# Merry Xmas Tivo Community :-(



## Gadders (Feb 4, 2002)

That email from the forums really poured salt on the wounds, didn't it? Free Series 2 Tivo? Yeah, thanks guys. Thanks a bunch. I just wish I could pay £200 to get one, let alone a free one :-(


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

How about everybody mails the sender of that bulletin Krista Wierzbicki ([email protected]) to back up your point.... I have just done so.

Also, TiVo are looking for our feedback at http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/ - I guess we'd all have at least one...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Also, TiVo are looking for our feedback at http://research.tivo.com/suggestions/ - I guess we'd all have at least one...


Well they now have the benefit of my suggestions via the survey.

I particularly made the point that were fiddling while Rome burned over the current growth of the UK Freeview PVR marketplace.


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## Gadders (Feb 4, 2002)

Answer: be in a shop in England where I could buy the bloody things.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

Gadders said:


> That email from the forums really poured salt on the wounds, didn't it? Free Series 2 Tivo? Yeah, thanks guys. Thanks a bunch. I just wish I could pay £200 to get one, let alone a free one :-(


I must be missing out on a bout of wound salting - I don't appear to have recieved the above mentioned posting. The most recent post I've had from AVF forum is dated 25th November and is obviously targetted to a UK resident based on he offers and promotions.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> I must be missing out on a bout of wound salting - I don't appear to have recieved the above mentioned posting.


Mine only just arrived 5 minutes ago so I'm sure yours will arrive some time today.

Its an email from the TivoCommunity forum which Tivo itself appears to have paid to have distributed to all forum members. Of course it would have been a smart move to omit all the UK members from receiving it but I don't suppose they even have the necessary information on the forum membership database to differentiate us and anyhow that would assume that they even remembered about the contunued existence of the UK Tivo S1 users in the first place.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Ahh, maybe a different email then. 

Mine was from the TiVo PR-Newswire service and arrived on the 22nd. Essentially the same annoying message though...


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

The last message I got from the forum newswire, dated the 25th, contained the following paragraph:

"Free WiFi Campaign
We are supporting the Free WiFi in every major UK town and city campaign from Channel 5's The Gadget Show. If you want to lend your support to this campaign, click here and join."

So it does look like they can identify us UK residents in their mailshots.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Hmm. I didn't get that one  In fact, I think this is the first bulk email I've ever received from TivoComm.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

Ah - a misunderstanding - I thought this was a bulk email from the forum.

I've never had any email from TiVo as their commercial arm has never been given one for me. The only emails I've ever recieved from them were work related and went to my old defunct work address (and I suspect the majority of the senders no longer work for TiVo either as they were to the UK office).

Now I understand why people are annoyed. I'd have forgiven the forum for bulk mailing an ad like this, but to come from TiVo themselves - that would indeed annoy me.


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## George (Nov 14, 2001)

cwaring said:


> Hmm. I didn't get that one  In fact, I think this is the first bulk email I've ever received from TivoComm.


Me 2....


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

aerialplug said:


> Ah - a misunderstanding - I thought this was a bulk email from the forum.


It is. At least, that's what it said on mine. Came from : <[email protected]>


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

cwaring said:


> It is. At least, that's what it said on mine. Came from : <[email protected]>


That was the mechanism of sending but wasn't the email still on behalf of Tivo itself? Annoyingly I've deleted it now in error mistaking it for one of those many redundant emails saying there is a new post in a thread you are following at www.tivocommunity.com..............


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## Gadders (Feb 4, 2002)

....but I can email a pdf version to someone to post if I've piqued anyone's curiousity.

Mark


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## Prof. Yaffle (Aug 2, 2002)

This is the one I received today entitled "TiVo Community Thanks and Holiday Cheer" from [email protected]

Holiday cheer? Ba humbug until we get a new TiVo!


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## frogster (Jan 4, 2006)

As of now I've never had _any_ emails from Tivo.

These ones that others have had seem to demonstrate a singular lack of judgment however.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Prof. Yaffle said:


> This is the one I received today entitled "TiVo Community Thanks and Holiday Cheer" from [email protected]
> 
> Holiday cheer? Ba humbug until we get a new TiVo!


Yes that was the one I received this morning and I normally never get any emails from the management of this forum.

However I assume there must be some link up with Tivo given that it is promoting the purchase of Tivo products. Or is the link up between Tivocommunity and a particular Tivo reseller?

By the way Professor Yaffle how is Bagpuss keeping these days?


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

I've had 2 emails from AV Forums, looking back. the first was dated 17th November and was mostly advertising DVDs - which I completely ignored as I figured it was advertising American DVDs.

This one had the quote "This newsletter was sent to 99,716 people. Thanks for supporting your AV community AV Forums.com."

The second, from the same sender arrived on 25th November and had a similar promotional feel with regards to selling cables and DVDs but also included the UK-centric message I've mentioned preciously.

This one claimed "This newsletter was sent to 100,665 people. Thanks for supporting your AV community AV Forums.com."

Since both "news"letters appear to be little more than adverts (and neither looked remotely like the Community Store ad above either), I'm strongly inclined to cancel using the message at the bottom of the email as I'd expect a newsletter to be a simple bulletin telling me something useful rather than some text heavily draped with graphical adverts.


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## Mike Lang (Nov 17, 1999)

Hey guys,
This was from our own forum store...
http://store.tivocommunity.com/
Sorry for the tease. There was no way to filter you guys out from the list.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Thanks Mike - unfortunately the lack of a current UK TiVo is a very sore point over here. 

Of course, we love our Series 1 TiVos, and many of us have them pimped up to the max with big drives, cachecards, hacks etc. etc. .. but the extra funky features you guys now take for granted in the US are just misty pipe-dreams for us poor Brits


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## Prof. Yaffle (Aug 2, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> By the way Professor Yaffle how is Bagpuss keeping these days?


Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss, Old fat furry cat-puss? He's fine. A bit Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams though....


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

It makes me sad to be honest. Many of my American contacts now have TiVo, and the term "I Tivoed it" seems to be part of every day speak in the same way as we "hoover" something, meaning to vacuum.

Many of my colleagues have Sky+ and use the term "I Skyplussed it" in the same way, but what they mean is quite different from the way we've come to rely on our TiVos to automatically take control of our TV (and radio) schedules. It grates my teeth when they say how wonderful Sky+ is and what it can do, when I realise that it could have been so much more.

One colleague tried to "sell" Sky+ to me this week telling me that I'd never look back once got one. I then explained what TiVo could do and that I'd had one for quite a bit before Sky+ saw the light of day. That gave him something to think about...

Sadly, Sky+ is just that - a standard Sky box with just a little bit on the side to allow hard disk recording.

When I question them on how they use it, most people I know only use it as a glorified VCR - it's recording schedule is created programme by programme directly from the EPG. Most won't trust the series links as almost universally they say that these occasionally stop working mid-series - or miss out programmes entirely. I know TiVo's season passes aren't immune to problems, but I struggle to think of the last time I missed a programme because TiVo messed up - it's usually bad programming on my part or an unexpected clash.

I have to ask - why did Sky put such rubbish software on a piece of hardware that's capable of doing so much more? The NDS XTV platform (essentially the hardware for the Sky+ box) is capable of so much more than providing "Sky TV with a bit on the side", and has been proven to do so in different foreign markets.

The explanation I've been given is that they wanted to make it feel "comfortable" for existing Sky customers. By all means, give a noddy interface for the newbies, but please, give us the option of something a bit more advanced for the 21st century!

I was really disappointed (but not entirely surprised) to see that the SkyHD interface is *exactly* the same. It doesn't make use any of the extra resolution that HD gives to give a more comprehensive, stylish and useful programme guide - we're still stuck with the awful chunky lego grid interface that's hardly changed since Sky launched in 1999 - something I found difficult, and hardly ever used even before I'd heard of TiVo. In fact, whereas they could have used the SkyHD platform to launch an entirely new platform with a new look and feel for the 21st century, they gave us Sky+ with HD for an extra £10 a month.

Oh well. It all started so well - it looked like we were going to be there, lagging only a little behind the States with regards to PVR technology - but it really does feel now as if we've basically been stuck in 1999 with regard to digital video recording technology since TiVo decided the UK market wasn't worth it. We've been hamstrung by Sky as far as alternative platforms to Sky+ for the satellite market is concerned because of their refusal to allow third parties to develop alternative platforms to Sky+ in the way they manage their conditional access - and it looks like this is the case for the foreseable future.

I had hopes that something may happen with Freeview - but developments here are also incredibly sluggish too. True, there are a couple of reasonable platforms out there (Topfield comes to mind) but this market is inherently going to be limited as many want the premium channels. Of course, there's cable, but there are many limitations here too - one being limited/no coverage, if you don't live in a major population centre.

My recent experience with a current model, off-the-shelf digital video recorder has been a real eye opener. It amazes me now how stable and robust TiVo was in its first release compared to the bug ridden equipment being foisted on the UK public in the name of PVR technology these days, even when over the air software upgrades are possible (though seemingly not being used in my experinece for this piece of hardware).


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

aerialplug said:


> Oh well. It all started so well - it looked like we were going to be there, lagging only a little behind the States with regards to PVR technology - but it really does feel now as if we've basically been stuck in 1999 with regard to digital video recording technology since TiVo decided the UK market wasn't worth it. We've been hamstrung by Sky as far as alternative platforms to Sky+ for the satellite market is concerned because of their refusal to allow third parties to develop alternative platforms to Sky+ in the way they manage their conditional access - and it looks like this is the case for the foreseable future.


I read somewhere recently that the Sky/ITV thing has *seriously* upset Richard Branson and he's trying to get something done about sky. I don't know if he's concerned about the same things we are, but a high-profile anti-sky-business-practices voice can only help.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Now that's what TiVo UK needs - Branson!!

The "Virgin TiVo"... Hmmmm


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> My recent experience[/URL] with a current model, off-the-shelf digital video recorder has been a real eye opener. It amazes me now how stable and robust TiVo was in its first release compared to the bug ridden equipment being foisted on the UK public in the name of PVR technology these days, even when over the air software upgrades are possible (though seemingly not being used in my experinece for this piece of hardware).


But there is still hope in the form of Windows Media Centre Edition and especially its forthcoming Vista version (apparently to be launched later than bog standard Vista) and all the elaborate program recording facilities that will be able to provide that are far more Tivo like.

I agree that Sky+ is a huge disgrace but entirely typical of the cynicism and lack of technological ambition that is Sky but in the long run everything will change. Eventually traditional television and PC are going to merge and all be run by a Windows MCE type interface. At that point our friend Rupert Murdoch is going to have his work cut out because if he doesn't allow his encrypted Sky broadcasts to be received via a satellite tuner controlled by Windows MCE then surely sooner or later Microsoft are going to take him court. And Microsoft have deeper pockets and access to better and more expensive lawyers than even dear old Uncle Rupey and Son James do.........


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

My biggest problem is that the channels I like eg Discovery, National Geographic etc arent available on Freeview although some of the programs may be on TopupTV, and Cable isnt an option as they go past our road but not down it so forking out cash to $KY is the only option.

I like the idea of "Virgin TiVo" though 

My Tivo is an unmodified original and just works and works. 

SKY+ is seriously getting on my ****. Several time now when fast forwarding through the kids recording to fine the 18 minute program in the 33 minute chunk recorded, the sound get seriously out of sync.... like 2 minutes or more. The picture will be of the announcement imeadiately prior to the show and the sound will be from an advert or trailer show prior to that  The only way to get it back in sync is to press "backup" and then select it to view from "last viewed".


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

katman said:


> My Tivo is an unmodified original and just works and works.
> 
> SKY+ is seriously getting on my ****. Several time now when fast forwarding through the kids recording to fine the 18 minute program in the 33 minute chunk recorded, the sound get seriously out of sync.... like 2 minutes or more. The picture will be of the announcement imeadiately prior to the show and the sound will be from an advert or trailer show prior to that  The only way to get it back in sync is to press "backup" and then select it to view from "last viewed".


So why don't you upgrade your Tivo to have a 250Gb hard drive or a 400Gb hard drive then? The costs are trivial in relation to the enhanced functionality this provides and compared to your ongoing huge financial obligations to Sky.


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> So why don't you upgrade your Tivo to have a 250Gb hard drive or a 400Gb hard drive then? The costs are trivial in relation to the enhanced functionality this provides and compared to your ongoing huge financial obligations to Sky.


I am planning to upgrade my Tivo soon. It is doing a sterling job of recording MY programs.

SKY+ costs me nothing as I get it with my program package however I am unable to cancel SKY as there would be nothing for me to TiVo 

No cable, channels I watch not on Terrestrial or Freeview


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> But there is still hope in the form of Windows Media Centre Edition and especially its forthcoming Vista version (apparently to be launched later than bog standard Vista) and all the elaborate program recording facilities that will be able to provide that are far more Tivo like.


Media Center is built in to Vista Premium and Ultimate, and is there from day 1 (Jan 30th).

While it does provide near-TiVo functionality, Vista doesn't have any real functional enhancements over XP MCE, which already has those TiVo style features. It doesn't look nice hwover - the way it pulls up the guide over the live video, which keeps running slightly faded into the background is cool!

You may be thinking of the next iteration of MCE which supposedly will address issues with DVB-T including lack of "red button" interactivity and is due later in 2007. Maybe.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

sanderton said:


> You may be thinking of the next iteration of MCE which supposedly will address issues with DVB-T including lack of "red button" interactivity and is due later in 2007. Maybe.


Yes that was what I had read something about in a computer mag.

So is this upgrade in MCE features effectively free for existing users of it either via Windows XP or via Windows Vista.? And is the functionality of MCE basically the same under XP and Vista apart from the graphical interface?

So far as Vista is concerned I would never consider paying for it as an upgrade on an existing PC but its launch does make the case for replacing an existing computer much greater as it gets older or has problems (eg two broken USB sockets out of 3 on this crappy HP Pavilion notebook) as Vista is basically included at no extra charge with a new PC compared to what one was paying only a few weeks earlier for precisely the same PC with XP bundled with it. Whereas the Microsoft upgrade prices will I assume be quite scandalous. Or at least I assume they will be as prohibitive as they have usually been in the past from previous Windows versions?

I don't know what Microsoft's thinking is with its Upgrade prices. If they only charged £25 to upgrade then most users would upgrade unless they had very old equipment that was not up to handling the new operating system requirements. And it seems that Microsoft must sell OEM licenses to the manufacturers for a mere fraction of what they charge for the product as an Upgrade version on the high street?

Coming back to Sky if and when ITV and BBC launch their rival FreeSat service then surely Sky is going to be under a lot more pressure to co-operate in allowing their encrypted services to be accessible by Windows MCE and other third party applications as if it refuses to play ball then with the free satellite channels being more widely and aggressively marketed and available on other hardware platforms people may simply decide to bypass Sky altogether and only bother with FTA DSat. To be honest the whole thing is surely contingent on C4 and Five also managing to terminate their encryption deals with Sky and I notice that one of the FTA music channels available on the Sky platform has also just taken a rather interesting dispute to Ofcom about the charges which Sky makes for appearing in its EPG as being excessive and anti competitive. Looks like things may get rather uncomfortable for Sky as traditional platform boundaries start to break down.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

Pete77 said:


> Coming back to Sky if and when ITV and BBC launch their rival FreeSat service then surely Sky is going to be under a lot more pressure to co-operate in allowing their encrypted services to be accessible by Windows MCE and other third party applications as if it refuses to play ball then with the free satellite channels being more widely and aggressively marketed and available on other hardware platforms people may simply decide to bypass Sky altogether and only bother with FTA DSat.


I don't think the Freesat consortium (for want of a better word) are counting on better cooperation with regard to encryption. My understanding was that Freesat was going to be relying on free to air broadcasting using the satellite that has a tight UK beam, once current agreements come to an end, much like the BBC are doing at the moment.

It's not that it's impossible. Last year, someone developed a CAM which reverse engineered the Sky decoder, so it isn't impossible. Granted, you had to have a card already validated to a Sky box and the CAM had to be cloned to produce the same serial numbers as the Sky box - and also the card had to be replaced in the proper Sky box every so often so that the encryption keys could be upgraded. I'm pretty sure that using this CAM violated almost every line in the Sky agreement but it worked and showed proof of principle - it was demonstrated on a Topfield IIRC.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

aerialplug said:


> I don't think the Freesat consortium (for want of a better word) are counting on better cooperation with regard to encryption. My understanding was that Freesat was going to be relying on free to air broadcasting using the satellite that has a tight UK beam, once current agreements come to an end, much like the BBC are doing at the moment.


But there are quite a number of basically non pay channel minded channels on Sky in their basic Mixes who don't really want to be part of Pay Tv at all but are forced to be by Sky because basically if you want to be FTA on Astra and have a Sky EPG listing Sky comes up with a prohibitive charge for that EPG listing - also Sky have gone out of their way to make it very difficult to even tune into a channel not in their EPG using one of their boxes (it can be done but the channel cannot be easily selected via a regular channel number). But if you agree to be part of Sky's basic pay channel package it appears Sky either agrees to give you the EPG listing for nothing or may even pay you some monthly income if you are a popular channel likely to have lots of vieweres (eg TCM or Eurosport).

If Sky could be forced by Ofcom to reduce its EPG charges for FTA channels to a realistic level reflecting its costs plus a normal profit margin then an awful lot more channels currently in the basic Sky Mixes would agree to go Free to Air.


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## Gadders (Feb 4, 2002)

Mike Lang said:


> Hey guys,
> This was from our own forum store...
> http://store.tivocommunity.com/
> Sorry for the tease. There was no way to filter you guys out from the list.


No problem, Mike. I wasn't blaming you for the offers. I'm sure they're a good deal. I just wish I could take you up on them :-(


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## thechachman (Nov 28, 2004)

aerialplug said:


> Last year, someone developed a CAM which reverse engineered the Sky decoder, so it isn't impossible. Granted, you had to have a card already validated to a Sky box and the CAM had to be cloned to produce the same serial numbers as the Sky box - and also the card had to be replaced in the proper Sky box every so often so that the encryption keys could be upgraded. I'm pretty sure that using this CAM violated almost every line in the Sky agreement but it worked and showed proof of principle - it was demonstrated on a Topfield IIRC.


 Well it's much simpler than that really, you just set the cam's boxID to be the 10 digit skybox that the card is paired to, thats all, straight forward via an onscreen menu. The Dragon/TRex cam emulates an NDS cam in all ways except not being able to handle the monthly update (and hence the need to occasionally reinsert into a skybox overnight to catch/perform such) and it allows viewing of any Sky (SD) channel via any Mpeg CI receiver assuming you have a valid Sky subscription for that channel.

Maybe a petition to Messer Branson suggesting a 'Virgin Tivo' is in order ?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

thechachman said:


> Maybe a petition to Messer Branson suggesting a 'Virgin Tivo' is in order ?


Problem is that the forthcoming Virgin Media group (Telworst and NTHell on the tv side) already have their own PVRs on the marketplace.

Unfortunately in the UK we are often denied some of the world's best inventions. France is covered in low cost but clean and comfortable edge of town hotels that you can check in to using an automatic machine outside and that only cost about 15 quid a night for a room that can sleep up to 4 people. But this formula just hasn't taken off at all in the UK due to our restrictive planning laws and the consequent high cost of hotel land.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

thechachman said:


> The Dragon/TRex cam emulates an NDS cam in all ways except not being able to handle the monthly update (and hence the need to occasionally reinsert into a skybox overnight to catch/perform such)


So only a few days or weeks worth of lost recordings then if you wanted to use the Dragon/TRex while you were away on holiday then? 

Also NDS can presumably change the encoding system at any time so as to stop the Dragon CAM working. Its not the same as Sky/NDS having an official regulatory requirement to play ball with the rest of the outside world.


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## thechachman (Nov 28, 2004)

Well we're really OT now, but no there are ways to 'share' a card between boxes so that the card could remain in a plain old sky box and the cabled (or wireless) daughtercard to the cam/pvr.

Regarding 'knocking out' the dragon cam, TBH I believe they would have a slightly difficult time of it ... If memory serves me right, it would likely require a new 'series' of viewing card. AFAIK the command/response sequences in the card are not changeable.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

thechachman said:


> Regarding 'knocking out' the dragon cam, TBH I believe they would have a slightly difficult time of it ... If memory serves me right, it would likely require a new 'series' of viewing card. AFAIK the command/response sequences in the card are not changeable.


Smart cards must cost no more than a quid or two each wholesale plus postage so Sky could easily change them all it if they wanted too. Of course no doubt the Dragon boys would then be straight back on the case trying to reverse engineer the new coding system.


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## thechachman (Nov 28, 2004)

Indeed ... given it is not a service-theft attack (it still requires a valid card/sub for viewing) I don't think Sky is overly bothered


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