Backup WMC and Specifically DRM

[RyC]

My WMC is in a VM on ESXi. I just replaced the motherboard with a completely different brand/model but kept the CPU and RAM the same. Playready did not break! However, when I changed out all three, playready did break (as expected I'm sure). I'm going to replace the CPU but keep the motherboard and RAM (I got a CPU without an iGPU by mistake) so we'll see what happens.

[cs51762]

Oh, great. So, the new HTPC that I've spent hundreds of dollar building won't play many of the recorded programs I've saved over the years? Wonderful, just wonderful.

[jewrican]

that is definitely my fear in the event that my hardware has a failure.

[Crash2009]

Oh, great. So, the new HTPC that I've spent hundreds of dollar building won't play many of the recorded programs I've saved over the years? Wonderful, just wonderful.

It's not all that bad. Your new HTPC will likely play most of your collection. What it won't play is only the "protected" content. For example, movies that you have recorded off of HBO, Cinemax, Starz. Foxwood has described a way to find out what is, and what is not, protected http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 446#p55446 In my experience, I was able to play some of the ones that were protected.

BTW, no complaining until you have spent thousands.

One more BTW, if your previous HTPC had a non-CableCard tuner, you won't have any protected content anyway.

[McGary]

I've definitely spent thousands

But until now I've used non-cable-card tuners [Hauppauge 2250's => 4 cards (8 tuners) in my main HTPC and 2 in my secondary one]

But I'm now going to rebuild the main system (motherboard failed yesterday), and thought I'd go ahead and add a 6-tuner Ceton cablecard, as our provider has significantly reduced the number of ClearQAM channels over the past year or so -- I used to get all the major networks and a couple other channels via ClearQAM, now we only get 3 HD channels. I've got plenty of storage (8TB in the main system; 4TB in the other; plus 30TB on a backup server I can move stuff to) ==> but I'm concerned about what switching to a cablecard tuner is going to do.

Our provider (Time Warner) marks EVERYTHING with restrictive DRM ... whether or not it's required by the source. They set the CCI flag to 2 (Copy Once) for everything unless it's even more restrictive (e.g. Copy Never). I had avoided a Ceton for this reason; but reading this thread, if I understand this correctly, it may not be as bad as I had thought.

I'd appreciate thoughts on the following ...

(1) If I backup the hard drive on my server, it's my understanding that the copy on the server won't play. But if I copy the files back to the HTPC, will they play okay? If so, does it have to be copied to the original hard drive, or just a hard drive on the system?

(2) If I add a hard drive to the system, and switch the recorder storage to that new hard drive, will the content that was previously recorded on a different drive still play okay?

(3) Can you move files around the hard drives on the system and still play them?

[smcmillan2]

I'd appreciate thoughts on the following ...

(1) If I backup the hard drive on my server, it's my understanding that the copy on the server won't play. But if I copy the files back to the HTPC, will they play okay? If so, does it have to be copied to the original hard drive, or just a hard drive on the system?

The CCI flags restrict the playback of the content to the machine it was recorded from. I have played back Brighthouse protected content that resided on another machine from the original HTPC (recorded on HTPC, moved to NAS or another computer, played it back on the original HTPC from the new location). As far as I know this is the same regardless of the cable company you are subscribed to.

(2) If I add a hard drive to the system, and switch the recorder storage to that new hard drive, will the content that was previously recorded on a different drive still play okay?

Yes, so long as the Playready licensing/keys are not disturbed. This would (usually) take switching out components such as RAM, CPU, etc. Some folks have had Playready freak out on them for seamingly trivial updates, others have been able to swap out many components without losing the existing keys. See http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=5&t=1109, which points to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891664
You'll have to add all recording directories of all your drives under Settings -> TV -> Recorder -> Media Libraries (WMC will only record to the single drive you point to under Recorder Storage, you will have to move files around as needed).

(3) Can you move files around the hard drives on the system and still play them?

Yes, see above

[McGary]

Thanks. So from your experience, if I did the following ...

=> Let WMC record to the selected Recorder Storage location
=> Set the recorded TV folders to include a "TV Recordings" folder on my NAS
=> Set up a script to run at idle hours (e.g. 3:30am) that moves all the recordings from the WMC disk to the NAS folder

... then WMC would be able to play all of the recordings with no problem -- is that correct ??

Note that I actually already do that and it works perfectly, except none of the recordings have CCI flags since they're all done from the 2250 tuners and are either SD or ClearQAM HD. I didn't realize I could do this with CCI protected recordings from a CableCard. If so, that's GREAT !!

[Crash2009]

I've definitely spent thousands

[smcmillan2]

Thanks. So from your experience, if I did the following ...

=> Let WMC record to the selected Recorder Storage location
=> Set the recorded TV folders to include a "TV Recordings" folder on my NAS
=> Set up a script to run at idle hours (e.g. 3:30am) that moves all the recordings from the WMC disk to the NAS folder

... then WMC would be able to play all of the recordings with no problem -- is that correct ??

In my experience, yes.

[Crash2009]

I didn't realize I could do this with CCI protected recordings from a CableCard. If so, that's GREAT !!

I think the way it works is the CableCard negotiates an authorization from the headend (Comcast in my case). This authorization allows me to watch and record "protected" and store it anywhere I want. The kicker is, the "protected" will only play on the device that it was recorded on. When I first got here, everybody was on and on about this "extender thing", and initially my first response was, I am all ready file sharing throughout the network. Found out later, the extender allows sharing of "protected content (recorded movies and live protected TV)" plus all the other stuff I can share on a normal workstation. So, with extenders, I can play "protected" in every room that has an extender, and I don't need a full blown workstation in every room.

Then, to have protected live tv on a workstation, and you might be doing this all ready, is with tuner sharing. This allows the workstation to use the HTPC's tuner(s). Some guys here have a lot of tuners for that, and other reasons. I think I've read some guys have 10-12 tuners, maybe more.

There is a general "rule of thumb" for a HTPC running extenders, 1 core and 2 gig ram for the HTPC, and 1 core and 1 gig ram for each extender. Some get away with less.

[McGary]

Thanks for the details. It's frustrating that a PC can't function as an extender, but I suppose I can just add a few Xbox's if need be. I have computers at every TV that work just fine with my current configuration -- they can stream recorded TV via WMC, play movies from my server with DVD Profiler, and play Netflix streams, etc. But clearly if I add a Ceton unit then they won't be able to play recordings anymore if they're marked with restrictive CCI flags ... and as I noted earlier Time Warner apparently marks everything as "Record Once", whether or not it should be that restrictive.

But my main concern in avoiding cable card tuners has been a misunderstanding about the ability to backup the recordings and freely add disk storage space, change to larger disks, etc. It's very nice to know those aren't issues. So I'm now going to buy the 6-tuner Ceton for the new system I'm building next week. That system will have 10 tuners (the Ceton plus 2 2250's) ... so those recordings that we routinely watch on a second TV I'll just assign to one of the 2250 tuners (thus no CCI). If that becomes frustrating, I'll just add an extender

The computational demands of extenders won't be an issue ... the PC will have a Xeon E3-1245v3, 16GB of ECC memory, and plenty of local storage (a 240GB SSD plus ~ 12TB of hard drive space).

[Crash2009]

The computational demands of extenders won't be an issue ... the PC will have a Xeon E3-1245v3, 16GB of ECC memory, and plenty of local storage (a 240GB SSD plus ~ 12TB of hard drive space).

From the sounds of your previous HTPC I kinda figured computational demands were not going to be a problem.

There is a section here at TGB where some pretty nice systems are on display, if you are looking for ideas. http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewforum.php?f=15

My favorite, if I was ever to go the dish route would be http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... ?f=15&t=58

[McGary]

The computational demands of extenders won't be an issue ... the PC will have a Xeon E3-1245v3, 16GB of
My favorite, if I was ever to go the dish route would be http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... ?f=15&t=58

Yes, that's a very nice setup. In fact I have the same Revo 3700's on several of my TVs. They are VERY nice little computers. Until a couple years ago we used Beyond TV, and the Revo's were very nice for BTV Link machines. They're equally good with WMC under Windows 7.
We'd still be using Beyond TV if Snapstream had supported captions

My setup's not nearly as extensive as the one in that link, however. I've only got 6 TVs -- 3 with Revo 3700's, the other 3 with custom built HTPCs (including the one that just failed). Of course we can also watch anything that's recorded from any of our computers. Probably enough options for the two of us

My grandkids would probably love it if I switched to a couple Ceton tuners and a bunch of extenders -- Xbox 360's all over the house is something they'd probably like!! It's a shame the Xbox One doesn't have extender capability. Since I am going to buy a 6-tuner Ceton for the new PC, I may buy a couple 360's just for grins so I can extend the Ceton recordings to my two other main TVs.

[BerMM]

Replace the motherboard with one of the exact same model.

I've seen posts claiming this, but I don't believe them. Consider this: What if you and I had the exact same model components in our PCs, and I restored an image of your PC to my PC? According to the claim, I should be able to play your copy-protected recordings, thus defeating the entire purpose of PlayReady.

Yes, you should be able to play the protected recordings from another machine under the above circumstances, but only until Windows next did an activation/genuine check and failed due to two machines running the same image. This is why it wouldn't defeat playready (If I'm understanding everything right so far).

[Crash2009]

This is why it wouldn't defeat playready (If I'm understanding everything right so far).

I just forget where I read it, but what I read is that there is a small inventory chip on drm compliant motherboards. This chip is apparently made by intel, and works hand in hand with drm and playready. Technically, if the chip could be removed and transferred to the new motherboard, or tricked in some way to think it was somewhere else, that part of the playready scheme could be beaten.

[barnabas1969]

No Crash, that is not correct. The CPU has a unique serial number, the network interface has a unique MAC address, etc.

Richard's post (above) is correct that if he and I had the same model components, that PlayReady would detect that it was a different PC. However, several users here have managed to replace their motherboard with the same model (using the old CPU, RAM, etc), and they were still able to play their old copy-protected recordings after restoring from a system image backup.

I wasn't talking about two machines running the same image. I was talking about a situation where your motherboard failed, and you had to replace it.

[Crash2009]

No Crash, that is not correct. The CPU has a unique serial number, the network interface has a unique MAC address, etc.

Richard's post (above) is correct that if he and I had the same model components, that PlayReady would detect that it was a different PC. However, several users here have managed to replace their motherboard with the same model (using the old CPU, RAM, etc), and they were still able to play their old copy-protected recordings after restoring from a system image backup.

I wasn't talking about two machines running the same image. I was talking about a situation where your motherboard failed, and you had to replace it.

I'm not dis-agreeing with what you and Richard have said. I am only suggesting that there might be more to explain. Maybe this is where I got the idea from. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/ ... FG20110103

[mike_ekim]

... However, several users here have managed to replace their motherboard with the same model (using the old CPU, RAM, etc), and they were still able to play their old copy-protected recordings after restoring from a system image backup...

Maybe DRM issues can be mitigated by a system restore when performing certain (limited) hardware changes.

[mike_ekim]

No Crash, that is not correct. The CPU has a unique serial number, the network interface has a unique MAC address, etc.

Richard's post (above) is correct that if he and I had the same model components, that PlayReady would detect that it was a different PC. However, several users here have managed to replace their motherboard with the same model (using the old CPU, RAM, etc), and they were still able to play their old copy-protected recordings after restoring from a system image backup.

I wasn't talking about two machines running the same image. I was talking about a situation where your motherboard failed, and you had to replace it.

I'm not dis-agreeing with what you and Richard have said. I am only suggesting that there might be more to explain. Maybe this is where I got the idea from. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/ ... FG20110103

The technology in that article seems to be geared more towards copy protection of streaming content, things like "smarter hardware detection" that doesn't let a displayport monitor on a laptop view protected content , or other features that make it a little harder to copy streaming content out of RAM.

[Crash2009]

I suppose you guys are right. It appears that I was thinking about streaming, and Intel's Sandy Bridge. Streaming doesn't even apply to this conversation.