I too do not give credence to Ms. Sanocki's assurances.  She may be a very nice person and may care about her work.  She may be working very hard on a part of VMC and will be very dedicated to it, right up to the time that she is transferred to another division within Microsoft in yet another re-organization or re-prioritization.  Of course, whatever project she was working on for VMC will never see the light of day.

The truth is, Ms. Sanocki's thoughs notwithstanding, Microsoft does not care about Media Center.  This was never made more apparent than its lack of inclusion in the keynotes given by Microsoft at CES 2008.  I predict that releases of future versions of Windows will not include the Media Center software, and while it may still be available as an add-on or separate product, development on it will be painfully slow (not that it hasn't been painfully slow up to this point!)  Eventually, it will go the way of WebTV and UltimateTV.  Keep these products in mind before you go out and spend a lot of money on this thing!

As to this being a "complex issue," maybe that is part of the problem.  Microsoft needs to hire some folks for which such issues would not be as complex!

WRK

LizSanocki:

Hi -- I wanted to reply to the comment about Microsoft not caring...we do.

The Media Center Team and Microsoft are aware of this issue. It’s not that we don’t care about fixing the problem, or the Canadian market. This is a complex issue and we are investigating.  We will post more information once it is available. However, in truth this is also an example of broadcasters not using the “copy freely” flag correctly. The reason other DVRs are not affected is they probably don’t respect content protection flags.

Thanks for your patience.

Much like beating a dead dog here... but the "problem" being cgms-a "copy never" on the signal,  and that the acronym CGMS-A does not legally even exist in Canada was established by the 4th or 5th page of this thread a year ago.  You can't used something incorrectly that isn't part of the broadcast rules in this country.
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Problem:  CGMS-A applied on a gazillion shows BESIDES VOD and PPV as Microsoft thought it would in Canada

Why:  CGMS-A does not exist here.  No law compelling anybody to apply it , follow it, or enforce it.   Our CRTC (Canadian equivalent of your FCC) does not know what CGMS-A is, nor do they care.
Broadcasters are manipulating a flag that nobody but Microsoft cares about up here.

Solution:  Remove CGMS-A restrictions if you have MCE set up in a Canadian locale.  So it can record whatever it is supposed to, just like every single Cable provider and Satellite provider DVR does.
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Well there ya go.   Complex?  Nope.

Over a whole year of "investigating" this "complex" issue - and I just did all the work for y'all in 60 seconds flat.   Maybe the hotfix that lets Media Centre record Canadian channels can be released now...

sorry, you're in the no logic zone

So, let me throw my hat into the request Jessica had in here about 30 pages ago.

Shaw Cable, Edmonton, Alberta.
Analog Cable.
FlyDVB-T hybrid card.
Shows I don't get to record: Anything off of Encore Avenue.  AMC comes through for me everytime (beats up wood) but EA doesn't anymore.  I say "Anymore" because it used to work fine right up until I had to reformat the HD last week.  I have a couple of movies that I recorded off of there still on my 3rd HD but now I get nothing.

How many of us on the group here have said anything to the CRTC?

EDIT: At 130pm MDT, "Do The Right Thing" came on EA and my MCE recorded it without a hitch.  Does anyone know of any trends or patterns in stuff that is or isn't recorded? 

Carnegie:

How many of us on the group here have said anything to the CRTC?

I sent them an email a year or so ago and they basically said FOAD!

They said to contact Industry Canada as it has nothing to do with them (the CRTC that is).

kingwr:

I too do not give credence to Ms. Sanocki's assurances.  She may be a very nice person and may care about her work.  She may be working very hard on a part of VMC and will be very dedicated to it, right up to the time that she is transferred to another division within Microsoft in yet another re-organization or re-prioritization.  Of course, whatever project she was working on for VMC will never see the light of day.

WRK

I'm sorry you feel that way.

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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

LizSanocki:

kingwr:

I too do not give credence to Ms. Sanocki's assurances.  She may be a very nice person and may care about her work.  She may be working very hard on a part of VMC and will be very dedicated to it, right up to the time that she is transferred to another division within Microsoft in yet another re-organization or re-prioritization.  Of course, whatever project she was working on for VMC will never see the light of day.

WRK

I'm sorry you feel that way.

Liz, don't take it personally.  Since you're a bit new here, I'll explain.  I hope you actually read this, and prove everybody wrong.

You have a whole country of unhappy MCE users for way over a year now.
Jessica investigated, had the issues logged and submitted the problem 11 months ago.

And we've been waiting ever since. 

Add to that, the promised "FIX" was FINALLY ready, sheduled for release in January.  

Then Jessica left and we never heard from her again.

Then Ian came on and said they "pulled it"  Feb 6th.  He said he'd try to keep us informed.

Then we never heard from Ian again.

You can't really blame them for thinking you are just going to say "be patient" and disappear too.

IF Microsoft really thought is was important that an ENTIRE FRIGGIN COUNTRY is having huge problems with an operating system called "MEDIA CENTRE" that CAN'T RECORD TV PROPERLY in this country, they would have fixed it a year ago.   PULLING the fix after it's finally done, with no explanation, just tops it off.

AUSTRALIANS got a localized fix when they had problems DVB-T (link)

CGMS-A does not exist here.  No law compelling anybody to apply it , follow it, or enforce it.   Our CRTC (Canadian equivalent of your FCC) does not know what CGMS-A is, nor do they care.
Broadcasters are manipulating a flag that nobody but Microsoft cares about up here. 

EVERYBODY ELSE'S PVR, INCLUDING ALL THE CANADIAN CABLE AND SATELLITE PROVIDERS PVRS, RECORD EVERYTHING, 100%.  

MCE IS ABOUT A 70/30 HIT / MISS RATIO.  IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO SIT DOWN AFTER WORK TO WATCH A COUPLE SHOWS YOU RECORDED, AND FIND 1/2 DOZEN FAILED RECORDINGS EVERY TIME.  

REGULAR SHOWS, LIKE DAILY 1/2 HR 10 YEAR OLD RERUNS OF "WINNIE THE POO" CARTOONS FOR MY KIDS, IS NOT *VOD*.  IT'S NOT *PPV*.

5 YEAR OLD RERUNS OF "REBA" SITCOM THAT MY WIFE LIKES TO WATCH, IS NOT *VOD*.  IT'S NOT *PPV*.

EPISODES OF "STARGATE ATLANTIS" OR "BSG" THAT I LIKE TO WATCH, IS NOT *VOD*.  IT'S NOT *PPV*.

THIS IS WHY WE ARE UPSET.  OK?

Sorry Randy

MS already has your money, plus you're not american, so they don't care

Happy one year birthday to this post!  Wow a whole year has past and no fix yet Microsoft must be proud.

It's too bad because in general I have been a big supporter of MS products especially MCE but the complete lack of caring and information is getting a bit tiring.

Here's to another great year of "Recording canceled/stopped due to Copyright restrictions" in Canada!

This is one of the things that will be pushing me to Sage - the final blow will be if the Hauppauge HD PVR is supported immediately in Sage but is not immediately forthcoming for MCE.

I just wanted to add my issue to this post.

As of 3-17-2008, The TV Show JAG airing at 7:00AM EST. on channel 39 (USA) basic cable, has been giving me this recording failure. it will only record 30 mins of  each of the 2 episodes airing from 7-9. I installed Windows Vista Ultimate on this computer 4 months ago and it worked flawlessly until a few days ago.

The last successful recording was on 3-14-2008. This only happens on this show and this channel and like I mentioned before, it "just started".

Could Daylight Savings time settings have anything to do with it? Is there a Windows Update that conflicts with Vista MCE?.

where do you live? and who's your provider?

Serious Problem, the "waf" is getting extermely limited.

Just today, my wife was watching her soap General Hospital on ABC (Digital Cable, Insight). Halfway through watching the show (30 min thru a 1 hr show) she received a message "stopped recording due to broadcaster restrictions". Then it deleted the recording from my drive.

This error has never appeared until today. The show records every weekday. I am using MCE 2005. I have 3 seperate tuners, 2 analoge (1 connected to the digital cable box, 1 connected to basic cable), 1 digital OTA. BTW, I cannot record this via the OTA HD because that channel's signal strenghth is terrible. This is in the USA, Hebron, KY.

Any help is most appreciated. My wife does not accept that she is unable to watch her show. I have a feeling if this keeps occuring I will have to rent a DVR from the cable company.

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* Intel Petium D 820 on Intel Desktop Board D945GNT
* Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150
*VistaView DA-1N1-E Combo PCIe tuner
*Linksys extender - :( No more old extender, after upgrading to Vista. So sad.

njandtmp:

 This is in the USA, Hebron, KY.

this is a bit different from the majority of the posters here

In canada, the restriction that does this doesn't exist, so shouldn't be applied

I live in Florida and we get Brighthouse networks for cable service. I just don't get it and it's only on the USA Network channel 39. I just started recording NCIS, and 49 minutes into it, it stops recording.

Like I said before, this has started as of March 17th 2008, and the last successful recording of JAG or any show aired on USA was on March 14th. I have checked the event Viewer and checked to see if any windows updates have anything to do with it.

Media Center 2005 had similar problems last year when Daylight savings time went to effect, so I dont know if its doing the same thing here to Vista MCE.

I run Vista Ultimate on an asus board with 2gb ram and 160gb hard drive.