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Windows Media Center Restricts Cable TV

Posted by kdawson on from the no-HBO-for-you dept.

PrescriptionWarning writes "With the latest Media Center Edition update from Microsoft, I and many others are finding that content available on television is now completely unwatchable from Media Center. The message states: 'Restricted Content: Restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator of the content prohibit playback of the program on this computer.' A simple search on the subject reveals that HBO programming and, in my case, Braveheart on AMC are among the many selections now restricted for playback or recording by Windows Media Center Edition. What's next, restricting every piece of programming on television?"

27 of 448 comments (clear)

  1. It's not the content that's being restricted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...it's the user.

    Why invite Microsoft into your living room when you can set up MythTV? DRM opponents have been telling you all for how long... and you people still buy Microsoft products and then complain when they behave as expected?

    Pfft!

    1. Re:It's not the content that's being restricted by laejoh · · Score: 5, Funny

      and you people still buy Microsoft products and then complain when they behave as expected?

      That's the thing, exactly! Who'd think things coming from Microsoft would behave as expected!

    2. Re:It's not the content that's being restricted by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why invite Microsoft into your living room when you can set up MythTV?

      Please tell me where I can buy cablecard ready tuner cards for MythTV. Comcast here has new boxes that DELETE the firewire port, it's not even an option. Therefore recording is limited to Standard Def only.

      Until someone hacks and then cracks cablecard, or get's off their butts and get s the hdmi or dvi capture cards working MythTV is not an option for recording CableTV HDTV.

      if you want to record from Cable and get any of the channels to record that are not encrypted, you have to have microsoft.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:It's not the content that's being restricted by jimstapleton · · Score: 5, Funny

      Remember, it's digital content enablement.

      Don't you feel enabled?

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    4. Re:It's not the content that's being restricted by BLKMGK · · Score: 4, Informative

      I could be wrong but having that firewire port available may be an FCC requirement - if they aren't living up to it you may be able to force them to provide this functionality. Hopefully others who know the rules on this can better speak to this.

      As for CableCard - good luck. This little device was supposed to help us to get away from STBs. Unfortunatly you cannot just buy one and plug it in. Oh no, it must be plugged in and "activated" by the head end using a crypto handshake after the installer ensures that the box it's plugged into is "certified". So first you must figure out how to get your paws on one and then you must figure out a way to activate it. This isn't so unlike the old cards for activating SAT service I'd imagine except that it's possible these guys have learned from that experience - they appear to be using a 2-way handshake at the very least. Done right you might never see a working hacked cablecard under Myth. Nice huh?

      Personally I see two HUGE problems with MythTV. The biggest is of course cablecard, eventually STBs will go away and we'll be left with these or some other nasty competitor (supposedly one exists, I've heard little about it however). You can bet that no one will ever "bless" Myth working with cablecard unless maybe they provide a closed source binary blob driver that no one finds pallatable and violates who knows what licenses. The second issue I see with Myth is the PITA factor. Myth tries to support so many damned pieces of weirdo' hardware that it's a hassle to setup and strango' things just happen. There have been some "standard" platform suggestions made in the past for Myth but no one seems to really follow them and support remains splintered. It would be nice if someone could take a page out of the TIVO, Apple, and XBMC playbook and choose a seriously solid set of hardware and then refine the hell out of the support. The aTV box could be such a thing maybe although 720P max rez would turn people off and everyone seems to be working on making the Apple software better - the platform is cheap at least. If this were to happen you'd end up with something that "just works" like XBMC only far more powerful - more like TIVO. Good luck with that, even Knoppmyth is a hassle but it was the closest thing to an Easy button I've tried for Myth yet. LinuxMCE sounds like a good idea but it's early yet and again not built for a standard platform.

      I still use a hacked DTIVO despite it's not being HD and XBMC on an old XBOX because nothing I've tried has been so good I had to have it - including MCE. Too bad the S3 TIVO cannot do extraction or I'd have one and bite the bullet on cablecard. The 360 is going to be getting the ability to record and playback IPTV streams it looks like, when that happens I'm sure it will be DRM hell but maybe it will "just work". MythTV sure didn't seem to :-(

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    5. Re:It's not the content that's being restricted by crazyjimmy · · Score: 5, Funny

      So...to put it another way

      MythTV is better cause it'll only punch you once in the gut, right at the very beginning, as opposed to WMC which will punch you in the gut at a later date.

      Maybe I don't want to be punched in the gut.

      --Jimmy

  2. It's almost as if... by Perseid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...they WANT us to download things off of P2P.

    1. Re:It's almost as if... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, it's almost like they don't want us to watch it.

      Fine with me.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:It's almost as if... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Informative

      In the article about renaming DRM, I asked the question of what the HBO guy thought user could do with DRM'd content that they couldn't do with the same content if it were not DRM'd. Now I know the answer; they can go outside and get some fresh air without the TV. Obviously, HBO are just thinking of everyone's health this summer.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:It's almost as if... by knewter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They determined that one for me quite a bit ago. I subscribe to two music services (Napster and Yahoo), with their MILLIONS OF SONGS!! Anyway, if I want any acoustic content I have to bolt to Soulseek. If I want any live content, can't get it there. If I want to listen to a song by Denison Witmer, why, it's purchase only. He's not a well-known artist. There's no way he's selling a lot of those tracks.

      They've driven me from my fortress of legalitude back into P2P because they won't give me what they have that would make them better than P2P - exclusive live tracks (for a brief period I would have it better than P2Pers in one respect), or at least approaching 60% of the stuff I search for? Because ALL of the P2P apps give me whatever I search for, immediately. I know the RIAA can do better, but they don't understand why it would become infuriating to depend on them to deliver the content I want.

      I will download music. I stopped and tried to go the legal route, and as far as I can tell they want to siphon off every dollar I have that way. This is no different. The faulty business models must be crushed - do your part. Download stuff.

      --
      -knewter
  3. Old news???? by Maddog+Batty · · Score: 4, Informative

    First google link: Published Monday, October 31, 2005 6:41 PM by astebner

    Second google link: Posted February 14th, 2006

    Third google link: Last Review : August 17, 2006

    Fourth google link: Friday, January 28, 2005 1:00 AM PST

    Fifth google link: June 2nd, 2006

    You get the idea....

    --
    wot no sig
  4. TV? by FredDC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TV is an outdated concept... I hardly watch any television anymore myself, why would I want to watch something on a specified date and time? I'll watch it whenever I feel like it!

    Record it from TV? Oh yea, I'm gonna wait until some station decides to air it and then record it with advertising...

    There is nothing which interests me on television anyway which I can't find somewhere else. And the rest? Game shows, reality shows, ... I couldn't care less about them!

    With these kind of restrictions it seems like television stations are going the **AA way... Desperately trying to hold on to an outdated concept, which has made them alot of money in the past. Too blind and stuck in their old patterns to find new ways of making money...

    --
    09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63
    1. Re:TV? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And that's exactly the concept the content industry fails to grasp. People are indeed very willing to pay for content and avoid the hassle of searching through .torrents, downloading, waiting, waiting more, waiting even more, and finally hoping they get what they downloaded and not some gay porn movie (unless they tried to download a gay porn... you get the idea), then downloading some codec because that movie had to be packed with some esotheric encoding mechanism, then hoping it's really a good copy of the movie and not some cell-cam version with popcorn rustling in the background... Not to mention the legal matters.

      What keeps people from going the legal way is the terms of service. First of all, the hassle is not less, it's more. Incompatible DRM with this or that player, installing licenses, and finally hoping that what they got can actually be watched, if not, more try and error with DRM... And of course the fear that, as soon as their computer dies, all the content is digital junk because DRM thinks you're a different person.

      I know that a lot of people, if not the overwhelming majority, is very willing to pay for content that simply works, hassle-free and without problems and tinkering. But currently, with DRM in place, it's anything but that. More often than not, you buy something only to find out that it would have been less hassle to simply search for a .torrent, download it, wait for a while...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:TV? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I believe the grandparent was talking about TV-the-delivery-system, rather than TV-the-content. I don't watch TV-the-delivery-system anymore, but most of what I rent on DVDs is TV-the-content. I value my time, and don't want to waste 25% of my entertainment time watching adverts, so I simply don't watch TV. I want to watch things when I have time, not when the broadcaster decides it's the optimal time to show it. I want to be able to take the show with me, and watch it while travelling on my laptop.

      I would love to be able to buy TV show on a per-season basis, with no DRM and the ability to re-download (I don't want to bother having to archive them myself), or for less if I don't have the re-download ability (for stuff I'm likely to only want to watch once).

      TV viewership is dropping as it has to compete with more convenient forms of entertainment. Expect the status quo to change when enough people have broadband that the studios can sell more by selling to the viewers than to the distributors.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:TV? by boyko.at.netqos · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're British, aren't you?

      Here's the thing: The Brits actually have good TV, because it's publically funded. It used to mean that the BBC produced series that were cheap - look at the production values of a classic Dr. Who episode compared to a classic Star Trek episode of the same time frame, but as the private networks in the U.S. have found that they can make more money by producing nothing but super-cheap TV shows and cancelling anything that doesn't get a hell of an audience immediately, now it is the British, who care about providing good value for the tax revenue rather than stuffing pockets, that produces superior television shows.

      I mean, I saw the BBC Casanova miniseries, and can you imagine an American show going that far, production wise, for a three-episode mini series?

      Additionally, all the good news channels - CBC, BBC, CNN International - aren't available in America on any of the different ways to get television here. HDNet has Dan Rather, but I don't have an HDTV and even if I did I don't have a local provider for it either.

      So when you hear people complain about there being nothing good on TV which to record - yeah, I can see that. I don't know when I last turned on the television here but I don't think it even has the rabbit ears hooked up!

      --
      I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
  5. Microsoft once again demonstrates... by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft once again demonstrates who its customers are. It isn't the people who buy their products, but big busines. Hence the heavy-DRM tie-ins they've developed for Vista among other products in the past (such as Windows Media Player)

  6. What's next... by Bowdie · · Score: 4, Funny

    >What's next, restricting every piece of programming on television?

    Yes. Didn't you get the memo?

    --
    yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
  7. This is what DRM *is*... by kcbrown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and what DRM is for.

    Its sole purpose is to keep you from using the media you would otherwise have rightful access to in any way other than what the copyright holder explicitly wants.

    In short, its sole purpose is, ultimately, to make you pay every time you make use of the media, and to control the flow of information.

    DRM is how the media megacorporations intend to rein in the internet. For instance, you can't prove that the media broadcast a story when the story can't be recorded.

    DRM is how the big corporations intend to remove your right to read.

    This is just the first shot across the bow. It's going to get worse. A lot worse. Read all you can about "trusted computing" to see where this is going. All they have to do is to remove your ability to boot an unsigned bootloader, and the game is over (with you as the loser).

    If you think this is paranoid ranting, well, so did people who thought habeus corpus would never be removed. That doesn't make what I say right, but since the same people are ultimately involved, you shouldn't dismiss the above as paranoid ranting on the basis of incredulity alone.

    --
    Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
  8. Well, Microsoft think it's a bug... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913800

    Cockup rather than conspiracy?

  9. Wasn't this a driver problem? by Erwos · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wouldn't take the summary at face value for this one - IIRC, there are some driver issues that cause this flag to pop up when it's really not supposed to. More info, including Microsoft's mostly-official response, at:

    http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/176207.asp x

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
  10. the tale of two neighbors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are those two neighbors, Joe Sixpack and Joe Sixbit. The first buys whatever the ads say and just brought home his new shiny Microsoft Media Center PC, the second enjoys spending some time learning how to build things and just installed Freevo or MythTV on a spare box.
    For a while Joe Sixbit was laughed at by Joe Sixpack because while he was working on his ugly PC, Joe Sixpack's MSMCE-PC was already working and indeed looked more professional.
    Then, after some time, Joe Sixpack started to face some problems: failed updates, unsupported codecs, and every time he had to call a number where someone gave the same not working answers. Joe Sixbit's system, instead, was working better and better: not only it supported every media it was thrown at, but it was also possible upgrading it to new media without waiting for a single software house approval. It could show weather forecasts and web pages, but also it run games, voip phonecalls, videoconferencing and other tasks it wasn't designed to thanks to an active community.

    After some months Joe Sixbit still enjoys his self made media center and has learned a lot working on it, which pays he back of the time he spent, while Joe Sixpack only learned he has to reinstall the Windows MCE every now and then to make it work again after a software install screws the system, and still there are tasks he cannot perform and media he cannot play, which pays he back much less for the time and money he spent.

    The moral is.. HECK! you still need a moral to stop using proprietary software after it's so clear how it's screwing you?

  11. old news by confused+one · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read on like the poster suggested (and obviously the poster himself didn't read the articles) you'd find out that
    1. This is an old problem
    2. This was a driver issue that only affected people who had changed hardware components.

  12. Re:Try myself by paganizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am not 100% certain, but I think the problem is directly related to the DRM subsystem that is installed with Windows Media player 11.

    --
    Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
  13. Re:Try myself by RareButSeriousSideEf · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is due to Windows Media Center being about the only PVR software to obey CGMS-A signals, which come through your cable box via the analog S-Video output.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGMS-A

    Best ways I've found to avoid these problems:
    1) Turn OFF Windows Update, and/or use a disk imaging system to make sure you can roll back any unwelcome changes like this;
    2) Use different software for recording cable content (MediaPortal, or the scheduling app that comes with most tuner cards, etc.)
    3) Don't pay for HBO; get those shows through alternative providers that have higher-quality, DRM-free, digital copies

    --
    Pi Ran Out
  14. Re:You mean HD channels? by jaysones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FWIW, I can see HBO HD on the firewire port of my Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD in NYC on Time Warner. I know very little about this but I plugged in my Macbook Pro, installed Apple's Firewire SDK and was able to record that content and play it back with no problems.

  15. Re:You mean HD channels? by shr3k · · Score: 4, Funny

    FWIW, I can see HBO HD on the firewire port of my Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD in NYC on Time Warner. I know very little about this but I plugged in my Macbook Pro, installed Apple's Firewire SDK and was able to record that content and play it back with no problems. Thanks for reporting. We'll issue a fix for this within a few days.

    Sincerely,
    Time Warner Support
  16. Re:Try myself by Dishevel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nope. It is working as intended. Not a problem.

    --
    Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?