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Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

>In UK/Ireland you can easily identify if the venue in question is paying for the commercial package as it will intermittently display a pint glass symbol in a bottom corner of the screen. Indeed, Sky investigators, who do spot checks, use it to quickly ensure that the pub has a valid pub contract and not a residential contract.

That seems as if it would be so easy to fake...

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Aside from the changing pint glass color and level, the Sky set top box / decoder, will also overlay the subscription ID at random intervals and locations.

I don't know if Sky does it, but Foxtel in Australia, in addition to the pint glass watermark, have a separate set of channels for public venues, which have different ad breaks/content to residential subscriptions. (https://www.foxtelmedia.com.au/foxtel-media-network/fox-venu...)

Does it cost more less time/effort for the bar to fake it though? The price of 200€/month above seems low enough to just pay it.

I think that's it.

I assume the pint glass pops up at intervals that the investigators would know and the general public would not, so you'd need some kind of central service with someone watching the commercial stream and showing/hiding the pint glass at the right intervals. In which case it would make more sense to operate a central service just pirating the commercial stream, which I'm sure does happen and does get shut down.

>I assume the pint glass pops up at intervals that the investigators would know and the general public would not,

This would be the smart way to do it. But now think about how you'd do it the lazy way...

A pub near us got quoted near £1500 a month just for one service, you have to have 3 separate ones to watch all the games. Risking a fine might be cheaper than paying that for some

The pint glass also changes colour

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