Free-to-Air TV and Radio?

ChiaBen asks: "I was visiting a friend recently who has a Free-to-air satellite receiver. It allows him to pick up any free satellite TV and radio programs, along with many pay-to-view (requires a payment, of course) programs. Nokia has a receiver, and I'd like to know if else is making similar hardware. It seems interesting, but before I drop a few hundred bones on one, I'd like to know what everyone has to say about it?"

Comments

sheesh

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the wiki link you posted, all the information you need is there as a start point.

ps: buy pansat! :)

There are MANY companies making these receivers.

[Anonymous Coward]

pansat
viewsat
fortec

many more.

try www.al7bar.tk for more info

posted anon for personal reasons :-)

Re:free to air tv and radio, if you steal it!

[ebooher]

I'm trying to assume that you are making a joke here. Yet, I'm not so sure that's how you mean this to be taken.

Free to Air or FTA Satellite TV has nothing to do with stealing content. The systems and broadcasters that want to protect their content have, using multiple encryption schemes. But there are birds up there that still have plenty of unscrambled content on them. It is *exactly* the same as putting an arial on your roof and receiving your local TV stations directly and telling your cable company to take a long walk.

This has nothing to do with trying to force / crack security ala DirecTV access cards to receive pay content for nothing. Please note the difference.

I do not do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, FTA receivers are quite common now. I have heard that with viewsat you can receive both bell expressvu and dishnetwork satellite channels -- you just have to hunt around for the latest firmware for them. Be warned: this is a hobbyist area, unless you enjoy playing with them fairly often I wouldn't recommend it. However, if you're a geek and enjoy fiddling, they say it can be quite a lot of fun.

(Note to people who say that this is stealing, or theft of signal, or whatever: Yes. It is. So is xeroxing a library book instead of purchasing it.)

Re:I do not do this.

[darkonc]

(Note to people who say that this is stealing, or theft of signal, or whatever: Yes. It is. So is xeroxing a library book instead of purchasing it.)

There is a lot of honestly free data coming off of the sattelites. NASA, for example has their live feed channel(s). Not only are they fine with you catching those signals, much of their stuff is public domain by law. (stuff that is produced by contractors might still be copyright). Then there's all sorts of interesting telemetry. If you know how to decode it, I'd expect that much of NASA's survey imagery is also unencrypted.

The stuff that's encrypted, is probably going to be illegal to decode (according to the DMCA). The stuff that just has wierd encoding, however, should be free to decode. If you only use it personally, then you're almost guaranteed to be safe (IANAL). If you want to use it commercially, then you need to make sure that you're using government data that is (1) public domain and (1) not 'top secret' ( although somebody at the NSA should be shot if they're still transmitting top secret data unencrypted.)

Re:I do not do this.

[Jack Schitt]

You can't steal something provided for free. In other words, they decided to broadcast into your backyard, if you manage to decode it, the onus is on the sat company to fix it, not you to NOT decode it.

The best analogy I can think of is that decoding a flashing light you can see from your back yard is stealing. (Yes I understand that technically speacking, sattelites don't communicate via a flashing light, but then again, if you think about the nature of electromagnetism...)

Re:I do not do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Analogies or not, this is something we've been hearing for like 15 years (at least starting with cable descramblers). Truth is, it doesn't hold in court. You can get some pretty hefty fines and even jailtime for basically owning piracy devices. Tons of ppl have been sued & convicted for things like that. Have fun telling the judge, they still see it as theft.

Re:I do not do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it might be considered illegal, but I agree with the grandparent poster that it is morally fine to decode it however you wish.

Legality and morality don't always agree, and in this case I think the law has it wrong. If they don't want it decoded without payment, then they should change their encryption or stop sending the signal into my house.

Re:I do not do this.

[JWSmythe]

    Well, in theory you're right. They're sending the data to you, regardless if you requested it or not.

    That was the old logic behind stealing cable. They happened to run a cable line right past your house (on your property maybe), so putting in a splitter and taking the signal was fine.. Then people found out they were wrong.

    Cable companies started putting filters in to block particular channels. People would 'accidently' climb the poll and replace them with dummy filters. They were wrong.

    So, I receive every satellite feed in North America at my house (just like everyone else in North America). Does it make it right for me to decode whatever it may be? Nope. What's the difference between a regular satellite feed, and an encrypted one? Just a bit more decoding so it makes it acceptable to my TV.

    FTA picks up every feed that isn't encrypted/encoded, so by itself it's fine. They're broadcast in the clear, so it should be ok, theoretically. Try asking the provider if it's ok for you to watch their feed that's in the clear, without paying them. I'm sure they'll tell you that they want to get paid.

    It costs a fortune to have a satellite feed. Try leasing just one channel on a satellite, and maintaining a ground station for it.

    I found out DirecTV doesn't maintain a whole bunch of ground stations, for every city that they offer local broadcasting for. They receive the local broadcast signal, and transmit it over the Internet to their uplink station(s). I'm sure the others are the same way.

    Think of it this way. Would you consider it ok to decode/decrypt every feed coming down? There's lots of communication stuff up there, and lots of private data coming back down. Should you listen in on NSA/CIA/DIA communications just because they are being broadcast into your back yard? Luckly for the determined folks, it only becomes a problem when someone finds out.

Re:I do not do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a huge difference in picking a signal out of the air and inserting a splitter into a cable to recieve a signal. It's the difference between listening in on a conversation at a table next to you at a restaurant and tapping someone's phone. There's also a difference in encoding and decrypting. Encoding is essentially a method of converting from one format to another, or encapsulating one format within another. Encrypting uses a key and is specifically for the purpose of preventing unauthorized interception of the signal. Morally and, in most cases, legally, there is nothing wrong with receiving and decoding signals transmitted over the air (whether from a terrestial transmitter or from a sattelite transmitter.) There are, however, both moral and legal issues with tapping into a wired signal or decrypting a signal without authorization.

Re:I do not do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlary: if a satellite company happens to put commands in it's stream that puts your box into an unrecoverable state, it's neither illegal or unethical -- they were just putting a string of EM pulses into their stream, much like the radiation from a distant star.

If they're sending commands out and it happens to have an adverse effect on your FTA, oh well -- they were just sending out information to their subscribers for them to decrypt and not do anything with.

The onus is on you not to decypher it. Oh, you did? Oops!

Re:I do not do this.

[JesseMcDonald]

Did you expect someone to disagee?

Of course it would be your problem. You should have purchased a FTA receiver that wouldn't lock up when fed unrecognizable or malformed input. Just as in the case of their poor assumption that you wouldn't build or buy a third-party receiver to pick up the data they're broadcasting indiscriminately, it would be a poor choice on your part to assume that their broadcast will always be encoded in the form your receiver expects, and the reciever should take that into account.

If a radio station tried to do the same thing the satallite broadcasters do -- send out a signal to everyone, but prosecute anyone who uses an "unauthorized" receiver -- they'd probably be laughed out of the courtroom. There is no legitimate reason that receiving, decoding, and viewing an electromagnetic signal being broadcast to everyone in the entire hemisphere should be illegal, regardless of the origins of the receiver hardware. It's not even a violation of copyright, any more than shining a light on a book (and thus duplicating the patterns of ink on the page into pattern of light suitable for your eyes) is a violation of copyright -- or playing a DVD on your computer is. You're only transforming an existing signal, which you already receive, into a perceivable form; copyright is only involved in distribution of copies or derivative works (with a few minor exceptions).

The legal issues are a result of the same process that got us the DMCA, (effectively) infinite copyright terms, and the Broadcast Flag. Those satallite-receiver laws have no more moral authority than any of the others passed to appease purely corporate interests. They may act as a disincentive due to the penalties involved, but that is the result of a risk/benefit decision, not a moral choice.

Re:I do not do this.

[Jack Schitt]

If I was the NSA/CIA/DIA, I wouldn't be transmitting sensitive signals via satellite at all, regardless of the ability of encryption or the requirement of encoding. Why? Believe it or not, just because there's a law against decrypting certain materials doesn't mean people won't. Sattelite and terrestrial broadcast communication are, in their very nature, probably the easiest methods of communication to intercept (aside from coded light flashes the Navy used to use or the Post.)

My previous post should not be construed to include stealing cable. I actually make a distinction. Believe it or not, climbing a telephone pole or digging up a wire, even on your own property can usually be considered tresspassing. Splitting a cable line without adding a powered signal booster decreases the signal strength to other customers in the area whereas recieving a sattelite or terrestrial EM signal only decreases the signal strength (afaik) in the shadow of the antenna. (I.E. the worst place to put a sattelite dish is directly behind another dish pointing at the same tranciever so that the sat is obscured.)

Re:I do not do this.

[iamacat]

Think of it this way. Would you consider it ok to decode/decrypt every feed coming down? There's lots of communication stuff up there, and lots of private data coming back down.

And whom did I force to send all those private radiowaves my way, in a format I can decode? Just because something is convenient for a particular person or company doesn't mean everyone else should be banned from using commonly available technology in their own private space.

Re:I do not do this.

[jmorris42]

> Should you listen in on NSA/CIA/DIA communications just because they are being
> broadcast into your back yard?

Yes! If you think you have a chance of doing it and are 'into' that sort of thing you most certainly should try. If you succeed you should quietly notify the agency that their crypto is breakable. Because if you can break it the odds are that another intelligence agency somewhere can also break it. Peer reviewing our national security aparatus should be considered patriotic.

Re:I do not do this.

[enosys]

Standard FM radio stations can transmit an additional program on a subcarrier. Generally these are non-free services, and the radio stations don't get laughed out of the courts.

Re:I do not do this.

[JesseMcDonald]

Thanks, I didn't know about that before. I guess we really are worse off than I thought.

On a related note, why does it seem that every time somebody figures out some new way of making everyone's lives better (like radio), things that are perfectly acceptable at first (like building/using any kind of radio receiver you wanted to) eventually become illegal, until in the end only a fraction of the discovery's promise remains? It's rather depressing. Maybe one day we'll wake up and discover that there's nothing left to discover, nothing left to create, nothing at all left to do but pay our meaningless taxes and go back to sleep...

OK, I think that's more than enough nihilism for one evening. :-)

mostly scrambled or encrypted...

[sdnoob]

pretty much any desirable mainstream content is encrypted or scrambled now (at least in the us), even on the 'big dish'. there are, of course ways around it.. but that's a whole different ball game and isn't exactly 'free' when you get caught either..

back in 'the day', it wasn't uncommon to find network feeds (being sent to affilliates ahead of the actual air date, very popular among bab5 & trek fans) and raw feeds from sporting events. bulletin boards (bbs's) that were dedicated to this 'hobby' were around so you could find out where and when to point your dish to pick those signals. but last i was in front of a big dish, most of those things were scrambled. most everything is digital (and also encrypted) these days..

i can remember spending time out in the backhills of west virginia. there was a huge cottage industry involving setting up a 'free' dish and 'broken' receiver. dunno if it's like that today (this was ~10 yrs ago), probably not as the move to digital (which is theoretically easier to protect) was just kicking into high gear about then. i just found it rather amusing to see pickup trucks, to numerous to count, hauling around 6 foot dishes and going door-to-door.

Re:mostly scrambled or encrypted...

[GoRK]

Ah the C-Band dish, the state flower of West Virginia!

Big dish still lives

[bigbigbison]

If you want non-English language programming or local programming, there is still tons of stuff being broadcast for free from satellites. Satellite Guys is one of the best sources for info. Check out their forums, specifically the Free to Air one. Here's a list of what is available up there for free.

Get a DVB-S card

[evilviper]

Forget a stand-alone reciever. They're very inflexible, and a bit expensive for what you get.

Meanwhile, a PCI DVB-S card can be as cheap as $50, and with software decoding, you can play 4:2:2 streams, HDTV streams, free IP access from some satellites, and you don't need to worry about whether or not the reciever manufacturer will fix any bugs in it's firmware, or whether or not one reciever has an difficult to use menu system, etc.

Disclaimer: I don't have either, but I've been looking at info all around the net (user reviews, forums, etc), deciding the same thing myself, over the past few weeks.

Re:Get a DVB-S card

[Anonymous Coward]

DVB-S cards are better in many aspects. I use mine to record a lot of shows - it truly dwarfs the quality of any analog capturing means (PVRs, analog capture cards, whatever). The difference in quality is unreal - it's like twice as good (lesser-than-analog-cable versus nearly DVD). One you try it you NEVER go back to analog capturing, it just looks like crap, all these ppl using XP MCE and MythTV are truly missing out (or are blind). Then cut the commercials out if you got time, reencode in H.264 (using x264) and keep on a video server/network share :) Heck, I can record some HDTV streams too (but yes, those are encrypted, so not exactly FTA...) And yes, the cards can be cheap (SkyStar 2, Twinhan, etc) or expensive if you want hardware decoding (SkyStar 1/Nexus). You can also buy some inexpensive HH motors that you mount your dish onto (power/data is fed thru same coax as the LNB), so you can watch stuff from different satellites easily (although it can be hard to align at first). There are also some expensive dishes like the wavefrontier, or you can use more than one dish (perhaps 1 on a motor plus 1 or 2 fixed), using DiSEqC switches to switch between them.

Simple FTA boxes can't record (well, some receivers can but they're WAY expensive), but they come with a remote control, look like normal AV equipment and things like that (better wife acceptance factor I suppose). But personally I'd really skip on that. Look at lyngsat and such for FTA contents and you'll see. There's like all of 3 [boring] channels here that aren't encrypted (plus a handful of foreign language ones). Everybody I know who owns one of these is basically "bypassing" encryption - it's just not worth it otherwise.

Re:Get a DVB-S card

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in America though right?

Re:Get a DVB-S card

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in North America, so I did mean specifically for NA. You can get DishNetwork and Expressvu (not FTA), which exact satellites depend on where you live and such. Not sure what FTA channels are available outside of NA, but there's basically nothing here (nothing worth watching at least, or that isn't in spanish or whatever foreign language). FTA is more of an attempt to legally sell piracy devices more than a legitimate way to watch [non-existing] free content. I have yet to see a FTA receiver that can't [isn't meant to although not advertized] decrypt the signal or someone who owns a DVB card that doesn't use it for non-FTA channels, and that's around 100 people (I've setup at least a couple dozen of them myself eh).

I have a Nexus and a Skystar 2, 2 dishes (a 20" dual double LNB for Expressvu and a 30" on a HH motor for DishNetwork and other sats, on two 4 way switches). Hang around DVBN forums for more infos :)

Re:Get a DVB-S card

[PorkNutz]

In NA you can recieve DishNetwork and Bell ExpessVu for free with these cards. There are many different bits of software you can use to do it. Although you cannot use them to recieve DN HDTV signals from any of the satellites, BEV sat Nimiq 2 has almost 40 HD channels that can be recieved. Whith a 100cm dish, universal LNB and dish motor, there are literally thousands of channels across dozens of satellites that can be recieved. Both FTA and encrypted... even remote news feeds

For all you linux lovers out there, this is the perfect choice to build a HTPC using MythTV.

This site is the best place to find all the info you would ever need to get started.

Yes and no...

[Anonymous Coward]

He sounds like a troll, but it's a half truth. Some people really watch FTA stuff, and this is what you're assuming.

BUT! There is also a HUGE part of "FTA" which isn't exactly like that either... In fact, I'd say that's the majority more than the exception. Most FTA receivers I've seen can decrypt signals once you give them proper decryption keys - some will even "autoroll" them and such. I know dozens of ppl that own "FTA" receivers and DVB cards - *EVERY* single one of them uses it to watch DishNetwork/Expressvu and the like (it seems like nagra2 wasn't all the fort knox it claimed to be after all), including pay per view channels and everything. So yes, there was some truth to it... There is a HUGE amount of FTA box makers that add those capacities to their boxes - they're almost piracy boxes "disguised" into FTA receivers. Same for DVB soft, 99% of it can use MDPlugins or such (which are meant to decrypt the signal).

I have yet to see someone own a FTA receiver and use it for that same purpose.

So you're somewhat wrong. FTA channels on the sats (the VERY FEW of them) have nothing to do with piracy, but most of the "FTA market" is for piracy devices... Some sellers will even point you to some forums or tools to get started. I can get over 1000 TV channels for 0$, including some HDTV streams (around a dozen channels).

Move to the UK

[ResistanceIsIrritati]

You could always spend your cash on moving to the UK where we are well served with free to air programs via Freesat and Freeview. I use Freeview which works through your existing aerial and has all the channels I need. The cost of the decoders has plummeted in recent months. I paid about £100 18 months ago. You can now get them from the supermarket for less than £30. There are paid for channels available on Freeview if you want them and, of course Sky satellite.

Re:Move to the UK

[Tintagel]

That's "free-to-air", for some definition of "free" where you pay the BBC 130 pounds every year even if you never watch any of their broadcasts.

Re:Move to the UK

[toddbu]

I use Freeview which works through your existing aerial and has all the channels I need.

It's interesting that here in the US, few people even know what an aerial is any more. For years, real estate developers have been making deals with cable companies to force their residents into purchasing cable TV. This is done by writing clauses into local convenants (CC&Rs) that restrict home owners from putting up an antenna for aesthetic reasons, so most people just buy cable whether they need it or not.

I live near Seattle, and before that in Michigan, and only once had cable service. I cancelled when it got to $13/mo because I didn't see the value in it. I have always been able to get lots of programming, much of which is not worth watching anyway. Yet if I compare the quality of over-the-air TV to that of cable, I really don't see that much difference. Yes, I'd like to have The History Channel and a few others, but I can buy DVDs to fill in the gaps. Then I own the content and can watch it whenever I want. Just the other day we picked up a season of Quantum Leap, which along with Stargate (own all 8 seasons on DVD so far) is really the only reason I'd want SciFi. At $50 a season, I've only spent $400 on Stargate which has given me far more entertainment value than dropping $600/year on cable, and I can still watch Judge Judy over-the-air for free. :-)

Re:Move to the UK

[JohnnyLocust]

You could always spend your cash on moving to the UK

yes, but the the food is so...... bleh.

Re:Move to the UK

[wpanderson]

So put a wideband UHF aerial in your loft / attic; I have one in mine and get a fantastic analogue and digital (DVB-T, Freeview) signal from the local transmitter.

Re:Move to the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

hey I heard that americans eat McDonalds for every meal

anyone/everyone?

[dwater]

> I'd like to know if else is making similar hardware. It seems interesting, but before I drop a few hundred bones on one, I'd like to know what everyone has to say about it?"

I think you mean, "...if *anyone* else...", and "...know what *anyone* has to say...". Well, I guess you might want to know what everyone has to say about it, but you won't...

FTA vs Stealing

[jrmcferren]

Free to Air is similar to putting an antenna out and telling the cable (or DBS) company to get lost. Stealing is like stealing a DBS signal. I know someone who uses a re-programmed FTA receiver to receive both dish network AND FTA channels. If you want American Programming you may need a C-Band Dish for MPEG-2 FTA even though most programming is on KU-Band. Channels include: CCTV 4 (China) Pennsylvania Cable Network (C-Band USA) Al-Jezera etc. You can get thousands of channels.

Get a 1 meter dish...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Like a primestar. Install it yourself, it's not so tough.

Recievers are cheap too, on ebay. Figure out where you'd want to point the dish, and get a reciever capable of decoding whichever bird it's aimed at.

BUD (big, ugly dish)

[grumling]

The way to see this stuff is with one of those old 3 meter dishes from the 80's. The problem is that it is likely your community has laws against such things being allowed in your yard (although most of the time you can put up a fence or something to hide it). I always said I would never live in a placee that has such restrictions (I want to put up a tower someday), but it is getting harder and harder to find a place that has no such restrictions that is affordable. The 100 acre ranch would be ideal, but not gonna happen on my salary.

They say there was a time when people wanted to see telephone and power wires because it meant progress. Now we have to hide infrastructure underground, lest we offend the eye...

Re:BUD (big, ugly dish)

[Yonder Way]

1) Chances are, if you are a geek, you CAN afford a big honkin plot of land somewhere. I bought 36 acres outside of Research Triangle Park for less than it would cost to buy one acre INSIDE of the Triangle. I have a bit of a commute (about one hour), but then I live at a place where I can pursue my own ideas of appropriate living. I can make my own diesel, grow my own food, set up an ordnance bunker, paint my trees yellow, set up giant satellite dishes and windmills, farm pit bulls, whatever. (note I don't necessarily do a lot of the things on this list, but I could, and some of my neighbors do)

2) Smaller dishes are protected. If your HOA tells you that you can't put up a DirecTV dish, tell them to blow it out their ass and refer them to the FCC. http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html. This offers no protection for larger dishes (unless you live in alaska).

Re:BUD (big, ugly dish)

[tepples]

1) Chances are, if you are a geek, you CAN afford a big honkin plot of land somewhere.

Chances are, if you can afford a big plot of land, it can't get cable or DSL Internet access.

Re:BUD (big, ugly dish)

[PorkNutz]

Mod the parent DOWN! He has no idea what he is talking about.

The truth is these recivers use the same DishNetwork or DirecTV dish (46cm) that many of you already have attached to the side of your house. At worst you would need a 100cm dish.

Re:BUD (big, ugly dish)

[evilviper]

The way to see this stuff is with one of those old 3 meter dishes from the 80's.

Why? What important DVB-S signals are available on C-Band? It seems most everything is in Ku-Band now, which means you can get away with a MUCH smaller dish. Either a relatively tiny general-purpose 1.5m or throw-away DishNet/DirecTV dish.

The problem is that it is likely your community has laws against such things being allowed in your yard

Where do you live? I'll guess Eastern USA, or in a major city (LA, SF, etc), because pretty much everywhere else in the US is wide open, and largely free of such nonsense.

They say there was a time when people wanted to see telephone and power wires because it meant progress. Now we have to hide infrastructure underground, lest we offend the eye...

I think the eye is probably the least of it. How many people have been killed by powerlines? I know I hear about deaths regularly. A few months ago it was big news when a couple scout masters putting up a tent at Camp David were electrocuted.

As for everything else, having poles everywhere causes plenty of problems. Lots of single-car accidents from people hitting telephone poles along the road. They certainly get in the way, and need quite a bit of maintenance. Leaving equipment exposed to the elements just isn't a good idea anyhow. It seems like the telephone company was going for the cheapest short-term option, and ends up paying for it in ongoing costs forever.

Re:free to air tv and radio, if you steal it!

[jonaskoelker]

I object to you using the word 'steal'

When I cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else eats it, because then I cannot eat it. His action hurts me exactly as much as it benefits him; only one of us can eat the spaghetti, so the question is, which? The smallest distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.

(Why software should not have owners, RMS, http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html)

(paraphrase of the next paragraph of the same text) When someone views a TV broadcast, it doesn't hurt anyone else (but see also below)--it doesn't take away their ability to view (or not view) the same program.

Also, we shouldn't encourage paying for viewing proprietry broadcasts, since we then reward the people who take away our freedom.

I'm sorry that the closest-to-neutral term I can come up with is 'unlawful [action]'--some people might misconstrue that one is saying that because it's against the law, it's wrong. This is not true: the law doesn't define what is right and wrong; what is right and wrong defines--or at least should define--the law, which is a mere instrument to achieve justice. Of course, it's only succeeds some of the time (I suggest you view "The Devil's Advocate"--of course without rewarding anyone for taking away your freedom to copy it--or, if you can, recall the first and last ~10 minutes).

RMS objects to the word `content' on http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html (I avoid using the word--I use the words data and/or information instead--but I don't feel strongly about its use).

I object to the term `protect': the information being broadcast isn't hurt from being viewed, and neither is the broadcaster. True, they may be unable to make money by their current business model, but as a--to some extent--advocate of the free market, I don't give a damn; if they can only make money by unjustly opressing their customers, they shouldn't be able to make money.

Also, no, the law doesn't define what's just/right/ethically accetable; au contraire, what is right, just and ethically acceptable defines what the laws is (or at least that's the way it ought to be), as I already mentioned.

---

You'll probably think I'm some sort of RMS/GNU/FSF/GCC/TLA fanboy, and to some extent rightly so--I do agree with most (but not all[1]) of RMS's values and conclusions. You, ebooher, will probably get your opinion of me lowered due to me being such a nitpicker, and I'll probably get modded -1 for some reason, but I think these points have to be made.

Footnotes:

1. I'm disagree with his conclusions in `why GNU su doesn't support the `wheel' group' (http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html _node/coreutils_149.html)--I think that wheel has an ethically legitimate use: to make sure that if anyone exploits a program running as `nobody', they can't become root. I haven't made up my mind as to whether exercising control over the machines you own (specifically over your users except yourself) is wrong, but that is--for the purpose of my counterargument--irrelevant: any ethically legitimate uses of anything shouldn't be prevented, and thus one shouldn't do blanket prevention of some object that has at least one legitimate use.

Specifically, I think it's ok for su to support wheel. RMS doesn't.

list of free tv available

[Hinkey]

i have found this link invaluable when trying to show off what free tv has to offer, http://lyngsat.com/freetv/index.html , simpley select a region next to "Free TV:" and then a country so see what is broadcast from there.

Don't make it to easy for us...

[biglig2]

...by, for example, telling us what frickin' country you're in... I dunno, we Brits invented the computer and the web, but do we get any respect?

Re:Don't make it to easy for us...

[OSUJoe]

"we Brits invented the computer and the web..."

Oh come ON... everyone knows Al Gore isn't British.

Re:Don't make it to easy for us...

[biglig2]

Ah, no, the Americans did invent the internet, and indeed Al Gore was an important figure in this. Who can argue with that? But the web, the thing that made the internet what it is today, was the invention of Professor Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, KBE, FRS.

Nokia...

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, Nokia stopped making digital TV receivers in Q4/2005.

Setup fee: $100,000

[tepples]

Like a primestar. Install it yourself, it's not so tough.

Problem is that such a dish costs $100,000 or more if your landlord or neighborhood association forbids satellite dishes.

Re:Setup fee: $100,000

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Homeowner's association can only forbid dishes bigger than 1 meter, or the absolute height of any pole it needs to be on.

Landlord can only forbid it if there are no exclusive use areas.

And, since that's what the question is, that's a pretty fucking stupid thing to say.

Don't bother.

[iantri]

Unless you happen to like eccentric religious programming and bizarre foreign channels, you'll quickly find there is nothing to see in FTA DVB broadcasts in North America.

You'll also quickly find out that most of the information about "free to air" receivers is actually put up under the guise of providing information for a similar and considerably more common activity; reprogramming the receivers with firmware that can decrypt, in software, the encryption schemes used by Dish Network and Bell ExpressVu (who both use the DVB standard for their broadcasts, DirecTV uses a proprietary standard).

Re:Don't bother.

[iantri]

Additionally, i forgot to mention that the North American providers aren't too cooperative; if you want to pay for programming you need to buy their receiver. So there's no option to pay for programming that you want.

Re:Don't bother.

[bill_mcgonigle]

eprogramming the receivers with firmware that can decrypt, in software, the encryption schemes used by Dish Network and Bell ExpressVu

AFAICT that's the only way to use home-brew hardware with one of these services. So, if you subscribe legitimately but have one of those PoS receivers that are provided which crashes all the time, forgets to tape your shows, hangs up when you try to stop a recording, etc, ad. nauseum, you have to either suck it up or go grey.

I'd love to be proven wrong on that as I haven't found any time to experiment with that kind of gear - if someone can point to a Nagravision2 DVB CAM I can buy and plug into a FTA receiver or PCI card please add a comment.

This all seems silly, like Showtime specifying that you can only record programming on JVC VCR's.

Re:Don't bother.

[mikael]

Unless you happen to like eccentric religious programming and bizarre foreign channels, you'll quickly find there is nothing to see in FTA DVB broadcasts in North America.

That's very much true in Europe as well. All the European and African countries share the same satellite broadcast system. It's interesting to see what each culture considers the most important. While UK companies seem to broadcast porn, premium rate dial in competitions and bargain basement sales, China is broadcasting business news programs, India broadcasts Bollywood movies, Arab countries are broadcasting religious programming and Africa seems to broadcast drama series.

Man gets 5,000+ channels on 12 dishes

[JoeD]

There was a story on BoingBoing a few months back about a guy that does this. The picture is cool.

"Al Jessup of Beckley, West Virginia, has 12 cheap satellite dishes stuck to his house, which pull in over 5,000 free-to-air channels from satellites all over the sky. He is retired, and delights in odd and foreign programming."

DoD is British?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize the US DoD was a British organization... Maybe you guys did networking first, but the Internet was american.

Re:DoD is British?

[karearea]

Cool, so the Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians, Peruvians, Argentines, Bolivians, Chilians, Columbians etc. invented the Internet? And there I was thinking it was people from the USA (Useless Section of America) that did that.

But then I have been known to be wrong before ... and I have been known to pour petrol on the ground, hold a lighter over it and dare someone to knock it out of my hand - have learnt that a flameproof/retardnat suit is handy :-)

Re:DoD is British?

[meringuoid]

I didn't realize the US DoD was a British organization... Maybe you guys did networking first, but the Internet was american.

Oh dear. Hand in your geek card. The parent said 'computers and the web', not 'computers and the internet'. You think 'web' and 'internet' are synonymous? What are you doing on Slashdot?

For the record, it's certainly true that a Briton invented the Web: specifically it was Tim Berners Lee, while working at CERN. As for computers, that's probably also true, but depending on what you call a computer it might have been American.

If you know linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get a Nexus-S DVB card and run VDR. Trust me, you won't find anything else more reliable, robust, extendable, and just plain awesome. And there's lots of great plugins for the Nexus-S card. Most of them are legal...

FTA is fun, cheap and interesting!

[pestie]

I've been itching to get into FTA for years, but only got around to doing so a couple months ago. The simplest possible setup you'll need is:

• A dish
• An LNB (low noise block downconverter, which sits at the focal point of the dish)
• A receiver

Because I wasn't really sure about FTA I wanted to get into it as cheaply as possible. I bought a cheap 0.3dB LNB and a truly crappy receiver on eBay, used an old Primestar 40" x 30" dish (which turns out to be one of the best dishes you can get for FTA), hooked it all up, got it aimed at Intelsat Americas 5 and started watching! I think my total equipment investment was in the neighborhood of $100. I did replace my craptastic receiver with a more expensive ($150 at the time) Fortec Lifetime Classic, but it was worth it. You can, as others have said, go with PC-based solutions, too - PCI or USB satellite receivers - but I wanted a standalone receiver just to start.

Yes, as others have pointed out, most of what's available via FTA in North America is religious programming or bizarre foreign channels, but don't let that discourage you! First of all, that stuff ranges from entertaining to totally weird (like the old animated Star Trek series dubbed in Armenian, or some damned thing). If you're sick of the crap on American TV, this'll definitely give you something more interesting to check out. Second, there are some American channels up there, especially PBS and the like, but some network affiliates as well. And if you're really determined, you can find network feeds, where the networks send their shows to their affiliate stations in the clear, before they officially air. You can also find news crews out in the field, often doing flattering things like swearing and picking their noses before as they set up and test their equipment before a remote report.

FTA is like the Wild West of television. It's not always easy to find the good stuff, but it's worth the effort.

Check out the SatelliteGuys forum if you want more information. The people there are extremely friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. I'm just a user there, not an admin or owner, so I'm not trying to shill for the site or anything. I just love it.

FTA DVB is a blast

[strat]

I have had one hell of a lot of fun scanning the skies. I started out with a modest 76cm Winegard antenna and a Samsung receiver, just pointed at Intelsat Americas 5 (formerly Telstar 5). IA5 has a veritable international conclave up there, with a lot of international content uplinked by Globecast World TV. Some of it is encrypted pay content, but a lot of it is free, subsidized by foreign governments who want to reach their folks overseas. China runs 2 or 3 continuous news channels on another satellite. I even used to be able to Al Manar's (The news station of the Hezbollah in Lebanon) morning news over my oatmeal until the U.S. Government shut them down.

If you only have room for a Ku-band dish, there's a ton of stuff to see. If you have the room for a C-band antenna, there's even more up there. It's a hoot to see reporters picking their noses and talking trash about the competition. There are occasional uplinks of keynote speeches from conferences, government channels, and a constantly-changing array of things ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime.

The big watershed was when I picked up a little motor and a Fortec Star PVR. I recorded all manner of amazing (if disturbing) feeds during the attack on Iraq, including Iraqi TV rallies. The motorized dish really opens things up. I have camera's-eye view footage from a robot camera belonging to Dubai TV being shot up by a U.S. tank's fire.

It's easier to get started now than ever before. There's a standard called DiSEqC for sending switch and motor control signals over the coax between the receiver and the LNBF. No extra wires are necessary for a motorized dish. Additionally, a newer technology called USALS or DiSEqC 1.3 or "Goto X" allows the easy installation of a motor. You orient it to your Southernmost satellite, enter the Lat/Long coordinates of your location in to the receiver, and the newer boxes find everything on the arc.

If you want something to hack on, there's a platform called the Dreambox, from Dream Multimedia in Germany. It's a receiver based on the PowerPC set-top box chipset, and there are dozens of user-contributed loads for it, with plugins ranging from web browsers to RSS readers to Shoutcast clients. There's also a web interface for controlling the box and nabbing screenshots.

There are also PCI card receivers like the Twinhan available that plug into your PC and can stream to things like a Roku box.

If you want to watch yourself, there's even a service called UONTV, which will take an FTP of your MPEG2 video content and uplink it to IA5 for as little as $30/half-hour IIRC.

I would encourage anyone curious about the world of MPEG/DVB to check it out. A good reference is Satforums. There's no discussion of cracking or unscrambling there, but there's a font of MPEG/DVB information to be had, and support for some of the best PCI receiver card software.