Cable Descrambler Problems

[joe smith]

I'm an out of work Electrical Engineer and in my free time I was going to
fix an old cable descrambler and was wondering if any one knows were I could
find some schematics or more info. The box is a Multiview brand box, I'm not
sure of the model number. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[JURB6006]

If it's an SSAVI or some variant you have a chance if your local CATV co still
uses it. If it is digital you have alot of research and hard work ahead. It is
not worth the effort.

To steal digital cable now is simply not cost effective. Legally you can do
this for research and educational purposes, but as soon as you succeed you must
turn it off.

The last time I did this was in Cleveland, and I beat a modified SSAVI system.
This system used an inversion of not only the burst, but the audio carrier as
well. This played havoc on the audio channel path. They also used SAP as a
barker channel which bled through because of the tuned circuits preceeding the
audio detctor. I beat this by muting the audio carrier during H retrace with a
simple diode from the decoder board. It wasn't great, but it was listenable. So
what there were 20% duty cycle holes in the 4.5 Mhz carrier, but it didn't
cause the anomalities in the tuned circuit like an inverted carrier does.

The inverted carrier screws up the sidebands of the audio channel and to fix it
you need to work on what is called the "demodulated IF signal", which is not
available, for example, at the video output of a VCR or component TV tuner. The
SSAVI system also requires a longer AGC time constant (which I provided)
because the lack of H pulses during the picture, but not during retrace (caused
a bright band to appear at the top of the screen).

The fast AGC time constant is used in TV tuners to reduce "airplane flutter"
and is not nessecary on a CATV system. I suspect their decoders simply used an
active filter at about 3 Mhz. Since it was reconstructed, it wouldn't really
have to be all that good of a filter, just enough to do the job. It's high pass
output was sent to an invertor and a switch (like a 4066). I could beat it the
right way, but now they all do the digital cable on the "high" channels.

To beat this you need to know how to set the address of the box to the "master
address", otherwise all you will get is gibberish.

While I never prefer to discourage anyone, I would suggest you make better use
of your precious time.

JURB

[The.Central.Scru...@invalid.pobox.com]

In article <20020820005139...@mb-fv.aol.com>, JURB6006 wrote:
| While I never prefer to discourage anyone, I would suggest you make better use
| of your precious time.

especially considering that any box that uses digital scrambling (all current
systems) will be worthless without a subscription and that such a box is free
with a subscription.

[Chris]

You mean there are cable companies out there still using SSAVI? I'm under
the impression that most if not all cable services have gone to digital for
protection, more features, and more channels. The systems around where I
live use Pioneer or GI boxes and I know of no "cracks" for these systems.
Has anyone out there heard of any?

--
Remove "NS" from address to respond.

"JURB6006" <jurb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020820005139...@mb-fv.aol.com...

[The.Central.Scru...@invalid.pobox.com]

In article <18A89.15461$I6.13...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, Chris wrote:
| You mean there are cable companies out there still using SSAVI? I'm under
| the impression that most if not all cable services have gone to digital for
| protection, more features, and more channels. The systems around where I
| live use Pioneer or GI boxes and I know of no "cracks" for these systems.
| Has anyone out there heard of any?

The "cable tv descrambler plans" scam is a lot older than the switch to digital
scrambling.

[Chris]

I know about descrambling SSAVI and other schemes using audio sidebands
where they would bury the main audio and/or H sync pulses. What I'm asking
for is info on the purely digital scrambling. These systems use neither of
these techniques. About the only possible info I have is that it uses some
kind of algorithm that may require a computer to descramble. They may also
be playing around with the AGC levels. They might also be messing around
with the positions of the scan lines. I don't know but I would like to find
out what they are doing around here. Does anyone know?

--
Remove "NS" from address to respond.

<The.Central.Scru...@invalid.pobox.com> wrote in message
news:slrnam5kpi.24m.The.Cent...@localhost.localdomain..
.

[Techie]

Im in a aera Where SSAVI is Old Tech, Zenith st-1600 box's were the one of
choice for a while.
my "modified" box used to work great until i had to unplug it one day,
ever since then i have Never gotten back a unscrambled signal.
i tried different st-1600's different MOD Chips etc... Nothing works.
bummer.
Wanna buy a tricked up st-1600?

"joe smith" <le...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:PPg89.34216$N9.48...@twister.neo.rr.com...

[Andy Cuffe]

Chris wrote:
>
> You mean there are cable companies out there still using SSAVI? I'm under
> the impression that most if not all cable services have gone to digital for
> protection, more features, and more channels. The systems around where I
> live use Pioneer or GI boxes and I know of no "cracks" for these systems.
> Has anyone out there heard of any?
>
> --
> Remove "NS" from address to respond.
>

Are you kidding, my cable system still uses notch filters to remove an
interference signal placed above the picture carrier. You can build an
almost usable filter with a few common parts.

--
Andy Cuffe
balt...@psu.edu