Let me explain

There are many chinese channels offered via satellite, they all used to be free - if you know the technical details you can set up a dish yourself and receive them for free.

After 10/1 last year, some of those channels became not free because China entered an agreement with DishNetwork to offer them through Dish Network's program packages. That when those channels were encrypted, and you have to pay DN to get them. But only part of the channels went to DN so DN only has 17 channels they offer. The rest are still free out there.

Any questions? :)