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Losing Control of Your TV
sp00 writes "The MPAA is now trying to prevent high quality copies made from TV broadcasts. The latest anti-piracy move will prevent you from making high-quality copies of broadcast TV programs. And the new "broadcast flag" technology enables all manner of other restrictions. In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."
Your VHS recorder (at least the current one, with marginal - if any - copy protection built into it) doesn't know that any of the these flags exist, so it presumably wouldn't honor them.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
"Look at some DVDs. You already can't skip some commercials on those"
Actually when the studios first started putting trailers and stuff before the movies on dvd's they fixed it so you couldn't get around them. Especially the warning pages. But every new dvd I've rented over the past few months has allowed me to hit chapter forward to skip past them. Even the FBI warnings. It shows up but chapter forward decreases the time you have to sit there watching. You still can't just hit menu sometimes to jump past the trailers but you can skip them. Obviously not ideal but better than it used to be.
For quite a long time there WILL always be analog video out, at least in the form of component video for high-quality.
;-)
So long as you have that, you can make a recording.
Yes they can try to put restrictions on it (like Macrovision does) but like Macrovision it will be fairly easy to circumvent. So don't go crazy yet... unless you live in the USA that is, where the DMCA would make it illegal
The broadcast flag is old news. The FCC can control hardware, but not software.
e s. html
Thus the GNU project brings us an open source software tuner, which is not subject to regulation, and can tune/record HDTV.
Check out these HDTV screen shots:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/hdtv-sampl
Sadly, the software controlled tuner cards, powerful processor, DRAM, wide screen monitor, good computer stereo, etc put this toy out of the reach of most geeks - for now.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
How can they call it high quality when all of those damn logos are plastered all over the bottom of the screen. I don't see how it benefits me as a viewer or them as a broadcaster. The only thing it does is annoy me. It gets especially bad when you have the network logo on one side and the local channel on the other side of the screen. I was watching that awful Steven King series last night and every so often during the show my local broadcaster would put up a brightly colored not even translucent logo in the bottom part of the screen that was probably a third of the width of the screen. To me that is not high quality. Calling it quality is probably a stretch too.
In Republican America phones tap you.
On an off-topic note - what Linux HDTV tuner do you use, and how open are the drivers?
... who knows how long before the thugs in Washington ban the technology outright.
I use a PC HDTV card. The drivers are free software (GPLed) and available online (they are v4l2 based, rather than v4l, but can be made to work with mythtv and xine-hd).
Buy 'em early and often
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
In the UK, all the latest DVDs from Fox have adverts at the start that you cannot skip. They go on for a while aswell.
What's worse is that these are the retail disks, not rental. I've written a letter of complaint and won't be buying any Fox DVDs from now on.
Same goes for Disney and there Ad-DVDs.
The reason this is not considered news is that it's been like that for DECADES and most people put up with it. The benefit for all that cost is that the license fee supports the BBC, whose programming is vastly superior to what you get on American PBS or network television (or so I understand, not being a Brit myself).
"...and a black market for chipping sets."
I'd think its more acurately described as a grey market. Last I heard its still legal to do what you want to stuff you've legally purchased. Smashing a TV or XBox is your right since you bought. Why should puting a chip in a device to enable features that you are legally entitled to do be any different (fast forward, play backups). Oh, wait.... I forgot that in the US now you don't have the freedom to do what you want any more unless the corporations say its okay first.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
It only applies to digital outputs - S-Video and even Component Analog and RGB (VGA) are perfectly legit. Copies can be made digitally so long as they are made using approved technologies, to be determined by the FCC later this year.
/ FCC-03-273A1.pdf:
From http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch
(a) A Covered Demodulator Product shall not pass, or direct to be passed,
Marked Content to any output except
(1) to an analog output;
(2) to an 8-VSB, 16-VSB, 64-QAM or 256-QAM modulated output, provided
that the Broadcast Flag is retained in the both the EIT and PMT;
(3) to a digital output protected by an Authorized Digital Output Protection
Technology, in accordance with any applicable obligations established as a part of its
approval pursuant to 73.9008;
(4) where such Covered Demodulator Product outputs, or directs to be output,
such content to another product and such Covered Demodulator Product exercises sole
control (such as by using a cryptographic protocol), in compliance with the Demodulator
Robustness Requirements, over the access to such content in usable form in such other
product;
(5) where such Covered Demodulator Product outputs, or directs to be output,
such content for the purpose of making a recording of such content pursuant to paragraph
(b)(2) of this section, where such content is protected by the corresponding recording
method; or
(6) where such Covered Demodulator Product is incorporated into a Computer
Product and passes, or directs to be passed, such content to an unprotected output
operating in a mode compatible with the Digital Visual Interface (DVI) Rev. 1.0
Specification as an image having the visual equivalent of no more than 350,000 pixels
per frame (e.g., an image with resolution of 720 x 480 pixels for a 4:3 (nonsquare pixel)
aspect ratio), and 30 frames per second. Such an image may be attained by reducing
resolution, such as by discarding, dithering or averaging pixels to obtain the specified
value, and can be displayed using video processing techniques such as line doubling or
sharpening to improve the perceived quality of the image.
Federal Communications Commission FCC 03-273
42
(b) A Covered Demodulator Product shall not record or cause the recording of
Marked Content in digital form unless such recording is made using one of the following
methods:
(1) a method that effectively and uniquely associates such recording with a single
Covered Demodulator Product (using a cryptographic protocol or other effective means)
so that such recording cannot be accessed in usable form by another product except
where the content of such recording is passed to another product as permitted under this
subpart or
(2) an Authorized Recording Method in accordance with any applicable
obligations established as a part of its approval pursuant to 73.9008 (provided that for
recordings made on removable media, only Authorized Recording Methods expressly
approved pursuant to 73.9008 for use in connection with removable media may be
used).
(c) Paragraph (b) of this section does not impose restrictions regarding the
storage of Marked Content as a Transitory Image.
(d) The requirements of this section shall become applicable on July 1, 2005.
-Alison
Look for the MPAA to use the DMCA to sue anyone who disables the "anti-copy" circuit.
Or even worse than that, look for them to illegally sue anyone who purchases anything, like a soldering iron, that could be used to disable it.
Don't believe me? Look at how (1) (2) DirecTV is warping the DMCA in its own image. Sueing people for merely purchasing a smartcard reader!
Only 22,000+ people sued so far!
Watch for the MPAA to start this next, just like the RIAA and DirecTV have.First, the article implies that we will be able to make analog copies, but that isn't true, after 2005 it will be illegal for any television equipment to have analog outputs.
i ne er/f-MO-Earth_to_congress.shtml
i ne er/f_mo_the_masked_engineer-01.21.04.shtml
http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Eng
Second, the article implies that broadcast flags will only protect high definition programming. That is not true. Broadcasters will even be able to place flags on public domain programming.
http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Eng
It's a simple fact that in a few years, we will be unable to copy a TV show without breaking the law.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Thanks for the pointer.
I'd like to point out the content of section "73.9008 Interim Approval of Authorized Digital Output Protection Technologies and Authorized Recording Methods", which sets forth the very open and very public process of getting your favorite "digital output protection technology" and/or "recording method" authorized.
Unlike DVD and other digital media formats which may use only those copy protection technologies approved by the content owner with the broadcast flag the FCC as reserved to themselves the right to authorize copy protection technologies.
This means that Tivo can build their DTV receiver anyway they want so long as they can get the copy protection mechanism authorized by the FCC (section 73.9008 also covers what the FCC may consider in making this determination).
So if you want to get control of your TV back make sure an open source copy protection technology is approved by the FCC and only buy tuners that implement that technology.
This could be a golden opportunity to get a decent open source digital rights management system widely adopted.
Abstinence isn't a vote.
--Jerry
People in Japan are really taken advantage of. If they want to buy episodes, they are forced to buy 1 or 2 episode DVDs. But since digital recording is prevelant, most wait for people who supply raw rips of the shows (anime in this case), download them, and since they speak the language, can store a very clean episode on their PC. This April, the changes mentioned in the article will be taking effect so it will be impossible to download recorded shows since they will be in encrypted format. What some fansub groups are doing now are putting together all their unused cycles to try to figure out if the encryption can be broken through distributed processing. More information can be garnered here and here.