den2008:

I have been following this thread for over a year now (March 2006) and the issue (which is CGMS-A  or a "broadcast flag" which ever now, I'm not even sure) has never been resolved...

This should read March 2007...sorry

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Denis

den2008:

The thing I don't get is why all the hype all of a sudden for American Gladiator and Medium??? This issue is not new, what has triggered all the media attention, and how do we get more of this media attention to get Microsoft to finally do something about this!!!

I have been following this thread for over a year now (March 2006) and the issue (which is CGMS-A  or a "broadcast flag" which ever now, I'm not even sure) has never been resolved...And I still get the famous "Recording canceled due to restrictions from the broadcaster" on premium Movie channels (The movie network here in Canada) and on major networks, not all the time but still IT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN AT ALL!!!

According to one of Microsoft's reps (Jessica) back in December they were close to the promised "FIX" and was FINALLY ready, scheduled 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.

The only way to get this fixed is to get more media attention, maybe Microsoft will wake up...

 

Denis 

I agree completely, this most recent news can only help, but it needs to continue.  These thread should stay at the top of these pages until the problem/problems are corrected.

den2008:

The thing I don't get is why all the hype all of a sudden for American Gladiator and Medium??? This issue is not new, what has triggered all the media attention, and how do we get more of this media attention to get Microsoft to finally do something about this!!!

I have been following this thread for over a year now (March 2006) and the issue (which is CGMS-A  or a "broadcast flag" which ever now, I'm not even sure) has never been resolved...And I still get the famous "Recording canceled due to restrictions from the broadcaster" on premium Movie channels (The movie network here in Canada) and on major networks, not all the time but still IT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN AT ALL!!!

According to one of Microsoft's reps (Jessica) back in December they were close to the promised "FIX" and was FINALLY ready, scheduled 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.

The only way to get this fixed is to get more media attention, maybe Microsoft will wake up...

 

Denis 

TimSchreck-MS:

Hi everyone.  I want to give a quick update on this issue and where we are with our plans on providing some relief for this issue....For Vista, we have identified a solution that will help some but not all of the reports of this issue.  Essentially, if a set top box is not being used, the fix will better handle situations in which the CopyNever flag has been incorrectly set for non-premium analog content.  However, if a set top box is being used, there is potential that premium content is involved and we must respect the CGMS-A flags.  We believe this is an appropriate approach to provide some relief for this issue yet still be able to respect the CGMS-A flag when appropriate.  We are currently testing this change and it is slated to be included in the next Media Center Cumulative Update...

...I’ll continue to provide updates as we make progress.

-          Tim

That was your answer.  Upgrade to Vista, toss out your cable boxes or satellite receivers,  and go straight analog cable into your capture card.  ROFL, what an idiotic solution.   In other words, simply stop recording anything worth watching. 

Now, of course,  we have never heard from TIM again either.

<snip>
Tim's statement reinforced this pretty clearly.    Problems recording some  "premium cable"?    Fine.   We'll just clear that problem up by TAKING AWAY your ability to record ANY premium cable every again.  Oh, by the way XP MCE users, you have to pay us more money for Vista now to have that privilege.

RandyG:

Really, MS is the billionaire of software companies.   They can make Vista, buggy and boggy and for all intensive purposes a huge step down from XP - yet make consumers take it by making XP unavailable anymore.  When you're pretty much the only game in town, you can do whatever you want to line your pockets.  

Here's the thing: they're not the only game in town when it comes to DVRs. MediaPortal is pretty darn good. Open Source, free, and loaded with features. I switched from them because they were a tiny bit of a pain to use, but not so bad. If you want a bit more polish, BeyondTV and SageTV are both good.

The first time I actually lose a recording due to DRM, I'm going back to MediaPortal. It runs on Windows 2000 SP4 and up, so no need to upgrade your OS.

Just so there's no confusion - "Premium Cable", in the case of Canadians, consists of stuff like 10 year old reruns of "Reba" on the women's network,  20% of the 5 to 20 year old cartoons my kids love to watch on Family Channel like "Toopy and Beenoo"  and of course the shows I like to see, like Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate Atlantis.

RandyG:

Just so there's no confusion - "Premium Cable", in the case of Canadians, consists of stuff like 10 year old reruns of "Reba" on the women's network,  20% of the 5 to 20 year old cartoons my kids love to watch on Family Channel like "Toopy and Beenoo"  and of course the shows I like to see, like Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate Atlantis.

Don't forget the cartoon network...my daughter was so mad at me she could not watch an episode of "Bratz" because of this nonsense...

 

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Denis

den2008:

RandyG:

Just so there's no confusion - "Premium Cable", in the case of Canadians, consists of stuff like 10 year old reruns of "Reba" on the women's network,  20% of the 5 to 20 year old cartoons my kids love to watch on Family Channel like "Toopy and Beenoo"  and of course the shows I like to see, like Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate Atlantis.

Don't forget the cartoon network...my daughter was so mad at me she could not watch an episode of "Bratz" because of this nonsense...

 

Ya, baffling isn't it.   My kids will watch the same cartoon 20 times in a row if you let them.  Commercials and all.   Yet cartoons are one of the most commonly DRM'd "restricted from recording" things on cable. 

RandyG:

They can make Vista, buggy and boggy and for all intensive purposes a huge step down from XP - yet make consumers take it by making XP unavailable anymore.

Spoken like someone who must not be using Vista. How soon we forget the problems with XP when it first came out. They make the Vista issues look like nothing at all.

It's a bit of a bone I have to pick with people, but I'm really tired of the anti-Vista grumbling out there. It's almost entirely disinformation and hype, fueled partly by those terrible, disingenuous "Mac vs PC" ads that everyone has lapped up. The fact is, Vista is a great OS, and much better than XP.

I was one of the people who didn't want to switch, but when I bought my new system it was going to be too much of an expensive hassle to get it pre-installed with XP, so I took the leap. I was frankly shocked that people are so hating on it. There were a couple really minor annoyance-type bugs initially, but they've long since been eliminated in updates. Of all the gadgets and doo-dads I have attached to my computer, the only one I had any trouble getting to run on Vista was my ancient scanner - the OEM stopped supporting it many years ago - and I was even able to get that running.

Vista is a lot more stable than XP was when it was initially released, and has many major improvements - not least of which is the search function, which makes XP look like a dinosaur. I just don't get what people are whining about. If anything it just shows how much people hate Microsoft these days, that an OS like this can be so unjustly hated.

Microsoft, on the other hand, might not be so "unjustly" hated. With the Media Center recording issues, they can KMA.

/rant

den2008:

The thing I don't get is why all the hype all of a sudden for American Gladiator and Medium??? This issue is not new, what has triggered all the media attention, and how do we get more of this media attention to get Microsoft to finally do something about this!!!

Because I contacted news.com and they ate up the story. After that the EFF saw it and picked it up. We are not getting the media attention unless somebody takes the initiative and contacts them. They are not exactly hanging out on forums like this. There's more to come. I'm relatively new to media center and I was utterly pissed by what happened Monday night like many of you.

superswiss:

den2008:

The thing I don't get is why all the hype all of a sudden for American Gladiator and Medium??? This issue is not new, what has triggered all the media attention, and how do we get more of this media attention to get Microsoft to finally do something about this!!!

Because I contacted news.com and they ate up the story. After that the EFF saw it and picked it up. We are not getting the media attention unless somebody takes the initiative and contacts them. They are not exactly hanging out on forums like this. There's more to come. I'm relatively new to media center and I was utterly pissed by what happened Monday night like many of you.

Well superswiss, I have to say I'm impressed.  We should all do the same, and maybe direct someone from news.com to read all of this freaking thread and they could see how MS is just ignoring all of us (XP MCE and Vista)

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Denis

frickinmuck:

RandyG:

They can make Vista, buggy and boggy and for all intensive purposes a huge step down from XP - yet make consumers take it by making XP unavailable anymore.

Spoken like someone who must not be using Vista. How soon we forget the problems with XP when it first came out. They make the Vista issues look like nothing at all.

It's a bit of a bone I have to pick with people, but I'm really tired of the anti-Vista grumbling out there. It's almost entirely disinformation and hype, fueled partly by those terrible, disingenuous "Mac vs PC" ads that everyone has lapped up. The fact is, Vista is a great OS, and much better than XP.

I was one of the people who didn't want to switch, but when I bought my new system it was going to be too much of an expensive hassle to get it pre-installed with XP, so I took the leap. I was frankly shocked that people are so hating on it. There were a couple really minor annoyance-type bugs initially, but they've long since been eliminated in updates. Of all the gadgets and doo-dads I have attached to my computer, the only one I had any trouble getting to run on Vista was my ancient scanner - the OEM stopped supporting it many years ago - and I was even able to get that running.

Vista is a lot more stable than XP was when it was initially released, and has many major improvements - not least of which is the search function, which makes XP look like a dinosaur. I just don't get what people are whining about. If anything it just shows how much people hate Microsoft these days, that an OS like this can be so unjustly hated.

Microsoft, on the other hand, might not be so "unjustly" hated. With the Media Center recording issues, they can KMA.

/rant

HUGE SECOND HERE!!!
Vista has performed better for me than XP in many ways. 

den2008:

[

Well superswiss, I have to say I'm impressed.  We should all do the same, and maybe direct someone from news.com to read all of this freaking thread and they could see how MS is just ignoring all of us (XP MCE and Vista)

Thanks. Greg Sandoval, the author of all the news.com articles regarding this issue knows all about this thread.

frickinmuck:

RandyG:

They can make Vista, buggy and boggy and for all intensive purposes a huge step down from XP - yet make consumers take it by making XP unavailable anymore.

Spoken like someone who must not be using Vista. How soon we forget the problems with XP when it first came out. They make the Vista issues look like nothing at all.

It's a bit of a bone I have to pick with people, but I'm really tired of the anti-Vista grumbling out there. It's almost entirely disinformation and hype, fueled partly by those terrible, disingenuous "Mac vs PC" ads that everyone has lapped up. The fact is, Vista is a great OS, and much better than XP.

I was one of the people who didn't want to switch, but when I bought my new system it was going to be too much of an expensive hassle to get it pre-installed with XP, so I took the leap. I was frankly shocked that people are so hating on it. There were a couple really minor annoyance-type bugs initially, but they've long since been eliminated in updates. Of all the gadgets and doo-dads I have attached to my computer, the only one I had any trouble getting to run on Vista was my ancient scanner - the OEM stopped supporting it many years ago - and I was even able to get that running.

Vista is a lot more stable than XP was when it was initially released, and has many major improvements - not least of which is the search function, which makes XP look like a dinosaur. I just don't get what people are whining about. If anything it just shows how much people hate Microsoft these days, that an OS like this can be so unjustly hated.

Microsoft, on the other hand, might not be so "unjustly" hated. With the Media Center recording issues, they can KMA.

/rant

You read a lot of meaning from one sentence.  <snip>

masteroffm:

Cables Labs certifies a tuner to work with any number of differnt cable services throughout the country, where DirecTV is a single entity and arent subject to anywhere near the scrutiny of the FCC compared to your local cable operator, DirecTV is a "walled garden" and doesnt have to worry about interoperablitiy between satelite providers for their hardware.

Maybe it's better put CableCard DCT VS. DirecTV USB.  One has to be purchased only with pre-built ridiculously-priced MCE boxes, and one's seemingly available to anyone.   So if it's going to be that easy  for home builders to buy the DirecTV box and tape the same content in MCE, is less scrutiny allowing DirecTV to go under radar, or should I really be coming down from this high about the USB box, expecting the walled garden to entail DRM and issues like this broadcast flag thing to kill it?

tsh:

Maybe it's better put CableCard DCT VS. DirecTV USB.  One has to be purchased only with pre-built ridiculously-priced MCE boxes, and one's seemingly available to anyone.   So if it's going to be that easy  for home builders to buy the DirecTV box and tape the same content in MCE, is less scrutiny allowing DirecTV to go under radar, or should I really be coming down from this high about the USB box, expecting the walled garden to entail DRM and issues like this broadcast flag thing to kill it?

pretty certain that the directv tuner will have DRM controls, just no idea to what extent.  i dont see the directv tuner requiring the same certification process as cablecard because, if i remember correctly their marker is relatively smaller when compared against that of all of the cable companies combined.  and having restrictions similar to cablecard would in my opinion make the directv tuner DOA.

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Marvin on Disapproving Rabbits