Slashdot Mirror
HighDef Content to Require New Monitors
QT writes "Ars Technica has an interesting article on how HDCP figures into Microsoft and Apple's future OS plans.
Not only will future HD content not play in pure HD on most existing monitors (it will be degraded, or not shown at all), but high-end monitors today don't support HDCP yet. HDCP
has been coming for 3+ years, but geek fantasy items such as Apple's $3,000 30" Cinema Display don't even have support for it yet! The end result is that when Windows Vista ships
(and Apple's next OS), most people won't be able to watch protected HD content on their computers."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
Yes Microsoft has plans to incorperate full-on video DRM.
But Apple has never said they will - this article just postulates they will have to.
Well, before ITMS would not people have also postulated that it would be impossible for Apple to sell songs without DRM that would restrict CD burning? After all, that was the standard of the time.
Some companies are smart enough to realize that obsoleteing millions of monitors is Not Smart, and will avoid doing so if they can. And Apple has shown they can avoid the more onerous restrictions set forth by giant industries that would rather have it otherwise. And making millions of computer monitors obsolete is right up there in terms of gall.
So the story poster would have been wise to note the speculative nature of the topic instead of proclaiming it as fact from Apple.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well from simply reading the summary it sounds like all the protection is being held in the OS, therefore couldn't an Open Source OS circumvent this protection. Just load it up in Linux and none of us nerds have anything to worry about. In fact, we could put it in Linux rip off the DRM and burn it to whatever media we need, then we're home free for whatever format we need, DVD, CD, Blu-Ray, even playable back in Windows and Mac.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
and DVDJon, our Lord and Saviour, will break this nonsense scheme in 3..2..1..
That means nobody will watch "protected HD content," thereby killing this idea from the get go.
There's a bit of info about all this over at DRMadness as well, though it's aimed specifically at Blu-ray and HD-DVD (but that's HighDef content as well, isn't it)...
2. Aim at foot.
3. Pull trigger.
The end result is that when Windows Vista ships (and Apple's next OS), most people won't be able to watch protected HD content on their computers LEGALLY."
about 30 days after the first piece of media is released I'll be able to watch it under linux and BSD in full resolution as someone will have foundand released a crack/hack/mod/whatever.
They are wasting their time trying to "protect" this stuff. all they are doing is finding new ways to piss off the legit consumer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Seriously. Hollywood has an organized boycott coming for this. Not only are they screwing every HDTV owner who lacks HDMI or DVI/HDCP inputs (a huge number of sets were sold with component only inputs), but now they plan to screw computer owners over too. Just don't buy their shit. Let the new Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD decks sit unsold on shelves for a year or two and watch the these cartels shit their pants with all that unsold inventory. Maybe they'll even respond to consumer wishes afterward!
But it won't happen spontaneously. An organized boycott is the only solution. --M
1) Ordinary people won't bother watching HD content on their computers - it will be too cumbersome.
2) Pirates won't care, as always, ripping to DivX or whatever and then watching as usual.
3) Ordinary people will discover DivX rips (family, friends of pirates) and watch HD content, not knowing that they're not supposed to. The pirates will mumble something about bad big corporations but they won't really care as long as they can watch the latest episode of Lost.
When Will These Idiots Get It?
That's OK, I was planning on boycotting and/or stealing and/or disabling the DRM on any such protected content anyway. If they don't want me to see it, I'll avoid buying it, thanks anyway. I'd download or create ripped DRM-less versions if forced too.
Spending a lot of time and effort downloading or ripping content will still be a lot cheaper than buying a multi-thousand-dollar monitor. Besides, most NTSC content is acceptable anyway...
If they want us to invest so much money in friggin' DRM'ed players, why don't they just give away their content in lo-res so only those wh ocan afford it, will be able to see the HD?
I ain't spending any money on a HD movie if all i'm getting is lowdef. If I already paid for it, why should spend even more? I just hope someone declares DRM to be inconstitutional or something...
What if they threw a Hi-Def party and nobody came?
Or to put it another way, just how many times are you going to let these people pick your pocket? We could just say that what we all have today is already good enough! .
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Score one for the little guy!
And by "little guy" I mean "multinational media conglomerate."
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
And thus prompting people to search for ripped/pirated HD content that is free of HDCP. Brilliant!
..until it shows up on Bittorrent an hour later.
C'mon, there has to be someone in Hollywood smart enough to figure out that copy protection this draconian is going to seriously encourage cracking? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to do everything possible to make it easier for their paying customers to get to their content rather than making it more irritating, unreliable, and expensive?
Oh, right. Oh well, not much worth watching anyhow.
The idea is that Vista will determine whether or not your system has an HDCP monitor. If it does not, it will either play the video at non-HD quality (downsampling, I suppose) or not play it at all. Thus, the OS will force you to upgrade your monitor to an HDCP compliant one if you want to watch HD.
Microsoft could choose not to implement this, thus allowing HD to be viewed on Legacy monitors.
Component video might not be protected. HDMI/DVI transmit digitally, which is what has content providers worried. Since component is analog, and because of the large install base you noted, it might not require HDCP. (pure speculation)
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
What DRM did they put in the iPod? You can copy songs off of and on to the iPod freely. You can output the full quality of all music (such as it is) to any device. You even get unprotected digital outputs from iTunes with the Airport Express or other digital device. Where's the rights management again? We're talking about a system that would NOT SHOW CONTENT on unapproved devices. There are no parallels in iPod/iTunes.
I certainly sympathize, but you do realize that all (legal) DVD players already have this property...
Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Actually, I was just considering not watching TV or movies any more, reading a good book and using my computer to access a few forums and do some writing. The kind of output coming out of the entertainment industry is so bad nowadays that I can't imagine anyone putting any effort into protecting it, or stealing it. It's all crap, and it isn't worth consideration. The whole battle seems like a bunch of silly bastards battling over who gets to eat the most shit from the dungpile.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Such a dongle would be illegal under the DMCA.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
If it is something that has to be visible to the human eye, your DRM can be broken.
If it is something that has to be audible to the human ear, your DRM can be broken.
Welcome to the age of computers, have a nice day.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Lookit that yoyo, trying to watch content.
...
He's got a box and hooked up his HDCP.
Tries to turn it on and all he gets is static.
So he throws it back in his hovercar.
refrain I want my, I want my, I want my HDCP.
I want my, I want my, I want my HDCP.
He can't use it to watch his microwave oven.
It won't show Showgirls in wide-screen full DPI.
But he don't worry cause he's really stupid.
So he shalls out another $1000 for an extra day.
refrain I want my, I want my, I want my HDCP.
I want my, I want my, I want my HDCP.
Can't watch anime from Japan cause he's in North America, can't watch Italian soap operas if he's in Germany, can't even watch the Olympics in High Def, cause they won't let you see the CBC in DC
refrainI ditched my, I ditched my, I ditched my HDCP.
I ditched my, I ditched my, I ditched my HDCP.
.
.
.
can you say refund?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sorry, but I can get them out easily as the iPod simply mounts as a drive and I can copy what I like out. Yes the filenames are obscured but since the ID3 data lives in teh file it's a moot point. 3rd party tools just make it a little handier.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You would need fucking good eyesight, so I doubt they would enforce that... or would they?
The popular Dell 20" wide screen (2005FPW) is already a victom of this. The monitor's native resolution is 1680x1050 and so it should be able to render 720p without a problem. However, you can't get HDTV content from either digital cable or directv receivers via DVI. Currently, going analog via Component In will get you HD, but unfortunately the monitor only offers DVI, VGA, S-Vid, & Composite. I use a Component to VGA transcoder, but the solution is neither cheap nor elegant.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Well why not make the dongle emulate a monitor and just pass the signal straight through to YOUr monitor?
TFA mentioned revoking the keys that such a device would use, but it seems to me that it would be easy enough for someone to give the passthru a flashable firmware. I don't see it being impossible to read a key off an existing device, either.
And imagine if someone got the key from a Viewsonic (or even better, a Dell) monitor and it got put n everyone's dongle....the only way to stop that would be by cutting off everyone who bought that monitor. And that might open us up a nice little class action lawsuit.
---- Watch out for snakes!
microsoft is incorporating a lot more than HDCP restriction requirements in their winhec standards. They are also building in encrypted "protected media path", allowing revocation of components in vista based PC's and requiring hardware and driver based DRM for "windows logo testing approval"
They are also requiring a new form of device ID which is designed to prevent any emulation without contacting the emulated device's originator
I tried to give slashdot the heads up on this over a month ago and, like a fellow poster, my story was rejected.
There's a reason Vista took so long to develop, and that reason has nothing to do with consumer-centric design
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
So, no hardware supports is officially yet, but with Vista you can watch it on you pc (under reduced resolution anyway)...
no hardware save almost all HDTVs made these days, as well as the HD-DVD and (rumored) BluRay. this is much bigger than just PCs - your TVs, cable boxes, cable cards, etc, will all include HDCP of some sort (and most TVs with HDMI input already do support it.)
of course, you could go shopping before the MPAA starts with the lawsuits...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Look. They control the media / entertainment industry and will use TV and Cable News to propagate their message. They have huge war-chests for campaign contributions. They essentially control access to policy and the consensus opinion management. There's no way to change that fact without a sea-change in anti-trust law, as in Teddy Roosevelt's days with the collapse of the Gilded Age.
Boycott is the only effective counter to their power (even given the problems you present) because to do nothing is even less effective as a consumer strategy to corporate abuse of power. Or can you recommend a better alternative? --M
Microsoft could choose not to implement this, thus allowing HD to be viewed on Legacy monitors.
No they couldn't. The DRM algorithms for HD content are patented and controlled by a media consortium. Furthermore the keys for the system are protected as trade-secrets. This consortium will refuse to license the algorithms or keys to anyone who does not sign a contract agreeing to play thier rules. It would be illegal for Microsoft to create an implementation that was not blessed by the patent/key holders.
So the choice that Microsoft and Apple have is to either play HDCP'd content the way they are told to play it (which is downgraded on non-HDCP monitors) or to not play it at all.
A quick calculation shows 1280x720 60fps at 24 bit color is 1.5Gbps. I don't know about you, but my computer cannot possibly capture that. I don't know of a single hard drive or RAID system that can write 190MB/s that does not cost as much as my Nissan 350z. To buy hardware to copy this stuff is just as dumb as buying a Toyota Hybrid to save money on Gas. (10 years at 15k miles per year to make up the cost difference from a civic).
HD DVD technologies will probably take years to go anywhere anyway, regardless of DRM or no DRM.
Why was the CD a big success? It offered enormous convenience over the existing forms (records and tapes) and an enormous leap in quality - cracks and pops gone. Wow and flutter gone from tapes. No rewinding necessary.
Why was DVD a big success fairly quickly? It wasn't just the improved quality over VHS. Mostly it was the ease of use. A small disc that doesn't have to be rewound, doesn't snag, doesn't have tracking that goes out of alignment, and the quality was much much better.
But for most people, DVD is good enough. A new format will offer no extra convenience, and will cost a lot to buy - certainly for a fair while (high quality displays have always been expensive). Therefore, high definition disc formats will probably be relegated for years, perhaps decades, to the audio/videophile segment - a very small fraction of the market. Just like LaserDisc really. For everyone else, normal DVDs are cheap and good enough.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
1. Don't buy it. It's all crap anyways.
/giggle comes in. Lets assume you absolutely have to have your movies/TV shows. Lets assume you absolutely have to have it in HD.
Yes, it is possible to go through life without TV. I do, everyday, and I'm not some kind of weird recluse or anything. I have friends, and a girlfriend *gasp* (yes, she thinks slashdot is super-nerdy), and I spend a lot of time playing video games. That's my replacement for crap TV.
Movies? I go and see them at the theater. Yes, I'd like to watch more at home. But I can't buy DVDs that I can do what I like with, so I don't buy them, period.
2. Pirate it. This is where the
You can either a) use a spatzbox (linked elsewhere in this conversation) to convert the HDCP content to HD component analog or digital DVI, or b) grab the HD-DVD that was burned unprotected using said spatzbox in some copyright-loving area like, say, Hong Kong.
The up market leather goods brands (Gucci and above) have been trying to stop pirate manufacturing of their products. In Iran, you can get any software you could possibly want for $1 a disk.
Do you *really* think that the MPAA will be able to stop this? What magic powers do they have the all the other companies don't have? It doesn't matter if the Blue-Ray or HD-DVD content protection can be broken. All you need is a HD-DVD/Blue-Ray player, and a spatzbox, in order to produce 1 digital master, HD, no content protection.
Its already avaliable!
Then it'll go through the usual distribution channels. Wholesale pirates->streets of hong kong->american tourists->usenet/limewire and CO.
And it's only going to get better and better as internet connections get faster. Think Windows Vista is going to DRM its way out of that? Nonsense-> You're forgetting that these will be unencrypted streams.
The only thing that this nonsense does is economically punish those who do the valid thing and actually purchase the disks.
For those like me, who will abstain, it does nothing.
For those like many others, who will pirate, it does nothing.
And I see *nothing* wrong with pirating. Copyright is an economic right (not a system of ethics) designed to promote the arts and sciences. Once someone abuses Copyright (like, say, by eliminating fair use/controlling playback through the DMCA), they are actively stopping the promotion of the arts and sciences. As I see it, the *only* reason to respect copyright is the promotion of the arts and sciences, and once they stop doing that, they forfeit their government-sponsored monopoly.
That's all it is, you know. Copyright was not handed down by God to Moses as a command. The Buddha did not tell us about Copyright, and evolution did not cause Copyright to evolve as inherented human behavior. Copyright is a government-sponsored monopoly, established for the *sole* purpose of promoting/protecting artistic and scientific economic activies.
And contrary to what you learned in grade school civics, what the government tells you is not always the definition of 'good and right'. Don't call me a deviant--> If I was a weird, social outcast, and the only one who thought like this, then 50 million Americans (sayeth the RIAA) would not be participating in illegal P2P activities. While those Americans may not directly communicate their beliefs they way I am able to explain my own, it is most likely because they simply haven't though about it at any length, and if they had, would agree with me.
But, I don't bother to pirate. Instead of paying attention to one-way content, I prefer to interact with two-way content, and I see enough value in that interaction that I purchase it. I vote with my dollar--> I buy things (read *games*) that I think are good. And between Guildwars, Half-Life 2, Eve Online, and World of Warcraft, I have my hands full for the indefinite future.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Or maybe, I'll just watch all the old unprotected content that I have lying around. Heck, maybe I'll just read a book. They still let us do that right?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
-
Why bother protecting DVI? Have any prior DRM systems been attacked through DVI?
-
About key revocation (part of HDCP afaik): What is the benefit of being able to revoke keys known to be compromised?
-
A little revocation scenario: Company X sells 10 million HDCP-enabled devices. Someone devises a crack that theoretically compromises the key on all those devices (e.g. by finding a flaw in X's key generation). Media companies consequently block all 10 million devices. Does X have to replace 10 million devices for free, or are 10 million customers stuck with a useless device?
Bonus question: why would I want this crap? I tend to like movies for their storytelling, and am quite happy with the quality that DVDs offer me. If this stuff ever takes of, I'll just be happily buying used DVDs from suckers who upgrade their collection to HD.No, because cracking CSS was easier. And chances are the next generation will be cracked in a similar manner. I have not yet seen any DRM research suggesting otherwise. But any measure against hacking makes sense only if you make all other possible attacks equally difficult. (Why have a steel door if there is an open window?) Why the inconvenience for your customer, if you know it will have almost no positive effect?
Yes, you can prevent a hacked player from playing back a legally purchased copy on a unprotected device. But apparently most piracy today comes from P2P networks. How will you be able to tell which key was used to decrypt a DRM-free copy that shows up on a P2P-network? Release groups would probably just keep their cracked key secret. (Watermarks? Not robust against removal afaik.) Revocation can neither prevent spreading of content to P2P, nor playback of unprotected files obtained from P2P.
If you sell HDCP-enabled products, make sure that you know your cryptography very, very well. Or you might go out of bussiness soon.
More than 5 years ago Circuit City was selling a DVD format called DVIX, as I recall. I remember when I was looking for my first DVD player how hard the salesdrone tried to get me to buy a DVIX player. As I recall the "movies" were as little as $4 but could only be played on a DVIX player which had to be hooked up to a phone so the player could dial home and validate the disk. I looked at the restrictions and figured out that the system was an ugly grab for my wallet. It relied on a supposedly free system which would fail because it could not support itself. I didn't care for the idea that I could buy a movie and not be able to take it to my friends house to watch it together. DVD's were, I decided, a much better deal.
Long and short... DVIX and all it stood for died. Died hard. Died ugly. Died and left customers holding useless garbage that, AFAIK, they can no longer play. So much for trust. This is a very abbreviated description of DVIX I know; however, I believe I have the essential points more or less correct. To this day I have never bought anything in a Circuit City store. To me DVIX, it's completely dishonest representation of value and functionality, and Circuit City are irrevocably maligned together. And I didn't even get burned by them.
My son just learned that he cannot play Windows Media Player files on his new iPod. Some time ago I'd tried to him into ripping his CDs to MP3 using CDex. However, Microsoft made Windows Media Player so EASY to use. So my lazy, instant gratification, boy learned a hard lesson about DRM and industry standards. CDs, $85. Refurbished iPod, $200. Look on his face when he tried to rip the newest DRM protected Foo Fighters album he'd bought. Priceless!
So, what about the new methods of DRM? I believe everyone needs to take a deep breath. Step back. Relax. With DVIX, DRM was relatively new. It is not as new any more. The only hope for DRM in the entertainment industry is for Congress, et al in other countries, to enact laws requiring it. On the other hand I think the only hope for Congress is that they don't. The people are actually fairly slow to learn collectively and the world does seem to be changing pretty fast these days. However, collectively, given time, a majority of people will come to realize that they are being lied to and will assert their rights. And when they do? I believe all hell will break loose and both Congress and the entertainment industry will fall victim to an electoral enema.