Gizmodo: broadcast flag

Media Center's Do Not Record Broadcast Flag Is Still Alive

Jason Chen — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Recently, some Windows Media Center owners were blocked from recording American Gladiators and Medium because of an incorrectly set broadcast flag from NBC. What's the deal here? The broadcasters (NBC, ABC, HBO) can turn on a flag in their data stream that tells whatever DVR machine on your end that it's NOT alright to record a show, protecting Pay-Per-View or premium channel content from being archived. This has actually been around for years.

Microsoft's had this ability in Media Center to prevent specific shows from being recorded for a while, and the last time there was an error was a few years back during an episode of the Simpsons. It's not something broadcasters usually do. This also isn't a unique thing to Microsoft—TiVo has something similar but not quite as severe—it does illustrate the fact that if the providers wanted to, they could shut down your Media Center DVR right now and you couldn't do much about it. [JustinJas via Ars Technica]

Content Cartel Makes Backroom DRM Deal

Charlie White — Wed, 24 May 2006 12:23:25 EDT

We're hearing rumblings of an informal behind-the-scenes agreement between Hollywood greedmeisters and consumer electronics manufacturers, where the tinseltown moviemakers are vowing to hold off on any broadcast flag bullshit until 2010. The hated image constraint token (ICT), that crippling DRM flag that will automatically downrez HD video if non-HDCP-compliant outputs are used, is a required part of the spec for both Blu-ray and HD DVD players.

Some in the blogosphere see this as a trojan horse, where the content cartel will get the HD players into consumers hands en mass and then slam-dunk full copy control on them once they've all invested in the crippled players. But we're thinking that 2010 is a long way off in techno-years, and by then the whole concept of playing content on physical media will be a quaint notion. Heck, by then, even noobs will be BitTorrenting 1080p.

Hollywood reportedly in agreement to delay forced quality downgrades
[ars technica, via boingboing]

HBO Wants No Recording of Shows—Ever

tgrumet — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:39:39 EST

Looks like HBO is trying to use a broadcast flag to ban us from recording any of its programming on our DVRs. The company has recently filed with the FCC, saying its shows—and all "Subscription Video On Demand" services—should be labeled as "Copy Never." This means simply, if enacted, that we could never record its content on anything—not even your old, analog VCR.

Come on HBO, don't be such a downer. We pay for your services, we love your programming, if we want to record an episode of The Sopranos, please don't take that away. You make some good money on us, so don't get so greedy.

HBO wants its programming to be off-limits for DVRs