52 pages and 777 replies later, Community Server has met it's match
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/176207/ShowThread.aspx

Please continue discussion here.

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

I doubt any discussion here will make Microsoft change their practices of catering to the whims of the content providers rather than the users.

All I know is that once Media Center has become too restrictive I will leave my beloved MC platform in favor of a more open and less restrictive product. Fortunately that day has not arrived yet.

Chris,

As a late repsonse to other posts I've read of yours on this thread (and others), can you tell me why you and others accept DRM restrictions on previously unrestricted content?

I don't think I'm unreasonable in my hatred for how DRM is used... for example, The DRM used in Netflix "Play Now" allows them to stream unlimited(!!) movies over the Internet for a flat monthly fee. No one has ever offered anything like this, ever (100x better than free "On Demand") . DRM made this feasible. Good for Netflix, and good for us. And if the DRM blocks us, meh... we never had it before anyway, and it's not the main feature of Netflix.

Now, with TV however, we've been able to record and copy anything on TV with reckless abandon for 30 years. Cat's out of the bag... they're never going to get customers to accept restrictions on this.

And I will say this one more time as a measure of reality: as long as pirated products are better than legitimate products, very few people are going to buy legitimate products.

As in, why would I record a 30-minute DRM'd show when I can download the torrent for the same show literally in 10 minutes? It's a legitimate question. And the content providers sooner or later (perhaps later) will have no choice but to come to this conclusion: "We need to remove DRM to compete with BitTorrent".

They will need to compete with packaging and immediate availability of content. That is all they will have. No DRM will stop this from happening.

Sorry, but I just feel like I see this issue extremely clearly. I feel the industry is in denial because they (a.) are type-A control freaks used to being able to get people to act exacly how they want, and (b.) the truth is too scary for them to face.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Oo yay!! Another chance to speak to the walls...

Chris - Moderator:

52 pages and 777 replies later, Community Server has met it's match
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/176207/ShowThread.aspx

Please continue discussion here.

I hate being negative, but just having 2 threads dedicated to a topic that MS doesn't give a *** about isn't going to change anything

MS has repeatedly fuxed over the Canadian market, and I don't see it changing

Chris - Moderator:

52 pages and 777 replies later, Community Server has met it's match
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/176207/ShowThread.aspx

Please continue discussion here.

But how will everyone KNOW that MS has ignored Canada's recording problems for a year and a half if that massive thread isn't at on the front page almost EVERY SINGLE DAY ??

Single most nasty horrible problem media center has ever had.... maybe burying the longest thread will make it go away?   LOL    (no offense Chris, it's not your fault)

Microsoft denies blocking NBC shows or digital broadcasts

Microsoft says now that it wasn't Windows Media Center that was responsible for blocking two NBC Universal shows earlier this month.

The software maker said that there is nothing in Windows Vista Media Center that would have blocked the recording of over-the-air broadcasts or QAM. On May 12, people who attempted to use Windows Vista Media Center to digitally record NBC Universal shows American Gladiator and Medium received a prompt saying the copyright holder had put a block on the recording.

Microsoft said in an e-mail to CNET News.com that it honors flags sent to protect against the recording of "premium content" from pay-per-view channels or video on demand (VOD). The company very clearly said that it doesn't support the Broadcast Flag. What Microsoft didn't say was how, if it only honors flags intended for analogue broadcasts, were people recording digital broadcasts were blocked from recording.

"Windows Media Center currently supports and adheres to CGMS-A," a Microsoft spokeswoman said in the e-mail. "Content distributors use CGMS-A in very limited circumstances, such as to protect programs intended for video on demand. Please note that Windows Media Center does not support Broadcast Flag, sometimes referred to as "Digital Broadcast Television Redistribution Control", on ATSC and clear QAM."

Source: c|net
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9954223-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

I just received the message when trying to record So You Think You Can Dance on my new Vista Ulitmate SP1 machine.  Interestingly, I actually had it set to record on my XP machine as well so I could watch it in either room while it was still recording, and the XP machine was fine.  I have it set to record 3 minutes before it starts on both, and after the show actually started i was able to hit record and it worked fine.  I was already watching the station live when it tried to start recording, and it was in the middle of commercials when it attempted to start.  This was WCCB in Charlotte.  MS, we need a fix!!

Well, due to my previous failed attempts to record Doom(ok, I know it's probably not a good movie), Media Center has scheduled it to record when it next comes on, which is tomorrow on TNT.  What are the odds that TNT disables the cgms-a or that MS fixes the problem before then?  I'd say not a chance in you know what.  I also have two other scheduled recordings over the next 3 weeks due to past failed recordings of other movies from AMC and WGN.  I'm sure those will fail as well. 

These aren't premium ppv or vod shows now MS, these are shows on basic cable, that are even broadcast over the air in some locales.  Now why don't you stop wasting time arguing about your lame software and trying to find ways to spin this and prevent negative pr, and just fix it?  Really, with all of the other negative public perception you have gained over the past couple of years, and what you're going to create for yourself from the end of life of xp in the next month, why not do something right?  I doubt that you will ever be a company that I will support again, but you may be able to keep some of the current customers who are on the fence or moving that way, well, except for Canadians.

Tikker:

Chris - Moderator:

52 pages and 777 replies later, Community Server has met it's match
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/1/176207/ShowThread.aspx

Please continue discussion here.

I hate being negative, but just having 2 threads dedicated to a topic that MS doesn't give a *** about isn't going to change anything

MS has repeatedly fuxed over the Canadian market, and I don't see it changing

The reason for the new thread was because the old one got screwed up during the last posts.  I've since had one of the Community Server devs e-mail me as to why it broke (so I know how to fix it now), but that's the reasoning behind the new thread.

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

maybe one possible work around to dumb mistakes by cable/network providers could be to auto retry to record every 30 seconds for 5 minutes before it fails it for good?  There's gotta be something else they can do besides point fingers.

Jaxim:

Microsoft denies blocking NBC shows or digital broadcasts

Microsoft says now that it wasn't Windows Media Center that was responsible for blocking two NBC Universal shows earlier this month.

The software maker said that there is nothing in Windows Vista Media Center that would have blocked the recording of over-the-air broadcasts or QAM. On May 12, people who attempted to use Windows Vista Media Center to digitally record NBC Universal shows American Gladiator and Medium received a prompt saying the copyright holder had put a block on the recording.

Microsoft said in an e-mail to CNET News.com that it honors flags sent to protect against the recording of "premium content" from pay-per-view channels or video on demand (VOD). The company very clearly said that it doesn't support the Broadcast Flag. What Microsoft didn't say was how, if it only honors flags intended for analogue broadcasts, were people recording digital broadcasts were blocked from recording.

"Windows Media Center currently supports and adheres to CGMS-A," a Microsoft spokeswoman said in the e-mail. "Content distributors use CGMS-A in very limited circumstances, such as to protect programs intended for video on demand. Please note that Windows Media Center does not support Broadcast Flag, sometimes referred to as "Digital Broadcast Television Redistribution Control", on ATSC and clear QAM."

Source: c|net
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9954223-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Odd, how are they getting CGMS-A(nalog) on digital broadcasts?

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

Chris - Moderator:

The reason for the new thread was because the old one got screwed up during the last posts.  I've since had one of the Community Server devs e-mail me as to why it broke (so I know how to fix it now), but that's the reasoning behind the new thread.

I was in no way trying to impeach the reason for the new thread
I assumed it had just reached some arbitrary limit in the forum software


all I meant was that resurrecting it again isn't really going to mean much

MS has been able to ignore this for 18 months

why would they suddenly start caring now?

No idea, I'm doing this for you guys.    That/this thread has stayed active so I might as well try and keep it open.  Beats a dozen individual threads that I would need to clean up and merge (which I still need to do for several others out there).

---

Chris Lanier
The Green Button Forum Moderator

I'm not sure how this is possible, but I'm certain that I've seen VBI data (which is where CGMS-A data resides) within digital broadcasts before.  (I've seen the tell-tale garbage at the top of the screen when not cropping the video or adjusting overscan).

Of course, this confuses the heck out of me, since in an all digital signal, you'd figure that the VBI, if present, would be part of the MPEG-2 stream, and therefore MCE wouldn't have access to it (unless it was actively parsing/decoding the stream on the fly).

One of my co-workers who does a lot of MPEG-2 work mentioned that it is possible to have the VBI signal in a digital stream.  I'll ask him tomorrow, and see what he says.  I also have access to (pretty old) copies of the MPEG-2 specifications, those might provide an answer, if I knew what to look for.

-- Joe

Edit: I just talked to my co-worker.  Here's the deal:
The VBI does not exist in a digital stream, as it does in NTSC.  However, it can be encoded within the digital stream as part of the MPEG video data.  When the MPEG decoder decodes the data, the TV connected to the decoder can then use the VBI information for things like Closed Captioning (say in the case of a set-top box).  This would typically be the case of a program that started out as an analog transmission, and was then encoded.  (A good example of this would be input coming from analog then going into a PVR-250 card - the VBI would be preserved in the new MPEG-2 stream, unless you specified that it be cut out.)

Also, although it's not VBI, VBI-like information can be embedded in a "private" MPEG "substream" (same stream, different PID), and that can be used by the decoder as well.

Whether Microsoft is decoding either of these to read flags, I couldn't even venture a guess.