Shows being blocked from recording

[Miller]

Did anyone here ever come across this problem? I may start recording American Gladiators just to see what happens.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9943631-7.html?tag=nefd.top

[ca n vt]

Miller,

It appears to only be a problem related to Vista MCE. Don't you use GBPVR? I don't think you'll see the problem there. Just another good reason to go free.

[Miller]

I saw that the original aritcle said just Vista MCE (using cablecards), but in some of the comments people reported using XP MCE and Hauppauge tuners so I was just curious. I'm sure it's a DRM thing, but I just wondered if anyone else had any experience with it.

[ca n vt]

Good thing it happened during the summer TV season. I have a feeling they would have had a lot more angry people on their hands if they had blocked people from recording some of the fall shows like Heroes. I guess this just goes to show again how DRM really only impacts the people who are doing things legally. All those people that download their shows via bit torrent  probably never even would have known about this.

[TSAT Kevin]

The DRM technology is called CGMS-A... AFAIK it's only VMC and XP MCE that obey CGMS-A flags, it's purely a software thing as the early analog tuners (pvr 150, and pvr 500) are only required to pass these flags to the os and not act on them. This may have changed since the PVR 500, but i doubt it.

If you use MCE or VMC and want to get by it just get a device that strips the VBI out of your cable signal... But you wont get closed captioning data anymore (CGMS-A is embedded on the same line).

Pretty sure this was a topic of discussion before. I experience this all the time when trying to record a new movie on the premium channels, if a movie hasn't been on TV for more than a year then the broadcaster can flag it.

Broadcasters here also have the ability to flag w/e they like even if the original content creator did not.

[turajb]

I guess this just goes to show again how DRM really only impacts the people who are doing things legally. All those people that download their shows via bit torrent  probably never even would have known about this.

And don't forget about those people that actually slave their PVR's tuners to their settop boxes.  As under this condition the settop box outputs the signal to the PVR, thinking its a TV & it would not know to block recording of the show in something like GBPVR.

[TSAT Kevin]

That's why the cable companies here do it on popular shows airing on basic cable (not premium channels)... their PVR's don't obey content protection, so they make yours useless so you have to buy theirs.