Do NOT upgrade to ATI MMC 8.1

[Mercutio]

Subject says it all.

Ahem.

"This video stream is copyright protected. ATI MMC will stop recording now. [OK]"

I got that message when my recording of a VHS movie (which recorded just fine, of course, despite being copy protected itself) ran over into regualar broadcast.

I've been trying to listen to the news in a lanugage I can understand (the only channels I actually receive with clarity are spanish language), which meant the mad dog conservative bastards on Fox, and... here's the kicker, even though I don't actually receive a picture from that station, ATI's MMC helpfully blurred my recording into "naughty bits"-like blur sqaures, for the whole picture, for the time I was recording the TV signal.

The signal, by the way, was that TV show with John Lithgow as an alien. Whatever it's called. Audio continued to work just fine.

I don't know if I can downgrade to MMC7.6, or if I'll be able to upgrade drivers without upgrading MMC, or if maybe there's a registry hack that fixes it.

In any case, I'm really, truly pissed about this.

 

[SteveC]

I've had a couple of spontaneous reboots while recording something, since upgrading to 8.1, which I meant to report in the other thread. I haven't tried downgrading yet, but I'm hoping it won't be problematic.

 

[cquinn]

Haven't upgraded to MMC 8.1 yet, but...

Have you tried
http://www.digital-digest.net/downloads/files/DisableATIMacrovisionDetection.zip

found at
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/macrovision_graphics.html

there are reports over at rage3d forums indicating it *might* work.

I'll be sure to do an image backup before messing with MMC 8.1 though,
thanks for the warning.

 

[Mercutio]

This wasn't macrovision. I've already fixed macrovision. This was something embedded in a TV signal that came OTA on a channel I don't get well enough to have a picture.

I'm not aware of any technology that "copyrights" broadcast signals, but the error message didn't come up until after the tape stopped playing and began rewinding itself.

I'm still trying to get the error to happen again, but so far today I haven't been able to get a decent TV signal.

 

[Pradeep]

Wasn't there a decision recently by the FCC allowing OTA broadcasters to enable a "do-not-copy" flag in their transmissions? Or was that cable?