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HD DVD to Screw Early HDTV Adopters
orionware writes "Apparently the folks who designed the Advanced Access Content System (AACS)for the new HD DVD formats have decided to stick it to the early HDTV adopters. If your set used the older component video, expect to watch your new HD DVD at a quarter of the resolutions. To thwart piracy of course." From the article: "AACS says the new players won't output a full-HD signal from their component-video connections, since those jacks are analog instead of digital and thus have no copy protection. The 'down-rezzed' signals will be limited to a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels -- exactly one-quarter the 1,920 x 1,080 pixels that you'll get through the copy-protected digital connectors on the players. The potentially huge problem with this strategy is that the only HD inputs on a lot of older HDTVs are component video."
That should read
"HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules"
Because I can't see any advantage to the end user by any of these rules.
Will it be easier to make backups - No
Will it be easier to play it on all the devices around your house - No
Will i beable to skip the 2-30 minutes of copyright ads + trailers to watch a movie - No
Will the image quality be higher - Only if you have the right hardware (the confusing HD standard means up and down sampling will reduce the quality even more if you HDTV isn't the right native resolution)
Will you beable to sell the disks on to friends/second hand market - No (At least from my understanding so correct me if i'm wrong)
Will it reduce the cost as no one will be able to pirate anymore - No, This will be hacked within a few months of it coming out the same way CSS was
"If I pirate will my life be easier than going the legitimate route" should be the one question that these media content owners need to answer. And they fail over and over again
Will I boycott HD - Yes
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Someone is going to make a lot of money selling Chinese digital-to-component adapters for all these HDTV owners - at least if HDTV actually goes anywhere.
Ok, so they're going to limit the analog outputs to 1/4th the normal resolution. And what the hell do they think that's going to solve? Most of the people downloading movies are not overly concerned about the quality. Hell, a lot of copies are made by hand held cameras in movie theaters, with plenty of shaky video and noise disturbances from the crowd. Besides, the vast majority of people aren't going to want to download a 20GB file to watch a movie when they can download a 700MB one.
Congratulations, you have prevented nothing.
The laws of probability forbid it!
Companies always seem ready to screw early adopters. Which doesn't make any sense to me, since the early adopters are typically the source of the largest margins in retail spaces. They absolutely have to have it as soon as possible and are willing to pay a premium... only to get burned for it later. It seems to me that you'd want to nurture your early adopters rather than screw them.
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I'm not too worried though, i will wait. Wait for the second generation of cheaper devices to flow from the secondary players in the DVD player markets (the "no-names"). these most assuredly will have the "secret back-door" keycodes to enable full HD over component.
the less the incentive to update the old DVD library. People are used to a certain level of performance and portability; I don't know how quickly they will adopt these new technologies if they are overburdened by DRM crap. Particularly so long as the format is still up in the air.
They keep finding more toes to shoot off, antagonizing their customers one segment at a time, hoping the remaining customers will be oblivious. Bang at the early adopters, bang at the mass market, bang at the computer users, bang bang bang ... pretty soon they won't have a leg to stand on.
Infuriate left and right
PT Barnum would be so proud of what has happened with HD. We've got the hardware producers *and* the government rolling over to the content producers with everyone intent on finding more ways to make the consumers pay more and more often. It's not about cheaper, newer, or better technology.
"See the egress!" of people *not* buying new TVs as they walk out of their electronics store frustrated by the HD cartel.
Why do I get the feeling that there will be an HD 2.0? I think I'll stick with my old TV and if it dies, I'll buy someone elses' old TV.
Betamax anyone?
There are STILL a number of HDTV devices being sold to this day which are supposedly HD enabled and ready, and yet they lack HDCP support. I purchased an $800 projector a year back (far after the early adopters) to install in my home theater. It has component and DVI inputs, which *should* have worked perfectly fine for all HD resolutions, but it lacks HDCP-- a completely useless extra step in the process which provides no benefit whatsoever to the end user.
I don't care that much about what copy protection is on the disc itself (although I would vastly prefer there to be none at all), but when organizations such as the MPAA feels that the general public can't be allowed to view higher resolution content over their existing, perfectly capable equipment STRICTLY because of copyright reasons, they can go fuck themselves. Make it a requirement for all *new* HD output devices (or the next gen devices), that's fine. But don't lock out the overwhelming number of users who were well intentioned and purchased new HD equipment (which was already standardized, BTW) with the expectation that it would *work*.
If it weren't for the fact that HDCP is an afterthought, completely overlooked in the original HD video standards, then it wouldn't be such a big deal. It's the fact that it's being pushed all of a sudden, at the last minute, *after* everyone has spent their money upgrading, and without any regard whatsoever to anyone who might be royally screwed over as a result.
KappaStone
At least at this time, I don't think it can be made all that cheap. That converter is actually going to have to be an active device with some deceant circutry. You have to accept HDMI/DVI in, with HDCP, decode that, then feed it through some high bandwidth D/A converters, amplify and output that. Given the price of devices that do similar things (DVI to VGA for computers, for example) I'm not optimistic on pricing.
Bollocks. You don't have a right to make a profit. However, if you sell a product that people want to buy at a price they do not consider extortionate, they will buy it. If someone else sells a substantially similar product cheaper than you, then people will buy that instead. It's called the free market.
..... how many newsagents' shops have photocopiers? How much would it cost to photocopy the latest Harry Potter?
Given the economies of scale involved, it ought to be possible for the movie studios to sell DVDs cheaper than the pirates can make them for, if they were really bothered. This method certainly works for books and newspapers
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Market the product at hugely inflated prices to early adopters. Change the system slightly and tell the early adopters about the fantastic new features in the new product. Sit back and sell the same product to the early adopters all over again.
Oh well, what the hell...
Here's the way I see it:
DVD:
Cheap players
Cheap discs
I can copy (though not always legally)
I have a Blockbuster online account
I can play on any DVD player
I can lend to my friends (or borrow)
Next-Gen:
Expensive players
Expensive discs
Draconian copy-protection
Competing formats
I don't have HD, so upgrades in quality are nil
"Might" be backwards-compatible (depending on format)
Might not be able to borrow (or lend)
I've already upgraded my collection from VHS, I really don't feel like laying out thousands of dollars for limited or no gains.
Sorry to reply twice to the same post, but I was struck by one of the headings on the site (follow the About HD DVD link from the home page):
"Designed to meet Hollywood's highest expectations"
Aha. Not the Customer's highest expectations. Hollywood's. That makes me, the customer, feel so much better, since we know how customer-focussed Hollywood are. I'm so much happier without the temptation of skipping the copyright notice for Finland on my DVDs, and I'm glad of the sense of suspense waiting for stuff to come out on a region 2 disk.
Hollywood's highest expectations, as always, seem to be "Make money. Make more money. Make other people produce so as to make more money." (Hmm. Sounds familiar...) Maybe that should be "consume", not "produce".
Sean Ellis
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As to status, I'm well aware of how we try to get you to buy things. We play on your insecurities (if I don't buy a new HDTV than the Jones kid next door will mock me), on your competitiveness (must have more powerful display), on your greed (ooh, look, an HDTV for only $999 that used to be $1999! [while it cost the manufacturer only $250 to make, ship and stock]), on your concern you'll be left behind (must stay with peer group and buy latest console now, must not wait or will be not part of my social group).
...
I was giving you the short version, not the term paper version.
Heck, we even make you think that drinking beer will get the pretty girl to like you, when actually it will just make you think the not-pretty girl is a pretty girl, and if you're drinking it at home while playing games you won't get any girl
So, be an early adopter. I am sometimes myself. Just know that you could have waited and bought FIVE HDTV sets for the money you spend today to buy one with fewer features. It's your money. Ka-ching!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You probably want one of these: Spatz-Tech's DVIMAGIC
But that $500 device may become a paperweight when the HDCP compliance police (Digital Content Protection, LLC) revoke the DVIMAGIC HDCP key. And they can slip that revocation on an innocent-looking movie disk so that your working system suddenly fails and refuses to send any more content through the device :(.