Windows 7 cable television “PlayReady” DRM scam

meh, just crap spewed by a linux fanboy. MCE works great for me.
 
ReadyPlay is broken on all of my Win7 boxes. Its very annoying. The only fix for the problem I have found it to reinstall. Unlike the other DRM in Vista, the normal ways to "reset" the DRM doesn't work.

So for the time being I am stuck in the "PlayReady" update was incomplete hell. :mad:
 
That seems really odd since the Playready component you install for Windows 7 Media Center is for playing back encrypted Silverlight 2 content for the Internet TV channels.

It must be messing with my tuners! :rolleyes:

Fanboys. I couldn't resist. I fed the troll.
 
That seems really odd since the Playready component you install for Windows 7 Media Center is for playing back encrypted Silverlight 2 content for the Internet TV channels.

It must be messing with my tuners! :rolleyes:

Fanboys. I couldn't resist. I fed the troll.

I can confirm that it blocks AMC, and I was unable to watch South Park this past Wednesday due to the problem. I don't believe all the tin foil hat things the guy brings up, but I do know if PlayReady doesn't work right it does fuck with your ability to watch cable.

The problem occurs if you swap out components without doing a full reinstall. I make a master image and then distribute this to my computers. I am not going to do full individual installs for 3-4 computers just to get PlayReady to work. Basically if you do something that breaks your Windows Activation, it will break ReadyPlay. But unlike Windows, there isn't any way to "reactivate" PlayReady.

It is annoying, but I am not really that mad. I watch 99% of my TV on my Charter DVR, and as long as I watch re-runs I can watch almost all the channels. (except AMC) I also find it weird that it doesn't effect any QAM channels, so things like football games are fine.

I am just going to wait until someone else figures out how to reset the PlayReady settings.
 
Last edited:
Jesus Christ! AMC or whatever channel this idiot is watching is setting a flag on their broadcasts which forces MC to display whatever it is it displays. If we wants to get piss them he should be getting pissed at his cable provider and/or AMC (who is demanding that their channels not display unless DRM is involved).

MC and even MS have no control over what AMC decides to do with their content. Fucking fanboy.....

OP, WHY THE HELL DID YOU EVEN POST THIS SHIT?? Anyone with half a brain could tell this guy has absolutely no leg to stand on. That all he was doing was wasting everyone else's time by posting bullshit about something he really has no clue about.
 
Last edited:
Jesus Christ! AMC or whatever channel this idiot is watching is setting a flag on their broadcasts which forces MC to display whatever it is it displays. If we wants to get piss them he should be getting pissed at his cable provider and/or AMC (who is demanding that their channels not display unless DRM is involved).

MC and even MS have no control over what AMC decides to do with their content. Fucking fanboy.....

OP, WHY THE HELL DID YOU EVEN POST THIS SHIT?? Anyone with half a brain could tell this guy has absolutely no leg to stand on. That all he was doing was wasting everyone else's time by posting bullshit about something he really has no clue about.

Remember, no matter what happens it is MS's fault.

Some of the PlayReady stuff makes sense. For example, I couldn't watch the new episode of South Park when it first aired, but after that I could watch it. OK, I get why they would do that. But AMC, WTF. I had problems with Vista MC also for the same reasons I listed before. That's when I found out about AMC protecting everything. AMC is the channel you use to test if your content protection is working. Its not like anything on that channel is a first run or new. Everything on that channel is firmly avaiable through other means. On top of that, how many young people watch that channel. All the people I know that watch that channel on any regular basis are 50+. I don't know many 50+ people who record and pirate TV, especially things like "The Sound of Music" or "It's a Wonderful Life" :rolleyes:


I get really annoyed because there are people out there with legitimate problems like myself. Threads about the problem constantly get derailed by people spewing crap about DRM. I don't give a crap about DRM, I just want it to work. I haven't even bothered to post a thread here about the issue because it would be pointless and I don't want to deal with the bullshit sky is falling posts.
 
It turns out I do have one channel a few channels that have paid Microsoft to flag them as so-called “Premium Content”. (Note: I found that movie studios can also pay Microsoft to “PlayReady” blackout their movies, regardless of what channel they’re on. It did this when I tried to watch DOOM on TBS then the channel came back on once the movie was over.)

What I’m about to show is Windows 7 artificially crippling an otherwise normal, uncrippled cable television channel. This scurrilous new PlayReady DRM hooks into Windows Media Center and artificially degrades your standard cable TV service provided that the channel involved has paid Microsoft a lot of money.
The idea that content providers pay Microsoft to put a flag in the channel lineup is laughable. Microsoft probably had to pay them to make Media Center play nice with CableCard. The "premium" flag is probably only there so that MS can't get bent over by the MPAA.
 
Remember, no matter what happens it is MS's fault.
While I understand your pain this has nothing to do with MS. At all. AMC or your content provider are the ones who do this. AMC is making the request that their channel is encypted, that it is broadcasted with a flag that says "do not record" and all MS is doing is accepting that request like any other PVR app. Yes, any other PVR app will do the exact same thing.

Also, in some markets your cable provider (like Comcast) will encrypt EVERYTHING.

If you have this problem then bitch and moan to AMC and your cable provider. MS can't do anything, not a damn thing, about it.

Thankfully, Comcast here in Boulder, Co doesn't pull this shit. AMC comes in just fine for me on my HTPC.
 
While I understand your pain this has nothing to do with MS. At all. AMC or your content provider are the ones who do this. AMC is making the request that their channel is encypted, that it is broadcasted with a flag that says "do not record" and all MS is doing is accepting that request like any other PVR app. Yes, any other PVR app will do the exact same thing.

Also, in some markets your cable provider (like Comcast) will encrypt EVERYTHING.

If you have this problem then bitch and moan to AMC and your cable provider. MS can't do anything, not a damn thing, about it.

Thankfully, Comcast here in Boulder, Co doesn't pull this shit. AMC comes in just fine for me on my HTPC.

Maybe I'm not reading your comment correctly, but I was being sarcastic. The whole Vista ordeal (blame MS for 3rd party Vista drivers, et al) still brings me to a rage.

I loved Vista. It was a great OS. Win7 is the best OS I have used in, well, its the best one I have ever used.
 
The problem occurs if you swap out components without doing a full reinstall. I make a master image and then distribute this to my computers. I am not going to do full individual installs for 3-4 computers just to get PlayReady to work. Basically if you do something that breaks your Windows Activation, it will break ReadyPlay. But unlike Windows, there isn't any way to "reactivate" PlayReady.

I am just going to wait until someone else figures out how to reset the PlayReady settings.

Did you ever figure out a solution to fix this? I am having the exact same problem as I had to swap out a motherboard due to a failure. The thought of having to reimage everything is depressing and that is not a good solution when other hardware could die as well.
 
Did you ever figure out a solution to fix this? I am having the exact same problem as I had to swap out a motherboard due to a failure. The thought of having to reimage everything is depressing and that is not a good solution when other hardware could die as well.

The problem still exists. You can try re-installing 7MC, but that does not always work. Do a google search, there are some solutions that involve some registry entries. I wound up having to reinstall after MB/CPU swap. I also lost the ability to play some of my previously recorded programs, since DRM assumes they are from a different computer.
 
Wont work. If you replace the CPU or MB you need to do a flatten and rebuild. You can't reset the DRM.
 
Well, for better or worse the blog has been removed :p. I take it the the issue was with certain live channels in 7MC not displaying? I haven't had any real issues with PlayReady (yet). As for Comcast here in Atlanta, AMC is the only channel aside from Showtime or HBO that I can't record. I watch shows like "The Walking Dead", but I'd hardly call it "premium content". Meh, I'm reaching the point where I'm going to stop investing in hardware just so that I can watch TV and movies the way that i want to...:D
 
Back
Top