Sean's Blog

A commenter on Ars Technica suggests that cable companies provide decryption devices at or before the demarc of a house, so that all channels the homeowner has paid for are available to all TVs with a Clear QAM tuner. This reminded me of when I was about six or seven (‘91 or ‘92, roughly), and the cable company did exactly that, albeit minus the whole HD thing. We had a descrambler (back when channels were scrambled, not encrypted) mounted on the pole outside our house, and I had HBO in my bedroom, by way of tuning my VCR to the proper channel, as my TV at the time wasn’t cable-ready.

The cable companies introduced “converter boxes” as a means to provide pay-per-view services, if I remember right, and with that, I lost my ability to watch “Babar” or whatever it was that I watched on HBO as a six-year-old child (“Child’s Play,” perhaps?). One step forward, and one step backward, probably ever since then.

Note: I was a “unique” and utterly-spoiled child who wanted nothing more than the ability to listen to TV in stereo at the age of seven.