PBDA Drivers

[mvallevand]

I read tonight that Microsoft is now announcing alliances based on Protected BDA drivers from leading manufactures including Hauppauge superseding BDA. BDA is bad enough being a Windows standard what more can they do?

I hate that word "Protected", I really think Microsoft wants to own all our media. Still I hope that this won't hurt GBPVR and the other non VMC players.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press...ormPR.mspx

Martin

[sub]

I've been aware of PBDA for a while, but I've yet to see anything that makes me worry that it'll cause problems for stuff we can currently do today. DVB and ATSC and ClearQAM etc will continue to use the existing BDA interface for the forseeable future.

PBDA is being used for CableCard, and DirectTV devices, to give a protected path all the way from broadcast reception through to the display of video. This likely means thats any CableCard or DirectTV solutions in future will only be usable in Vista/Windows7 MCE though, rather than in apps like GB-PVR etc.

Its possible we'll see regular DVB and ATSC and ClearQAM devices using PBDA, but I think its unlikely.

[bgowland]

This likely means thats any CableCard or DirectTV solutions in future will only be usable in Vista/Windows7 MCE though, rather than in apps like GB-PVR etc.

Or with apps from commercial developers that can afford to licence the technology perhaps???

Do you know if the PBDA approach will involve any hardware aspect? In other words, would it be possible for someone to develop standard BDA drivers for a card that ships with PBDA drivers or will the hardware only 'listen' to PBDA drivers?

The press release is slightly confusing on this aspect as it mentions free channels and, specifically, Hauppauge have used PBDA to "deliver the first-ever Freeview-certified TV tuner for PCs". Freeview, to those of us in the UK at least, largely refers to our standard DVB-T. :confused:

Cheers,
Brian

[sub]

Do you know if the PBDA approach will involve any hardware aspect? In other words, would it be possible for someone to develop standard BDA drivers for a card that ships with PBDA drivers or will the hardware only 'listen' to PBDA drivers?

Not enough PBDA device exist to know at this stage. I know the external ATI USB CableCard device (with PBDA drivers) encryption right from the firmware on the device. Internal PCI devices may be different though.

The press release is slightly confusing on this aspect as it mentions free channels and, specifically, Hauppauge have used PBDA to "deliver the first-ever Freeview-certified TV tuner for PCs". Freeview, to those of us in the UK at least, largely refers to our standard DVB-T. :confused:

I'm not quite sure what they were trying to get at there. It just used standard HVR2200 BDA drivers.

[mvallevand]

It was actually these comments that caused me to write the post in the first place

“Microsoft’s new digital TV software architecture, PBDA, enabled Hauppauge to deliver the first-ever Freeview-certified TV tuner for PCs,” said Ken Potkin, CEO of Hauppauge. “We look forward to 2009, when PBDA will allow us to deliver advanced digital PC-TV tuner products, including PC solutions for pay TV.”

They got his name wrong so maybe Microsoft just used the quote in their favour.

Martin

[bgowland]

I'm not quite sure what they were trying to get at there. It just used standard HVR2200 BDA drivers.

So you really never can believe what you read in the press.