Yet another reason to buy an Xbox 360 this holiday season.

I, like many others, just got hit by my Vista RC1 MCE box losing the ability
to play TV. It gives the dreaded "Decoder Error" message. Once I learned that
it was doing this due to a timebomb on the decoders for the RCx's, I realized
that my Xbox 360 should be unaffected because of the way the MCX transport
works! Sure enough, I can view Live TV, previously Recorded TV, and newly
Recorded TV.

Like I said, it's just another reason to buy an Xbox 360. And of course,
Vista RTM will be nice to install once I can get my hands on it.

As the Xbox 360 is to my knowledge the only MCE Extender that works with
Vista, this trick only works with the Xbox 360 extender.

Ted Howard
Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft employee, but all views expressed here are my
own personal views. That includes any suggestion of bypassing legitimate
timebombs and it includes my shameless promotion of the Xbox 360.

It works because the 360 has its own built in decoder chip since gets only
the encoded video from the MCE system.
For your MCE RC1 system you can either back up the date or install another
MCE compatible Decoder and use the Free 3rd party Vista Decoder Utility to
change the preferred Decoder to the other Decoder.
"Ted Howard" wrote in message
...
Yet another reason to buy an Xbox 360 this holiday season.

I, like many others, just got hit by my Vista RC1 MCE box losing the
ability
to play TV. It gives the dreaded "Decoder Error" message. Once I learned
that
it was doing this due to a timebomb on the decoders for the RCx's, I
realized
that my Xbox 360 should be unaffected because of the way the MCX transport
works! Sure enough, I can view Live TV, previously Recorded TV, and newly
Recorded TV.

Like I said, it's just another reason to buy an Xbox 360. And of course,
Vista RTM will be nice to install once I can get my hands on it.

As the Xbox 360 is to my knowledge the only MCE Extender that works with
Vista, this trick only works with the Xbox 360 extender.

Ted Howard
Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft employee, but all views expressed here are my
own personal views. That includes any suggestion of bypassing legitimate
timebombs and it includes my shameless promotion of the Xbox 360.