HD-DVD Wins Support of 4 Studios

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like HD-DVD has won the latest round in the Blu-ray/HD-DVD format war. Toshiba announced today that 4 major studios (Warner,Paramount,Universal, and New Line) have endorsed the HD-DVD format. Toshiba also said it will use AACS for content protection, which is basically just CSS with better crypto & no ability to recover from security failures."

Comments

HDTV != DTV

[The Cisco Kid]

The mandate makes absolutely no requirement that broadcasts be HD (High Def) - only that they stop using analog transmission and go to digital. The FCC's motiviation is to get a lot of spectum back, and MPAA/broadcasters motiviation is they get the 'do not copy' concept.

While I wouldnt mind if the spectrum was freed so that there could be some unlicensed bands to enable 802.11 style equipment for consumer use, I'm sure licenses for the newly freed TV bands will be auctioned off to megacorps instead. I'm just hoping that they dont just sit on them to prevent competition for high speed services.

Why do so many people confuse High Def and Digital - they are *NOT* the same thing, nor do they always go hand in hand.

You *CAN* broadcast HighDef in analog, and you *CAN* broadcast digital, and still be using standard definition (and if stations are forced go digital, it isnt all that likely that they will switch to HighDef)

Re:HDTV != DTV

[R2.0]

"While I wouldnt mind if the spectrum was freed so that there could be some unlicensed bands to enable 802.11 style equipment for consumer use, I'm sure licenses for the newly freed TV bands will be auctioned off to megacorps instead."

Yes, they will be auctioned; part of the point is for the Feds to make money.

" I'm just hoping that they dont just sit on them to prevent competition for high speed services"

Unlikely; one of the basic FCC rules is that licenses must be used. If a licensee doesn't use the spectrum, it becomes subject to having the frequencies reassigned to someone else.

Re:Very misleading

[tuffy]

That is incorrect. CSS was designed to use lots of keys so that some could be revoked on future DVDs if they were compromised. The problem is, because CSS' encryption method was so poor, Xing's unencrypted key was all that was needed to break the algorithm. So no matter what keys CSS uses on a disc, DeCSS can find a matching one in a very short amount of time.

The Xing key helped get to this point, but it's far from necessary now.