Dave’s Rants

Well for Christmas my brother got an XBox. I knew this and being the kind guy I am decided to get him a DVD Playback kit for the XBox. All sounds good right. Well the XBox worked fantastically and he was having great fun playing Halo! Anyway we decided to take a break and have a look at some of our DVDs. Anyway so I popped in The Matrix as I decided that ‘The Lobby Scene’ would be a good test of the thing!! So I loaded up the DVD (so far so good) and then the colour started to act up. It kept on going form dark to light! Totally unwatchable. I did a bit of research and after looking at a couple of forums figured out that we were having problems because of the built in Macrovision on some DVDs.

So I checked all my DVDs and some of them worked fine on the XBox but the vast majority and ALL with the Macrovision logo experienced the fault with the colour going from Dark to Light and back again. So I reached the conclusion that the only way around the problem was to route the signal from the XBox directly to the TV and make sure not to go through a video player on the way, but this presented me with a little problem! My TV has the video built in so I couldn’t see much way around it!

Anyway I decided to give MS tech support a ring. They were operating on Christmas Day which was impressive. I rang the local number and was routed through to somewhere in the UK. I spoke to the tech support guy who said it was definitely the Macrovision problem.

So where does this leave me. I asked the tech support guy would I be able to get a refund for the DVD playback and he said it was up to the retailer. Now I know that under the Sales of goods acts in this country the goods didn’t do what they were supposed to do so I was more than entitled to a refund on the DVD remote accessories, but to be honest I wanted to playback DVDs so money back isn’t much good to me! Now since I could claim that DVD playback was a factor in getting the XBox I suppose I could get a FULL refund, but again that’s not what I want, I want an XBox that can play DVDs and games!!!

So after a bit of searching I appear to be left with only one option - get a modchip. Now to anyone who says that modchips aren’t useful for anything except priacy here is a perfectly valid reason. Now I know I’ll probably be breaking the DMCA or something by installing a modchip to beat the macrovision but since Microsoft are in breach of their part of the contract I’m more than entitled to bend the rules at my end a bit!!

The tech support guy asked would I use a different TV, well to be honest I don’t have one that I can use and that’s far from an acceptable solution. Maybe Microsoft want to buy me a new TV and video and have them seperate and then I’ll be able to use the XBox as intended! I’ll even give them the old one!

Now this yet again proves how things like copy protection always end up screwing around with people who only wanted to use things legitimately. It’s not fair!! If there was no Macrovision I wouldn’t have any problem! I’m being forced to use a ModChip now, unless someone knows some way around it. They guy on tech support certainly didn’t.

What are my avenues of complaint??? Well I’m planning on getting their ads changed to begin with. I’m sure the Advertising Standards Authority [http://www.asai.ie/] would look favourably on my compaint. The XBox Ireland website [http://www.xbox.com/ie] says -

The Xbox DVD Movie Playback Kit is a quick way to expand the functionality of the best gaming machine around! Xbox requires this kit to enable DVD movie playback. Simply plug in the infrared receiver to a controller port and use the remote control designed for DVD movie playback. No messy cables or confusing game controllers to deal with!
Anticipated Street Price: €29.99

Now I don’t even need to point the flaws out in that when applied to my situation, lets just say at a minimum they’ll be adding some small print at the end of the ad.

This of course is whats going to be more and more instore for people if things like copy protection on CDs comes in! Legitimate people will be criminalised!

All I want is an XBox that does what it should. Is that too much to ask? If anyone from MS is reading you’d better help me!!

I got an iPod for Christmas myself that worked perfectly and did exactly what it was supposed to. Apple 1 - MS 0

Happy Christmas though! Despite my ranting I’m still having a great day and am absolutely stuffed from all the food I’ve eaten!

Posted To My Blog & Boards.ie