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

Toshiba is wasting it's money

[Augusto]

If the PS3 hits early 2006, and the XBox comes out sans HD-DVD, you can kiss this stupid format goodbye. There's no great motivation for most consumers to buy these drives yet, so they're a bit early. And their players really can't compete with a gaming machine, so I don't know what their strategy is here.

I'd never by it...

[Nimrangul]

I refuse to buy Toshiba branded products. Their DVD players have this wonderful knack for dying once they're three years old.

Three capacitors on my DVD player are all that stand between me and a working DVD player - but they'd be charging for it instead of fixing what is obviously them using shit to make it.

So I just refuse to give them another cent.

Re:I'd never by it...

[Nimrangul]

Evidence?

Physical no, but definately what the Toshiba repairman on the phone said.

When my audio and frontal display both stopped working at the same time when it was around 4 years of age I phoned a local certified Toshiba shop, which were pleased to tell me my problem was a common one with DVD players. They said that they would have to have it brought in before they would be willing to tell me how much it would cost and that just looking at it would cost 25 dollars.

I thought to myself, if it's a common problem, then there must be people on the Internet who have had the same issue.

So I googled around and found quite a bit about it, mostly information supplied by Toshiba repairmen that are nice guys. The sites for the most part detailed how a fair number, though the SD-1700 especially, have this trouble and how a set of capacitors on the motherboard being replaced would fix the problem.

That my DVD player lasted longer than most doesn't really comfort me. I don't replace my TV every 4 years, it's gotta be going on 8 and my VCR is still going strong at almost 14 years old, so I really don't feel pleased in needing to repair something like this this soon in the player's lifespan.

I don't care if Toshiba made shoddy capacitors or bought them, they're the screw-ups asking me to pay for it.

Re:I'd never by it...

[Pollardito]

I don't replace my TV every 4 years, it's gotta be going on 8 and my VCR is still going strong at almost 14 years old, so I really don't feel pleased in needing to repair something like this this soon in the player's lifespan.

4 years is a joke for consumer electronics, so i'd be skeptical too. i had a 19" TV that kicked out a year or two ago that was about 14 years old at the time, and another that was passed down to me from a relative and must be even older than that (though i can't vouch for how much use it got). all my parents' TVs have had similar lifespans, as a matter of fact they decommissioned one a few years ago that was so old that [cordless] remote controls were uncommon when they bought it. i still have the VCR that i bought 10 years ago (which only was bought as a replacement because the first one was stolen), and when my brother gets bored he can fire up my old NES from more than 15 years ago or my N64 from 8 years ago. i'm not listing all this because i think our experiences are anything atypical, i'm listing them because i think we've seen the same longer lifespan across a breadth of electronics.

i wonder what the typical lifespan of a computer is, setting aside the fact that most people dispose of them faster just because they're outdated. if they do die faster than other electronics, i wonder which is the part that dies fastest on average (my guess would be hard drive?)

I already had a preview of what's to come

[netringer]

We have a Motorola HD cable DVR connected to a Sony HD TV using a DVI (DVR) to HDMI (TV) cable that doesn't pass the DRM signal. The only digital input the TV has is the HDMI input. The digital signal is visibly cleaner and sharper at 1080i than using Component video cables, but there are rare glitches. Occasionally the picture will get out of sync and you see two torn noisy SD images on the screen. You can fix that by simply changing channels and coming back. That gets the 1s and 0s in sync again.

Outside of that the DVR/TV connect is wont to have other head glitches once in while. During one of those the TV displayed a blue box over 2/3 of the screen with the message along the lines of "DEVICE NOT AUTHORIZED for digital connection. Please switch to analog inputs." Power cycles all around cleared that nonsense.

This what we have to look forward to - TVs that will decide if your other devices are authorized to be seen. Support the EFF to stop this madness...or vote with your wallet. Are you ready to pass on watching movies or other HQ content when the day comes soon that all devices work like this?

I'm willing to bet that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

[multiplexo]

are going to go the way of DVD-Audio and SACD. Despite the fact that Sony has made almost every one of their DVD players capable of playing SACD and the large number of DVD-Audio players available most artists and labels are shunning these formats. One reason, despite their higher quality, has to be the onerous copy protection attached to each format, including such idiocy as disabling digital bass management at the player level thus requiring users to run six analog connections between their SACD/DVD players and their home theater receivers. Most consumers looked at this and said "fuck this higher quality multi-channel noise". And now labels are releasing their titles on the increasingly popular DualDisc format, which combines a standard CD with a DVD with Dolby 5.1 sound. Thus allowing you to play this in your car or on a home theater system and which doesn't require running a bunch of extra cables and purchasing an analog bass management system for those receivers that don't have analog bass management capabilities.

What does HD-DVD offer the average user? Most people like DVDs not only because they have better image quality than VHS, even if you connect to your TV with an RF cable or RCA composite jack and also because they're smaller than VHS tapes, more durable and easier to fast forward and frame by frame. Exactly what does HD-DVD add to this? Well, you get more data storage, so if you wanted to have a bunch of movies on one disc you could, but I don't think Hollywood is going to go for that. Or you can have super duper high definition movies, which most users don't have the equipment to take advantage of anyways. Cripple it with idiot DRM schemes and you make it even less attractive.

Re:Format war

[Temsi]

Are you kidding?
I don't even have one, and I have an HDTV!

I have a CRT Philips set, which uses component input.
So, basically, Toshiba expects me to buy a third piece of hardware (a video processor) in order to use their product? Dream on.
This should dramatically hurt their sales. This hyperparanoia with regard to copy protection has gotten out of hand.

Well, I can strike Toshiba off my list of hardware

[Rombladi]

Or someone will come up with a spiffy little adapter sooner than anyone expects.

Re: DVDs getting multiple releases

[xswl0931]

I don't quite get why people get upset about DVDs getting released multiple times. When you bought the DVD initially, were you happy with it? If not, why did you buy it? Did you feel like you must have the latest greatest? When the manufacturer of your car releases an updated version, do you equally get upset?

Re:No Toshiba standard for me then.

[Cybercifrado]

Sorry bud, but composite in isn't HDTV. Quick rundown: HDTV is a 16:9 standard (4:3 TVs aren't truly HDTV) that runs at higher than 480p - i.e. 540p, 720p, 1080i or 1080p. If your TV is only capable of 480i and 480p then you only have an EDTV, and were misinformed.
As far as composite goes; the max it carries is 480p, and that's rare. It usually only carries 480i signal. If you want HDTV, you'll need component (Y, Pb, Pr + R&L audio) connectors. Component easily carries the 1080i standard. If you have any other questions, feel free to email me at cybercifrado[atsymbolhere]gmail[dot]com.

Re:Format war

[timecop]

DTCP/5C has been around since 1998. One of the things they have us content protection over 1394. DTCP/5C protection supports renewability, copy control information, and content encryption. All the HDTV equipment with 1394 (DVHS vcr, monitors with 1394 input) are required to implement DTCP for copy control/encryption.

This system has not been broken as of today (2005), and the possibilities that a "box in the middle" attack can even be applied to this protection scheme are unlikely, because of how key exchange is implemented and because compromised hardware can be blacklisted easily.

I beg to differ

[Dion]

How about the many crypto analysts who claim to have broken HDCP?

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/20/025120 6&mode=nested&threshold=3

Re:You misunderstand consumers

[walt-sjc]

I take it you don't have kids. Backup backup backup. DVD's are quite prone to scratches and breaking in half. You attempt to always keep them out of reach, but kids can climb bookcases, or stack their little tikes chair on top of their little tikes table. The widescreen disc of Nemo is lost forever...

Can't even "backup" to video tape due to Macrovision without resorting to DMCA violations.

Furthermore, I hate messing with DVD's and the crappy cases that require the disc to flex nearly in half before giving up their death-grip. I really want them all online "tivo" like on my 2T drive array. (Whether I use Windows or Linux is irrelevant - CSS and the DMCA prevent either OS from doing this.)

You don't understand the problem because you are not thinking like an audiophile / videophile, savvy consumer, or even the simple parent..