WMC flashes "Subscription required" (live TV and recordings)

[Bear on the job]

I've been using HTPC setups for almost a decade now, but I'm a little new to the WMC game...I just added an InfiniTV 6 ETH to my Gigabit network a few weeks ago, and setup my current HTPC with Win 7 WMC and 3 Xbox 360 extenders. For the most part, everything has been surprisingly painless, but I've been seeing a recurring problem this week with live and recorded TV shows...

Periodically throughout some shows, I will see the screen flash the "Subscription required" or "Protected content" messages, but then immediately recover and continue. The flashes are extremely quick, usually only 1-2 frames of a 24 FPS show. This has happened to multiple shows on different channels at different times of the day. It seems like it may happen more frequently when multiple tuners are being used at the same time (happened tonight when recording 3 shows + watching 1 live TV). But that may be anecdotal, as I haven't collected enough data.

My HTPC is:
Shuttle SG33 case + Motherboard (Intell G33 chipset)
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.5GHz
4GB G Skill PC2-6400 DDR2
Nvidia GeForce GT 430 1GB DDR3
Onboard Marvell Gigabit ethernet
Recording drive - Samsung HD103UJ 1TB SATA 3Gb/s

For the InfiniTV, all 6 tuners show signal levels in the +0.8 to -0.8 dB ranges, with a SNR between 33 to 35 dB, so the signal seems clean. The motherboard also has an onboard Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100, but I've disabled that and use the GT 430 for all video output.

Does anyone have suggestions? The problem right now is bearable, as it only flashes the screen for a split second. But sometimes multiple flashes will happen in a short period (2 or 3 in a minute), and it can be very distracting.

[DSperber]

I understand the notion of "intentionally under-powering" an HTPC, since it's a 24/7 device and can use a surprising amount of electricity. They really don't take much horsepower to operate, so why not build them so as to be cooler, quieter, and more ecologically friendly while also being less expensive to operate.

But my experience (which runs across three separate motherboard/CPU/memory/drive/graphics setups since 2009) suggests that virtually all of the "intermittent" and "occasional" annoying and frequently un-fixable nits are really due to corners that were cut in the hardware department. HTPC with WMC become "flawless" and "problem-free" using higher-end setups with newer and higher-performing components in this "always-on" world of HTPC, rather than lower-end configurations.

I've been using the Ceton 4-tuner internal PCIe card forever. I bought a 6-tuner internal PCIe card earlier this year during one of their sales (primarily as a hardware backup spare, just in case I need it), but have not installed it. The 4-tuner card I have is perfectly adequate for my cable recording needs, as I also have a 2-tuner Hauppauge HVR-2250 for OTA/ATSC use (from my roof antenna) and I use that for ALL local network work rather than the TWC/LA re-transmit of those channels. Plus, using a 6-tuner card with a single coax feeding it results in lower SNR and signal strength per tuner, due to the internal splitting that occurs.

Although I understand the convenience and flexibility afforded by a network-based external tuner solution accessed through ethernet, but that puts significant stress on your network (and in particular, your router). Even the internal Ceton PCIe tuner cards are accessed through TCPIP internally, and each HD channel being used requires about 12Mb/s continuously active bandwidth while active... just for the viewing/recording of that one channel. Add in additional simultaneous network bandwidth requirements to feed each of our extenders simultaneously, coupled with the CPU overhead of the decryption required to play copy-protected content, and it's easy to watch the mounting demands placed on internal/external network traffic and CPU and related hardware components. Using external tuners sends everything needed for recording through the router before it even arrives at the HTPC, making it a serious "choke point" for performance and reliability.

Now add in the extraordinary CONTINUOUS demands placed on hard drives used for recording/viewing, especially when multiple operations are going on at one time (not to mention possibly using the HTPC "in the foreground" at the same time as an ordinary computer) and it becomes obvious that perhaps using a "green" drive, which spins slower and has other performance "efficiencies" may not be such a good idea.

All in all, my experience is that performance improvements and increased problem-free stability in my own setups resulted from HARDWARE UPGRADES rather than downgrades. Moving up from SATA-II (3GB/s) to SATA-III (6GB/s) drives made a big difference. Upgrading the drive capacity to newer, larger drives (and of course at least 7200rpm, not 5400rpm ever) also saw larger cache numbers for the drive, which had performance improvements in sequential operations (such as occurs during read/write of WTV recordings). Recordings became "glitch-free". Partitioning intelligently and installing additional multiple internal hard drives reduced "performance demand stress requirements" on the drive used for live TV recording and playback, thus greatly reducing "arm contention" on the hard drive which is central to WMC performance.

Upgrading to faster and newer motherboards, faster CPU's, faster memory... these ALL accomplished only good things. Glitches (both in WMC performance and behavior, as well as in recordings playback) disappeared. Upgrading to faster graphics cards also eliminated annoying anomalies such as lip-sync during playback of 1080i programs, overall slower graphics performance while watching HDTV on the HTPC monitor, etc. The ability to use faster DDR3 memory instead of DDR2, and even faster rather than slower DDR3 memory because of newer motherboards with faster chipsets and CPU, and having 8GB minimum in a 64bit version of Win7, rather than a max of 4MB in a 32bit version of Win7... this makes a big difference in overall machine performance. Having a graphics card with at least 1GB of onboard DDR5 memory (rather than DDR3, although most cards with DDR3 memory should be fine) provides significant overall machine performance, and allows the actual machine RAM to be used for the CPU and OS and programs, rather than carving out some portion of RAM for use by the graphics system thus making it unavailable for Windows and programs, again this makes a difference.

All in all, my point is that my current HTPC is actually a "high-end" machine (based on ASUS P8Z77-V Pro board), with i5-3350p quad-core 3.1Ghz CPU that has no onboard graphics in that CPU since I have a discrete HD5870 graphics card. I have 8GB of PC3-12800 DDR3 memory. I use only WD black SATA-III (6GB/s) hard drives with 64MB cache, with a dedicated 2TB internal drive for recorded TV storage (I needed extra capacity to record The Olympics, and made this hardware upgrade accordingly). As previously mentioned, I have a 4-tuner internal PCIe Ceton card along with a 2-tuner internal HVR-2250 for OTA/ATSC use.

Everything provided by TWC/LA is marked "copy-protected". Thus everything requires use of the cablecard and associated additional CPU processing overhead to decrypt for playback. I have three Linksys DMA2100 extenders, although there are never more than two in use at any one time (which of course can be going on while doing any number of simultaneous recordings). Having high-performance hardware as I've described above is providing absolutely problem-free glitch-free anomaly-free WMC performance. Having internal TV tuner cards rather than external network-based tuners puts MUCH LESS STRESS on the LAN, including resulting in ZERO involvement of the router (through which all network traffic much pass, thus making it another source of potential "bottleneck" and performance degradation).

And ALL of this works together both at recording time as well as playback time. If occasional errors occur on the hard drive recordings, playback can also see occasional unexpected "glitches" such as the "subscription required" intermittent messages. This commonly is due to data errors that you'd think would never occur because of hardware CRC checks, etc., but in fact it actually does occur as occasional intermittents... and it's annoyingly intermittent and commonly not reproducible when you re-play the same program.


My recommendation for you: perhaps it's time to consider some hardware upgrades to your HTPC. I'll think you'll be very surprised at the performance improvements. Your current machine specs are pretty low.

My nephew also uses external network-based tuners (from SilconDust HDHR Prime) and also reports occasional anomalies, which I never see with my internal 4-tuner Ceton card despite the fact that EVERYTHING from TWC/LA is marked "copy-protected" (including "basic cable" channels, not just premium movie channels that truly are subscription).

[adam1991]

I have a three year old system with InfiniTV 4 PCIe. My CPU, while a 3.2GHz unit, is an i3. My motherboard is an Intel with onboard video. And nary a problem, even with commercial skip processing in the background.

I'm not a hardware freak, I don't fiddle and twiddle for the fun of it, but I seem to have stumbled on the magic unicorn of system components. It absolutely does help that mine is a dedicated WMC machine, of course. And I did consciously decide to install 8GB of RAM and 7200rpm drives, for all the reasons outlined above. Might have been overkill, but then might not.

I also made the conscious decision to leave the thing on 24/7. It costs money, but it provides value--it's always available to the family and to the extenders, no fiddling or twiddling or compromises required.

[Bear on the job]

I understand my hardware is towards the low end of the spectrum (my HTPC is probably 5 years old at this point, except the video card which was upgraded more recently), but I'd like to diagnose the issue a bit more before throwing brute-force hardware upgrades at it. This is my first experience using a Cablecard system, so everything is a bit experimental at this point. I'd rather not spend the money building an entire new system if I don't have to.

The HTPC has worked incredibly well for the entire time I've had it, even playing 3D content (once I upgraded the video card). And with WMC, even with the limited specs it has been able to handle 3 recordings + 1 recorded TV playback on the HTPC + 1 extender watching live TV simultaneously. All of this without an issue or even stressing the CPU of the HTPC. The only issue I've even seen is the one I described above, and even those have been limited (usually 1-2 per hour of recorded TV, and only occurs in 1/4 recordings).

I understand that the network-based tuner may be causing these issues because of traffic, and a PCI solution could work better...but I like the flexibility of the network tuner and the option for tuner pooling. I'd like to identify the network traffic as the issue before changing tuners. Does anyone have direct experience comparing the PCI and ETH versions of the InfiniTV 6?

[Bear on the job]

I just replayed the recording I watched last night with the issue, and the actual error message flashed on the screen for a split second is "Copying Prohibited". I'm checking the following hotfix to see if it will address my issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2266287

[barnabas1969]

If the only message you get is Copying Prohibited, then you have an HDMi/HDCP handshake problem, for which there are many possible causes and resolutions.

If you also get Subscription Required messages, then you may have a signal problem on your Tuning Adapter. Dig around in the Tuning Adapter/Tuning Resolver pages on the InfiniTV's internal web pages. Find the page that lists the FDC signal power and S/N. They should be +/- 7dBmV for the power, and mid-high 30's for the S/N. Then find the RDC signal power. It should be 25-40 dBmV. If the signals on the TA are not within this spec, you will have intermittent problems with the TA, and this can cause "Subscription Required" messages.

[Bear on the job]

From my first post, the signal looks clean. Where do you find the FDC or RDC power values though? I've looked through all of the tuner web pages for the InfiniTV6 ETH, and it only shows the signal level and SNR values.

I've been checking the issue more today, and it looks like all of the instances I can find are actually "Copying Prohibited". Also, it only seems to be happening on the protected channels from my provider (I'm on Optimum/Cablevision on the Brooklyn area). But it's very strange, because as I said above, it only happens for a split second during playback. Like literally 1 frame of a normal transmission. If it was an actual HDMI/HDCP issue, I would expect it to persist for longer. I'm going to try swapping some of my HDMI cables and see if maybe the current one has a defect.

I've also followed MS instructions to reset the DRM on my HTPC, and I've reinstalled PlayReady as well. I've lost access to the previous recordings I had because of the reset, but I will start recording a lot of programs on the protected channels and see if I can reproduce it.

[barnabas1969]

Do you have a Tuning Adapter connected to your tuner's USB port? If not, then you won't find the FDC and RDC values. If you do, then you need to click the link that takes you to the Tuning Adapter/Resolver's pages. I don't remember the exact link to click.

[Bear on the job]

Oh that's why, I don't have a TA. My cable provider doesn't require one, just the cablecard. I missed the part where you mentioned 'TA' in your last post, and I didnt' realize the FDC/RDC values were for the TA.

[Bear on the job]

Also, when I was testing the issue earlier, I found a section of a recorded TV episode where the "Copying Prohibited" message was displayed. Again, it was only for a split second, but it occurred at a specific point in the recorded file. If I backed up the video and replayed the section, it would display the error in the same spot every time. So it seems to be related to a section of the video file itself, and probably not a defective HDMI cable...

I'm not knowledgeable enough about the WTV file encoding to know how a copy protection issue like that would be stored in the file.

[barnabas1969]

Does the recording display that message in the same place when you play the recording with one of your XBox extenders?

[IownFIVEechos]

I once got that with the HD-PVR when I would turn off the projector the signal between the receiver and the projector would cause me to get that blue screen in my recordings. Is it happening when you turn on and off your display. I would point to the hdmi handshaking as the issue.

[cwinfield]

I think more information on your setup would be helpful such as if you use a stereo receiver HDMI and what TV/monitor your using for a display. If it is a HDCP problem a firmware upgrade for your tv might fix your problem. What router are you using & are you using the latest firmware? are you on newest drivers for your marvell NIC? You can also manually set speed of NIC to 1G instead of auto. Finally, I would also investigate your storage drivers and make sure they are the latest and greatest from intel as these have caused me playready and copy protection message problems.

[DSperber]

I understand that the network-based tuner may be causing these issues because of traffic, and a PCI solution could work better...but I like the flexibility of the network tuner and the option for tuner pooling.

Why are network-based tuners and "tuner pooling" of value to you?

Remember that you cannot record copy-protected content on one machine and then play it back on another. The notion of "one machine" includes whatever tuner was used (since it's part of the hardware configuration going into the DRM encryption key). So even though you might be able to use one of your network-based tuners to record something copy-protected on any Win7 PC in your home network, you won't be able to play it back except from that same PC. And that means the extender/TV you want to use to do the playback must be configured as connected to that same PC. This is all very complicated and inflexible actually, rather than the opposite as you suggest.

Much more appropriate would be to simply have all extenders connected to one PC (i.e. your HTPC), and have a large amount of hard drive storage on that machine for recording new content, and have all network tuners "assigned" to that one PC (assuming you want to use network tuners rather than install an internal PCIe tuner card). You can have additional hard drive storage on that same PC, and if you must make more room for new recordings you can just move the original recordings from the one primary \Recorded TV to additional folders on other drives, as WMC can PLAY recordings from multiple folders although it can record new programs in only one folder.

Having one PC for recording all copy-protected content means you'll now be able to play back that content on ANY extender in your home, all of which are connected to just that one PC. And for copy-freely content which can be recorded on any PC and played back on any PC/extender (which is the only justifiable use of pooled network-based tuners, in my opinion) again why would you want to "scatter these recordings" around on multiple different PC's, and then have to know which one they got recorded on in order to play it back? Or, you'd need to be sharing all of the \Recorded TV folders among all of the PC's, in order for any WMC on any machine to be able to play any copy-freely recording through an extender which is connected to some machine... so why not just connect it to one machine and be done with it?

In other words, any implementation involving pooled network-based tuners and multiple WMC setups, and multiple extenders which need to be configured/connected to one WMC machine, seems to make things extremely complicated and inflexible... especially when copy-protected content is involved.

==> Best bet (in my opinion): one HTPC using all tuners and to which all extenders are connected; very large hard drive for new \Recorded TV; additional essentially infinite hard drive storage if you have extraordinary recording capacity requirements for MOVING recordings to the secondary \Recorded TV folders for playback. And if you really are allocating all tuners to one PC anyway, why use network-based tuners which must send everything being recorded through your router on their way to the HTPC, along with everything being played back from HTPC to extender also going through the router? Lots of "strain" and extraordinary workload on the router and the NIC in your HTPC.

[Crash2009]

I just added an InfiniTV 6 ETH to my Gigabit network a few weeks ago

Sounds like "Growing Pains" to me.

When is the last time you re-booted the network?

What I mean by that, is shut everything down, and turn on one by one, in order, starting with: cable modem, router, switch, HTPC, workstations, extenders, etc.

[barnabas1969]

I don't think any of this extra discussion about network tuners vs PCIe tuners matters until "Bear on the job" answers the question I asked in this post:
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 847#p77847

[Crash2009]

Thanks for the "Heads Up".

Looks like he was a member for one day only.

[Bear on the job]

Does the recording display that message in the same place when you play the recording with one of your XBox extenders?

Sorry been busy with work lately, haven't had much time to diagnose this. Plus my wife has been deleting all our recordings after she watches them, so I've lost most of the files I was testing...I will try to find a file tonight that has the issue, and check it on one of my extenders.

I think more information on your setup would be helpful such as if you use a stereo receiver HDMI and what TV/monitor your using for a display. If it is a HDCP problem a firmware upgrade for your tv might fix your problem. What router are you using & are you using the latest firmware? are you on newest drivers for your marvell NIC? You can also manually set speed of NIC to 1G instead of auto. Finally, I would also investigate your storage drivers and make sure they are the latest and greatest from intel as these have caused me playready and copy protection message problems.

Now that you've mentioned this...I've got my HTPC connected to an Xbox one through the HDMI passthrough port, which then connects to my TV (an LG 55LW5600). From the TV, it connects to a Sony audio receiver over optical audio. Router is an Asus RT-N66U with latest stock firmware (no custom like DD-WRT installed). The NIC has latest drivers as well, and I already set the speed to 1G manually. I will check on storage drivers, haven't updated those in ages...

Once I find a video file with an error, I'm going to connect the HTCP to the TV directly and re-test. I may also try swapping to a different HDD as well.

Thanks for the help, I originally created this topic because I thought it may be a common issue with a quick fix (since I'm so new to the setup). But I'm willing to dig into it to solve it.

[barnabas1969]

You really shouldn't spend your time doing any of those other suggestions until you prove that the problem happens on the extenders too. If it doesn't happen on the extenders, then it has nothing to do with your network or tuner. Then, you can start figuring out what it is about your video path between the PC and the TV that is causing the problem. I don't understand why some people posted all these suggestions before you were able to narrow the problem down to the HDMI connection or something else.

[Bear on the job]

Sorry for the long delay again, but I had a hard drive failure on my desktop PC on Friday...luckily it wasn't my HTPC though, and I found some more recordings with the "Copying Prohibited" issue. I replayed the same file on one of my Xbox 360s, and miraculously there was no issue. Playing the file on my HTPC, it would flash the blue "Copying Prohibited" screen at the same timecode every time, but on the Xbox 360, it played right through without issue every time. So I guess there is an issue somewhere in my HTPC setup or connections...

I will be testing again tonight by removing the Xbox One HDMI passthrough connection, and going straight to the TV. I will udpate again later.

UPDATE: Actually I spoke too soon...After rechecking the file again on the Xbox 360, it doesn't flash the "Copying Prohibited" screen, but it does lose audio for a split second. So on my HTPC, where both video and audio are interrupted with the blue error screen, on the Xbox 360 only audio is lost while video continues to play normally. The audio drop is so short, I didn't notice it at first.

I'm going to try the same file on a second Xbox 360 to see if the behavior is the same. Does anyone have suggestions at this point? It seems that the protection error is embedded in the file and not specific to the HDMI connections.