Microsoft: It's Not The Broadcast Flag, It's A Different Flag
from the well,-that-makes...-um...-no-difference-at-all dept
After certain NBC TV shows wouldn't record on Microsoft's Vista Media Center a few weeks ago, Microsoft admitted that Media Center includes broadcast flag technology, while NBC Universal admitted that it accidentally set the flag. However, now Microsoft is trying to clarify, claiming that it's not actually the broadcast flag that it included, but an entirely different flag, called CGMS-A. NBC Universal concurs, saying that the mistake it made was in setting the CGMS-A flag. Of course... the real question is why does this matter at all? If the impact is identical (Microsoft willing to let TV networks declare a show un-recordable), then what does it matter which annoying copy protection scheme is used?
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Filed Under: broadcast flag, cgms-a, dvrs, time shifting
Companies: microsoft, nbc universal
Reader Comments
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Mac
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Re: Mac
Yeah, then your whole system is basically a form of DRM. Sounds good to me ;)
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Re: Re: Mac
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Re: Re: Re: Mac
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Re: Mac
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Re: Mac
then strp OS-ex and replace it with (insert favorite distro)Linux and MythTV.
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or build a pc
and skip step of stripping OS (and include step of saving money)
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Myth
Solves all problems.
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Re: Myth
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Re: Re: Myth
Such as?
(note: "brand name" apps aren't the only ones that do anything "useful")
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Marketing
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Re: Marketing
Now *that's* funny.
Thanks for the laugh.
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Broadcast flag, CGMS-A flag, whatever
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Whats in a name?
Sure, that doesn't excuse them for acting in a very stupid manner (including the technology in the media center, and for "accidently my arse" turning it on).
But you can't make fun of them for correcting a minor technicality.
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Re: Whats in a name?
Oh, you are so wrong. We can make fun of them for that. ;-)
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Re: Whats in a name?
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Myth TV
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Sup with Mac?
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Bah
It is because of crap like this.
I will never support an OS that supports limiting me in such ways with things it should have NO say in.
Not to mention this is just more crap that adds to tons more bloatware in the system that should never have been there in the first place. Stupid stupid microsoft.
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Mac huh?
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But it wasn't analog
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reason for identifying which flag it is...
Thank goodness for the rogue hackers.
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CGMS-A
Go to www.xdimax.com and look up GREX.
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Defacto Digital
Whenever a device telegraphs a signal to another
device which then decodes the signal and
presents the data as a set of internally generated
characters, that to me is digital, regardless of the
general nature of the transmission link.
Go get the black and white TV set out of the attic or
kid's room, hook it up to a decent antenna before the
big digital switch, and tweak the vertical height
until you can see the top and bottom of the WHOLE
video image (in a news anchor fattening letterbox style).
Certain knobs labled vert line, Vert sublibe, etc.
control more subtle aspects of the top and bottom of the
picture, and only appear on very old B&W
(and a few early color)TV sets.
Adjust the picture for your local analog TV broadcasts,
so that you expose the blanking pulse (mostly at the
top) and bottom of the TV screen.
If you have done this correctly you should see the
closed cationing as a series of white dashes rapidly
blinking on a black background at the top of the screen.
You may have to adjust the contrast and brightness to
bring up the features of this area. You may even see the
edge of the vertical synch bar.... (and various station
specific doodads) {Disney home video appears as a
portion of bright white checkerboard at the top, I am
assuming that this is macrovision or similar}
The point is that the captioning is not actually spelling out
words on the screen analogly, it is sending instructions to
the set to generate words using a character set in the TV.
I don't see that that is all that different from Dialup.
your modem makes a crumbling, hissing noise to send
data, similar deal. So use of a flag encoded in all those
dots and dashes at the top of the screen is nothing new.
Digital data sent somewhere analogly is an old trick.
We'll have to figure out how to make our recording devices
out of discrete components, then written instructions on
"how to" will make DMCA run head to head with the
First Amendment, and there will be a long messy
supreme court battle....
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