I wonder if there is no solution in place out there which would simply drop the protection altogether by ripping off those bits.  If Microsoft is simply accepting the flags, as it should so it can actually sell this product, it would seem to be that it is an issue software could resolve.  Has anyone tested with another product that does not care about the flags?  If that software can still record by ignoring the flags, maybe there is a way of stripping that data.  How hard would it be to create a coax switch with enough logic to simply strip those bits out? 

This copy protection seems to not be as strict as it is for HD.  With HD if the end device is not HDCP compliant, you can't receive the picture.  Seems in this case if we the software ignores the flags it can still record......

Can we say Virtual tuner maybe?  Run an intermediate piece of software which handles the actually connection, and then has a virtual tuner that Vista could use.  <shrug>

JasonT:

Media Center does not take copy protection flags from the EPG data.

If that is the case then will CGMS-A prevent you from recording shows on digital cable - I thought the A stood for analog?  How come I have been having problems recording channels on Rogers Digital when all of the channels are digital (what I mean by this is that Rogers provides all channels digitally, even those from 2-75 that are also available via analog).  My MCE box only gets the TV signal through the s-video input of my PVR-150 card (and OTA but that's irrelevant here) so how is this CGMS-A signal being passed - or can it be sent via s-video as well?

Wouldn't output from a set top box still have data passed through it via
VBI? If so, then that's where the CGMS-A tags are coming from.

Bottom line, MCE does not use the EPG data at all to ascertain
copy-protection status.

--
Jason Tsang - Microsoft MVP

Read my blog for the latest in Media Center topics
(and other topics that interest me)
http://jtsang.blogspot.com

More information by me
http://jtsang.mvps.org
http://www.classicsunveiled.com

Find out about the MS MVP Program -
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx



wrote in message news:179790@10.240.6.244...
> JasonT:Media Center does not take copy protection flags from the EPG
> data.If that is the case then will CGMS-A prevent you from recording shows
> on digital cable - I thought the A stood for analog? How come I have been
> having problems recording channels on Rogers Digital when all of the
> channels are digital (what I mean by this is that Rogers provides all
> channels digitally, even those from 2-75 that are also available via
> analog). My MCE box only gets the TV signal through the s-video input of
> my PVR-150 card (and OTA but that's irrelevant here) so how is this CGMS-A
> signal being passed - or can it be sent via s-video as well?
>

---

Jason Tsang - Media Center MVP
http://blog.jasontsang.ca

wayner9:

JasonT:

Media Center does not take copy protection flags from the EPG data.

If that is the case then will CGMS-A prevent you from recording shows on digital cable - I thought the A stood for analog?  How come I have been having problems recording channels on Rogers Digital when all of the channels are digital (what I mean by this is that Rogers provides all channels digitally, even those from 2-75 that are also available via analog).  My MCE box only gets the TV signal through the s-video input of my PVR-150 card (and OTA but that's irrelevant here) so how is this CGMS-A signal being passed - or can it be sent via s-video as well?

VBI is used to put digital data into an analog stream.  Closed captioning, CGMS-A, ratings for V-chip use, etc are all in VBI.

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

JessZahn:

...The end result is, the cable company is doing this....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...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.

Any news, Jessica?  

I notice there are 4,805 views on this subject as of today.
That's a fair amount of interest for a thread a couple weeks old...
Maybe more people are affected by this than anyone there thinks.

For sure Canada is a pretty small market compared to the USA. 
But if only 1/100 people who have problems with MCE go to look on
TheGreenButton (a guess)  then that would mean 480,500 unhappy MCE customers
who can't record their shows anymore...   like my math ?   ;-)

I love your math. I'm not sure I can validate it (although I could probably find out how many EPG downloads we do for Canada each day), but I like the theory.

Anyway, no, no update - except that people here are talking about the issue and what to do. I just don't have anything else I can say to you guys at this time.

---

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

Another instance...I have had only a few problems in several years, but another one happened last night....

I had Ghost Whisperer setup to record 4/6 @ 7pm (Comcast analog Mchenry, IL), and as usual, its actually setup to over-record on both ends. Entertainment Tonight was finishing & I got the "can't record due to..." msg. I manualy restarted the recording & it worked fine. However what would have happened if I hadn't manually noticed & restarted? Would MCE have continued to monitor that program for the next 65-70 minutes & started recording at some point, or once its received (or thought it received) the don't record signal, would it have never recorded?

It would be a shame if some programming used the code & they prevented an unmarked show from recording just because the last few minutes were caught at the beginning of the recording.

---

Eagles may fly, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines (see bio for exception)

Hi Jessica,

I have also recently experienced the 'not allowed to record' issue for Clean House on Comcast Cable (analog) in Alabama.  The recording started, then stopped after about 20 minutes with the error.  I've updated the DRM files.  I haven't *noticed* any issues since.

I bought into MCE 2005 in a big way--I have five MCE PC's.  I appreciate your efforts to look into the issue at MS.

--------

EDIT:  Doh!  Same issue still, same show. 

Has anyone heard if this is an issue with satellite (Direct TV).  Maybe it's time to make the change...

Or find an analog flag stripper :-o

---------

 

Thanks,

Mark

 

UNBELIEVABLE

I spent a ton of cash to upgrade my media center to Vista...now this.

1.  TNT is totally blocked from viewing even LIVE TV.  I tried to watch Castaway tonight and was blocked by the "restricted content" message after 5 seconds.

2. HBO is the same.

I'm not even trying to record them. 

I have an HP z555 with an nvidia 6600..and a hauppauge analog tuner that is picking up the signal through s-video.  I'm really livid at this point. 

I'm using Microsoft's own internal decoder with microsoft drivers for the 6600. 

What can I do to defeat this wrongful DRM? 

So, obviously I can't tell you how to "defeat DRM." :-)

And I'm definitely puzzled by your decision to upgrade the z555. I have one too - pretty machine, but I'm not excited about the ATSC tuner not being supported on Vista nor the wireless network drivers.

But anyway, back to the point - thank you for letting me know about the new "restricted content" message. I am definitely sending along the messages to the right people here.

For anyone else experiencing this issue: If you can add to this thread with the following information:

- Cable company

- City/State or Province/Country

- Channel attempting to watch to record

- Show attempting to watch or record

And any other information about what happens (stops after 5 min, stops after 13 min, comes back on later, etc).

I would really appreciate that.

---

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

Hi Jessica,

Thanks for your help.  I guess "defeat DRM" was the wrong choice of words :)

As for the z555, the old XP driver I found for the Acton Wireless Card 4201N seems to work fine on Vista (just google it).  I'm not sure what you mean by the ATSC tuner not supported on Vista.  It's the HDTV Wonder and the drivers supplied through Microsoft seem to be working fine.  The only problem is that the drivers for the 6600 GPU are a bit quirky right now.

Anyway, I figured out my problem.  I tried to enable hyperthreading in the BIOS.  That change alone must have set off the DRM to think I had a different machine (at least that's my theory).  Still, I think one should be able to change their hyperthreading settings without compromising the DRM.  Do you know of any way to reset DRM in Vista after making changes to the BIOS?

As for the trouble channel...it was:

Dish Network, New York, NY, TNTHD (8pm 4/8/07), Movie Castaway

 

 

Jess am I right in assuming that the Stream Buffer Engine (SBE.dll) is what actually marries the encrypted flags and mpeg2 information into the dvr-ms file capsule?

Just an educational question.

I think the following page answers your question

About the dvr-ms File Format
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms778831.aspx

--
Jason Tsang - Microsoft MVP

Read my blog for the latest in Media Center topics
(and other topics that interest me)
http://jtsang.blogspot.com

More information by me
http://jtsang.mvps.org
http://www.classicsunveiled.com

Find out about the MS MVP Program -
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx



wrote in message news:181233@10.240.6.244...
> Jess am I right in assuming that the Stream Buffer Engine (SBE.dll) is
> what actually marries the encrypted flags and mpeg2 information into the
> dvr-ms file capsule?
>
> Just an educational question.
>

---

Jason Tsang - Media Center MVP
http://blog.jasontsang.ca

I'm having the same problem. My MCE 2005 event viewer shows 146 errors "Recording of this content is prohibited by the content provider" in the last 6 months. It includes movies on movie channels (not PPV), kids shows, HNIC hockey games... here's a sampling:

The Amazing Race: All-Stars

Zoey 101

Smallville

An Inconvenient Truth

Endurance

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody

L.A. Confidential

Just My Luck

Meet the Fockers

I'm on Bell ExpressView in Calgary, AB, Canada

Many of the same shows above are recordable, without error. Is this Bell trying to kill non-Bell PVRs?  Is there any way to stop them?

Don

 

Well, yeah, I've heard that the XP driver for the wireless can work on Vista, but it's not recommended. Same goes for the HDTV Wonder - ATI isn't supporting it on Vista, and it didn't pass our testing for Vista. (But personally, I've given up on ATSC and am doing QAM at home anyway.)

I don't know of a way I can share with you about how to re-set DRM; internally we have tools to do it (mostly to be able to repeat tests, right) but nothing I can give out.

And TNT, huh. Doesn't surprise me, we've seen CGMS-A there before. Blah.

---

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