UPC Fight Against Pirate Cable Boxes

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Blackmarket Channel To free Cable Is Terminated

TENS of thousands of Irish households who own illegal 'decoding' boxes have had their free access to cable TV finally turned off for good.
Cable provider Chorus NTL last week confirmed that new security arrangements put in place in January have been a complete success – rendering the so-called 'dodgy boxes' redundant.

Around 100,000 of the devices – which illegally decode pay-TV stations – were purchased by Irish customers in 2008 alone, according to a survey of suppliers earlier this year.
While an exact figure is difficult to ascertain, the use of the devices was costing both cable providers and television companies millions of euro in lost revenue every year – certainly enough to justify the funding of anti-piracy operations.
It has also been estimated that one in five cable television subscribers had purchased the dodgy boxes meaning that some 20% of the market was availing of pay-TV stations – at no extra cost.

The decoders work by decrypting digital signals sent through the cable network and are generally purchased online or at markets. They can purchased for around €150.
In January, a basic domestic digital subscription package cost around €240 a year compared to €880 for all channels, giving an indication of the levels of income which were being lost to the black market.

Previous attempts to thwart the effectiveness of the boxes proved temporarily successful but new signal encryptions were eventually 'hacked'.
However, a spokeswoman for UPC, the parent company of Chorus NTL whose service was pirated, said it hoped the new measures would now mean a complete end to the scam.
"This is part of a counter measure that we had said to the market we would deploy from 2009," she said. "We have a dedicated anti-piracy team that is in place and they are constantly monitoring the situation."
As part of the roll-out of layered security measures, NTL customers are also being issued with new decoder cards.
"We have been telling people 'don't buy them' because you are going to be buying boxes that are going to be redundant," the spokeswoman said.
She added that the new measures are likely to spell the end for the illegal practice.
"That would be our hope and certainly all the signals would say that.
"But it's a battle that we will be constantly monitoring and that is why we have a piracy team in place," she said.:crying football:
 
Interesting post but as many of us know, For hackers....

Where theres a will there's a way.
 
Interesting post but as many of us know, For hackers....

Where theres a will there's a way.


yea would like to think so but these guys at upc seem very confident they are
gonna make money in irl on the long term, but of the 200,000 or so dodgy boxes in irl
how many of those will take a subs from nthell/ch0rus wen they switch,
id say not many cos for roughly same price u can get sly+ with a much better epg 7 days etc.
so sly will be the winner in all this in irl
 
nt

the only thing is , that upc are mainly in the big cities , in apartment blocks where they have a monopoly. I for one would switch to sky but cant because sky arent available .
 
A lot of people will wait and see for a while, but if nothing is forthcoming in a few months, i can see them changing over to sly.
 
The main thing here is cost and most people will have more than one tv so if sly or up* offer a price plan that allows multi veiwing without the extra cost that would be the winner. In real terms the signal is already coming into the house but charging stupid money to split it around the different rooms is the main factor for me.
If this where to change I would have no problem paying either one .

---------- Post added at 12:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 PM ----------

Eva your tv is high definition ready but really means nothing unless you are on sly as they broadcast in hd giving much clearer sharper pictures than the standard tv with up*
thats it in a nutshell really unless someone will give you tech detail
 
Doesn't HD Ready mean that it can broadcast in 1080dpi but only when your device input (Blue-Ray player etc.) is capable of supplying it with HD. Whereas there are some new HD TV's with upscaling built in where it can turn any signal into HD by upscaling it. That would be my take.

---------- Post added at 01:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:18 PM ----------

Oh and I replied to your pm thetom
 
to my knowledge sky are not 1080 yet lol,they can go higher as specs on tv can go to 1930 x 1080 ,even blue ray discs are not 1080 lol but razor sharp quality.
 
heard it was going to be a nice & warm summer to put some late potatoes in, brocali aswell for later lol.LOL
 
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