Vista Blocked Recording NBC Programs

Users of Windows Vista Media Center where surprised when they were blocked from recording the NBC Universal TV shows American Gladiator and Medium on Monday (5/12/08).

“Restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator prohibit recording of this program,” error message read.

“This is indicative of why the current DRM schemes are flawed,” said Marcel Good, an IT director in Northern California and one of the people prevented from recording the NBC shows. “It affects people who intend to legally consume content. They have no intention of stealing the content. The people who want to steal already have ways around DRM.”

As of Tuesday, the cause for the block of the shows was still not clear. Representatives from both the network and Microsoft said they would need time to look into the matter. Until they do, here are the few available clues.

A TiVo spokeswoman said their subscribers where unaffected and received no customer complaints about being blocked from recording.

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