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."

Comments

HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[Freexe]

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

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[jcr]

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)

The RIAA doesn't have the power to overrule the "first-sale" doctrine. You can resell an HD-DVD if you want, and it's none of their business.

-jcr

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[H3lldr0p]

Here's the thing that I don't get about attempts to control content like these: Doesn't this just smell ripe for a class-action lawsuit? Seriously I can see a group of pissed off owners of these devices crying "Fraud" over the fact that the player automatically downgrades the signal to their televisions. Throw a few smart lawyers into the mix and you've got a huge mess on your hands. Years of bad PR at the very least. They are also running the risk of having either the courts or the legislature or both of stepping in, and despite all of the money thrown at the political groups, having them create new laws which prevent them from doing or requiring the hardware manufactures to do this sort of stupid sh*t. So why risk it? Are the profits so great that they'll risk the entire business? Isn't anybody in these companies trying to think of a smarter way?

Granted they could always hope for the sweet sort of deal that NetFlicks got, where nothing really happens to the companies in question, but last time I checked that deal was starting to go down in flames...

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[Criterion]

Sell it all you want. If it's locked to your player, it's no good to anyone that buys it from you.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[williamhb]

"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

At first glance it seems to me it's not just "will my life be easier" - with these silly rules if you're the owner of an older HD-TV then pirate copies (without the protection and consequent 'down-rezzing' of the component video) could potentially give you 4 times the resolution of what you'd get from the legit version. Way to give the pirates a competitive advantage on quality as well as price, guys!

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[AKAImBatman]

If it's locked to your player, it's no good to anyone that buys it from you.

That sounds like a great way to kill sales. I mean, how many consumers have more than one TV in their home? (And by extension, more than one DVD player?) Not to mention the number of people who loan their discs out to friends and family. If consumers suddenly find themselves unable to move their disc around (especially if they purchase a new TV/player), they're not going to buy. They'll tell the industry "screw you" and go get their content some other way. Unfortunately for the industry, if there's no legal method for getting HD content, they'll just get it illegally over the 'net until there is.

So the industry had better think long and hard about how much they really want to be pushing consumers.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[theJML]

What about the fact that DVD Players don't work for life!? I mean, if I buy a HD-DVD Player, get me 30-40 HD-DVDs (not a huge number by any stretch) and then the player dies, WTF? I have to Re-Buy ALL of my movies?? THAT is why I won't by something that's tied to the player.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[edunbar93]

That sounds like a great way to kill sales.

You don't get their point of view.

Their point of view is like my boss's when it comes to paying employees. "If I lay off three people (out of 8), then I make that much profit from their salaries" he thinks. He doesn't think "if I have three extra people around at a time when it gets super busy and we make lots of sales, then the company will grow, and not totally drop the ball. So I should generate more sales".

The MPAA is thinking "if we bootfuck our customers and force them to buy multiple copies, then that will stop piracy and increase our sales", not "the more restrictive we make our product, the more people will need to steal our stuff, and the more we drive them to our competition". It's just a reason that people won't move from DVD to new technology X. Namely, because it doesn't work.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[pla]

Hasn't hurt iTunes.

Sure it has. They've just done well regardless.

I currently buy a lot of music - at least a hundred bucks a month, almost all on indie and used material (I did the "boycott all RIAA music" for a while, but it didn't work and only made me suffer - So now I just limit myself to buying methods that circumvent the RIAA's pockets but still get me what I want).

I will not, ever, buy from iTunes as long as they use DRM. the vast majority of my digital music library, I legally own; But I will turn to piracy before I'll accept DRM'd content. Aside from that, I consider iTunes a really great idea... Quick, convenient, better granularity (ie, you can buy one song without getting the rest of an album of crap), and a decent selection. But DRM makes it less than worthless to me. It says "please, sir, may I have another" as I hand them my money for the privilege of having them insult my integrity.

So, have I, and people like me, "hurt" Apple over their use of DRM? Well, I haven't cost them anything, but I also haven't "switched" where I dispose of a considerable chunk of my discretionary income.


And FanBoys, spare me the lecture on how not-really-restricting you consider Apple's DRM. I don't care. They have DRM, telling me in essence "We do not trust you, we consider you a thief, but we'll take your money anyway". I do not, and will not, accept that from any company.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[a_nonamiss]

Using magic?

If the disk isn't writable, and if the disk doesn't require some kind of external activation, then this is impossible.

Actually, that's the bitch of it. Both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray call for a small portion of the disc that is writable only by approved and licensed players. We consumers won't have any write access to this block (in theory) and they can write whatever they want on it using the licensed DVD player. I assume this means they could write the serial number to your player on the disc, and if anyone else puts it in their player, it will refuse to play. Obviously, it will be a matter of hours until people figure out a way to:

a) make their players not write the code,
b) make their players ignore the code,
c) hack their HD and BD writers on their PC's to gain access to this "secret" block,
d) Fashion some sort of circumvention technique using duct tape,
e) some other fantastic means of circumventing this stupid policy.

Unfortunately, Joe Consumer will likely never access these tricks and will play right into the MPAA's hand. If you want proof, just Google "DVD region hack" to see all the effort that's been put into circumventing region encoding. It's all for naught, though, becuase 95% of people just blindly obey the gestapo tactics used by the MPAA

Of course, I reserve the right to be completely wring here, but that's my understanding of the situation.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[Dare nMc]

> "We do not trust you, we consider you a thief, but we'll take your money anyway". I do not, and will not, accept that from any company.

isn't that every retailer now? that is for sure every credit card company.

So no stores with those scanners after the checkout, guess your getting close to online sales only.

Does that apply to CreditCard verification, you know the Address/zipcode, and 3 digit verification code?

I know I feal when I am ID'd to buy beer (would apply to tobacco, lottery, spray paint, etc) that they are looking at me, and saying they dont trust me.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[Ucklak]

In addition to $.99 each. People won't waste $50.00 on a one-time use media.

Re:HDTV adopters screwed by HD-disc rules

[Kadin2048]

Actually, my question is: is there even enough bandwidth on an analog component signal to carry 1080p video?

Yes.

There may be technological as well as/rather than DRM reasons for the resolution downgrading.

No.

Most people who are watching HDTV right now (who are using an OTA broadcast HD receiver) are watching it via component video inputs. You can also get SD DVD players that will upconvert to 1080p on the analog outputs -- silly, if you ask me, but they exist -- such as this one.

a whole new eBay business model

[supabeast!]

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.

Re:a whole new eBay business model

[Anonymous Coward]

That will probably be illegal do to DMCA. But who cares, everything is illegal due to DMCA these days.

Re:a whole new eBay business model

[91degrees]

The DMCA's wording only bans devices that have limited non-infringing use. I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to watch high definition content on an existing high definition TV.

Can anyone say "class action"?

[jcr]

Looks pretty cut-and-dried to me..

-jcr

Re:Can anyone say "class action"?

[Chuqmystr]

Better yet, just no one buy this crap. It worked to kill off that Divix self destructive DVD-like disk horseshit so why not here? JUST DO NOT BUY IT! Cut and dry.

Re:Can anyone say "class action"?

[bemenaker]

You sue, the media content producers, the consumer elctronics producers, and the distrubitors for colluding to rip-off the public. The HDTV standards were SET in the 90's. This is a fact, I know this because that was when I started designing home theaters.

You claim that these companies claimed, and there is historical evidence, that they needed the adoption of HDTV's to be able to start selling HD content. To be able to switch TV to HD. So those industries got together, created a standard, people went out and bought EXPENSIVE TV's based upon those standards, with the expectation that in the next 5-7 years, that everything will be HD. Yes, the life expectancy of a TV fall in that range easily.

Now you have the same industries that were pushing you to buy this TV based on THEIR standard so they could start selling, and distributing their content, changing the standard under you.

People bought these expensive TV's with an expectation brought on by the industry that they will be compatible in the future. Had they known, they wouldn't have bought, and waited until the new standard was set. That is justifiable reason to seek legal remedy.

Low res pirated movies

[SeekerDarksteel]

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.

Re:Low res pirated movies

[Jeff Carr]

Congratulations, you have prevented nothing. Not true, they've prevented me from buying both HD-DVD and an HDTV.

Re:Low res pirated movies

[DrWhizBang]

Although you point is a good one, I don't think you take it far enough. The low quality pirated video will always be available (think "handycam") but in essence what they are doing is creating a new reason to pirate that did not exist before. For those who do want a better quality, they will be left no option but to download an "unlocked" version (after JLJ cracks AACS, of couse ;-) if they are one of the early adopters without a "protected" digital input. This is a lot of people, given that the earlier adopters will logically be the same people interested in a higher quality picture.

Re:Low res pirated movies

[m50d]

They're not trying to prevent anything. They're trying to sell more TVs, and I suspect they'll succeed at this. Piracy is just an excuse.

Re:Low res pirated movies

[MrAtoz]

Indeed. One of the little-noticed lessons from the success of iTunes et al.: it proves that music customers are perfectly happy purchasing audio files that are of noticeably lower than CD quality. "High-definition" quality, in the music arena, is just not important to a growing chunk of the market. Why should video be any different?

It's funny, too, because I remember all the fuss about what a mistake it was to settle on 44.1 kHz for CDs because of the quality issues. Now, 128 kbps audio is good enough to pay money for -- good enough to be a substitute for CDs.

Yet another example of the continuing trend...

[AdolChristin]

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.

as usual, will wait for hack

[onezan]

As an early adopter, i am among the screwed.

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.

Re:umm....

[calibanDNS]

There's HDMI and DVI. You have to be careful with DVI though, because not all DVI inputs are HDCP compliant.

Incompatible formats once again

[brain1]

This is shaping up to make the VHS vs Beta wars look like a border skirmish. The real losers are going to be the consumers that suddenly find their beloved $2500 HDTV and $300 HD-DVD they just got has been suddenly obsoleted by some jerk that thinks the entire buying public is a bunch of pirates. Their attitude is that they need all these restrictions just to keep US - the public - honest? Go jump in a lake!

IMHO, the MPAA, RIAA, et. al, are going to make the consumer public so mad that they essentially put themselves out of business. What then? Add more DRM and restrictions to products claiming their plummeting sales are due piracy?

I'll just pass on HDTV until these jerks finally self-destruct and we can get rid of them.

-dh

Thus they continue to shoot their toes off

[A nonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Because digital really implies security

[cnettel]

As the only supported digital interfaces will imply encryption over the wire, I would say that it will be more secure.

Re:Slashdot lags!

[calbanese]

Here, we are more concerned with opinions, facts, and discourse.

When did this happen????

HD in the US is about new revenue streams

[poopie]

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?

Question about possible class action

[stilleon]

My mom purchased a Sony HDTV two years ago (I told her to wait because of unresolved issues like these, but did she listen????). It only has HD component ins as HDMI and so on were not even spoken about. I see that Sony is part of the AACS defining group. Well, they advertised that their HDTV was the future of TV (obviously not), and that the component inputs would be capable of accepting HD from future products (that's what the sales guy said). Well, they sold a product that they are now crippling its abilities. Is it possible for early adopters to sue to get compensated for now having to buy a new set just to use HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?

this is already happening with upscanning dvd

[enrico_suave]

This type of a-hole (analog hole) closing tom foolery is already in place with "upscanning" HDTV players designed to take the 480p and output it at 720p/1080i/etc. You get 720p via digital (so called protected) outputs, but get crap (low rez) out via analog component. In effect the DVD upscaling device you bought is intentionally crippled out of the box.

The end game doesn't look good for fair use, and the ability to move content around freely between devices :(

E.

It's not just HD DVD but BluRay too!

[timbob_com]

Blu Ray will also suffer this down-conversion fate. This makes my TV useless for any new technology as I am sure all future technologies will implement this restriction. Let's see, average disc cost = $20 for HD DVD I would probably buy 100 - 150 the first year alone. Hollywood loses out on $2000 - $3000 from me, the first year alone. http://www.inaniloquent.com/PermaLink.aspx?guid=47 5bef13-f44d-4f70-b922-9c07d8ea632f

If at first you don't succeed...

[CinciTech]

"...try the exact same thing again." Or maybe more appropriately was Ben Franklin's quote: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

So they release one copy protection after another, spending gobs of money that translates to increased cost to the end user, and ultimately they're all cracked in less time than it took to develop them. Why not try a different approach for a change, instead of having the audacity to think that eventually you can come up with an unbreakable copy protection?

The bottom line, (imo), is that some people will always pirate, and some will always pay the asking price. Forget about these two groups, and focus on the people in the middle who would buy your product if you simply made an offer they'd be interested in paying for. Piracy is about getting something for less than what you could get it for off the store shelf, and unless you cut costs and lower DVD prices, these people are going to copy/burn/download/bootleg your product unless you make the retail package, (being more than just price) more appealing than the piracy route.

As it stands, what I see here is that you can legitimately buy the DVD, and play it at reduced resolution on your early HDTV, or you can wait for the copy protection to be broken and get a pirated copy that plays at full quality. Where's the incentive for buying your product now??

Re:What about this...

[tgibbs]

Such an adapter would have to break the encryption--which is, of course, a violation of DMCA.

Au contraire

[nightsweat]

You make your product sufficiently inconvenient and/or expensive that I decide not to buy it. Some smart chap (or chapette) from China or India starts importing players and media that do not have these restrictions. I buy them from him/her instead or I forego video pleasures for other entertainments. Your stock price goes down, you lose your house in Aruba, and ice weasels kill and eat your children.

You lose, I win.

Re:Au contraire

[__aajwxe560]

HDTV DRM standards are still really in a state of flux. I have a digital projector I purchased around Christmas of 2004 that has full HDTV 16x9 capabilities, and includes a DVI connection to allow for straight digital content to be fed into it. I recently decided to upgrade my Comcast cable box to HDTV, thinking this would be a great combination. Even better, the Comcast cable box had a DVI connector on the back that would allow for straight digital to digital high def, with no analog conversion in the mix anywhere. I was excited that this would truly be a technical marvel (I'm one of those guys that gets excited over shit like this). I turn on the projector, turn on the cable box, jump over to the Discovery channel, and see one of the most amazingly detailed pictures I have ever seen from a tv - for about 8 seconds. Then a big box comes up blocking any further video, telling me I can't enjoy HDTV from this cable box as my projector does not include an HDCP digital rights management chip. This is something that is required to be built-in from the factory, and not something I can add later. This truly, truly pissed me off. Apparently many earlier HDTV's do not have this, as it simply did not exist at the time. I look everywhere for an intermediary device to provide this HDCP functionality while retaining the benefit of a straight digital connection, but unfortunately nothing realistic exists yet (there is a small $400+ option available in Germany, but that is out of the realm of realistic to me).

So, to make a long story short, I now have my cable box outputting its digital signal over firewire to a small media PC I built for a few hundred bucks (and doubles as my video recorder). I then have the DVI out on this going to my projector, and I am back up and running with true high def support (HBO won't come in over firewire due to other DRM issues, but I digress). I just wanted to carry on with your theme of people doing whatever they can to circumvent this stuff, but I think it finally just allowed me to vent about what a pain in the ass technology this is proving to be.

Re:Au contraire

[benow]

minoten has made a working HDCP addon for dvi projectors, I believe... perhaps you should contact him, may be cheaper than from germany. ... not that you should need it in the first place.

Re:What really matters

[deman1985]

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.

Now you're just a cyber-criminal

[michaeltoe]

The only legitimate use for this type of product is to violate my copyright to the content I own. I lobby congress to ban media devices which do not support the protection scheme. They willingly oblige, and then crawl back under my desk.

Re:Now you're just a cyber-criminal

[ender-]

The only legitimate use for this type of product is to violate my copyright to the content I own. I lobby congress to ban media devices which do not support the protection scheme. They willingly oblige, and then crawl back under my desk.

Then we stop buying your product, you still go broke and said ice weasels still kill and eat your children. You still lose. :)

Re:Now you're just a cyber-criminal

[fossa]

Sorry, it's illegal to manufacture or import a VHS deck in the US without "automatic gain control"; I confused that with auto tracking, but it's the part that makes Macrovision work. See chapter 12 of the US copyright law. Section 1201(k), or Section 1202(k)(1)(A)(i).. not quite sure how to cite law. Just search for "automatic gain control".

"Effective 18 months after the date of the enactment of this chapter [1998 DMCA], no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any - ... (i) VHS format analog video cassette recorder unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control technology;

Presumably a VHS playback-only deck (no record function) without automatic gain control would be legal. Of course, I doubt such a thing exists. There also appears to be an exemption for "any professional analog video cassette recorder" which is later defined as "an analog video cassette recorder that is designed, manufactured, marketed, and intended for use by a person who regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial use ...".

Some random points

[Phreakiture]

Some random points that occur to me:

• I have a 27" TV. It is an early, analog HDTV, but at that size display, unless you are sitting really, really close to it, 960x540 will be plenty
• Joe 6-pack, when his TV breaks, will probably buy another SDTV. Until his TV breaks, he will not buy another TV. He doesn't want to spend $700 on a TV, never mind $2000+ when he can have one for $99.99 at Wal*Mart.
• As such, Joe 6-pack will not adopt HD-Ray, because DVD is sufficient. His SDTV is barely capabale of exceeding VHS quality, so DVD will look only slightly better than VHS to him, and HD-Ray will look no better than DVD.
• I reap a significant benefit with my 27" HDTV even watching SDTV content, because of it having a deinterlacer. This was a major selling point for me. There is some minor banding (which is a little annoying at times), but for the most part, the picture is fantastic, even at SDTV.
• Short of DV and D8 casettes, which are used for shooting home video and not used for distribution of commercial content, DVDs are the highest-quality SDTV medium you will find in most homes. Technically, they are EDTV, because the MPEG stream may be encoded as progressive scan (and many DVD players can play them as such, and deinterlace interlaced streams), and the resolution is well above that of even the cleanest of composite video signals. DVDs look fantastic on my 27" HDTV.
• 960x540 is only 50% better than 720x480. Many store that sell TVs still can't get an HDTV signal to demo their HDTVs, so who is going to notice that HD-Ray might be better than DVD?
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are starting a format war, and people will, therefore, stay away in droves.

The bottom line is that it doesn't matter. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will die if they can't clearly show superiority to DVD and their competition. Doing what they are doing, they will fail to show superiority to DVD in many installations. They're stillborn.

Now, you have to keep in mind that, as a Slashdot reader, you are part of a minority. You are technologically literate, and probably willing to dish out more than most people to get better technology. The majority don't care about the technology, just as long as they can see something. Hell, quite frequently they don't even care whether or not the aspect ratio is right, or know what an aspect ratio is! The view with which you and I approach technology is going to be skewed, period. We are technophiles, and most of our friends are technophiles. Most importantly, we who would be interested in this technology if it weren't such a clusterfuck are the minority.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will die.

The problem is

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:The problem is

[Kjella]

I doubt the DVI -> component would be in that device. All that device would need to do is to strip HDCP and give you a clean DVI output (handy for many computer monitors too) and then a regular, legal converter device. Wasn't there recently a slashdot post about how HDCP was breakable and mostly because it was supposed to be implemented in less than 10000 gates? I'm thinking two ports, one small low-power chip. Hell, with luck you can feed that into another DVI/HDMI device with DVI/HDMI input for the converting, or do they all scale the content down no matter what?

Re:Overrule, or just make it impossible?

[ajs318]

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.

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 ..... how many newsagents' shops have photocopiers? How much would it cost to photocopy the latest Harry Potter?

Region coding

[metamatic]

The same companies have gotten away with region coding for years, and that's a pretty clear violation of international trade laws, specifically the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade section 2.2.

http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e .htm

I'm kinda surprised the EFF hasn't shown any interest in pursuing this.

Re:Region coding

[Zeinfeld]

The same companies have gotten away with region coding for years, and that's a pretty clear violation of international trade laws, specifically the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade section 2.2.

Unfortunately that is binding on governements, not corporations.

I think that in time the pressure to ban use of technical measures for anti-competitive purposes is going to be outlawed as an anti-trust violation. From the 1930s through to the 1970s the US government used to police the use of patents to create artificial barriers to competition - the seven 'Nos'.

If I could buy an ink jet printer for $400 that allowed me to use commodity ink without restriction I would (and no I don't mean an after market auto-inker). Thats a much better markup for the printer vendor than $100 + 2 lots of cartridges at $50 each. I do not use colour very often because it is too expensive per page. It could easily be cheaper to run the ink jet than my laser.

If I lived in the UK I would have bought a region free DVD player years ago. Now that the UK DVDs are cheaper than US ones I might get round to doing it.

Marketing 101

[HermanAB]

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.

Tell them you won't buy their crap

[csoto]

There is a "Contact Us" form on the HD DVD Promotion Group's website.

I just told them that I would buy neither HD DVD content nor devices if it doesn't work with my two existing component/DVI HDTV television sets. I suggest you all do the same.

Re:Tell them you won't buy their crap

[seanellis]

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".

Tell me again why I should upgrade

[phlegmofdiscontent]

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.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

[fireboy1919]

Your stock price goes down, you lose your house in Aruba, and ice weasels kill and eat your children.

Everyone knows that there are no ice weasels in Aruba. It's the zombie chickens that you have to be afraid of if you end up living on the streets there.

I propose a new slogan for the rebellion that will strike fear into Aruba-living executives everywhere:
"Down with the HD-DVD Consortium! Long live zombie chickens!"

Re:Yet ANOTHER reason to wait until 2007

[WillAffleckUW]

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!

Until the HDCP police revoke the key

[NoExec]

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 :(.