HBO on Zune

In the “old” days we used to be able to get HBO on channel 14, an analog channel, if you paid for HBO in the digital channel section. We do have HBO, channels 320 – 333. However, quite some time ago channel 14 stopped working on the analog TVs in the house. It said that if you still wanted HBO you should contact Time Warner and upgrade to a digital receiver (necessary to receive any channels above 99 anyway).

I tell you this story because Media Center shows HBO on channel 14 through my Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 TV tuner card. Cool!

Well, not cool. I recorded a couple of movies on HBO this way. When I went to play them in Media Player it claimed I do not have the proper rights to play, copy or sync the movies. Oops! I double checked Media Center, not Media Player, and sure enough it would play the movies. I tried playing the movies in the Zune desktop software and it gave the same message about not having the rights to play or sync the movie.

I checked the “guide” that Hauppauge sets you up with (really just a web site) and it did not list channel 14 like Media Center does, so I manually recorded a movie with the WinTV Scheduler.

I will update you when I get the results of that recording. I already know I am in for trouble as the WinTV software does not record shows in a format compatible with the Zune. I will have to dig out some conversion software for that.

Stay tuned.