Does anyone have info about the old M-Net Decoder scrambling system?

[PaulGherkin]

No.. Multichoice switched the signal off in 2018. If it were active, I wouldn't dare discuss this here.

Even discussing it here as an obsolete system is taking a risk.
Back in the day MonoChoice ruined people for even looking at it from an academic standpoint.
Nasty, nasty people, who are above the law and have judges in their pocket.

 

[Heisenborg]

Why would anyone want to do this?

 

[PaulGherkin]

Why would anyone want to do this?

For academic reasons, there's a lot of nostalgia there too.

 

[Heisenborg]

For academic reasons, there's a lot of nostalgia there too.

To receive which exact signal? Educate me

 

[PaulGherkin]

To receive which exact signal? Educate me

The goal is to generate a signal, and use the decoders to decode it. To bring the old machines back to life and have them working, in the same way people collect old computers (retrocollectables).
I have made my contribution to the project with the knowledge I have

 

[BouncyNinja]

The goal is to generate a signal, and use the decoders to decode it. To bring the old machines back to life and have them working, in the same way people collect old computers (retrocollectables).
I have made my contribution to the project with the knowledge I have

A topic which has always fascinated me,

I see what looks like rebranded M-Net decoders were used elsewhere in whe world for pay tv as well?

 

[DStvNothingOn]

A topic which has always fascinated me,

I see what looks like rebranded M-Net decoders were used elsewhere in whe world for pay tv as well?

Rather than rebranded mnet decoders are just rebranded designs used and completely locally.
There are tons of Chinese companies offering white label set top boxes

 

[BouncyNinja]

Rather than rebranded mnet decoders are just rebranded designs used and completely locally.
There are tons of Chinese companies offering white label set top boxes

Even in the 80’s?
The initial decoders , were designed and built in south Africa, in parow , under national panasonic


Very interesting reading

http://www.myprius.co.za/M-NET%20decoder%20production%20a%20technical%20analysis.pdf

 

[Brian_G]

I'm aware that one way (long ago) they did decrypt the audio for a number of years was thanks to inside knowledge, and I know for a fact that the person responsible was caught in a trap and jailed.

 

[BouncyNinja]

I'm aware that one way (long ago) they did decrypt the audio for a number of years was thanks to inside knowledge, and I know for a fact that the person responsible was caught in a trap and jailed.

I mean, by today’s standard , it’s redundant obsolete technology, wonder if someone ( if there is still someone left at mc) would share info?

[mention]Brian_G [/mention] did you ever do the “tour” ?

Before they moved to the new facility? There where the old MCA building was?

I recall, there where the dmx media generation was done, there was a rack, of old mnet decoders( well looked the same, but they were red), was told at the time those handled the encryption,

But I think that those are now long gone

 

[Brian_G]

I mean, by today’s standard , it’s redundant obsolete technology, wonder if someone ( if there is still someone left at mc) would share info?

Almost all my old contacts from the forum days are far gone.

[mention]Brian_G [/mention] did you ever do the “tour” ?

Before they moved to the new facility? There where the old MCA building was?

I recall, there where the dmx media generation was done, there was a rack, of old mnet decoders( well looked the same, but they were red), was told at the time those handled the encryption,

But I think that those are now long gone

I had a private tour before, a group tour after. Never saw them red M-Net decoders though..

But I saw a few interesting things too.
Command centre was the greatest part for me. And the charts showing all the many, many links to the world satellite networks.

 

[BouncyNinja]

Almost all my old contacts from the forum days are far gone.


I had a private tour before, a group tour after. Never saw them red M-Net decoders though..

But I saw a few interesting things too.
Command centre was the greatest part for me. And the charts showing all the many, many links to the world satellite networks.

I always wondered how the decoder knew when to be on, and when to be scrambled

Were they continuously blasting out every subscriber that was active?

An active unit when powered down, then deactivated, would very quickly deactivate once powered up again,

 

[Brian_G]

I always wondered how the decoder knew when to be on, and when to be scrambled

Were they continuously blasting out every subscriber that was active?

An active unit when powered down, then deactivated, would very quickly deactivate once powered up again,

Yep, it was a significant piece of the frequency in use and appeared able to carry that much individual info all the time.

Not that hard if you think about it - just 23 binary bytes will hold 4 million versions of info.

 

[BouncyNinja]

Yep, it was a significant piece of the frequency in use and appeared able to carry that much individual info all the time.

Not that hard if you think about it - just 23 binary bytes will hold 4 million versions of info.

And all bodged together in the 80’s from what started in a shipping container in Randburg if I recall

 

[deweyzeph]

Yep, it was a significant piece of the frequency in use and appeared able to carry that much individual info all the time.

Not that hard if you think about it - just 23 binary bytes will hold 4 million versions of info.

Makes sense considering it was one-way communication only. The signal must have had the subscriber status of every single Mnet customer encoded in it.

 

[damian24]

The thread may be a little old, but for anyone interested, the full patent for the scrambling and audio path can be found here (patents access are a public resource so it breaks no law's)

I was super interested as a child in the 1990's even getting hold of John McCormacs' book "European Scrambling Systems: Circuits, Tactics and Techniques" to learn more and there's a lot to learn from that (probably on archive.org by now). I would call and chat to various technical people at MNET at the time many of whom were happy to chat to a kid about how things worked (I was always grateful for that), my interest as a 14 year old was to understand it.

The system was completely and comprehensively broken in the 90's even though Multichoice kept it going until recently.

D