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Copy-Protected Digital VHS
DragonMagic writes: "BBC carries this story regarding the comeback, certain studios hope, of the video tape against the dominating sales of the DVD. Fox, Universal, Dreamworks SKG and Artisan Entertainment are releasing a series of blockbuster movies onto the format D-VHS, developed by JVC. DVHS offers High Definition TV technology and the possibility of copy prevention, and is able to play old VHS tapes as well."
sounds kind of like DAT to me.
never realy made it anywhere with the consumer, mostly due to anti-piracy measure that were built into the consumer grade units.
I think, given that DVD has been adopted so very quickly by so many people, there realy isnt to much chance of this taking over.
still it would be cool if you could record HDTV onto D-VHS and replay it at the same quality
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
They were sold at appliance stores like Sears and Best for about a year. I don't know a single person who bought one. Consumers don't like artificially feature-crippled products.
I wish the new copy-protected "CDs" were as clearly labeled as CBS's old VCR. They would surely lose in the marketplace if labelled properly...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I heard about this 3 years ago, when DVD was 1/10 what it is now, and I didn't think it would succeed then.
Let me see, even if it were not copy protected in new and interesting ways, its a tape, meaning you get the following lovely limitations:
* Minutes to Rewind and Fast Forward, certainly no useful "scene selection"
* Stretch, snap, oh dear.
* Yay, its magnetic. Degrades over time (much faster than an optical disk)
* Multiple versions of moive on one tape with seamless branching to let you watch either theatrical or directors cut.
So basically its backwards compatible with VHS.
hrm, anyone remember Philips DCC - the competitor to Sony minidisc from the early 90s. A tape format which played regular cassettes. (Basically, an inferior consumer DAT with extra copy protection and backwards compatibility).
Nope. Didn't think you would remember it!
Minidisc may not have set the world on fire (at least in the US) but its still here. People are used to the advantages of disk and solid state (flash memory) formats.
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
What a crock. Don't waste your money investing in this one - FMDs and especially FMCs from Constellation 3D are the real future.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Call it what it really is, "Usage restriction", "Usage annoyance", "Copy prevention", "Copy annoyance", anything but "Copy protection", a newspeak word brought to you by the same people who made up the word "pirate", equating someone who copies bits without authorization to someone who robs, rapes, and murders on the high seas.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
First, DVD fans shouldn't be the least bit worried.
Secondly you can find the release in full here.
This new VHS has the potential to hold up to 28Mbps (Megabits per second) of High Definition signal. This surpasses the defacto standard of 18Mbps, and that's certainly a good thing. The main difference between these tapes and DVD is that yes, even though DVD is great, it can't do high definition. It just takes up too much space. So in that regard, these D-VHS tapes have the one-up.
However, D-VHS (they're going to market it as D-Theater) will still need to be rewound. You still won't be able to have commentaries. You still won't be able to have multiple angles, seamless branching, or menus.
They will still wear out over time.
While I'm positive they will be gorgeous when they are debuted tomorrow for the press, the fact remains that tapes are tapes and by definition they disintigrate over the years.
The real question is that there have been at least half a dozen High Definition DVD formats proposed and yet no one will stand behind them. Of course JVC did invent VHS to start with and that's a good point, but this Beta-like (or 8-track like if you prefer) alternative to a digital medium already has its days numbered with very (VERY) few players, all priced just below $2000 and the fact that consumers will be confused yet again by even more techno mumbo-jumbo.
Lastly, I think the fact that even though the first few movies will be your basic blockbusters (The first two Terminators, U-571, X-Men, Independence Day, et al), I'm glad to see that Warner Bros (who coincidentally were the first to back DVD) and Columbia TriStar aren't getting in this race.
This capability would be trivial to add -- they're just mpeg files on your hard drive after all. Someone in the business will probably do it one day. Then the lawsuits will begin and it'd be tied up in court longer than any of us will be around.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My bigger concern is that I've never had any of my 300+ DVDs jam, tear, stretch, or drop out. I've had 6 that were poorly burned on manufacture and had to be exchanged. I sure can't say the same for my VHS and SVHS tapes.
"But it's digital", some might say. Digital tapes are still subject to the problems. When I consider the number of bad DLT and 8mm tapes I've encountered over the past few years, there is no way I'd ever consider buying a movie on tape again.
As to handling HD formats, I'll just wait for next-gen DVD to deal with that. As the cheapest HDTV I've seen that is "good enough" to justify the upgrade is about $4000 beyond what I'm willing to pay, it'll be a while before it concerns me at all.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This is a good thing for a few reasons and bad for a few more.
1. Don't panic about the copy protection stuff, DVD has copy protection too ya know (barely). People are starting to find out macrovision and are starting to get very pissed off at copy protection once they run into it. They find out that they can't run their DVD player into their shitty TV through their VCR because the VCR is crippled and macrovision kicks in. Needless to say they aren't happy campers.
2. This is NOT aimed at regular consumers right now. People already don't like having to buy DVD players to get something new, they would shit a brick if they had to buy a new $2000 or even $200 machine just to play movies after they just got their nice new POS $75 Apex so no one will accept it.
3. Think DAT. No one uses it to distribute music but it does still have a lot of uses. Have you ever seen true 1080i HDTV? Probably not. It looks incredible. It blows everything away. Grainless, perfectly smooth, HDTV that was 1080i the whole way through (not upconverted) is an experience that you won't forget. HDTV doesn't really have any standard way of being transported. There needs to be something there, even if it isn't going to be distributed to the masses. Distribution is a the biggest problem for HDTV right now. People want it but no one will give it to them, except HBO and Showtime off of DirectTV and Dish Network.
3. Video production work will get a giant kick out of this, and thus it will be easier to get actual HD broadcasts.
4. Movie theatres could use this it is in such high resolution, cameras could tape to it for local TV stations, it will be adopted, but not by consumers that is for sure.
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Red hot poker up the rump for the rest of us...
I do like the idea of DVHS, but the sole problem is this: If the tape is damaged (all tape media has a tendacy to stretch with every play, and can sometimes be damaged by drops or heat), which in digital as opposed to analog, can render the tape completely unplayable... Analog would show it as a momentary video glitch, nothing worse than that...
Of course that allows the movie industry a shot at something they really can't do with DVD: Planned obsolescence... DVDs don't degrade as easily over the years as DVHS obviously will, and their plans for copy protection naturally means that the majority of buyers will come back time and time again to buy a fresh copy...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
This format is currently very limited. They have built-in copy protection to limit what you can record and make copies of.
But, it is also not possible to record most HD material with these VCR's today. It can only record via the copy protected firewire port. But, none of currently available set top boxes have firewire output. They only have component video output.
Also, because of the copy protection, it's not clear if they will 'allow' you to copy channels like HBO-HD, or other 'premium' content.
These issues need to be resolved before this technology is going anywhere.
Almost three years ago I bought this D-VHS recorder/sattillite reciever. We only got one D-VHS tape with it (it felt much higher quality than a standard VHS tape or even a S-VHS tape), and I quickly filled it up Southpark episodes (it was good at the time). Since the tape records the exact MPEG2 bitstream (or so it claims) going into the receiver, the picture quality on the tape was identical to what we saw. This also meant, however that when the sattilite lost its signal (due to tree branches blowing into the dish's line-of-sight), you would get the same annoying picture dropout (which is of course, expected). If it wasn't for me being able to get this for dirt cheap, I never would have bought it, but nevertheless I get a really good quality VCR with it.
Basically, my point is this is nothing new. It costs significantly less than a DVD burner, offers just as good picture quality (as long as your material is high quality), and allows you to have near-perfect digital duplicates of your source. If only the SCMS didn't hinder it's abilites, I think this would have been a good in-between step for people who want high-quaility copies without shelling out DVD-burner cash.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.