Have Austar Changed Encryption On Their Cards?

[Chappas]

Good for sheep, yes.

But third party boxes, such as those used folk who take the card and use them in caravans etc when on hols (some along with Aurora too), will now have to lug the 'boxy' Austar decoder with them. No Signal or Quality meter for setting the dish, just BER etc that mum n pops simply do not savvy.

Then the PVR set such as myself I guess (Toppy PVR4000/5000-Mediastar, and thats not the Mediastar that upscales via HDMI btw, but its sister 'basic' PVR) used these waaaaayyyy before MyStar came along, these are much better products and whilst not usable for 'ACTIVE' and not that that is a big deal in my view, but are NOT simply restricted to the one provider, but opened up a whole new world of viewing from Al Jazeera International on the same satellite that carries Foxtel/Austar/Aurora, to multitudes of other chanels (Incl niche) on both C band and Ku;

VOA TV, NOW, Channel News Asia, NASA TV, Russia Today, Press TV Iran, News feeds unedited, English language Saudi channel, Arirang TV, Afghan and Iraqi channels, Indonesian channels, China's CCTV's, NOW TV, English Movie Channel on T18, heck- even X porn if you wanted it etc and so on. Even a few FTA high def IF you have a DVB-S2 receiver.

As much as I'd like to think folk would backlash and cancel, I'd accept only a small portion of folk used the boxes and would retaliate by cancelling. The provider banks on that of course.

But as we know, they have deliberately done this to kill off the piracy white-card phenomenon, but the move restricts trade to an effect, even though T&C's prohibit so.

SelecTV is the only domestic 'pay' option now, but they are consumer friendly and need support. Aurora is of course a one off fee.

I think you guys have already elaborated why you like to use 3rd party boxes for Austar. Its easier to post links to those rather than re-typing the reasons why again don't you think?

[Keepleft]

I think you guys have already elaborated why you like to use 3rd party boxes for Austar. Its easier to post links to those rather than re-typing the reasons why again don't you think?

Sweet Jesus Oh Glorious Satan; for me its much faster to type in diect response than going on a search to yield various results, and to then direct fella to which portion of each! No need to quote my whole post again, but thanks anyway:-)

Edited April 23, 2008 by Keepleft

[Chappas]

Sweet Jesus Oh Glorious Satan; for me its much faster to type in diect response than going on a search to yield various results, and to then direct fella to which portion of each! No need to quote my whole post again, but thanks anyway:-)

if your reason is as good as your spelling and grammar, i can understand ;-) *only stirring matey!*

[Hosko]

You can hardly blame Austar for doing the only thing they could possibly do to stop the pirated cards from working. To anybody we forked out on a third party STB you knew the risks before you bought it. Sure in a perfect world it would be an open system which you could use whatever, however its not and Austar never said it was. If you want open subscribe to SelecTV, if Austar wants to add things to their stream to make it impossible to use a pirated card its their choice. That's one of the reasons they don't let people use third party equipment.

[sjsh]

You can hardly blame Austar for doing the only thing they could possibly do to stop the pirated cards from working. To anybody we forked out on a third party STB you knew the risks before you bought it. Sure in a perfect world it would be an open system which you could use whatever, however its not and Austar never said it was. If you want open subscribe to SelecTV, if Austar wants to add things to their stream to make it impossible to use a pirated card its their choice. That's one of the reasons they don't let people use third party equipment.

You just have to LOVE to death the moronic apologists for Crapstar! How much are they getting paid for the verbiage they spew out in defence of the indefensible! Let's get the facts straight! 1) Crapstar is nothing but a rebadger of Foxtel 2) for those of us who pay MORE for the Crapstar full service than subscibers of Foxtel with an IQ (and yes I am one of them too, so don't bother disputing facts, I also have an apartment in Sydney with that susbcription service!) it is a disgrace that Crapstar charge what they do for the piece of crap they call a decoder it is analog RCA output only and don't bother suggesting S-video is an improvement it's NOT. 3) Selectv do not seem to have a) any problems with 3rd party decoders or with alleged piracy problems, so why is poor Crapstar the only target? 4) for those of us who do not have access to terrestrial TV and need to buy Aurora cards and therefore run two fully PAID for subscription service cards for use on Optus C1 - WHY THE BLOODY HELL MUST WE RUN 2 DECODER BOXES to protect Crapstar's bottom line? I have been able to run 2 sub cards in a Mediastar decoder upscaled to HDMI with SPDIF till 14:30 22/4/8. Now like the demise of the Concorde I am FORCED backwards by Crapstar to a barely watchable analog pic with crap sound! And please don't seriously suggest MyStar - all the reviews bag it....so WHY CAN'T CRAPSTAR GET IT'S SH*T TOGETHER AND ISSUE SUB CARDS THAT WILL WORK IN 3RD PARTY DECODERS???? The Aurora channels including MSCM, Imparja. GWN and WIN can lock down their sub cards to 3rd party decoders! So it is possible. Ok you Crapstar apologists who seem to have a pathelogical urge to try an suffocate logic with your endless and totally unasked for nay saying. Butt out of this debate unless you have been using 3rd party decoders. This forum is for supporters of DIGITAL TV not analog crap. Have I made myself clear enough, go foul someone else "sand pit"!

[DrP]

What a lot of dribble, and I'm no supporter of Austar/Foxtel/Optus.

it is a disgrace that Crapstar charge what they do for the piece of crap they call a decoder it is analog RCA output only and don't bother suggesting S-video is an improvement it's NOT.

It is. A significant increase in picture quality can be obtained by using it, even taking Foxtel's woeful picture quality into account.

Selectv do not seem to have a) any problems with 3rd party decoders or with alleged piracy problems, so why is poor Crapstar the only target?

'gamma' cards for Select are available, they just aren't as popular compared to the ones for Austar because select has a lot less programming .. and a lot of what they do have isn't that interesting and select is comparatively 'cheap'*

4) for those of us who do not have access to terrestrial TV and need to buy Aurora cards and therefore run two fully PAID for subscription service cards for use on Optus C1 - WHY THE BLOODY HELL MUST WE RUN 2 DECODER BOXES to protect Crapstar's bottom line?

Aurora is NOT a subscription service. There is a one off activation fee and from then on it is $0 cost to the viewer. You could ask why Foxtel doesn't supply viewers in WA with an Irdeto compatible box so they can use it to watch Aurora as well.

If you are going to launch into a rant, at least try to be factual about it. Perhaps the reality of your situation has come crashing down around you after you realised that your 'action' against Austar with the ACCC is doomed to failure. There was no breach of any regulations by Austar WRT to disabling 3rd party equipment.

Of course if your intent was to troll, then you are an idiot.

_{*its still not value for money}

[sjsh]

What a lot of dribble, and I'm no supporter of Austar/Foxtel/Optus.

It is. A significant increase in picture quality can be obtained by using it, even taking Foxtel's woeful picture quality into account.

'gamma' cards for Select are available, they just aren't as popular compared to the ones for Austar because select has a lot less programming .. and a lot of what they do have isn't that interesting and select is comparatively 'cheap'*

Aurora is NOT a subscription service. There is a one off activation fee and from then on it is $0 cost to the viewer. You could ask why Foxtel doesn't supply viewers in WA with an Irdeto compatible box so they can use it to watch Aurora as well.

If you are going to launch into a rant, at least try to be factual about it. Perhaps the reality of your situation has come crashing down around you after you realised that your 'action' against Austar with the ACCC is doomed to failure. There was no breach of any regulations by Austar WRT to disabling 3rd party equipment.

Of course if your intent was to troll, then you are an idiot.

_{*its still not value for money}

No an idiot! But DAMN mad and, as I said people like you obviously don't use the 3rd party equipment, (be suprirsed if you even susbcribe to Austar!) so what makes u feel so profoundly capable of comment on something you clearly know nothing about! Your ignorance exhibits your "idiocy", Austar is being very restrictive in its behaviour and if you are happy to defend them that's your problem, not mine and I will continue to vent, as will ALL other genuine susbcribers who are paying for an inferior product that is NOT available digitally via Austar's standard decoders. You aint gonna weether me down with your waffle. As I said this is a forum for people who actually use and appreciate DIGITAL TV. Do you? if so what equipment are you using, would be nice to know if your even on the same planet!

[DrP]

But DAMN mad and, as I said people like you obviously don't use the 3rd party equipment, (be suprirsed if you even susbcribe to Austar!) so what makes u feel so profoundly capable of comment on something you clearly know nothing about!

Not only are you incorrect on several points in your 'rant' you are incorrect on those two points too. Are you trying for some sort of record?

If, as you say, Austar is an inferior product why are you still paying for it? Complain about it sure, but if its so bad, send them the only message they will understand and terminate your subscription. All the rest of your rant means zip to Austar.

[Chappas]

No an idiot! But DAMN mad and, as I said people like you obviously don't use the 3rd party equipment, (be suprirsed if you even susbcribe to Austar!) so what makes u feel so profoundly capable of comment on something you clearly know nothing about! Your ignorance exhibits your "idiocy", Austar is being very restrictive in its behaviour and if you are happy to defend them that's your problem, not mine and I will continue to vent, as will ALL other genuine susbcribers who are paying for an inferior product that is NOT available digitally via Austar's standard decoders. You aint gonna weether me down with your waffle. As I said this is a forum for people who actually use and appreciate DIGITAL TV. Do you? if so what equipment are you using, would be nice to know if your even on the same planet!

So easy to create enemies yet so hard to make friends with that sort of waffle don't you think?

[MadMagpie]

lol forums.....

well I finally got my pvr set up working nice, I have a twinhan sat card and a cam for it, my pvr outputs 720p via hdmi cable to my Panasonic lcd tv and the picture quality is far superior to the standard s-vid, the difference between the two is vast. if you can't see a difference go and see your local eye doctor.

I am also a multi-room subscriber and only have the second box/card to run in my mediacentre/pvr, we shell out around $120 a month (full subscription) for our service and I can tell you right now we will be cancelling our second subscription, we will be cancelling the movie channels as well as most of the other fluff we have subscribed too, and as soon as the footy season is over we will likely cancel the whole lot, not only are we forced to endure more and more advertising on the service we pay for austar seem to want to keep us all locked in the 90's, I wouldn't mind as much if they had a competitive product, a stop into any sat shop will show you austar box's are some of the cheapest crapiest things around, if austar had a box worth having most of us would not be complaining right now.

I only have it for sport, tho the other half likes some programs, but now I have to revert to s-vid on a lcd screen, it's like getting your new nokia replaced with a early '90's "mobile" phone.

We get punished for the pirates, only people penalised are paying subscribers, give it a bit of time and the pirates will be back and all this would be for nought.

[Stockman]

lol forums.....

well I finally got my pvr set up working nice, I have a twinhan sat card and a cam for it, my pvr outputs 720p via hdmi cable to my Panasonic lcd tv and the picture quality is far superior to the standard s-vid, the difference between the two is vast. if you can't see a difference go and see your local eye doctor.

I am also a multi-room subscriber and only have the second box/card to run in my mediacentre/pvr, we shell out around $120 a month (full subscription) for our service and I can tell you right now we will be cancelling our second subscription, we will be cancelling the movie channels as well as most of the other fluff we have subscribed too, and as soon as the footy season is over we will likely cancel the whole lot, not only are we forced to endure more and more advertising on the service we pay for austar seem to want to keep us all locked in the 90's, I wouldn't mind as much if they had a competitive product, a stop into any sat shop will show you austar box's are some of the cheapest crapiest things around, if austar had a box worth having most of us would not be complaining right now.

I only have it for sport, tho the other half likes some programs, but now I have to revert to s-vid on a lcd screen, it's like getting your new nokia replaced with a early '90's "mobile" phone.

We get punished for the pirates, only people penalised are paying subscribers, give it a bit of time and the pirates will be back and all this would be for nought.

While I agree with the general sentiment of your post although I am unlikely to cancel my subscription. If I thought it would change things... well then maybe.

I have an investment in two 3rd party PVRs with legitimate subscription cards for each. The most recent of these PVRs was purchased the week before the "update" and arrived last Monday. Sadly, it died the next day.

I knew the risk that I was taking and so have no one to blame but myself. It is disappointing, however, that Austar can't seem to find a way to defeat pirates without killing off 3rd party decoders.

I'll park the PVRs and watch these (and other) forums for the post that declares a solution is at hand. No doubt someone is working on that solution right now....

The fallback will be the MyStar product when the bugs are (mostly) ironed out. That should be sometime around 2012 LOL.

Stockman

[viewer1503559544]

The fallback will be the MyStar product when the bugs are (mostly) ironed out. That should be sometime around 2012 LOL.

Stockman

Your a little optomistic with the 2012 scenario......

[theslydog]

I define 'competent' as works properly. Safe to say that none of Austar's boxes actually work properly. Bugs of all types abound and lets not forget that regular automated restart to try to keep a lid on things either. Oh and its best you don't mention the mystar when it comes to 'competent' operation.

I agree with both DrP and Keepleft

However, if Austar really wanted to be accommodating they could release a 'CAM and card kit'.

Austar could then completely marry the card and CAM before it left Austar and it could be used in after market receivers with a CI slot. This would allows folks with a Mediastar to still use it.

It would still lock out priates because they sold the 'CAM and card' as a married kit and the CAM would not work with any other card. This would be a compromise on Austars behalf and be an act of good faith.

I doubt it will happen but it would be a work around and they would probably get a lot of extra subscriptions out of it. It would also be a PR bonus for them.

tsd

Edited April 29, 2008 by theslydog

[Tassie Devil]

I agree with both DrP and Keepleft

However, if Austar really wanted to be accommodating they could release a 'CAM and card kit'.

Austar could then completely marry the card and CAM before it left Austar and it could be used in after market receivers with a CI slot. This would allows folks with a Mediastar to still use it.

It would still lock out priates because they sold the 'CAM and card' as a married kit and the CAM would not work with any other card. This would be a compromise on Austars behalf and be an act of good faith.

I doubt it will happen but it would be a work around and they would probably get a lot of extra subscriptions out of it. It would also be a PR bonus for them.

tsd

Excellent suggestion, but it would go against their Mystar profits so, sadly, would be unlikely to be accepted. But please follow it though and let us know Austar's reaction.

John

[MadMagpie]

The problem now is if a pirate card came along that worked again I would be for the first time be tempted to get one, obviously trying to be legit and law abiding seems to only get me punished for applying legal readily available technologies in my home.

yeah yeah I know terms of contract yada yada, I would be interested if the people who hold up the T&C as some defence for austar actually follow the T&C of every single device they own or subscribe too, if you do you must have a fairly boring time with them, to me half the fun of technologies is seeing how much of it I get get to work together.

stockman m8, I will be cancelling most of the subscription today sometime, a couple of months ago we got a new decoder off of austar and since they have updated their system the thing locks up every half hour or so and only powering it down or resetting it will just sit there locked up, it has already ruined half a dozen or so recordings, I have gone from a value added product to a product that is barely serviceable.

the 6yo box has no probs.

besides it is not like I can't get the content they broadcast via other means.

Edit: I'd like to point out too while I am at it, I have NO intention of subscribing to mystar, I have a pvr's and I don't need another one in my house.

I have one device to power that does all I need it to do, powering multiple pvr's (one for tv and now one for austar), dvd players, blu ray, mystar, surround sound audio system, 81cm LCD tv, xbox media extender can not be cheap in the long term, add to that the cost of quality cables.

My pvr does all the above (bar the tv, audio amp and xbox) and draws as little power as I can make it, it can turn itself on and off, no going to standby all the time. it saves me money on electricity bills.

Edited April 29, 2008 by MadMagpie

[happychappy]

I agree with both DrP and Keepleft

However, if Austar really wanted to be accommodating they could release a 'CAM and card kit'.

Austar could then completely marry the card and CAM before it left Austar and it could be used in after market receivers with a CI slot. This would allows folks with a Mediastar to still use it.

It would still lock out priates because they sold the 'CAM and card' as a married kit and the CAM would not work with any other card. This would be a compromise on Austars behalf and be an act of good faith.

I doubt it will happen but it would be a work around and they would probably get a lot of extra subscriptions out of it. It would also be a PR bonus for them.

tsd

If such a 'kit' worked in ALL relevant 3rd party boxes, this might be a good idea. If they had to customise (&test) a different 'kit' for every single box on the market, why would they? I bet it would cost heaps to implement and the return on their investment would be questionable. After all, the vast Majority do not have their own sat PVR's .. enthusiasts do sure, but sadly enthusiasts probablu comrise point something of one percent of the massess..... and therefore the economics of going down this road would be flawed...

Edited April 29, 2008 by happychappy

[DrP]

I doubt that Austar would go down that path anyway. Austar/Foxtel/Optus/the content producers et al don't want you to have the ability to shift 'high quality'* digital copies of the content around.

*applied loosely

[happychappy]

I doubt that Austar would go down that path anyway. Austar/Foxtel/Optus/the content producers et al don't want you to have the ability to shift 'high quality'* digital copies of the content around.

*applied loosely

Of course... didn't think of that ... another reason for sure.............

[davmel]

The problem now is if a pirate card came along that worked again I would be for the first time be tempted to get one, obviously trying to be legit and law abiding seems to only get me punished for applying legal readily available technologies in my home.

I couldn't agree more. Austar have royally p*ssed off a lot of their PAYING customers with their haphazard countermeasure, in an attempt to knock out pirates who wouldn't have subscribed to the service and generated income for Austar anyway!

My loyalty to Austar for being on the highest tier plan for 8 years and willingness to pay Austar one more cent has disappeared overnight with their draconian actions.

I can only hope that karma will ensure Austar goes bankrupt in the future and is bought out by Foxtel or some other company that isn't as tight ass and inflexible as Austar. Now that Austar have removed any favourable options to watch their service (other than to use their bug ridden piles of crap they call set top boxes) everyone outside the metro capitals and WA must now put up with inferior pay TV. Now is as good a time as any to push for this stupid metro/regional Foxtel/Austar market arrangement to be scrapped.

Edited April 30, 2008 by davmel

[Tassie Devil]

I doubt that Austar would go down that path anyway. Austar/Foxtel/Optus/the content producers et al don't want you to have the ability to shift 'high quality'* digital copies of the content around.

*applied loosely

Do you or anyone else know what the PQ is like from selectTV?? No argument the PQ went backwards when I had to abandon the Toppy & go back to the Austar STB and that deterioration went far further than any differences between s-video and RGB-> component.

I would imagine that the video quality is set by the provider of the service (meaning Movie one etc) rather than Foxtel, Austar or Select and that the resultant PQ depends upon the next step, the decoder.

The price difference between Austar & select is not all that huge but, unless one is prepared to go down the rocky Mystar path (and I'm not) then the time shift convenience factor using a PVR makes Select look better to me.

John

[davmel]

Do you or anyone else know what the PQ is like from selectTV?? No argument the PQ went backwards when I had to abandon the Toppy & go back to the Austar STB and that deterioration went far further than any differences between s-video and RGB-> component.

They appear to have more channels per transponder than Austar/Foxtel:

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/selectv.html

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/austar.html

So I would expect the quality to be the same or slightly lower than Austar.

I'll be able to confirm in a few weeks when I get setup to watch Selectv anyway.

[DrP]

The PQ isn't significantly different to Austar. I have been told by some that the audio quality on discovery * is better than Austar, but I haven't attempted to verify it. The quality supplied by Movie * to the operators is excellent. The quality crash comes when the operator takes what is supplied and squeezes to down to 2 or 3 Mbit/sec average for distribution to the viewers STBs. Uncompressed SD is about 280Mbit/sec....

[mtv]

With SelecTV, I've found some of the channels to be a bit ordinary in PQ, like CNN and BBC news, however the movie, music and national geo channels are very good.

[Tassie Devil]

Thanks for the reply guys.

Yes I found Austar Nat Geo (the latest releases) & Movie channels high PQ (they upscale VERY nicely) so it sounds as if PQ wise there is not much to choose between the two services -> Austar will lose this customer when the contract runs out.

John

[happychappy]

I have tried both & PQ is on par.