UPC Analogue Access Denied message on screen

zg3409

Hi,

I was setting up a TV on UPC analogue (there is no digital) on Wicklow Towns cable system. In the past this has around 16 channels and some were fed from Satellite. Most seem to be fed from UPC MMDS now (no HD logo on RTE2 for example). In the past Sky sports was available if you paid extra and they would give you a coke can type adapter to fit in line which moved the unencrypted channel into a place your TV could tune it.

Anyway there is still no digital available but when retuning the analogue only TV I came up upon this message:



The strange thing is, as far as I am aware, no decoder available for analogue TVs, so no way anyone could be viewing this channel. What I suspect is this a message from an MMDS box, who's subscription card is invalid. Presumably at some stage it was displaying an analogue channel to the area, but now gives an error.

Can anyone confirm this is a normal MMDS box error?

Has anyone heard of a decoder box supplied by UPC for analogue TV?

icdg

zg3409 wrote: »

Hi,

I was setting up a TV on UPC analogue (there is no digital) on Wicklow Towns cable system. In the past this has around 16 channels and some were fed from Satellite. Most seem to be fed from UPC MMDS now (no HD logo on RTE2 for example). In the past Sky sports was available if you paid extra and they would give you a coke can type adapter to fit in line which moved the unencrypted channel into a place your TV could tune it.

Anyway there is still no digital available but when retuning the analogue only TV I came up upon this message:



The strange thing is, as far as I am aware, no decoder available for analogue TVs, so no way anyone could be viewing this channel. What I suspect is this a message from an MMDS box, who's subscription card is invalid. Presumably at some stage it was displaying an analogue channel to the area, but now gives an error.

Can anyone confirm this is a normal MMDS box error?

That's the message that appears on a UPC digital cable box, when one isn't subscribed to the channel you are attempting to access. That looks like its coming from a UPC digital cable box.

Has anyone heard of a decoder box supplied by UPC for analogue TV?

UPC's predecessors Princes Holdings and Chorus both supplied such boxes (typically Jerrold or General Instrument), for analogue MMDS and cable (the latter in Cork only). However the encyption system used on these systems was rather rudimentary and these boxes were incapable of displaying the message above.

The Cush

icdg wrote: »

That looks like its coming from a UPC digital cable box.

Could it be a Digital MMDS box message, as zg3409 mentioned that the system may be fed from mmds?

The Cush

Slightly OT but what happens MMDS fed cable systems in early 2016 when MMDS is switched off?

icdg

The Cush wrote: »

Could it be a Digital MMDS box message, as zg3409 mentioned that the system may be fed from mmds?

Could indeed., but the only thing mitigating that is that the OP had also said he's in Wicklow which is a DVB-T area and I understood (but stand to be corrected) that UPC hardware wasn't compatible with that network (being DVB-C based).

zg3409

I thought the Wicklow mast for MMDS was part of NTL former region which would be DVB-C, but I do not know for sure.

Anyway I suspect there is probably no box available to home users to decode it, just UPC messed up.

I believe when/if MMDS shuts down all these cable systems will be moved off MMDS feeds.

lucernarian

icdg wrote: »

UPC's predecessors Princes Holdings and Chorus both supplied such boxes (typically Jerrold or General Instrument), for analogue MMDS and cable (the latter in Cork only). However the encyption system used on these systems was rather rudimentary and these boxes were incapable of displaying the message above.

Ex-CMI areas in Swords and Malahide *might have used* Jerrold descramblers until UPC finally got around to replacing the headends in the part of Swords I was familiar with. I saw a weird situation where a TV could tune VHF3 and UHF channels but no "superband" analogue channels or suchlike. The solution was to use a Jerrold box to pick up all the channels and then output on a scart lead. The TV I saw this being used on had no VCR.

Anyway after some time, the Jerrold box stopped working (they sent out someone to collect the box as it could no longer be used there) so presumably it meant that there was some sort of scrambling present beforehand. They ended up getting a cheap TV that could scan all available channels.

Antenna

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Ex-CMI areas in Swords and Malahide *might have used* Jerrold descramblers until UPC finally got around to replacing the headends in the part of Swords I was familiar with. I saw a weird situation where a TV could tune VHF3 and UHF channels but no "superband" analogue channels or suchlike. The solution was to use a Jerrold box to pick up all the channels and then output on a scart lead. The TV I saw this being used on had no VCR.

Anyway after some time, the Jerrold box stopped working (they sent out someone to collect the box as it could no longer be used there) so presumably it meant that there was some sort of scrambling present beforehand. They ended up getting a cheap TV that could scan all available channels.

The Jerrold analogue boxes I saw in the past (Cork area) certainly did not have a SCART out. They output on RF-only (like a modulator) on a single RF channel.
SCART not in common use in USA anyway (where these boxes originated) and they descrambled without demodulating the signal (rapid changes in RF gain during picture synch pulses scrambled and descrambled the signal)
It was obvious when changing channels which ones were scrambled or not - the unscrambled ones (just the Irish channels in Cork city) appeared 'instantly' when changing channels, whilst the other scrambled ones had a noticeable delay (maybe 1 second or slightly less) before an unscrambled picture appeared.

I suspect in that area (north Co. Dublin) the boxes were only usually needed for subscriber to sports/movie channels, before these went digital only.

watty

The Cush wrote: »

Slightly OT but what happens MMDS fed cable systems in early 2016 when MMDS is switched off?

They will feed head ends (currently fed with MMDS) with Fibre, dedicated Microwave link, their own satellite feed or coax. If it can't be economically done (unlikely if more than 20 customers) then those customers will have no service.

lucernarian

Antenna wrote: »

The Jerrold analogue boxes I saw in the past (Cork area) certainly did not have a SCART out. They output on RF-only (like a modulator) on a single RF channel.
SCART not in common use in USA anyway (where these boxes originated) and they descrambled without demodulating the signal (rapid changes in RF gain during picture synch pulses scrambled and descrambled the signal)
It was obvious when changing channels which ones were scrambled or not - the unscrambled ones (just the Irish channels in Cork city) appeared 'instantly' when changing channels, whilst the other scrambled ones had a noticeable delay (maybe 1 second or slightly less) before an unscrambled picture appeared.

I suspect in that area (north Co. Dublin) the boxes were only usually needed for subscriber to sports/movie channels, before these went digital only.

I should add two things: SCART was an assumption as I remember having to use the AV button on the TV but that doesn't count for much. So RF out could well have been used. Secondly, the Jerrold box was used for RTE2 at least and when broadband enabling works and retuning had been carried out, there was a period of time where they couldn't watch RTE2. Eventually they got a new CRT TV.

That's confusing, the Jerrold boxes could output unscrambled channels intact going by the above. Yet why were they no longer able to use the Jerrold box when the site was finally enabled for broadband off UPC??