Capture Cards that strip CGMS-A

[Zig Fowler]

I am in the market for a capture card for use with my MCE 2005 PC. Does anyone know of a capture card that will strip the CGMS-A flag thereby creating unprotected dvr-ms files that are recorded through Media Center. I have found a way to capture with a certain program that will remain nameless. But it creates a .WMV with WMV3 video. I want these files to play on my set-top DVD player and they must be AVIs to do that. I would also settle for a program that would convert WMV3 WMVs to XVID AVIs.

[Mug Funky]

if you don't mind re-encoding, try avisynth with directshowsource to get the wmv to an xvid encoder of your choice.

i don't even know what CGMS-A is, but it sounds heavy :(

[Zig Fowler]

if you don't mind re-encoding, try avisynth with directshowsource to get the wmv to an xvid encoder of your choice.

I thought those programs could only do WMV1/2 and not WMV3. I must admit I haven't tried it though. I did find a one program solution to convert WMV3 to XVID AVI. It's called "STOIK Video Converter 2" and it is freeware. It will increase the size about 4x (I had a 1.1 GB WMV and it created a 4.7 GB AVI). The good news is that AutoGK will accept AVI as input. So I load this 4.7GB AVI and compressed it to 700 MB. Audio has to be PCM for the WMV3 to AVI conversion to work, at least on my computer. It took AutoGK 4 hours to convert AVI to AVI (I have Pentium D 3.0 Ghz, 1GB RAM), which seemed slow to me, but there were no audio sync problems or video problems. As a sidenote most of the DVDs I do take less than 1.5 hours to do.


i don't even know what CGMS-A is, but it sounds heavy :(


CGMS-A : Content Generation Management System for Analog.

It is a way for the movie channels (HBO etc) to keep MCE 2005 DVR-MS files from being converted to AVIs. They say it is to stop piracy, but all it really does is upset those of us that want to copy ten 700MB AVI movies to one DVD9 and watch them on a set-top player, preserving our original, legally purchased DVDs.

I guess it stops some "casual piracy", but how many people really pirate? Probably alot less than 1% of the general DVD buying population. They have a greater loss of revenue risk from people worldwide loaning DVDs to friends and those friends never purchasing the DVD themselves.

I'll get off my soap box. But rest assured Micro$oft, who chose to pass along the CGMS-A flag from the content providers (HBO etc), I have beaten you and I will watch my movies how I choose!!! So screw you and your tacit agreement with content protection! Long live the fighters :devil:

[The_Fugitive]

This flag is like something that's also used by CPRM ? use of minus recordable media helps in that case, your harddrive is also free from any protection mechanisms ? since you call it a flag...
then i guess the file itself is unprotected, and using the right hardware (and only minus recordables), should also make a difference, or removing the flag from the file ? flag stripper software ?

[Zig Fowler]

I don't thing my harddrive uses CPRM. But it is the same premise as CGMS-A. For CPRM the manufacturer has to enable it in the firmware, where CGMS-A is broadcast with the content and therefore is "protected", as long as the Cable provider (TimeWarner in my case), the video card, MCE 2005 recognize the flag then the content is protected on my computer in the form of a protected dvr-ms file. To my knowledge there is no way to unprotect a dvr-ms file , which seems strange given the ability of those on the net. I guess the "Microsoft Vice" has crushed too many nuts!