can not play recorded tv?

LenG58 said:

in my 30 second tests i just hit record while watching live.

Well I contend that this is NOT the same as setting a timer recording and then trying to play back the resulting WTV. You didn't actually duplicate your earlier experience with this test.

If you've timer-recorded AMCHD (43) in the past and had no problem playing back the WTV recordings, did you use WMC or WMP for the playback? Just curious, although we could just drop discussion of WMP as a distraction. WMC should certainly have no problem playing back these recordings being made from analog channel 3 into the HVR-1250 fed from the STB tuned by the IR blaster controlled by WMC.

So, have you had successful timer-recordings of AMCHD in the past?

And you have now also proven that you have successful manual-recordings of AMCHD right now today, simply watching the digital channel 43 live (via analog channel 3, of course, same as above) and then pushing REC.

That leaves only your 10-episode timer-recording failure story using WMC as the playback, as the inexplicable anomaly. This seems to contradict your [probable?] prior experiences with timer-recording AMCHD without an issue. And it also seems to contradict your today's experience with manual-recording. So there has to be some difference in what you did in setting up that 10-episode recording event which must be the explanation.

But I can't imagine what it is.

Anyway, your manual-recording test earlier today is not the same test as what method you used to produce the 10-episode timer-recordings.

i have set up a scheduled recording later this evening for amc. i'll let you know tomorrow how that goes. as for my earlier scheduled recordings are concerned, i have recorded shows on cnbc, bravo and discovery channels with no issues whatsoever. the latest of which was this evening from 6pm-7pm which recorded, and plays, just fine.

so, i set up a scheduled recording last night for a 1 hour csi:miami on the amc channel. it recorded and plays just fine. when you schedule a recording in wmc the recording starts a minute before your scheduled time. guess what the show for that minute was? yep, the walking dead, and it played just fine. back to square one...

i was wondering if it was a "walking dead" specific problem. i have it set to try to record an episode this weekend. we'll see. thanks for your response...

kegobeer said:

I've seen this happen in a similar setup to yours. You can watch it just fine, but when you record certain shows and try to watch them, you get the playback error. There's nothing wrong with your computer or your setup - your cable company flagged these particular shows, and that's what is preventing you from watching them. AFAIK, you are just out of luck with them.

Your statement might be true if WMC had been provided with digital content through a digital tuner (internal or external) such as Ceton InfiniTV or HD HomeRun Prime, where WMC is seeing digital copy-protection flags. Then of course we could expect situations where something could or could not be viewed depending on whether you had a cablecard or not, to allow viewing/recording of copy-once encrypted content.

That's not this story at all. The external STB is providing analog output via coax that his HVR-1250 tuner is picking up via channel 3... just like an old kitchen TV sitting on top of a cable box with a coax connecting the RF-output of the cable box to the antenna-input of the TV.

What is seen on analog channel 3 is pure analog, and has no digital copy-protection flags. It's analog.

I suspect that somehow that what got fed over coax during the problem recordings was actually not analog channel 3 at all, but was truly the actual digital channel 43... which DID have copy-protection marked. The HVR-1250 has a clear QAM tuner in it, which is usable as long as unencrypted digital cable content is delivered. I'm guessing in this case it was not unencrypted channel 43, but encrypted channel 43 with copy-once flag set that got fed to the HVR-1250. That's the only way in my mind that playback of what got recorded could possibly complain about a copy-protection flag (since the HVR-1250 doesn't have a cablecard which would be required to play this back).

I really don't know what happened, but certainly recording analog channel 3 cannot possibly involve copy-protection. Something quite unusual obviously occurred to make these problem recordings, which is not how things work normally for him when he has no problem.

strangely enough i was able to record an episode of walking dead last night. obviously something went wrong with the 10 episode marathon. but exactly what, who knows?

Hello, I know this thread is a couple months old, but I am experiencing a similar issue.

For me the issue is that I get the copy proteced message when trying to watch HBO on Channel 58 (SD) live.

Windows 7 64 bit running WMC.
I have the haupauge 2250 dual tuner card connected to 2 Shaw Digital cable boxes.

I box is connected via coax and one is connected via RCA (Red, white, yellow)

I work for Shaw and I know that the signal coming out of the cable box on coax is plain old analog and is definately Ch 3.
I do use WMC's guide to setup recordings and it controls both STB's via IR blasters thus tuning the STB to the correct channel. If one stb is recording, WMC switches the 2250 to the other tuner/input and controls the 2nd stb.

My first thought was that perhaps I was on the tuner connected via RCA and somehow it was passing the copy protection along. So as a test I hit record on a functioning channel, verified that the STB connected via RCA was on that channel thus I knew that tuner was busy.

I then switch to ch 58 (HBO) watched as the coax connected stb was switchd to ch 58, watched about 2 seconds of that station and was presented with the copyprotection notice.

This is beyond baffling. Knowing that the signal from the stb is coax, analog ch3 being fed to the HVR-2250 how can it even know about the copy protection?....

Any thoughts?

bcwolfen said:

For me the issue is that I get the copy proteced message when trying to watch HBO on Channel 58 (SD) live.

Seems impossible, given the connection methods you describe from the two cable boxes to the 2250.

I box is connected via coax and one is connected via RCA (Red, white, yellow)

I work for Shaw and I know that the signal coming out of the cable box on coax is plain old analog and is definately Ch 3.

Absolutely analog channel 3.

My first thought was that perhaps I was on the tuner connected via RCA and somehow it was passing the copy protection along.

Impossible. RCA is just another form of analog feeding the external line-in of the 2250, albeit better video quality than "channel 3" which further uses the 2250's tuner.

There is NO digital copy-protection associated with analog delivery. Period. Copy-protection (for WMC) is strictly a digital-only function.

This is beyond baffling. Knowing that the signal from the stb is coax, analog ch3 being fed to the HVR-2250 how can it even know about the copy protection?....

Any thoughts?

Something about how you're controlling the 2250 and the channel number on the proper source cable box via IR must be convincing WMC that it's reading digital channel 58, even though the channel is being tuned by either of the cable boxes and being delivered in two forms of analog to the analog inputs of the 2250.

And since there's obviously no digital delivery on the two analog paths to the 2250, WMC must be interpreting the analog data as if it were digital... with the copy-protect flag on.

Seems impossible, of course.

dsperber:

Your post made me think and I did a little test. I was certain this was going to work as I felt that there is no way the copy protection can be broadcast on the analog channel.
My theory was that somehow WMC was getting the copy protection from the guide/channel listing it downloads form the internet. That it knows ch 58 should have it.
So I performed a test.

I tuned to ch 58 (HBO) on WMC, it switched my stb to 58 and down went the feed.
Then I switched down 1 channel using WMC, picture restored on CH 57. Then I went to my stb and manually switched it to ch 58.
WMC was still displaying all the programming info for CH 57 so it thought it was receiving ch 57. But my picture went away to be replaced by the copy protection message.

WOW!! I was certain this was going to work. Somehow it is still getting the copy protection data.

I tried another test on my other TV. This one is run by a media PC with Vista 64 bit running WMC and 2x Haupauge 1250's. On both of these cards, ch 58 works just fine.

Baffled, baffled, baffled.....