A Point in Microsoft’s Favour
I'm using Windows XP Media Center Edition (I should set up a macro to expand $MCE into the full name for that product) and have it recording shows for me. I just naturally assumed that these shows were DRM protected.
Last night I tried playing one from my PC just to see what would happen, and it played no problem. No DRM, no authorization, just video.
This is called the analog hole - where something is converted into analog (which generally is not protected, save some sort of Macrovision scheme) and then converted back into digital. You lose a bit of quality, but you also lose any rights management, and depending on the quality of the components involved, the resulting material can be quite good.I'm sure the MPAA would rather Microsoft had included DRM on these files. There's nothing to stop me from burning a show onto a DVD and giving it to a friend. But they didn't. Kudos. And also kudos to the Starchoice for not having their PVR add Macrovision to it's output.