April 29, 2016 at 11:05Disconnecting analog satellite TV: 4 years later (part 1)
Hello everyone, dear Habrozhiteli!
This is my first post on Habr, so I’m asking you not to kick much, constructive criticism on the content of the article is only welcome :)
4 years ago, broadcasting of analogue TV channels from the Astra 19.2 ° E satellite constellation was completely stopped. These were the last satellites in the world, which at that time still broadcast television channels in analogue. This event could not go unnoticed by me, and I decided to use the equipment I have to record the maximum number of shutdowns of TV channels. How I did it and what came of it can be read in a cycle of two articles.
In general, broadcasting in analogue from a satellite, in terrestrial and cable broadcasting, is essentially the same. Those PAL in Europe, SECAM in French and NTSC Americans, sometimes diluted with variousnot tricky encodings like Syster / Nagravision or Eurocrypt. At one time they broadcast in exotic formats like D / D2-MAC , HD-MAC and others - MAC , but I didn’t find the channels in these standards - the last TV channel broadcasting in the D2-MAC standard, Danish DR2, was turned off almost 10 years ago , in the year 2007. Here is a video of disabling it:
As you can see, nothing special - just cut down the transmitter signal. By the way, this was not always the case, for comparing the video of disconnecting the KTLA TV channel (2009, Los Angeles):
Pretty impressive, isn't it? :)
Unfortunately, not everyone leaves the air this way. Someone goes on a regular night prophylaxis and does not get out of it, someone just cuts down the transmitters. Naturally, it was very interesting for me to watch how the remaining 30 German television channels that would be left at that time would go off the air.
Big Analog Shutdown was announced on April 30, 2012. At the time of the beginning of observations of the satellite analogue, broadcasting was carried out from Atlantic Bird 3 5 ° W satellites and from the Astra 19.2 ° E constellation in the Ku band. Five French TV channels broadcasted from the Atlantic in SECAM (yes, that same honest Soviet-French SECAM that was caught on all Soviet color television sets), and from Astra - a little more than 30 TV channels and about the same number of radio stations. Radio, by the way, was broadcasting from the same transponders as TV, simply with a subcarrier offset above the television signal, or instead of the audio track of one of the channels. There were whole transponders, completely clogged with radios. The radio went in VERY high quality, I won’t say specific numbers by frequency, but apparently the Germans didn’t skimp on quality and didn’t play music from MP3s.
Be that as it may, but everything comes to an end.
Fast surfing on Astra as of June 11, 2011 :
The Nokia SAT 8003 S device with support for D2-MAC and Panda Stereo was used as a receiver in this video (yes, yes, Nokia not only released mobile phones).
The receiver looks something like this (the photo is not mine):
Do not pay attention to the list of channels in the video, it was like that when you bought the receiver and was not updated before recording. In 2011, some channels did not change transponders and remained at the same positions that they broadcast in the distant 90s. At 3:38, you can see how the receiver mistakenly took the usual PAL signal for the D2-MAC and tried to decode it, which naturally did not work out.
As you can see, a decent number of channels, but they have a lot of television infomercials, watchable in my opinion was only Eurosport , the Sport 1 yesViva . Radio is also present, but not everything is configured on the receiver.
The same thing, only on the receiver is simpler and a day later (why? There may be an error in the dates):
The Echostar SR-90 receiver has already been used here, you can compare the image quality with Nokia and Ekhostar - there is a difference. The capture card is the same in both cases, the wires are the same :)
On October 1, 2011 Channel 21 Shop leaves the broadcast . Not a particularly interesting event, in addition to that, studies were in full swing at that time and there was no time for shutting down some kind of telemarket there.
Another zapping on December 3, 2011 . Under the spoiler, nothing particularly interesting. The same channels (except for the severed telemarket), the same Nokia.
On December 4, 2011, the plate was reconfigured to Atlantic Bird 3 to attempt to catch the French. It seems like Brest fell into the coverage area, so it was decided to take a chance and rotate the plate ... At first, the trial version was a “hand-held” method, because the plate was not rotated by 5W, after a successful attempt to receive this satellite, the second bracket was suspended and the plate was hung on another wall of the house.
What I would like to draw attention to: on this satellite the analog coding Syster / Nagravision was used! 2011, everyone is sitting on the digital, and the French are encoding their Canal + in Nagravision! This was a great discovery for me. Here's what a scrambled analog signal looks like:
The whole essence of the encoding was to rearrange the lines in the frame. The decoder must, according to its algorithm, rearrange the lines in such a way as to obtain the original frame at the output. There is a plugin for VirtualDub called NagraDub that successfully decodes this kind of video.
Here is an example of a decoded passage above:
UPD: Somehow there was a landing with Atlantic Bird 3 as of June 11, 2011 . Apparently, I made attempts to accept it six months before the blackouts in December:
Since December 2011, on the Atlantic, the French have chopped off almost all (ha ha, there were only 5 left 2) channels and instead launched an info channel with a description of how to do it in order to catch in digital. The same video was played on this channel in the replay, here it is:
Once again, I note that the broadcast is in the most honest SECAM'e. The picture quality is quite high, not counting goosebumps from outside the coverage area.
These dice remained on the air until ... Yes, it doesn’t matter, I did not fix this moment. On January 1, 2012, Canal + was also turned off and on the Atlantic in the analogue there were only two transponders with dies.
The first mass shutdown was scheduled for late December 2011. On the New Year's Eve, three transponders were supposed to go down: DMAX on 11377V, Nickelodeon / Comedy Central on 11421H and Viva on 11612H.
It was decided to record the shutdown of Viva.
Since it was New Year's Eve 2012, it was decided to put a VHS video recorder with the possibility of recording in LP and HiFi-stereo sound on the balcony closer to the plates, and transfer one of the plates from HotBird to Astra. The second remained to hang on NTV + Eutelsat 36E and delight us with a New Year's disco of the 80s.
The approximate shutdown time was calculated: I assumed that the channel would be turned off at midnight German time. But either the first champagne worked for me, or the Germans replayed something, but out of 8 hours of recording on tape, the TV channel turned off at 7:55. That is, 5 minutes before the end of the E-240 tape.
Here's how it looked:
Nothing interesting, exactly on schedule at midnight for some time, the carrier was turned off (and, possibly, immediately transferred to DVB). Further interference can be explained by the operation of the APSG receiver and tuning to an adjacent transponder.
There were 119 days left until the big shutdown ...
To be continued ...
PS Come on to my channel on YT. The channel is mainly devoted to the themes of the old TV. I try to collect old screensavers, announcements and other interesting things that were broadcast on TV in the distant 80-90s.
PPS And I can not help but take the moment and not say that we will soon open the first real museum of retrocomputers in Minsk. Come and subscribe to our group in vk. We will open soon, so stay tuned :)
For this I take my leave.
This is my first post on Habr, so I’m asking you not to kick much, constructive criticism on the content of the article is only welcome :)
4 years ago, broadcasting of analogue TV channels from the Astra 19.2 ° E satellite constellation was completely stopped. These were the last satellites in the world, which at that time still broadcast television channels in analogue. This event could not go unnoticed by me, and I decided to use the equipment I have to record the maximum number of shutdowns of TV channels. How I did it and what came of it can be read in a cycle of two articles.
Great lyrical introduction
In childhood, cable TV operator Vizit worked in our area. Subscription was very expensive (as far as I remember, in 1999 the monthly subscription was about 25 bucks, which by the standards of a city like Brest was a pleasure for the rich, to which we did not rank ourselves). Now this operator exists, though under a different name. So, these guys had such a killer signal that we could receive their channels without any problems on a nearby lying neatly laid parallel to their cable RC-75, going from the collective antenna to us. There were other tricks that I won’t write about here, but you never know ... In general, we could watch TV channels without a subscription, though in noisy quality, but it was better than a few standard channels from the collective + Poles to the decimetric "eight" .
The guys broadcast mainly the analogue from Astra in German (sometimes English), later there appeared channels from NTV + (I remember the coded analogue Our Cinema, which for some reason hung on the air for almost 3 days, and then was replaced by something else), then Already switched to broadcast from the numbers. When reconfiguring the TV channels, these guys did not turn off the ether in the cable, and it was possible to see the whole process of tuning, changing parameters, and looking out the window, one could see men tinkering on the roof with a 5-meter (or more? From memory it is hard to say) reflector. It fascinated me very much, and I liked to watch for hours all these unfamiliar words “Transponder”, “FEC”, “Polarization”. Then I was only 7 years old ... These shots very much cut into my memory.
A long childhood dream - to put a plate in my home and learn how to receive satellite TV channels was realized only in 2010, when I entered the university and moved to permanent residence from Brest to Minsk. Literally from the first scholarship, the cheapest analog TV set at that time was bought - a round plate with a diameter of 0.6 m from stainless steel, an Amstrad converter with KSh = 1.2dB, a receiver of the same brand without OSD with a four-digit seven-segment indicator. For all this good, as much as $ 15 was given - a third of the scholarship!
Since they lived with the guys on the set, they were afraid to hang a plate at the hospital. They tried to catch on a “mop” - they took and screwed a plate on a wooden mop, put it out the window and tried to catch something. It was late at night, on the way to the 19th degree there were trees, and of all the attempts, we were lucky to catch a useful signal for only 3-4 seconds. On the TV "Horizon" some grannies-zombies slipped, the logo of the ZDF channel was visible. This was more than enough for us and we were happy to go to celebrate this business with ajar of foam, there was no beer in the first course and beer in general was bad :)
Photo of this action, unfortunately, was not preserved.
Next was the purchase of the Dreambox DM500, a motor-suspension, kindly presented by a friend from Germany, an almost dropped 1.2m plate from the height of the 9th floor, etc. But this is rather a topic for a separate article :)
Why am I all ... Since already in 2010 it was clear that the analogue from the satellite would inevitably go away (wastefully occupying the entire band of the transponder on one channel and 2-3 radios), I decided to capture everything this is an action.
The guys broadcast mainly the analogue from Astra in German (sometimes English), later there appeared channels from NTV + (I remember the coded analogue Our Cinema, which for some reason hung on the air for almost 3 days, and then was replaced by something else), then Already switched to broadcast from the numbers. When reconfiguring the TV channels, these guys did not turn off the ether in the cable, and it was possible to see the whole process of tuning, changing parameters, and looking out the window, one could see men tinkering on the roof with a 5-meter (or more? From memory it is hard to say) reflector. It fascinated me very much, and I liked to watch for hours all these unfamiliar words “Transponder”, “FEC”, “Polarization”. Then I was only 7 years old ... These shots very much cut into my memory.
A long childhood dream - to put a plate in my home and learn how to receive satellite TV channels was realized only in 2010, when I entered the university and moved to permanent residence from Brest to Minsk. Literally from the first scholarship, the cheapest analog TV set at that time was bought - a round plate with a diameter of 0.6 m from stainless steel, an Amstrad converter with KSh = 1.2dB, a receiver of the same brand without OSD with a four-digit seven-segment indicator. For all this good, as much as $ 15 was given - a third of the scholarship!
Since they lived with the guys on the set, they were afraid to hang a plate at the hospital. They tried to catch on a “mop” - they took and screwed a plate on a wooden mop, put it out the window and tried to catch something. It was late at night, on the way to the 19th degree there were trees, and of all the attempts, we were lucky to catch a useful signal for only 3-4 seconds. On the TV "Horizon" some grannies-zombies slipped, the logo of the ZDF channel was visible. This was more than enough for us and we were happy to go to celebrate this business with a
Photo of this action, unfortunately, was not preserved.
Next was the purchase of the Dreambox DM500, a motor-suspension, kindly presented by a friend from Germany, an almost dropped 1.2m plate from the height of the 9th floor, etc. But this is rather a topic for a separate article :)
Why am I all ... Since already in 2010 it was clear that the analogue from the satellite would inevitably go away (wastefully occupying the entire band of the transponder on one channel and 2-3 radios), I decided to capture everything this is an action.
In general, broadcasting in analogue from a satellite, in terrestrial and cable broadcasting, is essentially the same. Those PAL in Europe, SECAM in French and NTSC Americans, sometimes diluted with various
As you can see, nothing special - just cut down the transmitter signal. By the way, this was not always the case, for comparing the video of disconnecting the KTLA TV channel (2009, Los Angeles):
Pretty impressive, isn't it? :)
Unfortunately, not everyone leaves the air this way. Someone goes on a regular night prophylaxis and does not get out of it, someone just cuts down the transmitters. Naturally, it was very interesting for me to watch how the remaining 30 German television channels that would be left at that time would go off the air.
Big Analog Shutdown was announced on April 30, 2012. At the time of the beginning of observations of the satellite analogue, broadcasting was carried out from Atlantic Bird 3 5 ° W satellites and from the Astra 19.2 ° E constellation in the Ku band. Five French TV channels broadcasted from the Atlantic in SECAM (yes, that same honest Soviet-French SECAM that was caught on all Soviet color television sets), and from Astra - a little more than 30 TV channels and about the same number of radio stations. Radio, by the way, was broadcasting from the same transponders as TV, simply with a subcarrier offset above the television signal, or instead of the audio track of one of the channels. There were whole transponders, completely clogged with radios. The radio went in VERY high quality, I won’t say specific numbers by frequency, but apparently the Germans didn’t skimp on quality and didn’t play music from MP3s.
Be that as it may, but everything comes to an end.
Fast surfing on Astra as of June 11, 2011 :
The Nokia SAT 8003 S device with support for D2-MAC and Panda Stereo was used as a receiver in this video (yes, yes, Nokia not only released mobile phones).
The receiver looks something like this (the photo is not mine):
Do not pay attention to the list of channels in the video, it was like that when you bought the receiver and was not updated before recording. In 2011, some channels did not change transponders and remained at the same positions that they broadcast in the distant 90s. At 3:38, you can see how the receiver mistakenly took the usual PAL signal for the D2-MAC and tried to decode it, which naturally did not work out.
As you can see, a decent number of channels, but they have a lot of television infomercials, watchable in my opinion was only Eurosport , the Sport 1 yesViva . Radio is also present, but not everything is configured on the receiver.
The same thing, only on the receiver is simpler and a day later (why? There may be an error in the dates):
The Echostar SR-90 receiver has already been used here, you can compare the image quality with Nokia and Ekhostar - there is a difference. The capture card is the same in both cases, the wires are the same :)
On October 1, 2011 Channel 21 Shop leaves the broadcast . Not a particularly interesting event, in addition to that, studies were in full swing at that time and there was no time for shutting down some kind of telemarket there.
Another zapping on December 3, 2011 . Under the spoiler, nothing particularly interesting. The same channels (except for the severed telemarket), the same Nokia.
Zapping Astra December 3, 2011
On December 4, 2011, the plate was reconfigured to Atlantic Bird 3 to attempt to catch the French. It seems like Brest fell into the coverage area, so it was decided to take a chance and rotate the plate ... At first, the trial version was a “hand-held” method, because the plate was not rotated by 5W, after a successful attempt to receive this satellite, the second bracket was suspended and the plate was hung on another wall of the house.
What I would like to draw attention to: on this satellite the analog coding Syster / Nagravision was used! 2011, everyone is sitting on the digital, and the French are encoding their Canal + in Nagravision! This was a great discovery for me. Here's what a scrambled analog signal looks like:
The whole essence of the encoding was to rearrange the lines in the frame. The decoder must, according to its algorithm, rearrange the lines in such a way as to obtain the original frame at the output. There is a plugin for VirtualDub called NagraDub that successfully decodes this kind of video.
Here is an example of a decoded passage above:
UPD: Somehow there was a landing with Atlantic Bird 3 as of June 11, 2011 . Apparently, I made attempts to accept it six months before the blackouts in December:
Since December 2011, on the Atlantic, the French have chopped off almost all (ha ha, there were only 5 left 2) channels and instead launched an info channel with a description of how to do it in order to catch in digital. The same video was played on this channel in the replay, here it is:
Once again, I note that the broadcast is in the most honest SECAM'e. The picture quality is quite high, not counting goosebumps from outside the coverage area.
These dice remained on the air until ... Yes, it doesn’t matter, I did not fix this moment. On January 1, 2012, Canal + was also turned off and on the Atlantic in the analogue there were only two transponders with dies.
The first mass shutdown was scheduled for late December 2011. On the New Year's Eve, three transponders were supposed to go down: DMAX on 11377V, Nickelodeon / Comedy Central on 11421H and Viva on 11612H.
It was decided to record the shutdown of Viva.
Since it was New Year's Eve 2012, it was decided to put a VHS video recorder with the possibility of recording in LP and HiFi-stereo sound on the balcony closer to the plates, and transfer one of the plates from HotBird to Astra. The second remained to hang on NTV + Eutelsat 36E and delight us with a New Year's disco of the 80s.
The approximate shutdown time was calculated: I assumed that the channel would be turned off at midnight German time. But either the first champagne worked for me, or the Germans replayed something, but out of 8 hours of recording on tape, the TV channel turned off at 7:55. That is, 5 minutes before the end of the E-240 tape.
Here's how it looked:
Nothing interesting, exactly on schedule at midnight for some time, the carrier was turned off (and, possibly, immediately transferred to DVB). Further interference can be explained by the operation of the APSG receiver and tuning to an adjacent transponder.
There were 119 days left until the big shutdown ...
To be continued ...
PS Come on to my channel on YT. The channel is mainly devoted to the themes of the old TV. I try to collect old screensavers, announcements and other interesting things that were broadcast on TV in the distant 80-90s.
PPS And I can not help but take the moment and not say that we will soon open the first real museum of retrocomputers in Minsk. Come and subscribe to our group in vk. We will open soon, so stay tuned :)
For this I take my leave.