Tom Doyle :: TALK

If people were to believe what Adrian Weckler wrote in an article in the Sunday Business Post yesterday, you would believe that the writing is on the wall for the Starview box.

He talks about how UPC (new owners of NTL and Chorus) and Sky are growing increasingly concerned at the number of free digital boxes accessing their subscription based content. He goes on to say that UPC have been working hard recently on finding an alternative protection system to fend off the use of these boxes, but agrees it will be sometime before a workable solution will be released.

I’m sure the owners of UPC are very concerned at the minute at how easy people are finding it to access the channels, however they also know that they will never prevent everyone from doing it.

Apparently they aren’t after the odd enthusiast who trys to gain free TV as a hobby. No, it’s the ordinary joe soap they are targetting now. Those users that wouldn’t know where to turn if their boxes stopped working all of a sudden.

In fairness to NTL, the last few updates they made, had a big affect on joe soaps perception of the boxes. People I have spoke with, are now of the opinion that the starview boxes no longer work. So that obviously was a successful campagin for NTL in my opinion.

Adrian also goes on to state that there is a misconception by people selling these boxes, they believe that it is not illegal to do sell Starview boxes. In one way he is right and in another he is completely wrong.

What he doesn’t know (or mention) is that when you buy the starview boxes from a manufacturer, they aren’t automatically able to  pick up the scrambled channels. It’s not even possible to access a hidden menu to turn on the ability within the Starview to do so. The Starview owner needs to ”hack” the Starview box with special software downloaded from the Internet in order to access the scrambled channels.

If UPC attempt at bringing in a solution that will render the boxes useless, I’m unsure how successful this will be. Most of encryptions availble and used by TV companies have already been hacked at this stage. And in reality, it won’t take that long for the hackers to break any new encryption they create.

I think Adrian should have done a bit more research into the starview and other digital boxes before making his assumptions surrounding it’s use. Even a few hours spent researching how they function would have made it a more informative article.

RTE are allowing users to watch all four episodes of their much hyped drama Prosperity on their website. Unfortunately you need RealPlayer to view them. On this rare occassion, I would recommend installing RealPlayer on your computer just go get a glimpse of what you have missed (if you have of course).

Prosperity is a four part drama series in which each hour long episode looks at the life of four individuals, that I guess you could say have missed out on our so called Celtic Tiger. Although I wasn’t that impressed with the acting, I was actually engrossed in the story behind each episode. It’s definitely worth the watch - View

Value Ireland have posted details on how you can receive world cup rugby on your Sky Digital box without a Setanta subscription by tuning in ITV4 who are showing all of the games in conjunction with ITV1.

All the details and full article can be read here!

I wrote what turned out to be a fairly topical blog post on the new Colm and Jim-Jim breakfast show on 2FM when it first aired back in March. The post can be read here.

A few people thought I was insane at my views on the new show. Some went as far as to predicted that the show would hit 250,000 listners in the next JNLR figures.

Well unsurprisingly (for me at least), the latest JNLR figures show that the Colm and Dim-Jim show have lost 6,000 listeners since taking over from Marty Whelan’s slot since March. This will make it very interesting to see the end of year JNLR figures…..

I do hope for their sakes, that they can ressurect this loss. I was a huge fan of the show on FM104, but since moving to 2FM, I’ve just felt it has been extremely poor and a very irritating show.

A few months ago, I wrote about these new Starview boxes that allow you to get access to all NTL digitals channels, with a basic NTL analogue connection (illegally of course). I did my own research at that stage and found that they worked a dream.

Since then, I’ve been keeping my eye on developments on this front, hoping that I am proven right that NTL will actually find a way to prevent this. So far, everything NTL do to counteract this has been simply a waste of time. The speed at which the developers of the software for these boxes can find a way around the changes is phenomenal, which causes a minimal distruption to service. I’m sure it would be a nightmare for most users of the box to find out ways to get round these changes, but for the technical savvy, it’s a simple task.

Anyway, a friend of mine purchased one of the new Starview box’s, now called TheBox or Starview 2. This guy is as technical as an apple and instead of trying to figure it out himself, took the easy option of calling on me. So, I went and had a look at TheBox for him.

Although it’s more expensive than the original Starview, it’s not much different at all. Specifications are exactly the same, even though it’s advertised as being an upgrade. Looking closely at the system, the only change really is the EPG (Electronic Programming Guide). In the past, when you scrolled thorough the channels to see what was on next, it would also change the channel. Very frustrating and quite useless! Now though, you can scroll through the channels to see what’s on, without changing channel. Another new addition is the time beside the info for each channel and it also shows what’s on next.

LEGAL NOTE:
It is illegal to receive subscription-based television airtime without paying for it. It is also illegal to connect this item to equipment that you do not own, without prior consent.

Only five months on and here we are with yet another racism row on Big Brother. Yet again, Endemol think they know what the right thing to do is in a situation like this. After the bad publicity they received from the last celebrity Big Brother, they wanted to come out looking like they really do take racist behaviour seriously. It reminded me of a child in school, they’e just been given out to and not they want to be in their teachers good books by ratting up one of their school mates. Endemol have acted in a completely childish and immature manner. It just shows they haven’t a clue what reality really is.

Let’s face it, the pop charts are filled these days with hip-hip music and a lot of them use the phrase “Nigga”. We’ve had huge hits such as Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” in which the chorus goes “Now I aint sayin she a gold digger, But she aint messin wit no broke Niggas”. One of the worlds most successful hip-hop artists is a white guy we all know, Eminem who can be regularly heard using the word “nigga” in his songs. But it’s never taken out of context in these cases.

The youth of today have become normalised to the use of this word, you just need to spend a minute on any bebo site and you will see someone say “you’re my nigga” and it is said in a way that can’t be further from it’s original meaning. What Emily said is something I have to agree I wouldn’t do and should not be aired for fear of offending those people that are still offended by it. But she is young, ignorant and simply too caught up in her only little “white” world that she doesn’t understand the offence it MIGHT cause someone. I have to stress MIGHT because, Charlie, whom she said it to, took it exactly as it was. A little white girl using her typical “night-out with her friends” talk that never meant to offend anyone.

The bottom line is that Big Borther have used Emily as a scapegoat for the bad press they got last time round. Yet again they had the opportunity to just play this down and let it go. They are of course in charge of what is aired and what isn’t……… Why couldn’t they just take it out and leave it never to be shown??? We all know they don’t show everything that happens on the show anyway!!

A few months ago, someone told me about these new boxes doing the rounds that allow anyone with an analogue NTL connection to get all the digital channels without a monthly rental fee. I was intriqued.

So I set it as my mission to find out more.

After much research I found out what they were called - ”Starview Boxes”. The going rate for one of these boxes in my area ranged from €250-400. So my next mission was to get my hands on one of these and see if they actually worked.

After much more searching on eBay (2 mins) I was able to find a starview box for €140 including delivery from the UK. The starview box was delivered to me within a couple of days.

I was like a child with a new toy when it arrived, the anticipation of seeing if that little silver box could actually get ALL the channels FREE was just too much to bear (just trying to make the story more interesting there…).

I got clear instructions in the email on setting it up. It told me how to get access to a hidden menu on the system that allowed me to set a setting that unscrambled all the scrambled channels. Menu -> 1570 etc…. and hey presto, I had access to all the channels that NTL provide on their digital service including all paid for stations.

As a paid for customer of NTL, I was shocked that it was this easy, but thought “no way, it can’t be true….. Maybe it’s because I already had digital that it worked for me”.

So I went off to try it in my mothers who only ever had the analogue NTL. Without changing a setting, it worked from the minute I plugged in the box. Now it must be noted, use of the box is illegal, but apparently selling the box isn’t….

Already, NTL have tried to rescramble the signal, but the box picked up the change and was working again within minutes…..

If I was NTL right now, I’d be seriously worried. Apparently in the UK, they now have boxes that will allow you to get a free broadband connection in a similar fashion.

Surely NTL can stop the use of these boxes? Are they even trying? How long can this continue? The popularity and knowledge of these boxes grow everyday….. they need to do something before they lose all their digital customers!

The ex-FM104’s Strawberry Alarm Duo started their new job this Monday called “The Colm and Jim-Jim Breakfast Show”. The much hyped and anticipated show has so far done nothing for me.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt each morning this week, thinking that it’s just this bad while they find their feet. However, things are just so annoyingly 2fm that I can’t listen to them anymore.

First and foremost is that terrible playlist that they must have to abide by. The one thing I really liked about Colm was his music selection. He just knew when to play the right track. But if you have a bad selection of tracks to work with, it’s hard to fing the right one! The jingles are also very cheesy and old fashioned, I could go on, but I’d only bore people.

I have to say, I thought I would move my alliance to 2fm as soon as they took to the airwaves, but I think I’ll stick with FM104’s Strawberry Alarm Clock. They’re not as good as the old Colm and Jim-jim show, but they’re doing a pretty good job!

I imagine the producers at Endemol are kicking themselves now. I wrote an article back in January where I felt that the producers could have done a lot more to prevent the uproar that was caused when accusations of racist remarks were made against the trio in the big brother house. (http://www.tomdoyletalk.com/2007/01/18/celebrity-big-brother-bullying-saga/)

Well now their small mindedness has come back to haunt them. Carphone Warehouse did suspend their sponsorship of the show when this all flared up, but now they have removed their sponsorship altogether!! The sponsorship was worth £3 million a year to Big Brother.

I wrote an article the other day about how I felt Big Brother’s producers (Endomol) were letting the whole bullyig and racism taunts go a little too far by continuing to show these scenes on TV.

At all times they could have simply edited the show with these scenes removed. But for some reason, they thought it would be great to get the publicity from it. Now it seems it’s backfiring.

Carephone Warehouse have suspended their sponsorship of the show with immediate effect. Jade Goody and Danielle (whatever her name is) have also lost some lucrative contracts because of the whole episode. I still blame Endomol for all this, they should have had more common sense.