back to c-band

[otherside]

I couldn't bring myself to sub to dave, so I fired up my old c-band today. It cost about $25 for 40 channels. It is a pain to go from sat. to sat. for different stations but until I get set for testing charley it'll do.

[nra man]

That beats my stinking rabitears. I kept thinking about a TIVO but I knew dave was soon to fall. TOO much too learn. That is what makes it fun always changing. Always something to learn.

[niknak]

Hey guys
C Band hack, niknak's way.
A modded VC II board gets free video in the clear.
A dave H or HU card gets free audio in the clear.
Dave gets his original transmission from C Band.
Therefore C Bands signal video gets to your TV faster than daves audio. You can live with the lip sync problem or cure it easily by delaying the C Band video using a DVR like Replay TV or TIVO.

The audio from dave for all channels should be available forever since it does not require authorization and is a function of the card to IRD communication. Therefore if dave does not attack the cards or no longer support older IRD's, it should be available a very long time.

I have verified this hack works. The H card is what I use for the audio but F, H and HU work also. I tried using the popular C Band Autoroll hack to get audio but that stinks. Need to find seeds often, need to punch in the code for every channel often and it doesn't support all VC II C Band transponders available. Doing it this way which I call Cat Eye is very easy to do, requires two IRD's and some extra remote finger work but it's easy once you get aquainted with controlling three devices (2 IRD's and DVR).

niknak

[otherside]

hi niknak, Don't you need a blackboard to hack c-band? I looked into testing the big dish once but, gave up. Maybe it's time. otherside

[niknak]

No, all you just need is a modified VC2 for C Band. That then gets all the VC 2 video in the clear.
Then use dave's H card for the audio.

Simple huh?

Not sure where you get the VC2 modules.
The ID web site has more details on C Band then here on mili's but most of those people on the ID C Band board are die hard autoroll hackers. I guess they like to punch in bunches of numbers rather then getting the audio for free (although with fixable lip sync problems). I never could get any of them to try Cat Eye. But they might steer you in how to get and mod a VC2. Good luck. C Band is BACK!
niknak

[niknak]

If memory serves .....................
The VC2 module mod is to remove the (black module 018 VC2) epoxy arround the boards rom chip. Then you either remove the chip or straddle it with a chip socket and program a new rom code to the chip to get all the analog VC2 video channels in the clear.
It's not a difficult mod but you do need to get a rom burner or buy the chip programmed.

The fun job is to melt the epoxy on the VC2 board to dig out the VC2 rom chip. without destroying the rest of the board. He he, I did not like doing that!.

niknak

[JILOMAN12670]

That sounds like a pain in the ARS!

[niknak]

Pretty simple
On HU's any 3M gives you all (every channel) audio in the clear.
On H's it's a simple two byte change to any old activation bin.

niknak

[cojones]

You must also have an IRD like the hugh e-1 gets audio but the RCA s don't .

Milis last 3m doesn't get the audio but a replace card nag.


The file dssware feb8 in the download section gets audio.

[niknak]

I use the Sony B-50's. Ooops, it's a three not two byte change for the H card.
If you want to try your IRD with the H card, do the following:
Find an old H card activation bin that once worked for you.
Using an H (not HU loader/glitcher) and the old BASICH, verify you get the H cards quickie card data.
Next, roll the updates on the H card back to 26.
Change these three bytes to the values listed:
8D6B 38
8DDF 45 00

Reboot your IRD (two finger Sony boot, for example).
You now have an H card blind mans 3M and the audio hack for the C Band VC2's.
This also works with BS cards with BS boot loaders.
You are correct about some IRD's. Some may work, some don't but most old IRD's should work. The F card also works but I don't have the supporting F card files anymore ......... nor cards.
Notice also why this works (since dave is not necessary) and unless dave starts attacking old H cards again, you will always have the in the clear audio for your enjoyment. It makes for a nice radio if for nothing else with a good supply of music in the 800's. Also if you can't see NFL, you can certainly listen to it. Then maybe, fake it, play the H card NFL sound for the game you just can't miss and watch another network NFL game of interest that you get the video from. I don't know about you guys but I'm getting all the Dolphin games this year using my H card and blind man's 3M, that I can't get locally. Try it ........ you may like it.
Who said the H card is DEAD?
niknak

[cojones]

Ah and listen to the porn too.

Ball games are good like this .

[niknak]

Sorry ... no I don't miss the good old C Band days!
It was never that good but it was where I started hacking for the very first time.
I came on board early during the H days and nothing and I mean nothing will ever be as good as the good old H and HU days. Going back to C Band is just OK now and will never compare to the days we ALL just had. I have had a ton of fun over these last few years and nothing will ever be as good hacking anything that interesting. A lot of my stuff over the years were never tried by most of you but some tried it and liked it. There was PCLONES, PZT, The Direector, SAM and my Blue ICE H card emulator which gave me great satisfaction and pleasure being able to contribute to this hobby, however limited that was.
Now there is only the Blind mans 3M and Cat Eye for C Band, left still working, however poorly it seams, compared to what we once had.

I don't know about you. But I had a fantastic time with the H and HU over the years. I thank all those I learned from and in some small way, tried to help those with some of my ideas and teachings. It's hard to imagine how this could ever happen again. I'm happy that it lasted so long but sad that it's ending an era of fun that may never be repeated again. We all will look back at these days as a age of sharing between hackers of good will. People helping people, making friends, learning and rendering aid to those in need of help ............ made this hobby very special for me. I said goodbye to the H card on 10/13/2002 (still frozen in time on my freebie web site) and now the end of the HU is only days away. Like most of you, I'm hoping there is more to come but if not .................
we had a great thing and a great RIDE for awhile and I was happy being a part of it with you all.

"I'm NEVER wrong ....................................... most of the time!"

niknak

[sdeens]

Hi Niknak.

I was just commenting in another thread here at Mili's that we should be researching the old CAT EYE program for Dave..I just couldn't remember the name (I called it Felix) so I appologize for my poor memory, but I knew it was a workable solution for those lucky enough to have a BUG dish and Sony or Hughes IRD...I figured the RCA wouldn;t work because of the audio issue with them.

I also used PCLONE, PZT and the like, I remember the wars where lazy people refused to believe you could "platinumize w/all sports tickets" any basic H sub..it sure was alot easier to do with the H card before tier checksums came into play..plus Davey made other changes with tier/group management that made it more diofficult.

my favorite was the single byte change on the H card in a certain area of the primary group key that prevented tierwipes..aka INS42 tiers wipes..that was better than even NOZKT and lasted all the way until the end of the H card in Oct. 2002.

Can you tell me more about which video channels exactly Dave is broadcasting in the clear on C-band..so people fortunate enough to have their old BUG in the back yard expect to get from the Dave line up..can you get all of them if you switch around or are they grouped nciely together?

sadly I do not have the BUG, but I like to hear about these off the wall testing methods with the VC2 boards.

CAT-EYE that's the name I wont forget it next time.

:-)

[sdeens]

BTW did anyone ever port or test this with the Chaarlie and BEV video signal, i was wondering if they too broadcast their video unencrypted on C-band?

i guess I better go start reading the C-band forums again

;-)

[niknak]

In the clear C Band channels (for video) link:

http://www.21st-satellite.com/satellite_tv.html

All the YELLOW displayed channels get both video and audio in the clear (FTA channels).
All the BLUE displayed channels have the video in the clear using a CBand VC2 mod.
Most all of the BLUE channels (audio wise) are in the clear that match up to daves channels.

As you can see that's a pretty good sub for little work to get started if you already have C Band video working. BUT NO CODES NEEDED TO GET IT TO WORK and it stays working!

I posted this Cat Eye concept or fix a couple of years ago on the ID web site since you could have done this back then but did require a special IRD since dave attacked the H and HU cards which turned off the audio occationally and had to be restarted. I found a quirk in some of the Sony B50's that allowed me to send a remote control IR command using Cat Eye to restore the audio immediately from my easy chair. The microprocessor controled Cat Eye was able to receive and decode discrete IR commands so I can :

Enable the audio channels when bombed by dave by pressing the IR IRD remote.
Send channel commands to the IRD, intercept and convert to IR Blaster commands.
Cat Eye IR BLASTED Replay TV to auto lip sync audio to C Band video (pre canned values)
Cat Eye incremental step up/down lip sync timing using your IR remote for perfect tweeks and incremental lip sync channel to channel saves.
Cat Eye sent a viewable message to the TV screen to show the channel conversion data.
C Band channel selection done manually to move your BUD to set the video channel.
Notice also that Cat Eye uses daves TV Guide and that to still works today using the H card and not available on C Band. This TV guide is worth doing it with Cat Eye, if nothing else was done. C Banders need to buy paper TV guides or internet TV guides or do manual channel surfing to find whats on and which sat and transponder to go to. Sat F4 used to have the C band guide but a pain in the ass to move the BUD there to get that visual data. This is another free, usefull and convienient part of the Cat Eye system.
Go to dave's TV guide, select the channel to watch, punch in the dave's channel number, Cat Eye blasts the Replay TV to set the proper lip sync stored delay and finally the TV displays the corresponding C Band video sat and transponder to manually set to, to complete the Cat Eye selection.

Would have been too much work to automate the C Band IRD to move the dish and set the C Band transponder. Besides most C Band IRD's do not respond to IR Blaster commands. My Huston Tracker was on RF control of the IRD. Way too much engineering work to automate the C Band side of Cat Eye.

AS you can see, Cat Eye hardware was necessary back then since dave shut off the audio every 1 - 12 hours. Normally that would mean you need to update and reprogram the H or HU card but thankfully, due to a firmware quirk, the Sony B50 could restore the audio easily by receiving a pre canned messages in Cat Eye that could be exicuted with a single remote control IR command and transfered to the IRD via the LSDP serial port. Since dave no longer attacks the H data stream and now the HU, you don't need the Cat Eye hardware to keep the audio alive and working the main job of the early Cat Eye. Now, the audio stays on all the time and doesn't require any IRD (B50) rehits. The Cat Eye hardware is still nice to have to automate the lip sync to channel delays (individually) and the display of audio to video channel conversion but not necessary since the main task keeping the audio alive is no longer an issue. If you need lip sync perfection to watch TV since it does change slightly from channel to channel then you may need to build your own Cat Eye else it may be good enough to just get it close enough manually and live with it that way. I seriouly doubt you will like to watch a TV program with a 2.5 second lip sync problem. It'll drive you nuts.

It's BUD (BIG UGLY DISH).

All channels (I assume) like HBO originate from a central source and are mostly derived from C Band as used by dave and maybe charlie and bev also. Therefore, if you get the audio channel in the clear whatever system you use, the Cat Eye concept should work for C band hack as well.

For those that want to try the Cat Eye concept, I suggest, first do everything manually and live with the bad lip sync problem. Then if you still like working with two IRD's to get daves audio and VC2's video, then buy a DVR like the Replay TV to cure the massive lip sync problem manually. If you then want to go further to automate the entire system, ask for niknak's help to build your own micro processor controled Cat Eye system. Unfortunately, since Cat Eye uses the IRD remote for command transfer and intercept, and there are many IRD's, the Cat Eye firmware would be different from IRD to IRD. Group projects would help rescue developement time when settled on a single IRD. I can freely supply the basis of Cat Eye engineering if requested. Most all IRD's have IR BLASTER outputs for controlling devices like the Replay TV needed to cure the lip sync problem. So try it manually first, in steps, see it work at various stages when implmenting the Cat Eye concept. I would like to help those needing help to go all the way to make a SECOND Cat Eye system. Only one built thus far. You can still view the Cat Eye hardware on my old freebie site that I no longer have access to. Only techies can go all the way with Cat Eye but it's not that difficult to build and copy once someone does the engineering that's somewhat IRD peculiar. Else, just enjoy the basic Cat Eye hack manually and save your fingers from banging in all the auto roll code that's not needed nor does it get all the channels you get with this hack. It's not as good as we had with the H or HU but ya gotta live with what's available at the time and this concept does work with little effort to obtain the working parts to the total system.
Some old C Band Auto Roll die hards will never update to this easy to use system. It's been arround for years and introduced by me when I started up the C Band forum on ID. I don't think one other hacker tried the Cat Eye concept. Guess you got to drag the old die hard C Band hackers, kicking and screaming to a new age of hacking C Band. Too bad it didn't take off years ago. For us dave users, it wasn't necessary to enhance Cat Eye, so it stoped and died at our or my door step. Now conditions are different in the demise of the HU. It's now either Charlie, BEV or Cat Eye. I don't even entertain Auto Roll as a viable option for C Band. But God gave us all a brains to use as we desire and especially free choice. It's up to us to use it wisely during our logical selection process when we think. Some do ................. some don't.

niknak

[shopright]

why can't you use a fortecstar to do the same thing

[niknak]

Whats a fortecstar??????????

[shopright]

Whats a fortecstar??????????

fortecstar is a free to air receiver can pick up all birds and d$net flashs thru a db9 on back of ird if you have heard of the silver bullet or blackbird this it their are others names go on ebay and search fortec you want the pre march 04 units.

[niknak]

From what I heard, and read awhile back most of the good channels no longer work.
It was called blackbird I think. Use the google search to read the latest poop.
Who wants to buy some iffy working system? I think it's a dead dog.
Charlie, BEV and Cat Eye are your best choices at this time or just buy a dave's sub.
A NASTY THOUGHT for some!
niknak