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Build Your Own TV Without Broadcast Flags
doom writes "An account of an event sponsored by the EFF, a "roll your own television" build-in. The San Francisco Bay Guardian has coverage in an article entitled Build Your TV!". From the article: "According to the FCC, the flag is going to ease the nation's transition from today's analog televisions to tomorrow's high-definition televisions. What exactly does it mean for a government agency to "ease" the transition from one kind of TV signal to another? In this case, it seems to mean making the entertainment industry feel very warm and fuzzy inside." The EFF's efforts against the flag have been covered before on Slashdot.
Bush is a great president and he will not let this broadcast flag happen under his watch. I know liberal /. probably doesn't get this, but the Republicans are all about SMALLER gov't, people.
This is going no where as long as Republicans are leading this great nation.
I thought that judges told the broadcast regulator that the flag was unlawful? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4290315.stm
Hence rolling your own tv would be entirely redundant?
It means we're going to transition from a time when we have a constitutional right to record shows to a time when we don't.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I thought the courts slowed/stopped the fcc from mandating anything like this? References in reverse chronological order
/. Story One: Broadcast Flag in Trouble /. Story 2: Court Says FCC Out-of-Bounds With Digital TV
Like here
Or Here
So why are we worried?
Wang33
PAGERANK++ Robsell.com
Seems to me that this could be the begining of a Kit TV era. Kits that would include a broadcast flag 'chip' that could be mistakenly left out by the user. At least that would be one way to skirt the system - albiet legal ramifications would likely exist with this model - I'm sure others will be fourthcomming.
This flag is going to be like any copy protection that we've seen to date. Those who want to steal will just get around it, and those who don't steal will be extremely inconvenienced.
If things keep going the way they did on that last court opinion, we may not have to deal with this sillyness.
Seriously though, I predict broadcastless recievers will become as common as regionless DVD players, and that it'd be another enormous flop.
I'm not gonna to take it anymore. I'm gonna toss the damned boob tube out the window.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
... if we can buy non-BF ready TVs in .ca after they become illegal in the US? It's ~10% the size of the US market but it'd be nice to have HTDV for watching DVDs etc.
Trolling is a art,
"According to the FCC, the flag is going to ease the nation's transition from today's analog televisions to tomorrow's high-definition televisions."
Funny the only thing the broadcast flag is meant to ease is the minds of the media fatcats.
Just like software patents in Europe, the forces behind this (well-funded forces) will not give up until they succeed in implementing the lockdown of all media. A court ruling is just a minor speedbump in the process.
In Europe, even after near-unanamous votes against software patents, they are still about to become reality.
The court merely ruled that the FCC did not have the implicit authority to order the flag. All that is needed is a lay giving the FCC the explicit authority. That kind of law is easy to purchase.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
'ALL I WANT is to make a high-definition copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, save it on a DVD, and loan it to my friend," says Sarah Brydon, looking up from a long table covered with half-built computers.
Err... what's wrong with this picture? Women don't look up from tables covered with half-built computers... do they?!
Because the Reuters article says that while the judges felt the FCC overstepped its authority, they may not rule against them.
"But it was unclear whether the judges would strike down the FCC's 2003 rule, since doubts were also raised about whether the American Library Association and other opponents had legal standing to challenge the rule in court."
The judges may rule that these groups don't have legal standing to bring the suit, so it will take consumers to sue and most likely that won't be able to happen until AFTER July 1 when consumers can reasonably say that they have been harmed by the flag. No one can say they have been harmed by the flag until it goes into effect.
So when do we start seeing mod chips for TVs?
Surely the 'ease the transition' bit is like the regional coding for DVDs. If you remember the entertainment industry was so paranoid it insisted on this before launching.
Then a short time afterwards it was bypassed and everyone lived happily ever after.
That's exactly what will happen with the broadcast flag. Let them have it. If the entertainment industry thinks this will achieve their objectives then let them have their illusions - it won't make a damned bit of difference at the end of the day.
The broadcast flag is a part of a LARGER system to keep us from recording ALL programing.
i ne er/f-MO-Earth_to_congress.shtml
The way broadcast flags are mentioned its all about stopping HDTV programing from getting on the net. It makes it sound like we'll still be able to record our analog shows.
However, analog outputs will be soon be illegal on all television devices. Thus, this is about locking down ALL content.
http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Eng
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Where exactly in the constitution does it give you the right to record shows?
p.s. The constitution does not grant rights to individuals. Instead it limits the rights of the government.
Electroshock machine
Lobotomy apparatus
Automated Librium making apparatus
Hell, if you want to make sure that your brain never gets to do anything without some sort of institutionalized coercion, why stop at making a TV?
I hear you cry: "TV is good for me, and you are just a humorless crank for criticizing it!"
To which I reply: Alcohol and Heroin addicts say much the same thing about their brain-restraints of choice.
If the thought of someone criticizing your TV watching makes you angry or defensive, you need to get help.
I stopped watching TV years ago, and with a few rare exceptions, I do not miss it at all.
Of course, they canceled one the exceptions ( farscape ), further reinforcing my decision.
That's the only way things will change: Vote with your cash, or in this case, your unwillingness to deal with their crap. You may think you *need* your TV, but you don't.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
While I applaud this as a demonstration and hope it will have some effect in educating the public, the mere fact that hobbyists can evade a technical protection measure is not, in itself, of much social importance.
During Prohibition, Californian vineyards openly marketed bricks of compressed, dried Zinfandel grapes, together with a strongly worded warning to the consumer explaining that they should not any circumstances mix the grapes to five gallons of water, five pounds of sugar, and yeast.
If the **AA's can create a climate of fear and create the impression that legitimate fair use is illegal, they win--even if devices that circumvent the broadcast flag become as available as marijuana.
How long before the broadcast flag is used to avoid recording news? This government seems more than a little bit inclined to consider images of, say, Guantanamo bay or prisioner torture sensitive information...
I only hope this idea doesn't catch.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
To be economical, HDTVs must shoot for massive integration on chip. Digital TV means exactly that.
Unless you have access to xray machine, the ability to open a chip and identify and inspect traces, and just generally reverse engineer the chipset, and then reprogram it, it is a sealed component and will be very difficult to circumvent.
Not saying it couldn't be done, but a frontal assault would be extremely difficult, so as always, a backdoor located would be the approach.
But they know that.
In fact, forget the TV ...
And the blackjack.
I'm hurt here. I use MythTV to record HDTV, much like you use your HDTiVo. However, because MythTV is open source, it is impossible to have it encrypt the outgoing signal using HDCP, even if I'm using a DVI connection to my HDTV.
Further, I have a CRT-based HDTV, and when using the DVI input, it has far too much overscan. If I use component output, then I can adjust the overscan, but I can't with DVI, so going digital isn't the best option.
And even further, my TV has only one DVI input, so if I have multiple HD sources, then I have to recable my TV to change sources (like, say, a HDTiVo, satellite receiver, and broadcast ATSC tuner).
Not that I agree with the FCC or the proponents of the Flag.
But the theory goes that content providers and broadcasters will make the switch to HD faster if they have more control over how their content is to be used by the viewer.
One of the big problems in rolling out HD has been the slowness of broadcasters to actually make the switch. I guess the FCC believes that the broadcasters will make the switch faster if they have an incentive to do so.
- dj
Except neither one of us should be required to spend time and money to bypass something that shouldn't be there anyway. We all know the flag will do nothing to slow down "piracy", its only purpose is to give the industry more control.
For example, take the DVD player. The other day I wanted to show something to one of my kids quick as we were on our way out to return the DVD's we had rented. Put in the DVD and the usual junk starts up, so I...
Hit fast foreware : Operation not permitted.
Hit the "Next Chapter" button : Operation not permitted.
We were out of time, my wife was hollering at us to get going...
Hit the Stop button : Operation not permitted.
??? You mean I'm not even allowed to Stop playing, I have to watch it???
Fortunately the MPAA can't yet override the power button on the front of the player.
Yes, I have the hardware and software that would allow me to rip a DVD, strip it of all the crap, and burn a "perfect" copy to a blank DVD-R disk. But I shouldn't have to do that just to enjoy a movie the way I want to.
That's true but it will be at an inflated eBay price. Which btw, there is a grand total of 1 HD-2000 card available on ebay right now, and no HD-3000's.
I have a feeling that it will not be easy to find someone who wants to sell theirs after the broadcast flag is in full effect.
ender-
Nothing to see here
Given the size of the screen you're probably using, you won't be able to tell the difference between a high quality hdtv recording and a lower quality (like the current analog) one.
Sure you will. Even most portables have a much greater resolution than a standard TV.
Yeah, but if all the major manufacturers are signed up, you're left with crappy third world hardware or warranty-void gear.
Since this flag won't exist in 95% of the world (population-wise), do you really think major non-US companies like Sony won't produce any products without this flag?
Our neighbors-to-the-North, if no one else, will provide sufficient demand (and an easy place for us Northern US residents to go to get such products) to guarantee the existance of flagless TVs.
I expect that the rest of the world will want nothing to do with this BS, and, if the US courts don't outright shoot down the whole idea, Americans will end up paying more for the same products with the flag enabled. Or as an in-between step, we'll have something like we have now with DVD players, where most of them have a trivial means of disabling the flag (such as pressing "*11<MENU>27" or just telling the TV you live in Canada the first time you set it up).
IIRC, it actually says it will become illegal to manufacture hardware without "flag support" after that date. Anything built, even if its not sold, before that date is OK.
How can the FCC beleive that a technology designed only to prevent useability will be a benefit to end users in any way?
You don't understand. The broadcast flag eases transition to HDTV by getting plenty of HDTV sets out into the marketplace! Indeed, as other posters have pointed out, HDTV sets manufactured before the deadline are under no obligation to honor the broadcast flag. So how is the smart consumer gonna react, hmmm?
What exactly does it mean for a government agency to "ease" the transition from one kind of TV signal to another?
The FCC wants to get broadcast TV off of it's current portion of the broadcast spectrum so that they can start selling licenses for telecomm use of those same frequencies.
They know that Hollywood will put more effort behind a system that "protects" the digital transmissions so that they don't wind up on the internet. With the backing of the big film studios, the FCC believes that it will be a shorter time until current analog TV is obviated and they can start selling those licenses.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As a photographer for the Bay Guardian. (You can only see my lovely portrait of Helen Seltzer if you pick up the dead tree edition of the paper.)
There were three women there. They were taking apart computers. I saw it and (even) photographed it.
Thats how i *started* on my "evil pirate ripping" ways...
Put DVD in computer to watch it. "You cant play this on a device with a TV out" (or it just dosent work) Hmmm Im not even allowed to *watch* the DVD i own...
Google is my friend, lets see what it has to say... Dvd-decryptor will help... hmmm yup. I can now watch DVD with just a 500kb file. Google also helped me find Div-x at the same time... so i dont have to go though that crap every time. So i am forced to (easily) break the law just to do some perfectly lawful activity.
How much respect for the media companies do you think i have now...
At least in australia i havnt seen these lockin DVD's. i get annoyed when i have to watch a minute of intro just to get to a menu.