ESPN VC II Subscriptions, are they still around?

[John Popper]

Im a huge College Hoops fan but my local ESPN (ESPN Latin America and ESPN 2 MEXICO) hardly show any games, so I wanna get those analog ESPN and ESPN2 channels on G14. I was wondering if there is a website where I can pay for the service. Back when I was using the big dish on the regular (before 2003, I just got back into the groove for FTA about 3 weeks ago) I used to log into www.bigdish.com and buy a la carte from them, I just gave them my decoder's number, paid with a credit card and voila!
The other day I tried to see if they were still around just to find out they are no longer on the net. I know there are only like 3 VCII channels around, but is there a way to get a subscription since I still have a working VCII plus decoder.

Also if there is no way to get a subscription, why is ESPN and the Weather Channel still broadcasting this way?

 

[ikki]

> ESPN VC II Subscriptions, are they still around?

Thats a BIG negative.

 

[tvropro]

The VC2 consumer data stream was dropped in January of 2009. It won't be back. Every so often ESPN goes in FA if you have a vc2 it will decode that.

Gotta wonder why those 2 channels are still up in VC2? Besides the headends that still may be using it. The only other ones that can watch it is someone with an old chipped box. You would think ABC/Disney would want to pull that down already because of security reasons.

 

[melgarga]

Been a while since I looked but TWC was still analog (VCII) too.

 

[B.J.]

The VC2 consumer data stream was dropped in January of 2009. It won't be back. Every so often ESPN goes in FA if you have a vc2 it will decode that.

Gotta wonder why those 2 channels are still up in VC2? Besides the headends that still may be using it. The only other ones that can watch it is someone with an old chipped box. .....

Well, you don't need a chipped box to "watch" those channels. The video isn't encrypted, only the audio is encrypted. The video is just reversed video and missing a sync, or something like that. Some analog receivers can display the video on these channels, and you can also get external devices that will re-insert the sync and reverse the video.
The audio, on the other hand IS encrypted, however there are places on other satellites, where you can find the audio unencrypted, but it's more trouble than it's worth to have 2 receivers looking at two different sats, and need to then match up the audio/video with a TIVO or something. Result is that nobody's going to bother, so it might as well be encrypted.
I hope the channels stay there in VCII, because it makes it easier for me to peak that sat, particularly because in the winter, my dish often gets stuck any time I go down there, and when it gets stuck, it usually gets out of sync, and I have to re-find the sats, so it's nice to have an analog channel handy.

 

[John Popper]

Well, you don't need a chipped box to "watch" those channels. The video isn't encrypted, only the audio is encrypted. The video is just reversed video and missing a sync, or something like that. Some analog receivers can display the video on these channels, and you can also get external devices that will re-insert the sync and reverse the video.
The audio, on the other hand IS encrypted, however there are places on other satellites, where you can find the audio unencrypted, but it's more trouble than it's worth to have 2 receivers looking at two different sats, and need to then match up the audio/video with a TIVO or something. Result is that nobody's going to bother, so it might as well be encrypted.
I hope the channels stay there in VCII, because it makes it easier for me to peak that sat, particularly because in the winter, my dish often gets stuck any time I go down there, and when it gets stuck, it usually gets out of sync, and I have to re-find the sats, so it's nice to have an analog channel handy.

I know, analog channels make it much much easier to position or adjust the dish.

I kinda guessed there would be no way to get a sub but I asked anyway!

 

[tvropro]

Well, you don't need a chipped box to "watch" those channels. The video isn't encrypted, only the audio is encrypted. The video is just reversed video and missing a sync, or something like that. Some analog receivers can display the video on these channels, and you can also get external devices that will re-insert the sync and reverse the video.
The audio, on the other hand IS encrypted, however there are places on other satellites, where you can find the audio unencrypted, but it's more trouble than it's worth to have 2 receivers looking at two different sats, and need to then match up the audio/video with a TIVO or something. Result is that nobody's going to bother, so it might as well be encrypted.
I hope the channels stay there in VCII, because it makes it easier for me to peak that sat, particularly because in the winter, my dish often gets stuck any time I go down there, and when it gets stuck, it usually gets out of sync, and I have to re-find the sats, so it's nice to have an analog channel handy.

If I remember my VC-2 video theory right. The sync is suppressed and the video inverted. You need to use the color burst as a reference and insert a gating pulse to lock the sync back at it's proper position. Many cable and OTA decoders worked along those lines in those days. The audio is fully digital encrypted and resembles some of the technology used in the DC-2.

Analog is nice and easy to find a bird but it's getting less and less out there. You have to teach yourself how to use angles and meters to find digital signals. The trained eye (I have one of them) can actually look at the snow pattern of a digital channel on analog and have a pretty good idea there is something there. If you look at the snow on an inactive transponder than one running digital you can see a difference. Once you see the pattern changing you watch the signal strength meter and zero it in.

 

[skysurfer]

Gotta wonder why those 2 channels are still up in VC2? Besides the headends that still may be using it.

I can imagine they still might be used for network return if needed.

I remember in the good ole days when ESPN came to town for the college basketball telecasts -- usually the midnight ET game in the Monday tripleheader -- there would be a 10' satellite dish on a trailer with a cable running into the production truck for the network return using the Galaxy 5 ESPN feed. The 10' dish isn't one of those transportable c-band dishes you see today. It was a circular 10' dish on a two-wheel trailer and I bet it was rented locally to take the network return. I should ask my friend if he rented any of his portable teleconference dishes to the ESPN production in those days.

Galaxy 5 ESPN also has good memories in that I acquired a VC2+ cage and descrambler in 1992 and subscribed to ESPN/ESPN2 only as my first C-band subscription services. I had watched "ITC" stuff up until then and then did a hybrid of "ITC" stuff and ESPN subscription until ESPN was dropped from consumer subscription and I went to DISH Network for my ESPN.

 

[Corrado]

My Samsung TV is the enemy when it comes to finding and tuning the analog in the "snow". After about one second of "snow" it cuts the picture to "CHECK SIGNAL CABLE" and a blank screen. :rant:

The engineers didn't think we would need that sometimes we want to see through the static.

I keep my little analog test TV nearby for those occasions. My VC2 is still running a year after the cutoff and those unavailable channels still there today. I wonder who's paying the uplink and who's still using it???

 

[tvropro]

My Samsung TV is the enemy when it comes to finding and tuning the analog in the "snow". After about one second of "snow" it cuts the picture to "CHECK SIGNAL CABLE" and a blank screen. :rant:

The engineers didn't think we would need that sometimes we want to see through the static.

I keep my little analog test TV nearby for those occasions. My VC2 is still running a year after the cutoff and those unavailable channels still there today. I wonder who's paying the uplink and who's still using it???

Ya my Sharp HDTV kills the video too. I have other analog sets that do just fine.

With all the tall $$$$$$ ESPN and Disney get they can afford the VC analog transponders and think nothing of the cost. Some people don't realize that most Americans are struggling in this economy. To the big $$$$$$ players its just another day in paradise.

 

[B.J.]

My Samsung TV is the enemy when it comes to finding and tuning the analog in the "snow". After about one second of "snow" it cuts the picture to "CHECK SIGNAL CABLE" and a blank screen. :rant:

...

My Samsung does similar things on the RF inputs, but I have my analog receiver coming in (via a TIVO) into one of the A/V inputs, and I have no problem watching "snow" all day long. So I'm wondering whether you're using a video input or an rf input?

 

[Corrado]

My Samsung does similar things on the RF inputs, but I have my analog receiver coming in (via a TIVO) into one of the A/V inputs, and I have no problem watching "snow" all day long. So I'm wondering whether you're using a video input or an rf input?

My Uniden Ultra and the DSR905 sidecar are connected to the Samsung on AV2 using just the RCA cables. The Diamond 9000HD and DVD use HDMI. The DSR922 and Philips DVD recorder/PVR use S-Video.

I also use the roof top antenna for current 17 DTV +1 remaining analog channels OTA from Albany, NY.

 

[skysurfer]

I wonder who's paying the uplink and who's still using it???

probably those older hotel headends are still using it (grin).

ESPN and NBC Universal are paying the bills. They should just shut off the analog, force those remaining headends to take the digital feed, and reuse those transponders to move more of their services into HD that are currently not lit up yet in HD.

 

[tvropro]

There leaving analog up so the techie's can watch the video still. LOL. :yikes

 

[B.J.]

My Samsung does similar things on the RF inputs, but I have my analog receiver coming in (via a TIVO) into one of the A/V inputs, and I have no problem watching "snow" all day long. So I'm wondering whether you're using a video input or an rf input?

My Uniden Ultra and the DSR905 sidecar are connected to the Samsung on AV2 using just the RCA cables. .....

I thought this was strange, because my Samsung didn't behave this way, so I went back to check to make sure I didn't remember it wrong. Now I can't get it to go to the blank screen no matter what I do, except for just a couple seconds whenever I switch to HDMI-1 which I have my AZBOX connected too {apparently the AZBOX must take a while to start sending out video when you switch to it's input}. I have my Monty55 going in both through the cable RF port, and through AV2, and it shows me snow most of the time.
Anyway, I thought it must be a setup parameter, so I checked, and my Samsung has a "blue screen" parameter, so I tried turning that on, but it's still the same, I'm getting snow, and no blank screen on both rf and AV2. So I tried to change channels on the cable RF input. Normally, the Monty comes in on ch-4, so I switched to 5, where there is nothing, and THEN I DID get the blue screen, and when I turned the blue screen function off, then it still gave me snow, although it had a box saying "Weak or no signals". Switch back to ch-4, and it gave snow, but no no signal box.
It seems like the TIVO that's sending the Monty signal to my Samsung must be putting out a high enough level of the "snow" signal that it's making the Samsung think there's a signal there. So I switched direct to the Monty, but it was the same. Then, I tried connecting to my old Drake 1824, and sure enough, when IT was putting out snow, when it didn't have a signal, the Samsung DID go into a blank screen like you describe.
So it seems to be dependent upon what source you run into the Samsung.