New Signal Descrambler Aims to Foil Satellite-Dish ‘Pirates’

VideoCipher and some of the nation’s leading television programming services said Tuesday that they have joined forces to pull the plug on more than 600,000 satellite-dish “pirates.”

The San Diego-based division of General Instrument Corp. of Chicago announced the development of a new generation of television signal descramblers, the boxes satellite-dish owners must use to tune in to such pay TV services as HBO and Showtime and free basic cable channels as well.

In cooperation with the programming services, VideoCipher said it would distribute about 250,000 of the new descramblers free to their legitimate subscribers in “a major upgrade of signal security.”

The company said it would spend more than $50 million to provide its new VideoCipher RS (“renewable security”) descramblers to users of its current VideoCipher II model.

The payoff is supposed to come in selling the new descrambler to the estimated 600,000 Americans--plus an unknown number in other countries--who now steal signals by using illegally altered descramblers.

Michael Meltzer, VideoCipher vice president for sales and marketing, said he anticipates that the hardware will retail at $399 to $500. But pirates will also have to go legitimate and subscribe to programming services at additional cost.

The new descrambler is supposed to be more effective than past models because--should its security ever be breached--legitimate subscribers will be issued small cards that can be slipped into a slot in the descrambler, enabling it to accept a different signal.

Sometime next fall, once all legitimate VideoCipher II users have received their free upgrades, the signal will be changed, blacking out the pirates, Meltzer said.