I went to attend a Media Center Expert Zone chat, at its regularly schedueled time (once monthly, on the third Thursday of the month)… only to find that the Expert Zone web site had removed the Media Center chats from their schedule completely.
I can’t blame them, really. The chats weren’t aimed at true Media Center experts, and wound up being broken up into two parts; basic questions and questions left unanswered. Guess which category my questions always wound up in?
While the right people from Microsoft were in these chats… they refused to answer the pressing questions that Media Center experts have been asking (for months… and months… and months).
It’s really starting to be disappointing that Microsoft is leaving people, who paid thousands of dollars for CableCARD systems, in the dark on basic things like placeshifting. CableLabs finally chimed in months ago, and Microsoft still has no answer on when, or even if, CableCARD users will be able to break free from draconian and unnecessary DRM.
And don’t get me started on my bevy of TV Pack 2008 (Fiji) questions, which I’ve been personally promised answers to, for months now.
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Damn, you sure do cry alot. How about getting back to blogging about interesting things and less about crap and no one cares about.
Where the real is this information about cablelabs and drm anyway. My friend works there and hasn’t seen anything about what you are talking about.
Record something on a Media Center CableCARD system (which doesn’t have ATSC/OTA antennas in the back of it), and then try to put that recording on your iPhone (or Zune, if you prefer).
Oh, wait, it doesn’t work. Windows Media Center DRM locks down (which is not in accordance with current CableLabs policy). Now, try the same thing with a TiVo, or with a Clear QAM MCE system. Wait… wait… it works!
Perhaps you should read (as in, search) the prior reporting where I picked all of this apart, and Chris Lanier (a decorated Microsoft MVP) responded, agreeing with me that it should be fixed… before you start saying that I “cry alot” (sic).
Now, for those of you that have searched, and are still wondering why I am “crying” so much… it’s because Microsoft won’t even say “yes, we know you should be able to placeshift with a CableCARD system, and we’ll have a fix in (insert reasonable period of time here)”
Microsoft won’t even acknowledge that CableLabs has ruled that CableCARD PCs should be able to placeshift content (provided the content itself does not have a DRM flag).
Now, back to Steve, if your friend really does work at CableLabs, why don’t you have him/her get in touch with me… you know, be part of the solution, and not the problem. I’m more than happy to talk to anyone at CableLabs & Microsoft to try to get this fixed… because there sure are a lot of angry CableCARD PC owners.
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