Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

I had a Scientific Atlanta box and remember getting excited whenever YOU HAVE A MESSAGE popped up on the screen.
Most of the time it was just a 'refer a friend' type offer though.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

That's really cool! I don't think ours ever did that (it might have had that feature, not sure)

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

There was a 'message' button on the remote that you pressed when it popped up on screen. In the days before email etc, it could have been a great way to communicate with customers about new channels. It was rarely used though, and as I mentioned, mainly referral offers. From memory, it was probably used once or twice a year max and I cant remember it being used at all in the last few years before I upgraded to digital (2000).

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

We had Comtel here too - still have the Comtel branded phone sockets on the wall.

We had two tv boxes installed and already has satellite tv.

When they thought they had finished the install I complained about the poor picture and gave an example on screen. They said it was a perfect picture and I agreed - so I switched away from the satellite box to the cable box and they saw what I was complaining about - and they agreed.

When we got it Comtel were about to launch their own ondemand film service - but it never happen.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

Oh the memories of Rediffusion cable in 1984.
We had a box on the window sill with a dial of A,B,C,D etc to change the channels.
Not many channels in those days, Screensport,Music Box,The Movie Channel,The Childrens Channel and maybe a couple more that I can't quite remember.
Then it was NTL and now Virgin Media. In between that we had BSB briefly.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

That would have been fantastic at the time. Did they really have The Movie Channel all that time ago? I thought that first made its appearance on British screens when BSB launched.

We first got multi-channel TV when the cable company at the time laid its cables in our area. That must have been about 1996 and the company was Telecential. They were a good company, but customer services deteriorated when ComTel took over a few years later.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

Indeed what wonderful memories especially Music Box.:)

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

...it was Diamond Cable before ntl:

I remember in the 80s when my cable system first got HBO.... They issued special descramblers to customers to unscramble it....

And I remember having a black and white tv with a FINE TUNE slider on it and I used to be able to fine tune scrambled signals in enough to watch them....... (If there wasnt anything on the next higher channel was the easiest)

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

I do remember before we had cable TV installed I used to connect my Sega Game Gear TV adaptor to my TV aerial.

I could switch between UHF/VHF

While on VHF I got a sports channel and saw live the crash that killed Roland Ratzenberger.

Also on my new TV in my room I was scanning for the TV channels and found one IIRC called Galaxy, which was a BSB channel.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

There was a film channel from Rediffusion, or it could have been one called TEN, 'The Movie Channel' that you're thinking about did indeed start on BSB. It then moved to Astra under the ownership of BSKYB after the 'merger', before being renamed and absorbed completely into Skys general portfolio of film channels.

---------- Post added at 14:17 ---------- Previous post was at 14:07 ----------

VM are to move their telephony service over to VOIP:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...broadband.html

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

TEN: The Movie Channel launched on Redifusion in March 1984 and a second film channel called Prem1ere launched less than six months later.

TEN: The Movie Channel closed and was quicky replaced in June 1985 by MirrorVision. MirrorVision that lasted less than a year being being taken over by Prem1ere.

Prem1ere carried on until 1989 when it closed as it was unable to compete again Sky and BSB for film rights. By this time it was carried on satellite but for cable operators only and was one of the first pirated film channels.

Bravo and HVC were also film channels exclusive to cable from September 1985 - Bravo later changed format and carried other programme and moved to satellite.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

Some interesting information there ozsat, I never knew that Bravo was initially a film channel. By the time I first saw Bravo in (I think it came to analogue satellite in 1993), it showed a mixture of films and general entertainment programmes. Many were in black and white and their marketing phrase was 'Timewarp Television'. After some time it was decided that they could increase their ratings by scrapping all monochrome material and showing colour programming only.

Interesting that years later Talking Pictures found a gap in the market for historical films and programmes.

Do you know if HVC was any connection to the video rental store (I think it was HVC, or was it MVC) and if Prem1ere had any connection to the German movie channel Premier that was on analogue satellite in the 90's?

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

I vaguely remember there was a channel called Premiere on satellite, but it was scrambled in a system called syster (or was it nagravision?) - it was not receivable on a videocrypt decoder. Instead of the lines being cut and rotated, they seemed to jump up and down vertically, and the audio had a weird form of hissy sounding encryption also.

Re: Analogue Cable Memories
 

Awww. Don't really see the point apart from business use. According to a customer service rep 1 or 2 years ago, no one uses their landlines.

What happens to emergency calls in power cuts? What happens to faxing?

Faxing still receives a lot of business use (e.g. for contracts that have to be signed) because it's pretty much fully trustworthy. You know who the sender is and setting up a MiTM attack to modify a document in transit is fairly difficult over fax. We can talk encryption all day, but every form of digital encryption will be cracked fairly easily at some point. The security of faxing comes from the design of the (already huge) telephone network, being fairly closed off, rigid and noninteractive unlike computer networks.

More info if you're interested: https://www.infoworld.com/article/30...d-the-fax.html