this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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Can someone explain what's going on here?
I mean I understand that they're watching a smut channel, but technically what's going on? How was it possible to do this?
(born after cable era)
Before peeps had access to internet and whatnot, you could tune into the scrambled porn channel and watch the scrambles for a while. Occasionally, it would unscramble enough to be able to see the sex stuff!
Yeah, I have had cable, I meant what's the technical thing going on here. What's this scrambling/unscrambling stuff.
Were these porn channels illegally broadcasted? If it was scrambled how would the intended viewers watch it?
It was broadcasted scrambled, legally. You could see the scrambled channel by just tuning in. To unscramble it, you paid some amount of money PER VIDEO, it was pretty ridiculous.
My mate growing up had a box that unscrambled it automatically for free, a “pirate box”. That was also an option.
Between that and the underwear ads you could almost even get off?