Next-Gen DVD Players to Rely on HDMI?

RX8 writes "For those thinking about upgrading to either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD when they become available, you may want to think again. According to Designtechnica, the next-generation players will not support 1080i or 1080P and quite possibly not even 720P using the component video connection, it will have to use HDMI. Why? Because of copyright enforcement. Hollywood wants these new players to get rid of component video all together. So if you have an HDTV and want to use these new players, chances are you are out of luck. Neither the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD camps are officially saying anything about this yet, but early players are only showing these high resolutions using the HDMI connection."

Comments

Serious "LITTLE" problem?

[DamnedNice]

If this thing goes through, somebody's gonna come up with a little adapter box that'll convert it into S-video. That can be converted to composite / RCA. Problem solved.

"This is a major dilemma, and no one is talking about it" -- THIS is the big thing. We have to be heard to stop things like this. Sure, there's tons of conversation to follow on this thread, but we need to post elsewhere about this as well. I suggest as many people blog about it as possible. I know I will.

Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem?

[Gadzinka]

No, the serious pirates can for example buy "magic box" from countries outside of DMCA/EUCD reach, that will decrypt HDMI signal using the weaknesses found in the HDCP before it even was implemented in a single device.

It will be just like someone at Ars Technica wrote: your HD player sometimes won't play your legal HD content on your computer or HDTV. But it will always play illegaly downloaded HD content from the Internet -- talk about shooting yourself in a foot.

Robert

I'll be the first to say it...

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

This will do nothing to discourage the pirate, and will only serve to annoy and alienate paying customers.

This is ribiculious...

[Manip]

What are these copyright protection schemes trying to accomplish? ... 99% of consumers *don't* copy their DVDs, 99% of consumers *don't* upload their DVDs to the internet ... But do you know who this hardware will affect? 99% of consumers.

The last 1% of consumers who do backup / upload will continue to do so regardless of the protection. All it takes is a single producer to have a accidental backdoor (see X-Box exploits via a game).

Further more why are they protecting the extra quality so vigorously? From what I've seen you have get non-HD pictures without any kind of protection, but for HD you need all this crazy stuff... But who is crazy enough to upload a full quality HD movie on the 'net?

I think the copyright holders are going to KILL psychical media far faster than it otherwise would and push consumers towards platforms like iTunes for their video.

Re:This is ribiculious...

[jonwil]

Copy protection is (increasingly) designed to stop the casual copiers.
For example, the people who borrow a CD off a mate and rip it to their MP3 player instead of buying the CD.
Or the people who record episodes of TV shows with a DVD recorder instead of buying the DVD box set.
Or the people who buy a new computer with a new version of windows or office or some other software package and decide to install it on all their other computers as well.

Re:This is ribiculious...

[pla]

All it takes is a single producer to have a accidental backdoor

HDCP includes key revocation lists. One backdoor will work for all content predating the discovery of a flaw, but as soon as you try to play something newer with the compromised device added to its list, you lose the ability to play content dependant on the compromised device (even older content - CRLs/KRLs apply retroactively).

That might well make you wonder what happens when someone like Sony or Toshiba eventually accidentally release a device with a flaw... Would Hollywood have the balls to make a million TVs go black with one stoke of their magic red pen?


Though, on re-reading your comment, it occurs to me you may have meant something different - That once a compromise occurs, you can use it to transcode all earlier content, making revocation irrelevant? On that, I would agree with you, with one slight problem - Storage and playback. Sure, you could keep a few of your favorite movies on your HDD, but HD movies eat a LOT of bytes. And even then, you could only play it back on your computer, since any standalone device capable of playing it would bring you back to the HDCP problem you wanted to get around in the first place.

The formats will flop

[Zork the Almighty]

This article would have been better titled: "Next-Gen DVD Formats Will Flop" because that is exactly what is going to happen. They've got a small market of people willing to replace all of their gear as it is, and now they have introduced compatibility problems on purpose with these inane restrictions. Nevermind the fact that they've got two completely incompatible formats, one of which is guaranteed to fail. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The word of mouth on these things will be how "so-and-so spent gobs of money and it didn't work".

Hmmm, $thousands on new hardware, or piracy?

[hattig]

These companies are so focused on restricting the usability of their products to protect imagined revenues that they aren't seeing the big picture - if there is a better, more usable, accessible, cheaper alternative available, people will use that.

The quality of piracy has gone up massively with internet distribution. Once pirates work out a system for ripping HD-DVDs and BluRay (and they will), then they can offer high quality films that will work on computers, older HDTV sets that people invested a lot in, and so on.

Functionality is a massive selling point, enough to make even people that actually do want to pay a fair price for the real thing think about getting the more functional version.

Sadly all this expensive work spent on restricting users will not bring in much more revenue to the companies - those people mainly pirate because they can't afford it otherwise, or wouldn't pay for it being stingy bastards. Instead they'll manage on the DVD resolution version - quality isn't a big issue for them either - students can't afford HDTV systems, stingy people have 20 year old televisions.

Next Generation Players Bound To Fail

[omegashenron]

Seriously, if this is the case, who is going to waste their money and buy one of these players?.

Consumers will be outraged (even the stupid ones). After all lets see what there is to consider:

• Choose a format you want and buy the player but to get all available titles you will really need to fork out cash for both players - who is going to do this?
• Discover that after you buy your two shiny new players that they will not work with your existing HDTV so fork out more cash for a new HDTV.

I think many retailers will end up experiencing a large increase in returned AV equipment in the coming years so much so that perhaps some retailers may decide to stop stocking such products or at least pick stock that is known to work together.

As for me, I probably wont worry about upgrading because my existing DVD collection is sufficiently entertaining and the quality of movies being released now days is simply appalling. In the end it's just not worth it.

Re:Next Generation Players Bound To Fail

[CastrTroy]

3. You realize that after you buy both machines and even though you have a TV with HDMI, that it only has 1 HDMI port, and you have to switch the players back and forth every time you want to play a disc of a different format.

Re:Foot, say hello to Mr. Shotgun

[plumby]

It's doing the trick on me at the moment. I'm not the earliest of early adopters for home entertainment stuff, but I'm usually not far behind, and have spent many thousands on kit for the house.

I'm in the market for a new HD-TV now (I bought a widescreen TV when they first came out, but it's a big fat CRT and I want a nice shiny thin LCD/plasma to hang on the wall and play XBOX-2 games on), but I aint buying while there's so much confusion/disagreement on standards. I don't mind (too much) paying early adopter prices for kit that's going to be half that cost by next year, but I'm not going to pay early adopter prices for kit that's likely to be pretty much obsolete (and replaced by something more restrictive) by next year.

The problem is that I suspect there's a fair few people like me out there, and if people like me aren't buying the kit now, then it's unlikely that manufacturers will be in a position to lower the price in the near future, so the mass market will never take it up either.

I'm tired...

[ThinkDifferently]

I am really tired of having to upgrade all of my entertainment equipment every 5 years. I am not a bottomless pit of a consumer. I've replaced all of my equipment twice in my lifetime, and I'm only 35. Well, I'm tired of it now. As it is, I have to buy a specialized media pc just to record fscking HD content (where were the components?). Damn Blue Ray! Damn HD-DVD! They can rot for all I care. I won't be hollywood's damn pawn. I am the consumer, and I vote with my wallet. ...and if Blockbuster ever drops the DVD format, guess what? I'm not going to Blockbuster anymore.

Re:No problem

[Mr2001]

(I admit, I don't know what the HD situation is in Australia. But here in the US, it's almost difficult to buy a non-HD set anymore.)

That's what you might think from the advertisements, but if you go into any Best Buy or Circuit City, you'll find plenty of standard televisions. You'll know when you're looking at one, because the price tag will only have three digits before the decimal point.