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New Display Interface Standard in the Works
virgil_disgr4ce writes "The VESA standards group is designing a new display interface standard to replace both VGA and DVI. The new standard promises better bandwidth and interoperability for a ' broad application within computer monitors, TV displays, projectors, PCs and other sources of image content.'"
... submarine patents.
I'll place money on the emergence of one or more patent claims on this, if it becomes a new standard.
My blog
Hey, at least its optional.
I doubt it.
DisplayPort is expected to accelerate adoption of protected digital outputs on PCs to support viewing high definition and other types of protected content through an optional content protection capability
Just what I always wanted.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
If so I'll stay with the analog stuff, thankyouverymuch.
Is this going to include that new DRM-inspired video technology that MS has been touting? I wondered how that would reach the market. I didn't RTFA, and I'm too tired to Google. Don't mod this up, mod up the informed replies. :) G'night.
I'd like this standard to be around for at least another 20 years, so hopefully it'll be expandible enough to support Japan's 3D holodeck and other new age newfangled things. I'd also like to see it transfer arbitrary to and from the source.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
It's only been three years...
It's not too surprising, though. DRM has to extend to display hardware for it to be any use.
Right now I'm a Windows users and I have been for many years. I've stayed with W2K because I didn't much like the direction XP took. I'm pretty sure that there is going to come a point in the future where I move to Linux, because the control the Windows OS would have over my PC is unacceptable.
Unfortunately, the majority of PC users have no idea that this issue even exists.
--
Toby
Because as we know, every consumer loves paying for new technology, the main purpose of which is to remove features they already have! Though saying that, 99% of media purchasers will no doubt think that giving away rights is a fair compromise for not having to use an audio *and* video cable.
It's simpler.
It requires fewer wires and stuff.
It's cheaper to make.
It (optionally) supports DRM.
Sounds awesome for the manufacturers and content providers. But what do I, as a consumer, get that I don't get from DVI or HDMI?
Other than a bill for a new monitor next time I upgrade my graphics card..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Why do you think all the manufacturers are hellbent on pushing stuff like digital TV, new audio and video standards (BluRay and this)? Because of DRM, of course. Analog is being killed on purpose and DRM is coming. There's nothing you can do about it, so get ready for DRM'd computer hardware (goodbye home-built computers and open software), speakers, TVs, monitors and stereos.
Don't think that the customer's will allow this? Just wait and see. Analog TV broadcasts will end here in 2007 and you can bet that most of the stuff will be flagged with the broadcast flag.
The owls are not what they seem
VESA to Finalize, Administer DisplayPort, Provide a Forum for Extensions
MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 16, 2005--The newly-developed DisplayPort(TM) interface proposal, which has been designed to simplify display interfaces in computer and consumer electronics systems, has been turned over to the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) for finalization and approval as a standard.
In May, VESA announced the DisplayPort development program by a group of industry-leading companies dedicated to creating a new digital display interface specification for broad application within computer monitors, TV displays, projectors, PCs and other sources of image content.
"The plan in May was to submit a comprehensive version of the interface proposal to VESA during the third quarter for ratification and adoption," said Ian Miller, chairman of VESA. "The group has met its internal timetable and delivered to us a very comprehensive specification, which VESA will now administer and provide a forum for future revisions."
DisplayPort allows high quality audio to be available to the display device over the same cable as the video signal. It delivers true plug-and-play with robust interoperability, and is cost-competitive with existing digital display interconnects. Designed to be available throughout the industry as an open, extensible standard, DisplayPort is expected to accelerate adoption of protected digital outputs on PCs to support viewing high definition and other types of protected content through an optional content protection capability, while enabling higher levels of display performance.
DisplayPort enables a common interface approach across both internal connections, such as interfaces within a PC or monitor, and external display connections, including interfaces between a PC and monitor or projector, between a PC and TV or between a device such as DVD player and TV display. The standard includes an optional digital audio capability so high definition digital audio and video can be streamed over the interface, and it provides performance scalability so the next generation of displays can feature higher color depths, refresh rates, and display resolutions. It also features a small, user-friendly connector optimized for use on thin profile notebooks in addition to allowing multiple connectors on a graphics card.
Layered, Modular Architecture Includes Main Link and Auxiliary Channel
DisplayPort incorporates a Main Link, a high-bandwidth, low-latency, unidirectional connection supporting isochronous stream transport. One stream video with associated audio is supported in Version.1.0, but DisplayPort is seamlessly extensible, enabling support of multiple video streams. Version 1.0 also includes an Auxiliary Channel to provide consistent-bandwidth, low-latency, bi-directional connectivity with Main Link management, and device control based on VESA's E-DDC, E-EDID, DDC/CI and MCCS standards. The Link configuration enables true "Plug-and-Play."
The Main Link bandwidth enables data transfer at up to 10.8 Gbits/second using a total of four lanes.
The promoter group based their development efforts on the premise that the PC industry requires a ubiquitous digital interface with optional content protection that can be deployed widely at minimum cost to enable broad access to premium content, according to Miller.
As higher performance display and source technologies are introduced, the demands on interface bandwidth expand and the problem will become even more acute soon with demands for more colors, higher resolutions, and higher refresh rates. The DisplayPort standard's high initial bandwidth is designed to scale to even higher bandwidths to accommodate future display requirements.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
Its 'optional', if you dont want to view any of the 'optional' content.
Such as streaming media, DVD, excel...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Booooooooring.
Because there aren't any Linux media hackers in the world who'll do a rip app to fool media apps into thinking it's outputting to a DRM-protected one-of-these and instead it just gets dumped to a data file for P2P.
I mean, what are the odds? DeCSS was just a fluke.
Or, to be less snide... yes, clearly this is an attempt to create a DRM-enabled display standard, the idea being to prevent people from intercepting the unencoded, unprotected signal coming out of your video card. But, as always, the client is in the hands of the enemy. All the information needed to snap this like a twig is already present on the box.
The only way DRM will ever work is government-enforced computer controls and white-listing of 'approved' software, with unapproved software being locked out (yes, there are ways even around that, but at that point it's too much trouble for John Doe to set up the whitewashing needed to run an unapproved box that looks clean to Big Brother). And even that will just force uncontrolled boxes off the Internet (as we know it) onto grey or black wireless networks outside the reach of governments.
I remember hearing that they were going to integrate DRM at the BIOS level in some way. If they do that, then it seems like they might be able to have control in some (perhaps small) way no matter which OS you're running.
I have no idea how they would implement this, but I do recall hearing it.
Ignore Alien Orders
One of the biggest reasons that many companies want a standard outside of DVI and HDMI is the fact that Silicon Image and Intel basically control the show when it comes to digital interfaces. Intel needs to be mentioned because, although Silicon Image appears to spearhead the standards and controls key patents (e.g. TMDS), Intel exerts a high level of influence due to partial ownership of Silicon Image and DCP LLC. In fact, if you look at DCP LLC's address at the bottom of its web page, it resides inside Intel!
/.ers - the interface standard is optionally encrypted with DPCP, but it can apply to every single link both outside and inside the display! This means that you may not be able to crack your panel open and hack the hardware inside without a hacked encryption key (which is heavily guarded at all points within its acquisition and programming into devices). Even with HDCP, it would be a simple matter in a flat panel to take the unencrypted LVDS output and fabricate a small board with an unencrypted DVI digital output for HDTV. Therefore, don't look at DisplayPort as anyone's savior. It also remains to be seen if people will accept yet another display connector for their PCs and the resultant fragmentation, though both ATI and Nvidia are on board DisplayPort.
When DVI first came out, it was in a camp that was separate from VESA, the independent standards body responsible for the video signalling standards for PCs. VESA had been looking for a digital alternative for years but the Digital Display Working Group promoted DVI through some of the bigger manufacturers of both computer displays and manufacturers of electronics of those displays. DVI was ok but it was plagued with problems like a poor quality connector, limited cable length and very poor standards compliance. This largely limited DVI's adoption in the market for a number of years. The copy protection standard, HDCP, was added in the usual fashion of trying to "protect" the content providers. As for the standards compliance, Silicon Image knew it had screwed up and so created a compliance test center. The irony here is that Silicon Image's own first generation receivers don't even work with some of its own transmitters!
Though most consumer electronics manufacturers were included in the DDWG, at least one was conspicuously absent during the formation of HDMI, which is backwards compatible with DVI but has a smaller and more robust connector and more geared for consumer electronics rather than PC applications. That absent company was Samsung, and Ian Miller of Samsung was quite important in the VESA organization. VESA had continued during the time of HDMI's creation and ramp-up of making a new standard, the latest one being NAVI that died on the vine. Having been excluded, and knowing Samsung's growing presence in many markets and the stranglehold of Silicon Image and Intel with respect to patents and copyright protection control with limp alternatives, I believe that the current companies within DisplayPort led by Ian Miller decided to take the initiative and move forward with an independent DisplayPort standard and independent copy protection mechanism. The new copy protection scheme, called DPCP, is administered by Philips rather than Intel.
The physical layer of DisplayPort is largely based on PCI Express in order to leverage the intellectual property already within these companies and avoid licensing and royalties associated with Silicon Image's TMDS and Intel's HDCP. One very interesting point for all
In short, don't expect a whole lot of advantages for the end user here. The politics of the display industry are significant and the average consumer will continue to suffer as these politics play out in the grander scheme of business.
"The specification allows for higher bandwidth and refreshes images instead of reloading them, which makes for better performance on the screen."
Anyone??
just good that I don't care at all about copying all that shit thats on TV anyways...
So the main reasoning this group is forwarding this new "interface standard" is not to improve your video quality, nor to make the cable smaller or easier to manage. Sure, those certainly are nice features, but it is not why they developed this new standard. From VESA:
"The promoter group based their development efforts on the premise that the PC industry requires a ubiquitous digital interface with optional content protection that can be deployed widely at minimum cost to enable broad access to premium content, according to Miller. "
TCPI. It's a chipset that allows for encryption, etc. Already on some of Intel's reference boards; Apple's dev models have TCPI chips, though they seem to only use them for Rosetta at the moment
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
mod parent up!
All DVI, SATA, SCSI, USB, FireWire and now this new display interface standard in the works share the need for bandwith, preferably cheap cables, occasionally long cables without repeaters (goodbye USB and FireWire) and it all exists already. It is called Ethernet. CopperTen will fill the bandwith need for displays. Not necessarily using IP based protocols: see ATA over Ethernet (AoE). Mass production of cables and MAC chips will make it affordable.
Amen to that, brother.
Wishin' I had mod points.
Near the bottom of the article on vesa.org, states that The promoter group based their development efforts on the premise that the PC industry requires a ubiquitous digital interface with optional content protection that can be deployed widely at minimum cost to enable broad access to premium content, according to Miller.
While it may be the intent of the designers of this system to have a chain from drive to display that keeps encryption intact, there will be a need to decode earlier...and that is likely where it will break.
Look at how DVDs were decoded; an OEM's software was debugged and there were the keys! Once the general mechanism was known, the keys could be generated on the fly without the original keys...and that's what makes it possible for Linux users to play DVDs today.
Side note: For Linux, I haven't been able to buy a 'licenced' version of a DVD decoder (thought they exist...somewhere). I will have to point to my DVD player apps that came with the drive (but run under Windows) as proof of payment if anyone calls me on it.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I was in the same boat you are... I really liked win2k and was really disapointed with winCrapP. Anyway, I am now running Arch Linux www.archlinux.org on all of my machines except my game machine... (I am thinking of making that one duall boot)
Take the plung now and beat the rush...
This is getting ridiculous!
My TV is already a sloppy mess full of connections. I've spent hours in the store explaining to customers (and salesdrones) what these mean and what they need. Half of those connectors should never even have been invented in the first place because a better standard already existed (Ex: VGA). I hope consumers send a huge backlash over this, because displays are expensive, and converter boxes are hard to find and even more expensive.
they can shove it directly up their ass.
they are supposed to be a technical engineering standards group DRM has nothing to do with what they do and if it is any part of the new specification then it will be proof that they sold out big time and should not be held as a respectable standards group anymore.
DRM = proof of a group becoming sell-outs.
The only way DRM will ever work is government-enforced computer controls and white-listing of 'approved' software, with unapproved software being locked out ... And even that will just force uncontrolled boxes off the Internet
The requirement of a supported "Trusted" Computing environment doesn't have to be enforced by a government, only by ISPs. No you can't just switch to another ISP because there's only one cable ISP and one DSL ISP, now that both cable and DSL Internet access have been deemed "information services" by the FCC. Now why would ISPs subject their residential customers to this bullshit? Read on...
So is this intending to rival the HDMI connector? VESA's will have to support encryption and DRM protocols for it to be taken up by the consumer digital video and television developers. It think they will have a hard ride.
They are called beamers or projectors, and wirelessly transmit an image onto a surgace with terahertz EM waves :)
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
When Open Source supports DRM?! Surely this a sign that the apocalypse is near
-Alex. http://bit.ly/1iVPtfA
Analogue broadcasts have been extended to 2009.
The broadcast flag has been shut down for the time being.
Still, everyone is on the right track, but it seems all I can do is to refuse to buy drm'd equipment.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
It's the content producers who have pushed for DRM. As they see it, analog had a natural "copy prevention" element to it that copies would always be degraded compared to what they're copied from, so a fourth-generation copy would truly suck. With digital that's not the case. So they're pushing these awful, evil, hacks, and using a combination of legislation and a simple refusal to license content to systems outside of the DRM'd sphere to force manufacturers to go along with it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That's such a load of bullshit. With a few high-profile exceptions, hardware manufacturers have been the ones stepping out and saying no. They are the reason the broadcast flag legislation has been delayed. They don't want to pay more money to make things that less people will want, why would they?
This comes from the software industry and the media distribution industry. Think about it, if the hardware manufacturers were so gung ho to make this stuff, why would it be necessary to compel them to make it with legislation?
Get a brain and stop directing your angst at your allies and enemies alike.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
All these posts seem like there is only one option...the bend over and take it option.
But there is another....
You can vote with your wallet. don't buy this crap. If you are in a coprorate purchasing position, don't buy it for your company. I would bet that ALL of us were Windows users in the early 90's....maybe a little OS/2 Warp and BeOS here and there...but when MS didn't give us what we wanted, we switched to Linux and Mac OS X.
That is the power we hold. It is the ONLY voice we have as consumer and it is the most powerful one. If you feel usage rights and too restrictive or don't like the idea of "upgrading" to a restrictive system then don't and tell sales people why you aren't givign them a commission.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
And what are the ah-so-noble-anti-DRM hardware manufacturers going to do when the content providers refuse to license their products and protocols to them?
The owls are not what they seem
I'm going to need a THIRD monitor adapter?
:P
I'm currently using a DVI -> VGA adapter with a VGA -> Mac adapter plugged into it so I can run my 20" Apple-branded trinitron, which I've been using for years.
Some of us can't afford to buy new monitors just because the connectors change.
Not where I live. Here the analog TV broadcasts will end in 2007 and the broadcast flag is alive and well.
The owls are not what they seem
my expensive as hell PS3 I just preordered is already outdated?
I believed in you Sony!!!!!
Can it perform cunnilingus on a hardwood floor?
The latest Slashdot meme.
the next computer i get will be an apple. i don't want to deal with all this drm that will clearly only affect non-apples.
-- lol pwned
when are we going to get a standard interface for 3d
hardware acceleration? Restricting all but the top
OSes to direct framebuffer access is rather annoying.
Make exact duplicates in Taiwan and China, then flood the market with them.
I for one won't be buying until 'unlocked' HD-DVD etc. are available.
I'm offtopic but the reply was needed:
You don't need mod points here. They're not to be used to agree or disagree but to rate the quality of the post, or lack thereof.
If you like someone's opinions, add them as a fan.
If you have a homemade movie you must be able to play that. So it looks to me that a monitor with DRM is pretty much not doing anything to stop you from watching your ripped movie which has the same parameters as your homemade movie. The screendrivers do not need to be hacked for that.
The DRM probably has use in companies like for protecting documents, but I can not imagine how yet, and why that should happen at monitor level. Maybe a document can be sent around and you can open it but not display it? Pretty useless, lets not be able to open it than anyway, much more efficient.
I think they just added this DRM line for the sake of hollywood. VESA headoffice: If we add DRM to our statement of better resolutions, and bandwidth for this new standard, then we might get less opposition from Hollywood who is afraid of copies, or they might even sponsor us (evil laugh follows).
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
From the article:
> A similar situation emerged in 1998 when consumers were initially hesitant
> to adopt a transition from CRT to LCD screens.
I don't think this was the reason for a hesitant transition of LCD,
which would work with existing interfaces. It was the price, which was
initially too high. For me, the prizes have only come down far enough
in 2001.
A new monitor interface will take longer to adapt to because it requires
both new graphics cards and new monitors and new computer projectors.
For me, an important transition was from VGA to DVI. Since my monitors
are feeded digitally, I have a much clearer picture. Still, I'm required
to use VGA, when using a video projector.
As others have pointed out, the better refresh rate or bandwidth is hardly the
reason for proposing a new standard. DRM implementations which promise to close
an analog hole, are the driving force. I doubt that encrypting the video signal
will do any good for the refresh rate. So, don't expect consumers to fall for it.
Where's the Vision in this Proposal?
It's clear that displays are not just things that we look at, but things that we interact with. Anybody who reads the news today, and anybody who has been thinking about the future for the past 3 decades should be aware that displays are, more than anything else, the ultimate input devices.
To that end there should be a provision in the proposal to support an upgradeable means of connecting a display to the network, a means of maintaining a user session, and a means of sending user input to the display, and over the network. This is functionality that each and every software program being monitored and controlled through the display will need to have and which, therefore, should be built into the display specification itself. This saves the functionality from having to be built into each and every software program independently. Naturally, all the software needed for and used in this specification should also be based on the GPL.
And it'll be a big surprise to the masses when it gets here. I can almost hear the calls now. "Hey, why won't this movie play? It ran alright on my old computer." Welcome to Windows World, buckwheat. They'll be offended, huffy for a little while, have a passive-aggressive little snit by complaining to people who can't do anything about it. But after a while they'll go on their grumbly way because they haven't been investing in any alternative, learning a different OS or trying out open source alternatives.
I see the same things in my business customers all the time. Except I get to remind them that I told them it was coming a year ago and they go, "Oh, right. But I thought they were going to extend support for that another year?" No, sorry. The next question is usually, "Well, how much is it going to cost?" Then I get to listen to their passive-aggressive snit aimed at me, like I have some command over what MSFT does.
If you want off the MSFT treadmill you have to plan it, start experimenting with alternatives and roll out the change in a controlled environment. Getting huffy when you plug your new PC in and something doesn't work anymore just annoys those of us in the business.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Analog TV broadcasts will end here in 2007 and you can bet that most of the stuff will be flagged with the broadcast flag.
I'm in the UK, where the official replacement for analog TV is Freeview - unencrypted but low-definition. Of course, large parts of the country can't currently get it, and some people will probably end up stuck with satellite, on which everything except the BBC is encrypted. (Movie and sports events licenses require non-UK viewers are stopped from viewing them. That and BSkyB controlling the satellite)
What are the cable length limitations. LVDS sounds better.
Does it require additional intelligence or memory in the display device?
Can the signal be split to multiple displays without an expensive addon? Daisy chaining?
Will it reduce component cost on video boards?
Is any compression part of the standard?
What data format is the audio, how many channels does it support.
The way I see it, it is WAY too late to make a completely new standard, with DVI being so entrenched. At least HDMI was based on DVI, so cheap adapters can be bought.
The sad thing about this one though is that a video chip maker (ATI) and a couple panel makers (Philips & Samsung) are involved, so I hope they don't try to push out the DVI and HDMI standards arbitrarily, otherwise, I'll just buy competing products.
people would simply stop tolerating being assraped by greedy fucknuts in hollywood, but if you look at the state of the planet its pretty clear that people in general arent very smart so my hopes are pretty low..
If you own a Sky box you can obtain a free Sky card to unlock the equivalent channels to FreeView.
It's only useful if this is integrated with the rest of the graphic systems (GPU, CPU, memory etc).
Otherwise, if your display is capable of drawing an entire screen over and over at the required refresh rates, I don't see a real benefit. Maybe there's some benefit in the power consumption/EMI/"tempest" areas, but that's a bit silly.
If a display is not capable of drawing an entire screen at the desired refresh rates, then I wouldn't want to buy it.
OK even if the display can display stuff faster by just doing the differences it still needs to be integrated otherwise your graphics controller and gang will still assume a fixed refresh rate and behave accordingly. e.g. no point for the display to draw your small changes at 200fps, when the graphics card is only sending the changes at 100fps just because that's the minimum guaranteed rate of the display.
The level of integration required would make things complex and bug-prone. It'll be like moving your graphics card to the display and having the display's GPU write changes to the display's screen memory, and having Open GL and Direct X talk to the display through the interface. Thanks but no thanks - I want my monitors a lot more reliable than that...
For CRTs based displays, it is even worse - firstly, you are eventually going to have to send the electron beam everywhere to refresh the entire image. Secondly, how many times the electron beam hits a phosphor a second does affect how bright it appears. So doing part of the screen for the CRT sometimes and do the whole screen at other times and making it look seamless is going to be more difficult.
Byte me. :P
-1 Failure To Use The Preview Function is the real mod down
Excellent post! +1 Insightf... oh, wait. :-)
-Scott
My other sig is a Glock
I guess I'd better stock up plenty of spare parts before the coming DRM appocolypse. People would never drive a car that would arbitrarily not drive down a certain road because you didn't 'buy-in'.
Blar.
- VGA/SVID/Cpnt - forever
- Cmpst/Mod - forever
- ADC - months
- DVI/MHDI - years
- ??? - not yet
The only successful connection I've made from computer to a TV has been analog. Obviously the component class is better than the composite class of connections. The digital connections always have problems with overscanning and compensation. This makes it impossible to connect a mac to a plasma correctly. What I'm saying is, that the original VGA and cmpnt connector has yet to be innovated upon.I won't get excited until someone develops an audio/video bus where you can connect multiple input devices and multiple output devices to the same bus.
I am disgusted at purchasing a TV where I can hookup one device via HDMI and one device via component video. So just what is one to do when they have two HDMI input devices and they want to view them both on their TV?
With a well designed A/V bus, I should be able to daisy chain several input and output devices to the bus. The streams on the bus should identify themselves descriptively. So, when I am changing the input source on my TV it says "Apex DVD player" or "Motorola DVR", etc. The TV shouldn't determine how many of which types of devices can be connected--rather the bandwidth of the bus should determine how many output devices can be active at once. Beyond that, if an output device has no input devices requesting the signal, why should it be using any bandwidth?
So my DVD player, DVR, Computer, TV, and audio receiver are all hooked up to the same bus. My DVD player is playing a DVD, but noone is watching it. The audio receiver is tuned into the audio channel of the DVD. In this case, only the DVD's audio channel would be on the bus. Simple bandwidth allocation based on demand. Devices can broadcast that a signal is available without actually broadcasting the signal. Then the TV is turned on and someone is watching the DVD. Now the DVD's audio and video are being broadcast. And even though the DVD audio is destined for two devices, it is only broadcast once on the bus. Combinations could be created where say you are watching the video of your computer on your TV and you are listening to the audio from a CD player, etc.
People would never drive a car that would arbitrarily not drive down a certain road because you didn't 'buy-in'.
Poor analogy. Like viewing new works, driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, not a right.
Until you get a power spike and BLAM! there goes your damned video card (disclaimer : my g5 was smoked this way), maybe.
Oh, and try finding a modernish multihead Mac video card without an ADC jack. That's another damned adapter! My home machine is dual head, both original oldass Apple monitors - so I'm going dvi -> vga -> mac and ADC -> vga -> mac - using a VGA twiddler to adapt an apple connection to an apple connection, go technology!
Grrr.
ADC is nothing new - remember Applevision?* It's the same exact concept. ADC just happens to implement it on newer hardware. Applevision supposedly bound sound in and out, ADB and video into one connector that looked a lot like the european video plugs - the "computer -> applevision" adapters looked like scary little beige octopi.
It amuses me that everything Apple's done over the last eight or so years (aside from the iPod, which is an outgrowth of over endeavours like the VOD boxes, Quicktakes and the Pippen) is stuff they've already done before - we're getting old concepts on modern technology** and everyone thinks that it's New And Awesome.
* I think that's what they called it - but this is Quadra / x100 era here. The funky plug on the 6100, 7100, 8100s that Apple had the good sense to drop for the 604s.
** I have a Workgroup Server 95 running A/UX, the original Apple Unix, sitting in my room. The thing runs either X or a System 7-era MacOS compatible environment, and is just as snappy on a 33mhz processor with 36 megs of RAM as my dual g4 450 with a gig of RAM is running OS X. If not more so. The thing is, imo, easily and obviously a precoursor to the NeXT-with-MacOS-compatability thinger cupertino's been pushing on us the last few years.
All I need is a big screen with just 1G ethernet plug and X11 protocol.
There you are, staring at me again.
HDMI > Bandwidth than DVI, works for both monitors and televisions, BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE with DVI.
I don't have anything that can even handle 1080p yet. 90% of television isn't even broadcasting progressively, let alone HD res. I can't buy DVD's in HD yet.
Why do I need another cable/TV when I am far from fully utilizing the one I have?
I am extremely knowledgable about the new DRM technical specification, aka Trusted Computing.
Make exact duplicates in Taiwan and China, then flood the market with them.
Pretty much impossible under Trusted Computing.
Tiawan can manufacture anything they like, but in general will will not work. Each device needs to have it's own unique identity key. This key is embedded in a boobytrapped self destructing microchip. That key needs to be signed by the Trusted Computing central authority.
A key will not work without the matching signature and the signature is effectively impossible to forge, therefore the device will not work without a genuine key. Other devices (and various Trusted software) will simply refuse to talk to the device. No decryption key, no video.
And no, ripping one genuine key out of a genuine device does you no good. If you try to use the same key in multiple devices then they will spot that that key is duplicated and they will place that key on a revokation list. All devices with that key then drop dead.
I for one won't be buying until 'unlocked' HD-DVD etc. are available.
The only way to create such a product is to buy one genuine DRM compliant device for each unlocked device you want to manufacture, and you then need to rip the individual key out of the boobytrapped self destructing microchip to use in the new device. You then also need to be extremely careful that the device never exposes the fact that it is unlocked, otherwise the player software (or especially the new Windows Operating System) will detect that and phone home and they will again place that key on a revokation list and again your device drops dead.
So the situation is:
(1) you have to pay the full cost of a genuine DRM enforcing product on TOP of the cost of making an unlocked device. In fact for various reasons you will probably need to pay full retail for the initial genuine product
(2) you need to manage the challenging task of extracting the keys from boobytrapped self destructing microchips
(3) you need to be paranoid-careful never to leak the fact that your device is unlocked, or your shiny new and extra expensive hardware drops dead
(4) the product itself, manufacturing the product, importing the product, selling the product, using the product, ALL of those things will be ILLEGAL. Illegal in the US under the DMCA. Illegal in the EU under the EUCD. Illegal in Australia under the AUSFTA. Illegal in much of Central and South America under the CAFTA. Illegal in pretty much any country that the US can bully into a so-called "Free Trade Agreement" which always imposes exactly this sort of law.
Yes it is in principal possible. However do not expect to be buying an unlocked device any time soon. They have the system locked down like you would not believe.
Oh, and if any genuine model from any genuine manufacturer is found to have a hole or a backdoor to unlock the device, well the entire model line or even every device made by that manufacturer can be placed on the revocation list and all of those devices drop dead.
Of course revoking an entire product line or an entire manufacturer isn't going to go over well when thousands or even a few million innocent consumers suddenly discover their brand new hardware was remotely destroyed. I seriously hope they *DO* run into a major product line with a security hole or back door and face the dilemma of either leaving the hole open or of revoking the machines to close the hole. I seriously hope they *DO* slag a million innocent consumer devices to protect their preciouss DRM security. I hope they *DO* provoke a consumer backlash. I hope they *DO* provoke the general public into rioting and pulling out the pitchforks and torches and screaming for blood.
And these DRM monitors are nothing compared to Trusted Network Connect (TNC). TNC is fully documented on the Trusted Computing Group website. TNC is at least a couple of years out before it becomes a real threat, but if
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
What about the apple display connector? Or was it desktop connector?
I think that had some cooler features than this one. I really liked the idea of a SINGLE cable to the monitor that supported power, usb, video and audio. I don't see power or usb in this new spec.
Freeview
Freeview?? Free-fscking-view? You have got to be kidding me, they actually named it Freeview? The Official Government replacement for analog TV is Freeview.
Sounds like 1984 doubleplus ungoodspeak to me.
Here in Oceania the official replacement for tap water is Freewater - unsecured but low quality and somewhat contaminated. Of course, large parts of the country can't currently get it, and some people will probably end up stuck buying SomaWater.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
What do you think processor ID was supposed to do? Lock your content to your processor... althoguh they 'claimed' it was to authenticate you to your bank and whatnot, but really- nothing secure is going to depend on a physical machine (laptop, desktops in an office, etc) so you'd need a password anyway...
It's all just a matter of identifying you uniquely for DRM to work.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Phoenix was doing just that.
i got to "I am extremely" and then i fell asleep because your post is so long boring
?giS
"audio share the same cables as video signals" i can see it already: Creative releases EAX for your GeForce! Now you can have complete tunnel perception!
?giS
For some reason this all sounds too good to be true. I could never imagine this stuff actually happening, politically.
I think that's sad.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I can't even tell the difference between VGA and DVI. And the only compatibility difference I have ever noticed (YMMV) between VGA and DVI is that some video modes are not available through DVI.
I suspect this new standard is driven by a desire for forcing DRM on users, not compatibility or meaningful improvements in quality. And the display manufacturers love it because everybody has to buy everything again. Unless we get DisplayPort-to-VGA adapters, of course...
And no, ripping one genuine key out of a genuine device does you no good. If you try to use the same key in multiple devices then they will spot that that key is duplicated and they will place that key on a revokation list. All devices with that key then drop dead.
Well, that's easy enough to solve. It shouldn't be difficult for a large Taiwanese manufacturer to rip the keys out of MANY of their competitors devices, and design theirs to cycle through all the keys until it finds one that works.
Sure, whoever's running the DRM could revoke all those keys, but just imagine the backlash when a large portion of people's devices stop working. Even blaming the "evil pirates" won't be enough to calm them down -- they'll either have to voluntarily replace all of them or be forced by the courts to do it. Repeat as often as necessary to bankrupt the DRM providers.
the product itself, manufacturing the product, importing the product, selling the product, using the product, ALL of those things will be ILLEGAL. Illegal in the US under the DMCA. Illegal in the EU under the EUCD. Illegal in Australia under the AUSFTA. Illegal in much of Central and South America under the CAFTA. Illegal in pretty much any country that the US can bully into a so-called "Free Trade Agreement" which always imposes exactly this sort of law.
Don't forget that technologies that implement controls such as region coding are already ILLEGAL in countries such as Australia. All DVD players sold there have to be "pre-hacked" to be able to bypass region coding. If it's illegal to sell devices such as these as-is, and also illegal to bypass the DRM, then they won't be selling them period in these countries.
And these DRM monitors are nothing compared to Trusted Network Connect (TNC). TNC is fully documented on the Trusted Computing Group website. TNC is at least a couple of years out before it becomes a real threat, but if/when it is fully deployed it can effectively ban you from the internet unless you have a fully locked down computer. Everything is optional and opt-in, but if you refuse to submit then eventually you may be effectively banned from using computers at all. I just wish it *were* the paranoid delusion that it sounds like.
TNC is already a failed bit. I've yet to encounter ANYONE important in the networking circles who thinks it's good idea. They only people who seem to think so are the ones designing it.
The backbone providers will never implement it because there's so much traffic already they can barely keep up with simple routing (and there is no financial benefit to them either way). ISPs won't implement it because there is enough competition that they don't want to alienate their customers with forced OS upgrades and such. Non-US networks won't implement it because their governments are already paranoid about vendor lock-in.
It may be deployed on a FEW private networks, but that's it. General concensus among network admins is that layers 2 and 3 are the wrong place to apply that sort of "security", and unneeded complexity just makes things more likely to break.
The point is, like old-school software copy protection, DRM accomplishes nothing except to make life more difficult for legitimate users. Even if they manage to push through DRM EVERYWHERE, someone will still break it. It has never worked and it never will. The level of control they're trying to accomplish simply isn't possible. Physical access to the device trumps any encryption you think you have.
Fine, then. I've still got WiFi, and we can drop to a grid-like wireless network.
Hell, this lappy's got a 56K modem. Old-skool BBS time?
Hmm... the LCD panel HAS to be driven somehow.
The individual pixels HAVE to be driven.
It would be possible to read off the panel controller, as there HAS to be somewhere that it's decrypted, and that's the last possible place.
Holding out for a Sony HD TV b/c it had those crappy propritetary plug that the content moguls would agree on. Then they went to HDCI (or what ever the crappy thing is) for the playstation 3. Now this new one????
A new standard every couple years will fragment the consumer market... Piss off consumers too....
Yeah, we all need another standard.
What about the satellite
What critical mass of customers is willing to spend the extra money for a satellite modem, which is typically not included in the subscription price, especially given that Xbox Live and many other online gaming environments are not compatible with the high speed-of-light latency of a satellite connection?
and dial-up ISPs?
What member of Slashdot's core audience is willing to go back to 56K dial-up, especially given that Xbox Live and many other online gaming environments are not compatible with the low transfer rate of dial-up?
what about things like T1s?
What residential customer can afford to pay five to ten times more for a T1 connection vs. DSL just for the ability to run an unapproved operating system?
Use ReactOS...
I wish you all would shut the hell up with "you have a voice" shit! You sound like ugly lesbian social workers (who really SHOULD wear a bra) at some lame rally, when they really should keep their big ass on the softball bench. Yes, there is another option, and I'll 'splain it to your brain washed mind.
Look, some of us have been here a long time. We've been here long enough to realize that we will NEVER have criticial mass. Our voice and our vote don't count worth shit in a septic tank. Even if we collectively managed to herd all the cats into a circle we will NEVER have the sort of influence that can make this happen.
Let me propose this: Influence = Money + Power + Fame
Hollywood doesn't actually have all that much money compared to other highly influential people and types. M$ could buy everything except sony and have some change left over to buy Tuvala. However, they exert a large influence over our dialogs and our minds. They have power and fame. These companies have LOTS of money and a fair amount of power, but need more than the above is influence.
The consuming public are just sheep with NO influence. The shit either sells or it don't. If it doesn't sell, they blame us for being too stupid, or they'll blame the marketing, advertising or timing. There's very little they can do to influence us WITH OUT hollywood.
Now, if you want to make big money fast, you go b2b. Businesses (such as hollywood studios) REALLY have money. A couple of deals with a couple of businesses, and you're set for the year. And that's the way the world is going. HUGE influence consolodatiion. Why are the rural areas being turned into ghettos and everyone moving to the MEGA cities? Face time (fame) helps you build {ahem} trust with those that have money. The illusion is that, when consolidated, money, power and fame are easier to aquire. The reality is that influential people would rather be in New York than Nowhere, Idaho. Thus, we must all move to serve their whims.
Back to the point: us slashdot weenies don't count for shit. I think we'd gain more by admitting it. Stop the insanity of trying to work within a system that will NEVER benifit you! Stop wasting your energies to "rally the troops" and stroke our ego with the "you have the power" shit. The unfortunate reality is soon the only way to do right and to preserve the arts (in this case) and to promote open computers and communication IS the HACKER . I hate to sound like an 80's BBS posting, but I'm begining to believe that the underground, the reservation, is the only place for us savages to go in this brave new world.
See X-Box.
AKA. Linux killer beta 2A.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
I think that, as long as this new standard allows for the use of cheap adaptors on legacy products, then it'll be a Good Thing.
:)
Right now, there are so many types of Video and Audio connectors it's insane, and some of them require special electronics to connect (ie: a VGA feed to an RCA input).
If this new standard means that my new TV or Projector or Reciever will have 5 idential inputs, and I can purchase $5 adaptors for my RCA VCR, my S-Video DVD player, and my VGA video card, then great!
And while they're making a new standard, it'd be great if they gave us some other added convinience factors too. Here's a few off the top of my head:
1) Sony's S-Link concept was nice because when you turned the DVD player on, the Receiver automatically jumped to DVD. I'd like to see this enabled as an option.
2) Too many wires! Perhaps we spec can include for power as well as video signal. If done right, there won't be interference and it's one less thing I'll have to plug in.
3) Easy connectors. To date, probably the best connector I can think of is the RCA. The RCA can be insert in any rotation, is solid, hard to break, and only has one fat plug and no tiny pins to worry about. I hope the new standard will address these physical issues.
I could probably come up with more, but then they'd have to start paying me.
-David
How about a standard that makes it so that I only have to connect one wire (or none) to each component and also solves the "having five remote controls" issue. IR blasting is sorta lame. Also, I assume that the audio line(s) are all digital and allow for surround sound and the like, right?
What this equipment is designed for is to prevent legitimately purchased media being used as a high resolution copy source via the 'analogue hole', i.e. you can't hook a cable up to your DisplayPort interface and rip the content. Presumably when you play a protect file, it'll simply make sure your output is secure and refuse to play if it thinks you're outputting via some satanic copying device.
Think about this clearly, if they blocked you playing DivX or any other abstract/unprotected files, by definition you'd be blocking anyone writing to the video buffer, because that's all DivX is really doing. Media playback applications don't do anything special anyway, they just dump bytes into that buffer.
In fact, to stop a "rogue" application from playing unauthorized media, you'd need to have code that could determine if any application on the system is playing Spiderman 3, which is clearly impossible, as well as being capable of supporting Linux. Linux wont have a problem on these devices, what'll most likely happen is just the same as the DVD/DeCSS arrangement, where no software exists to interact with the hardware, except this time it's not just reading the media that we need to figure out, but decoding it using a key from a secure monitor device.
It's your typical overblown slashdot rumor, move along.
Regards,
-Steve Gray
Yeah, standards fight between Samsung/Phillips and Intel/Silicon Image! Why does every new computer standard these days have to be a fight/pissing contest? Why can't we share patents and get along?
Actually, I think it was named in a hurry. Basically, you had ITV Digital, which offered some free channels (all the terrestrial ones and the BBC ones, possibly plus some others) and some more subscription ones, all through your TV aerial.
Then that went belly-up (partly due to counterfeit viewing cards and partly to large payments for sports rights, both of which Sky may have had a hand in), and was taken over by a joint operation between the BBC and Sky and renamed Freeview.
Oh, and the signal quality's not bad - about that of a decent analog signal, if you ask me - and it has most of the channels that are worth watching. Remember, we can't get HDTV here yet *at all* (Sky will start offering it soon, and there's the possibility of terrestrial HDTV after the analog switch-off, but until then).
I don't agree with this. Not everything on TV is shit. 99.99% of it is, but you should be able to occassionally find something you like on at least one cable channel. Personally, I like the Stargate shows and Battlestar Galactica on sci-fi, and occassionally, the Discovery channel shows some interesting nature programs (when they're not wasting time with those stupid motorcycle shows). It's not much, maybe 4-5 hours/week, but it's nice to watch when I get the chance.
Also, if you ever find a girlfriend, you'll find that she won't have a lot of interest in spending her evenings sitting with you and looking cute while watching you browse Slashdot, surf the web, write programs, etc. Watching TV is passive, but it's something you can do with other people. Of course, I suppose you could just sign up for Netflix and just watch DVDs all the time too.
What I am looking for is a way to carry video all over a new house I will be building in a few years. It turns out DVI and HDMI simple cannot run these distances. And besides that, the cabling itself is very expensive.
The traditional analog way to run video is over a 75 ohm coaxial cable, either as a baseband composite video with 2 separate audio cables, or as baseband component video (3 cables for Y, Pr, and Pb channels), or as modulated carriers suitable for cable or over-the-air (OTA) tuners. But the big question is how to advance home video distribution to the digital age. DVI and HDMI simply can't do it. I doubt DisplayPort will be able to do so, either for similar reasons. What could workd is the SDI (Serial Data Interface) and related HD upgrades used by the broadcast industry. The cabling for SDI is simple high grade 75-ohm coax and could even run a kilometer or more. The catch is that SDI is not cheap, despite the fact that technologically, it isn't really any more difficult to do than other digital technologies (it just isn't widely deployed to bring down costs). SDI also does not include any content protection methods (some would say this is a good thing).
This tendency for manufacturers to keep making all new types of connectors, and cables, and pinouts, for each new type of interfacing (USB and Firewire are other examples in a different context) just seems silly. Whatever needs to be sent or exchanged needs to simply be defined in terms of using a data bit stream, which can then be sent or exchanged over any of a number of types of physical interfaces. Follow that up with some simple high speed serial hardware interfaces (a metallic one over twisted pair, another matallic one over coax, and a fiber optic one). Done right, one type of simple and common cabling and connectors can do things from keyboards to video displays to hard drives, and even do so over a few kilometers of distance for point-to-point connections.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Simple: they'll let the content providers sweat it out by not getting any customers. Here's some news for you: the consumer electronics industry is many times larger in size and revenue than the content industries. Hollywood is the underdog here.
Maybe because I'm using of these new displays - but your entire post was replaced with *'s!
Get your Unix fortune now!
at this point video doesn't need its own standard. use 10 gig-e, infiniband, pci-e over cable, or any general bit pipe of sufficient breadth.
Bums me out how 90% of the response to this new standard is vitriol... :/ So you won't be able to play the Chinese version of Star Wars on your PC, who cares?
;)
I'm pretty jazzed, myself. DVI single link tops out at about a gigabit, or 1920 x 1200 @ 60 fps. As I recall, dual link tops out at 2048 x 1536, which means: I wonder what hacks Apple has to resort to with their 30"?
This new standard tops out at 10x the pixels of Dell's new 24" monitor running at 60 fps, which will enables us all to get displays with lots more pixels sooner.
And the new simpler, smaller port is important too. DVI has always been way too complicated (single + dual link, DVI-A, DVI-D, DVI-I) and expensive ($50 a cable).
An no video card vendor can really viably do more than dual head, b/c there just isn't space. (Yeah, the Parhelia was triple head, but where did that go... And was the third head on a daughter card?)
So, with A) Vista's display scalability making it possible for users to get more detail with more pixels rather than fonts that become so small as to be unreadable, B) this new display interface, and C) Dell's crazy determination to drive LCD prices down, I'm hoping we see some really neat stuff 5 years from now.
Like all video cards doing triple head, and monitors with the same number of pixels as Apple's 30" for $500.
I've gotten a taste of this future running dual head 24" Dells at work, and it's just plain uber-geektastic...
(Heh, and I *finally* enough screen real estate to run Dev Studio properly...
The proposed standard sounds really great and all that, I'm sure I'll be able to see a bit of difference and that may or may not make a believer out of me. I already have millions of colors and thousands of lines of resolution though and I treasure each and every one of them.
What I don't treasure out of the current specs is the limited length that the cable can go before I see too much distortion. The engineers tell me this is mostly a limitation caused by signal speed and certain laws of physics. Yes there really are times where I would like the monitor fifteen feet from the computer! Please in your new standard, consider this.
Thank you,
Which one is VGA (HDI-15) better than?
Not DVI or HDMI. VGA cannot carry digital signals like they can.
Perhaps you mean Composite or component? All 3 component formats and composite all predate VGA & the HDI-15. Component video (YPbPr) was used on Sony's Betacam (not to be confused with Beta) in 1982. Component RGB was around at least as long. VGA (HDI-15) came out in 1987.
S-Video (Y/C) also predates VGA, although the 4-pin connector doesn't. Perhaps you used the Y/C connectors on your Amiga or C-64 to hook to your (premium) Commodore monitor.
S-Video was unavoidable because of how VCRs work (the connector was created by JVC for their S-VHS decks in 1988), component video for those devices wouldn't have been cost-effective.
So perhaps it is VGA that never should have happened?
As to DVI and HDMI, it's easy to convert HDMI to DVI if your TV has DVI.
And BTW, you forgot RF (F-connector). Most TVs have at least one of those too. And some have Firewire.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I want my connector to video devices to be ethernet.
With the video encoded in an IETF protocol.
No, Stop, Think.
Perhaps, think some more.
Hey, that could work!
Open source can't support strong DRM, because strong DRM depends on you being unable to modify the OS.
You could build a closed source derivitive of BSD and include DRM components in it, but strong DRM in a GPL kernel violates clause 6 of the GPL.
It may turn out that this is legally unenforcable, but in practical terms an OS that doesn't let you modify the kernel or install unsigned drivers is not open in any real sense. Whether it's a close-source BSD derivitive of an end-run around the GPL the reult is the same.
Time for me to make my own netowrk. Anyone who lives near me can help string up wires and we will start a new internet. Maybe call it ComputerNet.
First, the content itself will be encrypted quite a lot more securely than DVDs were. Second, in order to even read the data off a protected disc with a non-signed app like VLC, you'll need cracked Blu-Ray drivers. Third, installing those non-signed drivers may require some cleverness on Windows Vista, and so on.
Ultimately, the chain of trust will extend from an RSA key embedded in the CPU itself, all the way to the monitor. It could (in theory) be made as uncrackable as public-key encryption itself. In practice, software bugs, social engineering, electron microscopes etc will all be exploited to find a weak link, and the chain will unravel from there.
You could simply not buy into it, of course, vote with your wallet & resist the lure of HiDef movies. But history has shown that a) most people are happy to give up their rights in exchange for new toys, and b) those rights (and more) will be restored by the hackers on the Front Line.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
People keep mentioning the DRM, anyone care to link / explain the workings? TFAs don't seem to have technical details...
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
All this is nice and interesting, but you speak as though the rest of the world are fools.
I mean, if you look at the pace at which mods for various consoles in the past came out, and I can tell you there were VERY interesting mods in the first generations which involves arcane chip soldering and booting up with weird discs and so on..
How the hell did people figure them out, you might wonder.. people WILL figure them out. The Chinese *will* do that. There is a huge financial incentive to do that, and it will be a cold day in hell before China starts embracing the American DRM standards. If anything they will make their own! (No way will they trust you guys that much)
So, the outlook probably is not as gloom as you put it. And do learn some Chinese, it is one dictatorship to another, not much difference if you ask me.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
you can switch to Linux, which will always be free, always be DRMless ...
Well, not really. Someone could write the drivers to use Digital Restriction Management hardware and authentication routines on Linux machines.
Oh wait, that's already happened.
Of course, your personal version of Linux may not be encumbered with DRM, but that does not mean that Linux as a whole will be free of it.
..
You missed something.
When people go DSL / Cable they put NAT in the way of such checks. So, what happens then?
We should be interacting with 3d images floating in midair by now! Screw goggles!
For that matter, where's my biproduct power battery that we're supposed to all have by now?!
You know --- it's not the engine that makes a car go, it's the wheels stupid! Let's make this stuff happen!
Wow.
:)
Thank you.
That's more insightful information in one post about The Very Real Near Future than I've ever seen.
However, you've just mentioned several points which other people have jumped on... but I'll add
1) Asshats / Black hats would love any opportunity to destroy and cause mayhem. Not all of them.. but all it would take is one group to figure out the destruction codes and *poof* lots of devices die.
2) How is my TV going to die when it isn't connected to the Internet?
(In response to those who say 'but all devices will be!!! - Today I have a dual way firewall between my LAN and the net. You have to open ports for specific machines for them to get out, same for in. Then again, not everyone is as paranoid as I am..)
3) I've stopped buying DVDs because region encoding makes my blood boil. I have US anime, AU anime and of course JP anime disks. I've 'destroyed' one DVD player making it multiregion (yeah yeah, I know I know, the risk you take blah blah blah). I still don't see why an OS should be able to 'burn' your DVD player for you without your permission. Still, what you are talking about is far worse.
So, my question for you is:
Do you think that when the shit hits the fan with this style of DRM and the world is forced to buy it that we will:
A) Either bend over and take it,
B) There will always be devices that do not comply with this lockup situation and people will start buying from China more
or
C) By then the Oil Age will be over and no one will care?
1) Asshats / Black hats would love any opportunity to destroy and cause mayhem. Not all of them.. but all it would take is one group to figure out the destruction codes and *poof* lots of devices die.
"Destruction codes" probably isn't exactly the right term for how it would happen, but yes that is a very possible situation. The primary design goal is to protect the DRM... specifically to always "fail-safe" into a completely nonfunctional mode. If anything "goes wrong" anywhere in the system it tends to just drop dead. That means there are a lot of ways to cause devices to die.
2) How is my TV going to die when it isn't connected to the Internet?
Well first theres still the difficulty of buying an illegal unlocked TV in the first place, or managing to rip a key out of a boobytrapped self destructing microchip (likely the CPU itself) to unlock a TV yourself.
Assuming you have managed to get an unlocked device, you're right that it does tend to be resistant to revokation if it is not connected to the internet. However they do still have a surprising number of ways to try to get at you. They are actually planning on embedding revokation lists in the new DVDs, and they can transmit revocation lists right in TV signals. This means that your DVD player and or mediacenter system or any other hardware can still get updates and then lock out known noncompliant devices. If you have a massproduced unlocked TV with a replicated key, they will obviously learn that key. They then put that info on all new DVDs, and the moment you play a new DVD your DVD player updates and then it refuses to connect to your TV. If you have a cable box, well then your TV is effectively "on the network" and they can scan and update and revoke anything they like.
Do you think that when the shit hits the fan with this style of DRM and the world is forced to buy it that we will:
A) Either bend over and take it,
B) There will always be devices that do not comply with this lockup situation and people will start buying from China more
or
C) By then the Oil Age will be over and no one will care?
Well I think I can rule out (C). Within the next ten years the situation is going to break one way or the other. If Trusted Computing is accepted and gets any substantial market share then natural market forces will ensure it will devour almost everything.
As for (B), well you're always perfectly free to make and sell products that do not comply with Trusted Computing. The issue is that if most everything else *is* compliant then your device is pretty well useless. Every other device will refuse to connect to it.
I fear that the general public will (A) simply buy these products without knowing or caring. Every new device on the shelf will simply be compliant by default. All new PCs will be compliant when the next Windows OS comes out less than a year from now, pretty much all new CPUs will be compliant with the Trust chip embedded. (The Cell processor already has it embedded, Intel has already been shipping CPUs with embedded Trust circuitry, Transmeta already shipped Trusted compliant CPUs, and AMD's project Presidio is Trust chip embedded CPUs).
The only hope is (D) the mainstream media picks up on this issue and there is a massive public backlash against it. Backlash managed to kill the Pentium III CPUs with embedded ID codes. Unfortuantely they learned from that fiasco and they have a massive Public Relations system in place this time to counter that sort of backlash. They also have a staggering force and momentum moving forwards this time. Even if there is a backlash, they can probably just steamroll over the backlash simply by shipping every single new PC as compliant with the new Windows OS release.
I hope they fail and this system dies and I will do everything I can to stop it, but I'm not optimistic.
Oh, another thing that can kill it is if there is a major mathematical breakthrough. The public key crypo system falls apart if we find a way to factor 2048 bit keys. The development of effective quantum computers would almost certainly do the trick for cracking those keys. The system is also in jeopardy if there is major new progress on cracking SHA-1 hashes.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If I didn't think a mass boycot would result in a gov't bailout of the entertainment industry...I could almost accept that argument.
Driving a car is a right, even if it is not codified in law. The baby boomer dipshits didn't like the cities they fought in during WWII so they ALL wanted a nice house in the suburbs.
This country doesn't work if nearly everybody doesn't have a car. That's why I have 20 speeding tickets and still drive.
Hypocritical gov't...they hold onto the myth that it is a 'priviledge' so they can squeeze you for money...but they know damn well that if they enforced all the laws the country would stop.
Blar.