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Thread: Australian satellite TV 101 in 2024

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    Lightbulb Australian satellite TV 101 in 2024

    Hi everyone,

    A long long time ago I had a dream(box) to watch Australian subscription TV. It worked, everything was great, but then I moved out and haven't watched TV since (almost 20 years now).

    These days now that I'm a programmer with some nifty set of skills, I was thinking of looking at the Australian satellite subscription TV scene to see if there was anything interesting I could play with. But to be honest, I don't know where to start!

    I guess 101, I'm looking for the following info - or at least WHERE I could get this info:


    • What birds are visible from Melbourne with a 2m dish
    • Which birds in particular have Australian TV encrypted streams on these birds (I don't really need MORE chinese TV channels in my life)
    • What cryptosystems is everyone using these days? I was around when Irideto 1 was the norm (we had it easy back then)
    • Any particular research (from blogs to academic papers) on these cryptosystems (and if they've been broken yet)


    Also, in 2024 seeing as I doubt I'll be able to fit my dusty Adaptec SCSI 29160 into my Mac Book, what gear is everyone using these days. Is there a new Dreambox in 2024 or is it all generic Chinese gear and it "Just Works"?

    Bonus points for info on Internet TCP streams like the good old days, but I highly doubt it given most traffic is on TLS these days

    Anything else I missed?

    Thanks ya'll!!



Look Here ->
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    I don't know of anyone worrying about sat tv encryptions
    A few still chase feeds, the rest iptv

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    Dang.

    I guess satellite feeds interest me more given it's just though the air and the crypto seems to be a lot easier to deal with.

    The plus side is that from their perspective you're a passive participant i.e. totally disconnected to upstream since it's not TCP and it's one-way broadcast only.

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    Just in case, one last thread bump.

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    Most of the feeds are over fibre/5g/4g these days.

    Not much off satellite at all these days.
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    There is still a few birds that bring some entertainment, at least for me...

    I've currently got the 1.8 looking at Measat 91.5e for the BBC Earth channels. These are encrypted with PowerVu, which was broken around the end of 2014 and is rather trivial to open.
    However, there seems to be a rolling curse that has most of the existing PowerVu streams being upgraded to PowerVu Enhanced (PVE or PowerVu+) Which, AFAIK, essentially involves a jump from DES to AES encryption methods.
    And no one has broken it as yet, so their days are probably numbered.

    Same with AFN on NSS9 at 177W which now has PowerVu and Verimatrix crypto PID's
    Scientific Atlanta was purchased by Cisco and the PowerVu crypto keeps being mutated with changes to the nano/CW implementations.

    Aus satellite TV is a different ballgame altogether. NDS crypto is a nasty, filthy, dirty stream to mess around with... there are so many layers to overcome that even if you wanted to pull the stream apart and hash away at it, religion would be outdated by the time you got a working PMK.
    Sky and VAST are both running Irdeto2, there are still some birds running Irdeto1, but the channel line-up probable isn't worth the effort.
    Unless you'd like to purchase a subscription and attempt to reverse engineer the providers equipment, the systems are getting locked down from the hobbyist.... Hence why so many have migrated away from the satellite scene.

    Anything BISS or Tandberg/Director encrypted is accessible, but there aren't many channels left in that realm either.

    As a hobbyist I still tinker with the birds a bit. I started in the hobby over 20 years ago and watched the slow decline as the internet speeds increased and simply streaming channels with a $99 android box running Kodi did away with the 'need' for $1000's of c-band dish, multiplex gear, cabling, STB's etc.
    I found myself taking a break from the satellite scene for a few years after FTTH became a 'thing', but for the past 2 years or so have still enjoyed the mystery of finding random channels, poking around and looking at the streams.
    Since I work in a technical trade I find that much of the 'tinkering' helps to keep a lot of skills honed and sharpened, that would otherwise easily be fading away.

    I still use an older DM8000HD Dreambox, and have a newer DM920 Dreambox. There are still forums where OSCAM/EMU patches are being updated regularly and softkeys are still being updated on those forums too.
    There are some softkeys for a bird covering the US or Europe that work on a bird we can get here - it's the same base stream just multiplexed across the pond to different uplink sites. (Tandberg/Director and PowerVu)

    Ok, my apologies... I may have gotten a little nostalgic I suppose, so I will summarize some answers for you:

    1. The Lyngsat site is still being updated with stream information and the Satbeams site seems to be the best way to find coverage footprints that reach your area (I'm in FNQ, so not too sure what hits Melbourne)
    2. Australian TV or just broadcasts with English? Again, Lyngsat will show streams and their respective audio PID's. Many are multilingual streams.
    3. There is an absolute plethora of cryptosystems in use today, and they all have versioning variants that have subtle changes to the crypto implementation. Many of which were broken over the years... before a new variant came along to lock the door again.
    4. I haven't found many research papers in the wild. If we can find them then the companies selling the encryption systems, and their CTO/engineers developing the encryption system can also find them.

    Up-to-date information is rather had to find these days, I've basically started again by going from bird to bird and having a look, doing some experimentation here and there and seeing for myself.
    If you still have a dreambox, update it to a new version of OpenPLi (Or whatever your favourite flavour of image is), install the DVBsnoop package and download The Last Drakkar - this will give you the tools to start logging and inspecting EMM's.
    Since you are a programmer, look at OSCAM/OSCAM-EMU - many of the crypto systems have functioning implementations in a purely software based realm. The need for card/CAM combos is not what it used to be ~20 years ago.

    For anything else, feel free to send me a PM and I'll happily share whatever I can.
    I would greatly welcome anyone wishing to experiment in this arena to collaborate.

    Kind regards,

    Sharky.

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    Currently, it is convenient to use satellite DVB cards and discover things that are "hidden" for classic satellite receivers (although this does not mean that these things cannot be run on them).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Shark_Man View Post
    There is still a few birds that bring some entertainment, at least for me...


    Anything BISS or Tandberg/Director encrypted is accessible, but there aren't many channels left in that realm either.


    Kind regards,

    Sharky.
    On Asiasat 5 100 deg east they are a few Sports feeds but the trouble is you need a BIG dish to get most of them like 4M Dish. Stupid me I sold my 4.2 mesh as I was moving back to suburb from Acreage because I suffered a Heart attach then strokes thus need the Hospitals to be close but now Can go bigger if I want (IDIOT ME TO SELL MY BIG DISH) I am restricted to a 2.3M Mesh Cband dish and I immediately saw the sports that was missing on a 2.3M Dish.. Rang the Guy that Bought my 4.2M and got it going and I said to myself FU!@$%^&*(^% CK should have keep it. Yes in Biss and Tandberg. My 2.3M Mesh dish also effect with 5G Rubbish and been told if you have a bigger Dish you can get away with the interference. Yes Live in Brisbane.
    If you got to Sat Beams you will see what I'm talking about, Footprint Not as strong in QLD

    Last edited by Mr 672A; 07-09-24 at 01:09 PM.

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    Hi, any lights still on?
    Reading this thread with interest and yes I can relate.
    I too am running a dm8000 hdvr and as I’m retired now, has given me more time to play. I have spent a lot of time over the years playing with the satellite systems and have learnt a lot about oscam,(emu). It is very apparent that the satellite systems have died off but to me it’s a good hobby to play with, I’m keen to keep going, further myself into encryption. Have a few questions but keen to pickup a new 920 if only i knew where to go. I have a firestick as well as an android box but rather bored.

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    Iptv......

    Sent from my motorola razr 50 ultra using Tapatalk

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    Quote Originally Posted by hoe View Post
    Iptv......

    Sent from my motorola razr 50 ultra using Tapatalk
    What wrong by having both. The things I get via sat you cant get it on iptv.

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    Yes it’s good if you have a good reliable internet connection! Does not happen here in sw wa.
    FOXTEL is full of repeats at present.
    Have played with kodi latest version, on both stick and android box.
    Prefer good feeds off the satellites actually.

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