Ian, thanks for the update, but it's awfully vague. We've all been waiting for over a year on this, and there hasn't even been an announcement. While I appreciate your post, it leaves me with more questions than I had before. I mean, at least before I was under the impression that there was a fix in the works that had been slated for January and was late. Based on what you've said, it leaves everything up in the air again.

What was the nature of the snafu? Legal? Technical?
Has the issue been abandoned, or is a fix still in the works?
What, if anything, can we do to move this process along, or at least find out what's going on?


Awhile back someone here raised the possibility of taking legal action, and Jess freaked out. While I understand her position, I have to wonder, what are you guys all expecting us to do? How long are you expecting us to wait around with no information and no announcement or acknowledgement?

colour me absolutely shocked that MS doesn't give a *** about the non-USA market

Well, you know you can't sue them for a year of  hit'n miss recording. 

On the other hand, if you had a cup of smokin' hot McDonalds coffee in your lap, and jumped in surprise the next time MCE told you the provider restricted recording blah blah blah message...     well, you never know, that could win something ;-)

-----------------

KB2342342
Symptom : You live in Canada, your movie did not record (again), and your testicles are blistered and burning

Steps to resolve the problem
1.  Get medical attention immediately
2.  Install update 2342342 from the Microsoft Download Center

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Download the 935448 package now.
Release Date: Feb 8, 2008

Cause of the problem
Politics, MS ignoring an entire country that has had to put up with their MCE boxes hit n miss recording for an entire year, Coffee that's REALLY hot , Canadian cable providers that put  CGMS-A 1,1 flags on 1/2 the shows on the air


Status of the problem
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft Media Center products sold to unsuspecting Canadians who drink hot coffee while watching TV, but only get "did not record" messages instead of shows to watch.

Back to the top

Yeah, I wasn't entertaining the possibility of legal action, I was pointing out that they should expect people to have that level of frustration when the issue clearly isn't being given the attention it deserves. And if it IS being given the attention it deserves, they should give us an official answer on it rather than leave us all hanging.

I wonder if that class action lawsuit is still going ahead in Ontario?  Seriously people, we've been sold a bill of goods that isn't worth the CD it's been given on.  It's fine as an OS,  but as a "DVR" it works, what? 30% of the time now?

Tivo's offering a better deal than MS is these days, sadly.

Silvercloak:

I wonder if that class action lawsuit is still going ahead in Ontario?  Seriously people, we've been sold a bill of goods that isn't worth the CD it's been given on.  It's fine as an OS,  but as a "DVR" it works, what? 30% of the time now?

Tivo's offering a better deal than MS is these days, sadly.

To the best of my knowledge there isn't and never was a class action lawsuit in Ontario.

All there is is a bunch of frustrated Media Center owners who cannot make use of the TV module due to this very annoying problem with the software (in how it deals with Canadian content).  Due to this there is reasonable grounds for a lawsuit, but at most there may be one or two who have submitted a small claims suit against Microsoft.  Most likely, since MS stated they would fix the problem, no one actually followed through with a small claims lawsuit.

I have to agree with the comments; Microsoft is doing an incredibly poor job of looking after serious issues with Media Center; especially issues affecting those outside of the US.  Unbelievably it is now roughly 14 months since some of us first started seeing this issue and the 470 posts in this thread have been viewed over 116,000 times now.  It is and always has been, by far, the biggest flaw with Media Center and is affecting an absolutely huge number of customers.

Ian, I know this is a potentially sensitive issue, but I think we Canadians more than deserve an explanation.  Could you please ask the powers that be (management) to write up an explanation to post here as to if and when this will be fixed and if not, why.

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

    SP1 does not fix the problem, it fixes the could not record seinfield for no reason but i still cannot record specialty channels.

Sorry guys
:(

iank:

Just a quick update: the fix for this was prepped then pulled for some reason. There was some sort of snafu somwhere along the line. I don't have a current timeline for when we will finally get this out the door.

Ian, I wonder if you could give Canadian users an update please... 

I've been monitoring this thread for months now.  It's really sickening that MS hasn't resolved this issue.  I'm going to resort to trying a Sima CT-200 and try some recording via s-video from a cable STB.  Can anyone recommend a small/portable STB with s-video that can be controlled via IR or USB?

-AJ

I am afraid this is what passes for "we care" (as emphasized by Jessica a year ago) and "we're on it" at Microsoft these days.

WRK

JessZahn:

Glad you bumped this thread - I just got information yesterday that I needed to post.

We worked with an MVP (Jason Tsang) in Canada to capture lots of streams from all different channels to see whether the cable company was putting CGMS-A flags on content that we wouldn't expect to find it on.

The end result is, the cable company is doing this. We can't tell if it's deliberate or accidental on their part; however, we don't just interpret noise in the signal as "Copy Never" or another CGMS-A flag. We require that we see a certain number of those flags within a particular amount of time for a given show - and if we do, we obey them. That could mean stopping a recording or failing to record something at all.

So this isn't, to us, a software problem. Media Center obeys CGMS-A flags. I know pretty much everyone here wishes we didn't, but we do.

But it does seem, at least to me, that it's a business and relationship problem with the cable companies doing it. I am informing the right people here about what we found, and it's my hope that they take this up and work with the cable companies to solve it. I can't guarantee any particular action, and honestly I can't guarantee any action at all. But I can and will push for it.

Closing in on 1 year since MS publicly aknowledged the poor CGMS-A implementation in Canada
The part I've bolded is kinda sad

I have no idea why the fix has been delayed. I will ask around and if I can share I will. I will foreward this thread to those who can answer with authority.

-Ian

---

Ian Kennedy - eHome TV Playback Test Lead
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Box:P5B-E,8600GT,E6600,2GB,Seasonic PSU.Zalman HD160.3x WD SE16 400GB Raid0.1x WD SE16 120GB. 2x ATI 550 2x A180.

I had my MCE 2005 with rollup 2 working fine with Comcat basis analog cable without any problem for 3-4 years until I made the switch to ATT Uverse recently.

I finally was able to set up the same MCE 2005 PC with the Uverse STB (Motorola VIP1200) via S-video cable to the Hauppauge WinTV150 tuner card. During initial testing of recording, I got the recording restricted message when trying to record Tonight Show (standard definition channel). Strangly, I was able to record one episode "No reservation" on travel channel without any problem while another episode was cancelled because of the restriction.

Also to clarify, I can still watch the live boradcast of the shows (eg. Tonight Show) through MCE and do the time shifting (i.e pause, rewind etc.) activities. It just simply won't preserve it as a permanent recorded show.

I read through this long thread but still have a question that I want to confirm/clarify:  Is the restriction flag carried over by signals passing through S-video or composite cable as well?

Anyone saw similar things?

Short answer: yep

If you can watch / pause / rewind but NOT record, then CGMS-A is not your friend either.
It is passed over s-video or composite video.  You are at the whim of your provider what will get flagged. 

Further, if the last channel you were watching is flagged,  then your next scheduled recording on a different channel has only a 50/50 chance of recording as well, since sometimes MCE gets the flag and kills the recording in the 2 second window it takes the change the channel (since the last channel is still playing while the IR bug transmits numbers)

To sumarize over a year of emails and experiences with this problem.  There's nothing you can do about it unless you know how to hack DRM.  It's not the S-Video, or Composite cable, it's a signal that's being sent from either the broadcaster, or the producer of the program.

The only way you can get around it is by using either a signal stripper, or switching to some other software than MCE.

It sucks, but that's the way it is.  M$ hasn't fixed it.  :(