Microsoft's CableCARD DRM
Our most anticipated feature of Windows Vista is CableCARD support. As much as we like MCE, it's inability to record HD cable channels is really lame. We knew there would be a catch in the form of DRM; like the OEM requiredment and some of our favorite Media Center features won't be available. The good news is that CableCARD support will be available when Vista ships later this month, the content will be decrypted from cable and then re-encrypted in the tuner with Microsoft DRM before traveling via USB to the media center, even internal PCI cards will use USB. The files will be stored on the hard drive encrypted and no copies will be permitted, there will be recover methods to deal with hardware failure. Streaming to Vista Media Center extenders will be supported, and shows recorded with a CableCARD tuner will not be transferable to a Zune or other device, OTA content can be copied to a Zune so Microsoft recommends you record what you can OTA. All copy protection required by the provider like 5C will be honored by Microsoft, but no details were known how they would deal with things like "Copy Never". On a side note un-encrypted QAM will be supported, but mapping the QAM channels is not automatic.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Larry @ Jan 12th 2007 10:28AM
The lengths Microsoft has to go through to appease Hollywood is amazing. This is the box Hollywood wants you to use if you do not like it vote with your dollars.
Big Sam @ Jan 12th 2007 10:32AM
Will QAM be supported only on the same tuner that has the cable card? Or can I use any card that supports QAM?
Matt @ Jan 12th 2007 11:15AM
I still can't get over the fact that they won't allow you to build your own MCE boxes with CableCARD. That kinda kills it for me.
andy @ Jan 12th 2007 12:43PM
If I didn't want to be able to build my own box/ upgrade components, I would have bought a MAC.
I buy windows to operate the equipment that I WANT IT TO OPERATE.
I know this isn't MS's fault, but I sure hope they make the DRM stuff super easy hackable and then never update it. I could see this happening.
Scott K @ Jan 12th 2007 11:49AM
Yeah this is silly. I was quite excited about using a Vista media center in place of my Motorola 6412 back when cable card support was first mentioned. Stuff like this is infuriating.
walk2k @ Jan 12th 2007 1:07PM
As long as all you want to do is record your favorite shows, stream them to any TV in the house (with a MCE on it.. or Xbox) it WILL be a lot better than the 6412.
But if you want to burn DVD copies and give them out to all your friends, or convert them to DIVX and upload them to the U-Tubes... yeah sorry there chief... Some times things cost money. Shocking I know.
The only real problem I have is the clunky use of USB. The internal tuners only use the PCI slot as an anchor... What the hell? Not to mention, I haven't seen one with 2 tuners (or more...) or heard if you can use 2 of the tuners in the same box..
Personally I'm going to continue using my Motorola DVR, as painful as it is.... and wait for the dual-tuner cards, with hopefully multi-stream CC support.
Scott K @ Jan 12th 2007 3:02PM
Ok smart guy. If you look at the first line of the article, it says that you won't be able to record HD cable channels. Nobody has said they wanted to do any of the garbage you listed. I simply want to be able to record shows from ALL of the HD channels I get, and watch them on my tvs.
The clunky use of USB is far from your only real problem, chief.
Mike D @ Jan 12th 2007 9:11PM
They are talking about the current version. Stop talking.
Mike D @ Jan 12th 2007 7:22PM
I'm with walk2k on the multistream thing I'm not using this until I can use it as a home media server that will work on multiple mce's and support multiple recordings. My ideal would be two multistream cable cards and 4 mce's playing it (I have a 2 bedroom townhouse) though until this happens I won't be anywhere near it. Also raid 5 why is raid 5 not standard in things like this?
Dave Johnson @ Jan 12th 2007 8:52PM
There's a new Congress. Write to your representative about getting this ridiculous DRM situation fixed.
Charlie Owen @ Jan 12th 2007 10:26PM
Charlie Owen from the Windows Media Center team here. I'm not sure where Ben got his information but Windows Media Center is definitely able to record high definition television. Today that content can come from over the air (OTA) broadcast ATSC. When Windows Vista ships it will expand to include Open Cable Unidirectional Receivers (OCUR) aka CableCard tuners. Live and Recorded TV (including high definition content) can freely flow to attached Media Center Extenders (today that's the XBox 360). Copying / transcoding the content to portable devices will depend on the rights granted by the content owner as embedded in the content stream.
Big Sam @ Jan 13th 2007 4:08AM
Charlie,
Ben said the current MCE cannot record HD "CABLE" channels, which is correct. Can you answer my question as to whether Vista will be able to record QAM channels from a HD tuner card (like the Fusion) or from an network tuner (like the HDHomeRun)? And if I manually map the QAM channels on these devices, will they stay mapped?