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More Details About HDTV Pact
Masem writes "The NYTimes reports that a pact between the makers of HDTV systems and cable and satelite providers appears to be a consumer-friendly route to pushing HDTV technology. The solution proposed by the two groups will remove the need for a set-top box to receive the programming (save for on-demand or interactive services) in upcoming HDTV sets, and will standardize on the DVI port for these (Existing HDTV's, however, will probably still need some set-top device for compatibility - the deal specifically requires set top boxes to send both analog and digital signals as to support older HDTVs). The proposal must still get FCC approval before it becomes set in stone."
...before dealing with HDTV.
Because DirecTV is so difficult to receive and often so expensive to have installed, NFL Sunday Ticket is restricted to a lucky few -- and is something of a rich man's toy. Cable, on the other hand, is already in the majority of American homes, already readily available to almost everyone else, and cable installation charges rarely exceed $100.
If you're infuriated, as you should be, that NFL Sunday Ticket can be obtained only via a monopoly that most Americans don't or can't get, be aware that the league's monopoly arrangement with DirecTV is up for renewal at the end of the year -- which is why Congress should get interested.
The DirecTV exclusive was a fluke. In the early 1990s, rumors circulated that the NFL would stop free, over-the-air broadcasts and move its product to cable pay-per-view. Congress threatened antitrust retaliation. The NFL responded by making a big public commitment to free broadcast, while granting a monopoly on residential pay-per-view to the brand-new service called DirecTV, then being promoted as something anyone easily could receive.
The decision enabled the NFL to assure Congress that games shown on cable would remain free, and at the time was hailed as a consumer victory: free games preserved, while anyone who wanted more could opt for DirecTV. Now that the cost and unavailability of DirecTV have become clear, in retrospect was happened was a consumer disaster.
Forbidden to sell Sunday Ticket, cable providers may on Sunday afternoons show only whatever game the local CBS or Fox affiliate chooses. (Note to conflict-of-interest fans: Because ESPN and ABC air NFL night games that do not compete with CBS and Fox afternoon offerings, the corporate parent of ESPN.com has no dog in this hunt.) Aside from home-team games, local affiliates tend with smart-bomb efficiency to lock in on the worst matchups of the week. Or they insist on showing what seems like "regional" matchups, when a much better national game is available. For example, reader Scott Krasner of Charlotte reports that a week ago Sunday, the Charlotte local affiliate aired the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons-Green Bay matchup, a boring blowout, when the much-more-heralded Tampa at Philadelphia game was available on the same network in the same time slot.
here's the license pdf from the makers of hdcp
sections 3.3/3.4 clearly state that it's not legal to have a dvi/hdcp receiver with any analog outputs (save 16/48 audio).
not having dvi on your set (or not having a mitsubishi 'promise') is nigh a death knell for future hdtv compliance.
here is an excellent writeup on the present situation
Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Dude, 720p and 1280x1024 are equivalent resolutions! Programs recorded in 720p have a resolution of 1280x720 (1.778:1 aspect ratio), at 60 frames per second progressive-scanned. Once you fit that picture inside a 4:3 aspect ratio screen, you end up with a 1280x1024 raster size running at 60 Hz.
Of course, the box you linked to will actually down-sample 1080i broadcasts to 720p for display on a computer monitor. But hey, what's a little resolution between friends?
Why can't these home theater techie-wannabes just learn how pixel resolutions work?
Why can't these computer geeks learn how video signaling works? You want a cheat sheet? Here are the common ATSC formats expressed as raster sizes just for you.
I write in my journal
Where did you see it? Best Buy? Circuit City? Some other consumer electronics retailer? None of them have it setup right. Heck, they don't even have the standard def TVs setup worth a crap (take a look sometime and ask yourself if those skin tones exist in real life).
I've seen a lot of deeply unimpressive HD presentations... and I've seen one that just blew me away. The unimpressive ones make me wonder "what's the point?", but all I have to do is remember the good one and I start lusting after a nice HDTV setup again.
The setup wasn't even all that good really... it was a 34"-ish HDTV (one of the drawbacks of HD is that it doesn't do well on small screens - 36" is the quietly talked about minimum size), displaying a 1080i feed from a Sony HD video camera. The footage wasn't all that impressive either - just a shuttle launch. And I was watching it with about 30 other geeks clustered around at a Unix SIG meeting, so far from "ideal" viewing conditions.
But... wow. It was so crisp and clear that it looked like a picture window. No grain, no zig zags, no junk at all. It's really not something that can be described... it just has to be seen.
Setting up HD isn't all that difficult from what I understand (again, I don't have a set yet... I have a ton of money put aside for one, considerably more than is needed nowadays, but don't have the space for it yet), it's just that it doesn't behoove itself to multi-screen displays like they use in most stores. Heck, most places they aren't even showing an HD feed - just a standard feed running into the HDTVs. Which means it just looks somewhat better than a normal TV at best. And in most cases it actually looks worse -- because taking a 4:3 image and stretching it to 16:9 makes everyone look like dwarves. Stocky dwarves. Again, it's not that hard to setup, but they just don't bother (or someone has fooled around with the remote and screwed it up).
Where can you find a good HD setup? Most mid to high end HiFi stores will have one. If you have a friend who loves HDTV then they'll probably have one. Beyond that, I dunno.
I'm not sure that you do have this right...
1) TV imprisonment ended at least 15 years ago; cable-ready TV freed us for non-pay NTSC programming and cable-ready HDTV will free us for non-pay HDTV programming.
2) Failing to send output through the analog connection for selected materials was a possible way to close the "analog hole." This ensures that hole remains open for non-pay HDTV.
3) My read is that this standard will make it possible for any manufacturer to construct cable-ready HDTV equipment, including Tivo and the like. The inclusion of Firewire connectors permits those digital recorders of digital signals to digitally transfer them to your digital display.
Of course, this is all concerning only "non-pay HDTV." Currently this would definitely include broadcast HDTV. Whether A&E, MTV, QVC and the rest of the "Expanded Basic Cable Service" cadre will be labeled "pay programming" when they make HDTV signals available is still up for grabs.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
The second 'C' is for 'Communications.' For example, telephone service, which is over cable. See the FCC's Web Site to see what their jurisdiction is over.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
It will be cracked in short order and be about as usefull as CSS is for the DVD format.
Check out Niels Ferguson's Censorship in action: why I don't publish my HDCP results
I definitely agree that the system should be more advanced than "no digital copies of a digital copy" for the exact reasons you state.
The "copying bit" idea is probably the best idea. Breakable, in the end, but once again, Hollywood simply needs to go after the people that break it. Have a bit set in each broadcast that says "recordable, not copyable". Anything you make has that same bit set to "recordable, copyable."
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
It is in violation of this license to have analog outputs on a display device. That is, a device which has the capability of recieving, decrypting, and visually displaying HDCP content. This is not a requirement on a source device. The cable box would be a source device, as it recieves its content through a means other than HDCP and transmits them via HDCP.
You would not be able to pass the signal through the TV to make it analog (except with a camcorder or some soldering), but you can certainly make a device that has both an HDCP output and an analog output.
-Alison
Hauppauge also makes two cards.
Bewere of the AcessDTV card which uses Digital Restriction Mechanisms.
Heh. Yeah, I bought an open box RCA F38310 38" 16:9 tube for $1300 last month. It's a bitch to lift, but everyone comments on how amazing HDTV really is to view. Also, viewing anamorphic DVDs in 480p makes a huge difference in viewing quality. Sure, it's not 1080i - the stuff on HBO-HD and SHO-HD blows a 480p DVD out of the water. But it's such an amazing step up from viewing 480i that spending $1300 for that feature alone would have been worth it. Just hope that because this set only supports component input, never mind HDCP compliant DVI, that I'm not screwed with a worthless set a few years down the road.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Well, the fact that NFL Sunday Ticket is only available on DirecTV *would* sound like a really bad thing until you do the research.
;)
My family comes from Wisconsin and lives in Louisiana, so NFL Sunday Ticket looked like it would be an excellent birthday gift for my dad last year. Unfortunately, it's only available on DirecTV, and you can't go out and buy a receiver at your local store without buying a year of service or paying the $150 extra (the "penalty" for no service). Neither of those options were acceptable, so I started e-mailing, and when that went nowhere, I got on the phone.
Well, it turns out that you *can* get NFL Sunday Ticket a la carte. It is the only a la carte service DirecTV will sell you, but they *will* sell it to you (probably for the express reason of avoiding "abuse of a monopoly" lawsuits). You just go to your friendly neighborhood used stuff site (I chose eBay, as much as it pained me to finally register, hehe), and you buy a *used* receiver (or even a whole used package).
DirecTV will charge you a few bucks for a new access card (since you don't know where the old one's been, I'd definitely do that), and then when you call, you simply tell them that you want to activate a used system with *only* NFL Sunday Ticket. ("Yes, just NFL Sunday Ticket.... No, I don't want that; I just want NFL Sunday Ticket.... No, I hate TV, but I want NFL Sunday Ticket....") A few hairs later, you've got your nice system all up and running, with no additional committments.
So, if you're comfortable enough with a compass, wrench, and RG-6 tools, you can have NFL Sunday Ticket for the price of the season, a used receiver, and a new access card. Not a bad deal, at least compared to flying to Green Bay and buying, er, "resold" tickets every game.
(Oh, and as long as I'm here... "GO! PACK! GO!")