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Digital TV Restrictions Coming Soon
Kagato writes: "CNN reports here that Sony and WB have come to an agreements for Digital Content Control via cable. Even worse, Fox and Disney are making the rounds to get Content Control into over-the-air broadcasts. "...a controversial notion, since over-the-air is, by its literal definition, free and clear." It should be noted 80% of US households use cable/DBS." So when AOL/Time-Warner says you can record a show, you can. I'm sure we can all be happy with that much freedom.
The stations don't have more bandwidth, we're just using compression to utilize the bandwidth more efficiently.
See Cringley's PBS article, Bandwidth Squeeze, for more info - such as how Japanese's HDTV standard uses 20MHz of bandwidth because the signal is not compressed(at least as of 98, when the article was written)
At least here in sweden, one selling point has become that the player is region-free, i.e. that it it ignores the region coding, or can be set to whatever region you please. At first players needed to be modded, but today all but a few name brand players usually come region-free out of the box.
With consumers becoming used to the idea of buying copyright-avoiding technology, and manufacturers seeing there is a very large market for it, I'd expect tv-sets and VCRs that ignore this as well.
Remember, most manufacturers are not content providers, and has little incentive not to do this, especially with competitors taking market share with their products.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Analog stations will stop broadcasting in a few years. Their signals are being taken away and replaced with HDTV signals. All othse with analog signals will need to get a converter, which can handle the conversion. It really, sucks. The TV stations get 4-6 times the amount of bandwidth (for free no less, those signals could easily raise a couple billion) and all they've been able to figure out with what to do with them is broadcast 4 channels instead of one. No interaction, no HDTV, just 4 channels instead of one. Really great. But anyway, everyone will be force to upgrade to digitial whether they want to or not. Digitial Cable, Digitial Signal Receivers for Analog TVs, and Digitial TVs. There is now way around it, since the FCC has said to make it so. Analog TVs are on the way out, really really fast, before anyone gets any silly ideas like they really aren't all that bad after all.
Copy protecting TV broadcasts is like putting defecation in a safe. I just hope they don't touch PBS.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I really wonder how long it will take before we collectively (and by this, I mean, including the technophobe business types) admit that fair-use and lack of nazi-like-restrictions were probably responsible for at least SOME of the stability and complatency of the public at large during the 20th century? How much longer till people say 'the hell with it' and starting throwing around flaming beer bottles like in some other countries that contain regular, average people who are sick of their government-imposed disposition?
Honestly, if this keeps up, I really dont see how the western world can survive under its own canabilistic economically-driven laws and policies. Time/Warner, you're rich enough. Stop paying the drug addicts and bimbos millions of dollars to ply on the ignorance of mass media consumers so you can start affording your own business without having to chase pervasive fair-use-infringing legislation (oh wait, too late.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
I wonder how they'll feel about stopping recording of shows when the growing block of TiVo viewers simply refuses to watch anything they can't record. I'm certainly in that group. If I can't record it, I'm not watching it. The networks need to stop the "fast forward" button more than anything.
Umm Judge Kaplan's DeCSS decision DID eliminate fair use.
You only have "fair use" if the content owner and their "protection" racket (pun intended) allow you to have it.
That does defeat the purpose of fair use...
We need to get the DeCSS decision reversed, or else fair use WILL have been legislated and judicially ordered to be illegal.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
You just think you're kidding:
I'm just tired of it all. There's not enough good content out there on the channels for me to pay their ever-increasing prices anyways, so I settle for local antenna-based TV and a DVD collection of my favorites with no commercials. As long as it costs me as much time and trouble as this to get something for free, I'll continue to just pay up front and keep it simple.
I'm tired too, but if we keep giving them our money for content we can't fairly use, you can bet they'll keep selling it that way.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
OTOH, this may be a blessing in disguise. It shows what is really happening with the DMCA and gives a better chance to have it overturned or repealed.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In the longer run, I think their aim is primarily towards the HDTV and high-quality digital markets. HDTV is still a few years from being practical for more than a few channels, especially over standard cable networks. But perhaps offering higher quality via the digital connection may be a selling point for the cable companies, if they could get away with it. In any case, with DVDs taking over from videotapes, and services like Tivo going into the cable headend, most consumers may choose not to own analog recording technology in a few years.