Matt Olsen:

northman:

How do they get away with it but not MS?

Heh.  I promised. 

I'm curious about the CGMS-A strippers that Randy mentioned.  It's an academic curiosity at this point with the solution to my AMC and other occassional woes coming up, but who makes them and are there any side effects to image quality?  I used Google just to get an idea and it was just a lot of scattered mentions with no obvious leading products. I'm surprised they're not more widely used.  Or maybe people aren't talking about them that openly.

Grex or any decent stripper works perfectly 100% of the time,  zero image quality problems.
Chinese Ebay "video stablizer" - who knows, probably not so good.

Why don't people use them?   Because the are 90 bucks each.  Fix two tuners = $180 + shipping.
Media center only cost $130 to begin with - this solution costs more than what causes the problem.

Another thing you REALLY have to consider is 1 / 10000?  (probably far less) Media Center users know about/use GreenButton.   All they know is that they bought Media Center, and it appears to be flakey.   They don't even know why there's a problem, or that this is a solution.   

Another reason that you don't see much about them may be that selling them in the U.S. would violate the DMCA, and there would be similar problems in selling them in other WIPO signatory countries.

WRK

Interesting... have to wonder though.

The "D" in DMCA is for Digital, and everything in the DMCA applies to protection of Digital information.
In this particular case, the CGMS-A signal is embedded in the Svideo analog signal so the DMCA actually would not apply - in this case - right?      

northman:

Tikker:

much like RandyG has stated, you've got lots of options


GBPVR

SageTV

the GREX he listed as well

Tim's laughable solution to allow us to record from basic cable! is just yet another insult from MS

I would add Snapstream Beyond TV to that list.  A good example of commercial pvr software that ignores the CGMS-A flag.  How do they get away with it but not MS?

I would totally switch to something like SnapStream except there's two problems.  I use my 360 to watch shows when I can, upstairs with my wife (My computer's in a basement) and Media Center does a wonderful job of streaming to my 360.  On top of that, I'm hard of hearing, so I rely ALOT on Closed Captioning.  So far, Sage and Snapstream don't have ANY sort of CC support.

Dollar goes wherever the CC is...  The only option besides WMC for me, is TiVo it seems, I don't know if that streams to 360 as well, or how it handles CC.  But it sure doesn't have the capability of adding Hard Drives.  I can hold over 200 hours of recording on my computer, and NO PVR I've seen out there even comes close.

RandyG: "The "D" in DMCA is for Digital, and everything in the DMCA applies to protection of Digital information."

Well, the "M" in in DMCA is for Millenium, so it may just be a Copyright Act for the Digital Millenium, not a Copyright Act that protects Digital content.

All kidding aside, the courts don't use the title of an act or law to place limitations on its enforcement.  Courts interpret the language of the provisions given their "plain meaning" and only go to the intent of the drafters if the meaning is unclear.  Here, the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions make illegal any trafficing in any device or technology "primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access" to a coypyrighted work.

WRK

kingwr:

Another reason that you don't see much about them may be that selling them in the U.S. would violate the DMCA, and there would be similar problems in selling them in other WIPO signatory countries.

Yeah, I imagine they're illegal in the US, but so should be AnyDVD and DVD Fab, which are discussed widely among the same kinds of crowds.  I guess where they are physical goods there's more accountability for selling, shipping, etc. 

Silvercloak:

I would totally switch to something like SnapStream except there's two problems.  I use my 360 to watch shows when I can, upstairs with my wife (My computer's in a basement) and Media Center does a wonderful job of streaming to my 360.  On top of that, I'm hard of hearing, so I rely ALOT on Closed Captioning.  So far, Sage and Snapstream don't have ANY sort of CC support.

Dollar goes wherever the CC is...  The only option besides WMC for me, is TiVo it seems, I don't know if that streams to 360 as well, or how it handles CC.  But it sure doesn't have the capability of adding Hard Drives.  I can hold over 200 hours of recording on my computer, and NO PVR I've seen out there even comes close.

Would GBPVR work for CC and 360 streaming?  I haven't tried it myself but it looks promising.

I don't think so

check out the site yourself tho, rather than my semi vague recollections

northman:

Would GBPVR work for CC and 360 streaming?  I haven't tried it myself but it looks promising.

What's GBPVR?

Silvercloak:

northman:

Would GBPVR work for CC and 360 streaming?  I haven't tried it myself but it looks promising.

What's GBPVR?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gbpvr

54 week bump

wow 44 pages... guys if my question has been answered i apologize, but i made it to page 10 before thinking it may be time for me to post to see if my situation is unique.

i got this message for the first time today.  i dont have my mce set up the way it wants... ie where i can change channels on mce, i have it where i change the channel on my cable box, then change it on mce then record.

so if i set mce to record channel 10, my box can be on channel 30 and it will say it recorded 10 but the content is channel 30.  make sense?

i did it this way because it simply wouldnt work the "proper" way and till now it really hasnt been an issue.

now having said that, i am actually trying to record something that's on demand (i have done this a bunch of times before)... i put it to several regular channels that usually work (nbc, abc, cbs) and it simply wont record / stops the recording anywhere from 20 seconds to 5 minutes in with this same flag that everyone else is getting.

how is this possible if it isnt even getting the flag from the cable company considering mce has NO idea what im recording since it could be anything from channel 1 to 900?

my specs:

win xp media center edition
comcast cable, non dvr

any thoughts?

ok i did some tests.  it appears to show this once i start attempting the on demand recordings... not quite sure how it knows but it does.

damn.

The CGMS-A flag is in the actual tv signal, similar to how closed captioning is broadcast.  It has nothing to do with EPG data (the tv guide).

I'm still getting a message of "Recording of this content is prohibited by the content provider." every now and then.

I have been able to quickly cancel a series recording and then set it to record again and still record my shows.  I think my issue may have to do with my cable card being a bad card.  I have Time Warner coming out tomorrow to replace it.

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My Network Project - Media Center Blog