HBO stops working with Media Center: "Here's a quick follow-up to my Ouch! Bitten by DRM post from this morning.
I set up Media Center to record a movie on HBO Pacific at 9:30 MST. The movie in question? Wrongfully Accused, starring Leslie Neilsen, which sounds truly awful - the sacrifices I make in the name of science.
According to the Recorded TV list, Media Center recorded it just fine, but trying to play it back results in the dreaded 'Restricted Content' error.
In fact, trying to watch any copy protected HBO content on this Media Center PC results in the same error after only a few seconds of viewing. I just tested using both tuners, and was unable to watch Miss Congeniality 2 on HBO Pacific or Jennifer Eight on HBO2. No great loss content-wise, but the bigger problem is making me very angry, to say the least.
For the most part, I use the DirecTiVo box in the living room to record HBO programming. It still works just fine. These days I mostly use the Media Center PC to record movies on unrestricted cable channels, including Comedy Central, American Movie Classics, and Turner Movie Classics. I assume this problem began occurring sometime on or before January 6, as that's the first day when content I recorded from HBO turned out to be unwatchable. Last fall, I had no trouble watching HBO programming on this computer, so something has changed, and not for the better.
A post at Aaron Stebner's blog, "Content protection errors in Update Rollup 2 for Media Center " offers a clue to the origin of the problem:"
(Read Original Article - Via Ed Bott’s Media Central .)