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Is The Public Stuck With The Broadcast Flag?
peeping_Thomist writes "The only company that sells HDTV tuner cards for Linux has run out of cards to sell, and they are now missing deadlines for new getting new cards. Linux users who want to view and record HDTV face an uphill battle. Meanwhile, the dreaded July 1, 2005 deadline for manufacturing DRM-free HDTV tuners is fast approaching. MythTV supports HDTV tuner cards, but so far no one has made a move to, as the EFF puts it, "buy, build, and sell fully-capable, non-flag-compliant HDTV receivers" prior to the July 1 deadline. The current combination of MythTV and pcHDTV (assuming pcHDTV cards become available again) may, as the EFF says, be "great for geeks," but it is a far cry from the TIVO-esque simplicity a mass market demands. Unless someone can get bring a DRM-free hdtv recorder to market before the deadline, it seems the general public will have no chance to avoid the broadcast flag."
What would be a better time than now?
Remember the good'ol days when information and ideas were free? ...oh, wait
Seriously it's a detriment to your health and most of it is crap. Go for a walk or run. Take a hike.
Go swim. Visit friends. Talk with your spouse or mate about their goals, dreams and fears. Talk about politics or religion.
http://tinyurl.com/3t236
... sounds like Microsoft with Longhorn, except these guys are actually missing the deadlines rather than just lowering the quality of their work.
- Code Dark
Since most of us on /. use Windows, are there any flag-free HDTV cards for it?
*Couldn't there be a startup project to get existing windows-compatible HDTV cards to work within Linux? I mean, there's a good sized community out there, and with the right motivation (recorded HD for all?) couldn't this be done?
As far as DRM-disabled tivos....I doubt it will happen....Even if someone rolled out one, no doubt it'd be stopped before it hit the shelves.....
*Disclaimer - I don't know much about HDTV cards..Know how they work and all, but I don't know what's available on the market.....
My MythTV HowTo
-- Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Perhaps a manufacturer could set up in canada and sell them here so that people could travel up from the states on vacation and buy them (then smuggle them back)(I am assuming that the broadcast flag will not apply to canada and the lap-dogs we have for politicians will not joyfully run out and copy this bad legislation)...
Europe doesn't have the broadcast flag (as of yet), right?
And HDTV is HDTV, right? A common standard, unlike NTSC and PAL, right?
So will we see Americans buying HDTV cards from Europe in the future?
Is there a chance this will go the same way as DVD region-protection?
someone has them, and is hoarding them for uber-ebaying profit... remember these cards just need to be manufactured before the broadcast flag, not sold by then. Stuff manufactured before July 05 *should* be grandfathered in.
Unless im confused.
Of course I'd much prefer that someone step in and change the FCC's course on this (and many other issues).
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
These cards are going to same way as DVD's.
The market will demand DRM free cards to access media that is not copyrighted yet fails to play because of DRM restrictions.
We will see cards that can be reflashed, making us all criminals that do such, to be DRM free.
Go that market pressure.
Why act like this is the end of the world? Just stop 'consuming' the 'product' if you do not like the 'terms' the 'product' is offering.
In short - screw 'em. They make their money from advertisers and if the advertisers don't get eyeballs, they can't make money.
I'm not planning on buying any HDTV gear until I hear what way the broadcast flag useage is trending. And if PBS is using the broadcast flag, my donations will go away there also.
I felt some anxiety over that July 1, 2005 deadline, but then I realised that I don't even watch TV.
Mandate all you want about DRM or HDTV broadcasts, and while you're at it, mandate that pi=3, and that g=9, it's still not going to make much of a difference. The deadlines will be extended, and HDTV will continue to be reserved for a minority of channels of the cable and satellite broadcasters for at least the next half decade, simply because there's limited bandwidth.
Go ahead government, make our tv's stop working. We dare you. As for the DRM side, by the time that HDTV's actually do have a majority of the market the DRM will be cracked open, with the yellow encryption key yolk spilling out on the floor.
Relax mon!
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
This is the wrong way to get around this problem. I say a boycott after the deadline would be far more effective. If nobody purchased a tv tuner after the deadline, that would speak volumes. It would have be a very organized protest, but with enough attention, it could work.
At first filesharing and music swapping was for geeks. No one outside of geekdom knew much about it. Look at it now, AOL users are doing it (HA!). The general public has gone from seeing it as a small group of p1r8t3s stealing music, to some sort of Robin Hood analogy fighting the RIAA.
I can't see HDTV DRM being much different. Tivo modifications are not uncommon, I even saw a few how-to books for it at B&N last week. Eventually consumers will clue in and WANT to record HDTV, legally, like they do now with NTSC and a VCR.
The only difference with HDTV is that it is almost being forced out to consumers where Mp3's, DVD's and CD's were slowly introduced and adapted. Even my friends who are usually early adopters haven't said a damned thing about getting an HDTV card, decoder, or HDTV-ready TV. There has been very little chatter about this from the tech media. Yet, the broadcasters, electronic makers,and the government have already started tossing around legislation for HDTV. The point is that DRM is being forced on consumers, so is HDTV.
You have to trick consumers into buying what you want them to buy and the current HDTV and DRM crowds are not being that subtle. Consumers will be revolting ('well mostly they're just rude') as soon as this crap starts to complicate what used to be a simple task.
By 1:00AM on July 1st someone will have hacked it.
The VAST majority of my friends and family visit in the "living room" of their house. You know, the one with the big television in it.
:p
Visiting consists mainly of watching the tube like zombies and discussing the commercials when they are on. If I suggest turning off the television I'm treated as if I'm incredibly rude, insane or both.
On the few occasions that the television is not present (for example, if we're *gasp* outside) the main topic of conversation is usually what is going on with the latest 'reality tv' shows.
It is truly pathetic.
And yes, I'm from the USA.
Folks,
I would really like to get the bottom line on whether these HDTV tuners are Broadcast-Flag compliant. (Of course, I want the answer to be "no" to all.)
ATI HDTV Wonder
DVICO FusionHDTV III
Hauppauge WinTV-HD
Itech AccessDTV
MIT MyHD MDP-120
pcHDTV HD-2000
Sasem OnAirUSB-HDTV
I pressed and pressed ATI support for an answer, and finally got them to say it DOESN'T respect the BF. I'm just not 100% sure I believe them.
Does anyone know about these??? How do we get a reliable answer? The listings on the EFF page don't explicitly say that they don't honor it...
Tom.
No. The general public has gone from not seeing it to seeing the way they see any pervasive and widespread crime almost equivilant to speeding: They don't care.
Sounds like a job for Gnu Radio...who needs a hardcoded tuner anyway!
Recent supreme court cases such as Morrison and Lopez stop federal regulation of activities that are "non-commercial." This means if nothing commercial is transpiring, the activity cannot be regulated under the commerce power (this is the same authority used to establish the flag in the first place.)
Open source software that is not sold, is freely available, and freely modifiable is very much non-commercial and therefore not subject to this regulation.
Thus, and IAAL (I get sworn in TOMOROW) but not a techie anymore, it seems that if there is any way to get a signal to your computer, a free, open source software program could render it - and no laws would be broken.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Where is PCHDTV located? Why don't you all come to Canada (instead of Europe), especially the PCHDTV tuner company.
We have plenty of room ready, especially in preperation for the dogers after President Bush reinstates the draft to fight his war(s) (if gets back in).
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
Don't be a victim to the broadcast flag -- be creative and make your own entertainment.
(Also beware of performing copyrighted scripts -- you're not even allowed to videotape such performances. Be creative in the script department as well.)
There was a suggestion in Linux Magazine a month or so ago that it might be a good idea to buy one of these Linux cards if you wanted to be able to watch HDTV without worrying about the broadcast flag. I got myself two, and I'm very glad I did.
However, I wonder how long it will be before some assHatch^H^H^H^H^Hhole attempts to make it illegal even to own one of these devices...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Well, there's always this, but I don't know what's happened in the past year or so...
You people need to shut the hell up and stop complaining. The government needs to have 100% control of television to make sure you're not being subersive to it's socialist and New World Order goals. Can't use Linux with it? WELL CRY ME A RIVER! Linux is a criminal and terrorist operating system and needs to be promptly banned.
You people make me SICK!!! I hope anyone caught modifying their TVs is "Waco'd" along with their families. Quit whining, the New World Order is here and it's here to stay! Do as you're told and shut the fuck up!
Why do you all care? Here in the UK terrestrial TV is a waste of time, and Sky isn't any better. Our TV broke 2 years ago, I havn't watched any TV for 3 years, and the rest of my family don't care either. We watch the odd film every 2 weeks or so on a PC, and read, play games, go out more, and have about 3-4 hours more useful time each day than most people we know... where's the loss? where's the downside?
3 years ago this would have concerned me.
But there is nothing good on over-the-air TV. Nothing. I can't name a single show that's watchable. I have the rabbit ears - I don't really use them.
I thought about getting cable, but I realized that I'd be paying $50 a month to get The Daily Show. Which is nice - and probably the best show on TV - but hardly worth $1.66 a day. I wish I could subscribe to just that one show - and maybe some of the adult swim stuff on Cartoon Network - a la carte channels just won't do it.
So this broadcast flag? Sorry, but you actually have to broadcast something I want to watch before I buy a new TV tuner card or anything else. If that means I get nothing but snow on my TV after 2005, it won't make much of a difference.
We the public can put pressure on the administration in office to not allow that. If we are willing to accept thier decision and just try to buy them up before July 1. Then we deserve what we get. Write your congress people tell what you think. Then don't vote for the ass holes.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Of course they don't "support it". They were all made before the law was passed. You can bet tho' the windows drivers+software will at some point be "upgraded" to support the flag. The whole point is that with an open source driver, even if the manufacturer put BF support in there, you could take it out.
tcboo
If you're looking for a proper HDTV tuner, get the Sencore IRD3384A, which is what the DTV station I installed uses to monitor its own signal.
This gives you the MPEG transport stream on both SMPTE 310M and ASI interfaces, plus uncompressed digital video (SDI).
(Don't expect to see one at Best Buy any time soon, though...)
one of the nice thing about computers is that clever people keep on designing faster and faster CPUs and memory.
All kinds of specialist hardware has disappeared over the years as the function could be implemented as s/w -- cheaper to develop, cheaper to deploy.
A h/w decoder has some chance of being controlled by an outside agency if only because there is a company to take to court. The s/w equivalent is uncontrollable.
I doubt that broadcast television will be around in 20 years as a mass market thing anyway.
:
My prediction is that it is going into a death spiral caused by the following
1) There are many other things to do that watch tv all evening unlike 20 years ago (dvd, internet, games for example)
2) The programs they are increasingly producing are aimed at the lowest common denominator to reduce costs and increase audience share for that program. But that's causing an increasing number of people to find *nothing* they want to watch at all.
3) It takes a few years of inertia for people who on't actually like any of the programs to realise this and turn off.
4) An older generation from 20-40 years ago who watched the peak of mass market tv are slowly being replaced by a younger audience who don't have that shared culture of watching tv every evening, instead gaming and the internet are important.
5) There are a lot more channels making it almost impossible to get huge audiences for any particular show.
6) As audiences drop the amount of money available to TV companies will drop. They'll panic and stop producing more fringe stuff and concentrate *even more* on the lowest common denominator stuff which is turning many people who don't like that stuff away.
7) As the audience drops more and increasing number of children who already have alternatives will not be "educated" in the culture of watching mass broadcast television.
I firmly belive that there is a death spiral here which is almost unavoidable. I predict that mass TV will have an audience reduced by at least 25% in 5-10 years time, and will have dropped to below 50% in 15 years time as todays children grow up without the culture of watching all that TV.
I can see television being a quaint old fashioned thing in 20 years time...
On the other hand I think that movies and DVDs and perhaps internet broadcast shows have a good future ahead of them. The demand for quality entertainment isn't going away and I believe that it won't be long before we start seeing produced for DVD shows happening that are never broadcast.
We are reading more and more about DRM technologies and at same time we are owning less and less. Suddenly there's a service to attach to each product to pay for... Im curious if anything we will make in the future (When DRM will be widely used) will be owned by of or will it be owned by the company why made the application? I think that that is a stunt to watch out for...
For a second I thought nobody would be able to shoehorn a microsoft bash in on this story, but alas you've saved the day with this piece of trite nonsense, you even got some inbred to mod you up.. Well done, sir!
You make a good point. As anyone who reads my past posts can tell you I spend hours pontificating on the virtues of local solutions for local needs rather than our prevalent "all laws come from Washington DC, all entertainment comes from Holywood" approach. Before TV there were local bands, theater,and the local courthouse... they still work, and they're still as good as any Reality TV we get now.
Of course you have to schedule around them, no time shifting... but then it looks like we can't do that anymore anyway.
KUDOS to you!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
``so far no one has made a move to, as the EFF puts it, "buy, build, and sell fully-capable, non-flag-compliant HDTV receivers"''
So, draw your conclusions: people don't care. Maybe they should, but if so it's still damn hard to convince them to.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I just hope they'll switch off public TV soon. Maybe then I won't have to pay anymore for having a VCR, a TV tuner card and a stand-alone TV tuner, all used for non-TV purposes (I don't even own a "living room antenna", much less cable/satellite).
I just read the EFF website on this, and the law seemed to only apply to interstate commerce.(as per the constitution, I think).
Does this mean local shops can make & sell HDTV tuner cards as long as they don't sell or distribute across state lines?
What about a chain of shops that simply never sell or distribute across state lines?
Or am I missing some pertinent legal jargon where interstate = intrastate?
I see two ways we will get non bradcast flag cards. First will be from people selling for the non use market, and doing a gray market import. Some jackass in .ca will make a killing seeling drm free cards on ebay. Second way we will get drm free cards is the same way we get 'import and backup' support for Xbox and playstation. Who ever makes the best card will get it hacked. Most likly a hardware hack will come out to remove the broadcast flag, finally a software hack will comeout most likly in the form of either a new firmware flash (ala region free dvd drives) or a hacked driver that ignores the broadcast flag. At the speed the warez groups are able to hack throught copy protected binaires, I give it 2 months until just about ever decent card has a gray market driver. The broadcast flag will be flop just like every other DRM scheme before it, people dont want it, only one cracker needs to beat it, and its down like panties.
I've pretty much gotten away from TV, as well. Discovery and Animal Planet still have some decent stuff. So does PBS. But honestly, I don't really refer to them as "TV". I still watch a DVD every now and then, but not often.
The net is nice because I don't have to wait for the media monguls to serve me; I can hunt my news-kill for myself...
They (pchdtv) will have a new batch of cards in October. There is nothing to be worried about. The plant where they had the first cards built burnt down. So they have had to find another manufacturer.
I'm sure the "general public" isn't crying about this one.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
whoever mod'd the parent as flamebait needs to beaten with a cluestick. It was the grandparent that was the flamebait. The parent actually has a well stated argument.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
I am not sure, but it seems reasonable to suppose that any individual or corporation who attempts to sell a DRM-free HDTV tuner before the July 1, 2005 deadline will come under concentrated legal attack by the content industries. Even if the action is frivolous they would probably be successful in delaying the release beyond the deadline in which case the legality of the tuner in question would become a moot point.
seems like the reasonable thing to do.
The USA, South Korea, and probably Canada and Mexico use ATSC.
The two standards are not compatible. DVB-T is primarily a standard for standard definition digital television, while ATSC includes both standard definition and high definition modes.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The main reason? HDTV is fucking expensive. Also, there are not very many channels.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Once I went back to the country and had witrhdrawals I ordered sat again - until I realized I was now spending even more than $100 a month to watch tv. Now I just watch a couple of reality shows (aain, if they coud be called that) and the few shows I actually care about (like west wing, joan of arcadia, enterpise) I download of fthe internet - the quality is better than I can get OTA locally and WAY better than anything I ever saw when I had directv.
But beyond that, most of this is a nonissue. Why? Because you can still get "degraded" 720x480 content even after the BC flag goes in. Now, how many of you ive in an area where the local broadcaster is actually USING HD? We have two digital stations here and both of them simply used the opportunity to cram in more content - one adopting UPN and a weather channel, the other the PBS affiliate using the extra bandwidth for distance learning projects and specialized content. Broadcast flag or no, Dan Rather is still gonna be in 720x480 rez.. so what? That's DVD quality, which is fine by me.
All you folks bitching about not having access to unprotected content... well, there's a simple solution to that: produce some and get it on the air. When you do, make sure it's in the broadcast contract the presentation is to be unprotected.
It's little different than complaining about online radio stations not being able to carry madonna and britney: if you want an online station, pick up the indies who DON'T have sharecropper deals with hollywood - but shut the fuck up - and stop complaining about how the big boys won't let you play in their he-man club.
Would it not be possible to record the actual broadcast signal at the time of transmision, and then replay it in front of the HDTV equipement when you want? Would the DRM-enabled equipement have a way to know?
I realize that to sample the raw HDTV signal at double its frequency would require enormous amounts of storage available, but storage always becomes cheaper and bigger.
I may be completely wrong here, but I think if DRM enabled equipement becomes too ubiquitus (I am not talking only HDTV here) analog methods of aquiring the information could become rather usefull. The information could then be stored in non-DRM formats. How big would be the loss if I capture a song from a decent sound card using the built-in A-D converter? And if the degradation using a sound card is not acceptable, there must be better equipement available for a reasonal price.
From what I understand, Canada isn't using the ATSC standard that the US is using. I wanted to confirm if this is the case or has anything changed?
If I had mod points, I would mod you up. Straight dope. Mon...
use Blunt::Instrument;
What stops them from making the media content require a DRM compliant receiver?
So if you have one of the 'magic DRM-less' receivers, you don't have to worry about the DRM bit, but nor do you have to worry about having anything to watch either..
Unless the majority stand up and say no, the minority of us that support digital freedoms are outta luck.. And don't expect that to happen anytime soon, due to the stranglehold of the media, feeding the sheep what they 'should believe'..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I know I sometimes use IE to read Slashdot from work.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Because of concerns over concentration of media power (particularly because of Berlusconni's near-monopoly on both state and private broadcasting), pirate TV has become a popular political action in Italy. Many stations have been set up as community resources, sometimes broadcasting to as small an area as a couple of streets (and thereby resisting the homogenising effects of the mass media). Check out Telestreet for more information (in Italian).
That seems weird, maybe they ment FC1 or FC2. Either way, that screws slackware users like me over! At least it's not like HDTV tuners for TV's, so it accepts both digital and analog.
I don't know what's happened in the past year or so...
GnuRadioWikiLast edited September 17, 2004 11:16
"A way to NOT make criminals out of the market is to make a metric assload of the appropriate ICs, then build the cards later. Completion is just a chip insertion away. "
1 metric assload = 1.0*10^-3 Goatsefull.
"Don't be a victim to the broadcast flag -- be creative and make your own entertainment."
I use to, but the neighbors asked me to close the drapes.
I mean, what's the downside to it... somebody care to explain?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think this will resolve itself. While it is yet another kick to the nuts of the common aging consumer, I don't think the demand is there anymore.
I fall into the 18 to 36 age group, and at the current rate of folks not watching TV- There will be nobody left to care about it in 15 years. Most of this age group- which consititutes the future and present of the US Male population- don't watch TV anymore.
It's all internet or work driven for them. TV has become irrelevant. You can download a movie not even in the Theatre's yet in under an hour, and project it on a 20X30 wall in the comfort of your own home.
This isn't the future. This is now. People are building these into their houses before anything else. No commercials. No waiting. No concession. Complete liberty to watch what you want when you want. That's the demographic HDTV and the broadcast DRM flag are up against. It's already too late for the industry. They missed it. The golden rule of technology is- the more you squeeze, the more you lose. In this case, they are squeezing the elderly only. And that time is finite.
The new card is supposed to have windows drivers. I suspect it's in peoples best interest to help if possible to make sure they get good working Linux AND Windows drivers for the same hardware. When the flag goes into effect, they will likely have to stop shipping source code for drivers and obey the flag - they'll probably be a windows only card but you could download the Linux drivers still.
All speculation on my part though.
film the local content, and make it available without DRM on the net. Doesn't cost the performers a thing, since they would not have gotten a distribution deal anyways, and gives them exposure to boot. You get your time shifting, the world gets a far richer entertainment menu, big media loses ratings/eyeballs/marketshare/money.
Make my *own* pron? Yeeewwww....!!!
Let the MPAA and their buddies in TV-land foist this crap onto the public; it's the sort of thing that'll piss off even Joe Consumer. And seriously, what will happen when Joe Consumer begins to get annoyed? I'd imagine that 'Internet TV shows' will start popping up as an alternative to the headaches and hassles of what modern, regular TV viewing is becoming. And 'ITV' isn't regulated in any sense of the word; ITV is just a streaming or downloadable movie or series installment, no different than any other streaming or downloadable content.
Imagine what will happen if Joe Consumer finds he can watch whatever shows he wants, whenever the hell he wants, never missing any of them, and never having to sit through a single ad. If you're thinking "it'll never happen" because it's on a computer and not on those nifty big-screen TVs, do try to remember that starting with the year 2000 TV viewership fell by nearly 3% in the United States, the first decline in the history of TV. Not only that but viewership has continued to decline with each successive year, much to the consternation of the conglomerates. What are those people doing instead of watching TV? *They're on the internet*. Add what makes TV attractive to the other forms of amusement the internet provides and watch the conglomerates really start to shit a brick....
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
BIG and BLACK
I spend very litle time watching TV anyway. That is the whole reason why I have avoided buying a new TV in the last 10 years. I just can't justify spending several thousand bucks to see a couple of sports games and Nova episodes.
As for movies, I use netflix (though the usefulness to cost ratio is dropping steadily in my estimation, and I will probably even drop that after a while).
open mind: teaching computers the stuff
What deadlines? The link to 'missed deadlines' does not elaborate any such problem.
That's not entirely accurate any more. The original monochrome NTSC standard specified a 60Hz vertical frequency for that reason, but when color was added to the spec the vertical frequency was changed to 59.94Hz to minimize interference between the various subcarriers.
Incidentally, most tube receivers have all the tube heaters connected in series like a string of Christmas lights; all the individual tube heater voltage ratings are chosen to add up to about 120V, so the string of tube heaters is connected straight to the 120V AC power input - a nice source of 60Hz noise available throughout the receiver.
In my miss-spent youth I repaired several tube-based NTSC TV sets, and a couple of them had leakage between the 60Hz heater circuit and the video section and you could see the rolling beat pattern due to the difference between the 60Hz power and the 59.94Hz vertical scan frequency quite clearly. It was a symptom called "hum bars".
most cable boxes with firewire ports don't actually have the firewire ports enabled.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Worry. With the new world order. US law only make sense through country - country treaties. Unless we get the rest of the world to buy into the "Broadcast Flag" thing -- who cares.
Remember non-commercial motivation. Or put another way: there is always going to be a bright 15 year old who just has to find a hack for the flag.
You have no chance to survive the broadcast flag. Make your time.
The HD-2000 is a piece of crap. I hope of of you dewy-eyed idealists buy mine off eBay. That'll teach you.
Hey, manufacturers, here's an idea:
After next July, your HDTV tuners will check the broadcast flag (as required), but they also will have a "bug" -- your tuners can be made to ignore the broadcast flag by applying a relatively easy hardware mod.
Of course, you can't actively market that feature. Instead, "somebody" will "accidentally" leak the technical details of this "bug" to the hacker community. Word-of-mouth could cause your sales to skyrocket.
shouldn't that be goatse?
In Europe, the cheaper class of DV cams has disabled DV-in, because the Wise Public Servants decided that higher tax applies to VCRs than to cameras, and if it can record from external input, it is a VCR. (Bunch of filthy bastards. If somebody turns Brussels into a vat of molten glass, and drowns all the bureaucrats in it, I won't cry for them. Radioactive fallout from such flash-bang would be easier to cope with than the endless stream of "important" paperwork which that portal of Hell keeps spewing. But I digress.) Some models can be modified and unlocked, though, but the manufacturers do what they can to avoid it, as the tax applies even to the models that are possible to be DV-in enabled by software only (and they are way too happy to sell you standalone DV recorders, naturally properly overpriced).
Getting a friendly tourist to smuggle it through the customs for you is likely an option, though, but beware of PAL/NTSC issues. Australia and Far East is PAL region, USA and Japan are NTSC. It's possible to transcode between them by a computer, but it always brings in some artefacts.
There is also a chance it will be possible to download the drivers from an offshore location. (Which would be a good advantage against competing brands without such option.) If we are stuck with capitalism and have to cope with globalization, we can use their better aspects too instead of only bitching.
Sooner or later somebody writes the whole thing as a FPGA core and makes fat money on shipping "general purpose high-bandwidth data input cards with integrated signal processor". When open technology fights against corrupt laws, technology - at least if distributed enough and spread thin enough to not make a counterstrike too effective - tends to win.
The GNURadio project has a HDTV implementation which AFAIK is grandfathered, and can *IGNORE* the broadcast flag. Hardware for GNURadio continues to be developed and prices for the high-speed electronics required continue to fall.
Anybody want a peanut?
Do these people get paid every time someone happens across the goat.cx page? Geez.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
No. That's a lot of damn work. I used to do theatre in high school and it was tough in many ways. First it was really time consuming. I spent hundreds of house of the course of a couple months for each production. Also I was just the head lighting tech, the actors started work before I ever did. It was also hard in that the peice lost all entertainment value. I had ever line memorized, and could recite the play form any point if given a cue, plus note light changes, all before opening night. During the performances, I was too busy concentraing to enjoy it. It also infected my dreams, I would dream about nothing but the play from about 3 weeks in to about 2 weeks after.
Now that's fine, it was a neat experience that I'm not sorry I had and, as you noted, plenty of women. However to do something like that now, I'd need money. Doing it just for entertainment isn't worth it at all. The reason I play games or read books or watch TV is because it's low effort on my part. I spend a little money and I get entertained.
Doing theatre was entertaining and engaging, in a way, but also very draining. Creating something isn't easy and I won't do it just for entertainment very often.
It's like music, I also used to play trombone and that was fun and entertaining, but in a very different way from playing a video game. PLaying the Carmina Burana was one of the defining moments of my life, but that doesn't mean that I want to do it all the time. I had to put months of effort into that and the performance night was intense. That's all well and good, but it doesn't take the place of plopping on the couch and watching Family Guy.
The more that small element of society pirates music, video and software, and the more its gets whined about, the more the respective bodies crack down ('shut up and go to your room').
Now, if your parents were psychotically unfair and issued the same punishment to every one of your siblings, no matter who the perpertrator was, wouldnt you turn into an uncontrollable brat?Yet if you have respect for authority, how more well behaved are you for them?
'Now go to your room just in case you do something wrong and dont come out until after dinner!'I'd possibly be climbing down the drainpipe and going out drinking.
where's the choice then?
Look at the telephone. It's over taxed in the US. VOIP is the end run.
Free over the air TV? P-P and home brew Internet does the end run past passive TV viewing.
Next question..
The truth shall set you free!
until geeks modifiy it to make it simple enough for the mass market.
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
The standard for HDTV changes after July 1, 2005 and those of us who have purchased these non-DRM HDTV cards are screwed anyway. Let's jump on the bandwagon, buy up these cards, fill the pockets of the company selling them, and then have to buy another when the ones we bought don't work anymore. Yay, go bureacracy!
You other guys are right, sitting on your ass, enjoying a pizza and 6-pack certainly does hinder the chance of any physical activity - you should join me sometime. Mmmm, pizza...
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Right now citizens in the US have the right to record TV shows and watch them at a later date. It's called time shifting. The concept came out of the US Supreme Court case called Universal v Sony.
Many people use that right via TIVOs, via VCRs, or via computers. It's engrained into our culture like free air. It's something we take for granted.
That's all about to change. Broadcasters will even be able to block the time shifting/recording of public domain programming. Heck, after 2006, it will be illegal for any TV device to have analog out, so don't think your VCR will be of any help. And lastly, while you might be able to get around it, doing so will be illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Considering that 12-year-old girls are being sued now for downloading music, you can rest assured that broadcasters will be happy to sue adults.
Here's the deal: We will still be able to timeshift the vast majority of our shows. If suddenly one day we're unable to record our favorite shows, there will be a riot. Congress will get involved and will put limits on the use of the flags. Broadcasters do not want that.
Here's what will happen. Broadcasters will allow the vast majority of programming to be time-shifted with limits, e.g., unlimited re-viewings but you'll be unable to skip commercials.
Some shows, e.g., sporting events and big movies, might be totally blocked from recording, or the restrictions for later viewings will be stricter. But it won't happen often.
And here's the real reason the Flag will be rendered meaningless, over time the recording devices will be smart enough that the Nelson Ratings company will be able to know how many times a recorded show is watched. At that time broadcasters will not care how much we re-watch shows, because each re-watching will increase the viewership of the particular show. Thus it will be to the broadcaster's advantage to allow as much timeshifting as possible!
However, what will change is that we will not be allowed to keep libraries of our favorite shows. There will be no legal way to get shows off the recorders. But since the Court in Universal v Sony specifically stated that such libraries violate copyright, we won't be losing any rights in the process.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.