Here's my experience, also posted at http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2008/04/30/1610191.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage
After the 1.17.1 upgrade, which was an downloaded & installed with standard Windows Update, I now get a "Restricted Content" message or black screen with a "beeping" sound when trying to play TV. What I've found is that if I power off/on tuners the problem is fixed temporarily. For the 2 days since I've upgraded,the problem returns in the morning and I've had to reset again. I have no idea what happens overnight to cause the tuners to need to be reset again.
ATI offers no support for the DCTs. They told me I must work with my PC supplier, which is Dell. All I want is instructions on how to back off the firmware but ATI will not offer any support. Very dissatified with ATI, this is the second time they've done this to me, the other with a graphics card problem. I opened a case with Dell and I'm currently waiting for a specialist to contact me. Any ideas in the meantime would be much appreciated.
I have tested and found that the error condition occurs at 3:10AM every day. Looking through the event logs I cannot find anything that runs at that time. The problem also presents itself after a reboot.
I have found a number of ways to temporarily fix the problem (until it breaks at 3:10AM again):
1. powering the tuners off/on fixes it
2. unplugging & reconnecting thevtuners from the USB port fixes it
3. Disabling/enabling the tuners in Device Manager fixes it
4. After reading this thread I find the easiest way to fix it is to restart the Windows Media Center Receiver Service which takes of both tuners at once.
I'm comvinced it has to do with the 1.17.1 firmware upgrade and find it pretty poor engineering that there isn't a way to rollback the firmware. I tried rerunning the 1.16 flash but it just comes back with "you already have a newer version" and cancels.
I was hoping the new version would fix a few quirks I have. It's very dissappointing to have end up worse off!