Slashdot Mirror
More on the Effect of Digital TV
EyesWideOpen writes "Here is an interesting article at Wired which mentions that existing DVR devices (Tivo, ReplayTV) aren't equipped to handle the digital TV signal that broadcasters are scheduled to start delivering in 2006. Also mentioned is a proposal being considered by the FCC that would allow cable companies to 'turn off' the firewire port, which DVR's will use to connect to digital televisions, so that some broadcasts can't be recorded. The proposal is being considered no doubt in response to fears like that of MPAA head Jack Valenti who has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast because they don't want viewers to record 'perfect copies' of movies."
...can we have multibilliondollar corporations going to Congress and saying "If you don't change the rules to help us, we are going to cut ourselves off from selling our products with this new form of technology, in essence leaving ourselves in the realm of the horse-and-buggy as we enter the automobile age" ...
And actually have Congress give in!!! Remember that when the rapid advance of technology slows in the next few years.
Of course I haven't read the article (this is Slashdot for God's sake), but does this really matter? My TV isn't equipped for DTV either, but the FCC (and others) have been saying for years that I will just need a converter box to get an analog signal for my TV. Couldn't I just use that on my TiVo?
So, the "industry" would rather go out of business than risk a few people recording their content to view later.
This is a bluff to get something unreasonable from us. And it certainly isn't how a free market works. If there is a market then people will create for that market. Otherwise we are dealing with an illegal monopoly and it should be broken up.
Dissolve the MPAA it is acting as an illegal trust.
Of course my TiVo is compatible with a digital signal. All I need is my D/A converter, which I'll be using anyway.
Folks, you don't HAVE to eat what they're dishing out. Honestly, 525 scan lines and a mono speaker really is enough for me.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
There are, and always will be, tangiable benefits to being able to buy a copy, assuming they price them reasonably. If people are willing to have crappy, off-the-air (even digital) copies, with no bonus footage that comes with DVD's, then that says something about the price of DVD's, doesn't it?
And anyway, how long does it take for movies to get to broadcast anyway? 2 Years? Who waits that long?
This guy is as paranoid as those freaks who have bomb shelters and 2 years of rations in their basements.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Janis Ian's article yesterday summed it up pretty well:
"They can fight with compelling value--whether it's built in videos, computer games, free tickets, unique passwords to go download bonus tracks, demo tracks and dance mixes...karaoke tracks for each song, alternate vocal takes... Who could, or would, want to spend the time reproducing all that via downloading?"
So I have a perfect copy of a movie... so what. If the DVD contains 30 minutes more footage and/or full length commentary, then there is a reason to go buy it instead of ripping it with a Tivo.
-Tom
Two words: Planned obsolescence.
Just like cellphones with games designed to wear out the keypads so you have to get new ones.
If my cable company renders my Tivo usless, I will no longer have any use for thier service and I will cancel. Sure I loose the cost of my TiVo, but it would only take about 6 months of not having to pay a cable bill to recover the cost of my TiVo.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
If they price the DVDs competitively, people will buy the DVD.
:)
And in many cases, people will even buy extra DVD players JUST to play those DVDs. I've got three DVD sets from Britain of US TV shows that simply haven't been released here, so I had to buy an Apex. Very annoying.
But I could have just copied them from the TiVo -- hell, I probably could have extracted the actual streams and burned them to DVD myself. But I'd rather just get the offical set. It's easier, and has nicer menus.
the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast because they don't want viewers to record 'perfect copies' of movies.
Well they already have a measure in place to prevent this in the analog world that would work just fine when everything goes digital. The version of the movie that they release to the TV stations is of very poor quality; it is downsampled so as to seem fuzzy and crappy. Not only that, but the good swearwords are covered up and the blood is cut out. These are by no means 'perfect copies' of the movies.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
and the rest of him, too. Sounds to me like he reeeeeally needs a Moe-Howard-style bitchslapping.
He Just Doesn't Get It.
Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast.
Fine with me, Jack. Don't play your movies on TV, see if I care.
Edith Keeler Must Die
If they don't want to broadcast their movies, fine! let them do it. Let's see them come back squirming later on. We can always find other sources of movies.
I mean, "fullscreen" movies on most cable outlets have a significant part of the original widescreen image lopped off. Isn't that imperfect enough for Jack Valenti? How about if he takes the sound down to simple mono and superimposes a silhouette of himself at the bottom of the screen, delivering meant-to-be-funny lines about the movie MST3K-style? Is that bad enough? Or does he need the cable company to agree on subpar cabling, too, so I get some ghosting?
So I buy a TiVO because I really, really don't want to miss your programming but you scheduled "Cheers III: the redemption of Cliff" at 1 AM while I'm at work. You, in response to this infamous behavior on my part, hack my machine so I can't see it? Way to twist your head up your *ssh*le. What industry thinks that way?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I'd buy an HDTV Tivo setup RIGHT NOW. But, the market isn't there for them so they aren't making them yet. When it's time, they will. Scientific Atlanta has an HD cable box with PVR, the 8000.
It's suddenly become popular to pick on HDTV lately.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
And don't forget, on TV broadcasts of movies(or so it seems), they put in scenes you haven't seen before(which is typically filler, nothing meaningful to the plot) and butcher out other scenes.
I was watching Blue Thunder and saw a mishmash of things. The scene early in the movie of the nude woman stretched out was replaced with a woman clothed, stretching out.
Then there was at least 30 seconds of Murphy's wife making dinner(and a cat jumping around) that I haven't ever seen in my VHS copy of it. Strange. And don't get me started on the poor quality of the overdubbing of cuss words(apparently "fart" is a bad word now).
First, is it possible for HBO et al. to broadcast Macrovision copy protection on their signal so that one cannot record such broadcasts? I know TiVo honors copy protection (on video tapes primarily) so I wondered.
My actual question, along a similar avenue, is whether the general public would repond in anger or in apathy to any real implentation of copy protection. Macrovision can be filtered out (but the copy of a VHS tape may not be worth the trouble) and CD copy protection hasn't caught on enough to trip up the masses. But what if copy protection just started appearing without warning, like that HBO scenario?
What is going to happen when the RIAA and the MPAA finally purchase the right representatives and get all of these laws and practices changed in their favor? Will people simply not watch some programs since they can't record them? Will there be an uprising after people are effected by all of this nerdy stuff they read about on the internet for so long? Will people simply go with the flow and accept the reductions in freedoms?
For every form of copy protection I've ever seen (dongled software, MS keys, macrovision, DAT copy bits, exploding paper, etc) there always seems to be a workaround to circumvent the protection and allow the copy... if that becomes impossible (it might at some point, they could get lucky) what will the public at large do?
I have to admit, I would almost (ALMOST) like to see all of these protections get implemented just to see what happens.
Unfortunately, I think the public at large will be angered, and they might even lament their inaction as it was all unfolding (that would be now), but they will feel and be powerless to make any changes. They will still patronize RIAA and MPAA properties and in time people will forget that we used to be able to tape movies to watch later.
Alternate scenarios encouraged...
They could just *force* the cable companies to watermark the movies that they do play on their digital airwaves. That way, they would not be "perfect" copies.
But Nooooo.... use legislation, not technology to make sure the profits keep coming in...
Apparently Jack Valenti hasn't watched a movie on TV recently. They're 33% commercial with half the interesting scenes cut out to accommodate and all the swear words overdubbed by people who sound nothing like the original actor. Perhaps he's more worried that people will be expecting a 99-cent flurry long after the promotion is over...
"Any one of you DARN GOOFS move and I'll execute every GOSH DARN last one of you!"
Go ahead. quit offering your movies for broadcast. Hey, while you're at it, quit offering them up for rental, as they can be copied there too. Better not sell them either.
:)
And gosh darn it, people are making illegal copies of your movies while they're still in the theatre, better quit having movies shown in theatres. Can't risk having anyone steal your precious products.
Oh, btw, you now make NO money, but at least you're secure in the fact that nobody has made a perfect copy of your movie. Must be a great relief huh?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
...because they can't wait to auction off the UHF TV spectrum that DTV is supposed to free up.
Sadly, this puts the RIAA and broadcasters (media providers of all sorts) in a strong position. If they don't get their way on this Firewire port-disabling, broadcast don't-copy-me-flag or whatever nonsense it is this week, they won't release the product. No product, no consumers. (Given the very weak sales of high-priced DTV equipment, it seems that consumers are perfectly happy with the 1954(!)-era NTSC 525-line colour standard.)
I think the industry can basically tell Congress, 'Mandate these features or we won't release media'. Without the media, no manufacturer would dare release hardware. If no one buys the new hardware (due to the lack of media), how could Congress release the old UHF spectrum to auction it off?
It just seems like DTV has been in turmoil from day one. I remember hearing of multiple competing formats in the late 80s and promises of a decision and some technology by the early 90s. Looks like that never happened...
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
One of the neater talks from DefCon (I just got back) was the GNU folks talking about doing RF decoding entirely in software.
Now, on its face, this sounds boring, until you realize that they can make a TV, HDTV, Cell Phone, radio, HAM, and CB transciever entirely in software. Once decoding is in software, we can choose whether to obey the broadcast flags or not. I suspect that this whole broadcast flag thing won't last that long if the GNU folks get that project really working well.
Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast.
:-)
Is Jack Valenti trying to say that people actually watch movies on television anymore?
If you need any more proof that the man's certifiably insane, there it is.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
"Jack Valenti [...] has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast because they don't want viewers to record 'perfect copies' of movies."
Alright, so you're saying that if you don't deny digital recording of digital television, you won't sell your product to TV broadcasters. So you're getting less money from fewer sales to broadcasters and you're also getting less money from people who might have bought a real copy if they were exposed to your movie via TV. All in all the consumer gets to keep more of their spending cash, or at least buy other things while MPAA sales dwindle.
Does anybody not see this as the MPAA shooting itself in the foot? Broadcasters only buy movies to fill up time slots they don't bother to try to fill with their own programming and only tend to buy movies (instead of airing more reruns) so they can compete with all the other broadcasters showing movies. Yank the movies out of the equation, you have a poorer MPAA while the broadcasters just fill the time slots with more reruns. Wah.
Of course, the MPAA doesn't give a rat's ass about customers, they (like all other corporations, by definition) care only about the investors. If they weren't so damned worried about appearing profitable to Wall Street, they'd be all for letting customers make their own perfect digital copies.
the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast because they don't want viewers to record 'perfect copies' of movies."
Perfect copies ? You mean, the blurry pan-and-scanned content-edited time-edited verions they show on cable ? Good lord.
DZM
The reason: Digital signals create perfect copies that won't degrade. Executives fear they would deliver perfect copies to millions of viewers.
Ummm. I disagree with Mr. Valenti in that I don't think a lot of consumers would really care whether their copy of the movie (be it video tape or digital) is absolutely perfect or not. True I don't know Jack (okay really bad pun:) but frankly I don't see people building giant archives of digital movie and depriving studios of their rental revenues and I don't think he thinks that is going to happen either. I mean the VCR has been around for decades and it hasn't hurt anyone and cutting out the commercials you can get a movie just as good as on cassette. The only possible thing easily facilitated copying of movie s from the TV without commercials might possibly hurt is the movie sales. However in that case most of them are new releases which arn't on TV for a few years anyways and even then they will all be on DVDs by the time this is relevant in which case you have all these special features which cannot be taped on TV.
I'm pretty sure is this is just another (paranoid?) attempt to get a little more control over the media with the hope that you could squeeze a little more cash out of the cnosumer and hopefully one that is destined to fail. I hope it seems as bizarre to the rest of the world as it does to me in that you are losing control your TV and you can't choose what to watch on your own terms. If they continue these shinadigans (okay I know misspelt that) I think the general public might be approaching the point where they starts percieving these so called "prirates" who are copying media and watching region encryped DVDs as Robin Hoods (there seems to have been that perception here for a while). I'm not sure how anxious I am to reach that point but when we finally do (and we are well on course) it will be interesting to see who ends up on top.
I stole this Sig
If a movie is good, it's cheaper to buy a dvd than to pay for Pay Per View. At least you can watch it whenever you please and you can pause it to go to the loo.
The only time I watch movies on cable is when I have nothing better to do. I have yet to purchase one on Pay Per View but I will rent a DVD that I've seen before if the movie was good, even if it's free on TV, at least nothing is cut out and it has no poor editing such as changing words to meet the TV audience.
I have moderator points and I'm not using them go figure.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Right now, we can watch as much TV as we want, with little or no restrictions. If the Valenti types can turn it (and the Internet) into the "pay-per-use vending machine" that they want so bad, I wonder if people will watch nearly as much TV as they do now.
I remember once seeing a ST:TNG episode where Data remarked that TV had fallen by the wayside somewhere in the 21st century. Naaah, I thought (and still do), that's never going to happen. But, if watching TV becomes too financially costly, or too restrictive (Mr. Valenti: viewers can and do get insulted), I do expect people to do what's in their best interests. Maybe that will mean that we find other ways to entertain ourselves and watch TV less. I think that would be a Good Thing(tm).
Of course, this assumes that those who provide content (as if we were mindless zombies who couldn't decide what to eat for dinner if they didn't tell us...oh, never mind), if they are so monumentally stupid as to make TV that restrictive that droves of viewers turned it off. I would rather expect that they are looking for a "pain equilibrium point" where the restrictiveness and costliness boosts their profits to just below most people's breaking point. I sincerely don't believe that they want millions of people screaming "No more!" as that would cut into profits, but I don't for a second believe that there is anything other than that concern. So, expect watching (or recording, etc.) TV to become more painful. The question is, where is your breaking point?
Unfortunately here in the states we have the ever popular DMCA to prevent anyone from LEGALLY turning the firewire port back on or preventing our boxes from turning it off in the first place.
Just because you OWN a box doesn't mean you are allowed to do what you want with it.
Next thing you know you won't legally be allowed to look under the hood of your automobile. You'll have to take it back to the manufacturer (at a 1000% markup) for simple maintenance or repair.
General purpose computers that you could program, upgrade, tinker with, will be replaced with glorified Xboxes, and PS3's. Sealed boxes, just because you bought it doesn't mean you should be allowed to actually USE/Modify it the way you want. You might interfere with some multinational's business model......
*Sigh*
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Perhaps instead of getting 350 restricted channels, I'll just start paying my $100/month for 10 commercial free, high quality stations that allow me to record.
Eventually the industry will make its product so crappy some newcomers will come in and take over. Adapt or step out of the way. Otherwise, you'll get trounced eventually.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Right. So let me get this straight.
The MPAA says they may not be able to show edited, commercial-ridden movies over the airwaves. Where's the problem?
that every channel now has 1/10 of the screen taken up by their stupid corporate logo? My favorite is TNN. I love watching a compressed version of the movie while useless shit constantly scrolls along the bottom and distracts me from the show. Just how long is it going be the "new TNN" anyway? That dam logo has said that for like 3 years now.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
This is such a staggeringly stupid thing to say, it occurs to me to wonder if we're not being misdirected.
Could it be that Mr. Valenti isn't trying to sabotage the people pirating movies, but instead going after the root cause of the decline of old-fashioned hollywood power: the television itself?
If we come to a day where (due to alleged concerns about piracy) the gullible public will accept that the studios have a legitimate reason NOT to release their films on DVD, then aren't we back in a pre-VCR era where to see a movie in it's full glory you actually have to go to a THEATER? Suddenly re-releases come back as a valid market-milking strategy, theater revenues/values climb and the only way you get to see a film EVER is by paying them the ticket price EVERY TIME YOU WATCH IT?
Granted, it sounds pretty damn stupid to me too, but this is the same industry that thinks they make more money by selling $8 tickets and $6 popcorn, and then can't figure out why people would rather sit at home, eat (nearly) free popcorn and pay a $4 rental fee no matter how many people watch it.
-Styopa
Digital TV will only be available in the US by 2006!? Almost every cable company offers digital TV here in Canada, and it's not too much more expensive that regular cable (the difference being the cost of the set-top box).
These are not the same thing. Your refering to Digital Cable - a digital way to multiplex analog TV signals to gaurentee clearity while allowing the Cable company (Rogers, Cogeco) stuff more channels down the pipe (and compete w/ satellite). That set-top box converts that channel you select back to analog (which is why you cant use the tuner on the TV
Digialt TV means all channels are NOT digital versions of analog content. It is fully DIGITAL content, encoded in some format (MPEG-7?) and decoded by YOUR TV. This means you can record the digital stream on to a HD (technology permitting).
I hope nobody with a photographic memory gets to go to the movies, then. They'd only ever have to see a movie once, thus depriving the hard-working movie industry of any repeat business, which, as we all know, is equivalent to not only stealing, but ROBBING, RAPING, AND MURDERING PEOPLE ON THE HIGH SEAS!!
Now we know where whirlpools come from: Blackbeard spinning in his watery grave fast enough to create a new subduction zone.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I also don't feel like paying $5000 for an HDTV-ready Tivo. And I doubt Tivo wants to spend the $$ on technology noone wants. Or can agree to. or understand. or....
But you didn't understand MY point either. Who cares about digital? Just turn that digital signal into analog and record THAT. If I can see it, I can record it.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
just a nit pick, Senators are 2 per state, Congressmen are based upon population...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"Perfect copies" - spare me.
... well I'll let you guess what it looks like)
Here in the UK we can get Digital TV over the airwaves, by satellite or over Cable, and ALL of them have terrible picture quality (funnily enough the adverts are the only parts that they seem to pre-compress and spend some time and effort doing properly), because the broadcasters MPEG encode on the fly, and try to get a much higher compression ratio than their hardware will allow. This is most obvious with live TV (news and sport especially, and when the news footage was already compressed to come over the satellite, then expanded and re-compressed
Digital TV is nearly unwatchable at times - when the picture isn't breaking up and freezing then the MPEG artefacts and the blurred textures render stuff unwatchable. Go to a TV shop, and get them to show you BBC1 on analog and on digital on 2 adjacent TV's and you'll never want digital TV.
My wife runs a DVD mastering studio, and she just kills herself laughing at the picture quality over Sky etc.
--
T
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Will DVDs even exist in 2006?
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
Except for the caevat that the cutoff date is extended indefinitely, until at least 80% of households can receive the digital signal. In the meantime, starting quite soon all [at least primetime] broadcasts are sppposed to be HDTV, so television stations will have to maintain the second HDTV transmitter out-of-pocket alongside their old analog one. Not to mention any backups, master control equipment, microwave links _to_ the transmitter, etc.
When this roadmap was first being laid out, I don't think anyone expected the adoption of HDTV to be as slow as it has been. Presumably by now, everyone above the median income would have a fully-digital television experience, and be pressuring the stations/networks for full HDTV broadcast. Goes to show you how easily consumer intertia and corporate bungling can completely derail a good thing.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
Well, the HDTV spec involves the method of delivering the signal. "HDTV-compatable" televisions have no HD signal decoders, so they would rely on an external decoder for the work. The end result of any HD spec, however, is a HD-type video image which is either 1080i or 720p. "HDTV-compatable" refers to a television's ability to display an image of that resolution. As such, the spec itself shouldn't affect a TV's ability to display the image. The problem is going to be with the MPAA demanding that no one build a set-top box that can send a 1080i or 720p image through analogue inputs (component), which will screw over existing digital TV owners no matter what the final HD spec is.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Anyway, there is already enough disincentive to tape movies from TV: Commericals, including network logos in the corner; and censorship/editing. When you consider all the extra features they put on DVDs, it just makes more sense to pick up an original feature-rich copy at the store than to deal with and edited and censored for TV mess.
To further my point...I videotaped six of the 8 seasons of Red Dwarf off of PBS. I bought 2 seasons at Suncoast. At this point, I have little reason to buy the official tapes of the seasons I taped myself...moreso since they're commercial-free on PBS. However, if BBC was to come out with DVD sets of those seasons that include all sorts of extra material, I would snap them up in a second!
Of course, if Hollywood is stubborn enough to not broadcast their tripe, you can always get off your ass and volunteer to walk dogs and play with cats at your local animal shelter.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I have a good HD TV and Time Warner gets me my HD content via a 3100HD cable box. No antenna so it's easy and cheap.
But, I want better content. I'd be much happier gettings History, Discovery, and A&E in HD than I would with the major networks. Will & Grace still sucks in HD. Nothing will change that. But, give me shows on Egypt's pyramids and nature shows in HD and that will be something. It would actually ENHANCE the show's experience.
Movies on HBO in HD are nice, though. Better than DVD.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), an industry association which represents more than 1200 consumer publications, announced today that all of its magazine will now come equipped with special "AccuView" viewing filters. These new magazines can only be read through these special filters, which slightly distort the pictures and text.
When pressed for comment, an MPA spokesperson stated, "Well, good Lord man, we don't people getting their hands on perfect copies of these things.. just think of the possible consequences! Boston Strangler, woman alone, need I say more? We are confident our new AccuView technology will protect the priceless intellectual property of our members, while still providing a rich "AccuViewing" experience for our cherished revenue strea- I er.. readers."
Coming stories: Next generation computers which cannot copy bits, and Ford unveils its new wood burning automobile engine. Thank you for reading.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I think TV will still continue to exist for quite a few years, specifically because of the hundreds of thousands of really, really stupid people. People who don't want to upgrade their TV's, people who can't understand the difference between digital and analog (and don't care), people who are perfectly content to watch re-runs of Survivor. A majority of people who this will effect the most will likely just bend to whatever the MPAA happens to want at the moment because they just don't know the difference. Why do you think idiotic laws get passed? The majority of the people don't care/know better.
." goes the old saying. If we speak up for them now, they'll hopefully speak up for us later.
Personally, I could care less. I've got my DivX rips of Farscape, Simpsons, Enterprise, and Family Guy and a reasonably good video card w/ TV-Out. Sure, that could be taken as supporting piracy or what-have-you but honestly, I wouldn't be paying to watch these shows anyway. It's just more of a bonus of DSL than anything.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit idly by and let the MPAA run amok. "Give 'em an inch. .
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
...that testified under oath that the VCR was to Hollywood what the Boston
strangler was to women home alone?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Change is a vital quality in any industry, the ability to change your business to accomidate for the changes that are occuring in the world around you. In this case, the MPAA is resisting change and trying to reverse the situation by changing the world and Mr. Valinti is their leader. Never has it worked before and it won't work again, put copy protection on movies and either people will just stop watching them on TV (yay for blockbuster) or some 14 year old kid will figure out how to bypass whatever stupid technology they implement.
It's not going to work, learn to live within the reality that we call life and change your business to suit. This Valinti guy is the biggest idiot I've ever heard of, you know NBC, ABC, and CBS used to be radio stations right? What happened when TV came along? Well, they became TV stations.
Why bother copying an air broadcast signal when I can copy directly from the media the TV station is using to generate the original signal in the first place?
I don't have to piece it back together then. 5 years DVD players will be $20 bucks, and the cheap taiwan imports will not have any such Protection technology.
Or I'll just by my player in "O Canada..."
Non sequitur.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Yeah, but what if you rented a DVD for 10 viewings, had no due date, was cheap ($5.00), and when " used you returned to the video rental store.
Actually by the time that a movie reaches cable TV it has earned about 95% of the revenue it will earn. So your argument rally does not apply. Point is that A. Tivo type units don't have that much storage and piping them to DVD or CD burners is a pain B. it is the same stupid argument we saw over VCR's. The Corp's are using thier influence to bend the consumer over more and more. I don't begrudge anyone a profit, but it is going to far.
-For it is the very essence of imperialism to turn information systems into wild, bloodthirsty animals-
Yes, it's off topic... but TRUE!!!!!
"The proposal is being considered no doubt in response to fears like that of MPAA head Jack Valenti who has said that without proper security measures, the industry won't allow its movies to be broadcast because they don't want viewers to record 'perfect copies' of movies."
Fine by me. Keep your mits off my hardware and I promise I won't view any of your pathetic drivel.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If the MPAA gets their way, you won't be able to do that either (at least, not with "legitimate" equipment.)
The MPAA wants full control over the signal and whether or not it's able to be displayed (or even routed!) through your devices.
In their dream world, they could designate certain programs as "view only" meaning no recorder or convertor would accept the signal.
Yes, it's stupid. Yes, it'll add unneccessary cost to the products. And yes, you're darn straight in thinking there'll be a whole cottage industry that'll spring up around producing devices which will get around whatever stupidity the MPAA imposes. (just look at the number of places which will happily sell you a modified DVD player which allows you to play discs from any region as an indicator.)
DVD math:
480 lines * (1.33 * 480) * 30 Hz * 16 bits = 147.1 Mb/s.
Most DVD's average 2-3 Mbps for the video. Which means something in the vicinity of 50:1 compression (gee, looky, they're nearly the same!). And yet it's a helluva lot better than any picture you'll get off broadcast or standard definition digital.
Yes boys and girls, MPEG-2 can indeed create this level of compression with little visual degredation. Is it the same as the source? Of course not. But it really is quite close.
You do if you borrow -- or rent -- it from a library.
This shocked me when I read it, but it does make sense. Read:
, 00 .html
:(
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,54332
Basically, the US Congress wants, is counting on, proceeds from the sale of digital spectrum. They need it to balance the budget in 2006. That is the only reason they dictated the move to DTV in 2006 in the first place.
Every other story on Slashdot about draconian measures put on DTV (even that bane of the computer industry, the Hollings bill) is the result of the MPAA's panic over their loss of control over their content. It seems Congress neglected to ask their permission to switch the country over to all digital. Of course they want to place the responsibility, cost, and burden of maintaining that control on everybody else (cable operators, broadcasters, manufacturers and the end user). The FCC is struggling under a barrage of conflicting requirements, and is expected to miraculously sort it all out by 2006 to everyone's satisfaction.
So when 2006 rolls around, either we have DTV with all sorts of draconian restrictions that the US citizens will hate (causing the great Couch-Potato Riots of 2006), or the US Congress will have a massive budgetary shortfall that may make them unable to run the country.
Boy, I'm looking forward to that almost as much as I did Y2K.
Bells are ringing: Mothra, Mothra! Every heart is calling: Mothra, Mothra!
Come on, Tok Wira, these sharks have gotta pay! New Kirk calling Mothra, we need you today!
Inneresting cite, technology obsoleting industries. This sure happens, but in the past (I'm thinking about automobiles obsoleting horses, plastic obsoleting whalebone) the new industry came by its gains honestly, by offering a better product. What the *AA are trying to do is prevent the theft -- or, if you prefer, "unauthorized copying without payment to the distributor or artist" -- of their material. I see a significant difference here.
The way I see it, it's the horse industry using their influence in Congress to make the internal combustion engine illegal, it's the whalebone insdustry getting Congress to pass laws saying that they have the right to determine which kinds of plastic make it onto the market.
So the real argument, when you get through all the layers of "We want free stuff" and "Burn, internet pirates, burn!" is that Big Hollywood wants Congress to allow THEM to determine what sorts of digital technology make it to market in the future. So, by granting them this right, Congress is short-circuting the process by which new technology could arise and replace the old.
Explain to me how your 51:1 compressed video looks "virtually indistinguishable from the uncompressed master", unless of course you've never actually seen uncompressed 1080i.
Two reasons: your monitor, and the nature of temporal compression.
Consumer HD equipment can't resolve all of the lines in an HD frame. My personal set will hold about 800 lines, which isn't bad at all. Average consumer gear will hold maybe 600. A Sony broadcast monitor will hold 1000, or even more. So "softness" that shows up on a 40" broadcast monitor can't be seen on even the best 34" home set.
Furthermore, MPEG-2 compression works by reducing the number of bits used to describe a segment of the stream, rather than by reducing the number of bits used for every frame. If you shoot actors in front of a fixed camera, MPEG-2 will be able to compress that stream significantly because the background doesn't change at all from one frame to the next. Most of the pixels won't change, or at least they won't change much.
Of course, if you swish-pan the camera around, the the difference between frame N and frame N+1 will be very great, so you won't be able to describe each frame as fully within the maximum number of bits per second, so you'll get visible artifacts.
I've seen side-by-side comparisons at WFAA-TV in Dallas, which has been broadcasting OTA HD for several years now. They used to-- I don't know if they still do-- have two identical Sony HD monitors in their control room, one showing the uncompressed 272M feed going to the encoder and another showing the "monitor" output from the encoder, showing the 19.3 Mbps signal that would go out over the tower. Ignoring the (roughly) 2 second delay for encoding, the two signals looked pretty much identical.
You can get a capable computer for $299 from Wal Mart. While this doesn't formally invalidate your point, the fact is that the cost difference between the two has been radically narrowing for many years and is likely to eventually hit comparable price points.
At a certain point, the extra capability a computer gets you is worth the price difference and we're either at that point or we're *very* close for an awful lot of people.
This of course brings up the question of whether the general purpose computer promotes the advance of the arts and sciences and since it obviously does, how can any law neutering it to the point of prohibition possibly be consitutional?
The betamax case established that, within limits, you have the legal right to make a copy of a broadcast and view it later or view it elsewhere.
So this guy has been sniffing glue for how many years??? Clearly, his ability as a leader is second to none... We all know that the video rental business was responsible for the utter downfall of the movie industry, and that their sales keep declining with every new release.
I think someone needs to throw this guy out on his ass and let him go live out in normal society for a while, instead of the pampered room full of yes-men and monkeys with typewriters that he's obviously living in now.
So... is there a middle ground? I have heard some interesting proposals (dollar downloads from music sites, etc) that might offer a light at the end of the tunnel.
For that to happen, the RIAA/MPAA would have to actually be interested in giving the people what they want. They aren't. They're interested in getting more control over what you do with media. The cries of piracy and half-hearted attempts at providing digital music are merely there so they can go to Congress and say "See! We tried! But we need to force every hardware and software company to let us determine how media is used, in order to provide our HIGH VALUE DIGITAL CONTENT on the internet."
So any middle ground will have to come from Hollywood. They've shown no inclination to put forth a good-faith digital music service that respects the rights of the citizens. If they did that and it failed, they'd have more ammunition. As it is now, it's just posturing.
And, again, the MPAA/RIAA is working to make sure that nobody CAN develop a better product, or a better way to distribute media. That's the real danger and injustice in the situation. You can't develop a better product if the proponents of the old way of doing things make everything BUT their way illegal.
Remember, the movie industry makes far more by selling VHS/DVDs of the movie than the movie actually made in theaters. If this wasn't the case, we would still be subject to rereleases in theaters (not that that's entirely gone away, it's just that Disney's about the only company still doing it, things like Apocalypse Now Redux notwithstanding), since the studios release movies of their own volition.
That being said, that's exactly what DivX was - a way to get money everytime you watch it.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
The EFF has written a letter to the FCC Chairman. It's a good read and would give you good talking points if you were to write you own letter to the FCC. (hint hint)
-- Are you an EFF member yet?