Peter Near's Blog

Microsoft is testing a new free antivirus tool, but if you try to download the beta from Canada you'll be blocked.  In my testing, Microsoft Security Essentials is a nice and easy to use antivirus option for Windows 7, and comes in x86 and x64 flavours.  You can download the beta from Softpedia, and it will work just fine on your Canadian Windows 7 machine.

One of the first things I do when setting up Media Center is to dedicate a separate drive for storing all of my recorded TV.  Been doing it since the very first release and "how to put an extra hard drive in your HP 873n" was one of my first newsgroup contributions.  With each subsequent upgrade since that initial release, I format the c: drive, install the new operating system, and then point Media Center to the d: drive to pick up all of the previously recorded TV shows.  I suspect I'm not alone.

I just about had a heart attack after installing the first beta of Windows 7 and all of my Recorded TV had disappeared.  I was most concerned about what my wife would do to me since I hadn't properly backed up her audience appearances on Dr.Phil and The Price is Right.  Eek!

Turns out it was just a bug, and that the Windows 7 installer forgets to assign a drive letter to your secondary drive in certain scenarios.  It was reported and I had hoped fixed as part of the beta, but alas my Recorded TV was missing again after installing the RTM version of Windows 7.  By the power of Google, I hope that if you found your way here because of a similar panic attack I can show you how to easily fix the problem.

First, navigate to "Computer Management" by clicking on the Start Button and typing in "Computer Management" followed by enter.  You'll notice here that all of your drives are listed including the one that isn't currently working.

Now, Windows has automatically assigned the DVD drive the letter d:, but I'd rather have my Recorded TV drive had that letter.  So the first (optional) step is to change the DVD drive to something else so that d: becomes available for Recorded TV.  Right-click on the DVD drive and select "Change drive letter and paths.".  This will bring up the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog for the DVD drive.  We want to click on "Change.".

Next, click on the drive letter dropdown to change "D" to "E" and click OK.  You'll get a warning that this may cause issues for programs that might expect to find files on that drive, I haven't noticed any problems since my DVD drive is removable media and no programs point to it.  Click Yes and OK to get back to the main disk management screen.

Now, right-click on the unassigned drive and select "Change drive letter and paths.".  This will bring up the Change Letter and Paths dialog for the unassigned hard drive.  We want to click on "Add.".

Click on OK to accept the auto assignment of the letter "D" and click on OK to return to the main disk management screen.

Windows will pop up the autoplay dialog once it detects the new drive.  You can simply close the window by clicking on the X in the top right corner, and close the computer management window as well.

You should be back up and running now with your lost drive!

With the release of Windows 7 comes an updated version of the Media Center component of Windows.  There's a bevvy of new functionality available, and you can find a good review of the new features by clicking here (link to Engadget).  In this post I'll point you to some additional flavour that will make your Media Center experience north of the 49th parallel that much more interesting.

Over The Air HDTV
Did you know that all of the broadcast stations in Canada and the United States are switching to high-definition? Yep, pull out your old rabbit ears and prepare to be amazed by the eye-popping clarity of the free TV signals flying through our airwaves in Canada's major cities.  Click here for instructions on how to get Media Center to pull in those signals and turn your PC into Canada's best high-definition PVR.
In the Windows 7 version, you can now tell Media Center to give preference to high definition broadcasts and using my little hack you can get access to all of the subchannels coming across the US border as well.

Cable and Satellite HDTV
For years, you've likely heard me complain about the PVR options available from the big cable and satellite companies in Canada.  Once you've used Media Center it's really hard to go back to using a cable company PVR, but until recently that's been your only option for getting access to high definition cable channels like TSN and Discovery Channel.  With Windows 7, you now have some options for getting high definition cable into Media Center.  You'll still need a set-top-box from your cable company, but you can opt for the lower-priced non-PVR version and connect it to Media Center using the HD-PVR from Hauppauge (currently requires DVBLink addon to work, I expect native support in a few months).

Channel Logos
A hidden feature that is easily exposed using a little program called My Channel Logos adds some nice sizzle to the Media Center interface.  Canadian channel logos are planned for the next release, but for the time being you can get a Canadian logo pack by clicking here.

Internet TV
Here's where I bring you some sad news in the "cool stuff that's happening but doesn't work in Canada" category.  Windows 7 adds Internet TV functionality to Media Center, and Hulu desktop can be integrated as well to bring you on-demand access to high quality versions of all of the hottest shows on TV.  Unfortunately due to licensing constraints, Canadians are blocked from these services and all attempts to work around these barriers seem to be plugged very quickly so I can't recommend anything right now that will make this viable in the long term for the Great White North.  For now, you can get some low-quality versions of your favourite TV shows from the CTV, Global, and CBC.

Windows 7 Media Center provides enough compelling new features (Photo Wall, HDTV Recording Priority, Subchannel support, h264 video streaming to XBox 360 Extenders) that I would strongly recommend the upgrade to my fellow Canadians

There are some situations where you would like to manually add more guide listing data to Media Center.  Most notably for those of us who live in Canada near the United States border, it is incredibly useful to add in guide listings that include the broadcast channels that you can receive but are not part of the Canadian antenna guide info.

Step 1a - Easy Instructions for Major Canadian Cities

For those of you who live near major Canadian cities, I've prepared a batch file to take care of adding US OTA listings to your media center.  Simply download the zip file (click here), extract the files wherever you like, and run the file "USGuide.bat" with administrator privileges (Right click and select "Run as administrator").  This will instruct Media Center to add the guide listings for the digital over-the-air channels in the zip code nearest to that city, and add a scheduled task to Windows to download a guide update every morning.  See, I told you that was easy, now you can skip right down to step 2 and assign your guide channels.

Step 1b - Custom Instructions for Other Locales

If you don't live near a major city, or for whatever reason you want to add some other guide information into Media Center, you'll need to customize the batch file a bit.  We need to get a key piece of information from Media Center, the guide id, for the guide you wish to add.  To find this, you'll first need to set up Media Center to work natively in that geography.  Navigate to Tasks, Settings, TV, TV Signal, Set Up TV Signal.  Set up Media Center to use the guide that is most appropriate for your needs (for example, I selected the Rogers Mississauga lineup which has all of the OTA digital channels listed).  Next, navigate to Tasks, Settings, TV, Guide, About Guide Listings and take note of the nine-digit ID number.

Before continuing, you'll want to get Media Center set up again for your "real" geography.

Now that Media Center is back to normal, we'll want to instruct Media Center to use the additional guide information that we want.  Because you've decided to use a custom location you'll need to modify the custom MXF file to include the guide ID that you just selected.  In the folder you extracted earlier, navigate into the MXF folder and open the file "CustomGuide.mxf" with notepad.  You'll notice that in three separate areas I've used the Guide ID "189833220".  Replace that number in all three places with the guide ID that you noted from the "About Guide Listings" page.  Save the file and close notepad. 
 

Assuming that the guide you inserted above is in the same country as your primary Media Center setup, MC will take care of updating the listings every night.  However, if your guide lineup is in a different country (for example, I choose to use guide listings from Buffalo New York) then Media Center will fail when it tries to download on its normal schedule.  We need to add in a scheduled task that will change a registry key fake MC into thinking it's located in the US, download the listings, then set the registry key back to Canada.  This is all captured in the XMLTask\ImportATSCCustom.xml file, which you can edit pretty quickly using notepad.  Similar to what you did above, replace the number "189833220" with the Guide ID that you noted from the "About Guide Listings" page.  Save the file and close notepad.

Navigate back up a level and run the batch file "USGuide.bat" with administrator privileges (Right click and select "Run as administrator").  Select option 7 if you're adding US guide listings (the batch file will set up nightly downloading), option 8 if you're just adding Canadian listings (we'll just add the custom lineup to Media Center).

Step 2 - Assign Guide Listings to Channel

Now we want to map any channels that previously had no guide data to the new guide information that we just added to Media Center.

First, navigate to Settings, TV, Guide, Edit Channels.
 

Select the channel that you want to work with by clicking on the callsign of the station. In this example, we'll pick some an over-the-air digital antenna channel 5.1.

In the settings page for the channel, click on "Edit Listings"

You'll now be taken to a list of all the channels that your Media Center is aware of (including the guide data that we just added manually).  This list is organized alphabetically, and you can type in letters to skip to the appropriate point in the list.  Assuming that you're setting up a digital antenna channel, be sure to select a guide data with HD listings.

If you select a channel that also comes in via some other source (for example you get CBC Toronto on both cable and antenna) you will be presented with the option to merge the guide listings or to copy the listings.  I'd suggest "copy" so that you can manage the ATSC channel independently and take advantage of the HD guide logic for that channel.  Once you've selected the correct listings, you'll now see that the listings are associated with the ATSC channel.  Click Save.
 

Click on save, and at this point you can keep assigning channels or you may choose to go to the guide and test things out before continuing.  Once you assign guide listings to all of your ATSC channels, you're done the setup and should be able to enjoy pristine high-definition recordings on your computer and throughout your home on your extenders.

Questions and Answers

I've noticed some errors in the mcupdate logs, should I worry?
No.  Due to the nature of this setup, Media Center will try to download US listings daily using the normal update.  Since you're located in Canada, it will fail and throw an error that the headend ID is invalid.  No worries, that US guide will get updated by another scheduled task at 5am every morning.

Where can I get some help if I'm having trouble?
I've set up a forum here at TGB where you can post your questions and I'll try to help you out. Fair warning - my day job is pretty demanding so it can be a challenge sometimes to keep up with Q&A. I take no offense to you asking multiple times if you haven't gotten an answer to your question.  Click here for the forum.

I'm thrilled to see so many people have taken up the challenge to get ATSC working in Canada with Windows 7 since the untimely demise of the Vista hack.  Alas, as time marches on some of the holes that made new hacks possible were plugged and more capabilities were removed from Canadians (notably QAM).  I'm pleased to present this new method to enable ATSC and QAM here in Canada with the release version of Windows 7.

First, some background.  Like the United States, Canada has decided to transition all television broadcasts from analog to digital.  These new digital signals have greater effective range, provide a crystal-clear high definition picture, and as with all over the air network TV broadcasts are free and legal to access.  It's worth noting that over the air signals represent the best high-definition picture quality you can get for network television - better than cable and much better than satellite.  While high definition is available for a fee via cable and satellite, those high definition channels are subject to ever-increasing compression and picture quality degradation as they try to squeeze more and more content into your subscription.  And unlike cable and satellite, over the air broadcasts are not encrypted and can be easily incorporated into a Media Center setup, copied over to your iPod, and are generally easy to use.  The United States has nearly completed their digital transition, and will be shutting down the analog broadcasts in February 2009.  Canada is well into its transition, with most major markets now broadcasting in digital and 100% of the country switching over to digital by 2011 before we shut down our analog transmitters.  Here in Toronto, I can get access to every major US and Canadian network in full high-definition glory using a $40 antenna that I put in my attic.

QAM is very similar except that instead of getting the signals over-the-air using an antenna, the signals travel over your cable company's network.  However in most of Canada this isn't useful, as Canadian cable companies tend to encrypt or scramble their signal making it completely useless without buying their cable box.  There are some lucky regions in the country however who do get access to unencrypted QAM, and for those people it's a virtual nerdvana of digital TV.

Here's how to get digital high-definition broadcasts into Media Center.

If you're using Media Center in Windows XP or Windows Vista, follow this link for detailed instructions.

If you're using Media Center in Windows 7 or Vista with TV Pack 2008, continue reading below.  I've tried to provide excruciating detail, but don't get scared.  It's not difficult, I'm just going a bit overboard with screenshots and explanation.

Prerequisites:

• For ATSC, you should get a good quality UHF antenna.  In most cases I've read about it comes down to a Channel Master 4221 or Channel Master 4228 depending on your distance from the transmitters.  Consult this handy chart (PDF) to select the right antenna for your area.  I personally have a 4221 in my attic which was both easy to do and very neighbour-friendly.
• For ATSC, you will need an ATSC tuner for your Media Center PC.  Any tuner that is supported in Windows Media Center will do.
• For QAM, you will need a QAM tuner for your Media Center PC.  Any tuner that is supported in Windows Media Center will do.
• None of these items are the sort of thing you can walk into WalMart and find on the shelves, but there are several online vendors including eBay sellers who carry these items.  I personally have purchased from Sensuz, a Toronto-area HTPC dealer, and have been very happy with their service.

Step 1 - Force Media Center to allow ATSC and QAM in Canada

I've prepared some files that will automate the process for you.  Simply download and extract the provided zip file (click here) to your desktop or any location on your desktop.  Double-click on the file "EnableATSCandQAM.bat" which will insert some configuration information into the Media Center database that forces ATSC and QAM tuners to be recognized.

Step 2 - Configure Media Center to use your tuners

I'll walk you through the setup of the tuner in Media Center, although this isn't any different than what would normally occur out of the box.  Launch Media Center and navigate to Settings, TV, Setup TV Signal.  We want to set up Media Center using the correct region, Canada.  If Media Center doesn't automatically detect that you're in Canada, be sure to select a different region and choose "Canada".

Enter your postal code, and agree to the terms of service (assuming you do indeed agree to the legaleze).

At this point, Media Center will configure all of the signal types that were detected.  For any cable or satellite tuners, it will automatically link to the guide data for the region.  For digital antenna (ATSC) it won't find any guide data since it's not officially supported.  No worries, we can add in guide listings later.

Next, Media Center will scan for ATSC and QAM channels.  This process took awhile for me, up to fifteen minutes.
  

Congratulations, your tuners are now set up!  However at this point, you likely won't have any guide listings associated with the channels that were detected via the scan.

Step 3 - Map guide listings to your ATSC channels

For those of you who have used the Vista hack, you may like me be pleasantly surprised by the way the guide works now.  For each channel on each tuner you can specify which guide listings should be used, which is incredibly flexible.  Media Center also now has some much-welcomed logic in the Advanced Record Settings that allows you to specify that any given recording should be recorded in HD Only, HD Preferred, SD Only, or SD Preferred.  Because of this feature, I personally would recommend that you always attempt to associate your high-definition digital channels with listings from your cable company's high-definition channel lineup or the US over-the-air listings so that the recording logic works properly.  I'll walk you through how to set that up. 

First, navigate to Settings, TV, Guide, Edit Channels.

Select the channel that you want to work with by clicking on the callsign of the station.

In the settings page for the channel, click on "Edit Listings"

You'll  now be taken to a list of all the channels that your Media Center is aware of (including channels that were set up via other sources, such as Analog Antenna, Satellite, or my multiple guide listings hack).  This list is organized alphabetically, and you can type in letters to skip to the appropriate point in the list.
Select a channel with HD listings.

If you select a channel that also comes in via some other source (for example you get CBC Toronto on both cable and antenna) you will be presented with the option to merge the guide listings or to copy the listings.  Select "copy" so that you can manage the high definition channel independently.  Once you've selected the correct listings, you'll now see that the listings are associated with the digital ATSC or QAM channel.  Click Save.

Click on save, and at this point you can keep assigning channels or you may choose to go to the guide and test things out before continuing.  Once you assign guide listings to all of your ATSC channels, you're done the setup and should be able to enjoy pristine high-definition recordings on your computer and throughout your home on your extenders.

Questions and Answers

I'll try to capture some key answers that come in over time here in this section.  To kick things off, here are some things that came to mind for me.

What happens if I select "Merge" instead of "Copy"?
I've found that by selecting merge, Media Center assumes that all sources for a given channel are standard definition.

Doesn't Media Center support Analog Antenna in Canada, and can't I use those guide listings?
Yes analog antenna is supported and you'll get the listings for your local channels, but because it's analog Media Center will assume that all channels that use these guide listings are standard definition.

But isn't it incredibly stupid for Microsoft to support Analog Antenna but not Digital Antenna, given that analog channels are all shutting down and digital is the government-mandated standard for all of North America?
Yes.

Media Center didn't automatically detect all of the ATSC channels that I'm able to receive, is there any way I can manually add them?
One of the users at digitalhome.ca maintains a list of all the channels that you should be able to receive in major centers of Canada.  You can use these lists to manually add stations to media center using the functions in Settings, TV, Guide, Add Missing Channels, Add DTV Channel.
Southwestern Ontario
Kitchener-Waterloo
Niagara Region
Toronto & Hamilton Areas
Montreal & Surrounding Areas
Ottawa & Surrounding Areas
Vancouver & Surrounding Areas

I'm not able to find guide data for all of my over the air channels, is there any way for me to get guide data for more channels?
Yes, you can force Media Center to load in guide information from any region using my multiple guide listings hack.  For example, my cable provider Cogeco doesn't list many of the Buffalo-area over the air stations since they source their high definition content from Detroit instead.  I added the listings for Buffalo over-the-air digital antenna to Media Center using the multiple guide listings hack, and used those to complete the mapping of my channels.

Where can I get some help if I'm having trouble?
I've set up a forum here at TGB where you can post your questions and I'll try to help you out. Fair warning - my day job is pretty demanding so it can be a challenge sometimes to keep up with Q&A. I take no offense to you asking multiple times if you haven't gotten an answer to your question.  Click here for the forum.

These instructions have been superceded by a new method that works with Windows 7 RTM.
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW INSTRUCTIONS.

I've been testing a new method for working around the ATSC limitation in Windows 7 Media Center.  While this method still needs some tweaking, which I'm working with the utility developers to do, I thought it would be useful to get an early version of this tutorial out into the wild since the HDHomerun hack has stopped working in Windows 7 Build 7068.  Basically, in this workaround we will configure Media Center as a US-based system and then re-import the Canadian Media Center guide data back into the system.  It makes me feel better to point out that this would be absolutely unnecessary if Microsoft would just turn on ATSC reception in the Canadian region.  Moving on.

Step 1 - Configure Media Center in Windows 7 for the United States region

Run through the TV Signal Setup wizard and set up all of your tuners as if you were a resident of the United States.  You will make life easier on yourself if you choose a zip code near your location (for example 14072 will automatically set up all of the Buffalo and Toronto ATSC channels).   Upon completion, you should be able to navigate to the guide and tune in all of your channels whether they be ATSC, analog cable, satellite STB, whatever.  You will notice that most if not all of the guide data is wrong for your channels, that's expected at this point.

Step 2 - Download the Canadian listings for your area to a local file

Download the utility MC2XML from http://mc2xml.110mb.com/ and copy it to a directory on your computer.  In this example I've copied it to C:\mc2xml\.  Double-click to run mc2xml.exe, which will launch the configuration page.

Type in your postal code and country code, and until I get some bugs ironed out with the utility developer select "-F chan name first".

Once you hit OK, you'll be asked to select the appropriate lineup for your provider.  Select the one you need, and click OK to continue.

After a minute or so, you'll notice that MC2XML writes two new files out to the hard drive and then closes itself.  The first file, mc2xml.dat is a configuration file that stores your postal code, lineup selection, etc.  so that you don't need to enter it again.  The second is the actual Electronic Program Guide listings stored in the XMLTV format.

Step 3 - Import the listings into Media Center

Download the utility "Big Screen EPG" and copy it to a directory on your computer.  I use the directory c:\bse\.  Since Big Screen EPG is currently in beta, you'll need to request access from the author by sending an email to support@bigscreenglobal.com with the title "EPG Beta Request" and some information about your region and TV sources.

In order to configure the beta version of BSE, you'll need to launch a command window.
Click on Start, then type in the word cmd then hit enter.  The type into the black command prompt window c:\bse\bsetool.exe -config and hit enter.

This will launch the BSE configuration screen, seen below. Click on Add New Provider Wizard.

Click on Next to continue with XMLTV Files from Local System selected

Click on Choose File(s) and select the file c:\mc2xml\xmltv.xml

Click Next to accept the settings.

The utility will scan the file and come back with a list of channels found.  You can leave them all selected, or uncheck any that you don't want to be imported into Media Center.

On the next screen, simply click Next to accept the defaults for now as I haven't done any playing with this logic to see how it impacts the Canadian market.  I suspect that affiliate will be less useful for us given that any one unique program may be broadcast on both Canadian affiliates (Global) and US affiliates (Fox).

You can click Next to accept the default provider key

Your guide provider is now set up, and all that's left here is to import it into Media Center.  Click on Generate MXF and Import to Media Center, which will take a few minutes to complete and given the size of the listings for digital cable providers here in Canada it may look like it's hanging but it's all good. 

After a few minutes, you'll get a popup like the one below.  Simply click on OK to import the data into Media Center.  Again, this will take a few minutes to complete.

Once the data is successfully loaded into Media Center, you can safely close Big Screen EPG.  Note that there are alot of other cool things you can do with Big Screen EPG.  The utility is well documented, and I encourage you to read the included guide (the XPS files in the same directory as bsetool.exe) to tweak your EPG's usefulness.

Step 4 - Assign the new guide data to your channels

Now that we've imported all the correct listings into Media Center, it's time to tell Media Center "No really, I know I said I live in the United States and you think you pulled up the correct listings for my area but the sad truth is that I lied.  Let me teach you which listings REALLY go with every channel.  I'm sorry if this upsets you Mister Media Center, but you really shouldn't be angry with me.  Your rage is much more appropriately directed at your makers.  Yes, I understand that this is a really stupid way to get a perfectly supportable function to work.  It's not my fault."  Or something along those lines.  :-)

Within Media Center, navigate to Settings, TV, Guide, Edit Channels

Next, it's probably easiest to go through the list of channels and disable the channels that you don't have access to.  You can do this by selecting Show Preview on the left-hand menu which will attempt to show you the video of each channel as you navigate to it in the channel list.  If you don't get it (due to your subscription, or reception), then clear the checkbox so that Media Center ignores the channel.

Because I chose a zip code close to me, all of my digital channels are actually correct already.  I'll use the listings for my area from Zap2It.com to determine the correct mapping.  The first channel in my example that is mislabelled is channel 3, which according to Zap2It should really be CICA.  Click on the name next to channel 3 to change the settings for that channel.
 

Next, click on on Edit Listings, and once on that screen you can scroll down to the listings for CICA and click OK to select.  If you have a keyboard, it's much quicker to simply type in the callsign letters (CICA in this case) which will then jump to the correct listing.  Another hint is that you can see a description of what's supposed to be on right now on that channel and compare it to what's playing in the background to verify accuracy.

This will bring you back to the settings page for that channel, where you'll notice that the correct listings are now applied.  Click Save to save the changes.

Which brings you back to the edit channels page.  Continue editing the listings associated with each of your channels, and then click Save.

And voila, now your guide has all the correct information.

Step 5 - Set up an automation schedule

While it might be fun to run through those steps every day or so, it's probably much better to schedule things so that it "just works" automatically.  I've exported my settings to make it easier for you (assuming you used the directory names c:\bse and c:\mc2xml from above).  Click here to download.  This will set your system up to download the listings every day at 3am, and update media center every day at 4am.

Click on the Start Menu and type Task Scheduler followed by Enter to launch the task scheduler.

Click on Import Task. and select the exported file "Import Listings into MC using Big Screen EPG.xml".

Click OK on the Create Task screen (and/or you can modify any of the settings as you see fit).

You will then be prompted for your password, since this task requires user priveleges to run and import guide data into media center.  Use your primary Media Center user name.

Import the file "Get listings via MC2XML" in the same manner.

Congratulations, you now have restored free high-definition over the air reception to your Canadian Media Center!

Additional Notes/Tips:

• This guide will supplement your listings with one data source only, which in my case is fine since my ATSC listings from Buffalo contain all the data I need.  If you need to import more than one data source (for example, you need both cable and satellite listings) you have two options which I haven't yet tested.
  1. Free Option:  Set up two different instances of MC2XML in different directories.  Configure each one to download a different guide, and then configure Big Screen EPG to use two sources with each source pointing to a different MC2XML directory.
  2. Less Free Option:  Get an account with SchedulesDirect for $20 a year.  Through their web interface you can set up which listings are relevent to you, manage the stations you get, and use MC2XML to download all of the lineups at once using its "Schedules Direct" option.
• I'm working with both the MC2XML and Big Screen EPG authors to tweak this, the methods and tools are likely to change before RTM of Windows 7.
• I'm hopeful, albeit sceptical, that Microsoft will come to their senses and simply allow ATSC in Canada out of the box.  I'm also hopeful that someone, maybe even me, will come up with an easier hack in the event that Microsoft lets us down.

After putting the kids to bed last night, my wife and I found ourselves behind in the Superbowl by a little more than 30 minutes.  To catch up, we used the new fast-forward feature in Windows 7 Media Center.  When you click on Fast-Forward once, the playback speed approximately doubles and the audio plays back tone-adjusted for the new speed.  Net result is that we watched The Boss and most of the third quarter using this mode, and didn't miss anything.  It was one of those "wow, that's cool" moments that I haven't seen from my wife for a long time with Media Center.

At this point I have no reason to believe that Microsoft will be officially supporting ATSC over-the-air high definition broadcasts in Canada, although they fully support it in the United States.  My feelings on that business decision are the subject of another post, in this post we will discuss unsupported workarounds to get ATSC working in Media Center.

First, some background.  Like the United States, Canada has decided to transition all television broadcasts from analog to digital.  These new digital signals have greater effective range, provide a crystal-clear high definition picture, and as with all over the air network TV broadcasts are free and legal to access.  It's worth noting that over the air signals represent the best high-definition picture quality you can get for network television - better than cable and much better than satellite.  While high definition is available for a fee via cable and satellite, those high definition channels are subject to ever-increasing compression and picture quality degradation as they try to squeeze more and more content into your subscription.  And unlike cable and satellite, over the air broadcasts are not encrypted and can be easily incorporated into a Media Center setup, copied over to your iPod, and are generally easy to use.  The United States has nearly completed their digital transition, and will be shutting down the analog broadcasts in February 2009.  Canada is well into its transition, with most major markets now broadcasting in digital and 100% of the country switching over to digital by 2011 before we shut down our analog transmitters.  Here in Toronto, I can get access to every major US and Canadian network in full high-definition glory using a $40 antenna that I put in my attic.

Here's how to get digital high-definition (ATSC) broadcasts into Media Center.

If you're using Media Center in Windows XP or Windows Vista, follow this link for detailed instructions.

If you're using Media Center in Windows 7 or Vista with TV Pack 2008, continue reading below.  I've tried to provide excruciating detail, but don't get scared.  It's not difficult, I'm just going a bit overboard with screenshots and explanation.

Prerequisites:

• You should get a good quality UHF antenna.  In most cases I've read about it comes down to a Channel Master 4221 or Channel Master 4228 depending on your distance from the transmitters.  Consult this handy chart (PDF) to select the right antenna for your area.  I personally have a 4221 in my attic which was both easy to do and very neighbour-friendly.
• You will need an ATSC tuner for your Media Center PC.  At this time, the only tuner whose drivers support this Windows 7 workaround is the HDHomerun.
• Neither of these items are the sort of thing you can walk into WalMart and find on the shelves, but there are several online vendors including eBay sellers who carry these items.  I personally have purchased from Sensuz, a Toronto-area HTPC dealer, and have been very happy with their service.

Step 1 - Install and Configure the HDHomerun

You can put the HDHomerun anywhere in your house that has both a connection to the antenna, and a connection to your network.  Personally, I have my router and my antenna connections in the basement near the electrical panel, so that's where I chose to install the HDHomerun as well.  The HDHomerun contains two tuners, so you'll need to use a good-quality splitter from your antenna cable which then you can use to connect the included coax cables to the tuner.  Insert your network cable into the tuner, plug in the power adapter, and that should be the last time you touch the tuner.

The rest of the setup is now done on your Media Center PC.  Download and install the latest beta drivers for the HDHomerun from the SiliconDust website by clicking here.  When the HDHomeRun Setup program launches select "Canada" as your country and enter your postal code, then click "Next".

Change source to "Digital Antenna" for both tuners (Windows Media Center should automatically get selected as the application), then click "Next".
 

Click on "Scan" and let the HDHomeRun discover all of your local ATSC channels.  Once all the channels are found, click on "Finish".  You've now completed setup of the tuner and drivers.

Step 2 - Configure Media Center to use the HDHomeRun tuner

Since Media Center doesn't allow ATSC tuners to be used in Canada, the HDHomeRun drivers fool Media Center into detecting it as a QAM digital cable tuner (which is supported).  I'll walk you through the setup of the tuner in Media Center.  Launch Media Center and navigate to Settings, TV, Setup TV Signal.  We want to set up Media Center using the correct region, Canada.  If Media Center doesn't automatically detect that you're in Canada, be sure to select a different region and choose "Canada".

Enter your postal code, and agree to the terms of service (assuming you do indeed agree to the legaleze).

If Media Center doesn't automatically detect your tuners (remember, this is beta software still) then you can manually configure the tuner.

Select the cable provider that most closely matches the ATSC lineup in your area (be sure to choose a provider that has HD service, that will make life easier for you later as we set up the guide).

Next, Media Center will scan for ATSC channels.  This process took awhile for me, up to fifteen minutes. 

Congratulations, your tuner is now set up!  However at this point, you likely won't have any guide listings associated with the channels that were detected via the scan.
 

Step 3 - Map guide listings to your ATSC channels

For those of you who have used the Vista hack, you may like me be a little surprised by the way the guide works now.  For each channel on each tuner you can specify which guide listings should be used, which is incredibly flexible.  Media Center also now has some much-welcomed logic in the Advanced Record Settings that allows you to specify that any given recording should be recorded in HD Only, HD Preferred, SD Only, or SD Preferred.  Because of this feature, I personally would recommend that you always attempt to associate your high-definition ATSC channels with listings from your cable company's high-definition channel lineup so that the recording logic works properly.  I'll walk you through how to set that up. 

First, navigate to Settings, TV, Guide.

Select the first channel that you want to work with by clicking on the callsign of the station.

In the settings page for the channel, click on "Edit Listings"

You'll now be taken to a list of all the channels that your Media Center is aware of (including channels that were set up via other sources, such as Analog Antenna or Satellite if you have those are part of your setup).  This list is organized alphabetically, and you can type in letters to skip to the appropriate point in the list.  Select a channel with HD listings.

If you select a channel that also comes in via some other source (for example you get CBC Toronto on both cable and antenna) you will be presented with the option to merge the guide listings or to copy the listings.  Select "copy" so that you can manage the ATSC channel independently.  Once you've selected the correct listings, you'll now see that the listings are associated with the ATSC channel.  Click Save.

The first example was an easy one, because my local cable company happens to carry CBC Toronto in high definition.  I wasn't so lucky with the Buffalo-based stations, as Cogeco carries the US network feeds from Detroit instead.  This forces you into a choice:  either select local listings which are not in high definition and lose some of that "HD Preferred" logic I discussed earlier, or select a high definition channel from the same network that may not have the exact local listings for your area.  For me, I mostly care about primetime high definition content, so I chose to just use the Detroit guide listings.  Let's set up my local NBC affiliate, WGRZ.  Select WGRZ and the click on "Edit Listings".
 

I scrolled down to the W section of the guide listings and scanned for other listings that were labelled "NBC Affiliate".  I did a quick google search to verify that this channel was in the same time zone as me, and then selected these listings.

I also chose to rename this channel to "NBC - HD" as somewhat of a visual reminder to me that the guide listings are only valid for the network, not necessarily the local station.

Click on save, and at this point you can keep assigning channels or you may choose to go to the guide and test things out before continuing.  Once you assign guide listings to all of your ATSC channels, you're done the setup and should be able to enjoy pristine high-definition recordings on your computer and throughout your home on your extenders.
 

Just for kicks, I decided to take screenshots of the new Advanced Record options for HD Only and HD Preferred so you can see what I was talking about earlier.

 Questions and Answers

I'll try to capture some key answers that come in over time here in this section.  To kick things off, here are some things that came to mind for me.

What happens if I select "Merge" instead of "Copy"?
I've found that by selecting merge, Media Center assumes that all sources for a given channel are standard definition.

Doesn't Media Center support Analog Antenna in Canada, and can't I use those guide listings?
Yes analog antenna is supported and you'll get the listings for your local channels, but because it's analog Media Center will assume that all channels that use these guide listings are standard definition.

But isn't it incredibly stupid to support Analog Antenna but not Digital Antenna, given that analog channels are all shutting down and digital is the government-mandated standard for all of North America?
Yes.

Media Center didn't automatically detect all of the channels that were detected by the HDHomeRun, is there any way I can manually add them?
I personally had this problem with CFTO here in Toronto.  I manually added the channel by navigating to Settings, TV, Guide, Add Missing Channels, Add QAM Channel.  I then entered in the channel number noted in the Guide Number column from the HDHomeRun setup utility (9.1 in this case) and it worked fine from that point forward in Media Center.

Three years ago, I made a promise that I would ship a case of Canadian beer to the eHome team if they are able to deliver support for ATSC in Canada.  Alas, their whistles go unwhetted in Redmond but as soon as I can track down the office location of the SiliconDust engineers they can expect to find twenty-four of Canada's finest sitting in their mail slots.

Today, they released the first beta driver that implements the workaround idea that I discussed only a few weeks ago in my blog.  To say I'm thrilled is an understatement.  By paying attention to the user community and being willing to invest in some interesting ideas, they have won the support of many devoted fans.  Today you can add me to that list.  SiliconDust deserves every bit of business that they've earned, and I will personally pledge to help them continue their success within the Canadian Media Center community.  I'm gushing, and I don't even know if it works yet.

Today I'm begging and pleading with Toronto-area vendors to let me come and pick up an HDHomerun rather than wait for shipping.  I hope to have an HDHomerun tuner later today, and be able to post some results tonight as to my success with this new workaround.  Worst case, this weekend.

You can find the beta drivers linked here: http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=33972#33972

Those who know me closely know that I've pretty much given up on Media Center as a PVR platform for Canada.  Despite a fairly obvious and technically simple opportunity to support ATSC high-definition over the air broadcasts in Canada, Microsoft has chosen to ignore this market.  I've given up, I've stopped contributing, and I'm no longer a Media Center MVP.

Over the holidays I had time to reflect on my options, and started giving alternatives some serious consideration.  I've been lobbying my cable company on the business merits of ClearQAM as a distribution advantage over satellite using native HDTV tuners ("just plug it in and it works"), I've been looking at hardware alternatives, and I've been giving some serious play-time to SageTV.

Maybe it was the eggnog, or maybe it was just the opportunity to have a clear mind for a couple weeks, but I think I've come up with a solution that could very well get me excited about Media Center again.  Follow my logic:

• Before QAM was supported in MCE, tuner manufacturers spoofed their drivers to look like ATSC which is a similar but supported tuner type in Media Center
• In TVPack and Windows 7, QAM is now fully supported even in Canada.
• Given the similarities between QAM and ATSC, I see no roadblocks to reversing the spoof.  Make ATSC tuners appear to Media Center as if they are QAM tuners.
• Map the QAM channels that Media Center finds via scanning (which are really ATSC channels) to guide listings.
• Bing, bang, boom - ATSC works in Canada.

I did some playing myself, but came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to do this on my own.  I was hoping that I could either build some sort of generic gateway BDA driver that would pass QAM tuning and stream requests off to another BDA ATSC driver, but that's over my head.  I tried playing with drivers in the WDK to change what they report themselves as, but again that was over my head.  Finally, I decided to make my case to a few contacts that I have with tuner manufacturers and see who might be willing to help.

Based on some early emails and chatter on the forums, it looks like I've had some success with SiliconDust, the maker of the HDHomerun tuner and pioneers in providing QAM support in Media Center before Microsoft officially supported it.  I am THRILLED that they're taking a look at this, and will do whatever I personally can to help ensure their financial success here in the Canadian market if this approach turns out to be fruitful.

How can you help:

• If this is something that is interesting to you, please let me know by posting a comment
• If this approach would cause you to go out and buy a HDHomerun device, please let SiliconDust know by shooting them an email with your support and intent to buy (support@silicondust.com)
• If you are technical enough to be able to write a generic BDA driver that converts QAM requests to ATSC request, please let me know in the comments

With any luck, this will get Media Center working again in Canada and allow us to take advantage of the proliferation of free over the air high definition signals that are popping up here as a result of the Canadian Analog shutdown in 2011.

The reason I got into Media Center so many years ago was that it was the only decent PVR platform available to me in Canada.  Five years has gone by, and given the proliferation of HD signal types that simply don't work with Media Center in Canada, I've decided to give the market another look.  I'm interested to hear from the community what options you've played with recently and what works.  From my quick scan of the market.

Bell Expressvu - Canadian provider that uses Dish Network equipment.  They have the best UI available, but if I switched to them I'd have to source receivers for the "low value" TV sets in the house as well.  The guest room, a little TV in the kids play room, and the kitchen are all TVs I'd like to use but am not willing to purchase an STB to use.  There is also no way for me to share content between the family room and the bedroom, which are the two "high value" TV viewing locations that require access to content.

Cogeco Cable - Canadian cable provider that uses Motorola equipment, currently the DCT6412 PVR.  From what I've seen, the UI on these devices is pretty terrible and I still don't have the ability to share content between the family room and the bedroom.  However given that they are a Motorola shop I wonder if they might be getting the DCX3400 soon.  That does appear to have the capability to share content over coax around the home.

And that about sums up my options.  There is no cablecard up here, so Tivo is out.  I could continue to mix standard-def cable with OTA high definition if Microsoft decides that Canada is a first-class nation but I'm not holding my breath on that one.  I may consider moving to SageTV or some other platform, but if I'm going to switch then I might as well go with something that works natively with digital cable or satellite.  Has anyone used the new Moto boxes? 

In my attic, I have mounted two Channel Master 4221 antennas that drive my high-definition Media Center PVR.  Based on advice from people on various forums, I have always kept my antennas pointed in the same direction (I decided to mount two in an attempt to improve long-distance reception).  At first, they were pointed towards Buffalo since the Toronto stations weren't fully rolled out yet.  Earlier this year, I hauled myself up into the attic and pointed the antennas towards Toronto with its now almost complete coverage of broadcast television in OTA High Definition.  However I've found that there are still some scenarios where I need to record from Buffalo stations, and the reliability of doing so has really suffered this TV season.

One might ask - if you have two antennas, why not point one at Buffalo and the other at Toronto?  I've resisted doing so to this point because combining those signals may actually cause things to get worse.  Take for example Fox Buffalo (WUTV).  If I get a weak signal from Buffalo and then combine that with static from Toronto, then the sum of those two signals is an even weaker signal for WUTV.  Similarly, a strong signal from CTV in Toronto combined with static from Buffalo combines to provide an overall weaker signal for that channel.  That's the theory anyways.

In practice the angle difference between Toronto and Buffalo is less that 90 degrees, so what I get is a combination of an excellent signal with a good signal and I would hope the combination could pull in a "pretty good" signal from both directions.  So I hauled my large frame through the tiny hole in the closet up into the attic to play around again.  I brought my laptop, a USB ATSC tuner, and a copy of TSReader to check on signal quality in real-time while I adjusted the antenna directions.  After about an hour of play, I stepped away from the setup with a good lock on every single station from Toronto, Buffalo, and Hamilton.  On Sunday anyways, this would appear to support my theory of getting a "pretty good" signal all around.  However only time will tell, as atmospheric conditions vary from season to season and even day to day, whether I've been able to realize my goal of consistent signal quality from all of the major transmission locales in my area.

When it comes to Media Center in Canada, Microsoft just doesn't seem to get it. 

While I can't seem to locate much in the way of statistics on the subject, I would suggest based on community participation that Canadians have adopted Media Center in comparatively significant numbers despite being practically ignored as a customer group since the product's initial launch.  Let's look at the track record:

February 2002 - Media Center launches in the US, Canada, and Korea supporting standard-definition antenna and cable.

October 2005 - Media Center 2005 UR2 launches and introduces high-definition ATSC for the USA and Korea (but not Canada).

July 2005 - Users in Canada hack MCE 2005 to allow ATSC reception in Canada

January 2007 - Vista Media Center launches, with most of the Online Spotlight content disabled in Canada.  I publish a new hack to get ATSC working in Canada.

March 2007 - Media Center users in Canada report en masse that misapplied copy protection flags render the MCE PVR useless in many Canadian markets.  This remains unfixed.

September 2008 - TV Pack for Media Center launches with significant new TV features and international TV format coverage, except Canada.  TV Pack breaks previous hacks that allow HDTV to work in Canada, and plugs the hole that made them possible.

Now I don't believe that anyone has malicious intent here, it's just that Media Center is lacking in focus with respect to Canada.  Rather than compare the attention that the US has gotten in Media Center to Canada, I think a more appropriate case study would be Korea.  Why, one might ask, is Microsoft doing so much for South Korea and not for Canada?

Let's set the stage with some comparative stats:

The message here is that they're pretty similar as far as markets go.  Both medium-sized countries with medium-sized economies and medium-sized incomes after deductions.  They both use transmission standards that are shared with the US, most notably ATSC.  Where Canada is a closer match, one might assume, is that we're practically right next door to the Microsoft campus and we speak the same language.

I'll pause before continuing this post to state that I don't know the answer to my earlier question - I do not know why Microsoft seems to ignore the Canadian Media Center market.  But I can take a few guesses based on my experience as director of product management for a large software company and a little bit of knowledge of how Microsoft operates.

1. There is no Media Center champion within the Microsoft Canada subsidiary.  MS Canada has alot of great people in it, and from personal interactions I know that many of them are really excited about Media Center.  However when it comes to big issues where someone really needs to have ownership, I have come up empty in my attempts to engage the local subsidiary.  I have always assumed that Korea has someone who is pushing for their market, putting together business cases for features to get done, and acting as a focal point for the MCE team back in Redmond
2. Canadian projects fall into that product management "dead zone" that exists between things that are really easy to get done and things that are really complex and get a team of dedicated resources.  I know, I've been there and every software company has a massive list of things that you really should get to but never do because they live in this dead zone.  For example, with ATSC support you can't just "make it work" but you also can't put together the same level of business plan and excitement that something like "integrate with DirecTV" would allow.  It just goes on the pile until someone (see point #1) makes it a priority.
3. Partners drive much of the priority, and most of the partners that operate in Canada are actually managed as North American partners.  So if you're sitting down with HP to figure out what the North American market needs, you spend most of your time talking about the United States and simply drop anything that doesn't fit with Canada.  That is a very different discussion from the one you would have with a partner who is targeting Europe or targeting Asia, where diversity is assumed to be part of the plan.
4. I'd bet that nobody has ever, or at least in a long while, put together a plan that demonstrates value created by MCE and its ability to sell more seats of Windows in this market.

Of the points above, I believe that local subsidiary ownership is the most likely culprit and one of the first things that would need to get fixed if MCE is to have any hope of turning around in Canada.  However that point is moot unless you truly believe that Media Center adds value and helps to drive Canadian revenue.  I submit the following uniquely Canadian traits that I believe do make this a legitimate market for Media Center.

1. The competition US-style competition amongst cable and satellite providers to continuously deliver better devices into the living room simply doesn't happen here.  We have a few massive companies with a virtual monopoly, and none of them are spending time on creating a truly decent end user experience.  They ship garbage, and the Canadian market eats it up.  There is no DirecTivo up here, there is no amazing end to end set top box experience, and there is very little investment into doing much beyond the bare minimum.  This is the reason I bought into Media Center six years ago, and it is a hook that Microsoft could use to really gain market share.
2. The regulatory environment is ripe for innovation.  The CRTC (Canadian equivalent of the FCC) has a new chairman who has been spending the last year changing the culture of that organization to be "less regulation is best for the country".  Now is the time to do something grand, to push forward new distribution models, and to challenge the existing order.
3. Following up on that point, there is very little happening up here in the way of digital distribution.  There is a huge opportunity to do well with something like Xbox Live Marketplace for movie rentals because there is a gaping hole there in the market.  Anyone who is spending effort on this area is languishing in a North American strategy where they launch what is a pretty decent service in the USA but don't bother to go after distribution rights in Canada leaving them with nothing but public domain content when accessed from the Great White North.  If you can get MCE and XBox into Canadian homes truly working as the center of the universe, you could own this market.

It wouldn't be a rant from me without some honest suggestions of how to fix the problem.  It would appear that I am big on bullet lists in this post, so let's continue the trend with my five-point plan to revive Media Center in Canada.

1. Decide if MCE is important to the Canadian market.  I assume that the answer is yes, but the degree of that yes as measured by local investment is what is really needed here.
2. Announce that ATSC will be supported in Canada with Windows 7, and announce it now. Given recent history, the assumption of most Canadian enthusiasts would be (or already is) that Microsoft has abandoned this market and if you want them to stick around they need to be given hope.  Without an affirmation that Microsoft loves Canada, they will find alternatives. 
3. Invest in technology that allows the local Windows team to develop a revenue plan worthy of investment.  My top priority would be to invest in Media Center machines that are aware of each other.  They can share content over the network, share tuners over the network, and share the guide over the network.  Partner with a company that can crank out small almost extender-like PCs that will form a matrix of digital media in the home.  Immediately your market opportunity moves from "up-sell the existing home PC to the latest version of Windows" to "sell multiple copies of Windows into a single home".
4. Tag someone with ownership of Media Center penetration in Canada, divide their time between internal advocacy and external evangelism, and put a revenue number on their head.
5. Target at least one online project that will be delivered with Canada in mind to show partners how to leverage the gaps in this market using Media Center and XBox as the base.

Do that, and I'll stick around to see where this all leads. 

I love Media Center as an application, I admire Microsoft as a company, and I respect everyone on the MCE team and the energetic people I've met at Microsoft Canada.  I want to see Media Center succeed in my home market, but my faith is very much being tested.  It may be too late.

How about the rest of you Canadians, will you stick with MCE for just a bit longer if Microsoft shows you some commitment?

For those of you who obtained "early access" to TV Pack 2008 for Windows Vista aka Fiji, you may have noticed that my previously published hack to enable ATSC in Canada no longer works.  I've spent a significant amount of time working on this problem, both from the technical angle and via my contacts at Microsoft to see what could be done about it.

Here's the bottom line:  ATSC will not work in Canada with TV Pack 2008 for Windows Vista.

In the past, Media Center would check at setup time for the capabilities of your region and write out these values to the registry accordingly.  I leveraged this mechanism to "fool" Media Center into thinking that it was capable of tuning in ATSC in Canada.  Of course it doesn't take much fooling since ATSC in Canada and the US work exactly the same and there is no technical reason why it shouldn't "just work".  But I digress...

With TV Pack 2008, the capabilities for your region are re-checked every time you download a guide update.  Not only are the capabilities updated every day, but they're no longer stored in the registry and are instead stored in the common MCE database along with the guide and other key data.  As you can probably guess, the capabilities for Canada are set to ATSC = false.  The good news about this new method is that theoretically Microsoft could choose to enable ATSC capabilities at any time (although I have no reason to believe that this will be the case).  The bad news is that it makes hacking the capability in before they choose to officially support it becomes very difficult, or at least beyond my technical capabilities.

So what would I recommend?

• For anyone using MCE in Vista right now with the ATSC hack, steer clear of TV Pack 2008.
• For anyone with a few programming skills, I suggest the following as the next areas of investigation:
  • Figure out the database format that is being used and write a service to overwrite the capabilities on a daily basis
  • Figure out a way to proxy the guide updates and flip the ATSC capability bit from "false" to "true"

As for how this makes you feel about Microsoft's commitment to Canada, I'll post a separate blog entry on that.  What I can say is that I am 100% sure that nobody at Microsoft went out of their way to actively break ATSC in Canada.  Breaking the hack was very much an unintentional consequence of what appears to be an otherwise sound design change to the way that Media Center handles setup.  However there is clearly a business decision that was made to not support ATSC in Canada despite the relative technical ease of making that happen.  Given that like the US, Canada is shutting down analog broadcast toute suite in favour of ATSC one has to wonder why this feature request has languished for so long.

I spent some time this morning going over the comments posted by the CRTC regarding "Review of the regulatory frameworks for broadcasting distribution undertakings and discretionary programming services".  I haven't gone into all of the postings, but did hit most of the big cable companies and comments from individuals.  Here is my summary of comments:

Regarding set-top-boxes:

Several people (21 by my count) wrote in regarding their dissatisfaction with the requirement for set top boxes, and their suggestions on changes that the CRTC can make to improve the situation.  Most everyone agreed with my position that basic cable be delivered unencrypted, and pay cable be delivered in a way that allows 3rd party devices to watch, record, and play back the content.

The big cable companies:

In general, the big cable and satellite companies are asking for the following:

• Reduction or elimination of regulation on their market
• The ability to carry foreign (ie US) channels like ESPN, Comedy Central, etc.
• The right to insert their own commercials into those foreign channels
• Reduction of Canadian content requirements
• Elimination of linkage rules (ie you subscribe to only the channels you want, not bundles)
• Acceptance of the notion that programming can be delivered in many ways, including Internet distribution (and fear that over-regulation in Canada will cause more people to get their content over the internet from foreign markets.)

Community Channels

Besides set-top-box arguments, the other major grassroots issue seems to be around community television and the requirement to carry that programming.  Several individuals and groups wrote in on this issue, especially those in Quebec, to reinforce that community television should be kept as a requirement.

The knee-slapper award:

I'm not a Rogers cable customer, but I think that most of their customers will appreciate the humour in Rogers' recommendation that the CRTC "Refrain from introducing new customer service standards or a new body to oversee them, which would represent an inefficient duplication of efforts and resources given the existence of longstanding and effective cable industry customer service standards."  Now I'm not saying that I think that the CRTC needs to regulate this, but I think the notion that Rogers thinks they are running a top-notch customer service organization is laughable.

My position:

After reading several of the submissions, I'd say that I'm generally in agreement with the overall call for less regulation.  I know, that seems odd given that I've been pushing for more regulation in the area of content access.  Perhaps a better way to state my position is this; that overall lower regulation on the content provided is warranted and that consumer choice will dictate the market, but that certain regulations should be put in place to prevent distributors from colluding on consumer-unfriendly practices such as price-fixing, device lock-in, and negative billing.  Give the cable companies the freedom they desire, but in trade ask (ie require) that they promise to do so in a way that does not hurt consumers.