Yup it's legal .While the U.S. and Canadian Cable industry distributes their programming largely via products made by General Instruments, which they own part of, the rest of the world chose the MPEG-2 format. Granted, even though, the GI 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. Even DirecTV is an early version of MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is a digital platform that allows several digital broadcasts to be compressed onto one frequency or channel. Without MPEG-2, Digicipher, or other compression platform, it would not be possible to have direct broadcast television services like DirecTV or Dish Network.

What does MPEG2-FTA mean? MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group. It is a method for compressing data. FTA stands for "Free to Air"- meaning that the signal is not encrypted with a conditional access module. Smart Cards are generally used for this purpose.

MPEG-2 is not a encryption method although encryption can be added. Dish Network uses the Nagra system, DirecTV uses a News Data system and cable primarily uses the Digicipher or Videocipher system. Transponder time has become so expensive that with the exception of the preachers, the porno channels, and the 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 way.

WHAT CAN BE SEEN ON MPEG2-FTA?

FTA or "Free To Air" simply means that the signal is not encrypted. Most cable programming is encrypted. Occasionally programmers may turn the scrambler machine off and you can see a channel or two with an MPEG-2 receiver. The barker channel can occasionally be seen on Dish Network. 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 that are available via MPEG-2 FTA receivers that have indicated that they plan to remain in the clear or are believed to intending to stay clear. These include Saudi TV, Abu Dhabi, Thai TV,Asian TV, Kuwait TV, Syria TV, Taiwan, Iran, and as we go to press, Bloomberg TV all on Telstar 5, ku, which can be received on a 30 inch dish. The list changes now and then but these and more can be seen today.

On Anik E2 look for CTV and CBC. CBC-East is already testing on Nimiq at freq 12730, with a symbol rate of 20000 I am told. GE-1 is the home of a bouquet of channel from Paxton Communication's PAX TV. PanAmSat 5 at 58 degrees west is home to the Latin American Weather Channel, RTP, EWTN, WACC-Am Miami, CCTV China, NHK, Deutche Wella, another major English language news service from Europe which I won't mention by name for fear of seeing it scrambled,,,, shhhhh, an Arab bouquet, and Caracol from Colombia. MPEG2 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.

WHERE DO YOU FIND LISTINGS OF WHAT IS AVAILABLE

The answer is simple, you find it on the Internet. There are two sites that are very good. Every day Christian Lyngemark spends a few hours updating loading information from every satellite in the world from his office in Sweden. His site is supported by advertisers. He relies on information from the programmers and satellite owners plus an army of volunteer spotters located around the world. His lists aren't always up to date or totally accurate, especially since many of the services go to great lengths to hide their feeds, but he is a very good detective. Christian's site is and he lists everything from HBO to Solo Tango. A competing site that Christian Lyngamark was formerly associated with is and has similar lists.