Well ...

I think there are a couple of likely reasons for this sort of lock-down being desired by platform makers, including Freesat. As for the reverse engineering issue, that's not really a big one - Myth already has a plug-in for the Freesat EPG, so it's possible to get the programme data, and they've not been taken out back and shot.

Freesat's intended to be a self funding system, with an advanced EPG (ie series link, rescheduling, and so forth). And for that to work, it has to charge channels to go on the guide.

There's also a viewpoint (which depends on your exact interpretation of EU law, and applies more to Sky in any case, I think) that satellite receivers must not block the reception of other broadcasts that are in the clear, hence the addition of the 'non freesat' scan mode. (Annex IV, Framework Directive 2002/21/EC, itself a rewording of Art 4, Directive 95/47). But I digress...

Once you've got a function to scan for those other channels, then what do you do with them? On a box like the old Humax HDCI-2000, no problem, because there is no common EPG. They just go in the channel list.

But I suspect the reasoning for not doing that here (and indeed on Sky) is that it potentially harms your sales of EPG slots, if people know that it's pretty simple for users to add an extra channel and then view it. If you could simple scan and store in the same channel list, might not some smaller channels decide, rather than pay the EPG fees, that they'll simply explain on their website how to scan and store themselves?

There's also then the issue of the platform services, which is the enhancements like series links, auto rescheduling, and trailer booking, which are offered over and above the capabilities of the standard programme information.

Some of those thing, to work, will require that at least one of the tuners on the box is monitoring a transponder that has Freesat data streams on it, otherwise you won't get things like the accurate recording flags, or notice of rescheduled events. That, potentially, could mean either things like recording failing, or missing start or ends.

I'm not going to say this sort of issue isn't surmountable, but it requires thought, and it's still going to be confusing to some of the non-techy punters at whom platform-based services like these are aimed. You can end up with situation where end users have recording issues not because of any failing in Freesat itself, but because, for example, they happen to be watching a non--platform channel at the time when a recording was meant to start.

Readers of sites like RegHardware will probably understand why there might be issues; but many people will just see that a box has failed to record a particular thing and their view will be "Freesat is crap, because the box didn't record Doctor Who properly while I was watching XYZ", even if XYZ is on a non-Freesat transponder.

So, from a technical support/reputational point of view, I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but I can quite see why Freesat and the makers of compatible equipment adopt the approach that they do.