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New DRM Scheme To Make Current DVD Players Obsolete

Posted by michael on from the happy-happy-joy-joy dept.

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."

7 of 544 comments (clear)

  1. No Big Deal by mr.henry · · Score: 3, Informative
    For example, the VCTS the DRM solution will only work with the single- and dual-layer versions of DVD+R and DVD+RW media, not the "-R" counterparts.

    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

  2. Re:So? by OECD · · Score: 4, Informative

    And a hack will be made, a firmware update released and in the end we will be back to what we are doing today.

    Weird thing is, they seem to acknowledge that:

    From TFA: "In large part, the issue with the new players will solve itself," said Chris Buma, an A/V program manager with Philips Consumer Electronics, at a press conference held by the DVD+RW Alliance here. "It is a restriction, but a restriction that can be overcome."

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    One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
  3. Re:DivX WTF!?!?!? by Ironsides · · Score: 3, Informative

    Uh... No, not confusing acronyms. DivX was a Circit City invention of a variant on DVDs that required you to pay money for everytime you watched a disk after the first three times. The players would dial home to a central server and bill your credit card. The idea failed miserably and in its honor the DivX codec was named. I have had troubles with this at work where people thought I was talking about the circuit city product and not the codec.

    --
    Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
  4. Nothing to do with players .... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative
    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!


    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.
    1. Re:Nothing to do with players .... by writertype · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, that's not exactly true. If you burn protected content on a protected player, and then try to play back that content on an old unprotected DVD player, it won't work. So this affects playback as well as recording.

  5. Huh? The +R format is compatible BY DESIGN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Huh? The +R format is compatible BY DESIGN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    Bullshit. Check this page and see how many players can read -R but not +R.

    +R is significantly less compatible.