free cinemax weekend

[bigjug]

While watching a movie on the free cinemax weekend I started to thinking: I wonder if I could recieve these channels on my fta setup. Soooo ... I went and scanned 110/119. (I have an invacom lnb.) No dice. Now I am wondering, why? If these channels are basically in the clear for suscribers, why are they not actually in the clear? Don't misunderstand, I am not talking about hacking, just playing with my system and getting anything it will legally get. -- Which is what most of us do.

Thanks,
Jug

 

[Mr Tony]

There is a difference between in the clear and what would be considered "fixed key" (I guess....)

in the clear...there is no scrambling on it....period. Dish 101 is ITC
fixed key...normally scrambled but the switch is flipped to bypass the encryption for Dish subs only.

Now note that not everyone gets the "freeview" on Dish.

Back when Dish had stuff unencrypted there were 2 sets of channels you could get (this was up until a year or so ago)
on a FTA box it was Nasa, Angel One, Dish 101, the CD and mono audio channels (no Sirius) and Ion. Also the "you have a dish aimed at ________________" screen. All of these were unencrypted
on a non-subbed Dish box (previously subbed) it was the 1st 3 channels above, CCTV 9, CCTV F&E, the "you have" slates and the knockoff shopping channels (all 638 of them). The audio was NOT part of it. Those were "redded out" (means no sub)

so there was a difference

 

[tvropro]

There is a zero key mode that any FTA receiver can receive and a preview mode that requires an active subscription key to open. It works like that on most systems.