Channel 7 and Foxtel have finally come to an agreement to allow Foxtel to re-transmit Seven’s digital broadcast including electronic program data so now at last we can set our IQ boxes to record channel 7 programs. This should go live for cable subscribers within the next few weeks but satellite subscribers might have to wait for a bit over a year yet at this stage.
More at news.com.au
This news comes sadly a little late for me. The channel 7 analogue reception was so woeful at my house I just upgraded my media centre to digital so I’d have access to an EPG (electronic program guide) and a reception worth recording. (Seven was the only channel without program data on my Foxtel IQ box and it seemed like 90% of the stuff we wanted to record was on Seven).
Meh. It was worth the upgrade anyway. The picture is absolutely glorious, but now I have a new problem. It seems the digital broadcasts have some sort of copyright protection* built-into them so you can only view recorded programs on the PC or device that recorded them in the first place so now I can’t play them on my office PC. 
I used to do this all the time to catch up on the shows I’d missed during the week while other family members watched their programs on the plasma in the loungeroom using the Media Centre PC or Foxtel box.
If anyone knows a way around this please let me know.
I’ll be interested to see how the new Linksys Media Centre Extenders go in this regard too.
*Update: It seems it’s not copyright protection causing me problems playing over a network but some kind of decoder issue. See the solution in the XPMediaCentre forums.
This still has not occured and I am a Optus (Foxtel Digital) IQ Subscriber – do you know how long it will be till it is implemented?
Hi Tim,
It’s been working on my Foxtel IQ for a couple of weeks now. Optus must be different I guess.
Have a look at Tversity @ http://www.tversity.com for a product that is FREE , i just great for streaming anything from your pc to another pc, ps3,xbox360 .
Worth a look.
have fun
Rufus
Thanks Rufus. That looks very interesting. It appears to be a more advanced type of media server application that multimedia players can detect on the network and then sort the content much more intelligently as well as being able to stream content such as youtube and Internet radio stations that many players previously couldn’t do.
I might have to have a play with that I think.
Cheers!
Have checked the tversity softare it is exactly what I have been looking for my home network to browse my mp3 and other files on my PSP or on the tv.
Thanks Rufus