Does anyone here use Vista as a Home Theater PC O/S?

My wife just got a message saying that the broadcaster does not allow recording of a specific show??? Has anyone heard of this?

Which show and broadcaster?

Americas Next Top Model & the broadcaster I believe is ABC

Its weird...

I can't remember if you run a digital/satelite box as well or you have the tuner in the PC. I have heard of some issues with the digital boxes not allowing recording from them to anything.

Hmm. I just finished reading a 2005 MS whitepaper. DRM has policy capabilities built in such that the content owner can decide what you can and can't do. This was all to do with the DRM chain between player and the display. Depending on the policy, certain outputs on your display card may actually be turned off.

Don't know if or how this applies to recording stuff, but it sure sounds like it does.

Fred

It's your Wife recording that show????
Ya right.......

Seriously though, I'm not sure how DRM works on TV we are not using it for our broadcasts but you can be sure that if there is any form of DRM code known to man, it has been built into Vista.

It's called a broadcast flag.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag

TV companies started tinkering with this a few years ago, but I didn't think that it was actually operational yet due to the controversy surrounding it.

The point is exactly as you've discovered, to limit the recording of certain material. The last I've read about is that it's sort of in limbo, and that neither Tivo nor other DVR's pay attention to the flag yet, or that cable/satellite companies weren't broadcasting it.

However, it seems that you've discovered that your cable company and/or Vista might just be using it. You're the first person I've ever run into that's actually experienced content being locked down by this flag.

It's possible that it's a bug too. Is the first time recording the show? I know I remember reading about a similar incident on a Tivo forum once, and the cause was traced to be a mistake by a broadcaster. Or perhaps it was a Tivo software bug. Either way, the problem was just an error on someone's part and was quickly corrected.

My only advice would be to ask the great Google and see if you can find others complaining about it. If it's a legit block, I'd bet you can find a forum where it's being discussed.

I thought it wasn't allowed yet. How odd.

Or alternatively, its called: "another reason to cancel cable and wait for a reasonable way to recieve content that fits into your schedule and your lifestyle".

That would be known as waiting for the DVD to come out or downloadable content, but then you are not seeing it on or near the original release date, which for me is not a big deal.

Actually, it means walking away from some media distribution forms such as cable, which is exactly what I have done.

I get very annoyed by all the crap I have to go through just to get a few decent channels. I won't be going back until such time as I can watch ONLY the content I want when I want to. Anything less is not worth it to me.

Add DRM and it just pushes me further away.

If DRM software is going to force me to re-boot my too often because its poorly implemented I will walk away from that as well. I get very annoyed when DHCP informs me that there is something wrong with my hardware on a 480p movie.

At some point, bandwidth will no longer be an issue, and stations can offer me content directly again. That will make things interesting. If that dosn't happen, oh well.

You speak of a utopia that I am fairly certain will never happen. Actually being able to choose only the material you want is not in the best interest of the providers, as too many people would only a select few channels and the provider's revenue/profits would drop.

I remember satelite TV was supposed to be this utopia, a pick only what you want type of medium and now look what they have done, bundled everthing up into specific packages to force you to pay for channels very few people actually want, but still allow you to pay more for the higher packages to get all the channels you are truly interested in.

Perhaps. Cable and satalite companies are only middle men. They make their money because there is no way for the content producers, the stations, to get to their audience directly beyond a certain geographic area.

With the internet, we have more content pipes coming into our homes. As I understand it, cable companies have never paid the stations for the content that they deliver to us and I bet thats a real sore point.

If people like PBS were to be able to come to some agreement with the telcos for delivering on-demand content they would jump at the opportunity.

And if its a big pipe dream, oh well. I'll find other ways to amuse myself.

FWIW there is already a hint of change. Cable operators are starting to offer channels on an ala-carte basis. Still gotta pay for the first 30 channels of junk, but its a step in the right direction.