Cable Forum - View Single Post - SD Were cable customers able to subscribe to the encrypted BBC services in the 1980's?

RichardCoulter · 17-08-2016, 20:19

I was getting confused. BBC Select did indeed start in the nineties, it was the Discret service for doctors that started in 1988:

https://www.newscientist.com/article...bscription-tv/

I agree, it does seem unlikely that the cable companies offered these services, presumably meaning that cable customers wanting to use them had to somehow insert a decoder inbetween the analogue STB and their TV.

If this wasn't technically possible, they would have had to pick up the analogue TV signal independently of the cable signal and decode it in just the same way as other ATT viewers.

17-08-2016, 20:19	#6
RichardCoulter cf.mega poster Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 10,719	Re: Were cable customers able to subscribe to the encrypted BBC services in the 1980' I was getting confused. BBC Select did indeed start in the nineties, it was the Discret service for doctors that started in 1988: https://www.newscientist.com/article...bscription-tv/ I agree, it does seem unlikely that the cable companies offered these services, presumably meaning that cable customers wanting to use them had to somehow insert a decoder inbetween the analogue STB and their TV. If this wasn't technically possible, they would have had to pick up the analogue TV signal independently of the cable signal and decode it in just the same way as other ATT viewers. Last edited by RichardCoulter; 17-08-2016 at 20:24.