inside (Funcard)
There were host of uCs used - they started off with Motorolla's and then moved onto SLE44 families. Have a look at some of my Twatter threads - I talked a little about how to read these cards and potentially reprogram them.


I even reprogrammed an old "TV Licensing" card into an one-for-one clone of a TV2 Eurocrypt card as it used the same chip and, most importantly, the same ROM - so it was a matter of finding a way in and reprogramming the EEPROM.

 

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solly

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any remomber france channel mcm encrpt d2mac on 18w
 

solly

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the bbc encrypt d2mac on 27.5w on ku band
 

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any remomber france channel mcm encrpt d2mac on 18w
TDF 2 was co-located with Olympus at 19W, there was also TVSat 2 at the same location
 

solly

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Channel Hopper

yes
on 19w
also rh polariry was 4 german channel also d2mac 16:9 it call pal plus system
 

philpem

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There were host of uCs used - they started off with Motorolla's and then moved onto SLE44 families. Have a look at some of my Twatter threads - I talked a little about how to read these cards and potentially reprogram them.
I'm going to be That Guy and point out that pre the P6 issue, they were SGS-Thomson 8048 based cards :D

They were the ones people used to cheat by putting sticky tape over the programming voltage pad, until Sky patched the card firmware to check there was a VPP supply and verify EPROM writes.

Later cards were EEPROM+ROM based with a 68HC05 (Motorola) or 8051 (Siemens) processor and only needed a 5V supply to write to the memory.
 

skymovies

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Hello Everybody, i love the concept or reviving the videocrypt. I tried to do the following:
I have several VHS recordings from the late 90s encrypted videocrypt from sky one.
I played decades ago with VCL files to decrypt the encrypted videos and it worked (i had different type of VC1 decoder at that time). Recently i have purchased Videocrypt SVA1 decoder and tried to decrypt the encrypted VHS recordings (i have several old VC SKY cards). I have connected via SCART SVA1 decoder with the VHS player (it has dedicated decoder Scart ). Turned on everything and played the tape. I was hoping PLEASE INSERT CARD would pop up but it seems soomething is not right. I see encrypted picture... I have checked several tapes with no success... Any ideas what may be the problem ?

I also have Thomson SRD 14 VC2 with original Multichoice card i used for filmnet in mid 90s (i suppose i'd need HackRFOne to make it work)

Cheers from Poland,
Ralph
 

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I keep wanting to try playing with VCL files, or even directly with a card, with VHS playback but never got around to it.

One thing to check is whether VHS decoder passes through signal during playback when pin 8 on the SCART is on. Or whether that pin even lights up. It could be that you have a faulty decoder too. Those Thomsons are built like tanks but occasionally do fail.

SRD14 + MC card + HackRF will work well. You *could* also use FL2000 to get the video out but you won't get sound.
 

veso266

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I keep wanting to try playing with VCL files, or even directly with a card, with VHS playback but never got around to it.

One thing to check is whether VHS decoder passes through signal during playback when pin 8 on the SCART is on. Or whether that pin even lights up. It could be that you have a faulty decoder too. Those Thomsons are built like tanks but occasionally do fail.

SRD14 + MC card + HackRF will work well. You *could* also use FL2000 to get the video out but you won't get sound.
I have another question (maybe I should open a separate thread, but then not sure if you will see it then)

I am trying to play around with my newly aquired FunCard2 but findind it difficult to even comunicate with a card

I bought myself Duolabs CAS3+ thinking that this will be a general purpose SmartCard toolkit, but it can only program a card, I cannot comunicate with it (or send Anwser To Reset to it) (also software like The Last Drakkar or Woron Scan 1.09 or Smart Card Toolset Pro or APDUscanner only support PCSC readers (which CAS3+ is not (I am not sure if I can even force it to be)

The Last Drakkar or Woron Scan 1.09 also support Phoenix mode (was not able to make this work at all with USB to serial adapter (tThe last Drakkar gets stuck at Trying for 6.00MHz quartz with BaudRate 16457 while Woron Scan 1.09 says there is no card inserted)

So yea, what software u use to comunicate with your cards?
 

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For software I use WinExplorer by Dexter.
 

veso266

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JDavid22

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Lo que nosotros (o más bien [USUARIO=410643]@fsphil[/USUARIO]) estamos *intentando* hacer es recrear un codificador de Videocrypt basado en los datos que tenemos de algunas de las antiguas grabaciones de VHS de alrededor de agosto/septiembre de 1998. Ya ha extrajo los datos VBI relevantes (que contienen datos VC) y los inyectó en una señal de prueba, que se introdujo en el decodificador Videocrypt. El decodificador está reconociendo estos datos e intenta 'descifrarlos' (¡a su vez cifrándolos!) junto con solicitar la tarjeta para el canal Sci Fi (desde donde se capturaron los datos de VBI).


La idea es encriptar el video en la fuente y enviarlo al decodificador Videocrypt... para realmente decodificarlo :)Similar a mi codificador Nagravision/Syster que crea una imagen codificada, que luego puede ser capturada y descifrada pero con Videocrypt y descifrándola en nivel de hardware.

La tarjeta es necesaria para a) deshacerse del mensaje "inserte la tarjeta" yb) tratar de capturar y analizar los puntos de corte del video 'encriptado' con la tarjeta en su lugar. Es un gran desafío, pero oye... si podemos poner a un hombre en la Luna, entonces todo es posible.

Con respecto a los derechos, esto es ciertamente cierto para los sistemas DVB CAS, pero no estoy seguro de si ese es el caso con Videocrypt. La razón de decir esto es porque tenía una tarjeta amarilla vieja (una que estoy pidiendo) que estaba activa cuando cancelé la suscripción y fui a la universidad. Después de regresar un año después, la tarjeta aún funcionaba porque nunca recibió una señal de apagado de Sky, ya que la tarjeta no estaba en uso. Así que *creo* (pero podría estar equivocado) que cualquier tarjeta amarilla activa debería satisfacer nuestras necesidades.
hola tengo una tarjeta sky mexico la cual nunca pierde su suscripcion la he estado usando como 4 años desde que encontre el decodificador en la basura y me lo lleve a casa para probar y sorpresa funciono y sigue funcionando....
 

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Could you please help me about the power supply of my decoder? It's a Nordmende VCD500 (rebranded PACE VC100 with a bit different from panel), just got it from a forum mate.The power supply is completely missing, and I want to feed from an external power supply. Does anyone know the voltages on the 4pin power connector, next to the power led?
20230520_082606.jpg

1. GND
2.
3. This must be 12V. There are two big 1000uF 16V caps on the pcb.
4.
 

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I have an actual Normende VCD500 under my desk right now (and also the Pace VC100 somewhere in the loft) - I'll take the top off and measure some voltages.

I suspect the other two will be something like +21V as that's needed for older cards to write to EPROM.
 
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