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New DRM Scheme To Make Current DVD Players Obsolete
Oneflower writes "ExtremeTech reports that a proposed new DRM scheme could make current DVD players obsolete. The scheme, from Hewlett-Packard and Philips, targets DVD+R and DVD+RW and is an attempt to enforce the FCC broadcast flag on DVD recorders."
New DRM Scheme To Make Current Slashdot stories Obsolete
liqbase
Yet Another Star Wars Boxset to buy!
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
DVD-R is the preferred recordable DVD flavor for movies these days. It's cheaper than +R and more compatible with DVD players.
FU CARLY
This is never going to happen, no one is going to go and buy a new DVD player for some new crappy wannabe-standard. They'll try it and fail, next please!
I like muppets.
that my DVD players/writers come obsolete anytime soon. I use them for writing data, not playing/recording movies. Besides, users don't like forced obsolence of hardware anyway.
And a hack will be made, a firmware update released and in the end we will be back to what we are doing today. Not to mention this will take a LOT of time until it comes out and becomes mainstream (how many people are going to change their dvd players/recorders....meaning they won't be buying this new media format for a while)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Try Thunderbird ;-)
Three people shocked by news of planned obsolescence in consumer products!
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
from the article, emphasis mine: Hewlett-Packard and Philips said Wednesday that they have developed a content-protection system for DVDs, designed to protect users from burning "protected" DTV broadcasts.
How on earth does this "protect users"? It only tries to protect the bottom line of media megacorporations. Being manufacturers of the physical drive units I don't doubt they may try backtracking and manufacturing drives for stand-alone DVD players which only play +R(W) media, too, thus locking out the -R(W) media which won't work with this new scheme.[0]
Fortunately the general public seems to be getting more tech savvy (the refusal to accept Circuit City's Divx scheme, rising awareness of spyware and solutions, etc) so hopefully people will see this as it is: a money grab.
[0] - a bit of irony on Philips part there I think; I just picked up a Philips DVP642 DVD player which can also play divx and xvid on cdr/dvdr/etc. Surely they know the great bulk of those are downloaded.
Trolling is a art,
It's not like I can't just stop watching DVDs.
There's a threshold to just how much crap people will put up with it. Mine and some fellow geeks may have lower thresholds, but eventually the public threshold will be met as well and the companies that keep pulling these silly stunts will get a thrashing in the form of competition that treats customers like customers, not like crooks.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Lets sue them for making me have to buy a new DVD player
It can be recorded/copied.
When are they going to learn?
People Talking in Movie shows.. people smoking in bed.. people voting republican.. GIVE THEM A BOOT TO THE HEAD!
Like they were in enofrcing the CD audio standard? Not this time, we're SOL it seems.
consumers have the money companies want. consumers decide what's worth their money. if these companies think they can just release a product that will make DVD players obsolete and consumers will accept it, they are dead wrong.
it has nothing to do with rights or DRM, it's a simple matter of average joe's seeing that things doesn't work the way they used to. and he/she will not buy any more of them because these things "don't work."
Good for them. Does anybody actually think that the lower classes should have any money? Only those with land really matter, this is just a way to get the money out of the hands of those who don't deserve it into better people's hands. Any conservative knows this is how you need to run a society in order for it to work. Look at Clinton for confirmation of a failed society.
It almost makes me want to dust off my VCR until everyone stops trying to create a new format every other week. At least then I know I can still buy tapes that work with it and never have to worry about them forcing betamax or something equally silly on me.
They are releasing a "new" platform that provides no additional benefits to the consumer, costs more for the hardware AND the media, and they plan to generate sufficient sales to obsolete an entire customer base?
Apparantly nobody informed these people that the old:
1. Rob consumers
2. "..."
3. Profit
strategy simply does not work in the real world
---
Guess I should add "Bids" as well as comments here ;-)
What gets me is this doesn't even sound like it should fit under the FCC's perview, as it is not a broadcast matter of any sort.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In other news, 15 years ago a woman in Lithuania gave birth to a kid who will crack the new scheme shortly after his sixteenth birthday.
In order to secure our profits, you must go out and buy new hardware.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
is to just not buy ANY of this DRM stuff.
Stop sending money to the MPAA and RIAA by buying the goods which support them.
If they don't have money, they can't buy congress-kritters. If they don't have money, they will wither away and become dust.
...and they will drop this like a hot potato. Any recorder that does not allow you to get round this will be dead in the water.
The same thing has happened with multi-region DVD players here in Europe. If it doesn't have a way to get round the illegal-restriction-of-trade technology, then people simply won't touch it.
Every player in every store now has a hastily applied sticker saying "Multi-Region!". Once the new recorders come out, word will get around about any models that can be bypassed, and sales will take off, leaving others face down in the dust.
And, of course, since US companies aren't allowed to do this, only overseas companies who deliver to several markets will have a legitimate excuse.
So, congratulations, once again US legislators are outsourcing American jobs and increasing the trade deficit.
Well done!
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
Read the iTunes lawsuit article and you assume DRM, vendor lockin are good for consumers and cross compatibility is something bad for consumers. Read this article and comments and suddenly those things are bad again. There is no difference between the RIAA and the MPAA so you can't use that excuse.
... to buy a shedload of cheap DVD players and VCRs unencumbered by any of this crap. Keep 'em in the loft 'til they're needed, wheel 'em out one by one as they break.
Unless... this is a scheme to make us buy shedloads of cheap DVD players and VCRs. Argh! What's the conscientious paranoid supposed to do with himself nowadays?
First of all, the standard is not going to catch on. People are not going to run out and buy a new DVD player so they can buy new movies that are the same quality as the ones the already own. The only way this might work would be to outlaw the selling of the old DVDs. Thats not going to happen. Secondly, this is stupid anyway because it doesn't do anything to stop VCD/SVCDs. The majority of the downloads I see on bittorrent sites are not 4GB, they are more like 1.5 or 1 GB and they are usually Mpeg format, for burning to VCDs. I am sure some manufacturers will be able to make a version of these new DVD players that play VCDs, and they will sell! Just like the old players. The people behind that anouncement are probably just trying to appease a bunch of idiots in Hollywood.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -Confucius
Why exactly would I buy DVDs that I can't play on my existing DVD player? Oh yeah, in a few years they simply won't make DVDs that do play on my existing player.
Reject Fear - Embrace Hope
Does anybody remember Mission impossible? "This movie will self-destruct in 5 seconds". That's what they need to do, instead of always coming up with these at best temporary anti-piracy measures.
If that's not the case, then it's bullshit. Although I won't argue that a lot of media piracy is abound, by _FAR_ the biggest use for DVD players is to watch actually legally purchased or rented content, and if these changes won't interfere with that on old players then the whole "making DVD players obsolete" thing is just mindless hype.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Seriously. I know you short attention span types want to see all the latest and greatest shows and movies but the great thing about entertainment is that by definition it's not a necessity.
Go read a book, go surf the net, go create something or take up cooking or amature botany or anything rather than give your attention and money to these schmucks who want to eliminate rights you've had for the past however many years.
This isn't food or shelter or clothing. If the supplier abuses you - abandon him.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
...I'll go along with their shiny new DRM standard, if they'll replace my DVD player for free. By which I mean, pick it up from my door, and give me an equivalent player with the DRM, for absolutely no cost to myself.
However, I bought a DVD player, and if it stops playing DVDs for no good reason, I'm not going to be enthusiastic about buying another...
Just letting you know that I'm not going to buy DVD players from you. Not that I ever did, or would want to. But, just so you know, now I know what companies to avoid.
Hoping you go down in flames,
A Citizen (STOP calling me a consumer!)
(I'll be honest, I just bought my 1st DVD writer a few days ago, so I may be preaching w/o a license here.)
The thing that I can see here, however, is that by not getting all the standardizations on board with the new Video Content Protection Scheme (VTCS), there will still be a number of "outlaw" machines (burners and players alike) that will be compatible with each other for years to come. This also goes without considering the possibility that someone is able to eventually disseminate the broadcast flag code and write a program that can interface with the copy-protection layer to disable it. (While I'm at it, I'll say "disabling it" does not have to refer to the newer systems, just "hacking" the content in order to be able to use the older burners,)
Then again, I've never really run into any problems with DRM on my music, so I may be wrong.
"The VCTS scheme will also be built into next-generation media, which will slowly replace the non-DRM encoded DVD+R discs over time. The new discs will be somewhat more expensive than their DRM-free counterparts, explained Jun Ishihara, a product manager for Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., also known as Verbatim. Likewise, the new players will probably be priced somewhat higher than conventional players, HP executives said, although pricing will be up to individual manufacturers."
Why would consumers willingly pay MORE for LESS functionality, and kick their current gear to the curb to boot?!
*shudder*
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Comment removed based on user account deletion
it just encourages people in the USA to buy CD burners from overseas instead, where the FCC flag won't be implemented, supported or mandated.
BWUHAHAHAHAHA.
Oh, come on, seriously. This is the most funny thing I have ever read. Maybe they are protecting us from *AA lawsuits or something?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Each time they made money for the sellers of the scheme, but harmed the purchasers. And I don't mean the end-users, I mean the companies that shipped software that depended on unreliable and sometimes deliberately broken hardware.
Customers couldn't use the products, and returned them for a refund. Which made the dealers relctant to stock them, and eventually the products were supplanted by their more functional competitors.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
The giant irony here:
/.ers who brought DRM into the mainstream. , not the media companies.
1) The majority of people "outraged" by this are the file swappers.
2) If it were not for these same people, media companies would never have DRMed their content.
It is the
This is about physical DVDs not being able to be played in current DVD players.
No doubt it will take less than 24 hours for a DRM DVD player to be hacked, mod chip designed, and start of production.
Manufacturers know this so they will have less warranty claims as most people will mod them and void warranty.
Ok what everyone here needs to understand is that the general public will buy this, they will pay more and they will throw out their old equipment and DVDs. Don't think for a second you can do anything to stop this awesome marketing train - these companies employ some of the worlds greatest experts, they could sell people their own piss if they wanted to. Just be happy that you have the basic engineering skills needed to get around it, obviously no box in my home is ever going to be honouring a broadcast flag and I know that goes for most slashdotters and their friends/family.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I've been asking myself... "Which of DVD+R/RW or -R/RW" standard will survive?"
Now I have an answer.
I think I'm going to invent my own new type of DRM so it will be illegal for them to remove my foot from their collective asses!
If they think they can get people to eventually replace their DVD players, it's a pipe dream. It's not going to happen. We may have jumped from tapes to discs, but that's because tapes can stretch and wear. Poor people are going to be so upset if they have to buy a new DVD player just so it can play a new format.
Organizations and the like, trying to control what we can and cannot do with the media (data) we buy, is nothing more than a downward spiral. They need to learn to compromise with the consumer, instead of thinking with their wallets.
My Panasonic -R recorder has already refused to record several movies because it detected a copyright flag.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
You have been protected.
You break my DVD player, I'll just go ahead and steal some of your movies from DC++, asshole. Don't you people get it? I have a finite space in my budget to spend on your shit. I don't have any more money for you, and if you make me start spending it on new hardware for your ridiculous new standards, then I won't have any left to buy your IP with.
...you insensitive clod.
I'm still waiting for two features they never brought over from VHS:
1. A format that will ALWAYS fast forward when I hit the fast forward button. (same with rewind)
2. A format that will withstand the destructive force of a toddler. (Though I do applaud the DVD's resistance to heat from a car.)
If this new-fangled DRM standard player would provide me with those things (and have a low cost), I'd look into buying one. I'm not holding my breath.
If the eye can see it, or the ear can hear it....It can be recorded/copied.
When are they going to learn?
Well of course it *can* be copied. Just like you *could* repair your car when it breaks down. But guess what. Most people don't repair their cars because it's usually too damn difficult for the average person.
That's exactly the point of these DRM schemes.
Of course it won't prevent *all* copyright infringement or whatever other bulls#$t restrictions they have in mind. But it will make it difficult for the average user.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
...into a Philips or HP "let's make a DRM DVD player to comply with the new bullsh*t FCC guidelines" idea person's ass? 'cause if this happens, I have a Toshiba that will wedge in just nicely with a good swift kick.
Talk about dumb ideas. Philips is also the company that came up with that AMBI-LIGHT technology on plasma TVs, I believe. The color of the program on the screen causes colored light to shoot out around the edge of the screen.
Unless someone can tell me that it works to "enhance" your viewing experience despite watching a $5000 plasma in your shitty $800/month 600 sq. ft. downtown apartment, then I'd say that Philips, at least, has experience in dumb home electronics ideas like this.
IronChefMorimoto
This has "won't catch on" written all over it.
There's enough people out there that don't mind the digital to analogue step down process. Take CDs for example, DRM only works when you can check against something that somewhat resembles the original digital format with watermarks, key points, etc. If someone has simply hooked up a 3.5mm jack plug from their audio out to the mic on their soundcard then they can easily rip music into mp3 format. The same is true with DVDs, there are still plenty of people that won't mind the minute subtle changes that come in to play from using the analogue step down process.
To get around this, companies would have to then have to figure out how to pick up traits in the music/film as opposed to relying on actual markers. This too can be easily overcome though for example for the case of music, the pitch can be altered by less that 1% and for most people the difference would be virtually nill.
What I resent is that film studios and distribution companies are making a fortune here, while something which was one of the basic given rights, to make a legit backup, is being taken away. I'm sure as hell not going to be spending another $70 on some box set when some rugrat happens to scratch one of the DVDs. If film companies were really threatened by piracy and weren't using this as some kind of "anti-double jeopardy" thing they'd have some way that you could prove that you'd bought the original and they'd send you a replacement if you damaged yours for a minimal fee. After all, the media costs literally pence to produce and it is the content that we are actually paying for.
- Better picture quality
- Better sound quality
- Additional extra's
- No need to rewind the tape
- Ability to skip to certain sections of the film
- Smaller physical size of the DVD medium
There are 6 keys things there that satisfy the "what is in it for me?" factor.Having a new format with better DRM fails this test completely. The only way it will ever get adopted is if people are forced to change - and there will be public uproar.
In short, if they're going to want to introduce it, then they have to come up with some other features that really will make people want to "upgrade". If not, then it is pretty much dead in the water from the beginning.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
http://senthilkummar.blogspot.com/2005/01/dint-i-t ell-you-guys.html
This is what we can get, whether its open source or not, we get only bullshit.
Do not mix DVD+R with DVD-R; You will end up with a bunch of useless DVD=R media!
It reminds me of the Divx fiasco a couple years ago, I just hope that it comes, fails, and then Penny-Arcade makes another drunken piece of failed DRM hardware.
[0] - a bit of irony on Philips part there I think; I just picked up a Philips DVP642 DVD player which can also play divx and xvid on cdr/dvdr/etc. Surely they know the great bulk of those are downloaded.
I think rather than irony this is a fun example of how geeks can pull one over on increasingly clueless higher ups - to upper management at Phillips Divx is nothing more than another item on a checkbox list of features!! I'll bet some guy got Divx added in just that way. It's what I would do, were I working at Phillps and also perhaps a follower of Bob.
Finally the stupid "feature list" serves a purpose for good.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's exactly the point of these DRM schemes. Of course it won't prevent *all* copyright infringement or whatever other bulls#$t restrictions they have in mind. But it will make it difficult for the average user.
Until someone come out with a one click solution for copying like has happened with DVDs.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
is a must read. The FCC is going to lose this one because they clearly don't have the authority to require the Broadcast Flag.
Thank your local bespeckled "digitally-savvy" Librarian for this one (and yes, I'm trained as a Librarian -- we do care about ensuring digital rights).
But that is the silliest thing about these DRM schemes, they prevent most users from copying but most users don't copy they download a file to watch, it is the few who are the ones who do the actual ripping and they will have the knowledge and desire to circumvent these schemes. In the end nothing changes.
They already are getting that competition in the form of the Internet. The average American spends 30 minutes less time watching TV on a daily basis because of the Internet.
Ultimately, TV and Movies are just another form of entertainment. If they make access to these things expensive and inconvenient, people will simply choose another way to be entertained. They'll go watch the latest e-mail from strong bad. They'll download some fan produced star wars movie. They won't have to pay a dime and ultimately they'll be as entertained, if not more so, than they were from TV and Movies.
So go ahead mega media empires. Go ahead and DRM and freak out about all of this, and watch it all crumble underneath your feet. We are your CUSTOMERS, and you are supposed to provide us a service. If you actually think that intentionally introducing confusing, complicated, and inflexible products will make us more willing to give you money, you need to get into rehab.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This is a bad sign. Previous DRM schemes in the marketplace like DivX were isolated to systems that were trying to sell in parallel with existing non-restrictive systems. Getting big players like HP and Phillips to incorporate this kind of DRM into their main lines of players is a different kind of thing. First of all, it is more likely to get market uptake when it is bundled into their standard models, due to people not understanding the difference. Also, this DRM scheme is likely to be less annoying the blazonly bad DivX model.
Secondly, it is troubling that HP and Phillips are now collaborating with content producers to put these restrictions in place. This is a far cry from the "Rip, Mix, Burn" ads from Apple. I'd much prefer that tech companies and content producers maintain a healthy distance from one another. Sadly, I think we are only going to see more of this as the two industries creep further into bed together.
Wolfgang Schlichting, an optical storage analyst for IDC, said that characterizing the VCTS DRM scheme as a forced obsolescence of DVD players was a "bit of an overstatement". However, the addition of the copyright restrictions will add more confusion to the market, he acknowledged Chalk up another one for Slashdot hysteria.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I am calling for an active boycott of such a scheme in everyone's interest. If such a situation would ever occur I would never again buy any DVDs but rather a huge harddrive array and download and share as many movies as I can, using anonymous encrypted P2P.
What's to keep someone from grabbing frames from the player's digital TV/monitor/screen output, scrubbing and re-encoding them in any other format, and doing what data does best: copy copy copy download download download?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
>the new Video Content Protection Scheme (VTCS)... VCTS solution is not foolproof...
first_letters(Video Content Protection Scheme) = VCPS
VTCS != VCPS
VCTS != VCPS
VTCS != VCTS
Lucky certain Chinese manufacturers are on our side, they will build players/recorders with intentional flaws (ie a jumper block or a couple of things you can solder together) that allow you to disable any stupidness. Aslong as they keep these flaws as innocent as they can these things will sell like hot cakes when the word spreads that any geek with a screw-driver can fix your equipment to play/record anything. This will happen until the 'capitalist' entertainment industry pursuades the US government to ban them, free market style.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
DVD players are cheaper then VCR player.
I would put that up at the top 80% of consumers.
"then they have to come up with some other features that really will make people want to "upgrade"."
a feature like "the ability to watch movies"?
If it workd, thye will just use the 'boil a frog' method of introduction. Like RFID tags.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Although it is still too early to tell what consumer reaction will be, customers have generally rejected schemes like Divx, the Digital Video Express initiative backed by retailer Circuit City. DivX allowed users to watch the disc for 48 hours before it was rendered unusable. The Divx program was killed off in 1999.
uh...aren't we confusing acronyms in here? Please don't confuse the users even more.
Maybe it's getting lost on the manufacturers out there, but usually if you want someone to buy your new product that is supposed to supplant an older-yet-functional product, you have to have some kind of compelling reason.
DVD worked where LaserDisc failed, because the electronics became cheaper, and the quality was much better than VHS, while not taking any more physical space than VHS.
Better quality + same price point = commercial success
However, if this new stuff requires consumer purchase without consumer gain, it will be relegated to the halls of failed products, in the display case between DIVX (the single use disc, not the codec) and SunnComm's CD copy protection which could be bypassed through the use of the shift key.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
By law June 2005 is the last month any equipment can be made to ignore broadcast flags.
This is the new standard whether we like it or not since many dvd makers will be fined if they do not include the drm.
Isn't corruption great?
http://saveie6.com/
Customer: I bought this DVD player, and now it won't play DVDs! .....
Salesidiot: Yes sir. That is becuase the new DVDs have a new copy protecion scheme to stop pirates.
Customer: But it's a DVD player, it's supposed to play DVDs!
Salesidiot: Yes it will, but only the old ones. In order to play the new DVDs you will need to but this DVD player.
Customer: But that one costs $100 more than the one I bought yesterday that you say won't work!
Salesidiot: Yes sir, but you will need this to play the new DVDs.
Customer:
Salesidiot: I'm sorry sir, but you're not allowed to bring shotguns into the store.
Customer: BLAM!
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Basically any DVD you buy nowadays(movies, blanks, everything) is already -R or -RW. Are those guys plain idiots?
That is incorrect. The Picass0 robot is malfunctioning. I will protect you from the terrible secret of Fiorina. Fiorina has a terrible power.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I remember when all the CD copy protection scheme thing was raging on (who knows, perhaps it's still raging) and Phillips, maker of the stand-alone home stereo CD burners said they'd just go right ahead and make a burner that can copy copy-protected discs. I thought that was cool, as someone who bought one of those when they first came out so I could easily a) transfer all my old vinyl to a CDR format and b)transfer all my band's music (computer burning wasn't an option for me then, don't ask). I'm surprised they're getting their hands dirty in all this.
Time to buy myself a DVD/Divx drive.
What's an FCC?
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
"No highs, no lows, must be Bose."
"Bose: Better sound through bigger magnets." (A reference to the 1980s college student's Holy Grail, the 901 speaker).
Nowadays I just try to spend around $800 and match my wife's furniture.
That comic was awesome! Thanks for the link.
DVDs don't wear out as easily as VHS casets.
I have worn out a couple of VHS tapes due to watching them A LOT. (Ghost Busters, Top Gun)
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Not only do I get more restrictions on how I use my recordings but, can I also pay for it too?! With logic like that, how could they go wrong? Usually they try to bundle some copy restriction with a new feature but man, they're just not trying anymore.
Green Mile incorporated announced plans for new features designed to protect users of Good Ole Sparky, from inadvertently staying alive.
"how many people are going to change their dvd players/recorders....meaning they won't be buying this new media format for a while"
Answer: Exactly none.
Consumer: "Uh, let me get this straight. You want me to buy another DVD that has no additional features simply so you can protect the movies that I've legally bought"
Consumer: "WTF?"
A few years ago, SONY decided to "protect" its movie/music assets by designing all of their home DVD players to reject recorded (instead of stampted) media.
SONY must have thought they were the only company in the world producing home DVD players. To no one's suprise, Pioneer (made players that played anything you threw at them) had a banner year in home DVD player sales.
As far as "non-compliance" with DVD standards goes - who cares. The music industry is pulling this crap right now saying DRM protected CDs are not really CDs - so they can ignore the standard.
It only takes ONE hardware manufacturer to decide that it is not in their best intrest to sell bastardized hardware for this plan to fall apart. I'll bet there are a lot of hardware manufacturers that don't own music or movie companies that would love more hardware marketshare.
-ted
You're missing the most obvious answer, it's "protection money".
You see, the Godfather doesn't want you to have an "unfortunate accident" like getting your house raided because you are a pirate, so he's offering to protect you.
All you need to do is pay the "small" upgrade fee for all your DVDs and DVD players.
If these things dont permit HDTV output no one will buy them. If they do, then there is your dvd-quality hole right? or is hdtv signal also encypted all the way to the screen? Admittedly its not an analog hole but it has the same character.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Vote with your wallett and we won't even need a 'mod' chip!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Actually, from R'ing TFA, the article headline is very misleading. This will not make any change to current DVD players. It makes changes to make the recorders obey the evil bit/broadcast flag.
The fact that they expect the media and the players to cost more once this is in place (so Hitachi can get their royalties of course) is going to slow adoption of this.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If new titles won't play back on older units, we're all screwed.
I'd like to say that I have everything I would want on DVD, but, frankly, there's a lot of older catalog titles that the studios have not yet released.
I can only hope that this one dies a painful (and expensive to the proposing companies) death.
I'm not sure which is worse, the DRM idiots or the idiots who consistantly refuse to set one standard for media...
Communists :-)
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
In time people can be migrated over to a new format..
Look at what happend to vinyl and CD's..
Sure, it doesnt happen over night. but once you sop producing the old devices, people will slowly move to the new devices/formats...
Then at a certain point, you turn the switch, so to speak.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In Sovie^H^H^H^H Democratic America, companies don't owe YOU a job, but you owe THEM your business!!
True, but unlike cars it only takes one person to get the cat out of the bag. Once it's on the Internet in an un-DRM format no amount of kicking and screaming by the *AA can remove it without violating civil liberties. (Right to privacy, which includes encryption.)
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
"The scheme, from Hewlett-Packard and Philips, targets DVD+R and DVD+RW and is an attempt to enforce the FCC broadcast flag on DVD recorders."
You goddamned idiots, why can't you just give your customers what they want! The pirates really don't eat your bottom line as much as you claim! Your movies still make hundreds of millions of dollars! Your CDs still sell in the millions! Tivo has been out for a while and you're still in business!!!
Treat your customers with respect, and they will treat you in kind! If you don't treat them with respect, your days are truly numbered! Don't fall for the DRM trap!
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
But isn't 'one-click-solution' patented by Amazon?
.signature: Command not found
Nothing of the sort. It merely shows that moderators can easily spot a shill (or do you deny you work for HBO?).
Not to be a smartass here, but do you really have any compatibility issues between your stereo A/V components? I can remember having a sync cord from my panasonic DVD player to my dual Panasonic cassette recorder, but outside of that, I can't think of any connections that would be proprietary between DVD, receiver, and TV. Does Sony really have something special going on that requires compatibility? Just curious.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I agree that it makes it harder for the average Joe to workaround, but what has been my experience is that average Joe comes to kiddcreole for info on how to do what he wants to do. As long as I know a way to do it, I will help Joe out. People may be stupid, but they can be taught.
And difficulty is only an issue at first. Once someone figures out how to bypass the DRM, they will work to make tools (or find someone who can) to make it easier for average Joe. It's their way of sticking it to the man!
All hail and worship the next hacker's challenge!
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who know binary, and those who don't.
The current batch of DVD players don't even look for the broadcast flag because it didn't exist.
The flag is being put into a previously reserved section of a header. The reserved section was all 0's, so there was no reason for the current DVD players to look at that section.
Now I don't have access to the version of headers the Phillips guys are referring to, but if my suspicions are right, these new DVD+ disks will have a pre-written certificate on the DVD with the broadcast flag set. If your current DVD player reads DVD+ disks without problems now, it should continue to play the new ones as well.
The author suggests that IFF an activity (copying) is prohibited via technical or practical means, it follows that activity is restricted by copyright law.
This is the view that the **AA has been promoting for some time now, through propoganda and the DMCA.
That is--if it's technically difficult, it must be illegal. And, via the DMCA, that we, the **AA, will decide what's legal and what rights you have. You will be informed of our decision after you buy our product.
Folks, it doesn't work that way. Fair use has not been repealed. Not by the unelected and un-apointed **AA, and not by the passage of the DMCA.
The DMCA gives a group of unelected people the practical ability to make certain legal activities illegal. Our constitution doesn't allow that. The power to pass legislation comes from the whole of the people. The select group that we give this task was ostensibly elected by the whole of the people they represent. Not by a small group.
A person (or corporate "person") who wishes to apply for this sort of protection should not be allowed to arbitrarily remove rights from other persons.
I propose a test:
"If you want your RM system to be protected under the DMCA, you must submit it for approval. (leaving the approval process and challenges to improperly approved systems to another discussion). If your system inhibits legally protected activities, your system may not be protected under the DMCA. You may implement the system, as long as it doesn't break existing laws. But if someone chooses to break your system in order to exercise their rights in an otherwise legal manner of their choosing, the law will not stop them. However, if your system ONLY inhibits those activities in a manner you are already legally entitled to control, then it may be protected."
Seems to me a fair test--Everybody's existing rights are protected. No unelected person gets to make arbitrary decisions for the rest of us, then use the penalty of law to enforce those decisions.
It removes the power to enact laws from the **AA and the puts it back into the hands of the legislature where it belongs.
This assumes, of course, that legislators answer to the will of the majority of the citizens they represent--not to the citizens offering the biggest bribe.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
According to the article, the new media will be more expensive than current media:
Basically, they want us to throw away existing DVD recorders and purchase higher priced hardware and media in order to "protect us" from breaking the new FCC broadcast flag regulations.I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I'd start an exchange program with Blockbuster (and other rental stores) such that for every old style DVD that Blockbuster sent in, they'd get a free copy of the exact same movie in the new format plus a dollar back. Sure, it's a hefty cost, but when everyone tries to rent a DVD and finds they have to either rent or buy a new player, the new format automatically wins. Game over.
Reject Fear - Embrace Hope
Vision 1:
Scene: Your local "Best Buy" or other electronics store
Best Buy Guy: Here you go, we have this one over here for $89.99. It will read any DVD except for a few of the newer ones that have some new DRM scheme on them. To read those, you need this one over here- its $129.99, and the DVDs it plays are $29.99.
Customer: Wait- does the more expensive one play my old DVDs?
Best Buy Guy: Nope. It "protects" you from easily copiable media by not letting you play it. But a few of the new, more expensive dvd's coming out will work in this one that costs more.
Customer: Wait- it does less and costs more?
Best Buy Guy: Yep. Progress marches forward my man! The wheel of time halts for no man!
Customer: Ok I am sold! Sell me that more expensive DVD player that does less!
Vision 2:
Customer: This DVD I bought yesterday is defective- it doesnt play in my DVD player. I'd like my money back.
Best Buy Guy: Yessir, right away sir.
Now...which vision do you think is more likely to actually occur?
I just bought a DVD-recorder (Toshiba DR-2). It does DVD-R DVD-RW and DVD-RAM within cartridge or not. It was cheap, and it works great.
Go ahead. Change the standards. Make my day. I won't be buying your stinking DRMed media or players for slightly greater cost. I will be exercising my fair use, legally legitimate ability to time-shift programs and copy, say, my current VCR tape collection to DVD for my own personal use. I paid for the cable, so I'll watch the programs when I want. I paid for the movies, so I'll watch them on the media I want. Restrict this ability, and I'll roll that factor into the evaluation of whether I want to keep buying the product, because you have made it less useful to me, and therefore of lower value.
This new DVD format sounds like it takes away more freedoms than it gives. Who is fooling who? DRM means the rights of the media companies and not the consumer that buys the thing. The consumer is actually losing rights and freedoms here and being forced to buy a new DVD player.
What this will do is force more people to get on the Internet to download cracked versions of DVD images on the file sharing networks and burning their own copies, because the new DVDs won't play in their $60 DVD player they bought a few years ago. Rather than spend $120 for a new DVD player, they spend $59 on 100 DVD-R disks in bulk and start up whatever P2P file sharing program they can and make DVD-R copies of movies from that.
Way to go, the more you tighten your grip on the DRM movement, the more revenue that slips through your fingers.
P.S. The Hackers/Crackers will find a way around this protection in less than a month, and turn protected DVDs into DVD ISO images using a DVD ripper. The ISOs can then be burned back to a DVD-R or DVD+R or DVD+RW disk after that, the DVD ISOs can be shared over file swapping networks.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I just want to know why in the hell I still can't buy even a 10 pack of dual-layer media. The drives have been available for ages, there just isn't any media available... All you can get is 3 packs for like $15 a disc... sucks
DVD-R is the preferred recordable DVD flavor for movies these days. It's cheaper than +R and more compatible with DVD players.
ROFL. Slashdot man speaks with forked tongue.
DVD+R was designed specifically to have a format that is compatible with the DVD-movie standard. In other words, a DVD movie player doesn't even need to know about DVD+R to be able to play movies written to a DVD+R disk. It's hard to get more compatible than that, and I'm proving the compatibility daily on my antique DVD movie-only players.
No other DVD format is compatible with DVD movie in this way. All the other formats require the player to have been programmed explicitly to handle them.
as if DRM schemes work.
Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive - great player great price - plays everything on the torrent net. Only $60.
They're just kissing ass. Yeah Betamax all over it. Next.
idealord music
If you have a 200 or 400 disk changer locked in a cabinet out of the kid's reach, they can change disks at whim without getting their grubby little hands all over the fragile polycarbonate.
Upgrade the cabinet a bit, and you can also keep your collection out of the grubby little housebreaking hands of the local crackhead.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Well, mp3 may be good enough for the people, but it's taken currently unbroken DRM to make the RIAA &co switch from CD to MP3.
Outside DMCA countries DRM that doesn't have key-escrow to ensure that the material can be copied at will as soon as the copyright expires breaches current copyright laws. It's also the mirror of napster mk1.
DMCA + DRM = no more public domain.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Frankly, were I a lawyer, as soon as these things started being sold to the channel, I'd try to put together a class-action lawsuit claiming harm to the class of people who previously purchased recording devices that were being legally used that now had to go out and purchase new units.
Also, the fact that these new units would cost more due to the implimentation of this copy-protection scheme creates additional actionable harm.
I would add, for the benefit of karlandtanya that the term fair use also refers to the permission to exhibit or broadcast copyrighted material due to a news event, like the death of a person connected with the material, a photograph of a person and so on. Fair use in the United States exists for a period of 48 hours and then it expires. In that event, one might be able to use one's home-digitized material on a blog as long as the link was removed in 48 hours, though this has certianly not been tested.
What he is referring to is home copying, which is legal as a result of the Sony Betamax Case that specifically allows home recording and copying and storing of material for personal use.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Everyone is happy, including me.
:-)
There's the DVD-CCA and the MPAA that are absoposilutely pissed off about the whole situation- it's just that there's stronger laws with regard to what they can do to consumers over in the UK and other locations (Or weaker, but don't give a flying fsck about 'em in that arena...) and they pretty much can't do a damn thing about the situation.
Which makes ME all the more happy about it.
Too bad we can't see this sort of thing happening in the States- I'd be even happier about it because it's happening where I am.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"Why from yourself, if everybody went out and got it for free, the industry wouldn't have any money to put out the next big Gigli."
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
Of course even if the players are cheaper, the movies cost more in dvd format than in vhs.
Provided my DVD burner continues to operate normally, I will not purchase a new one. If these companies provide media that somehow inhibits burning of content, specifically or generally, then the retailers will simply see a large increase in returns of 'defective' media.
Obsolesence is how you describe VCR's when you have a DVD player (when used solely for playback); the experience of watching a DVD is so much better in so many ways that you never want to use a VCR again.
Introduction of DRM will provide one user-noticable feature: refusal to do something asked of the device. That makes it incompatible.
eskwayrd = m^2c^4
I am a movie *freak*, and I play all of my movies (and games and music, for that part), through my super-schweet modded PS2. I know that as long as people are modding boxes like the PS2, that adding in a workaround to silly copy protection like this would be very very simple (since they already allow you to play any DVD movie, original or backup, from any region, any PS2 or PS1 game, original or backup, and any music CD). There will ALWAYS be an easy way around this. When is the industry going to learn...?
I don't respond to AC's.
Frylock: That's never gonna work shake.
Shake: I know.
1) DVD handles chapter forward and back (a VHS doesn't DO that...) and via the remote (and in some cases, on the front panel...) you can fast-forward/reverse in at least 4-5 different speeds and slow-forward at at least 2-3 different speeds. Now some discs have some obnoxious feature that prevent you from doing this sort of thing to the "previews" (ads?) on the disc- but they're actually in the very small minority of late because people bitched about that... Item 1 on your list has pretty much been a non-issue since the beginning- always HAS been.
2) Tape's much worse- haven't you seen VHS tapes strewn across roadways by rowdy teenieboppers? All it'd take to ruin a tape is to give it a couple of swirlies, moosh food or spill juice/kool-aid into the thing, or stick one's fingers into the loader gaps in the door (which little fingers would be adept at doing) and PULL (ooh... Such fun that!). DVD's can be snapped and scratched up- the other "mishaps" that would trash a VHS tape don't even figure into a DVD, they're non-problems. Light to medium scratching can usually be ignored by a player and when it isn't, one can typically resurface the optical portion of the disk with various products on the market, which do, amazingly work well.
Simply put, neither of your reasons work as being valid concerns. (And the people that modded you up as "Interesting" never went through this little mental exercise to see if you really were "Interesting"...)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
+R is significantly less compatible.
No. Fuck them and their DRM bullshit. This has gone on long enough. There is only one thing these people understand and that is their bottom line. If we want to stop this encroachment on our rights as consumers then we have to take a stand and hit them where it hurts. Just like I am not buying another CD until the RIAA backs off, I refuse to purchase any DRM media of any kind, and I hope that enough of you will join me that we can put these theives out of business.
unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; find ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; fsck ; umount ; sleep
...unlike the parent. However, I don't forsee this one anytime soon. It requires some sort of positional scheme, and I'd think that you'd need re-writeable portions of the media or a carrier with a firmware chip that tracked positional info...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I don't think that this, if used as described, obsoletes any DVD players.
The article says that it wouldn't be used for video recorded from analog sources, so there's no obsoleting there.
It would be used when serially recording digital TV streams which DVD players most often can't play anyway. Digital TV, while MPEG-2 like DVDs, uses different resolutions, frame rates, bitrates and encoder efficiencies than DVD. The most obvious difference is HDTV, with the much higher resolution and bitrate. But even 480p, while a supported DVD resolution, may be incompatible with DVD due to the ability of TV to use longer GOP lengths.
No rental pricing on DVDs, so you could just buy them when they came out, instead of being forced to rent. That, and the rapid increase from theaters to home video release, which rapidly makes people choose to skip movies in the theater and just wait a few months for them to come out on DVD. For the price of two people going to the movies, you can wait a couple months and own said movie instead, on a format not subject to wear upon repeat viewings, no less.
...they ain't gonna be able to put it back in again.
If they'd get their heads out of their asses they'd realize that if they want to control media with DRM, they'll have to come up with a NEW media type with DRM built in.
It took I don't know how long, but more than a decade of patient waiting, but VHS is just about dead now and no one cares about it really. With HDTV being the thing that people are still considering the upgrade to, they need to focus on a new (NEW) media standard that isn't on a DVD or variant at all and FORGET trying to change the technology of the present. If consumers like the new stuff, they will forget all about the freedoms they had with DVD.
I am not a marketting genius -- in fact, I consider myself rather ignorant about those things -- but I think they are wasting too much time and money going after the consumers and manufacturers. They have the power and influence to create new standards that, in 10 years, will be the primary means of playing their movies or wharever. Surely thay can be patient enough to wait it out...greedy bastards.
..I JUST bought a DVD for the TV and a cdburner/DVD reader for my computer. Yes I know that has been out for years, I had a VHS player that sufficed and never really needed to burn media to disk, but I want to now use free software, so I got one. If you won't let me watch your paid for media on my hardware, FINE, so be it. I won't. Nor will I buy it.
Dear DVD media hardware people, Hollywood, and "musicians". I have never in my life ONE TIME ever downloaded an "illegal" piece of media or "shared" it. I've never burned a "shareware" software programmer or cheated them out of their asked for money, or even used a "pirated" version of software. I have paid as I have gone along. I have grown up with first 78s then 33's then 45s on vinyl, I purchased them. I went to your "movies" at the theater and to your live concerts. I used reel to reel to backup some of my stuff and make playlists of a sort. Then you came out with 8 track and cassettes, I bought the 8 tracks and cassettes, and VHS tapes as well, but I was able to move my 8 tracks all to cassettes because your "standard" was such a sucky failure. I was able to make an original backup of a VHS tape and play that one and not wearout the master. Then the computer age with floppies and CDs. You know what? It never annoyed me that the stuff got "obsolete" before now, because there was a way to transfer your media and "upgrade" without having to REBUY YOUR SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I am NOT going to keep doing that. You have already whizzed me off enough to rarely go to the theater or to live concerts, and only occassionally do I buy pre recorded media now, but this is it, that will drop to ZERO. If you really don't want me to listen or watch your stuff or rubn your program without taking out a bank loan, then good luck to you with your new and improved "business" model. I'm only one guy, but no more of my loot to you guys.
But the problem for the music industy is that with a p2p distribution cost of 0, it only takes One hardworking pirate to unlock and spread that content to millions.
I feel like I'm going to have to keep saying this 'til the day I die...
;)
All these DRM/Copy protection schemes are an attempt to return us to the days before the Gutnburg printing press when an elite group (in those days the Church) were the only people who could read and write the Latin books and hence the only people that could interpret the Bible for you.
Add to this the fact that with a closed proprietary format then in X years time you may not be able to view content you've paid for (the hardware is no longer manufactured, the format is proprietary and the skills/information needed to decode it have been lost/forgotten)
What we have with all these schemes is utter barbarians trying to appropriate culture for their own use and profit.
Monopolise the means of production the means of distribution (digital certificates, DRM) and kill any minor players (independent producers who are priced out of the process) These people want an Eastern Bloc style Communist entertainment industry ! "The party makes good stuff huh and you will buy".
What cultural inheritance will our current generations leave for future historians ? Nothing at this rate (min you that could be a blessing for the ones to come
All together now.... vote with your wallets and just say no.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
What if all new movies implement some kind of watermark that says "I must not be copied" and all new cameras obey this rule?
If media can be read it can be cracked. end of story. Stop trying to control it and find a to make money off of it.
[Sarcasm]
1. A built in display
2. Be potted with an auto-destruct mechanism if tampering is detected. Better yet, tempering would be reported, and the cops would automatically be called.
3. Have an internet connection and modem to authorize playback each time with the "content mothership".
4. Use proprietary non-standard optical disks with no encryption keys stored on the disk. Every disk made would be encrypted with a unique,random key. Disks would be which are serialized. And when you purchase them, a passport, and a DNA sample would be required and the passport info would be entered into the master database.
5. Have a smart card for renewable security. The smart card would also auto-destruct on tamper detection.
6. Have no digital or analog outputs.
Judging by the link you posted, I wouldn't say either -R or +R are more supported.
There was one brand that didn't support any +R (Toshiba) and one brand that didn't support -R (Aspire). Big deal.
That list isn't very large though and I wouldn't base anything on what I saw there.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
So go ahead mega media empires.
I read that So go ahead mega media vampires.
One correction:
Consumer VCR's are required by law to recognize the Macrovision signal in the United States, so it's not the AGC's fault!
Remember SCMS? It's also a "feature" mandated by law in the good old USA.
Capitalization is the difference between "Helping your uncle jack off a horse" and "Helping your uncle Jack off a horse"
That site displays statistics based on a preponderance of reports for each unit. A quick sampling of some devices listed as not supporting DVD+R/RW have many reports that they in fact DO support them.
That site essentially doesn't give clear, definitive evidence one way or another.
And that essentially, is their problem. Unfortunately for them, what they actually have is customers, and customers aren't dumb-as-a-stick which is what consumer breaks down to.
What's rather funny, when you think about it every time they label us as consumers they are labelling themselves as well-- as just producers. Just as stick-dumb as consumers. Customers on the other hand, must be met with entities of a little more intelligence, salesmen (remember, I'm comparing it with producers here), marketeers, somewhat intelligent service entities of some kind.
Sure, it's far easier to produce for a consumer than it is to sell to a customer. But if what you have is customers, producers make pretty lousy salesmen.
yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I have been saying this for years.
I thought I heard someone say, "DivX" (as in Circuit City) ....
Move along, nothing to see here.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
I have no idea what you're trying to say.
The hot waters of the present will shatter the crystal of their old industry? How is that even a metaphor?
Melt the crystals, perhaps, but shatter?
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Ever seen an old movie where a thug walks into a small business and says "Nice place you've got here, be a shame if anything happened to it. We're selling. . . protection from. . . bad things happening to your business."
The idea isn't to protect the customer from anything except for the actions of the people selling "protection", just like it was in that kind of old movie. The thugs are the enforcement arms ot the *AA content cartel, including the ones paid for by our taxes.
I'm going to do my DVD-burner dual-layer upgrade before the new DRM-broken crap goes on sale... because I won't be buying DVD gear afterwards until this "standard" collapses, hopefully, taking at least one of its vendors with it.
I won't be buying any HP stuff until they've got a new CEO, hopefully, because some foriegn company wanted to buy the bankrupt corpse of a US compnay with a recognizable brand name.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Check this page and see how many players can read -R but not +R.
The number of players that can read DVD-R is totally irrelevant to your argument. You claimed that the DVD-R format offered greater compatibility, not that it was supported by more players.
And I don't need to visit that page, because the number of players that can read DVD-R through format compatibility is *ZERO*, since DVD-R is not compatible with any other format, and in particular it is not compatible with the standard DVD-movie format.
The only way for a player to be able to read DVD-R is if it has been programmed to handle DVD-R explicitly. You can't do it through compatibility.
I don't know why I'm bothering actually. I shouldn't expect the current crop of kiddie Slashdotters to understand the difference between supported and compatible formats.
music companies all started going down the tubes in part due to file sharing
Oh right, I'd forgotten how all those distributor behemoths have gone out of business [rolls eyes]
I was amused to see that in a recent interview with Richard M. Stallman he referred to DRM as Digital RESTRICTIONS Management.
Although I'm not a big fan of spin, the current political climate makes renaming things with misleading names a necessity. When you say "Digital RESTRICTIONS Management", it makes it fairly clear that it's a technology aimed at limiting personal liberties.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
At a time when our children are doing poorly in math and science education, our deficits our skyrocketing, and a whole host of other problems exist, why is our govenrment wasting time and money mandating expensive, and crippling technology standards in order to protect the NFL's marketing plans? Isn;t there anything useful they could be doing? If this is the best that they got couldn't we just fire Powell and the other FCC wonks to save a little cash? Or does that make too much sense?
I'm known amongst friends and family as being literate in the world of dvd recording, and more and more, whenever I get asked to make a recommendation on a dvd recorder, I'm telling folks to keep the VCR in good shape. You want to record something; pop in a videotape, hit record, and play it as many times as you want.
But the world of dvd recording is getting more and more freakin' complicated with the bottom line being 'you can record it, but it won't play.' Right now, the geniuses in Hollywood haven't hit that 'enable CPRM' button, but once they do, it'll make trying to make a dvd home recording of Show X next to impossible, and the prevalent view amongst home viewers will be 'the savvy money held onto their vcrs.'
Combine this with the new ATSC format; 'ma, if you want to keep watching the soaps, you either need one of them there converter boxes or buy a new tv. And don't forget, you gotta watch it live because we haven't figured out how to get the vcr to work with the new converter box;' and you're guaranteeing that folks are going to be strongly motivated to simply turn the boob tube off. They will NOT understand what's happening to the tv and will not be willing/able to afford the new gear. Combine this with tales from their neighbours/kids of how the new, expensive, home recording gear doesn't really work and needs a University degree to understand how to use, and no one will be willing to touch anything new. Not the televised formats, not the new tvs, not the new dvd recorders.
The entertaiment industry will have what they absolute want; either you watch the show live, or you purchase the dvd box set. But the market for electronic goodies will absolutely collapse.
Modern filesharing systems are relatively inefficient. But an efficient P2P network can distribute a file to all interested peers in approximately the same time it takes the uploader to upload 1 (ONE) copy of the file onto the network. So if the uploader has a 1Mbps connection, it could take 24 hours to distribute a dual-layer 9Gb DVD. If the uploader had a 10Mbps connection, it would take 2 hours. If he had a 100Mbps connection, it could be done essentially in 15-20 minutes. Now please tell me, why clicking once on a "Download it!" link is difficult for the average user? What part of "Download it!" would be difficult to understand? :)
With professional pirate groups and fast Internet content can be distributed extremely efficiently. At the moment the evil **AA and their friends don't seem to know a way to stop this.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Mr. Valenti? Is that you posting incognito?
My point is: By fucking with the "pirates" (who started out as rather few), you fuck with normal customers and thereby fuck yourself when they get pissed and turn "pirate" as well.
You do realize your post is quite likely in violation of Federal law in the USA, to wit: 17 USC 1201(a)(2), as you could be considered to be "providing a service" (giving technical information on how to circumvent) for "the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under" copyright law.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I recently bought a Sony DVD player. It reads my DVDs from Russia and my friend's DVDs from the USA perfectly fine.
I'm in Australia, so of course it reads local Australian DVDs too.
I've seen a few posts denigrating Sony for not removing the multi-zone restriction. Maybe that's true for Sony USA or elsewhere, but Sony Australia is perfectly supportive of the whole world's DVDs.
Drew
You're right -- this has the Betamax court decision being circumvented written all over it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Ability to copy.
I resisted moving to DVD until I finally figured out exactly how to make high quality backup copies of DVDs, just as I had been doing for 20 years with my non-Macrovisioned VCRs. I will NEVER adopt any format which doesn't allow copying. DRM is a deal-breaker.
And copying = content. That is the one lesson the content producers never seem to learn. In the past, they sold us ultra-content, i.e. that which is traditionally thought of as content, plus the ability to copy. Now they're trying to reduce the content.
Sorry, I wouldn't go down to the store and purchase a copy of a Matrix DVD which had half the movie missing. But when they remove the ability to copy, that is exactly what they are doing, asking us to buy something which has half the content removed. I won't stand for it. Copying == content.
I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, but so did I.
Now please tell me, why clicking once on a "Download it!" link is difficult for the average user? What part of "Download it!" would be difficult to understand? :)
I never said clicking Download It would be difficult. Clearly, once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, its relatively easy for decrypted DVD files to be shared P2P.
The difficult part is cracking the DRM. Presumably this scheme will be somewhat more difficult to crack than CSS was.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
from TFA: "The new discs will be somewhat more expensive than their DRM-free counterparts, explained Jun Ishihara, a product manager for Mitsubishi Chemical Media Co., also known as Verbatim. Likewise, the new players will probably be priced somewhat higher than conventional players, HP executives said"
So... pay more for a product that does less? I must pre-order these babies to beat the rush!
I propose that the open content community define our own standard for DVD content. Use standard DVD discs with either VOB, mpeg, or DivX;-) files in a normal ISO filesystem. No CSS, no DRM, no region-codes. Use an XML based format for defining menus and such. Use Java for providing interactive content. DVD music discs could contain raw audio or ogg files or a combination thereof.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
We should create a group to recruit wanna-be actors, directors, script writers, etc to help create open content movies and television. Nothing about movies or television is THAT hard to reproduce. We need a financial backer to get the ball rolling but I'd expect many high-quality artists that have little chance to make it big in Hollywood would be willing to work at a more reasonable rate.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
... the EU has said that it's illegal for companies to import DVD's with a region code other than 2 - and here at least the goverment is enforcing that.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
although I don't even have a dvd player. Somehow,incredibly, people are getting happy without one!
The pirates don't need to crack it. Since professional pirate groups spend lots of money on equipment anyway, setting up a contraption to record video stream and save it in unencumbered format somehow would not be too difficult. The only way to make it difficult (necessary, but not sufficient) is to ensure 100% DRM in all devices that are involved in the playback. This hasn't been done yet (and it probably and hopefully can't be done), so a determined pirate (and pirates are determined) will be able to convert such movie to DVD or DivX without cracking the DRM.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
I still haven't bought a dvd recorder because of the standards that are basically a mess and waiting to see if it gets ironed out - but now it looks like it is going to get worse. I only want to put my home movies onto cd - I use the svcd standard - more cds but I don't care I just want the movies to last and be around for a while and share them with friends/family. I just hope the new players will still play this standard still- if not I will be very very pissed off. I don't record any movies or tv shows - heck I don't even watch tv except for sports (use to watch techtv - screensavers but now G4 has just destroyed that station and is nothing but crap now) - the movie/tv networks don't really put anything out these days that is worth pirating in my opinion. why don't they concentrate on that instead of being worried about stealing 24 hours of the day. Also is it me or to be an actor these days you just have to have a voice - nobody does acting anymore because they all make these computer animated movies.
There are two reasons a player won't play a DVD*R(W):
1. It can't handle the optical properties of the DVD*R(W).
2. It doesn't recognize the media type and refuses to play.
DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) use exactly the same materials. Once burned, the optical properties are identical (the differences are in the technology used for tracking the burning process), and the bit pattern of the same data is the same (assuming no record-time glitches that trigger Just-Link type compensation, and ignoring some extremely trivial differences such as the slight difference in the total number of burnable bits). So once burned, DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) optical compatibility is exactly the same.
So any player that can play + and not -, or vice-versa, is failing to play one format because it doesn't recognize the media type (and it is too stupid to give it a try instead of failing). There are utilities that allow DVD+R(W) burners to lie about the media type. This can make some players handle DVD+R(W) media better, but some players that worked before actually fail when they are lied to (I have one that will refuse to play a DVD+RW ID'd as a DVD-ROM, but works fine when it's ID'd as a DVD+RW).
The bottom line is that the argument over +/- compatibility is dead. They are equal. You may have a player that won't play one, but you'll find a matching person somewhere that has a player that won't play the other. DVD*R compability is well above 80%, and DVD*RW compatibility is over 50%. Both numbers go to near 100% if the player was made in the last couple of years. (DVD+R9 compatibility is still a question, because the price of the media is too high for there to be much market penetration so far. However, initial tests seem very promising.)
Xesdeeni
Could you practice what you preach? Most titles don't have the "not able to skip the previews" issue and there's at least SOME players out there that, in fact, DO allow you to skip 'em. My comment stands- the grandparent post isn't really valid as there is evidence to the contrary. And, as for you, I can offer the same observation- pretty full of yourself there, eh? At least *I* posted with a real ID that can be tracked back to me. I stand behind what I say or retract it fully when proven wrong- the same can't be said of yourself.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas