 | Quote: |  | | |  | Originally Posted by AMD Daddy |  | | | | | | | | | What do you mean by that? Is there something I'm missing about ATi doing something? | |  | |  | |
We can only hope its not this.
The "Broadcast Flag" is something new that will be mandatory starting April 2005. Any recording device sold after April 2005 MUST be able to recognize the broadcast flag and will refuse to record any television show that carries it. Devices which do not recognize the broadcast flag (probably everything you currently own) will still be able to record said shows without problems.
The broadcast flag is carried along with the television show in a simmilar fashion to how TV Ratings are transmitted for the V-Chip. Whether or not a show or a channel uses the broadcast flag is at the complete discretion of the show producer, studio execs, the guys that run everything. I've heard a lot of people saying that they'll only include the flag with live sports games but in actuality there's no restrictions on what can and cannot have a broadcast flag. If worse comes to worse the only thing you can use a TiVO purchased after April 2005 for is PBS and PAX.
Its "possible" that a VCR can record the broadcast flag and prevent copies being made using newer devices, while ignoring it itself but I'm not sure about that.