DSTV Will Marry Your Smartcard to Decoder

[Natas]

Marrying the smartcard to the decoder is an anti-competitive practive yes but don't tie the share-scheme issue into this. Multichoice have these BEE share initiative every 5 years; in fact, the most recent one was their 3rd one.

well yeah, but it still ties in to their greater strategic stratedgy (hehehehe). I mean like i said, if there are two satelite tv service providers you WILL probably go with the one you have shares in.....

 

[JTech]

I will go with neither.. SA television is a load of crap anyway. I view Multichoice in the same light as Microsoft.

 

[stoke]

WHAT? Where'z my invite to the wedding?
Anywayz ... meza having a decoder bonfire 8th of march, and am buying a small second hand car with the money i've saved.

 

[JTech]

meza strip decoder for parts to play with

 

[Skeptik]

What is the Smart Card Marriage project about?

* Smart Card Marriage will be implemented in South Africa only.
* In the near future, the project will be rolled out to MultiChoice operations outside South Africa.
* Smart Card Marriage will assist in curbing some form of piracy threats and aims to reduce the risks of piracy.
* From February 2007, MultiChoice South Africa (MCSA) will download software to ''marry'' all decoders in South Africa, and from that point onwards these decoders will be married to the smart cards that they were in at the time of the download.
* In future all new decoders in South African will have a smart card married to them at manufacture. Africa decoders will not be married.
* The initial smart card marriage done over the air will only need to be performed once on a specific decoder and smart card.
Subsequent marriages can be carried out by the contact centre.
* Smart card marriage for new activations and reconnections will be automated.

Please note: All smart card marriages are tracked and audited.
If you are registered as a South African subscriber this Smart Card Marriage will affect your decoder and smart card, and you will need to contact your local MultiChoice office for assistance.

Which subscribers will Smart Card Marriage apply to?

* All subscribers within the South African market.
* This includes Commercials, VIPs, Shareholders, Shareholder accounts, Demos, Global Access and Telly Track.
* Subscribers outside of South Africa, but within the IS-7 footprint, will not be affected by this, unless they are registered as a South African subscriber.
* The ''Marriage Aware'' global command has been sent to all decoders that fall under the IS-7 footprint. Subscribers should not be affected if they do not have a South African decoder or smartcard.
* MultiChoice Africa (MCA) is not rolling our Smart Card marriage at this stage but plans to do so in the near future.
* Decoders bought in SA and taken to countries outside South Africa will be affected when they try to use smart cards specific to the new country or when the decoder needs to be sent in for repairs. This is because the decoder will already have been ''married'' to a South Africa smartcard under the MCSA Smartcard marriage.
* Different colours will be used to distinguish the new decoder packaging between SA decoders and those destined for the other African markets.


The following will now appear on the SA packaging:

* The smart card (V5) is married to the decoder and can, therefore, only be utilised as a unit. It cannot be used independently.
* These components will not function outside of the South African border. MultiChoice Africa (Pty) Ltd accepts no liability should these components be taken out of the South African border.



Why did MultiChoice embark on this project?

* Developments in the rollout of broadband internet access have resulted in piracy affecting the music, Pay TV and computer software industries.
* The piracy is a growing international threat.
* MultiChoice is, therefore, upgrading its security technology by implementing a new software solution called Smart Card Marriage.
* This will proactively reduce the risks of some of the forms of piracy.



How exactly does Smart Card Marriage work?

* With Smart Card marriage a particular smart card and a particular decoder will function as one unit.
* A subscriber will only be able to use the decoder to which their smart card is married.
* A decoder can only ''remember'' one smart card at a time. Therefore, when a smart card is married to the decoder, it will only allow that smart card to be used in it.
* Other smart cards will be blocked from using this decoder.
* All smart cards and decoders that are already married cannot be used independently; otherwise an error message ''E17'' will be displayed.
* An E17 message will be displayed saying ''E17 Smart Card Marriage Conflict. Please call the MultiChoice Contact Centre for assistance''.
* In future, smart card marriage for new activations and reconnections will be automated in South Africa.
* The automation of the marriage is only for South African smart cards and decoders at this stage.



Please note: All smart card marriages are tracked and audited.

When will Smart Card Marriage be implemented?
# Rollout will begin from 14 February 2007.

Will there be changes to the decoder and smart card packaging?
Different colours will be used to distinguish the decoder packaging between SA decoders and those destined for the Africa markets.

The following will now appear on the SA packaging:

* The Smartcard (V5) is married to the decoder and can therefore only be utilised as a unit. It cannot be used independently.
* These components will not function outside of the South African border. MultiChoice Africa (Pty) Ltd accepts no liability should these components be taken out of the South African border.
* Use of the decoder subject to terms and conditions.
* Subscription terms and conditions are available on: www.dstv.com.
* Not for commercial use (This is only applicable to Dual View and PVR)



How will subscribers be notified of this change?
Notifications will be released as follows:
# March statements
# www.dstvafrica.com
# Subscriber Newsletters
# DSD Messages – if necessary

In addition MCSA will run On Air promo on Channel 11 (IS-7)

http://www.dstvafrica.com/care/faq.aspx?s=1&maincat=157

DSTV have been quite sneeky about this. I was having trouble with my card for the past week and a half. When I put it in our alternative decoder (also DSTV branded) it kept asking me to reinsert it and "this is not our card" type messages.

Now yesterday it all works perfectly. So I reckon they have been doing the marriage thing while we weren't looking!! They eloped as far as I can see from the above.
I'm disappointed they didn't give advanced warning. I was getting worried I would have to replace the darned thing. And they aint cheap!!

 

[Syndyre]

What happens if you have 2 decoders and one smart card, e.g. in different locations, what's their policy on that?

 

[PeterCH]

It shouldn't be a problem since the SMARTCARD is the actual DSTV viewing
licence. Only the smart card holder can view the signal at any one time
as there is only one smart card, irrespective of the number of decoders,
heck you could have 3 or 4 or even 10 decoders but DSTV is only being
seen on ONE of them at any given time.

 

[PeterCH]

So now this means the following.

I cannot take my bussiness Smart card home and watch it there @ night and over weekends... That just sucks.

Arrange it that the other decoder is for BUSINESS entertainment purposes,
or something of the CLIENTS of the BUSINESS.

 

[ToxicBunny]

This is horse raddish...

Mutlichoice need to be taken to task for this ***... this does nothing but inconvenience the law-abiding fee paying subscribers (as it always seems to)...

The increase in broadband is the reason they're doing this... I don't see how its going to change anything other than me nuking Dstv and spending the R500 and get a bigger ADSL acc.

 

[Skeptik]

What happens if you have 2 decoders and one smart card, e.g. in different locations, what's their policy on that?

Not a problem, but if the card was in the wrong decoder, it was married to that one. One would need to call DSTV helpline and they will send the marry signal again. That way, one card will work in both.

The issue is they didn't tell anyone and it means you now can't easily use a 3rd party decoder or a 3rd party smartcard. You also cannot view some FTA channels if Multichoice doesn't want you to.

 

[hj2k_x]

This is horse raddish...

Mutlichoice need to be taken to task for this ***... this does nothing but inconvenience the law-abiding fee paying subscribers (as it always seems to)...

The increase in broadband is the reason they're doing this... I don't see how its going to change anything other than me nuking Dstv and spending the R500 and get a bigger ADSL acc.

Indeed. How about getting more channels that people will actually watch, or bringing down the price?!

 

[jackganor]

Me puts duel view next to MyWireless modem in garage..........

 

[Franna]

* A subscriber will only be able to use the decoder to which their smart card is married.

This is bollocks. They simply want to block the new pay-tv satellite providers from using their decoders.

The 17 or so licence awaiting pay-tv providers should fight back like this. Decide on an altenative decoder to use, and allow all the different SIM cards to work, but block only DSTV SIM cards. Then give the decoders away with a new pay-tv subscription. Then after a while most people will have a decoder that can receive all services except DSTV.

Can't believe we are getting screwed by a company we paid good money to buy a decoder from originally. Is DSTV really worth the R450 per month?

 

[Skeptik]

Buying a new decoder is a recognised barrier to entry in the market. DSTV knows this.

This is the accepted reason that VIVID never had much success with their own system. They relied on a completely different encoding system and decoder.

MC's weakness is that the decoder doesn't belong to them and so we can easily argue that there moves are anti-competitive.

They have also updated the software to prevent us watching non-DSTV channels.

 

[RichardP]

My Non-DSTV decoders are still working fine

 

[telkomsuig]

The smart card is married to the decoder not the other way around. Thus if a new competitor also uses Irdeto encryption nothing prevents you from using the decoder for that service. This is just to stop people from sharing smart cards over the net.

 

[RichardP]

The smart card is married to the decoder not the other way around. Thus if a new competitor also uses Irdeto encryption nothing prevents you from using the decoder for that service. This is just to stop people from sharing smart cards over the net.

AFAIK, its the Decoder thats locked to the cards... so you cant use a competitors card in your DSTV decoder. As for internet card sharing... has it stopped? It hasnt stopped in Australia and their cards/decoders were married years ago.

 

[mercury1]

they have been doing this to the pvr decoders for a while as i had to swop out my pvr at hifi corp when i got home the smart card would not work as hifi only swopped the decoder, when i contacted multichoice i was informed that the smart card and pvr work as one and had to go back to hifi the next day, they had already returned the faulty unit and could not understand the whole marriage thingy so i had to call multichoice to explain it to them.

 

[Abe]

My Non-DSTV decoders are still working fine

What decoder is this? I would be interested in getting one.

Does anyone know what happens if your decoder is not set to download updates? I suspended my DSTV in December because of all the crap on it. My decoder is presently set to not download upgrades automatically. From time to time over the weekend I use my mothers card when she is away.

Please note: All smart card marriages are tracked and audited.
If you are registered as a South African subscriber this Smart Card Marriage will affect your decoder and smart card, and you will need to contact your local MultiChoice office for assistance.

Think they are talking a crap here to a certain extent. There is no way for your decoder to send anything back to MC so they can only audit/track what they broadcast.

 

[d3c]

My DREAMBOX DM500S is still working with my MCA SMART CARD.

Do We know if they are marrying with CAM or Decoder itself ?

I was thinking of buying a Local SMART Card Splitter but I suppose I should wait and see.

Any comments on this.

Does anyone have the Terms and conditions for Sale and use of DSTV?

I want to see if they say you can't use a Local Card Splitter in the terms?

Regards D3c