That's the thing about BSB, they used DMAC but all of the boxes you showed had PAL modulators, most of them would have been connected to CRT TVs via the aerial socket from that modulator which kind of defeated the whole point of using DMAC. Superior picture and digital stereo, transcoded to PAL and mono sound. Also, BSB was a closed system. You were only ever going to get five channels. Sky used an open system, renting space on a private satellite system that was constantly being expanded, meaning other broadcasters could rent space on those same satellites and also be available to Sky subscribers while being completely independent of Sky. I remember when Astra 1D first went up and you had to get another box that would upconvert 1D's frequencies so that older Sky satellite receivers could tune into them! They were out of range for the original analogue Sky boxes! I think the box connected between the dish and the LNB in socket and maybe one of the SCART sockets to pick up a control signal? Can't remember if I used that with an Amstrad receiver and switched to a Pace that didn't need the box, or a Pace receiver that did need the box and something else that didn't.
Back in the day I had one of the Philips boxes, 5 channels but 2 were scrambled so really just a 3 channel box , the retail price I seem to remember was £399 and I got one for just £80 as the wholesaler was desperate to get rid of them , it lasted a year before it went off and as you say was destined to fail as sky had 19 channel capability in those days .
I was a Salora/Nokia dealer & had three of their BSB systems in stock. One I had set up in my shop with the "squariel" in the shop window, which worked fine unless I pulled the sun blind down ! Then Sky bought BSB out & that was the end of that. Eventually after a lot of nagging Salora took them back in exchange for three of their Astra systems.
Great stuff Michael. Yes I had a Philips BSB receiver and subscription. DMAC picture very good via RGB. Sky offered years subscription after close down as compensation. I remember using a modified BSB receiver to watch D2MAC music channels. Thanks for sharing, Daz.
I have never had any satellite equipment but I would have loved an enormous dish in my back garden. I remember the pirate cards and I’m definitely not admitting to building some for friends using a PIC chip. I do remember doing some design work back in the day for low noise amplifiers in the down converters.
We had one of the Salora brand boxes, though the TV (also a Salora) could actually have a basic satellite tuner option board fitted inside the set by the dealer to receive free-to-air/ non-encrypted channels.
Thanks for reminding me about the unreliable Tatung earlybird receivers , glad we were selling the amstrad analogue receivers instead at the time .Though Tatung did deliver some Tatung Bsb receivers to us about 2 days before Sky took over BSB needless to say they were never unboxed and Tatung wouldn't take them back
I remember doing a course on the Amstrad box Astra Sky system. Never actually worked on any of them . Around 1990 I think that was. BSB completely flopped as far as I recall.
I remember modifying the Philips ex-BsB receivers for Scandinavian TV channels (TV5 ?), they would have burned in subtitled English language films and some pornographic content after closedown which made them popular in the UK. A piggy-back board was required for the version of D2-MAC they used, also a large dish (900mm) was needed as the operator of the marco-polo satellite changed the spot beam so the old squarials would not provide enough signal.
I don't remember the D2 -MAC boxes having another use but I can remember the Videocrypt stand alone descrambler boxes having another use but I cant remember what it was , and we had a guy that would buy as many as we could supply for £25 each which was quite a bit of money back then .
@@michaeldranfield7140 Yes, the sloping front units with single scart connector, they could be modified for "Adult Channel" decoding with a pic based smart card.
The BSB boxes seem to have been really well built, 30 years later most of them still seem to be working fine. A good percentage of the regular analogue sat receivers from the same era seem to have some fault or issue. If you have a hackrf you can transmit D/D2-MAC signals from a PC with the hacktv program.
That's the thing about BSB, they used DMAC but all of the boxes you showed had PAL modulators, most of them would have been connected to CRT TVs via the aerial socket from that modulator which kind of defeated the whole point of using DMAC. Superior picture and digital stereo, transcoded to PAL and mono sound.
Also, BSB was a closed system. You were only ever going to get five channels. Sky used an open system, renting space on a private satellite system that was constantly being expanded, meaning other broadcasters could rent space on those same satellites and also be available to Sky subscribers while being completely independent of Sky.
I remember when Astra 1D first went up and you had to get another box that would upconvert 1D's frequencies so that older Sky satellite receivers could tune into them! They were out of range for the original analogue Sky boxes! I think the box connected between the dish and the LNB in socket and maybe one of the SCART sockets to pick up a control signal?
Can't remember if I used that with an Amstrad receiver and switched to a Pace that didn't need the box, or a Pace receiver that did need the box and something else that didn't.
Back in the day I had one of the Philips boxes, 5 channels but 2 were scrambled so really just a 3 channel box , the retail price I seem to remember was £399 and I got one for just £80 as the wholesaler was desperate to get rid of them , it lasted a year before it went off and as you say was destined to fail as sky had 19 channel capability in those days .
I was a Salora/Nokia dealer & had three of their BSB systems in stock. One I had set up in my shop with the "squariel" in the shop window, which worked fine unless I pulled the sun blind down ! Then Sky bought BSB out & that was the end of that. Eventually after a lot of nagging Salora took them back in exchange for three of their Astra systems.
Great stuff Michael. Yes I had a Philips BSB receiver and subscription. DMAC picture very good via RGB. Sky offered years subscription after close down as compensation. I remember using a modified BSB receiver to watch D2MAC music channels. Thanks for sharing, Daz.
I have never had any satellite equipment but I would have loved an enormous dish in my back garden. I remember the pirate cards and I’m definitely not admitting to building some for friends using a PIC chip. I do remember doing some design work back in the day for low noise amplifiers in the down converters.
There was different types of pirate cards if i remember right as some stoped working
Look forward to seeing the tx10. Good video
its coming ! might be a little while yet though got some very interesting things on at the moment, watch this space .
We had one of the Salora brand boxes, though the TV (also a Salora) could actually have a basic satellite tuner option board fitted inside the set by the dealer to receive free-to-air/ non-encrypted channels.
Thanks for reminding me about the unreliable Tatung earlybird receivers , glad we were selling the amstrad analogue receivers instead at the time .Though Tatung did deliver some Tatung Bsb receivers to us about 2 days before Sky took over BSB needless to say they were never unboxed and Tatung wouldn't take them back
I remember doing a course on the Amstrad box Astra Sky system. Never actually worked on any of them . Around 1990 I think that was. BSB completely flopped as far as I recall.
I remember modifying the Philips ex-BsB receivers for Scandinavian TV channels (TV5 ?), they would have burned in subtitled English language films and some pornographic content after closedown which made them popular in the UK. A piggy-back board was required for the version of D2-MAC they used, also a large dish (900mm) was needed as the operator of the marco-polo satellite changed the spot beam so the old squarials would not provide enough signal.
I don't remember the D2 -MAC boxes having another use but I can remember the Videocrypt stand alone descrambler boxes having another use but I cant remember what it was , and we had a guy that would buy as many as we could supply for £25 each which was quite a bit of money back then .
@@michaeldranfield7140 Yes, the sloping front units with single scart connector, they could be modified for "Adult Channel" decoding with a pic based smart card.
@@mfd70 Ah, that's why there was such a big demand for them , the adult channel .
Like the digital version of rediffusion
interesting i never serviced any of the ones tou have there wish i could say the same for the pace models with the self destucting PSU .
The pace models were dreadful, most of the electrolytics dried out due to heat and the fact they were poor quality caps to start with .
The BSB boxes seem to have been really well built, 30 years later most of them still seem to be working fine. A good percentage of the regular analogue sat receivers from the same era seem to have some fault or issue.
If you have a hackrf you can transmit D/D2-MAC signals from a PC with the hacktv program.
Yes, someone else said they were hackable, there can't be that many around anymore.
BSB 5 channel tv
yes and I think from memory 3 channels were scrambled so you could only watch 2 for free.
Marco Polo bsb satellite had one mod to d2mac great
Ive a reddifusion mk4 made by Murphy
Dmac Marco polo satellite