So this week, I finally got my kids onto a new(ish) computer, and retired their old PC into duty as a media player. I got it set up attached to the TV, and was happily loading it with some of my personal DVD rips and whatnot. I then tried to attach to Netflix in order to play some movies.
Now, I’ve enjoyed Netflix’s streaming service. Because I’m a bit “bandwidth-challenged” at the moment (1.5mbit DSL), I don’t get the full-quality streams, but it’s still nice to kick back with a new(ish) release on Netflix and watch a show with my wife on a Friday night or whanot. It’s not near-DVD-quality like we got on Comcast, but I guess that’s what we get for moving out into the “country” (dirt road off a main road, you can see the subdivisions from here, but we have a rooster next door, horses behind us, and cows lowing into our windows in the morning).
I was greeted with a Microsoft DRM error, immediately after the Netflix player finished filling the buffer. I tried several workarounds, to no avail.
Finally, I called Netflix tech support. We walked through a few options, the tech kept consulting his knowledge base, and got nowhere. Finally, the tech asked “What kind of graphics card do you have, and what screen is it hooked up to?”
Well, I mean, that’s an obvious red-herring, right? What kind of screen? “I have an NVidia GeForce4 MX 440 with 64MB RAM, attached to an old Samsung twenty-seven inch CRT. We haven’t really gotten with the times yet.”
“Connected via S-Video?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have another screen you can try it with, perhaps via S-Video or maybe the DVI or VGA port?”
“Yeah, I have the old monitor we used to use right here.”
Five huffy minutes later, muttering about red herrings the whole time, I hooked up the monitor, disconnected the TV, and rebooted. I went to stream a Netflix movie… and it just worked.
The tech suggested that I should contact NVidia and indicate my displeasure to them. “Over a six-year-old video card not supporting streaming movies to a CRT? Yeah, not likely to make a difference to them. What is the exact problem?
“According to my knowledgebase, certain cards don’t support certain monitor or screen combinations. Since you seem to be a technical sort of person, you should search for “COPP” in your favorite search engine.”
I thanked him, got off the phone, and did so. I came across a half-dozen sites talking about COPP, then finally found Davis Freeberg’s description of COPP. Other than which devices are connected, it’s EXACTLY what I had been experiencing.
So here’s the situation: I can’t play back to my old TV. I’m not even assured, now, that if I connect my DVI port on this graphics card to a new HD television that I’ll be able to view the media I’m paying for. I even tried mirroring the output, leaving an old video monitor connected… and that worked, sorta. The content played on the monitor, but left an empty IE window on my old TV CRT.
This isn’t an NVidia problem, folks. This is a Netflix, movie studio, and Microsoft problem. NVidia hardware adheres to the standard: the app can’t be sure that the card is not connected to something that would record the output, so it refuses playback on that device. Doing exactly what the movie studios, Microsoft, and Netflix have agreed to: refuse to play back on anything that they can’t be certain isn’t a recording device.
I’m in a quandary: it’s now much more practical for me to download movies illegally than attempt to work within their system because their system is BROKEN. If I want to watch a movie on my CRT without having a physical DVD in my possession, there’s only one way I can do it: copy it illegally — DVD Rip, BitTorrent, or sharing among friends — one way or the other.
The movie studios, Microsoft, and Netflix together have created a situation where they have ruined the value-add of this product. Using their player is now actually a REDUCTION in value compared to the options available to me if I ignore their restrictions.
That’s backwards capitalism. Make it better, faster, and cheaper, and I’ll buy it from you. Make it incompatible with my equipment, slower, and more expensive, and I’d rather just ignore your existence.
Anyway, off that soapbox.
On to the next.
What, then, are the options? After a long around-the-water-cooler session with co-workers, the logical options seem to be:
- Apple TV. I already have three Macintosh computers in this house, what’s one more Apple device? Upside: I can rip my existing media and watch it. Downside: Their library of movies to rent or purchase is kind of anemic… the video store around the corner has better selection.
- Linux with MythTV. I would probably want to pick up a TV card for the computer so I could record live TV, and maybe have to do a small upgrade to the PC so it can handle recording and playback simultaneously.
- Buy a new TV. That’s an option I’m seriously looking at… but again, I have no guarantees their DRM won’t break my setup again.
- Linux or Windows with DRM-free, unprotected content… running the risk that I’ll have a Cease & Desist slapped on me for trading copyrighted content. Realize, I have exactly ZERO pirated movies on any of my systems right now. Zip. Netflix was that nice… but this new restriction makes me think maybe it’s worth the admittedly low risk.
- Just do the whole video-rental-store thing again. Probably the cheapest option.
- Ignore the major movie studios, and only watch independent films. Yeah, no, I’m too much of a pop-culture junkie.
Options I’ve missed?
Our house runs like this..
Thanks to Arthur for getting us started in this vein years ago.
We run a PC from 3 years ago, running Windows XP Media Center. That COmputer is connected via ethernet to 2 “Media Center Extenders” from Linksys (Ebay for 100 bucks if not less) You can also use an XBOX 360 as a center extender.
It functions as a DVR, which is its primary use.. but it also allows me to play any MP3 I own on any TV in the house. I can watch movies and even found a way to watch the DVDs I own over the TV.. not that I would ever DO that. (Movielink works well there too!)
JT
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
One the one hand…
On the one hand, Justin, I’m still very much glad that my casual mention of using Media Center on my computer all those years ago has turned into something that brings you so much joy. 🙂
I have, however, become more and more aware of the past few years that you and I may well be the only two people in the history of the world EVER to have considered Media Center worthwhile.
For me, Media Center was a boon because it functioned like my own personal TIVO… but that was before I discovered the availability of a number of freeware programs that with a bit of tweaking could provide the same service. I would have made much, much more use of it had it not been for the fact that as an iPod man, many of my songs are iTunes format, which Media Center flat out will not recognize. Which killed it as a an entertainment system for me.
Short-term, long-term
Well, I figured out a short-term solution by just goofing around in the NVidia control panel.
Hook up an old monitor to the VGA/DVI port, and hook up the TV to the S-Video port. Using the NVidia control panel, set up both monitors to mirror one another’s content.
Now, on its own, this doesn’t help the situation. The output plays on the monitor, but not the TV (just an empty IE window). To fix it, I used the NVidia display option of setting a “full-screen monitor”. I’m not sure all control panels have it. So the net effect is, the display is mirrored (like usual) most of the time. Once I start up a movie in, it seems, any DirectX-compliant video player, the movie plays in a window on the old computer monitor, and full-screen on the TV.
Which was pretty much what I wanted anyway… but now I don’t have control over the movie without a remote or looking at the attached PC monitor.
On the other hand, I watched a handful of shows using this setup last night. While it’s nifty, at 1.5mbps the video sucks. I mean, nasty screen-door, fuzziness, the works. And this is on an old 27″ CRT, which tells me that if I do get that 50″ plasma display I’ve been eyeing, it will look even worse.
Looks like it’s time for me to start building up a collection of ripped HD movies and TV shows. Of course, I’ll do my best to make sure they are legal backup copies, with the originals stowed in a box in the garage.
—
Matthew P. Barnson