With all the recent hits by Virgin Media on Starview & Eurovox receivers, I for one am glad I took the plunge and got a DBox2. No such worries about code changes for me. ;-)
how do these starview boxes work, I know how dBox work when encryption key change occurs, would be interested to know the technical differences between starview and dbox
Haven't a clue mate, All I know is they are programmed with a set of keys and try various ones until it works. The memory can't be that good if it needs flashing each time the keys change.
Fekker, I nearly bought a d-box ( i prefer the look to be honest) but all the promotional gumpf, plus a great price made me choose the Starview. Apparently the Starview was supposed to be auto-rolling. This obviously ain't true. How does Dbox get around this?
here is detailed explanation of how the dbox decrypts channels.. ok so one day you come home sit down to watch Sky Sports but all you get is a blank screen with no video or audio - however the FTA (free to air) channels like BBC1 and Channel 4 are ok well lets start by explaining a bit about how the dbox descrambles the cable signal The DBOX descrambles the cable signal - The actual fundamentals of the image do not decode the channels - the image is simply a standard linux operating system. There are two types of stream sent out by the cable company: FTA - These channels are broadcast 'in the clear' and are not scrambled in any way. Typically this is BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 and Cbeebies (maybe a few others). In other words they are the freeview channels; and anybody can stick a box on the end and obtain them. Nagra Encrypted - These channels are broadcast as 'scrambled'. In other words, they need to be decoded before you will see a sound and picture. It needs to be decrypted first via use of a 'key' The cable system works similar to this. The 'keys' are sent down the video/audio stream, but the box needs to know what to do with them, how to recognise them, and how to process them. This is where a softcam comes in. The encrypted channels are the subscription ones that they want you to pay for - for example the Movies and Sports channels. In a standard/legitimate box, you have a digital smartcard which processes all the data and reacts to it. The smartcard is the one that looks for, receives, and processes these 'keys' which will decode the channel. But we don't use a card with the DBOX2 do we, so whats going on there then?? On top of the image is a 3rd party program which we refer to as a 'softcam' - it emulates a smartcard. You would have heard of it as evocamd, newcamd, mgcamd, or maybe even gbox. This programs work by simulating an inserted card and processing commands in the stream. They were written by studying the smartcards and their processors, and working out what commands do what function. By doing this, a softcam is essentially a digital clone of a smartcard in an unphysical form. The 'softcam' grabs the keys from the stream and saves them into a file on the box [a real smartcard would store these in permanent memory]. Whenever you change channel, this file is then read, and the stream is decoded using these sets of keys or passwords. The cable company send 'commands' down the stream called ECMs which tell boxes that the key has changed, and that the systems need to be updated. The softcam receives this command and compares the two sets of keys - if the newer keys are different then it saves those instead. This is known as 'autoroll' or 'autoupdate'. If the softcam didnt recognize and save the newer keys then the encrypted channels would not be able to be displayed, because the 'key' to unlock them would not be correct and the stream would still be encoded. Therefore you see a blank screen. To view this ECM information, using FTP go to the tmp folder on the dBox and look for a file called ecm.info - this is a standard text file with the 'key' to descramble the channel. Therefore to update or autoroll the key - all you need to go to is go to a channel like Sky Sporst 1 - wait for a while (a minute at the most) and this ecm.info file will be updated with the new key.
Hi Zappp64, thanks for the info! If this doesn't work, which it hasnt for me, is there anything you would suggest trying next?
Ok noob moment- I should recieve my d-box this week so have no idea what to expect yet, I know it's going to be set up by someone in my area and hopefully he's going to deliver it this week. Question,-- do the boxes ever go off like the starview and card boxes, several friends boxes went off at the weekend and I wondered if d-box was the same. According to my interpretation of what you're saying the d-box shouldn't go off, am I correct? Thanx for your patience, Dunx.
This is a nice explanation zappp However, some things are still unclear for me since a long time, and up to now I wasn't able to find a good explanation for them. I have a dreambox (500s) and an original Viaccess 2.5 card from my sat tv provider. From the beginning I faced this problem: at the beginning of each month, I have to put my card in receiver having a genuine Viaccess module, so that the update of my subscription is written on it (I suppose this is what it happens). I checked the net, googled, gave up, tried again and still I am not able to understand: is it because of the receiver? the softcam (I use scam 2.5)? the image is wrong? or this is normal behavior? It is very annoying to take the card out each month, go to a friend, put it in his receiver (with embedded Viaccess), and then get it working for another month.. What is happening in this case with the keys? Do you have any idea?
dbox 2 is a cable reciever not a satelite so cards etc have nothing to do with it.best to ask someone in sat forum
