Toppy.org.uk ~ View topic - You are not entitled to watch this programme

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Stuart_Burns

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:25 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 94

Earlier this evening, I was recording BBC One and ITV and wanted to play back a recording of Smallville. However, when I tried to do this, all I got was a black screen for a few seconds then the above message appeared. When I pressed OK (as instructed) the playback continued but still showed nothing but a black screen with no sound. The green playback symbol was there and the percentage indicator advanced as normal.

I've actually got two different episodes of Smallville recorded and the same happens for each of them. I thought that maybe the CAM was in use for some reason so I tuned to E4 and was able to see the live programme. I waited until one of the recordings stopped and still nothing.

I've got a recording from Cartoon Network which I tried to play back and it was fine.

I've still got a recording taking place at the moment (this week's Smallville) so I'll wait and see what happens when it's finished but obviously this is not very good. Any ideas?

Stuart_Burns

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 9:00 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 94

Hmm! All recordings have now finished but I still can't play back either of the previous episodes of Smallville although tonight's is OK.

Darkmatter

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 9:07 pm

Forum moderator Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 1237

Take a look at this thread on DS apparently E4 has been having problems in the SE

Stuart_Burns

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 9:11 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 94

I wonder if there have been problems here too? It seems unlikely that it would have happened two weeks running, though.

phil

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 7:51 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 56

cool...not just me then.

I was playing back..well trying to..recordings of Smallville from early April...got the same problem.

Managed to get one to work.....then 40 mins into the program...the message popped up and it stopped.

Also find that the stop button etc don't work...I had to turn the toppy off and on again.

phil

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 7:52 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 56

PS I pick up Sutton Coldfield transmitter.

bwright

Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 6:01 pm

Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 1

I just noticed the problem on a number of recordings from April which were previously OK. Sorry if this has been suggested elsewhere...

New codes for the TUTV cards were broadcast in early May and probably would not match the encryption of the programmes broadcast in April. The "blocks" of programme which had been decrypted would play, but any encrypted "blocks" remaining would not play as the decryption codes would no longer be valid.

This could make it interesting if you're on holiday recording encrypted channels over a month end if the CAM is not free to decode the programme being recorded.

nwhitfield

Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 8:41 pm

Site Admin Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 9473 Location: London

Yep; I just went back and checked ... the Desperate Houswives that I recorded while the CAM wasn't being used for anything else is marked with a green $, and plays OK.

Others from last month that were still scrambled don't play, while last week's one does. I shall have to do a copy of the stuff I want to keep...

Oh well; at least it freed up a bit of disk space.

Nigel.

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murph7355

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 8:00 pm

Joined: 17 Apr 2005 Posts: 3

Is this situation recoverable?

I have a couple of films I recorded that won't play.

I'll be mighty pissed with TUTV if I can't watch them.

lairdal

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 8:34 pm

Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 3

This absolutely bites. My disk was nearly full with about 120 recordings, lots of them from TUTV channels. I've had to throw away lots of recordings recently due to this.

When do TUTV change the codes, exactly at the start of each month? So on the first of each month all of my recordings are going to be worthless? Can you buy a 1 year sub from TU, and if so will your viewing card be valid for 12 months?

This really undermines the value of TUTV. I was about to cancel them before I got the Topper because I couldn't record them on my Twin.

Here's an idea, the Topper has two CAM slots, if you were daft enough to buy two subs could it make use of both CAMs?

lairdal

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 11:47 pm

Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 3

Not to put too fine a point on it, this f*cking sucks. I've just lost 25G of encrypted programs recorded in the last month, again.

TopField and TopUp need to put their heads together and make this work better or I won't be supporting either of their products. I mean, I might as well go back to using VHS. Or worse, the Twin.....

The TF can do a better job of making sure that recordings of encrypted channels stay unencrypted. Its just too keen to drop back to an encrypted recording. There should also be a way to lock the smart card onto the recording so that random channel hopping during a recording won't screw it up.

And TopUp need to find a way to make subscriptions rollover more gracefully. How about storing the last 6 months worth of encryption keys on the smart card so that I can watch anything recorded in the previous 6 months. If that's not possible then how about the last 2 billing periods and I'll gladly sign up for 3 or 6 months at a time. What I can't have is everything disappearing overnight, that is not a service I'm willing to pay for.

There must be plenty of others hacked off by this?

-AL

tubbyj

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 6:13 am

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 29 Location: wimbledon

lairdal wrote:

When do TUTV change the codes, exactly at the start of each month?

Posts on digital spy indicate the 28th of each month

Stuart_Burns

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:41 pm

Regular contributor Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 94

This is really not on. I've got quite a few things which I recorded from E4 before it went FTA and once again I can't watch them. I didn't realise that they changed their codes every month. There has to be a way round this. They advertise the Toppy as a supported product but this is a major limitation.

As it stands, you could record something on the 27th of the month and be unable to watch it the next day! Definately not happy!

nwhitfield

Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:16 am

Site Admin Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 9473 Location: London

I don't think it expires as quickly as that - I suspect that there will probably be two sets of keys on the card at any one time, so you should be able to watch stuff from this month and last.

There's not really anything that the Toppy can do that it doesn't already, other than have an option to automatically copy and descrypt programmes when it would otherwise be idle.

This is one of those annoying gotchas of digital broadcasting that people have to get used to unfortunately - just like the way that Sky+ will stop your recordings from playing back when you cancel your subscription. In some ways that's more flexible, but less so in others, since there's no 'copy and decrypt' function.

Unfortunately, I don't think you're likely to find any bit of kit that will completely solve the problem; after all, making recordings is strictly only allowed for timeshifting, not for keeping. Some of the rights holders would doubtless prefer we couldn't make recordings at all, especially on a box that it's so easy to link to a PC.

TopUpTV probably don't make a big fuss about this because a) they don't want to piss off the channels and b) there's only the one PVR that works with their service; even if they are aware of the effect their security has on users, it's going to be a pretty small number of people affected.

Nigel.

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Giblets

Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:23 am

Regular contributor Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 93

Well I for one have voted with my feet! Very Happy

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