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pcHDTV Card Available, Legal for Now
corby writes "pcHDTV has announced that their new HD-3000 Hi Definition Television Card will be shipping tomorrow, November 8th. The card is supported under Linux, and captures NTSC and ATSC video streams. It also ignores the Broadcast Flag, which means that it will be illegal in the States starting July 1st, 2005, under a recent FCC Order. If you are interested in being able to make your own decisions about what you can do with broadcast HDTV content, this is your last, best, chance."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2091723/
That mattress tag is talking to the retail stores, not the consumers.
Have you considered a PC to HDTV converter?
Kids today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates 400 BC
The HD3000 does support HD cable but only unencrypted channels.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Well, here in Europe we use PAL instead of NTSC, so a European card wont do the job. Dont know about Asia though
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
Outrageous really as it goes against an explicit Supreme Court Ruling.
I'm not aware of any ruling that it contradicts. Of course, if it does, the appropriate measure is to go to court and challenge it.
-- 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.
It costs $189.89, but I think there are discount codes floating around that can get you $10 off .. anyone know of them? EFF-SPECIAL seems to have expired.
using this
it is possible to convert from the VGA out to HDTV.
"Maggie call Aquaman!!!"
You haven't looked very hard, have you? The last two generations of ATi cards all support a DVI to component adapter that ATI sells on their website for $15-$20(I THINK that the all in Wonder brands come with them, but I could be wrong) and of course, if you have DVI input, you could use that...or any other DVI-enabled card. I think the last few of NVidia's do too, but I haven't kept up with them (since it isn't what I have...).
HDTV (ATSC) uses the same bandwidth (6 MHz) as the current analog broadcasting standard. Because it is less susceptible to interference than analog, the same number of stations can fit inside a smaller band. This will free up part of the UHF television band for other uses.
I've pointed out time after time that Democrats are just as bad if not worse... DMCA was signed by Clinton, after all.
Grrr... that argument is really old. The Democrats differ from the Republicans on any number of issues -- education, foreign policy, preemptive war, abortion rights, prayer in schools, civil rights, tax policy, health care, social security reform, etc etc etc. I'm really tired of hearing about how evil both parties are when it's clear that there are major policy differences between the two parties for anybody that bothers to look past the propaganda of Ralph Nader.
That said the DCMA was written by lobbyists and passed through a lazy Congress that (by and large) didn't even bother to read the bill. I'm sure banning third-party garage-door openers and generic ink cartridges wasn't what anybody (even the Republicans) had in mind. Two other issues that will doubtless be brought up can similarly be explained -- the CDA was one of those "Look -- I'm protecting the children! Re-elect me!" issues that had a lot of public support and the Patriot Act was rammed through a stunned Congress after 9/11. Should the Democrats have had the balls to vote against it? Yes. Are they the same as Republicans? No.
To claim that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats is to do a huge disservice to both parties. I suspect that most Republicans would agree with me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I don't think it stops with the broadcast flag, though; once proprietary encryption gets into the mix, there's not going to be a gray area like this with hardware you pick up in the store. Why can't I get a decoder card that works with my digital cable service?
People who enjoy recording TV will have to stoop to the levels of satellite pirates tomorrow to enjoy the same level of use of their service they've got now. With probably the same legal/social connotations, as broadcasters are no doubt seeking to carve new revenue streams out of DRM TV (i.e. "Record to DVD now for only $2.50!").
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
That last line is a remarkable reversal from the usual state of affairs. Normally announcements don't mention Linux compatibility (but it's available at your own risk if you snag some source from their web site).
That alone makes me want one.
sigs, as if you care.
The drivers are a bit rocky - unfortunately they are not in the mainline kernel, and if you are running a newer kernel getting the patches to apply is a bit tricky.
Also, the version of xine they have modified to support tuning and selecting the video streams on a multi-stream HD transmission is OLD - 0.7. Again, they have not moved the support into the main line Xine.
Alsa (sic), under 2.6.x and ALSA sound you cannot get audio for normal TV as the modified video driver claims the resources the ALSA sound driver needs. Yes, the primary focus of the card is HDTV not NTSC, but still, IMHO they should fix that.
Lastly, you had DAMN WELL have a meaty machine if you plan on watching 1080i streams - my Athlon-xp 3000 with an ATI 7500 AIW, with everything tweaked in as much as I can, needs about 120% CPU to watch a 1080I stream. IF you have an nVidia card, IF you have the modified version of Xine with XvMC support THEN you can lower the bar a bit, but otherwise, no.
I'd like to see them make the effort to get all the software into the main line codebases - I believe the hold-up is the issue of possibly supporting the Linux DVB API rather than bodging the ATSC support into V4L2.
www.eFax.com are spammers
There are three types of DVI. DVI-D is digital (the standard for digital input to an HDTV ... same thing as HDMI). DVI-A is analog, which should be easily convertable to component. DVI video cards output DVI-I, which carries both analog and digital. You can tell if you have analog support by looking at the keying on the connector (the big bar-shaped pin). If the keying pin is surrounded by 4 pins, you have analog.
Correct. Follow the last link:
Q: Can I use these cards after July 1st 2005? A: Yes you can use them, they are "grandfathered" into the new regulations. It will always be completely legal to use them. The card ignores the copy right bit and if a show has this bit enabled, the card doesn't care and will save the stream in full quality anyway.
120 chars are not enough for a signature. I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to c
You are making the mistake to believe that foreign hardware will work just as well as it would here.
With broadcasts, the US uses NTSC which is being replaced by ATSC which is carried on an 8VSB modulated signal. Only 2 places in the world currently use ATSC over 8VSB, the US and South Korea.
I have seen a few interesting SK products though, one that runs about 300, is an external tuner using USB 2.0, looks great... now I just need to convince my boss to let me have it (someone here while on business in SK found one and fell in love with it).
The European standard is COFDM for modulation and is radically different enough where it is extremely unlikely that you will find a demodulator capable of handling both, and even if there was such a part, the likelihood of it being used is low, after all, why adapt a multi national standard when you are only looking to target a single region?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I have one, it doesnt work as advertised. Only a few resolutions work and they chop off the edges. Its a piece of crap...
;)
--Just an FYI
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
The HD3000 *will* supoort HD cable. Support is supposed to come in the next month or two.
-matt
The Democrats have the best legislator on the issue, Rick Boucher. But they also have the worst, Howard Berman. There are good Republicans like Lamar Smith and bad ones like Orrin Hatch. Neither party has a stellar record on the issue.
TV stations in the US are broadcasting their ditigal signal using 8VSB modulation in a 6MHz channel. That equates to a 19.39 Mb/s bitrate.
The stations have the option of how many programs they wish to broadcast within this space. They may show 4 standard definition digital channels at 4Mb/s each during the day, and at night switch to a High Def stream at 14Mb/s and an SD at 4Mb/s.
Stations could also have non-traditional channels (channels that most of the major networks have never owned), such as weather information, since they often use static images that don't take up much bandwidth.
ALL equipment sold before this date in the US that does not respect the Broadcast Flag will be grandfathered in. From http://eff.org/broadcastflag/:
The good news is this mandate doesn't take effect for another year. We have until July 1, 2005, to buy, build, and sell fully-capable, non-flag-compliant HDTV receivers. Any receivers built now will "remain functional under a flag regime, allowing consumers to continue their use without the need for new or additional equipment." [PDF] Any devices made this year can be re-sold in the future.
There are two other cars that are available with stable windows drivers: MyHD & Fusion. MyHD does all of the processing in hardware, and can output component video/vga/or dvi directly to the tv without help from a video card. The Fusion card does the processing in software and uses the video card to output to the tv.
There was once somewhere an FCC FAQ about the broadcast flag. It specifically says that, yes, you can have a TiVo, so long as it denies you high-quality digital access to unencrypted bits.
It's still a raw deal. There's no reason to make it sound worse than it really is.
Sure, there will be some minor differences
I didn't know preemptive war, foreign policy, tax policy, environmental policy, education and a woman's right to choose were "minor issues". Silly me basing my vote on these minor issues when there are clearly more important things to worry about.
This ensures that they will vote alike on all issues that are important to lobbyists (ie. DMCA).
The difference being that Kerry said he would examine the DMCA and see if it needed to be changed. Write that off to campaign rhetoric if you will -- it's more then Dubya was willing to do.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Wrong. That's not what the law says. Even under this dubious broadcast flag regulation, you are allowed to save and view copies of TV shows, regardless of the producers' wishes.
Why do you think you have a *right* over other people's property?
You seem to be confused about just what is "property" under copyright law. If I have a legally obtained copy (including copies made under fair use), that's my property, and I can use it as I see fit. The copyright holder has no rights over my property.
What the copyright holder owns is a limited right to prevent me from making *further copies* of any copies I have.
Over here in old Europe we have plenty of cards which take a digital cable, satellite, or terrestrial feed and hand the decrypted (but not decoded) media stream to the computer.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
If enough Canadians can convince their government to stand up to U.S. pressure to implement the broadcast flag, you may be able to import them from there. It can't hurt that ATI is a Canadian company.
...
There's an article about it in the Toronto Star: Mr. Minister, please protect the public interest.
Here are a few interesting parts:
[Industry Minister David] Emerson's strong backbone will be tested in the months ahead as he faces unrelenting U.S. pressure on two initiatives that would, if adopted, provide broadcasters with unprecedented control over television signals and severely curtail consumers' expectations with regard to their rights and personal privacy.
Given the controversy associated with the broadcast flag in the U.S., one would think that Canada would be wary about embarking on the same route. Accordingly, it came as a shock to many when an Industry Canada official recently indicated that Canada was likely to follow the U.S. lead by quickly implementing a similar system by July 2005. The official suggested that there was broadcaster support for the measure and that since the U.S. had adopted it, Canadians had little alternative but to follow suit.
While Canadian broadcasters may or may not support the broadcast flag (they have in fact been rather publicly silent on the matter), it is essential Canada craft its own policy by considering the privacy and copyright policies associated with the proposal.
Pre-judging the issue, as some in Minister Emerson's department appear to have done, is a dangerous course of action, that should be replaced immediately by a working group of all stakeholders, including the broader public interest, intent on studying the Canadian options. The suggestion Canada faces a Y2K-like deadline with respect to the broadcast flag appears as overblown as was the Y2K threat itself.
In light of the importance of the issues raised by the broadcast flag, it is heartening that Canada's new Industry Minister is a veteran of supporting Canadian interests in the face of U.S. pressure. When David Emerson salutes the flag on Canada Day 2005, one hopes that it is one with a maple leaf, not a broadcast flag emblazoned with red, white, and blue.
The Honourable David Emerson, Minister of Industry, can be contacted by email or by regular mail.
you basically are legally allowing something and then making it so hard to accomplish that only a very small portion of the population can benefit from that legal provision
This is precisely what the DMCA already does. It forbids the "trafficking" (for want of a better word) in devices (programs or physical objects) that circumvent copy protection schemes. If a copy protection scheme does not permit fair use, it is not illegal to reclaim those fair use rights by disabling the scheme. It is, however, illegal to tell anyone else how you did it. That potentially leaves only the technical elite to be able to legally use the media in a fair manner. This effect is, of course, exactly as intended by the law.
As you stated, making things difficult is entirely permitted by copyright law. Where the DMCA is legally objectionable is that it creates ban is on the communication of an idea (ie: free speech), and I hope a case which can address gets successfully heard at the Supreme Court soon!
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
> almost all tv's nowdays can display both
> NTSC and PAL anyway.
Oh, so wrong. In Europe (a place aware of the rest of the world) this may be so. But in the US (an ignorant, parochial, and isolationalist place that unfortunately still insists on throwing its international weight around) multi-standard TV sets mostly don't exist.
Don't underestimate how backward this Red State-laden country is.
-kb, the Kent who is proud to live in a Blue State.
Actually, yes -- I was just thinking the other day that it should be a requirement in order to receive the protections of copyright that the creator provide the Library of Congress one complete, fully-reproducable source copy, preferably in a digital format. In addition to facilitating the situation you described, this has another even more important advantage:
Have you ever heard of "abandonware"? It's a computer program that is no longer available in any form from it's publisher, who may even no longer exist. Moreover, any copies that you can find are in compiled form. Why is this a problem? Because in 100 years or so when the copyright finally expires, you'll have a program written for a CPU architecture/OS/framework/whatever that's been so long forgotten that in order to use the program you'll have to figure out what it does from the opcodes up.
The reason I said "source copy" is that once the code is public domain it should be reproducable and modifiable (check the copyright clause in the Constitution about this -- it's the "derivative works" part). A binary, for all practical purposes, isn't modifiable. Also, I'm not just talking about software. I mean TeX, PostScript, SVG (not Illustrator format, since it's proprietary and undocumented), etc. too.
Now, I don't propose that the Library of Congress give out the source code of a closed-source program, but they ought to at least have it, to save it for the future.
Anecdote: There's an old game I really like called Tyrian. When it came out, 486s were cutting-edge and DOS was the norm for games. Now, I have a Mac, and there is no possible way for me to play the game -- if I had the source, I would port it myself, but I can't even ask for the source, because AFAIK there's no one left to ask. I could run it emulated (except that I can't because my Mac is too slow -- it's an iBook), but why should I? The people who made it obviously don't care about it anymore, so what's the harm in giving away the source? They could do that and keep copyright on the artwork, like iD did with Doom.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz