Slashdot Mirror
Taiwan Joining Chinese Royalty-free Video Disk Effort
BeardStreet writes "In an attempt to stop the flow of royalties to the various DVD licensing bodies (e.g. DVD6C, MPEG-LA, etc.), 19 Taiwanese companies have come up with a royalty-free DVD format called EVD which is compatible with a similar effort going on in China, called AVD. Capacity is about 1 GB higher. Their goal is to avoid having to shell out US $15 to $20 per-player royalties. EVD/AVD players will still be able to play traditional DVD disks but will not have the official DVD logo on them, thus avoiding the licensing fees. It's a political issue as well, in that China needs to balance the flow of royalty money going out of their country, especially with DVD players falling rapidly in price."
Let's get some US and European support in on this one and take over the market! But seriously, this is a really good thing we need to support these open standards to avoid the Information Nazi's.
Later,
Phil
Way to go! - This belongs in the same ranks at the (Ogg) Vorbis Project.
If the Chinese and Taiwanese want to bypass the DVD tax then lets hope they don't mind annoying the studios as well and make their players region-free.
Can the studios detect these players and make sure their disks won't play on them? They did that super-new region coding thing a while back didn't they?
If there are patents on the DVD format and these EVD players can read DVDs, it's hard to imagine how they wouldn't infringe those patents.
OTOH, if the royalties are for a trademark license, they may be able to escape by not using the DVD logo.
It's a political issue as well, in that China needs to balance the flow of royalty money going out of their country...
You mean *true* piracy (vs. the MPAA accusations against coders) does not curb the flow of royalties enough already? Wow, these Commies are pretty crafty!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
China said it was developing a format called Advanced Versatile Disc (AVD) that would be used only in the Greater China region
This format would only be used in China. Makes sense, since there's no way they could sell these players in the US or Europe because it would infringe patents. Even if it doesn't display the logo it still decodes CSS, MPEG, AC3, all of which are patented.
They'll still get exported, from stores like Lik Sang.. but who knows, customs will probably seize them at the border.
Despite what the article says, these players will either owe royalties, or they won't be able to play the standard DVD media.
The royalties aren't for the use of the DVD trademark (well, the bulk of them, anyway). They're for the use of patents.
Now if they're really clever, they might be able to implement alternative techniques that, while producing the same results, don't use the means that the patents cover. Considering the number of DVD patents involved, this seems unlikely. (Sure, you could avoid the Macrovision and region-coding patents easily enough--don't include those "features.")
Pirated cheaper EVD/AVDs being sold around the world, making the movie industry see even more red than before.
If I were the guys who own DVD (Phillips and friends), I would demand that the fee is paid in the store, when someone buys the player.
This doesn't sound like a step towards a better movie format for everyone, this sounds like VHS/Betamax all over again.
I could be wrong though;) We'll just have to see what happens.
... the DVDCCA. And I hope it does.
If EVD is open and unlicensed then it will do one of two things, if not both: A) Expose the region coding for distribution control, or B) isolate the US (and possibly Canada) from getting any of these devices by legislating them illegal.
While we USians may not like the isolation, those who have the gold make the rules. This kind of open format will only help to spread the distribution of films made in other parts of the world, eventually hurting the DVDCCA and MPAA.
There's nothing like having inferior entertainment channels forced upon us by law and greed when we could all share and share alike the distribution method (like PAL and GSM).
After all, if it was patented, there wouldn't be any need to reverse engineer it, since the spec would be public. And it also wouldn't be covered by trade secret legislation in California.
--
E_NOSIG
My only concern would be that MPAA & Fiends would try to block this. I don't think the DMCA can touch this but would the CBTBA (something like that) if it ever gets passed do something to this? If they arn't able to make up a legal obstacle my guess is they will just put something readable only in the new format on their DVDs that will crash the new players (though could they still cal them DVDs then?). Anyone else have any ideas on what the MPAA might try to pull to kill this technology, I'm sure they're not just going to take it lying down.
I stole this Sig
Bunch of different, theoretically compatible standards - international patent law called into play, with those Damned Communists trying to avoid paying their patent fees....
:-)
You know, if they keep this shit up, they might just distract the MPAA from the Internet long enough for me to finish building my archive
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Despite what the article says, these players will either owe royalties, or they won't be able to play the standard DVD media.
Yea, they can owe all you and I wish for them to, but payments would not exactly fit into their "royalty avoidance" scheme.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I like the sounds of this, but I wonder about the legality of selling these players in the US. If the player is capable of playing DVDs, then the technology inside will necessarily involve either unlicensed or reverse-engineered decoding software. The former would be piracy/IP theft, and the latter (legitimate IMHO) would run afoul of the DMCA.
What is your Slash Rating?
I don't think this will replace DVD format, however I hope this become the replacement for VCD format. VCD has always been nice in that, a lot of DVD players support it, plus you can make VCD yourself. No region lock out. If in the future, most DVD players also support this much like they support VCD playback, this will allow consumers to be able to make their own media that plays back in standard DVD players
Is it just me, or is the industry generating too many different media formats in too short a time? I know from a profit standpoint, corporations stand to benefit from releasing newer technologies forcing customers to replace their old technology with newer. And this is to be expected - to a certain degree. It seems, at least to me, that recently the rate at which new media standards are being produced is far higher than it was a few years ago. Not too far back, VHS reigned supreme, and it has been virtually the> standard format for decades. Now DVD technology is in the process of phasing out VHS, but it seems we are bombarded with new and improved formats (like this new extra 1-Gig capacity) that won't benefit the customers to a great extent. It doesn't seem that these new EVD's are going to replace DVD's because it is not a substantial breakthrough in technology. Big deal.. an extra 30 min. of "behind the scenes" on your typical DVD movie. Is it worth introducting new media formats to simply avoid licencing fees?
free ipod? yeah.
Several industry sources confirmed that emerging EVD or AVD players will be capable of playing back both EVD/AVD disks and DVD disks.
But other industry sources in Japan acknowledged that if players bear no official DVD logo, it would be difficult for the 6C or 3C groups to go after them.
It's sad that some companies in Asia are going to get away with making their own DVD players for the sole purpose of cheating the DVD patent holders while some poor European kid who writes DeCSS so that he can play his legally purchased DVDs on Linux gets crucified to the fullest extent of the law.
GMD
watch this
Okay, now I am as much a supporter of "free as in freedom" as any other good slashbot. But while reading this story more carefully, and discussing it with some of the "regulars", I believe I have reconsidered.
All of the innovation that we have seen, from the triumph of the Wright brothers, to the soaring skyscrapers that make this country beautiful, has been due to the drive of a few precious individuals. Their motivation? Money.
Take away the royalties that protect them and urge them to develop new things, and we're back in the Dark Ages. Like it or not, intellectual property rights is the hot-button issue that sculpts the political landscape.
Where would we be without it?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
We'll never see these players in the US.
The MPAA will see to it that customs holds these at the border, and the parties hoping to receive the shipment will be tossed in the slammer.
Basically, these will be considered controlled substances like drugs and whoever's trying to get ahold of one will be treated as a narcotics dealer/user.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I wonder if this is the type of thing that could be impacted by the recent overturning of a ruling by the special federal appeals court. Apparently the U.S. Supreme Court felt that the ruling went too far by allowing competitors to make minor changes and then applying for new patents. At a minimum it could open the door for existing patent holders to delay things by filing lawsuits against the new technology on the grounds that it is similar and not sufficiently different.
"Both of those groups are prepared to stop imports of unlicensed DVD players and to bring lawsuits against companies that ship them."
Anything that plays the DVD format will still be considered as infringing on the DVD patents.
Once again, we here in the freedom loving west will be protected from having to decide if we want cheaper and better technology. After all it is much better when a group of companies work together and decide to impose a standard on the world and then charge us extra for the privilege.
Why don't people go after these companies for Anti-trust violations? When standards are used by an exclusive group of companies to impose market control at the expense of consumers, it is illegal under US law. Companies are supposed to compete with eachother, otherwise it isn't a free market.
The following movies will not be released for EVD or AVD:
Elizabeth
The Last Emperor
The Madness of King George
Get it? Royalty-free? Get it?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Emphasis mine.
Okay well that's all well and good, but are they going to be able to support CSS decryption? Seems to me that their ability to play DVD's is almost useless if they can't decrypt CSS, seeing as most discs require it. So they still end up having to pay royalties and having to enforce region encoding.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
There was a scifi book and part of the backstory was that the Chinese had crushed the US economy by basically pirating EVERYTHING and making it available on some global satellite net.
Maybe this is the beginning?
And the fact that all DVD players sold in China come bundled with Episode 2 just goes to show you the level of dedication the Chinese market brings to the consumer. They go that extra mile you just don't see in larger American stores like BestBuy.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
we already have dvd-r, dvd-ram, dvd-rw, dvd+rw... why not add a lower cost higher storage capacity alternative?
i'm against intelectuall property, but legally can they do this? if it plays dvd's, it supports the format, how can they get around not paying the royalties? sounds like the communist state is just flexing their muscles, not that there's anything wrong with communism, just the leaders!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
The MPAA will see to it that customs holds these at the border
If they try to do this the logical counter move is to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization stating the case that the Regional Settings is a deliberate and unlawful inpediment to free trade. The risk of this being declared illegal combined with suits for Punitive damages subsequently filed in the US courts is high.
MPAA will give in long before that as the down side grossly outweighs the alternative.
NB: Write your representative in the country you are in and complain about Regional Settings. Its amazing it has survived so long.
Help fight continental drift.
Well, not so much in those words, but I do like the principle of the thing. Chinese, particularly rural don't have a lot of cash to swing and eliminating Itellectual Property tax is the next logical step, as pretty much everything else has been shaved to mass produce electronics. (It's still a big deal to the PRC to keep up/improve the standard of living for their base of support (i.e. the majority of chinese who don't wear western suits and talk on cell phones). I was pretty stunned to see 5" B/W TV sets in the grocery store for $12.99 (yeah, that cheap!)
I imagine the powers that be (Hollywood lobbyists, lawyers, etc.) will push something forbidding any of these open technologies from reaching US shores (because it doesn't kowtow to their wishes, of course.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's Distraction by Bruce Sterling:
It's the year 2044, and America has gone to hell. A disenfranchised U.S. Air Force base has turned to highway robbery in order to pay the bills. Vast chunks of the population live nomadic lives fueled by cheap transportation and even cheaper computer power. Warfare has shifted from the battlefield to the global networks, and China holds the information edge over all comers. Global warming is raising sea level, which in turn is drowning coastal cities. And the U.S. government has become nearly meaningless. This is the world that Oscar Valparaiso would have been born into, if he'd actually been born instead of being grown in vitro by black market baby dealers. Oscar's bizarre genetic history (even he's not sure how much of him is actually human) hasn't prevented him from running one of the most successful senatorial races in history, getting his man elected by a whopping majority. But Oscar has put himself out of a job, since he'd only be a liability to his boss in Washington due to his problematic background. Instead, Oscar finds himself shuffled off to the Collaboratory, a Big Science pork barrel project that's run half by corruption and half by scientific breakthroughs. At first it seems to be a lose-lose proposition for Oscar, but soon he has his "krewe" whipped into shape and ready to take control of events. Now if only he can straighten out his love life and solve a worldwide crisis that no one else knows exists
DVD has always been light on capacity (and certain features could have been implemented better). In particular, one of the big advantages to DVD over VHS is being able to use multiple scriptable audio and text tracks, thus allowing you to subtitle and/or overdub for multiple languages. Not something we think of much here in the US, but in China/Taiwan, pretty much every release should have Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and if necessary whatever language it was originally recorded in. At least. The problem is even worse in Europe because with so many languages to cover, they're forced to skimp on audio and video quality, to say nothing of the bells and whistles we're accustomed to here. The "subtitle" tracks are not text but actually pictures of text to accomodate any font, but are limited to only four colors (two of which are are black and clear) and only to a certain sector of the screen. And there's no way to use post-press modifications(such as fan translations not available on the original).
Beyond that, DVD quality is way below that of HDTV (not that there's much of that yet). So, we really could use more space - a LOT more (FMDs and FMCs sounded promising). And a much more flexible format (allowing simple outside scripting and track replacement/overlays as well as modern compression algorithms and file formats like MPEG-4) with smarter options (like a real UTF-8 text track coupled to an on-disk vector-type font library, and full-color compressed RGB-alpha sprite/video overlay tracks). But even a 10% or so increase in capacity could make a big difference in much of the world.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I wouldn't really call this 'joining', Taiwan is comming up with their own incompatable (I would assume) standard from china.
Which is not very supprizing, but pretty silly given the fact that they speak the same language and the PRCs format is royalty free (or is it just royalty free for companies inside china?)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is the question! If China and others decide that they want to do this, they may not be able to import these units into the US because of the CSS. If they have CSS installed, than they must pay roylty fees since this is part of the legitimate standard. So.....The question still stands - can they import them legally into the US? If the DCMA stands, the US gov't may consider this an infringement of "reverse engineering" since they aren't paying any licensing fees!
Quite possibly they are trying to create a seperate standard for Europe or just the far east?
Now there's a pair i didn't expect to see playing together...
Nothing brings mortal enemies together like a chance to make some bucks at the expense of the evil capitalist American dogs...
GMD
watch this
Not possible to detect as the video disc is passive.
No. Each title in the DVD format contains a menu program. This menu program can call the libdvd function GetPlayerManufacturer() (I'm making up a name) and die if the player manufacturer is known to be easily moddable.
Even with a passive system, the RCE discs have some valid content for all regions. An error message for the "wrong" regions is placed first on the disc before the content for the "correct" regions.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's the player that's important, not the format. If you had the choice between a DVD drive that won't play EVDs and an EVD player that will play DVDs and is $20 cheaper, which would you buy? I thought so. WMF is a straw man. Only Microsoft is trying to get DVDs to use it.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
CSS used to be a trade secret. It is not and never was patented, and if they try to get a patent on it now there is plenty of "prior art," include deCSS itself. :-)
Then some rather intelligent youths in Europe figured out how to break the profoundly weak algorithm used to encrypt DVDs and restrict their playback (but not bit-for-bit copies, as most DVD-Rs were capable of doing back then, before the deCSS case and their wholesale redesign).
CSS isn't a secret anymore, indeed there are T-Shirts, songs, and 7 line perl scripts that can algorithmicly crack the code without any keys whatsoever.
The Taiwainese or Chinese can use any of this widely and publicly available information to make DVD playback devices capable of decrypting and playing DVDs and, I suspect, under the rules of the WTO, there is absolutely nothing the Copyright and Media Cartels can do about it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's sad that some companies in Asia are going to get away with making their own DVD players for the sole purpose of cheating the DVD patent holders while some European kid who writes DeCSS so that he can play his legally purchased DVDs on Linux gets crucified to the fullest extent of the law.
Edit mine.
Good grief, cut the crap. The reality is that these companies MAY get away with it, whereas I couldn't get a DVD player for Linux for love or money legally for a long long time.
Really, though, this is capitalism at its best, IMHO. It can be done cheaper, and in a way consumers actually want - it WILL be done.
The rest of this post I believe is informative, but this snippet is incorrect.
4 colors, yes. The author often wants clear but there's nothing magic about black and neither are required.
DVD subtitles can appear on any part of the screen. Like you said, they are achieved through a bitmapped image. This image can be sized up to the full NTSC or PAL resolution.
-Dave
The DMCA doesn't care if DeCSS is a secret or not. They can be sued by offering a device that circumvents access control measures on the DVD's. In fact, since they'd be making money from the sale, they could actually face prison terms for releasing such a system.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Though of course it all depends on how the Chinese government would view it. However I suspect that if a company has the right Communist party connections, it can manufacture for export whatever the hell it likes, especially as the current piracy situation there suggests the Chinese government coulndn't give a flying f*** about the RIAA or MPAA. They're more interested in stamping on political dissent and Falung Gung.
At the very least, the situation might resemble the current one with DVD player region coding. The makers would pay lip service to hardware copyright enforcement, but quietly make it known that it can be disabled with a jumper in order to boost sales of their hard drives which would otherwise have little to recommend them over ones made by the big, mainstream manufactures.
What, exactly, does the RIAA have to do with any of this? Other than a few DVD Audio discs (both of them) and DVD Music Videos, the honoured members of the RIAA have little or no involvement in DVDs, and almost certainly don't care what the Chinese and Taiwanese do to the format.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Hmm, now we'll have three non-DVD high-density optical media formats:
DVD+RW (and DVD+R)
AVD
EVD
Maybe I should come up with one as it seems to be all the rage.
Actually, the funny part of this are some of the same people who support DVD+RW (a non-DVD format) are now saying that the Asians should not be allowed to come up with their own competing technology as it will confuse the market!
-David
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Further correction..
Is it really that sad that some mildly rich companies in Asia are going to get away with making their own DVD players for the sole purpose of avoiding the filthy rich DVD patent holders?
Heck no! This is a great thing to see! The more countries that fight our backwards software patents, the better. You do realize that's what we're talking about, right? Software. Not optical drive mechanics or other such technology. We're talking about MPEG-2, which is locked up with so many software (ie. mathematical) patents it's disgusting.
These same bad patents could also cause problems in the future for open source software--or at least its use in the US.
Kinda ironic when it's the communists fighting for a free market solution, eh? Crazy world we live in..
If the MPAA can't stop people from buying/selling from different regions expect them to drop subtitle and multiple language support outside the US market very soon.
By ensuring only one language per DVD you'll see fewer people from the US buying Japanese and HK DVDs. You'll also see people in France no longer hopping to the UK or ordering from US online stores. Ironic since many French versions of HK and Japanese DVDs are better quality (more features/languages and better print quality) than those in the US or HK.
The MPAA members will be able to return to controlling releases among different countries and can then ensure better adherence to their price structures.
The reason this won't happen in the US is the variety of languages spoken in the US and the fact that the US market is currently the one with the most DVD titles available.
What do you mean 'contains a menu program' ?
The menus on a DVD title are written in a nearly Turing-complete programming language. ("Nearly" meaning memory is bounded.)
All these companies have to do is hack the dvd program so that it ignores the 'die' command
Impossible. Detecting an inlined version of the 'die' command reliably on a Turing-complete system will solve the halting problem, which Turing proved undecidable way back in 1936.
Likewise, they can send back any region code they want until the contents are viewable.
This still doesn't solve the problem of not being able to import the player into countries that have passed DMCA, EUCD, or other laws prohibiting such circumvention.
Will I retire or break 10K?
when can i get a royalty free burner? when can i get a component that'll play divx? when can i get blue ray capacity on an optical disk? when are white LED's gonna be put in LCD projectors lowering the price to under $100? when can i then replace every tv and crt in my house?
when are corporations going to do ANYTHING good for humanity at their own expense?
when is our government going to be run for by and of the people instead of said corporations?
my guess the answer to all of these is NEVER. because somebody somewhere would "loose" money that they had never MADE yet.
rhy
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
What would happen if their approach was to release empty hardware overseas with not DVD support whatsoever and only support for AVD? And even not support for MPEG/AC3/etc? Then they can put up a Firmware (unofficially ;-) on the net in China and people (uh... resellers) can flash the systems to enable the DVD capability?
Also, it's very very hard to produce libel (this is written) about a public figure. There are different standards of libel for public companies and figures, than private individuals.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I will buy any damn player that will play a DVD and allow me to fast forward through the damn Disney previews that they force you to watch.
They need a "Just play the f***ing movie" button on their remote controls.
As a person of Chinese descent, I observe that many Chinese, if not other Asians living in Asia, will only pay what is neccesary to obtain the material object. Reason why is because they simply don't have enough cash to pay for royalties that entertainment and technology companies want them to pay. The a lawyer in China only makes about $141. The GDP per capita in China is about $3,600. Ever since the Communist takeover in the 20th century, many Chinese have become thirfty, budget-minded consumers.
Believe me, many Chinese are hardcore bargain-hunters (Ive observed this in Hong Kong) and usually do not purchase something without getting the lowest possible price.
As a result, Chinese usually spend their money on neccessities such as food, health care products, etc...they also would like other commodities sold in the Western world, but cannot afford them. One of these much-wanted commodities is entertainment such as DVDs, software etc...Anyway, they usually buy pirated products because the legal ones typically cost 5 times more.
The Chinese and Taiwanese governments really don't care about royalty payments demanded from companies in foreign countries...simply because they want to save money. As a result, Taiwan and China rank among the largest pirated software and home video markets in the world, just below Brazil.
Software and entertainment companies should really take a look at how much the average person makes in the country they release theire products in...
If you want to blame them for making life worse for people in many ways, and making some people poorer, sure. But considering large parts of Chinas population had been living at the brink of starvation under colonial rule until the emperor was overthrown, and things hardly got better during the civil war, things were hardly in great shape before they took over either.
Also, trying to present this as something thats unique to China, as opposed to common to poor people everywhere is pretty interesting. Of course poor people will try to avoid spending money on anything but neccessities - everyone generally see avoiding starvation as more critical in their life than the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
The size of a market is not simply a function of the number of people; it's also dependent on the amount of wealth in the market.
America and Europe are huge markets, combined possibly larger than the Asian market. Or do you think a farmer in rural China will pay as much for a DVD player as some geek in the U.S. will?
America and Europe are huge markets, combined possibly larger than the Asian market. Or do you think a farmer in rural China will pay as much for a DVD player as some geek in the U.S. will?
No, and that's why the patent license fees of $15 to $20 per DVD player are so much of an issue. In fact, it's the same reason why Linux is winning in many areas.
Look at it this way:
Person A lives in Rich Market USA - pays $300 to $500 for a highend DVD player - $15 to $20 fee on top of cost to make of $50 is ok price.
Person B lives in Middle Market Taiwan - pays $100 to $150 for a nice DVD player - $15 to $20 fee starts to become a very big issue, when manufacture is $50.
Person C lives in Poor Market China - pays $85 (a lot of money there) for a DVD player - $15 to $20 is major issue, if reduced to $50 manufacture than could sell at $70 to $75 and market would expand as more could afford.
Rich Market USA reaches saturation when everyone has a DVD player.
Middle Market Taiwan still has growth if price drops further.
Poor Market China has massive growth left if price drops further.
Basic economics.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I've taken to calling them Untied Stationaries.
Chomsky has done for Economics and Political Science what Erich von Daniken has done for Archiology, Astronomy and Engineering.
Namely not a damn thing except to misinform a bunch of jelly-filled minds.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL