Toshiba HD-DVD Player Planned to Enforce HDMI

CCat writes "Digital Spy reports that at a recent Toshiba road show in the U.S., Toshiba demonstrated their upcoming HD-DVD specification. The most interesting thing for people buying TVs at the moment is that Toshiba has stated that their HD-DVD Player will ONLY output high Def on the player's HDMI output (plus other digital connections) with the analog output downrezed to 480 lines. Prior slashdot disussion talks about the copy prevention angle and HDCP guidelines."

Comments

"It's Filet Mingon, but ONLY on our grill!"

[Nova Express]

"If you try to grill steaks on any grill other than our own, it instantly turns into hamburger!"

"And I would buy this why?"

"Well, since I'm in marketing, I'm assuming it's because people are stupid!"

"Well, if I were surrounded by that much stupidity, I'd think people were stupid too."

Re:HDTV!

[damsa]

I think you are reading it wrong. Toshiba will only support high def if your TV has also a HDMI plug. Otherwise it will look the same if you use component or other methods of cabling as a progressive scan DVD.

My guess is, is so the movie studios will release stuff on Toshiba's format first because it will be less likely to be pirated. HDMI only means that stuff will be encrypted. Then everyone will buy Toshiba's format then Toshiba can make billions off licensing. Most people won't notice that their HDTV set is not playing at full capacity HD mode using regular plugs so they will continue to buy Toshiba HD-DVD licensed stuff because it's out sooner than blue ray. It's an interesting strategy but probably will not work as Sony also owns a movie studio, thus most movies from Sony, like Spiderman 3 will probably come out on Blu Ray first if HD-DVD at all.

HDCP requried by DVD spec

[rstewart]

HDCP is currently required by the DVD licensing group for all players that output at greater than 480p resolutions.

If you take a look at all the major dvd players out there that have scalers built into them you'll find that currently the only way to go above 480p on them is to use a dvi or hdmi output with hdcp. This is not new and Toshiba is not doing anything different. The problem is truly the standards bodies bowing to pressure from the MPAA and Hollywood to not allow unencrypted signals in high def off of players.

The old argument remains that Hollywood says they will not release movies in that format unless they can't be protected from copying and thus the technology giants bow to them in order to sell their product. I am still awaiting a technology giant to dare Hollywood to not support a format and thus lose the sales that way. Of course with companies like Sony running their own music and movie divisions that probably will not happen any time soon.

Recipe: How to kill a technology before it starts

[jaysedai]

Step 1 - Create format war...
Step 2 - Include outdated interactive capabilties...
Step 3 - Add overbearing copyprotection...
Step 4 - Lose tons of money!

Read my essay on the subject here:
http://www.fireflymovie.com/HighlyInteractiveHD_DV D.html

HDMI != HDCP

[ncc74656]

You're confusing HDMI with HDCP. HDMI is just DVI-D combined with audio. HDCP is a "copy-prevention" scheme that can be applied to either HDMI or DVI-D (or the digital part of DVI-I). If your monitor has a DVI-I or DVI-D input, you can get a dongle that will adapt HDMI to DVI. (Dongles are also available going the other way, to plug a device with DVI output into a monitor with an HDMI input.)

What is possible is that the player will only talk to a monitor that supports HDCP. TFA says nothing one way or the other about this, but it'd be something to bitch about if this is the case. Given the existence of large numbers of monitors with DVI and/or HDMI inputs that don't support HDCP (this is especially true for DVI), a DVD player that will only talk to the handful of monitors that support HDCP should be considered broken. Unfortunately, you can't determine from TFA if this is the case.

Re:HDMI != HDCP

[WARM3CH]

Data protection is obligatory in HDMI protocol. Look at this phrase from part 9.1 of the HDMI 1.1 spec:

Content protection capability is recommended for all HDMI compliant devices. An HDMI compliant Source should protect all of the protected audiovisual data. Amongst adequate copy protection technologies that are compatible with HDMI, HDCP is available.

(you can get a copy of the latest specs from http://www.hdmi.org/)

Re:Format war

[ColaMan]

You can get one now (from cNet, via boingboing:
DRM removal widget

[...I]t uses the HDCP chips ususally built into high definition displays, so that HDCP "protected" signal sources uncomplainingly deliver their signal to the boxes. They then convert them to RGBHV or unprotected DVI signals.

Buy a crate of them now! Ebay, here we come!