On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 13:13, Guy Fraser wrote:
>
> Along this topic line, did you know that when using Media Centre to
> recored TV shows the program {usualy movies} can be copyright protected
> to only be available to play for up to a specified amount of time.
>
> I have been playing with it and recorded a movie {The Guardian} but
> didn't get a chance to watch for a couple of days. When I finaly sat
> down to watch it, I couldn't because the "Licence" had expired. I set it
> up and recorded it again, this time I checked the info before watching
> it, and it indicated that it would expire around midnight that day. I
> started looking into this problem and discovered that the movie would
> not even be able to be played on a mobile player or remote player, it
> would only be able to be played on the device that recorded it.
>
> I have looked at other PVR solutions including Myth, but I have digital
> cable and the cable company disables the rs232 control so I can't change
Most cable companies provide a basic number of channels as analog
signals over the same cable that provides digital cable. You need a
converter box to get the digital cable channels. But you can connect
directly from the wall to a capture card to get the analog channels.
This is what I do with my mythtv boxes. And if you want to get certain
digital channels you can but as you indicated you will need to sort out
how to change the channel on the cable box. Depending on the cable box
you can sometimes use a serial connection or an IR blaster. Sounds like
they have eliminated the serial cable option. I have read that if you
are getting HD channels that you should be able to get a firewire
connection from the box as well.
A mythtv box is well worth the effort IMHO. I rarely watch live tv
anymore. It really changes the way you watch tv. And eliminating most
commercials is a major time savings as well. :)
Next project is to build a diskless frontend box for mythtv. I want to
look at some of those epia motherboards for that which will network
boot.
