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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."
That's the biggest question.
The FCC can shovel HDTV down our throats all they want. The technology is still too damned expensive for most people.
Sent from your iPad.
"The digital FireWire connection will allow program providers to restrict the number of times that a program can be recorded. Under the agreement, HDTV programs from network broadcasters sent through cable or satellite companies will be completely unrestricted and recordable. Subscribers to pay services like HBO could be restricted from making more than one copy of programs from those services."
Yeah, REAL consumer friendly.
This actually seems like they're doing something right. And this is in the US? Actually adopting technology STANDARDS in the US? My mind has officially been blown.
Maybe I've just been dealing with cell phones for too long.
Most people haven't ever even seen a good HDTV demonstration. As soon as they do they love it. It's much clearer with better colors. For a sports fan it is heaven.
I love my HDTV setup. I'm lucky enough to be in a good place where Time Warner supports HD. I just wish they would add DiscoveryHD.
Here's how to set it. Keep pushing the resolution higher and higher until you can see the breast-enlargement scars. Then shift back one.
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OK, let's see if I got this right. The pact promises to:
1) Standardize digital cable TV reception in TV sets so as to eliminate set-top boxes -- meaning that your TV will, after 30 years of cable TV imprisonment, finally regain the ability to CHANGE THE DAMNED CHANNEL. Thanks, guys, but I would rather've seen you do this in 1980, when you first forced me to use your stupid boxes.
2) Mandate that any set-top box with two output connectors (analog and digital), support output to both connectors. Because there are dozens of manufacturers out there just begging to sell boxes with connectors that don't do anything. Thank you, cable TV industry, for protecting us from these monsters!
3) Place severe restrictions on the programming you can record, after putting the cable 'box' inside the TV, giving you no chance to intercept the video signal. Of course, I'm sure that cable HDTV hardware built into the TV will obey the same copying restrictions as the set-tops. Voila! Uncopyable television. It's a DRM wet dream -- total control of your viewing experience!
Thank you, oh benevolent HDTV overlords, for blessing us with thy loving oversight!
- A crucial part of the agreement guarantees that if a set-top box has both the older analog and newer digital connectors, the signal must be sent through both
So what in this agreement says the set-top producer has to have an analog out in the first place. This agreement only states that if the box has digital and analog outs they both have to work. So they just sell the box with digital only, insta copy protection.Another thing I wish they would do is make the communication with the set-top boxes two way so the that the TV could tell the box which channel to use. What I hate most about set-top boxes today is the need use their remote and not being able to program multiple channels to record on my VCR when when I'm away. Bi-directional communication would make the use of set-top boxes moot since everthing could be controlled by the TV or VCR. The viewer would never have to see the box. Maybe the firewire port hinted to in this article will provide this capability
Because DirecTV is so difficult to receive and often so expensive to have installed...
I think you have a problem with your brain being missing.
Anybody in North America can get DirecTV, as long as you can see the southern sky. And retailers like Good Guys and Circuit City give away the equipment when you sign a 12-month contract. I got my receiver (a cheap SD-only model from RCA), my dish, and the installation for free.
I write in my journal
AFAIK, the FCC's jurisdiction is over teh airwaves. Why do they have to approve anything dealing with cable?
Does anyone, anywhere, actually view broadcast anymore? (You know, with a set of good old rabbit ears?) If you're getting the local channels via cable, that doesn't count!
The US has certainly gone to hell in the last 25 years. The government used to at least pretend to be looking out for the interests of the public. Now it's all about maximizing the bottom line.
Whatever happened to the rule that one owner can't own more that X% of the stations in any one market? Whatever happened to the idea that in order to get a license, a station had to serve the public interest?
It's sad the our government has been infiltrated by the corporate idea that people are CONSUMERS , and forgotten the ideal that government is concerned with the welfare of its CITIZENS .
YAABOIAIHYA![*]
(In today's modern world, I feel the need to state "You're All A Bunch Of Idiots, And I Hate You All!" so often, I decided to coin this nifty, hip acronymn.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"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."
Spoken like a true shill for the cable industry!
DirecTV is usually cheaper than cable for comparable service levels, and is available with free installation. The boxes are often free to new subscribers as well. Unlike cable, DirecTV hasn't raised their rates multiple times a year (in my town, standard cable rates have nearly doubled in the past three years, DirecTV hasn't budged.)
Rather than being a "rich man's toy", satellite TV is just as affordable as standard cable. The only caveat is that you need to be able to mount a dish that points to the correct part of the sky. Most homeowners can do this, as can many apartment dwellers.
I couldn't care less about football, but I shed no tears for the cable industry which has used its monopoly to drive up prices and drive down service quality.
While it's nice to see some standardization in what has to this point been somewhat of a doggy dog industry, I'm a little worried about letting the corporations themselves work out such standards on their own.
I suspect that whatever standards are agreed upon will favor the big players over the little ones, and be harmful to consumers and investors. Just look at the RIAA or Enron if you need proof.
It's somewhat reassuring that whatever they come up with will have to be approved by the FCC, but I somehow feel that the FCC should be the one designing the standard to begin with, to insure that everything is fair and impartial.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Think this is a done deal? Think again. It's Congress who controls everything..and they're firmly in the back pocket of the MPAA..who (by the way) reported another record year at the box office (2002 was up over 12% from 2001's record year!). Hmmm...I guess that piracy is ruining the industry, huh? That's why they only earned over 9 BILLION last year!
I am in no way a fan of the DMCA and other copyright-protection acts, but I do think that Hollywood has a right to put reasonable limits on my ability to record *and distribute* copywritten works. I do not think they have a right to ultimately decide what I can and cannot record.
I think that the ideal solution would be for the population to be able to record, in High Definition, an original copy. However, I think that Hollywood could say that I cannot make a digital copy of that copy. If I wanted to down-convert (to a normal VCR), of course I would be able to.
I want that one digital copy, though.
Yes, I realize that would break this limit to allow for other distribution. Right now sharing High Definition programming in an uncompressed format (or even a lossless compression format) is simply not possible given today's bandwidth concerns. So most people are going to have to record, compress, and then share. While Hollywood would fight this, they can always use the argument "Anyone who wants to be able to record can right now, legally, using digtal recording hardware available at Best Buy!" (assuming, of course, that things capable of recording High Definition in its native format to allow that first copy). Also, there would be less incentive to share, since I could always record off air (or cable, or satellite) in a better format than I could download.
Yes, I also realize that the bandwidth issue is not to be assumed forever. In the forseeable future, though, I think that Hollywood could use it to its advantage.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
While the agreement allows program providers to prevent any recording of pay-per-view or video-on-demand programs, users of hard-disk-based recorders like TiVo would be allowed to record and then watch such a program up to 90 minutes later.
So much for fair use. Unless they agree to allow people access to the signals for whatever purpose they want, then it's NOT consumer friendly.
With the signal that comes out of my DirecTV box (which, for the sake of argument, is no different than a cable box), I can...
- Record it on a TiVo-like device
- Record it on a VCR
- Split it and re-direct it to other parts of my house
- Send it via analog wireless a receiver elsewhere in the house
- Record it on a PC
If I can't do those things, all of which I do regularly (except for the VCR), then this is NOT a consumer friendly solution.
A digital connection is fine... as long as there's absolutely NO restrictions on what I can do with that data. There are already laws against me saving a copy and sharing it with the world over the internet. They really need to just leave it at that.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
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
I was kind of disappointed by your response to the 90 minute rule thing, but I guess you didn't think of it as I did.
90 minutes is too short of a time to be forced to watch a program. I know that when I record a show or block of shows I probably will be watching them the next day, or why would I be recording them in the first place? (the only stuff I usually watch could be considered "late-night" shows) Or sometimes I record for 4 days in a row (in the case of rally racing on the Speed channel) to watch it all at once when my schedule allows.
They are touting a "consumer friendly" standard, but only allowing 90 minutes to view a recorded "restricted" show is not very friendly.
Now before you flame me, I realize that a pay-per-view or on-demand movie is supposed to work around your schedule but my chief concern is once they see how well it (may) work they might extend it to classify other programs as "restricted viewing" and impose the same 90 minute rule.
But heck, at least they didn't totally say "No recording pay-per-view or on-demand programs"
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
I used to have direct TV (I'm going to try again since Time Warner cable doesn't broadcast digital for the lower 90 channels), and I got rid of it for 2 reasons ...
.... I don't have trees anywhere near my dish this time, so hopefull that will help a little ...
... must have good taste in video and audio equip.) ...
... so what is there to discuss? I'm also a huge sports fan, but I don't have time to watch more than the home team's game on Sunday (I get the rest of my stats from espn.com or on espnews). So why would anyone but someone affiliated with a major cable company care about the rest of this bull shit? Face it, Direct TV has whooped your asses! Better product at a lower cost ... a no brainer IMHO.
1) I hate it when I lost reception in a bad rain or snow storm
2) (this is petty, but important to me) The dish looks like SHIT! I am one of the few techies that values the appearance of my house, and that damn dish is just butt ugly! I also wonder if it helps to paint a target on me for potential theifs (has good taste in TV programing
Other than that, it is cheaper and has a better picture than regular cable
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
I pay less for my 150 channels of DishTV than the local cable costs.
You can get free installation if you sign up for 1 year of service at $22.50 or above.
For an extra $50 you can get a PVR (Tivo type thingie).
Of course you still can't get NFL sunday ticket, but heck who wants to bother with football anyway? The game is boring and unwatchable unless you have a PVR and can record the game in advance and scan forward over the commercials.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The NFL is a private enterprise, as is Direct TV.
If the NFL wants to deal with something that locks out the majority of fans, then that's their bad business decision.
Why must the government get involved in this? You don't explain your reasoning on this key issue.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
PPV is a moneymaker for the cable companies and isn't meant for people to make a permanent recording. It's a way to compete against blockbuster and other video rental places.
If you can't legally make a copy of a movie you rent, then what is the big deal about not making a recording of a movie you order on PPV. They start every 30-60 minutes and play for a while. Or you can just go out and rent it thru blockbuster or netflix.
..don't use rabbit ears but I have a small tower I built out back with a normal television aerial. I have no interest in small dish systems either. 50$ (whatever) a month just for television is silly, IMO, at least where I live on a mountaintop, can get a variety of over the air stations, although we watch very, very little here of it. I have a large "dish" stashed that I scrounged but no box for it yet. I *might* get a small dish system if I can't get broadband any other way sometime though, but I don't care if television comes with it, and I probably won't get it if they insist on it with additional charge. I really don't use tv for much entertainment beyond popping in a taped movie, I get the bulk of my electronic information I want off the internet.
The rural areas of the US have no "cable" tv, you use over the air or basically small dish, I'd say it's running roughly 50% or so around here people who have small dishes. I don't know what the breakdown is, but as a sort of rule of thumb, cable tv is very limited to only urban areas or very close to them, which leaves some huge land mass area in the US that doesn't have cable and probably never will. That's one of the tradeoffs for living where it's nice and unpopulated, if that's your gig. I swap deer in the yard and a large garden and the nearest neighbor close to 1/2 mile away for urban conveniences like cable and quickstores every hundred yards and hot and cold running crackheads and huge crime,loud, noisy, dirty, etc. Different strokes and stuff.
As to serving the public interest, hell ya! I can't tell ya how many complaints I've filed about the major broadcasters/networks. I think it sucks bad those goons get a rubber stamped license to print money year after decade after generation. They skew the news, propogandize to the detriment of the people in general, emphasize some truly weird stuff like taking up a full 1/3 of local alleged "news" 7 days a week with SPORTS? And the programming is more social engineering leading to absurd consumerism and political non-awareness than any sort of "good" near as I can see, with just a few exceptions. It's bread and circuses keep the population dumbed down in part. But, seems like most folks don't really care just accept it, home from work, start the beer buzz, veg. The globalist fatcats love it, keeps the billions rolling in, keeps the goons in power, double win for them.
When I got Digital cable, I had to buy all of these Motorola cable boxes for my TVs (I only got two, so I have 2 TVs still on regular cable - I wonder how long before they think of a way to charge me for these as well).
I was delighted to see the Dolby Digital logo on the front of the box. Finally I can watch Band of Brothers in 5.1... wrong. AT&T (well, now their cable TV is owned by ComCast) craftily has put metal slots over the coaxial out (not the cable, but the digital audio connection, just not TOSLINK) and S-video outs on the back of the box. A friend and I opened the thing up and noticed the ports aren't there at all.
I called AT&T to see what was going on and they said I had to special order a box with digital connections. And it would cost me an extra $10/month.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
D) "former dot-com success story, recently humbled"
I write in my journal
No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large.
-- Mark Twain
Isn't once sufficient?
"Muhahaha! I have recorded Return to Farpoint not once, but TWICE! Now pay me ONE BILLION DOLLARS Paramount or I'll do it A THIRD TIME!"
paintball
His point is that the restrictions themselves,, regardless of the rules applied, are bad. I agree. If they don't want to send it in unrestricted format, then we should just stick to analog TV, which works just fine, and either auction off or make unlicensed the HD spectrum.
sulli
RTFJ.
I saw these huge HDTV's at the store being showcased...
For reasons that escape me, most retailers don't actually show HD programs on their HD floor models. If you go to someplace like a Best Buy and compare the SD sets to the HD sets, you'll be very much unimpressed... because they're running the same DVD-quality demo loop on both sets.
The best way to see HD is to find a high-end retailer that caters to people with too much money and do your browsing there, or to find a friend with an HDTV and park yourself on his couch during prime time, or on a weekend when CBS is showing an SEC game.
How can they get away with blabbing about great picture, then trying to sell their product on distorting said picture?
Yeah. Horizontal stretch (or vertical squeeze, if you're stuck with a 4:3 set) is only useful for DVD's and watching Fox Digital. You should never, ever use it just to "fill the screen."
I write in my journal
Why are hard-disk-based recorders singled out? If I make a PVR out lots and lots of flash memory that's OK?
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Will you be able to buy boxes that output 1080i analog only. I don't have a DVI port on my HDTV so that would be an acceptable solution for me and many other early adopters.
Maybe I'm the only one here who is OK with distinguishing pay and non-pay programming, but my interpretation is that the fair use limitations apply only to pay-per-view/video-on-demand. This pact doesn't even cement those limitations; it simply defers its resolution while giving us fair use for non-pay programming.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
I think that the ideal solution would be for the population to be able to record, in High Definition, an original copy. However, I think that Hollywood could say that I cannot make a digital copy of that copy. If I wanted to down-convert (to a normal VCR), of course I would be able to. I want that one digital copy, though.
They tried that with DAT, requiring recorders to implement a serial copy prevention system that refuses to make a digital copy of a digital copy. Recording artists found that they couldn't circumvent the system even for recordings that they made legitimately.
Implementing a serial copy prevention system on a digital video format will only make that format unsuitable for use by families making home movies. "What? I can't make copies of this wedding tape for the family? That's bullshit. I'm not buying Sony again."
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think a lot of people are confused by this limitation. My interpretation is that this kind of restriction is only placed on pay-per-view materials which are rebroadcast every hour anyway; if you wanted to watch it later, you'd record it later.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
I read the internet for the articles.
What?
It is not consumer friendly to integrate the STB with the monitor. It will make it easier to sell though.
HDTV's are monitors, and why that is seen as a problem I don't really understand. So the STB is integrated into the set, what does this mean? Only thing it means to me is you don't have a separate box. You'll still have to pay for the components, they're just inside the TV instead of next to it.
I'd rather have a monitor capable of 1080i and 540p or 720p that simply has component video in along with a STB that handles the conversions and outputs to a resolution my monitor can display. This way I can feed my component video to any device that supports it and display or record it if I wish.
It does not benifit me to have a TV that traps the signal, and provides no output or limitted output. It may seem easier if I just need to plug one cable into the TV, but it certainly doesn't benifit consumers beyond initial setup ease.
What would be consumer friendly is a recording device that could take a 1080i, 540p, or 720p signal and record it and replay it in the same format.
Don't let them fool you, this is retailer and provider friendly. It will help cable providers keep their "you don't need and extra box" advertising fodder, the networks by preventing you from recording programming, and retailers, not consumers.
HDTV tuners for the "HDTV capable" sets are 'way expensive.
I don't see HDTV making serious inroads until the price differential with NTSC gets ~$100. Until HDTV becomes very popular, there's no way the FCC can reallocate [autction] the spectrum.
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
It's time we sent in UN Entertainment Inspectors to check for Murdoch's Weapons of Mass Distraction. And I want Sydney and Perth and any other potential location of the Dirty Digger nuked if he's found to have them.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Without knowing for sure, I would assume that "more than once" means that you can't copy a copy, just like with CDs and audio CD-R, DAT or Mini-Disc. I think for CDs this is called SCMS (serial copy management system).
Nothing stops you (in the CD case) from making unlimited copies of the *original* source CD.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's legal. You can burn a copy of a CD you get from the library. Doesn't mean it's right.
The big deal is that fair use is not defined as "one copy for personal use." Fair use includes making a number of copies of a very small portion of a work for commentary purposes (say, showing sixty or so seconds of footage from a movie for a webcast movie review program I create). Fair use includes making multiple copies for personal use (perhaps keeping a "master" copy of the latest Disney movie safe somewhere and then occasionally making a "play" copy to replace the last one the kids destroyed). Fair use includes making multiple copies as I format shift my copy from format to format as technology advances. Fair use includes transferring a recording from one digital video recorder I own to another. On top of that, as the copyright on works expire, these technical limitations will continue to restrict my access to public domain works. Contrary to widespread belief, there are legal, ethical reasons to make multiple copies of a work protected by copyright. Fair use is more complex than the simplistic "one copy is fair use, two or more is not" that they want to enforce on us.
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When I read the original agreement last week (or maybe the week before), the connector agreed upon was Firewire, not DVI. Let's all hope that the article mentioned here is wrong, since DVI is definitely the lowest common denominator connectivity for HD.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
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
Sadly, I had to have the last two spindly trees in my backyard cut down to get DirecTV. Trees DO interfere with the signal. I don't feel too badly about the trees since one was pretty sick and the other was a tree that only attracted ants and birds and were inedible. I have since planted a few new trees, but they are strategically positioned to be out of the way of the dish.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
People spent stupid amounts of money to watch sports. Most large screen TVs were sold so people could watch their (foot|base|basket)ball at 40+ inches at a ripping ~400 x ~320 res.
NTSC (never twice same color) was developed in 1925 and standardized by 1927. It allows for around 525 lines vertical res. You're lucky if a GOOD SVideo will put out 400. Enough to trick the eye, but then 24 frames/second tricks the eye pretty well in the theater. The eye is easily fooled and the brain can make pictures out of the most staticy images. Doesn't mean that better won't look lots better to you, it just means that you can see ok with really bad images; like NTSC.
If you've ever seen the experimental film stuff that ran at > 60 frames/sec rather than the 24 you see in the theater, you'd notice that camera motion doesn't blur the screen radically. Some parts of LOTR were just hard to see because of that. (both CG and real).
Current TV is "good enough"
Well yeah. So was 18 frame per second film in 1910 (old old films sometimes look very fast cause they were shot at 18FPS and xfered at 24 by fools).
We could have, and should have, dumped the current NTSC signal when color came along. But "thousands" of people had bought these expensive TVs so the gubmint decreed that any of this new fangled color stuff must be viewable on the good ol black and white TVs. Nice work.
I came out of film. I hate movies that lop off around 1/4 of the screen when shown on TV. Most film camera view finders have TV ratios marked on the viewer so directors these days don't have much action on the sides (lame, but most producers and directors know that most of the viewing money comes out of video, in the end), but sports is really an immediate driver.
When I was in the UK, widescreen was being pushed as "See *all* of the world cup, not just 3/4's of it."
As I travelled through Asia, bars in the most impoverished nations had widescreen high res showing Football aka Soccer everywhere. With crowds.
So imagine the NFL pushing that with HD/Wide you get to see it more clearly - so they can use longer shots and you get the same resolution you USED to have, but lots more of the field in the frame. Imagine taking your cheapo 19" and stacking 2x2 of them. Each with the same resolution but continuing the a larger image. That's 1080i.
Don't believe for a minute that these people who pay $100+/month for sport feeds, who have old huge $2000 dishes in their yards - now worthless and replaced by little dishes, won't drop a year of satellite fees on a HDTV. Or two years. That's beer money, dude. These guys are the ones not buying new computers every two years.
What if Superbowl/2004 or the world series was shot ONLY in HD? What if movies were shown all there but "squeezed" for you guys watching that 100 year old 4:3 ratio stuff?
You wanna stick with your mommy's 19" $150 TV past 2006? Fine, someone will come out with a box that drops 3/4 pixels for you. And everything will be letterboxed. And eventually, older HD's will be available on the used market for cheap.
Now, where can I get a video card that works well on 16:9? The most my computer will dump on my 30" HD wide is 1280x1024. Unreal rules at 30".
Seriously, what's $2k on a TV that'll last 5 or 10 years compared to all the other expenses in life? In cost/hour of entertainment, TV is one of the least expensive things that a person can do.
I hate to get into a semantic arguement with you, but what exactly makes a PPV different than my regular programing other than the cost? I pay $60/month for 744 hours of access to a couple hundred channels. Or I can pay $3.95 for 2 hours of access to a single channel. Is not my monthly satellite bill simply a longer-term pay-per-view with more channels available?
By anyone's (except Hollywood's) definition, fair use rights allow me to record those signals for private use. Now Hollywood may not want me recording anything that comes out of my satellite receiver, but just because they want it to be illegal doesn't make it so.
Your arguement about burning a CD from the library is straw man.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
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
In what way does encrypting the video prevent you from recording it?
Why can't you simply record the video on your HD-TiVo of the future in encrypted form, then play it back in encrypted form, which the TV can then decrypt?
Most of us are interested in making copies for timeshifting or backup or whatever. If every TV on earth can decrypt the file, just save it encrypted and you can still timeshift it.
What's wrong with this idea?
- Vincit qui patitur.
DTV != HDTV
There are standards for broadcasting HDTV. On the lines of 18 of them, but the standards are there, and accounted for by the current hardware.
It's the cable company who takes this and encrypts it or restricts it. Right now you can purchase a Over-the-air STB and use it anywhere in the country where HDTV is broadcast, or over cable that carries HDTV signals as a standard HDTV brodcast, not wrapped with some encryption.
Yeah, in the future you can purchase one of these TV's and be able to view whatever digital cable channels without a cable box, Good, I get to invest $300 or so more in something that I would be able to rent for $2 a month.
The cable companies have forced cable boxes on consumers in order to secure their content. Now they've found the hardware too expensive to maintain, so they're pushing the burden of cost to you, with the added benifit of DRM. All under the guise of providing HDTV...
Friendly.
On the other hand it probably is legal to tape a PPV show off TV and keep it forever in any medium or format you like.
For some programs it is absolutely an indisputable fact that it's legal. (i.e. public domain movies and tv shows)
Until the day comes when the cable box decides what I can and cannot record exactly as the Supreme Court would have decided given all of the circumstances involved, the slightest technical infringement on my ability to copy stuff that isn't an inherent and unavoidable outgrowth of the technology involved is simply unacceptable, and hopefully could be grounds for invalidation of the copyright at issue.
Copyright is supposed to work for the benefit of the public. The proposed system does not, and that's just no good.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That said, we bought our current TV during the Winter Olympics, which was broadcast in HDTV on some satellite thing (probably DTV, but I don't remember). The difference was striking. It absolutely blew me away. It was like going from VHS to DVD on a great TV, and probably even more impressive than that. For the first time, I was able to see the puck, clear and sharp, in a televised hockey game. (Normally I can see it just fine, but it's blurry and indistinct.) The widescreen HDTVs were especially impressive, although we didn't end up buying one (it was $1000+ more for a feature we can't even use).
I don't see a hugely pressing need for HDTV, which is why I don't think it's taking off at an incredible speed. But I expect that, as people get more used to DVD quality, they will start to want that sort of quality in TV programs as well. Now all we need is for cable companies to get off their butts and do something about this. Satellite has a lot of severe limitations that prevent me, and I suspect a lot of other people, from even considering a switch. If HDTV ends up being sat-only, it'll severely limit its accessibility and make it much less likely ever to catch on.
Its a cable nightmare, but...
Cable Coax -> PC With Digital Coax input -> CPU with cracked decoder -> PC DVI Video Out -> Back to the big screen
Isn't this just DVD all over again? Just a matter of time before someone steals the keys out of the hardware/software?
I have a good job, thank you, and a good house. I don't have a living room that's built like a football field, but I don't spend thousands per month on house payments either!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
My DirecTivo can record PPV movies in perfect quality today, and I'm allowed to store it for as long as I please.
This is clearly a feature intended by DirecTV and Tivo to be there, not a technical accident.
And if this didn't work, I would watch far fewer PPV movies. Once you've gone Tivo, it's very hard to go back to being forced to watch something in one sitting at a specific time.
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!")
I think a lot of people are confused by this limitation.
I think you are confused by the objection to it.
rebroadcast every hour anyway; if you wanted to watch it later, you'd record it later.
The point is that once I receive it I have the right to do (pretty much) anything I want with it. If I have a heart attack while it's recording I have a RIGHT to watch that recording when I get out of the hospital six months later. If the phone rings and I decide to chat for two hours I have the same right to watch the tape a month later. I also have the right to move that copy to a laptop and watch it in my tent after a three day hike into the woods. I also have the right to use that recording for educational and research purposes. And I have the right to use it for parody. And for political debate. And I have the right to exctract small portions for critical purposes, or for almost any non-commercial at all.
Copyright does not grant us a few limited rights, it grants them a few limited rights. We have the right to do pretty much everthing other than competing with their commercial monopoly.
The 90-minute clause is nothing more than a token bone they are tossing us as a distraction from the fact that they are trying to infringe/steal/elminiate our rights to everthing else.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Have a bit set in each broadcast
How would a conversion to analog and back preserve such a "Broadcast Flag"?
Anything you make has that same bit set to "recordable, copyable."
The MPAA's argument against allowing serial copies of a work fixed from an analog source (even a microphone or camera) is that the pirates have used and will continue to use such behavior to camcord theatrical movies and plays, making a camcorder an "analog hole". The RIAA successfully made that argument in the Divided States of Embarrassment with respect to DAT decks, which by law must follow SCMS.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yes, I know that there are millions and millions of zombies out there who spend their lives in front of "Survivor" or whatever crap they are being told to watch by the network marketing droids. This only proves my point: TV is what people do who are too dumb to use a computer.
Seriously. What is there to watch? News? Get your news off of the Internet (Fellow Americans: Try the BBC for a serious eye-opener about what CNN, Fox, and Time Warner don't think you should be interested in). Sitcoms? The only thing that even comes close to being entertaining for people with an IQ over 60 is "Buffy", and you're better off waiting for the DVD version anyway, unless you're into watching ads every five minutes. Information? Yeah, the "Discovery Channel" is nice, but it can't compete with this cool technology call "books". Films? Get the DVD, they don't have the commercials and they don't have half of the stuff hacked out to make the censorship people happy. With the money you've been paying those cable people, you could have had surround sound years ago.
Anybody who is willing to pay a company to let themselves be bombarded with commercials is getting what he or she deserves. Screw TV in analog or digital: You have a computer, or else you wouldn't be reading this; all you need now is a DVD player and a bookshop. If you are a TV zombie, you shouldn't be on Slashdot anyway.
I think the reason might be even simpler: a lot of people really don't like letterboxing. They really don't like it in 4:3, and one of the misleading selling points behind the push for HDTVs in stores is watching widescreen content without letterboxing. I see awful ads all the time for widescreen tvs saying things like "view all your movies without any of those annoying black bars," disregarding that almost no movies are released in the 16:9 aspect ratio. But by completely eliminating letterboxing, they also degrade the quality and distort the image, an unacceptable solution in my book...