Slashdot Mirror
Cable, TV Makers Agree on Digital Standard
shylock0 writes "Reuters has this article about the digital cable standard agreed upon today. Amazingly enough, it places little or no copyright restrictions on content -- and it even includes specification for 1394/FireWire output to PVRs. I think this is a victory for fair use. Let's hope the FCC approves."
I think this ties into what you're talking about. Digital in, digital out. The article refers specifically to allowing output on the television to connect to other devices, specifically the possibility of "other TVs" in the house. Couldn't one of those "other TVs" just be a PVR or a computer w/digital input card?
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
If this is just a "standard" for getting all the extra-cost set-top-boxes to talk to all the government-mandated digital TVs, then it's not much of a victory for consumers. That will just mean the government is mandating we all "upgrade" our cable subscriptions to watch plain old TV.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
w00h00! I am so glad to hear the people close to the consumers (we really buy from the cable company and the tv manufacturers..) are starting to get a grip on what we want and are ignoring those bastard groups.
Companies doing good! now if only i can think of something to do until 2004/7...
I don't think there's any way the content industry will let this through. They have their minds set on controlling their content. Analog reproductions reduce quality, so they still have control. The industry hopes to use DTV to impose fair-use restrictions, which could not happen with this.
Why can't this half of the world simply copy what already works?
DVB/S and DVB/T work very well for all other continents already. Why is it so hard to make it work for us here? Is it because of some sort of insatiable desire for HDTV that I've never actually seen?
Oh well. At least things will get more standardized, which is good.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Great, so I don't have to pay for the box. I still have to pay for the service. More channels of little or no worthwhile content and a fancy menuing system (yes, nice, but worth triple the cost... no).You haven't used DirecTV, have you? It's have a menuing system since its inception, and their basic package is $22, +$6 for local channels. Cable prices vary, but here, that's pretty damn good compared.
Additionally, all channels (not just the premium ones) are digital, using the international standard MPEG2 format (though of a lower bitrate than DVD). I have no idea what they use for HDTV broadcasts, though.
Of course, I have neither it nor cable because I don't watch enough T.V.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Big deal, the TV can show you a digital picture and has a firewire port. What are you going to hook up to that firewire port? A SONY recorder? A PHILIPS recorder? A Palladium PC? They'll get their DRM on the back-end. Remember, they make the equipment and want to sell it -- they agree to nothing unless it is profitable (thay ain't doin' this because /.'ers want a prettier picture...)
It will be up to some hard-working programmer to even figure out what they are doing in the data stream and then deal with the wrath of the DMCA.
An awful lot of ambiguous things in there: "consumers can hook up everything and the equipment will ALLOW viewing elsewhere" -- at the same quality level? At the time of my choosing? The content I wish (ad-free if I want)?
AFAIK you would not be able to hook any of this up to any existing firewire recorders (Canon and Sony cameras for instance as they aren't HD) so you'd have to buy a NEW recorder with goodness knows what built-in to "protect" you from yourself. Sure you can watch it in the other room or from your camera or jukebox or network -- until Tuesday when the digital time-stamp expires in every piece of equipment.
Picture this -- someone makes DeHDTV and you have a cracked copy of Buffy on your PC! Yippee! You then go to play it and it is isn't "signed" properly so the HDTV decides not to show it. Or you spoof the signature and the TV talks upstream to report that you are playing it just to verify against the rights database -- oops you don't have that permission today! Blue Screen Of Denial. That's a cable, you know, and not RF.
Looks like a move forward, but I'll have to see...
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
No need to remind - they already know. If these specification didn't include draconian provisions for protecting the interests of copyright holders, it's more likely because corporations are sometimes slow to move and even slower to build consensus within an industry, not because they don't want to do it.
When such a standard gets agreed upon, it's usually been in the pipeline for quite a long time. Companies rarely have the flexibility to say, "We've been working on this standard for (insert long time period here) but now we'd like to add 5 new requirements". It just don't work that way.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Copyright is a legal issue, not a technical one. The "copyright restrictions" on the content are the same as they always have been.
You ignore that under the DMCA (or the european EUCD) technical restrictions translate into legal ones.
You think too logical, and hence cannot relieve your mind of the obsolete concept of "fair use". You have been assigned to reeducation, please stand by for further instructions.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
This agreement is still so far off its not even worth worrying about.
What may kill it is that it took so long to decide. Already there are cable HDTV set top boxes on the way.
HDTV is already coming (QUICKLY!) to cable operators. I work for a cable company in the southeast and we've already ordered all the headend gear and sample boxes to start beta tests.
By early 2nd quarter, customers will be able to get HDTV-enabled set top boxes that hook up to home TVs with svideo, component video and (optionally) DVI. This is combined with digital optical out, more 'interactivity' and more. These boxes can support ethernet, DOCSIS modems and even hard drives. How they are going to be rolled out and with what capabilities is still up in the air.
By the end of 2003, beta testing for Video-On-Demand will be ramping up.
If you want to read more, check out http://broadband.motorola.com/noflash/index.html
The ONLY problem is that there isn't that much programming utilizing HDTV. In the coming years that should change.
Analog CableTV WILL GO AWAY in the future. It accounts for most of the service theft.
Connections don't obey flags, they simply carry them. Playback devices/software do. CDs have a 'recordable' flag on them too. I've never seen a piece of software that obeys it.
Congress runs things, not the FCC. If you need proof, just look at low power FM (LPFM). LPFM was adopted by the FCC in 1999 and looked to completely change the radio landscape, which by then was dominated by a few companies. What happened? Those companies along with the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) lobbied Congress, who responded with: (get this) "The Radio Preservation Act of 2001". This Act, in the interest of "preserving radio" essentially KILLED 90% of the LPFM's that could have been. It ordered the FCC to neuter LPFM to virtually nothing. If you don't think that Congress wouldn't do this to HDTV, think again. The MPAA and RIAA have OUR lawmakers in their back pockets!
Our digital cable must be better than most. I get everything you get except the Sunday Ticket and Full Court. They're available, but I don't get them - I don't like basketball, and my NFL team (the Dolphins) are almost always on TV anyway. Last time I looked, DirecTV still didn't have some of the Discovery channels that we have. For a little extra money I could get HBO, Showtime, and Discovery's HD channels (by a little extra, I mean a *lot* cheaper than an HD-capable DirecTV receiver). Of course, with the news in this article, I think I'll hold off on getting the HD box.
Oh, and I also have cable internet (1.5mbps down, 128kpbs up, pings 100ms). All for about the same price you're paying. Now, I know folks on the other side of town who are stuck with AT&T cable, and their digital cable sucks eggs through a straw and costs more than ours....
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
There is an encryption standard for firewire. Its called DTCP, and is part of the complicated CPSA protection system.
:-). I have a website which you would probably find intresting describeing many copy protection systems and how to break them. Servers dodgey and the moment through, these p2p downloads are using all my downstream and most of my up.
DVD players with firewire outputs will not appear soon, if ever, because the CSS license doesn't allow digital outputs (except the suround audio connector). Im not sure if it allows encrypted digital outputs, but if it does the manufacturers wouldn't be too happy about getting another license for DRM to worry about with its own anti-tamper requirements in addition to CSS. If DVD players do support DTCP output PVRs still wont be able to record. Non-dtcp wouldn't be able to read the encrypted signal, or even authenticate to get it, while DTCP compatable PVRs would only display a "recording prohibited" message.
Under one possible escape clause, the CPSA system does allow recorders to record copy-protected video provided the copies are "temporary and localised". Those terms are not defined. Temporary must mean on a non-removeable internal hard drive, but temporary could mean anything. Delete after 24 hours? Delete after one viewing? Delete after one week?
DTCP is one of four key CPSA technologys. The others are CSS, CPRM and CPPM. The CPSA system is the biggest threat to free digital multimedia, but also the biggest threat to the content industrys lockdown attempts. Once all of those four technologys are properly broken the CPSA system will be completly usless. That suggests we are 25% done
I havn't read the spec, but if it doesn't include DRM now it will edventually. The spec might not actually include DRM for PR reasons, but if that happens another specification will be put on top, probably based round CPSA, which specifies where to put the copy protection flags and which encryption schemes should be used on the firewire output. Cable companys would support this system because the TV channels would refuse broadcasts on an "insecure" system.