Videocipher question

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jsb1980

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Sep 25, 2007
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A little picture for those of you in the television business or who have worked at network affiliates back in the day:

http://www.akdart.com/vtr/jpeg/RB-324.jpg

The picture in the link above is of KDFW-TV's satellite room circa late 1980s, back during their days as a CBS affiliate. If you'll notice closely on the second rack from the left side, above a monitor, is a Videocipher descrambler. However, as I've mentioned this was from a CBS affiliate.

Am I safe to assume that the Videocipher decoder in the rack in that picture would be one of the Videocipher IB decoders that CBS shipped to their affiliates back in the post-1987 era when they began encrypting their Telstar 301/302 affiliate feeds? It looks to be the same design as a Cable company VC2/VC2+ decoder unit, and I've never seen a VC-I/IB decoder unit and strangely there have been no pictures of such floating around the internet (plenty of VC2/VC2+/VC-RS modules). It would be unlikely that any network affiliate would have a commercial VC2 decoder unit as part of their network reception gear....except possibly for reception of CNN, and I don't recall KDFW ever carrying CNN programming.

Just curious to know.
 
I think you answered your own question. CBS was never encrypted with VCII, only VideoCipher I.


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Looks like a Toshiba IRD (consumer unit) just below the bank of 6 monitors on the right.
Probably there so the tech could catch a movie on HBO after the 6 o'clock.
2nd rack from the left also has a Houston Tracker IV in the blue panel cutout.
 
I think you answered your own question. CBS was never encrypted with VCII, only VideoCipher I.


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True, what I was asking was whether that was a Videocipher I decoder in that picture? Nobody has ever posted a picture online of what a Videocipher I Decoder looks like, from what I've recalled. All I've seen are the VCII commercial and residential decoders. It was only a thought that maybe the VCI decoders were the same design as the VCII commercial decoders on the outside.

I emailed the owner of the site and he believes that it is a VCII box intended for CNN. (Strange, seeing that of course there were plenty of CNN backhauls and newsfeeds on various other sats, and I don't see a local affiliate recording stories right off the CNN national feed for cable and home viewers.)
 
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