Going back to Optus Aurora

[irritant]

Oops, I seemed to have skipped a page.... Here it is:

[irritant]

Wow, thanks for sharing Gordon and OSIRUS. Was it true that the satellite Galaxy installations in late 1995 were going to be subsidised and that the installations had fallen so far behind schedule that some people waited a month or more for an installation? I think I heard or read somewhere that there were issues with the authorisation software on the Pace DGT 400. We had a similar problem with the first Panasat IRD's in South Africa, and I think the Pace DVR 500 too, so much so that for a few months in late 1995, DStv (from MultiChoice) was actually being broadcast as an FTA bouquet!

Oh yeah, and the factory that made the Panasat decoders in Cape Town (the South African arm of Panasonic basically), burnt down in December 1995, so people here who were on a waiting list for a receiver were either told "sorry, no more IRD's available" or were given a DVR 500 instead - a totally different brand of box.

It was a blessing actually though. The first Panasat, the "Orbiter Alpha One" (which is a rubbish name quite frankly, sounds like a name out of a children's cartoon, thank goodness it never caught on) was apparently not such a good receiver at all, it was slower than the Pace and caused electromagnetic interference on your TV set! They quickly made a new model, called the IRD 510 (for no apparent reason, probably only for the silly reason to create the illusion to the average consumer that it was "better than" and "new and improved" over a DVR "500" somehow), but then the factory burnt down. After the fire, they came out with an improved model, newer software, and it was called the Panasat IRD 520:



Looks exactly the same as the "Orbiter Alpha One", just a new brain, shielding paint, and a new (better) name .

[irritant]

Come to think of it now, we actually had a thing here in South Africa that was similar to Aurora. It was run by Sentech, which are the people responsible for all our VHF/UHF terrestrial transmission sites basically (i.e. signal distribution across the country) and it was called Vivid. It started in 1999, and also used a variation of the UEC DSD 700:



These channels also featured our public broadcaster (SABC1, 2 and 3), a local FTA commercial channel (e-tv), and several Sentech business channels (SEN1, SEN2...very similar to BTV1, BTV2...etc. on Aurora), two learning channels (Mindset Learn), in-store radio (Red Cap Radio - Mr Price - a large clothing retailer, Hypermarket FM - for "Pick 'n Pay" Hypermarkets - a store similar to Coles and Woolworths), and local community radio stations - e.g. "Radio Pretoria" and "CapeTalk" (an AM station on 567 kHz MW terrestrially). As with Aurora, you also needed an enabled smartcard, even for e-tv (which was free terrestrially) and the services were Nagravision encrypted. These terrestrial FTA channels (SABC and e-tv) were encrypted also because of licencing issues - spillover into Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, etc. Along with that were also a bunch of FTA gospel channels. But, it was only a once-off payment and once the card was enabled you never paid again.

Wow, now that I look at it, this was actually our version of Aurora .

We never had a HACBSS equivalent though . Well, OK, maybe we did. Our SABC broadcasted in analogue PAL in FTA off PAS-4 from 1995 till about 2001.

[OSIRUS]

Was it true that the satellite Galaxy installations in late 1995 were going to be subsidised and that the installations had fallen so far behind schedule that some people waited a month or more for an installation?

yes I believe that may be the case, the more installations they made the more money they were bleeding ......

I think they basically spent too much money .... bidding for the Satellite Licenses etc ..... & the exclusive deals with the "Hollywood' content suppliers, then could not make the repayments when they eventually became due ...

I think I remember they used to go on "fund raising" to just make the repayments

In the End only a merger with Foxtel or someone else would have saved them ...... but that was not allowed by The Australian Competition Commission

In January 1992, the Government of Australia called tenders for Australia's first pay-TV licenses. Surprisingly, the first license was purchased not by one of the major media players but by an entrepreneur, Albert Hadid, who quickly onsold it for a rumoured $33 million profit.[6] The licenses ultimately ended up in the hands of Continental Century Pay-TV, a joint venture between Australian venture capitalist CVC and US cable company Century Communications and Australis Media, an upstart company in which TCI and Guinness Peat Group were major shareholders. Australis paid a total of A$333 million for the satellite and microwave licenses they would require to launch a pay-TV service to be branded Galaxy.

Galaxy secured contracts with three major Hollywood studios – Columbia TriStar, Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures (the latter two both partners on a joint venture, United International Pictures)- for the exclusive first-run rights to broadcast their film and TV product on its Galaxy service.[7][8] The output of these studios formed three channels – Showtime, Encore and TV1 – that would become the mainstay of Galaxy's programming.

After the remaining output from the major studios was purchased by Optus Vision, Galaxy's other competitor, the News Corporation and Telstra owned Foxtel, was forced into an embarrassing deal to purchase content from Australis at a reported cost of A$4.5 billion over 25 years.

Galaxy, along with Austar were the providers for the Sega Channel in Australia for Sega Australia (known then as Sega Ozisoft).

Despite this lucrative deal, the financial situation at Australis was troubling. The installation cost of equipment was high (reportedly around $500 for a microwave antenna and $1000 for a satellite dish), forcing them to greatly subsidise installation costs. Furthermore, increased competition from Foxtel and Optus Vision forced Galaxy to lower prices further or lose customers.

The financial crisis at Australis meant that much of Galaxy's life seemed to be spent trying to save the company from receivership. In October 1995 a merger was proposed by Australis and its biggest rival, Foxtel.[9] The proposal was rejected by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, citing fears that a merger between the two businesses would stifle competition. Another Australis-Foxtel merger was proposed in July 1997 but was also vetoed for similar reasons. Another proposal made in August 1996 under which Australis and Optus would share satellite infrastructure (while still trading separately) was approved by the ACCC but later blocked by the Australian Federal Court.

With hopes of a merger dashed and serious cashflow problems continuing to plague the company, Australis relied on "rescue packages" of capital injections from a number of new investors (including Kerry Packer's PBL, among others) to stay afloat.

On 18 May 1998 the Supreme Court of New South Wales declared that Australis was insolvent and the company went into liquidation. It has been estimated that losses totalled A$800 million. Of those who purchased assets after the company's collapse, the biggest beneficiary was likely their biggest competitor Foxtel, who were able to purchase Galaxy's 65,000 remaining subscribers as well as terminate their crippling programming deal and renegotiate directly with the studios.

There has been considerable controversy over the role Foxtel may have played in Galaxy's demise: in 2003 it was the target of legal action by Australis bondholders, who sued Foxtel's parent company News Corporation for the $6 billion which they alleged Australis would have earned had it not lost the rights to the programming content.[6]

Sorry the above is a bit off Topic ......... Back to Aurora

[OSIRUS]

Do UEC sell The DSD 4121 STB in South Africa ? for your local market ?

This is one of the STB sold in Australia by UEC for our Vast Satellite Service .....

it had an Irdeto 5.7 card matched to the STB in the beginning & now has an Irdeto 6.0 card matched to the STB ....

[irritant]

Sorry the above is a bit off Topic ......... Back to Aurora

No, not at all!

I think the reminiscing about the old satellite TV scene was bound to bring back a lot of memories and hence great discussion, and I can't thank you guys enough for the stimulating conversation provided thus far. I'm having a blast! A blast from the past, literally.

You see, I can sit for years on the web, in the university library, wherever, and passively gain knowledge about all this stuff, but now I get the opportunity to speak with people who actually owned it. Now the research I did is paying off because I can relate the information to what everyone is saying here, and I know what you guys are speaking of. It all comes together in a such a great way now and I must admit this is one of the most mentally stimulating activities I have been involved in for a long time, especially lately, given all the personal issues I find myself in. For that, I can't thank you guys enough! I just wish I were there to discuss it over a nice beer or something.

[irritant]

Do UEC sell The DSD 4121 STB in South Africa ? for your local market ?

This is one of the STB sold in Australia by UEC for our Vast Satellite Service .....

it had an Irdeto 5.7 card matched to the STB in the beginning & now has an Irdeto 6.0 card matched to the STB ....

Not the DSD 4121 per se, but we have two UEC HDPVR's (DSD 4660 - 4 LNB input and 4828 - 2 LNB input) and a corresponding 4 and 2 tuner Pace HDPVR:



But, these have all been succeeded by a new HD PVR called the "Explora":



The features include standard PVR stuff basically - slow motion, fast forward, rewind, record (220 hours of HD (2 TB HDD) versus 150 SD and 50 HD from the previous PVRs (500 GB HDDs)), video-on-demand type thing which downloads through one of the 4 tuners onto the HDD for series (called DStv Catch Up), and also a Box Office facility like Foxtel has.

For all this, it costs I would say the equivalent of about $A 70 a month which I guess is not too bad compared to a full Foxtel sub which is about $A 120 a month, right?

To have the dish, twin LNB, decoder and everything bought and set up, costs about $A 300-400 I would say in total.

There was also a SD-PVR that came out in 2005/2006 which recorded 80 hours SD on it's 250 GB HDD, and before that there was a DSD 820 which was called a "Dual-View" which had two tuners basically so you could, with a twin LNB (or a single, as long as you kept the polarities/voltages the same on both tuners), hook up one decoder to two TV sets and have independent viewing. This came out in about 2003 I think.

[OSIRUS]

Not the DSD 4121 per se, but we have two UEC HDPVR's (DSD 4660 - 4 LNB input and 4828 - 2 LNB input) and a corresponding 4 and 2 tuner Pace HDPVR:


But, these have all been succeeded by a new HD PVR called the "Explora":


video-on-demand type thing which downloads through one of the 4 tuners onto the HDD for series (called DStv Catch Up), and also a Box Office facility like Foxtel has.

For all this, it costs I would say the equivalent of about $A 80 a month which I guess is not too bad compared to a full Foxtel sub which is about $A 120 a month, right?

To have the dish, everything set up, costs about $A 300-400 I would say.

There was also a SD-PVR that came out in 2005/2006 which recorded 80 hours SD on it's 250 GB HDD, and before that there was a DSD 820 which was called a "Dual-View" which had two tuners basically so you could, with a twin LNB (or a single, as long as you kept the polarities/voltages the same on both tuners), hook up one decoder to two TV sets and have independent viewing. This came out in about 2003 I think.

Interesting ..... that you say "downloads through one of the 4 tuners onto the HDD for series (called DStv Catch Up)"

That would be an interesting way to do catch up services ...... interesting if it comes here .... like you have

I have been thinking that catch up services may be done here by internet connected STB's ...... like catch up "Freeview" STB's in the UK & Foxtel have been encouraging customers to connect their STB's to the internet ....

But Australia is a large area country & internet speeds are still a bit slow outside the Capital Cities .....

I have also been wondering if UEC will try to add a Catch up service to their Vast STB's ..... they all have an Ethernet connection ... & I think Australia is getting Broadband satellite launched in 2015 .... have to wait & see ... I guess

we are also waiting on the Release of the New Foxtel IQ3 STB that is in testing at the moment .... said to be having terrestrial tuners as well as multiple Satellite tuners & internet connected & a massive HDD's... but we are still waiting to see exactly

One guy speculated a few years ago that there may be 4 satellites Co-located at 156E in the future where we now have Optus C1 & Optus D3 co-located at the moment & would connect to multiple LNB input tuners on a Foxtel STB.

But Technology is continually changing ..... I seen something written recently that predicted FTA terrestrial broadcasting will be a thing of the past by 2030 .... in favor of the developing Internet delivery system or others ... comparing terrestrial broadcasting as like the horse & cart ..... & the Internet as a new car


BTW I spend about $A 90 a month on Foxtel at a Sydney address & about $A 70 a month on Foxtel at a Country address

[irritant]

Interesting ..... that you say "downloads through one of the 4 tuners onto the HDD for series (called DStv Catch Up)"

That would be an interesting way to do catch up services ...... interesting if it comes here .... like you have

I have been thinking that catch up services may be done here by internet connected STB's ...... like catch up "Freeview" STB's in the UK & Foxtel have been encouraging customers to connect their STB's to the internet ....

But Australia is a large area country & internet speeds are still a bit slow outside the Capital Cities .....

I have also been wondering if UEC will try to add a Catch up service to their Vast STB's ..... they all have an Ethernet connection ... & I think Australia is getting Broadband satellite launched in 2015 .... have to wait & see ... I guess

we are also waiting on the Release of the New Foxtel IQ3 STB that is in testing at the moment .... said to be having terrestrial tuners as well as multiple Satellite tuners & internet connected & a massive HDD's... but we are still waiting to see exactly

One guy speculated a few years ago that there may be 4 satellites Co-located at 156E in the future where we now have Optus C1 & Optus D3 co-located at the moment & would connect to multiple LNB input tuners on a Foxtel STB.

But Technology is continually changing ..... I seen something written recently that predicted FTA terrestrial broadcasting will be a thing of the past by 2030 .... in favor of the developing Internet delivery system or others ... comparing terrestrial broadcasting as like the horse & cart ..... & the Internet as a new car


BTW I spend about $A 90a month on Foxtel at a Sydney address & about $A 70 a month on Foxtel at a Country address

I think we had the same problem here, with too many remote areas, so we never really used any phone-line services as far as I can remember.

Yeah, there are lots of great things happening. I was intrigued by the launch of the Optus 10 satellite which I see is now parked at 164°E alongside an inclined Optus B3. We're also getting a new satellite apparently in the future, I think it's IS-36 or something and they are speaking of us expanding onto "high-band" too, which is of course 11.7-12.75 GHz. DStv have not used that for years now, since about 1999 when it moved onto PAS-7 on the "low-band" (10.7-11.7 GHz). Our PAS-4 signal though was 12.5-12.75 GHz.

[OSIRUS]

I heard something about them wanting to use Videoguard encryption at one stage on Aurora, was that true?

I do think I remember reading a Satellite News Newsletter at the time about this ..... although I have not looked to see if i still have it ....

some people were hoping Aurora would be broadcast as a PAL unencrypted signal at the time ...... but I remember it was a requirement it had to be encrypted .... (& as we know they chose the irdeto 1 encryption, the same as all the Satellite Pay TV encryption at that time, mid to late 1990's)

Videoguard was the encryption later used by the east Coast Capital city FTA Channels 7, 9, & 10, on the Foxtel Satellite Platform from about the mid 2000's (when Foxtel then used NDS Encryption, & Austar used Irdeto 2 encryption, & Aurora Used both irdeto1 & irdeto2 encryption)

[irritant]

Oh yes I forgot to mention, we also have that smartcard-decoder marriage thing going where one card is linked to one box. It's not a great thing at all, because the other day, one of my decoders packed up and I've got a spare DSD 660, but couldn't use it because the smartcard is married to the broken decoder . I think this is nothing but another money-making racket at the end of the day, because in the end I went and bought a brand new decoder plus smartcard. Luckily they aren't too expensive though.

[irritant]

I do think I remember reading a Satellite News Newsletter at the time about this ..... although I have not looked to see if i still have it ....

some people were hoping Aurora would be broadcast as a PAL unencrypted signal at the time ...... but I remember it was a requirement it had to be encrypted .... (& as we know they chose the irdeto 1 encryption, the same as all the Satellite Pay TV encryption at that time, mid to late 1990's)

Videoguard was the encryption later used by the east Coast Capital city FTA Channels 7, 9, & 10, on the Foxtel Satellite Platform from about the mid 2000's (when Foxtel then used NDS Encryption, & Austar used Irdeto 2 encryption, & Aurora Used both irdeto1 & irdeto2 encryption)

I heard something about them keeping the Irdeto 1 along with the Irdeto 2 because they would have had to have replaced all the V1 cards for the people who had Aurora from the beginning (Irdeto 1 customers). I think it was a financial decision probably, which ironically caused more damage in the end probably, seeing as how Aurora was hacked from all angles.

[irritant]

I do think I remember reading a Satellite News Newsletter at the time about this ..... although I have not looked to see if i still have it ....

some people were hoping Aurora would be broadcast as a PAL unencrypted signal at the time ...... but I remember it was a requirement it had to be encrypted .... (& as we know they chose the irdeto 1 encryption, the same as all the Satellite Pay TV encryption at that time, mid to late 1990's)

Videoguard was the encryption later used by the east Coast Capital city FTA Channels 7, 9, & 10, on the Foxtel Satellite Platform from about the mid 2000's (when Foxtel then used NDS Encryption, & Austar used Irdeto 2 encryption, & Aurora Used both irdeto1 & irdeto2 encryption)

I think I stand corrected, it was actually something called "MCRYPT". They were apparently going to run Irdeto 1 and this MCRYPT in parallel until 2008, but I don't think they ever did. Here is the newsletter:

Television services
Proposed changes to Aurora smart cards
Please note: The following information is related to remote and rural Optus Aurora customers and end-users only.

Smart card changes for remote and regional broadcasting services

Optus is proposing some changes in regard to the Optus Aurora broadcasting services, and in particular the smart card technology used.

The information below details these changes and also outlines the steps that Optus is taking in order to minimise any impact on distributors and end users of the Aurora services.

Existing encryption service

Since launching the Aurora platform Optus has utilised the Irdeto encryption technology that operates Version 1 (V1) smart cards to deliver a range of satellite broadcasting services, including remote area broadcasting services (RABS) across Australia.

These services are delivered to a range of businesses, government departments and Direct-To-Home (DTH) end users. The total number of Aurora end users is 40,000 of which approximately 32,000 are RABS DTH end users.

To receive the Aurora service, customers require a satellite dish, a decoder and a smart card to unscramble the encrypted signals.

Proposed changes to MCRYPT smart cards

Optus has recently made a decision to introduce the MCRYPT encryption smart card technology and phase out support for the V1 smart card encryption system.

This decision was made for a number of reasons. The new MCRYPT service has the advantage of being more ‘secure’, and will also decrease the incidence of signal piracy.

Simulcrypt period

Optus is committed to ensuring the introduction of the new MCRYPT service will have minimal impact on existing customers and end users. For this reason Optus has decided to simulcrypt both the MCRYPT and V1 technologies for a maximum of five years, commencing in late 2003.

The decision to simulcast both the MCRYPT and the V1 encryption services means that all end users (either the new MCRYPT cards or the current V1 cards) will receive the Aurora services.

Optus does not anticipate any interruption to the V1 service as a result of the decision to simulcrypt MCRYPT. Those customers who are currently using the V1 cards, can continue using these cards until the simulcrypt period comes to an end. Most existing cards will reach the end of their natural life before this time and will then need to be replaced with the new MCRYPT card.

In respect of new customers, Optus is now unable to obtain any more V1 smart cards to supply distributors. Therefore new customers will need to obtain a new MCRYPT card in order to access Aurora services. These can be obtained from the normal distribution channels.

More information about Optus Aurora services

For more information about Optus Aurora services, please contact the Satellite Services Support team on 1300 301 681.

I found this on the web archive:

[OSIRUS]

I think the MCRYPT card they refer to may be The Aurora Irdeto 2 card (introduced from about 2003 onwards)

[gordon_s1942]

I finally remembered that the company I signed up with for PayTV was called CETV and it was them who sent me a pair of coasters with the company logo to apologize for the delay with the installation, all of which fits in with the other comments of delays and company name changes.
One thing though was I thought that when the original License was auctioned, the winners was 2 blokes who planned to on-sell the license ASAP as they had neither the money to pay for the license or the expertise to operate the system but it all fell apart and the licenses had to be re-auctioned, only this time the bidders had to show they had the capitol to pay for them.

[OSIRUS]

I finally remembered that the company I signed up with for PayTV was called CETV and it was them who sent me a pair of coasters with the company logo to apologize for the delay with the installation, all of which fits in with the other comments of delays and company name changes.
One thing though was I thought that when the original License was auctioned, the winners was 2 blokes who planned to on-sell the license ASAP as they had neither the money to pay for the license or the expertise to operate the system but it all fell apart and the licenses had to be re-auctioned, only this time the bidders had to show they had the capitol to pay for them.

Having realized that they had bid much more than The Main Media Players at that time ....... (& knowing they had made multiple bids)

They then defaulted on paying for the Licenses several times ...... allowing it to cascade down ..... until they eventually made the payment for the Licenses

The Government of the Day handled it very badly allowing such a thing to happen this way

Australia used sealed-bid auctions for Satellite Television Services
No deposits were required
Bidders submitted many bids, and withdrew from high bids

Australian Auction Outcomes (No Deposit)

Initial Winning Bid:
1st License: A $212,000,000
2nd License: A $117,000,000

Final Price After Withdrawals

1st License: A $177,000,000
2nd License: A $ 77,000,000

[best4less]

Has weirdo been in touch yet ??

[irritant]

...The channels listed (1-15) where equivalent to the 15 transponders on the Aussat A series at the time...So NT, SA channels were on the horizontal polarity (Imparja, ABC central) and stuff like QQQ and ABC eastern (which became TAL with channel 10 programs which changed to 7 central in Aurora) for QLD, VIC, NSW and TAS were vertical...

I stand corrected. Upon looking closer I see TAL (10 QLD/QSTV/QQQ) was actually on transponder 15 which is a horizontal transponder . Sorry for the misinformation earlier.

[irritant]

Has weirdo been in touch yet ??

Not that I know of.

[weirdo]

I'm gonna wait for Adrians Vast thread in 10 years time