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New HDTV Encryption Obsoletes Sets
Brian Weatherhead writes "I wrote an article, detailing the MPAA's control over your HDTV. Their new standards will make any HDTV bought before 2002 obsolete!
Consumers will be upset to say the least." Talks
about the different formats for video signals, and
copy protection methods for those signals. And yes,
if this goes down, anyone with an HDTV without DVI input
could very well be watching 480p signals when HDTV
standardizes. Fortunately at the rate this stuff has
been happening, those TVs will long since have died.
But one thing is for sure- with the DMCA, and these
new video formats, PVRs could become a thing of the
past.
It doesn't even have to be viewable to be recordable. Anyone with a DirecTV Tivo is doing everything necessary today to work with an encrypted or compressed video stream. The DirecTivo boxes take the unadulterated downlink signal right off the receiver and spew it onto the hard drive. It's only decoded during playback.
It's a no-brainer to record the HDTV signal, regardless of its format, and save all the bits, and then stream them out later in time shifted form to the HDTV receiver.
Of course, all the encryption scheme would have to have is some sort of time based encoding synced with the TV's clock to render time shifted playback impossible, but how smart have the industry protocol designers been so far?
Oops! They're reading this post! We're doomed now.
(And of course, it presupposes that people can set the clocks on their TVs. Given the number of flashing "12:00" displays on the world's VCRs, this doesn't seem likely...)
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
No.. this is not correct.
The first example of this threat is satellite TV. DirecTV. Almost all HDTV decoders today also do DirecTV. These boxes carry a warning saying they can down-res the signal if the copyright holders choose. So, when DVI is set as the standard, they tell HBO & DirecTV, and they flip the switch. After that, my HBO-HD is no longer 1080i, it is now 480p.
Broadcast TV is another matter. I think that broadcast TV will not be effected by this. But, given the history of this stuff, I am not willing to assume that.
DIVX was cleanly destroyed by a concerted early-adopter-consumer effort which led to a total lack of support for the format. I remember the rather quick decline amongst million dollar ads that was due to nothing more than those "in the know" informing Joe Q Public; "DIVX? Don't buy that, it's worhtless." I don't see why that couldn't happen here. Make a big stink beforehand; you'll never buy a set that supports this. It's worthless and forces the user to follow corporate mandates. Then make sure you tell anyone who'll listen. No money-hungry corporation will be able to resist for long; one or more will break ranks and offer non-DVI devices that (hopefully) will sell like hotcakes while the DVI boxes rot on the shelves.
"The electronics industry kept this secret under wraps as long as they could. "
If this is the case, wouldn't consumers be able to file a class action lawsuit? They should, and it should cost all involved dearly. Possibly, it should even be severe enough that the government should dissallow the use of encryption by the broadcasters.
At the rate this is going, I think people may need to consider government oversight of the mpaa, and to a limited extent, the studios. Although that goes against many capitolistic ideals, these groups seem to embrace every thing bad about capitolism. It sure wouldn't hurt the quality of media -- tv sucks so bad, I'm surprise people aren't embarrased to be in the industry, The stupidity most programs amazing. Very few movies are worth the price of gas to get to a theater, and most musicians are less creative than a person making $10 an hour on an assembly line.
Another option would be to do it the right way -- independant artists selling their wares via the net. Remove the current media houses from the process entirely. This will allow the true artists to not get lost in the shadows of mass marketted corporate garbage we are currently exposed to.