Display Driver Error on compliant hardware

[InfiniTV6PCIeOwner]

Here's the setup:

WMC on Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 - KB3004394 removed
Ceton InfiniTV6 PCIe
MiTAC PH12LI mainboard, 8GB RAM with Intel HD Graphics 4400 (verified latest drivers)
HDMI port used - connected to Samsung TL27A300 (both TV and HDMI chip must be HDCP compliant because HDMI is required to be HDCP compliant, right?)

Tuning to a Copy-Freely channel plays fine
BUT:
DCA claims there isn't HDCP compliance - this is also reported by similar utilities from CyberLink and ArcSoft. I overrode DCA using the well-known utility to be able to configure the InfiniTV6.
Therefore, tuning to a Copy-Once channel returns the dreaded, "Display Driver Error: can't play protected content" error.

OBSERVATION:
If I reboot (not power-cycle, but just reboot), and then open WMC and tune to a Copy-Once Channel, the channel's audio and video will play for about 3 seconds before the blue "Display Driver Error" screen pops up.
If it were a true HDCP handshake problem, would it even be possible to even get that 3 seconds of playable video?

Any ideas, folks?
How can DCA or the other utilites claim no HDCP compliance on HDMI hardware?

[InfiniTV6PCIeOwner]

Also forgot to mention - the mainboard has both HDMI and DisplayPort (which I'm not using).
it also has integrated LVDS, which is enabled by default in the BIOS.

Given WMC's known dislike of DisplayPort, could the mere presence of a DisplayPort output be confusing it?

In the BIOS, I don't see a way to disable DisplayPort while leaving HDMI enabled.

[LuckyDay]

Are you using the most current drivers from the Intel website for your onboard graphics or did you use the ones that automatically got installed via Windows?

I've had a similar issue twice (and yes, it's common for it to play a couple seconds then give the error). Once I solved by updating drivers. The other time I was using an older unsupported non HDCP video card.

I can't imagine you've got the latter issue.

[LuckyDay]

And what happens when you disable LVDS?

[richard1980]

both TV and HDMI chip must be HDCP compliant because HDMI is required to be HDCP compliant, right?

Wrong. HDCP support is not required...it's optional.

The fact that you receive a failure on HDCP tests in multiple programs indicates that something in your chain is in fact non-compliant.

[InfiniTV6PCIeOwner]

SOLVED:

All drivers were up-to-date.

The problem was that the Graphics output mode was set to split display .. I assume the problem would also be there if the mode were set to "extended" (I'll have to go back and check).

Solution: In the desktop Graphics Options --> Send To: --> Digital Television
(which is presumably the only configuration that's all HDCP compliant )

All protected content plays now .... DCA passes ,too

Thanks for everyone's input!

[roknrol]

Not to hijack or derail your thread, but was everything working correctly on your system before it began throwing the "display error for protected content" when trying to watch copy-once recorded material and live TV channels? I noticed you had listed you removed KB 3004394 at some point and were still experiencing the problem.

My system has been working fine since I installed the (SD Prime) in October. I haven't changed any hardware or connections and I avoided the December 10 MS updates that were causing so many issues with protected content over CableCard. I figured everything had been sorted by now, and went through this week and accepted 13 important updates (I always manually install these) dated 1/13/15 and 2/10/15. Something in those updates broke my DCA certification. Trying the maximize/minimize trick doesn't seem to make a difference, rebooting and forcing handshakes by plugging/unplugging HDMI doesn't seem to affect it either. I've been using extended desktop since installation in October without issue.

To be clear, I was watching protected content in WMC. Closed WMC and installed updates. Rebooted twice. Opened WMC and tried watching protected content and it began throwing the blue screen error after 2 seconds of play. Just wondering what's up?

My content path: HTPC nvidia GT430 > DVI/HDMI > Darbee Darblet > HDMI > Acer H5360 projector (primary, extended desktop)
HTPC nvidia GT430 > HDMI > Denon AVR (secondary, extended desktop)

In nVidia control panel, it shows HDCP as confirmed. Rerunning DCA, however, states that the card or driver is non-compliant. The only thing that changed was Windows updates. Rolling back to a restore point before the updates does not correct the problem. I'll have to look at what all was in that batch of 1/13/15 and 2/10/15 updates, but I'm pretty sure KB 3004394 was not among them.

[InfiniTV6PCIeOwner]

I assume you also did the DRM reset as prescribed in http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=6&t=3760 ?

As post #5 suggested and I indeed verified in my case, if DCA finds any video output enabled that it thinks can't protect content, then it will fail. In my case, turning off DisplayPort as an output made DCA happy.

I'd suggest isolating your video outputs either with Graphics Properties / Graphics Options or with Device Manager and see if behavior changes ...

<pipedream>A day when Windows will offer technical details of the reason it can't/won't do something, like Linux comes much closer to doing ..</pipedream>

[roknrol]

I have not tried resetting DRM or PlayReady at this point.

"This is for anyone getting the dreaded "Video playback device does not support playback of protected content" on Windows 7 or Windows 8 Media Center. One way to determine if your problem is a common DRM incompatibility is if that message appears, but you can minimize and then maximize Media Center to make the TV play, then this should work for you."

As minimize/window/maximize didn't do anything to correct the issue, I didn't think a DRM reset would help. Plus, doesn't resetting DRM through this method permanently disable any previously recorded copy-once content? I'd rather not do that as I have a number of shows recorded that I haven't watched up to this point.

I'll try disabling the AVR output and just keep the projector output going to see whether that affects anything. I'll also try removing the Darbee from the chain. You are probably right that something in that grouping is throwing the DCA flag.

Just really strange that nothing physical has changed since initially running through all the CableCard, PlayReady, and DCA setup back in October -- and all of a sudden it stops working right after a Windows Update batch ....

[richard1980]

Rolling back to a restore point before the updates does not correct the problem

Are you talking about an actual image of the OS partition taken prior to the updates? If so, and if protected content was playable at the time the image was taken, that indicates that your problem is not with software.

If, on the other hand, you are talking about a system restore point from System Restore, then your problem could be software-related. System Restore does not reset the state of the system to the exact state it was in when the restore point was created, so it is definitely possible that something has changed that System Restore can't undo.

[signcarver]

I indeed verified in my case, if DCA finds any video output enabled that it thinks can't protect content, then it will fail. In my case, turning off DisplayPort as an output made DCA happy.
I'd suggest isolating your video outputs either with Graphics Properties / Graphics Options or with Device Manager and see if behavior changes ... <pipedream>A day when Windows will offer technical details of the reason it can't/won't do something, like Linux comes much closer to doing ..</pipedream>

I have never seen it fail that way... Many of my PC's have DP available but generally aren't hooked up as I generally don't have DP displays but many of my new laptops uses eDP so I must make sure WMC is operating on the HDMI display but perhaps your DP was set to primary or cloned at the time (since I know DP won't pass, I will set my primary display to the HDMI display but forget if this is really necessary). You may never clone the display and pass as being hdcp capable. You may extend displays but you need to make sure the display being used for WMC is not on DP/eDP (LVDS works fine for me on my laptops that use it but it may also depend on display). Since windows 8 requires pro, many have enabled/played with hyper-V, when this is done it runs the "host" OS as a VM which will also break it. Various screen casting/remote desktop type apps such as logmein and gotomypc may also "virtually" clone the display which breaks it (I believe at least one of them allows a different setting that doesn't "clone" the display in such manner) . And there have been reports of other software also causing problems. Also WMC does not like low refresh rates on the display... this is happening a lot on laptops and as others go to 4K... make sure it is at least 60Hz.

[roknrol]

Rolling back to a restore point before the updates does not correct the problem

If, on the other hand, you are talking about a system restore point from System Restore, then your problem could be software-related. System Restore does not reset the state of the system to the exact state it was in when the restore point was created, so it is definitely possible that something has changed that System Restore can't undo.

^ This. I was only rolling back to a Windows System Restore point. Silly me, I was expecting that any updates Windows Update might have made to the system surely would have been removed by Windows Restore ... right?

I haven't dug more into this. Guess I'll need to if I want to watch WD on AMC from last night ....

[richard1980]

Yes, silly you! System Restore only monitors certain folders for changes, and even in those folders, it only monitors certain file extensions. If a change is made to a file that is not monitored, that file will not be modified during the restore operation...even if that file was changed by Windows Update.

IMO, a true backup solution is far better than System Restore could ever hope to be.

[roknrol]

^ Good to know.

Also, I did fix my problem. After trying a number of possible solutions, the one that finally worked was:

1. Close Media Center.
2. Set Primary display to PJ, extended desktop to Secondary display (AVR).
3. Turn off AVR.
4. Reboot.
5. Start Media Center and begin playing a copy-once (protected) recording.
6. Once the recording goes past the DCA check-point (about 3 seconds - you'll notice a very brief hiccup in output), turn on the AVR. After a few seconds of disruption from the HDMI handshake process, DCA compliance was restored.

I can now view protected channels and content just as before.

I did notice that KB 3022777 was among the list of updates that I had previously installed (this was flagged in some thread I read as potentially being a/the culprit). And KB 3004394 was now listed as an "optional" update -- with a new date of 2/10/2015. (I had not installed any optional updates when I was experiencing problems with DCA compliance.)