Sick All the Time

Basically, since Christmas I've been sick the majority of the weeks. It could be due to poor diet, lack of exercise, or lack of quality sleep. The wife thinks that maybe I should make some changes to improve my health and quite frankly, I'm tired of being sick, tired, and sluggish all the time. So in the next few months I'll be making changes to improve these areas.

DRM Issues

So, I built my new HTPC, but not all the features that I thought would work smoothly do. The sad part is that the problems that I have had are due to the stupidity of DRM schemes that Netflix, Microsoft, and the movie studios are using. My plan was to replace my cable television by:

1. Renting DVD movies from Netflix/Blockbuster
2. Streaming movies using Netflix "Watch Now"
3. Streaming television shows using AOL Video (which includes Hulu and IN2TV and others)
4. Using Media Center as my DVR for network television
5. Using Media Center extras such as Turbonick
   

The first problem that I ran into is that my DVD rentals from Blockbuster and Netflix won't play in Vista. The problem? I have my computer hooked up to my television using component Y-Pb-Pr cables. Windows does not allow the use of component cables to watch encrypted movies. It will only allow an HDMI cable to be used. I can use Windows Vista and run other programs with the component cables, it just doesn't allow encrypted movies to be watched. Thank you HDCP and PMP.

The second problem is that I've been trying out lots of different Media Center plugins, software programs, and drivers to see what provides the most optimal experience. Sometimes this experimentation "breaks" Windows. Since I don't have any saved files or work on the new computer, the easy fix is just to do a reinstall of Windows. Well, it turns out that each reinstall of Windows caused Netflix to believe that it was a different computer each time so it reported that I was using it on more than the allowed 4 computers. I called customer service and they "graciously" gave me a free extension to 5 computers so that I could use it. However, I couldn't get Netflix to work again because it kept giving me DRM issues. Even after I uninstalled and reinstalled Netflix it kept reporting the error. So much for the customer support fix. I followed the steps to clear the DRM given by Netflix website, but it still had DRM errors. It kindly offered me the customer service line for me to call a 2nd time. Did I call them a 2nd time? No, I logged on to my account and hit the cancel button.

So here I am a user trying to enjoy movies legally instead of downloading them from file sharing sites or using decryption software and Microsoft and Netflix won't let me. The irony of it all is that if you search the internet you can find hacks to break the Netflix DRM and programs to break the encryption on the DVD movies. So the DRM protection does nothing to stop piracy, but instead makes it impossible for legitimate users to legally watch movies.

Goodbye Ubuntu, Hello Snowfall

Well, the wife growing weary of my Ubuntu experiment led me to reinstall Windows MCE 2005 on our main computer. As I had planned on using Ubuntu on the main desktop and MCE 2005 on the new HTPC this caused me to order a new copy of Windows. I went ahead and bought Vista Home Premium 64 Bit Edition to use on the HTPC. I know that drivers and software options are somewhat rough going, but it will allow for hardware and software growth in the next 2-3 years on the HTPC which should be enough to make up for the shortcomings of early adoption.

In unrelated news, we had quite the snow storm this weekend. Officially it came in at around 20 inches of snowfall. Sure, not much to write about for people in Buffalo or other snow heavy areas, but around this part of the country that is enough to beat the last record which was set way back in the early 1900's. Next weekend the predicted temperatures are to be in the 60's. :-)

Warhammer Online Newsletter

The most recent newsletter for Warhammer Online showed up in my e-mail. The most interesting part was the notice that purchasing a comic book in April will give consumers a 1 in 5 (20%) chance to get into the beta. I'm tempted to buy 5 or 6 copies of the comic just to get into the beta. I've been pretty bored lately and looking for some online game to play. The beta would give me a new game to try out. The other interesting part was some information on keeps and sieges that will be in the game. It largely looks like the DAoC system and further cements that the game is going to be more of a DAoC 2 than a game of it's own design.