Canadian cable providers locking out Vista Media Centers? - Engadget

Ironic, since the only CC box is Canadian made (ATI).

"It appears that some Canadian cable providers (Rogers and Shaw, namely)" Maybe it's just my southern Ontario ignorance, but are there any other cable providers in Canada that aren't owned by Rogers? It's not like the US where we have several major cable providers, I always thought there was Rogers or Satellite?

Yes, there is Shaw. It is owned by Shaw. So yes it's your "Ontario is the centre of the universe" ignorance :) In the West from BC to Manitoba is Shaw.

Yup, I am avid Vista Media Center User and cancelled a Bell Expressvu Sub because of the protected content flags. Thanksfully I have a small local cable company that hasn't resorted to inserting flags yet. I know a lot of you yanks bitch about the FCC but at least it offers you some protection.

Our equivalent, the CRTC is joke. They won't take any action over this.

Us Canucks have a number of small time providers over cable as well in the west there is Shaw, which is not owned by Rogers.

Here in Vancouver there are local companies that supply cable that have no affiliation with Shaw or Rogers. As for the story..

.not surprising at all. Shaw is slimey that way.

We had a blue screen with the shaw logo on our TV for nearly a day last year for most american networks and shaw's reply was there was something wrong with the source that Komo, Kiro and King were all out. I called a friend who lived across town and his cable was fine. They never did take responsibility but freely offered a rebate after much complaining.

Canadian companies are just as greedy and farked up as US companies. I hate Robbers (rogers) - I noticed the Broadcast flag embedded in a recording of Greys At.
Sounds like a class action suit waiting to happen.

I've seen the same thing in the US on adelphia (now comcast), although 90% of the time it happens with HBO. I'm pretty sure its a media center bug and nothing more. Deleting my drm directory would help, but the problem always seemed to come back.

It also seems to be more of a problem with 3rd party decoders. If you search the green button they point to at least one patch in waiting that is supposed to address this. Apparently, the spec says that they need to put recording restrictions on broadcasts with a certain flag set, but they are supposed to let you watch them live.

Ironically, I've seen the problem much more with mce2005 than i have with vista.

Videotron has a stronghold on Quebec, and there's also Cogeco Cable that does business in Quebec and Ontario (2nd cable provider in importance in these 2 provinces). There are also some small local providers.

Whoa, that's a really good reason for me not to get Vista MCE. I've got Shaw and really have no alternitive. Well I have Eastlink they are the provider in Nova Scotia, Canada.

.. as far as I can tell they don't use any broadcast flags (c5 I think it is called) because I can use firewire from my HD Box (Motorola 6200 box) directly into my computer and I can record in HD Goodness.

.. mind you our provider out here makes HD look like moderatly good SD.

.. but that is another argument for another time!

:) If you can't record then download it through bit torrent, Shaw's all for this. Unfortunately, most Canadians have no legal alternative to our heavy-handed cable and satellite providers. Apple's iTunes does not offer tv show downloads in Canada.

Microsoft's XBox 360 does not offer movie downloads in Canada. IPTV services are still available in only a few parts of the country. What are we to do?

[What do we do? We are driven to download videos illegally from the U.S.

and buy imported bootleg DVDs, that's what!]

Well more stupidity, last week was Pandora.com closing to the world and now this.

Well then with the money i save from cutting cable i can upgrade my internet connection. Hello free music and TV anytime

"If you can't record then download it through bit torrent, Shaw's all for this. OMG.

...

...

. I realize it's to trick people into using less bandwidth to save Shaw money but still, that is funny.

It's really lame.

.. analog CGMS-A is what we are talking about it, and it's being spewed over 1/2 the channels (anything worth watching) here in Canada.

It makes Media Center useless as a PVR. FCC in USA has a $15K fine for putting CGMS-A on NON "video on demand" or "Pay per View" content, and an online complaint form to make it easy. CRTC in Canada says "CGMS-A?

huh?" Since there is NO LAWS, or RULES, or even ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of existence of such things as broadcast flags by any Canadian authority, the door is wide open for outfits like Shaw, Rogers, and Bell to abuse it, to weed out the competition and sell more $800 PVRs. Microsoft is selling something to Canadians which does NOT do as it advertises, record TV, because of restrictions which are only enforced in the USA.

If the problem is the broadcast flag, then the suggestion of switching to the cable companies provided DVR makes no sense because it too would not be able to record those shows. The cable companies' DVRs ignore all the CGMS flags because they're "authorized" (translation, they can do stuff that 3rd party boxes can't do, otherwise you might not be willing to rent the box).
I'm on rogers and this is happening to me frequently, however all I do is change the channel then change back and it's fine.

As long as I can watch Colbert I'm happy.

Hmmm, haven't seen this on my TiVo. I believe that TiVo dosen't recognize broadcast flags.

I have Shaw SD. Any other Canuck TiVo owners seen this?

It must be because they want to sell more PVR's, and not piracy, because the average home user wanting to record the ep of House MD they missed is not the one making the torrents.

There's not going to be a market for these media center pc's in Canada anymore if the cable providers do this. If a special version is released for canada that doesn't recognize the flag, well it won't be exclusive to canada for long.

How about moving to Linux plus one of the many DVR programs (aka remakes of Windows Media).

Anyone give this alternative a try?

Cogeco, Mountain Cablevision and The Source are 3 different companies in Hamilton alone..

.

(re: komo, kiro and king): what's ironic is those are all washington stations iirc..

. if you were to have unplugged your digital cable and plugged in a largish antenna, you'd have received those channels fine.

if you read this website more than once a year you'd realize amd now heart; ati.

.. so we can no longer call them a canadian company.

Another Canadian TiVo user who hasn't seen this.
As far as I know, no Canadian cable companies support cable cards at all and have no plans to so Vista was preventing this guy from recording regular analog cable. It sounds more like another Vista software bug than a deliberate action by the cableco to block recording.

If you're wondering, up in the "peninsula" of ontario, (think, toronto area, but more like kincardine/tiverton area if anyone knows where that is) we have cable that was simply called "kincardine cable", we get quite a few channels 2-73 something and then a few hundred if you get digital cable.
Well..

.we are "locking out" their beloved Senators from the Stanley Cup (Go Ducks !) But they can find solace in knowing 95% of the Ducks are Canadian ;)

I use Shaw and have no problem watching anything, I use PCLinuxOS, lovely 3d just like Vista, plays media of all sorts, runs like a charm on a p3 with 500 megs of ram and it is easier to use than win 98.

Say good bye to over priced software and come and join the revolution, go Linux, especially PCLinuxOS

It's not just Vista, MCE2k5 is has the same problem. From the times my friends and I have called Shaw, they've always insisted that it was something from the feed they were using (as it happens on random things, like really old episodes of Friends). Generally, a complaint to the CRTC is really the only thing you can do, as complaining to the lvl 1 tech support guy is not going to get anywhere.

DRM is built right into Vista (it's why I'm switching to Linux as an alternative). There's a great article by Peter Gutmann (Dept Computer Science University of Aukland)..

.Here's a quote: "Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content". This incurs significant costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost.

" and here's the link to his paper:

And you to can ask the CRTC why the hell they are not dealing with this crap from Rogers and Shaw with the lovely governemtn issue CRTC internet complaints system! I am canceling my cable for this very reason. for those who are interested - there is a lively discussion of this problem happening here: umm, there has to be a way to decode the single to avoid the message; or even hack the signal.

there has to be a loop hole in this bull shit! i have soo many hours of T.V recorded with WMC 2005 edition, i'm planing to switch to vista but.

..Fcuk that now!

I'm a Canuck Tivo user as well and I've had no problems. I wish I had a dual tuner box, but hey, I'm still rockin' my 31" 1989 Sony Trinitron so I'm not really concerned yet. ;)
True enough.

..I wish I didn't live in a townhouse, I could throw up a large antenna otherwise and get the HD broadcasts of those channels.

Someday though. CTV HD and CBC HD come in fine with small rabbit ears..

.can't wait for more channels and maybe some repeaters for the Washington channels.

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