What this site is About?


This site was formed by a group of people who like to test and research FTA to find digitally encoded channels that are available without subscription, and/or may be restricted geographically. None of these are pay-TV channels, which are available via an encrypted subscription (or pay-per-view) service.


What is Free-To-Air (FTA)?

FTA or "Free To Air" simply means that the channel signal is not encrypted with conditional access. Smart Cards or Conditional Access Modules (CAMs), are generally used to decode scrambled signals.

FTA receivers, such as those manufactured by Sonicview, Coolsat, Viewsat, Digiwave, Pansat, Neosat, NFusion, ProSat…the list goes on and on!....are examples of MPEG-2 compliant FTA receivers.

Where did all of these receivers come from? The U.S. and Canadian Cable industry distributes their programming largely via products sold by Motorola and a few other manufacturers, but the rest of the world chose the MPEG-2 format. Even though the Motorola Digicipher II has some MPEG-2 attributes, it nevertheless remains a totally proprietary platform. Who has chosen MPEG-2 as a platform? Dish Network, Scientific Atlanta, and the rest of the world have. Even DirecTV is an early version of MPEG-2.


What does MPEG2-FTA mean?

MPEG-2 is not an encryption method although encryption can be added. Dish
Network uses the Nagra system of encryption; DirecTV uses a News Data system,
and large, full-view dishes primarily use the Digicipher system.

MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group. MPEG-2 is a digital
platform that allows several digital broadcasts to be compressed onto one
frequency or channel. Without MPEG-2, Digicipher, or another compression platform,
it would be impossible to have direct broadcast television services like
DirecTV or Dish Network. Equally important is the way the programmers get
their products to retail outlets such as DBS and cable. They too have chosen compressed digital transmissions largely due to cost. PAX on GE-1 is an
example of this.

Transponder time has become so expensive that, with the exception of the preachers, porno channels, and home shopping networks, it doesn't make sense to place only
one channel on one frequency. With HBO, and Discovery Networks planning 25
channels each, it would take over two C-Band birds to air their material the old
fashioned, analog way.


What can be seen on Free to Air?

Most cable type programming is encrypted. Occasionally programmers may turn the scrambler machine off and you can see a channel or two with an MPEG-2 compliant FTA receiver. You will never see Time Warner cable programming, i.e. CNN, HBO in FTA mode in the U.S. CNN, and other international news channels, are available to viewers around the world in free to air mode, but not to the U.S..

In the U.S., there are a number of channels available via MPEG-2 compliant FTA
receivers that have indicated they plan to remain in the clear, or are believed to be intending to stay free and clear. These include Saudi TV, Abu Dhabi, Thai TV,
Kuwait TV, Syria TV, Taiwan, Iran, and Bloomberg TV. These channels are available on the Telstar 5 satellite (ku band) via a .7 meter dish. The list changes now and then, but these and more can be seen today.

GE-1 is the home of a bouquet of channels from Paxton Communication's PAX TV.

PanAmSat 9 at 58 degrees West is home to RTP, EWTN, CCTV China, NHK, Deutche Wella, an Arab bouquet in PAL, and a channel from Colombia. Some channels from the Middle East are scrambled, but their feeds to Australia remain in the clear. These feeds use a PAL format but a receiver like the BEC will convert the picture to NTSC, the North American format.

MPEG-2 FTA feeds are numerous and more and more are being added every day. The economics of compression, allowing more than one service on each frequency dictate that we will see more. Every time another satellite fails, and they are failing, we see the prices of transponder time go up. A couple of thousand dollars an hour for a better bird
are not unusual for part time use.