MaximumPC 2008 06

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First,

grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has

come to a halt, email the doctor at [email protected] for advice on how to

solve your technological woes.

in CrossFire on an SLI moth-

erboard, but there is a political

reason—and as usual, politics

trumps fairness. HP’s Blackbird

PC allows two AMD cards to

run in CrossFire mode on an SLI

motherboard, but AMD has no

plans to release the drivers that

support this to the public. Still,

AMD is making special drivers

for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and

Alienware that will allow the

companies to run CrossFireX

cards on nForce SLI boards.

AMD says it will only do so

because those OEMs can ensure

that the drivers work properly

on nForce motherboards.

>:CF Woes

I built a PC about a year ago,

and now I’d like to add a Blu-

ray drive so I can watch mov-

ies on it. I think I am screwed

by HDCP. Is there a work-

around available that will let

me watch HD movies without

having to buy a new graph-

ics card and monitor? I am

using DVI connections, but I

understand that this is not the

same as HDCP, despite both

products being advertised as

HD-compatible. My videocard

is a Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GS

(256MB) and my monitor is an

Acer AL2423W.

—Wade Tanev

Your Gigabyte card is indeed

“HD compatible,” but that

doesn’t mean it will play

copy-protected Blu-ray

movies because, as you’ve

guessed, it’s not HDCP com-

patible. The same goes for

your monitor. HDCP is a

digital-rights-management

scheme that requires a digital

handshake at every stage

of playback, from the disc

to the videocard, and from

the videocard to the display.

Fortunately, there’s an easy

fix. It’s not free, but it’s much

cheaper than replacing your

videocard and your display.

Buy SlySoft’s AnyDVD (49

euros) and AnyDVD HD

Option (30 euros). Install this

software on your PC and

you’ll be able to play back

any copy-protected DVD

or Blu-ray disc without an

HDCP-compatible videocard

or display.

You should be aware,

however, that decoding Blu-

ray video is extremely proces-

sor intensive. Your 7600 GS

will rely on the host CPU for

much of this decoding effort

(CPU utilization could range

as high as 100 percent). Newer

GPUs from both AMD (begin-

ning with the RV670 series)

and Nvidia (beginning with

the G92 series) are capable of

offloading the entire decode

process from the host CPU.

<reeing up t^e :LH

I’ve got a Comcast DVR

(Motorola DCT 6412) that’s

chock-full of content I want

to watch, but the hard drive

is filling up faster than I can

watch the programming.

The cable box has a number

of connectors, including

FireWire, Ethernet, and

USB. I’ve heard rumors that

there’s a way to download

content off of the hard drive

in the box but have not been

able to get it to work on my

Windows XP laptop (a Dell

E1705). Any ideas?

Are there any legal issues

involved? Lastly, there’s a lot

of HD content on the DVR, but

my laptop doesn’t have an HD

writer. Can something be done

to make the HD content work

when played on a laptop, or is

it just too much bandwidth for

the technology I’ve got?

—Michael Collins

The Doctor knows you can

plug a USB hard drive into a

Dish Network DVR, but he

doesn’t think Comcast has

ever activated the USB ports

(or the FireWire or Ethernet

ports either, for that matter) on

its set-top boxes. The Ethernet

port on the Dish boxes is active,

but only for downloading on-

demand movies over the cus-

tomer’s network via broadband

(you can’t transfer files to a PC

over the network).

So, in short, your content is

locked to your Comcast box. If

you want to expand your abili-

ty to transfer TV programming,

you should look to another

service, such as TiVo.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First,

grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has

fizzled, email the doctor at [email protected] for advice on how to solve

your technological woes.

I THINK I AM SCREWED BY HDCP.

IS THERE A WORKAROUND

AVAILABLE THAT WILL LET ME

WATCH HD MOVIES?

You can have all the right

connectors yet still no high-def

signal going between your

computer and your monitor.

Thanks, copy protection.

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