Jason Preston
Writing

Broadcast Flag renders Windows Media Center pointless

Jason Preston · 2 min read ·

Earlier this month my Media Center quietly stopped recording anything from Comedy Central. No more Daily Show and Colbert Report for me (I haven’t seen them since it stopped recording. I don’t even know what time they’re on).

This is because of the broadcast flag that the channel inserts into their shows, telling Vista not to record it.

As of right now, I can still record shows on Sci-Fi and on Fox, so that cover about 50% of the TV I want to watch. I’m still in business.

But sooner or later all the other channels and all the other shows are going to flag their content as something that I’m not allowed to record.

So you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to stop watching them.

It makes me incredibly, unbelievably mad that I’ve dropped hundreds of dollars on a machine specifically designed to record TV, only to find that one of the major features of this system is it’s inability to record TV.

Fortunately, it still works as a movie server (I have my DVDs accessible from the digital interface) and as a music server (I can access my music and play it over the TV’s sound system).

But it sure as hell isn’t an actual DVR. If you want to record TV, do not, for any reason, buy any existing iteration of Windows Media Center, Microsoft has built a crippled product.

Eventually, TV companies will learn, as newspapers are starting to learn, that you need to make it easier for people to get your content, not harder. People have smaller and smaller amounts of free time, and if you keep putting obstacles in the way, they’re going to stop bothering with it.

And yes, you can pay a monthly fee to get a DVR from your cable company. Yes, it does actually record TV. No, I will not get one, and here’s why:

  1. I’ve already got a Media Center

  2. The interface on those things is complete shit

  3. The capacity on those things is generally not that great

  4. It won’t store my movies

  5. It won’t store my music

  6. It’s monopolistic and anti-competitive and I don’t want to support that

  7. I would have to pay a monthly fee

  8. I’m mad right now and I hate them on principle