freesat claims Hauppauge's WinTV Nova-S USB2 receiver won't work

Last week I wrote about the Hauupage WinTV Nova-S USB2 satellite receiver, which is supposed to offer access to freesat (freesat launched on 6th May 2008)

An email I received from freesat's PR company this morning suggests the company sees things rather differently.

The official statement from freesat reads:

"freesat would like to clarify that the Hauppauge free-to-air USB2 satellite tuner is not a freesat licensed product and as such will not receive freesat services. freesat licensed products can be identified by the freesat logo and are subject to a stringent test and conformance regime. For more information, please see www.freesat.co.uk"

A rather surprised response from Hauppauge implies that they hadn't been contacted by freesat directly over the issue. Yehia Owiess, VP Sales, Hauppauge Europe, issued the following statement:

"Hauppauge has been a European pioneer in the market for free-to-air receivers for PCs and laptops for over a decade, and has successfully serviced its customers with its award-winning products.

"Our customers have been enjoying a wide range of unencrypted free-to-air satellite and terrestrial channels in Europe for years, including BBC HD, for example.

"For encrypted services, our WinTV CI module enables the use of a CAM and viewing card to decode broadcasts.

"Our products are not endorsed by Freesat, nor would we wish to imply they are."

I had a brief conversation via email with a representative of Hauppauge, but his comments were strictly "off the record" so I won't publish them here. As yet, I've received no additional information as to why freesat believes that Hauppauge's hardware won't be able to receive their services. I'm not alone either:

"A spokeswoman at Freesat's public-relations company said she could not elaborate on the statement, though she agreed that it raised more questions than it answered. She could not, for instance, clarify whether it meant that conditional access technology would restrict reception to authorised devices."

Indeed, it raises a number of issues. Though freesat is intended to be a free-to-air service -- in other words, free from subscription -- this implies that the signals may be encrypted so that only authorised devices with the appropriate decoding capabilities will be able to receive the programmes.

If this is the case, it makes for a rather closed system, in which just a handful of manufacturers collect the spoils. Perhaps freesat have chosen to restrict hardware compatibility to maintain quality control, though it could backfire on them if those who already have a satellite dish are denied access to a free service.

Unfortunately, this latest move doesn't surprise me. The freesat project comes across like a covert military operation, shrouded in secrecy and with precious little information being made available.

How does freesat know that Hauppauge's system doesn't work? How does Hauppauge know that it does. There's so little data available to those who aren't a privileged partner.

Given that it's supposed to be launching in under two weeks' time (though that in itself is a moving target), I reckon I'd be hard pushed to find any regular consumer who'd even heard of freesat.

According to the unofficial freesat blog, retailers are also sending confusing messages -- perhaps being controlled from behind the scenes -- first selling authorised freesat equipment and then withdrawing it, saying it's out of stock. Manufacturers are effectively gagged, unable to reveal the technical details of freesat-friendly products.

Let's hope that the public-facing launch is more successful.