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From: brown@nic_vax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: CableVision of Central Florida: the scoop
Message-ID: <138@nic_vax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 10:55:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: nic_vax.138
Posted: Mon Apr 29 10:55:05 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Apr-85 03:01:13 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Nicolet Instrument Corp. Madison WI
Lines: 38

*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***  OK, I will!!!

As I said in my followup on Saturday, I called CableVision of Central Florida.
Here is the scoop from there engineer.

As I had suspected, HBO is a trap type pay channel.  If you don't pay for it,
they trap out the carrier, so that all you are left with is the high end of
the video, all of the color information and the sound carrier.

But, also as I had suspected, the other pay channels are scrambled at the head
end (the main plant) using the Zenith system.  It is like the sine-wave-sync-
supress that I had mentioned.  He gave the correct name, but being long
distance and after being on hold for awhile, I didn't ask him to spell it.
Also they use an addressable system.  If you don't get the pay channel they
take your box out of the addressing for that pay channel.  He said that they
also have some boxes that aren't addressable, but most of them are.  The idea
of doing something in the connection box was incorrect, except for HBO to add
or remove the trap.

When I called the first time, I was on hold listening to the tape they have.
It is a tape that hypes their cable system.  On that tape they also talk about
turing in your illegal box to become legal, no questions asked, until May 15,
anyway.  I was then cut off when someone didn't know how to transfer a phone
call.  I called the second time and got a gentleman named Dave Grace(?).
At least it sounded like Grace.

Listening to the tape, I found out that HBO is on channel 21, Cinemax is on
channel 22 (Zenith converter channel 20) and on Saturday I found out that
you also have Showtime and Disney.

You know, a simple phone call to your cable company would have answered all
of these questions a long time ago.  Dave was very nice about answering my
questions.  Some cable companies may not tell what kind of system they used,
but they would at least tell you where things are done.

I guess this should be it.

Mr. Video     (ihnp4!uwvax!astroatc!nicvax!brown)