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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."
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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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
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'
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
"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, &
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.
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.
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.
You shouldn't have bought a Sony if you want to do anything other than play pre-recorded discs from the machine's primary region. Sony are not a technology company any more, they're a content company.
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
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.
"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."
That's true, up to a point of about 6 months after the initial advertising campaign and product release. I used to work at Wal-Mart (sucked hard) and every consumer there initially hated DVDs, because their old "videos don't work no more." Then after a few months of advertising sinks into their thick skulls, and they see some of their friends with them...Poof DVDs are embraced and Joe's now working hard to 'convert' his old 300 piece VHS collection to DVD; fool.
Combine this new campaign with a dangling carrot of 'further increased quality' or simply being cooler than traditional DVDs, and in six months everyone will be snarfing them down as if they had a disposable income; fools.
It's not about the technology, DRM doesn't matter; all that matters is how it's marketed. If enough non DRM alternatives are removed from Wal-Mart shelves, what do you think people are going to do? Grumble, and then stuff it into their cart just as their told.
I'll go along with their shiny new DRM standard, if they'll replace my DVD player for free
sellout!
What are your personal liberties worth? Are you so eager to return to feudalism? That's what the future currently holds. Private property (fair use, first sale) is slowly being replaced by perpetual leases to our "benevolent" corporate overlords. What happens when the hardware DRM infrastructure is in place and they decide to stop being so "benevolent"? DRM offers the consumer no benefits, while giving corporations abusive opportunities.
Reject any short term incentives for accepting DRM in any incarnation, whether it be a free hardware player or otherwise. In the long term, you lose.
Freedom isn't "free".
Decide that open formats and technologies that respect your rights are worth more, even if they require more financial outlay.
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
The problem is, DVD+R is the only format that supports dual layer, currently. I was really looking forward to the price of the discs falling, but this will raise the price, according to the article. Guess this means we'll have to start stockpiling DVD+R9 as soon as it is cheap enough, before these new discs flood the market.
By law where, exactly? It sure as hell isn't law here in the UK, and I'm betting our export market in DRM-free DVD players/recorders will get an enormous boost around July 2005 if that's the case where you are. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I am waiting the feature of being able it pull the media out of one player and put it into a different player and start were it was stopped. Without having to memorize scene numbers and reset language options and such.
Andre' B.
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
-
By law June 2005 is the last month any equipment can be made to ignore broadcast flags.
Yes the law mandates equipment not ignore the broadcast flag, but I don't recall it mandating new MEDIA that are incompatible with existing drives.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.
As far as accepting it, I suspect this is going to be one of those issues that gets enough of the general public pissed to get something done. When suddenly hundreds of thousands of DVD+-RW drives in computers, DVD players, and DVD Recorders stop functioning as they have in the past because the blank media was broken, people aren't just going to shrug and say "well, time to toss that one in the trash and blow some more money." They're going want to know why it was deliberately broken and to prevent "indiscrimanate copying" ain't going to cut it with the average Joe. Think about it, exactly how many people do you know that actually support blacking out football games? Now do you think they're going to support new media making their existing equipment useless in the name of protecting blacking out football games and such? No, they're going to get madder.
What really gets me is the bit about the new media will cost slighly more. Why? This is apparently not a huge change, plants are ramped up for massive production of blank DVDs of both -R and +R already. It doesn't say this extra money will be a compulsary license either. Looks to me as if we're going to get both DRM'd media that breaks all our existing equipment, AND an HP "intellectual property" tax added to license this grand DRM scheme.
I guess Carly was tired of Bill Gates being hated more than she was or something. This just sounds truly wrong on so many levels. We only have one hope, traditionally the hardware companies making the actual players/burners/drives fight these things. The reason they do is to prevent just such a scenario as this article presents. While hardware manufacturers want to sell more, they've realized that having their existing stuff stop functioning, for whatever reason, will taint their brand in the minds of consumers. With all the consolidation this may not work though, as the same company sells the hardware as sells the content (movies/TV).
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
My last post sounded a bit like a troll, but here is one thing that is a parallel in the software industry:
- Red Hat, Mandrake, Novell, Linspire, and others are still in business!
- People "pirate" their software like crazy!
- And Sun is open sourcing Solaris next month!
It's craziness, this whole trust your customers idea! It's insanity, I tell ya!
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
..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.
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 !
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.
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.
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
I couldn't agree more. Companies are so worried about copy protection only to have some kid in Eurpope or Asia eventually crack it. But what are we desperatly trying to protect? In my opinion, junk! Look, when the art of copy protection is more sophisticated than the content it's protecting something is wrong in our society.
BTW, Meet the Fockers just passed the $125 million mark in just 12 days! Seems to me Hollywood made out just fine without the copy protection. What are they belly achin about??