Seriously, being the tech nut that I am and having LCD and Plasma prices
comming down I figured 2008 would be the year to update my current home
theater and Media PC (which is myth / linux) to something all HD / Digital. I
replicated most everything I had with the old media center that works almost
flawlessly.

With all the talk about HDMI / HDCP I carefully planned out my purchases
making sure everything was HDCP compliant / ready. The system is as follows;

Receiver: Denon AVR-4308CI (HDCP Compliant)
Monitor/TV: Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR4 (HDCP Compliant)
Media PC Components;
Motherboard: ASUS P5E-VM HDMI (HDCP Compliant)
Graphics Card: eVGA eNforce 8800 GTS 640 MB (HDCP Compliant) Running Nvidia
Forceware Version: 169.25 Release Date: December 20, 2007
DVD Drive: LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray / HD-DVD Combo
Audio: Onboard Realtek ALC883 HD Audio
TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit

It's hooked up as follows the TV is located at the front of a room. from the
TV I have one 30 foot long HDMI cable, buried in a wall, running to a closet
where all the media equiptment is stored. The 30' HDMI cable connects the TV
to the receiver. Into the receiver I have My media PC graphics card connected
to TV IN connector via a DVI to HDMI cable. For the Audio connection I run
Coax HD Audio out from the Media PC to the Coax TV Audio IN on the receiver.
Connected to my Media PC is the Scientific Atlanta 4240 HDC via the Coax IN
on the Hauppauge Card. Since this is all digital and all HDCP compliant the
hookup seems pretty straight forward this should work, but the sad fact is
nothing works...

I try to watch TV via WIndows Media center all I see on the screen is a big
box Stating my monitor is not HDCP compliant and that I should use a
component video cable to display the video. I try to play a blu-ray dvd using
Power DVD Ultra all I get is an error stating that my monitor is not HDCP
compliant and that I should use a component connection as well. Same thing
when trying to run an HD-DVD.

So to try and figure out what is going wrong here I call the cable Company
they tell me it's Hauppauges' or Sonys' fault I can't watch TV, so I e-mail
Hauppauge they tell me it's Microsofts' fault I can't watch TV. I have yet to
hear back from Sony... I Send off an e-mail to Cyberlink they tell me it's
Microsofts' fault I can't watch a Blu-Ray Disc or HD-DVD. I am posting this
here to possibly get some help on this issue from microsoft.

As I see it the issue is this; My TV is HDCP Compliant but the OS does not
see it that way since Televisions don't normally come with drivers. Is it not
then Microsofts responsibility to provide HDCP drivers for televisions if
they are going to enforce HDCP so strictly in their OS/Media center
application? This seems to be the only way I can see to get this to work,
because running a 30' component out cable across the room is just not an
option.

After reading numerious posts on the internet about how many others are
seeing the same results as I am. The only conclusion I can come to is that
yes Microsoft has essentially Killed the Media PC because their
implementation of HDCP does NOT work. If it did I would be watching a movie
and not posting this here...