The Dark Side of HDCP - Why is My PS3 Blinking?

FloatsomNJetsom writes "High Definition Content Protection is supposed to make sure you're not playing pirated content, but sometimes your devices screw up the HDCP 'handshake' (over an HDMI cable) and nothing works. This happens with some regularity with the PS3, and Popular Mechanics investigated and found a quick and dirty workaround. From the article: 'We then checked with Leslie Chard, president of HDMI Licensing, which owns the rights to the standard, who told us that HDCP is one component of HDMI that has been plagued with interoperability issues. HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) is designed to prevent the interception of data — specifically copyrighted Hollywood movies — between an output component and a display. As Steve Balough, the president of Digital Content Protection, the licensing company for HDCP explains, the two pieces of hardware must exchange a key, a sort of certificate of authenticity unique to each individual device, to verify a secure connection.' The problem isn't limited to the PS3 — many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem. The fix there? Unplugging the power cable."

Comments

why so onerous, technology?

[yagu]

It's a pity -- the articles roll in every day about yet another speedbump in the DRM saga and how DRM and "protection" in general makes consumers' lives miserable. Of course it's no surprise (to me), just a disappointment. Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better?

Making the technology even better rather than harder would only improve the landscape for everyone. TV would look better, content would be easier to deliver and use. Bang for the buck would be better. Access to everyone for things like "high-def" (pick your favorite pseudo-standard) would not be limited to just those with $5-10,000 to toss (with no guarantee your picture will be better, or even viewable).

Instead it's just one more betrayal.

Consider the very first CD player I purchased in 1983. I paid, well, I won't say how much I played for player that could only play one CD at at time. But it was heady stuff even back then. The player had a "pitch" slider to change the pitch of the music (though it also correspondingly sped up and slowed down the track to accommodate). It had the ability to program the songs in any order, and even program the starting time offset into a track, and stopping offset into a track.

And!, on the back, a 9-pin DIN out (I think that was the configuration), with the only mention in the user's manual for that output as "reserved for future use"! I couldn't have been more excited. I brought friends over and showed them the exciting new technology... they just drooled at the sight.

And I always saved the "for future use" output as the hook... I described digital output where liner notes, lyrics, all kinds cool things (of course including the de rigeur track information) would be output in some form that could be put up on a display, TV or otherwise. I 'splained how the digital format worked and how much storage there was available for all kinds of "future use" enhancements.

And, it never happened. The promise of excellent technology, never delivered. And (I've posted on this before), the notion of track info associated with CD technology didn't emerge until we, the people, did it ourselves! with CDDB!

Instead, newer generations of technology included increasingly large percentages of "slice" dedicated to controlling our use of the media, not improving the quality of our experience.

I say fork 'em.

Maybe one good thing will come of all of this -- people may get so fed up and annoyed with trying to get their newfangled entertainment setups to work right (or at all), they give up, buy a bicycle, or some hiking shoes, and get outdoors and see a different world... maybe even one with more return on investment.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[mrchaotica]

I say fork 'em.

I think you misspelled "fuck." If you're going to curse, do it properly!

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[UbuntuDupe]

Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better?

Because then it would be easier to pirate, losing them (in their estimation) revenue, defeating the purpose of additional investment.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Thansal]

Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better?

Yes, but as we see, the "work" that goes into DRM is rather craptastic, and tends to make things that fail horribly at what they are designed to do. I think we are better off with these brilliant minds workign on DRM then things that actualy matter (say firmware, codecs, drivers, whatever).

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Carnildo]

I say fork 'em.

I think you misspelled "fuck." If you're going to curse, do it properly!

No, "Fork them". As in, take a fork and repeatedly stab it into a sensitive portion of their anatomy.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

people may get so fed up and annoyed with trying to get their newfangled entertainment setups to work right (or at all), they give up, buy a bicycle, or some hiking shoes, and get outdoors and see a different world... maybe even one with more return on investment.

Well, people want to be more immersed in their games, and that's as good an idea as any. The way people drive these days, being outdoors is like being on the sidelines of a Burnout game. And the resolution is much better than 1080p.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[damien_kane]

No, I don believe he sincerely meant fork them. He would rather split them in two, than split into them.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[voice_of_all_reason]

No, I think he meant "fork" as in "upside down, ass impaled by"

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Richards#Laug h_Factory_Incident

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Speed Pour]

Hmm, the article plus your comment makes me realize that the number of features/functionality is actually going down (despite what is advertised)...the quality of the products has fallen dramatically...and the likelihood of them working is next to nothing.

Isn't the logical and absurd conclusion of that going to be a smallish curvy box (with several hundred listed features that aren't yet enabled) with a single button on it, that when pressed will do nothing...and it might actually fail to do that right? The one greatest achievement however, is that it'll be really tough for pirates to duplicate the remarkable ability for the device to do absolutely nothing. As a real twist, once it is cracked by the pirates, it'll perform better than the consumer version by far...even though it still doesn't do anything.

Hmm, add a couple another button, a video screen, and that somebody will put linux on it someday, and it's a Zune!

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the CD-Text spec was released in 1996, according to Wikipedia. It can have album information/etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-Text

I used to have a CD player capable of using it, but I never found a CD with any text on it.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[jdcope]

Or maybe he's just one of those people who doesnt like to use profanity in a public forum.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Chris Burke]

Heh, I like the Informative mods. "Hey, that's a great idea! And I'll get so many fewer STDs that way!"

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Serapth]

Of course it's no surprise (to me), just a disappointment. Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better? You are being way to generous to your fellow man. No way is it even close to 99% of people that are honest. Almost everybody I know that has mp3's on their computer have atleast one ( generally hundreds or thousands ) that they havent paid for. Once the VCR went mainstream, almost every household had copied movies aswell.

I would go sofar as to say, the majority of people would copy movies illegally if it was easy and cheap enough to do so. There is a reason these companies are funneling millions into DRM solutions. Yes, they are draconian most of the time, but that doesnt mean they arent needed. I know this isn't the popular view here on slashdot, but frankly DRM exists for a reason and that reason isnt to screw some mythical abberant 1% of the population.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[RedWizzard]

Or maybe he's just one of those people who doesnt like to use profanity in a public forum. Then don't use it. If you mean "fuck" writing "fork" or "f**k" or whatever doesn't change anything - you meant to swear and everyone who reads it knows you meant to swear. So either spell it properly or don't use it at all.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[alshithead]

"Then don't use it. If you mean "fuck" writing "fork" or "f**k" or whatever doesn't change anything - you meant to swear and everyone who reads it knows you meant to swear."

If everyone who reads it knows what was meant, what is the harm?

Don't be a rectal orifice.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[neomunk]

It's cheap and easy to do right now, and the content providers are still raking in record profits. And speaking of VCRs, did they kill the entertainment industry? Lower their profits any? Of course not, just like MP3s and broadband haven't done anything but made even more money for the RIAA's members.

BTW, why are we being forced to spend OUR money and OUR resources protecting someone else's rights, even at the expense of our own (fair use). You do know that you pay for the DRM hardware along with the rest of the machine... And that every transistor switch in the box uses the electricity you're paying for. Not much mind you, but more than none. I'm not paying so that my rights can be abridged, or so some stuffed suit can feel better about dirty little consumer me having access to his precious boy band song.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[tepp]

No, "Fork them". As in, take a fork and repeatedly stab it into a sensitive portion of their anatomy. Or as in Fork their process and create a clone?

I'd rather not Fork DRM. :) One process is enough.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[MBGMorden]

Or, he could opt to speak in whatever way he pleases rather than bend to the will of some profanity-obsessed grammar Nazi. If you have a problem with the way he writes, fork off and don't read it.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Manmademan]

And, it never happened. The promise of excellent technology, never delivered. And (I've posted on this before), the notion of track info associated with CD technology didn't emerge until we, the people, did it ourselves! with CDDB!

Have to correct you here. This technology showed up with CD-Text in 1996. I have a disc that supports it (On the floor at the boutique, Lo Fi Allstars if you're wondering) and it will display track info on certain players (my sony car cd deck from circa 2000 supported it) but the format just never really caught on. According to this unofficial CD-text Faq here http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/cdtext.htm/ Nearly every Sony CD released since 1997 supports it, but it's not advertised and few CD decks bother supporting the format.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[valkraider]

Except many "net nanny" filters block the sites that use the real words. So to be polite and allow people to read the site at work or at the library or wherever they may be that may have filters on - it is normal to use a substitute. But I find it funny that in a discussion about DRM restricting how people use technology you chose to tell an "author" of a comment how or how not he should write his own comments. Maybe just let the net be free and see what comes of it? Probably MySpace - but hey - we can't win them all...

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[yagu]

You're absolutely right... And, I already knew about this, but didn't want to bog down more than I'd already done in my post..

Here's what's interesting about the CD-Text, and why it really goes to my original point: It showed up in 1996, about 13 years after my first CD player! I'm pretty sure those doing the inventing could've cobbled together a text for CD a little earlier.

I, too bought some CDs excited about the new text format. But the players that could display were few and far between, and I finally opted out of getting the machines (the CDs were ones I'd have bought anyway). I guess if I thought they were serious about this, they'd have put a little more energy into it (earlier delivery, more advertising, more players). But, they didn't -- this was a huge potential for a nice leap in functionality. Heck, I'd even have considered paying a nickel or two more per disk for the extra info.

I think the record industry was lazy with this -- it wasn't interesting to them, their money was just rolling in from their cast of mega-stars and mega-bands. There was no incentive.

Some would point to the "role" of a business isn't to make everything and anything but instead to maximize profit, and rolling out the CD info as part of the product didn't fit that model. In my opinion the huge fascination with mega-dollar dealings obscured that customer satisfaction, even delight, provides, if more subtle, comparable returns for the investment. As it is now, I buy far fewer CDs than before, mostly because I resent their actions. I return any CD with copy protection built in (it's darned near impossible to figure out and know before you walk out the door with it).

Yeah, there was CD text, 13 years late, and long after we the people were already filling up the database with our own typing pools. Sony's effort may have even been an attempt to thwart the CDDB effort (I really don't know on that one).

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Fusen]

that seemed like a perfectly fine interesting comment about what we could actually be facing in the future until you turned it into one of the worst flames on the zune I've possible read, and seeing as I read slashdot everyday, that's alot

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[tkrotchko]

"and that reason isnt to screw some mythical abberant 1% of the population."

No not at all, and perhaps that's a misconception. People aren't concerned about ridiculous copy protection just as a theoretical exercise, it's more practical than that.

Copy Protection (so called DRM) exists to segment the market artificially. If you buy a CD, the record company would strongly prefer that the only thing you do to it is listen to it in a CD player. In their view, putting the music on an iPod, on a home network, etc is against their use rules and they feel you should pay more for it. After all, you're getting more use without them getting more money. DRM is a way to make sure you only use it where they intend.

Same way with DVD's. While people would buy VHS and DVD to watch movies at home, the use is more complex with computers, iPod video players (zunes!), and home networking. Again, to them, this is a way to segment the market and create scarcity where none exists.

There is a multi-billion dollar industry around ringtones! Imagine if you could just rip your CD and put it on your phone! Why...that would be more money the consumer would have and less the record company would have!

To the record companies, the CD was a big blunder. Not only does it have excellent sound (which they are already charging us extra!) but you can repurpose the music to suit your needs from home stereo, to cars, to personal music players to phones, to what else is new next week. And they don't get any more money.

Yes yes, people will make illegal copies, but this loss is peanuts compared to what they see as new markets made possible by stopping you from copying your own music to another medium.

and, I don't have a problem with them trying to get more money for the same music over and over. I do have a problem when we have the government essentially on the take to support this model. It certainly doesn't benefit me as a consumer, and apparently it doesn't benefit the artist either (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-05-1 6-royalties-main_x.htm).

So your argument is superficially convincing, nonetheless, I think it's not the real reason for copy protection and DRM.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

I *hope* people get fed up and annoyed.

As expert geeks (geexperts?), many of us could encourage acquaintances to buy non-HDCP equipment ("you'll have so many less problems if you get the one without HDCP, get the one with just component video"), just so they'll be pissed when companies make devices without component out.

"If you get the non-HDCP, it won't work with much for the next couple years, but then when nobody's buying the HDCP crap, the market will come back to component & you'll have a great device that'll last a long time. If you get the HDCP set, it'll work right now, but when the hacker in Sweden uses the same set to crack a movie next year, Sony will revoke its license and tell your cable provider, who will electronically inform your cable box, DVD player, PS3 & Blu-VD thingies that you're now unauthorized, and your set will henceforth be permanently b0rked... your choice!"

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Karzz1]

Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better?

Because then it would be easier to pirate, losing them (in their estimation) revenue, defeating the purpose of additional investment.

I was under the impression that DRM had little to do with "piracy" and more to do with restricting consumers rights in order to resell content to said consumer.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[nschubach]

So buy implying the word and using an alternative, your actually (intentionally) bypassing the protection mechanism and corrupting the minds of young children. Wouldn't that be "contributing to the delinquency of a minor"?

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid, well, I won't say how much I played for player that could only play one CD at at time. I'm pretty sure that even the modern high-end models still only play one CD at a time - unless you buy the special Zaireeka version.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[theKoala]

I believe that Magic: the Gathering card was banned like 10 years ago.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[patmfitz]

I won't say how much I played for player that could only play one CD at at time.

I have a newer player that plays more than one CD at a time.

Currently I'm listening to "Hell Yes" by Beck in my left ear, and "Come in out of the rain" by George Clinton in my right ear.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Speed Pour]

Relax, that's hardly a flame

Besides, I gave an honest try to the Zune...I'll give it decent marks for the video, but everything else about it was pretty horrible.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[DragonWriter]

I say fork 'em.

Yeah, but they aren't open-source, so we can't.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[billcopc]

The problem is that a large number of idiots with an HDTV and PS3 will tolerate a surprising level of mediocrity. If they have to jiggle the cable and wave a rubber chicken say, one in five times, a lot of people will put up with it. Maybe ten years they would have called a help line, or complained to their sales person, but after so many years of crappy service and outsourced "help", people have gotten used to it.

Just look at how many people thing a crashing computer is normal... Here I am with my Windows box, I run games, I run torrents, I run all the same crap everyone else does, yet my uptime is mostly dependent on how often I change hardware around. Sometimes I hear stories like "if I try to run Limewire while Outlook is running on my MDG, the thing shuts down so I just don't run those two at the same time". In my head I'm thinking Jesus Christ buddy! He needs a new power supply. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I get one single crash and if I can't precisely pinpoint the source of the problem (and eliminate it), I lose sleep.

If I had an HDTV and PS3 that worked only 80% of the time, I'd spend more than 20% of the time hunting someone down to fix it. People don't buy something for it to work only part time. If someone sold you a car that only runs 6 months a year because of a software glitch that can't be fixed, do you think it's fair that you pay full price ? Would you even pay half price since it works half the time ? I sure wouldn't.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a joke...

It seems that a Frenchman, an Englishman and an American were captured by cannibals. The chief explained that they were going to be killed, skinned, eaten and that a canoe would be made from their tanned hides. BUT they could have one last wish.

So the Frenchman wanted a last cigarette. As soon as he was done with it, they killed him, they skinned him, they cooked him and ate him and they made a canoe from his hide.

The Englishman wanted a last cuppa tea. As soon as he was done with it, they killed him, they skinned him, they cooked him and ate him and they made a canoe from his hide.

Then they camne to the American. "I want a fork," he said.

Incredulous, they asked "A fork? Like you eat with?"

"Yes, a fork," he insisted. So they brought him a fork.

As soon as he received the fork, he started wildly stabbing himself all over his body.

"Canoe?" he shouted, "Here's your fucking canoe!"

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[cheater512]

Yeah but DRM jacks up the prices causing more people to pirate the content.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Cecil]

You never know, they might deadlock each other.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Cecil]

Almost everybody I know that has mp3's on their computer have atleast one ( generally hundreds or thousands ) that they havent paid for.

I also have a lot of CDs, tapes, and vinyl I bought and don't (or can't) listen to. It evens out.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[clydemaxwell]

I think corporations ought to take the stance on piracy that pizza places frequently take with scammers (people lying to get a free pizza): do what pleases your customer, don't make THEM bend over backwards to please you. The resultant good PR and sales will more than make up for the low percentage of scammers. Of course, the RIAA and MPAA think that, since their sales are on a larger scale, the same percentage of theft counts more, so they're willing to lose customers in the effort to discourage the pirates.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[creysoft]

It seems to me that the minds who work on DRM probably aren't all that brilliant. Most of the truly gifted people realize that there's no good way to implement it, and shy away from it. Judging from the amount of obvious holes, catastrophic bugs, and general suckiness of most DRM solutions to date, I'd guess that most of the people working on them are not brilliant programmers, but rather people we'd rather not have writing our device drivers in the first place.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an owner of the Sony NetMD.. i can say that i agree with your statement completely. if sony spent more time on the crappy software used to control the netMD.. and less time on the 'content protection' maybe it would have been a better device. everyone i know who owns one also complains about the horrible software and DRM entrapments (why exactly does it state it supports MP3 on the box yet has to convert every track to atrac?) Too many devices these days are just bogged down with DRM crap that really the consumers dont want, or care about. maybe if drm was more transparent then users wouldn't care.. but fact is DRM is NOT transparent. Proprietary "root kit" software to play "special" cd's on your computer anyone??

as for HD.. i wish they'd pick a standard..and stick with it. my 43 inch tv is about 2 years old, and has a nice SOLID dvi jack on the back. now i go buy a dvd player and find it has a "HDMI" jack.. and for a paltry $50 i can get an adapter to connect the two. personally i think that DVI is better.. the jack screws in so it wont fall out..and is much higher quality then the crappy 'usb' style hdmi. next, i discover that if i connect my dvd player to my receiver, then to my tv over HDMI, the receiver can't process the siginal inside the HDMI cable since it needs to act as a 'pass through' device sending the audio to the tv. turns out if i want my receiver to handle the audio i need to use a digital audio cable.. WHAT is this?? why not just go back to dvi and a digital audio cable then? where is the benefit to me as a consumer? what did HDMI do for me? who buys a dvd player and 6.1 surround sound only to put the audio to the 2 speaker tv system?

maybe im missing something and HDMI does what it is suppose to.. but on my sony reciever there is NO audio from the HDMI cable...

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[kangolo]

fuck

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[StikyPad]

Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better?

I don't disagree that DRM is onerous, but there's no evidence that there's a dichotomy between providing DRM and improving technology. Obviously it limits features by definition, but it's not as if the cryptologists would be developing LoS, if only oh only they weren't burdened with implementing the evil DRM. Moreover, beyond increasing research dollars from less-than-adequate to adequate, you quickly reach the point of diminishing returns. Throwing more resources at the problem won't necessarily solve it any faster, or provide a substantially better solution.

DRM sucks on its own merits.. there's no need to credit it for global warming as well.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[that this is not und]

I remember all the tricks I had to use to get the 16K RAM pack to work on my Sinclair 1000 computer. It hung off the back on a board edge connector that exposed the whole data buss of the Z80 processor. One motion that make the connector break for a millisecond, and the machine would crash. There were tricks one had to use to prop it all in place, since the tiny 'brick' of the Sinclair 1000 contained the membrane keyboard you had to type on.

I guess people are just as prone to come up with 'hacks' to make things work today.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonycat]

Accoring to Crystal Keep, Fork was restricted in the game's most permissive format from April 19, 1995 but was removed from that list on September 20, 2004. It remains unbanned and unrestricted to this day. More recently, in May 2005, the Saviors of Kamigawa set contained a Twincast card that's similar to Fork except that it requires blue mana instead of red. Clearly the team that makes the cards doesn't think that effect is unbalanced any more.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[ConceptJunkie]

I would agree with you, but your description holds for most software, not just DRM.

[cue Microsoft jokes]

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[abundance]

Because then it would be easier to pirate, losing them (in their estimation) revenue, defeating the purpose of additional investment.

Yeah - spot on.

My plasma screen by Universal, my dvd player by BMG, and my 5.1 speakers by Paramount wouldn't be so good if there wasn't DRM to protect their R&D investments in consumer technology.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I plead stupid but what do you mean by "any CD with copy protection built in, I thought the Sony thing was the only copy protection that had been tried?

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

ahh, so you're the other guy that bought one?

It was a joke, not a serious flame. If you can't see that then you've got insecurity issues to deal with.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Zizkus]

Yes, I loved my TS1000/Sinclair I built from a kit, with the 64K Pak, what a interesting thing, My next purchase was a KayPro 10, a few k$ if I remember correctly for a system with a 10 Meg Hard Drive but it paid off, moving a accounting task that took a week to a process that took about 45 minutes + print time!

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[abundance]

Anyway... This made my day: The player had a "pitch" slider to change the pitch of the music (though it also correspondingly sped up and slowed down the track to accommodate). XD

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[jonsmirl]

Comcast did a software upgrade of their HD DVR and my Philips HDTV quit working with a blue screen declaring HDCP handshake error. After three days of service calls and getting a regional tech to come to my house, Comcast gave up and produced a box without HDCP enabled and gave it to me. I guess their are limits to how much even a vendor like Comcast will put up with copy protection hassles.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[PitaBred]

If you use the Verizon network, your phone is so locked down there's no way of that happening. You use what you download, or nothing at all. I looked around their stuff once. Now my phone just makes a standard "ring" sound.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Firehed]

Yes. But that makes an awfully lousy explanation of why you've just been screwed over (for the third or fourth time by now), doesn't it? Playing off of ignorance and trying to catch some sympathy from the consumer works a lot better than "we know we can't stop people who want to steal our content, but we'd sure love it if you're forced to re-buy your content each time we create a few format with higher margins and lower ownership value".

At least switching from VHS to DVD (and, likewise, cassette to CD) offered some actual -noticible- advantages. HD? Yeah, it looks marginally better, but there are plenty of cons that outweigh that. Not-too-broken-yet DRM being an awfully large one of them.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Myen]

Or they actual people working on it know DRM doesn't work, but gets told by the boss to do it anyway because somebody else (content providers) want it. And since it's useless anyway, they're fine with writing a half-assed implementation because the extra effort isn't worth it - anything beyond barely passing isn't worth it.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[alienw]

It looks _marginally_ better? What kind of TV do you have? If you can't tell HD content from 480p, you've gotten ripped off big-time.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one, extremely important point. The DRM makes you not only buy again for car, ipod, etc, but even for your music player. The DRM fixes the music to a particular player and when (not if) it dies (gets obsolete) you must buy (and therefore pay) again. Now CD lasts for your life, DRM'd lasts for maybe max five years. Think about it. This is the idea behind DRM

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[McFadden]

What I've never understood about this restriction of consumers rights, is what the fuck makes music and movies so different from any other product you can buy?

If I buy a cucumber from Wal-Mart, it's probably expected that I'm going to use it in a sandwich or a nice salad. But if I decide I want to stick it up my ass and waggle it about for cheap thrills, I don't have to pay extra for it. It's my vegetable, and I can do what I want with it.

But if I download a music track, they want me to pay to be able to use it in any other way than was intended. Why does the entertainment industry have special status and a perceived right (in their view) to be paid 5 different ways for the same day's work?

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Professeur Shadoko]

Erhhm... that's exactly what the parent post meant. You've missed the sarcastic tone.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Avoiding swearing in your own post in an attempt to avoid filters that analyze content for "naughty" words, on a site like Slashdot, is fucking pointless when other people are going to write it anyway.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[RedWizzard]

Except many "net nanny" filters block the sites that use the real words. So to be polite and allow people to read the site at work or at the library or wherever they may be that may have filters on - it is normal to use a substitute. Pointless. It only takes one comment and you're blocked and there are plenty of troll ready to make that comment. And it's not "normal to use a substitute" here - I doubt it happens more than one time in ten.

But I find it funny that in a discussion about DRM restricting how people use technology you chose to tell an "author" of a comment how or how not he should write his own comments. Sorry, I don't see the connection. People are free to say whatever they like, and I am free to make whatever sort of comment I like in response.

Maybe just let the net be free and see what comes of it? Fine. So, you won't have any problem with me criticizing people who want to swear but also want to give the impression that they are too polite to do so.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Wite_Noiz]

Ah, memories.

I remember when the word filter at my college blocked sites on "Scunthorpe".

Think about it

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[delinear]

I think GP was talking about the specific technology, rather than technology in general. It's reasonable to assume that, if these companies weren't wasting their research and development budgets on DRM, they would still be employing those budgets to improve the technology. Obviously taking people off a HDCP project isn't going to feed the starving or fight terrorism, but we might just have better, cheaper, more compatible televisions.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[mgblst]

Those people fucking rock!

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Dogtanian]

It defies belief that this wasn't incorporated into the CD standard from the beginning; how much space would the ASCII (or similar) encoded artist name, album name, song titles and some other brief information have taken up on a 650MB disk?!

Sure, the early players likely wouldn't have supported it, due to the cost of displays. But this would likely have changed as costs came down, and it could be treated as an "optional" feature (either for the players or for a given CD) anyway. Since it would have been trivial to include in the spec, and to add such information at the mastering/manufacturing stage, there is very little justification for *not* including this from the beginning. Stupid.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[HerbieStone]

It seems to me that the minds who work on DRM probably aren't all that brilliant.

Thinking of it. Maybe they are brilliant. Let me explain....

On a regular Job you will need to make your best to accomplish the job and make it work to get the warm rewarding feeling in the end. But if you work for a DRM producing company, you will just need to sabotage it in a very subtile form to get that warm rewarding feeling... ;)

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[r3m0t]

Why would the record companies want to make CD ripping eve esier and more reliable?

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Steve001]

yagu wrote as part of a post:

Here's what's interesting about the CD-Text, and why it really goes to my original point: It showed up in 1996, about 13 years after my first CD player! I'm pretty sure those doing the inventing could've cobbled together a text for CD a little earlier.

There was a part of the CD standard, there from the beginning, that supports the display of album and song information: CD-Graphics. The space is available for graphics on all CDs whether or not they are used, they just have to be included.

With a player with the ability to display the graphics on a TV, a running slide show would appear on a standard TV while the disc is being played. I had a Philips CD-i player that was able to display the graphics, and I know the Sega Genesis CD could also display the graphics.

I have a few CDs with graphics, including:

• Laura Branigan: Laura Branigan
• The Firesign Theater: Eat Or Be Eaten (this was originally going to be a game disc, but as far as I know only the album version was released). The slide show made it much easier to understand the disc.
• Fleetwood Mac: Behind The Mask
• GRP Digital Sampler - On The Cutting Edge: This disc makes excellent use of the graphics, providing information on the artist, the performers, and the song for each track.
• Information Society: Information Society

The only place I've seen CD-Graphics have any impact is with karaoke. A number of players used for karaoke are capable of displaying the graphics and discs are available too.

I agree that a track information standard should have been included with all CDs from the beginning. It could have been done simply, say as a string of characters that fed directly to the display on the player. Even if the players of the time could not display the information, they should have been included in anticipation of the future.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[WuphonsReach]

My guess would be silicon costs and/or complexity of the spec.

Think back to the mid-late 80s and how much CPU power or silicon would've been needed to deal with character sets and interpreting or skipping over text. At the time, just reading data off of a CD at that rate, processing it and piping it through a D/A converter was considered pretty high-tech and pushing the envelope. Those early CD players were pricey.

This was also the era when programmers were still using 2-digit dates. Memory was measured in kilobytes or tens of kilobytes.

Not even sure that Unicode was a preliminary spec at that point.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a DMCA violation as well.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[ultranova]

I say fork 'em.

I think you misspelled "fuck." If you're going to curse, do it properly!

Thanks for the mental image. Zoofilia and necrofilia and the Goatse Man are bad thing, especially in combination, but to do the MAFIAA... That's just wrong.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[slashdotnick]

What's entertaining about that?

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[ultranova]

Think back to the mid-late 80s and how much CPU power or silicon would've been needed to deal with character sets and interpreting or skipping over text.

None. The CD spec already includes seeking predefined points (tracks). Simply include in the spec that the first track will always contain the text data and sound tracks begin from track 2, and the players that don't want to deal with it can just skip it. Better yet, mark each track with a single byte specifying the type, and if the player doesn't recognize the type it just skips over that track.

And let's not forget that the 80386 microprocessor was introduced 1985. It wasn't exactly stone age anymore. This time of graphical user interfaces, abstraction layers over abstraction layers and other wasteful technologies makes one forget how truly powerful even 8086 actually was: 1 million byte memory and 4 million clock cycles per second. That's easily efficient enough to control a LED display with a few letters on it, and available cheap at that time. And, like I said, all you need to do if you don't want to deal with the extra info is to skip over the first track.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[ultranova]

What I've never understood about this restriction of consumers rights, is what the fuck makes music and movies so different from any other product you can buy?

They have bought more lawmakers than most industries.

If I buy a cucumber from Wal-Mart, it's probably expected that I'm going to use it in a sandwich or a nice salad. But if I decide I want to stick it up my ass and waggle it about for cheap thrills, I don't have to pay extra for it. It's my vegetable, and I can do what I want with it.

This is because cucumber makers are honest businessmen (or farmers, whichever definition you prefer), getting their living from their work. The entertainment industry, on the other hand, is utterly useless. You need food, be them cucumbers or anything else; you don't need entertainment, you can entertain yourself quite well - go jog, write a book, draw a picture, program, or just lie in your bed and daydream.

The worst nightmare of entertainment industry is for the average consumer to wake up and become a producer. With the Internet and P2P (BitTorrent), distribution no longer requires a huge capital investment; with powerful general purpose computers and associated modern technology (digital cameras, image- video- sound- and 3D editing software, etc) production is no longer an unsurmountable problem either. The only advantage left for MAFIAA is the cult of personality built around some actors and musicians; and even that is under attack with the Internet decentralizing information and advertizement channels and giving everybody a voice that can be heard anywhere in the world - this message, for example, is likely to be read in several different continents.

Cucumber farmers are working for a living, while the MAFIAA is simply a parasite. That's why the cucumber people can afford to relax and concentrate on their work, while the MAFIAA is jumping at shadows and tightening their grip as much as possible.

But if I download a music track, they want me to pay to be able to use it in any other way than was intended. Why does the entertainment industry have special status and a perceived right (in their view) to be paid 5 different ways for the same day's work?

As mentioned above, the entertainment industry is fighting for its life. It will lose; the only question is how much damage it will do first, both to the individuals caught in its lawsuits and bought laws, and to technology in general by preventing interoperability and retarding innovation.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[GWBasic]

and, I don't have a problem with them trying to get more money for the same music over and over. I do have a problem when we have the government essentially on the take to support this model. It certainly doesn't benefit me as a consumer, and apparently it doesn't benefit the artist either (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-05-1 6-royalties-main_x.htm).

Actually, I think a model where we keep paying for the same music will eventually work. Consider two situations: 1: You can download the ENTIRE Beatles catalog for a LOW LOW LOW price of $2.00! 2: You can buy a 1-terrabyte iPod with all the music you could ever want, pre-loaded!

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[Knightking]

I have a Verizon phone, and had absolutly no difficulty buying a data cable for it. It uses my ringtones made from mp3s no problem.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

[B. Pascal]

Hi:

I can almost see the following as a product feature for a future popular electronic product.

"Our [product name] does not deploy DRM technologies, which gives you the freedom to do with our product whatever you wish."

Sad...

B. Pascal

Yup

[maynard]

I have a JVC 5U D-VHS deck with HDMI out the back. This is connected to a Sony HD-20 digital projector via HDMI. While these units use an older HDMI spec, they also show serious handshaking problems - often in the middle of displaying content. Not only does it take seconds to handshake, but right in the middle of a movie the screen might go blank and then I'll have to yank the power plug on the VCR to renegotiate. Fortunately, with the PJ I can just switch to other inputs to clear out whatever cruft is confusing its HDMI interface.

The PJ and deck are about three years old. I assumed these handshake issues had long been dealt with. Apparently not. So... the DRM is more than just a PITA. It's plain broken.

Re:Yup

[arivanov]

I have so far observed it only once or twice on a JVC HD TV connected to an upscaling Philips DVD. It happens after the TV has been switched off from the mains. One more coffin into the idea of "turning your kit off to save energy" as far as Joe Average Consumer is concerned. Even in this case the Philips complains loudly onscreen and uses 480 instead of 720 or 1080i. So you still do not lose picture.

Re:Yup

[bdonalds]

and then I'll have to yank the power plug on the VCR to renegotiate

I have a simple solution. On one, you need to hard-set the configuration to 100Mbpx/Full-duplex...whoa..never mind...whoops...I thought this was about...it seems so familiar....

Re:Yup

[maynard]

The funny thing is that it doesn't downrez the image to 480p, it just blanks the screen. I think both the JVC deck and the HS-20 follow the hdmi 1.0 spec. I thought the ps3 does hdmi 1.3... shouldn't this problem be solved by now?

Feh. DRM dies a proper ignoble death, not because of consumer backlash but due to it's own engineering hubris. I would have preferred a consumer revolt.

Re: Yup

[Dolda2000]

Isn't it possible to use HDMI without HDCP? As far as I thought I knew, it is required for HDMI-compliant devices to implement HDCP, but not to always use it, just that the source may (or may not, depending on the source) choose to reduce quality if HDCP is not used. If this is the case, then isn't it possible to just turn HDCP off, or isn't it the case?

Re:Yup

[hansamurai]

Wow, DRM may actually be the problem with my upconverting Samsung DVD player. The video will randomly drop for a second while the audio drops out for about three seconds. The player is hooked up via HDMI (requires it for upconverting for God knows what reason). Does anyone know if there is a way to confirm that it has to do with HDCP?

I refuse to believe this.

[linkedlinked]

No way. DRM is conflicting with fair use of digital content?
*gasp* Who'd have guessed?

Re:I refuse to believe this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Information is a completely passive entity which can be duplicated and manipulated at near-zero resource cost. Therefore, it CAN'T be controlled.

So what do the content providers try to do instead? They grab at something they CAN control. Namely, you.

Re:I refuse to believe this.

[BigBuckHunter]

No way. DRM is conflicting with fair use of digital content?

Not "fair use", rather plain old "use".

BBH

Re:I refuse to believe this.

[HeroreV]

You shouldn't believe all of it because /. got the summary wrong again. While it's true that DRM still sucks, the solution here is to unplug and reinsert the HDMI cable, not the power cable. How lazy and apathetic do you have to be to miss something like that?

Re:I refuse to believe this.

[SirTalon42]

Yeah cause I know I wanna try and get behind the tv (which is generally half an inch away from the wall with the rest of the media center) to try and unplug a stupid little cable. Yeah I think I'm just gonna download it instead of moving a freaking entertainment center every time the pos has a panic attack. And even if it was easy to get to, if it happened more than say once every few dozen times I watch any movies I think it'd be a good time to return it and just download. Then again I think 480p is 'good enough' and don't care about either of the new formats (as far as video is concerned, for storing data I'm liking bluray, which is *supposed* to be very scratch resistant and will store more data).

You want to have your movies and play them too?!

[TheWoozle]

How unreasonable can you people be? I mean, after all, the companies are *entitled* to your money. You should just be lucky that they give you anything in return. Ungrateful, good-for-nothing consumers. Hmph!

Whats worse, HDCP crypto is a joke...

[nweaver]

It was reverse engineered and proved to be the biggest joke around. ROT13 would be a better method. But it doesn't matter, as it is for DMCA anticircumvision reasons, not real security.

Re:Whats worse, HDCP crypto is a joke...

[dorianh49]

DMCA anticircumcision? I knew the DMCA would cut us off at the shaft!

Re:Whats worse, HDCP crypto is a joke...

[demon]

for DMCA anticircumvision reasons

I read this as "anticircumcision"; don't ask me why...

Re:Whats worse, HDCP crypto is a joke...

[Firehed]

I bet I could explain it... A variant of sorts on not shooting oneself in the foot, right?

dyslexia

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who misread this as DHCP?

Re:dyslexia

[voice_of_all_reason]

I hear that's a very sexy learning disability...

Re:dyslexia

[letsgolightning]

or is that sexlexia?

Re:dyslexia

[voice_of_all_reason]

This time we're sure she's a woman, right?

Re:dyslexia

[ZetaFunction]

It's a pity -- the articles roll in every day about yet another speedbump in the DRM saga and how DRM and "protection" in general makes consumers' lives miserable.

That's not so bad. I read the above as "makes consumer livestock miserable"

Re:dyslexia

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't the only one. I expected to find an article about the PS3 flooding networks with DHCP requests or something.

news flash: cheap product has problems

[fred fleenblat]

The 37W3 is about the cheapest 1080p LCD you can get, so one wonders if westinghouse (or more specifically, whatever chinese company actually built it) just cut corners left and right. You buy cheap stuff, you have to expect some problems.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[snarfbot]

well im suprised they were told that a westinghouse tech will come to thier house and flash thier firmware, in my day if a company released a buggy product, and it was hard to flash the bios, well you either ordered a new chip, or you mailed the bastard to the company to be repaired.

so all in all westinghouse gets my stamp of approval.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[gallondr00nk]

I always wondered who arbitrarily decided that cheap stuff deserves not to work. The way I see it, if I paid my money for something I would expect functionality out of it regardless.

Case in point; I bought a Linksys WRK-54G 8 months ago (VERY cheap), and later discovered that despite paying good money for it the product was totally worthless as a router. Wireless connections dropped every hour or so, the box needed a hard reset every day and it wouldn't cope with any more then about 250 pipes without crashing. Needless to say it got returned a week later.

As consumers why should we accept that cheap automatically means defective? Have our standards dropped so far that we don't even expect our money to go supply functional products without paying a premium?

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[CastrTroy]

The cheapest 1080p TV is probably still a pretty good TV, considering a lot of TVs out there don't even support 1080i. There's even a few TVs sold as EDTVs that only support 480p. Any TV that supports 1080p is still better than half the stuff out there.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

37W3? 13W3 is where it's at, man. Yeah, my monitor syncs on green. Have you ever tried syncing... on green?

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[norton_I]

The problem is, those cheap products shouldn't exist at all. It something is selling for less than it costs to make and test a reilable product, it isn't likely to be one. Consumers understandably look at two boxes and see that one costs half the price of the other for the "same" functionality, and buy the cheaper one. If manufacturers were penalized for shipping defective products, there wouldn't be any overly cheap products, and all would be well in the world. Except that the guy who is broke but wants are wireless router for 1 or 2 computers and doesn't mind reseting it won't be able to buy one. I can't really say whether that is a good or a bad thing.

Part of me dreams that in a world with a minimum standard of full functionality, the prices would not be much higher, but I begin to doubt that.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, you are, like, smoking way too many prime numbers, totally!

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[powerlord]

Absolutely true. The Westinghouse is a MONITOR, it doesn't include any tuners (not that you actually need them if you have a Cable/Satellite/TiVo serving that purpose already).

Westinghouse models are cheap as dirt (comparatively). Their picture quality also seemed more washed out and less crisp than other higher priced models. (i.e. most other models)

I ended up getting the Samsung LN-S3251D (of course its in the 32" range, so it only goes to 720p).

Its not quite as cheap as the Westinghouse (still half the price of the high-end models in the same price range, for comparable quality and lots of inputs)

Its been solid, reliable, and I haven't had any issues connecting a PS3 or HD-DVR to it via HDMI (like I said, lots of inputs, heck, even my VCR tapes look good on it :) ).

I'd highly recommend it.

Its like buying CPUs, you don't always need the "top of the line" (since the price jumps so much), but you don't want the bottom of the barrel either.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[sallgeud]

I have a 42w2 that was a first generation version. It has massive issues with the PS3 in 1080p mode. Basically it was sparkling on edges of any items.

It turns out that the version of it released in the first 2 months had a chipset in it that didn't comply with some specification... so it can't simply be flashed.

HOWEVER, though getting an actual RMA number took a while, the process was very friendly and customer service was helpful. They're even sending me a new box so I can get my new version.

Sadly, some abusers of the system made them change their rules about sending out a new one before they receive your return, so I'll be without 720p version of TigerWoods 07 for a week... but it'll be worth it. It'll be nice to actually see movies in 1080p, instead of the 1080i I'm forced into right now.

I hear that in the meantime I can push component out at 1080p, since none of the movies require HDCP for it yet... and worry about HDMI when the new one comes.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[KayosIII]

I have a WRT-54G and I got to say I am having absolutely no problems with it....

two things (with the wireless) though...
1) I did have lots of problems with it and windows XP Clients in the beginning...
      I am not sure where the problem is here as the other clients (PSP, Linux Boxes) mostly didn't exibit the same behaviour, I have had similar problems with other network configurations windows XP and unencrypted networks...

2) The HyperWRT firmware does a much better job than Linksys's you should definately upgrade to that. Even my XP boxes are not giving any grief at the moment.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[cryocide]

I am SO sorry you got caught up with that POS. I have a WRK-54G also (got it bundled with a PCMCIA 54G NIC) only to run into the same problems as you. From what I've read, Linksys dumped it off their product list after only 3 months on the market. But yes, you get what you pay for. What really hurts though is when you don't get what you pay for.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[cryocide]

Actually, he has a WRK-54G, which isn't the same thing as a WRT-54G despite having such a similar model number. The WRK-54G has a different chipset and there's no open source firmware out there for it.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[Raenex]

You can get problems with expensive stuff too. And sometimes cheap stuff works just fine. Sometimes companies charge more than they need to because they don't want a stigma of being "cheap". The real problem isn't the price, it's the lack of information as to what makes one product cheaper than another. For example, it could have less features that you don't want (like a built-in HD tuner). Or maybe the company has cheaper labor or is more efficient.

Regarding this Westinghouse, the article stated that you can get a firmware fix for it for free. Not the most horrible thing in the world, and I could see the same thing happening with more expensive products.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... your post truly made me pine for the days when you just plugged a freaking cable in and it worked =)

dickheads

[joe 155]

why must these DRM people be such dickheads? they do this which has no purpose other than screwing over the customer - I'll never buy any technology that would stop me from watching or playing something I've paid for. Sure it might not take that long to fix (taking the plug out and putting it back in until it works still could be annoying anyway) but someone above mentioned that content can be blocked out whilst you are watching (and I assume playing would work the same)... that is unforgivable.

So they screw over the customer, but at least it stops piracy so prices should be cheaper... no, that's a lie. But at least it stops "copywrite theft", right? no. They've already put one on torrent.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/18/hd-dvd_cra ck/

Re:dickheads

[Anonymous Coward]

"why must these DRM people be such dickheads?"

Because being a dickhead is how you make money in this society.

Re:dickheads

[Cpt_Kirks]

SCREW THE DICKHEADS!!!

No wait, that didn't come out right...

Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[hal2814]

So is the TV not up to spec or is the spec not well enough defined? I'm assuming the PS3 is not the culprit since Westinghouse is the one talking firmware upgrades. I'm just curious if this is a real HDCP issue or just a cheap TV maker not following specs (which wouldn't be the first time a 2nd or 3rd tier manufacturer has ignored specs).

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[TwoScoopsOfPig]

I'm assuming the PS3 is not the culprit since Westinghouse is the one talking firmware upgrades.

Westinghouse just has the cojones to admit that they were, in whatever part, wrong.

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[DrEldarion]

... and the fact that they'll send a tech to your house to upgrade your firmware speaks volumes about how good of a company they are. Many would say "too bad".

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[tenton]

So is the TV not up to spec or is the spec not well enough defined? I'm assuming the PS3 is not the culprit since Westinghouse is the one talking firmware upgrades. I'm just curious if this is a real HDCP issue or just a cheap TV maker not following specs (which wouldn't be the first time a 2nd or 3rd tier manufacturer has ignored specs).

Well, I've had the same thing happen with my Sony TV (HDCP compliant DVI plug) and my cable box. It happens very rarely (blue moons happen more often), but it does happen (solution I use is to turn the cable box off; the TV's connected to it, too, so in effect, I'm rebooting my TV and cable box).

For it to happen so frequently (w/ the PS3 and the Westinghouse) tells me one of two things, or both. One is that the standard isn't defined well enough or people (the TV, Sony and the cable box makers) are cutting corners. I wouldn't be surprised if it's both.

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming the PS3 is not the culprit since Westinghouse is the one talking firmware upgrades. What kind of logic is that? So for every webpage that has had to have its source modified due to Internet Explorer's shoddy CSS implementation, you would say the web developer was at fault?

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[Thundersnatch]

Or he's got a serious installation problem, and heat or ventialtion issues are causing the electronics to lock up. This would not surprise me with a "westinghouse" TV, which is actually the cheapest-ass consumer electronics brand out there. Even "Vizio" stuff is better.

There's more to a piece of equipment than the specifications it sports. There's workmanship, design, quality of materials. The same reasons a lot of people will buy a BMW 5-series instead of a Ford 500 which has similar "specs" but is half the price.

There's a reason mid- and high-end audio brands thrive. I have a Harmon/Kardon audio rig that came with a 5 year warranty, weighs a ton, looks beautiful, and has worked for 12 years without a hiccup. Yet I have gone through three "cheap" Sony receivers in my basement during the same timeframe.

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[hal2814]

Wow, those apples are shinier compared to my oranges! We knew the problem with IE's CSS implementation. It was easily provable that IE was the culprit based on the CSS standards and IE's interpretations of that standard. This is a far more nebulous problem. Until there is a better explanation of what happened, I stand by my original assumption. If someone can show that the PS3 is not following standards, I will gladly reverse my opinion.

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[Anonymous Coward]

(blue moons happen more often)

Blue moons (= the second full moon in a calendar month) happen almost every year. There are usually 13 full moons in a year, but there are only ever 12 calendar months. So two of them have got to fall in the same calendar month.

Re:Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

[ajs318]

The "standards" are only available if you sign a contract in the blood of a freshly-sacrificed virgin, under the light of the decrescent moon, while three wolves howl in the distance. In the terms of the contract (which must be written in the Ancient Runes, using a pen made from a raven's feather) you pledge that if you give away the secrets of implementing HDCP, including the secret that you even know any of the secrets of implementing HDCP, then your tongue may be cut out and buried on a beach by the first light of dawn.

The old-fashioned 21-pin SCART connector (which provided separate red, green and blue signals to drive the grids of the CRT, if your set be so wired, plus a composite video signal which can be used to extract timing information, left and right audio and voltage-based switching signals, and worked fine ever since the 1980s) just made it too easy for the pirates.

WTF?!

[linvir]

Would you like some coffin with your nails?

Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[Prien715]

Since no one cares about protecting digital content picture-wise of a gaming console, why not just use DVI instead (since all HD TVs are plasma/LCD and have those inputs anyway)? If not for the PS3 (since you can watch movies), why at least the not the Xbox360?

It's also nice for folk like me who don't own a TV and use a 20 inch LCD for console gaming (still no SVideo/DVI out for my Wii though....) but I'm the niche market.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[Pojut]

While it isn't as crisp as DVI, there is a first-party connector for the 360 that allows hookup via VGA...

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[jeffy210]

FYI, DVI also uses HDCP. HDMI is basically pin identical to DVI, it just includes support for audio as well, so it's really the DVI spec that supports HDCP. I'm running a HDMI-DVI cable from my cable box to my Samsung DLP. Every so often when I turn on the TV after the cable box I'll catch the HDCP warning message for a brief second before it display the picture.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[seebs]

Because the PS3 does HDCP on DVI, too, so it won't display to a non-HDCP monitor that way either. (Or through a non-HDCP console switch, etcetera; you get the idea.)

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[petabyte]

Since no one cares about protecting digital content picture-wise of a gaming console, why not just use DVI instead (since all HD TVs are plasma/LCD and have those inputs anyway)? If not for the PS3 (since you can watch movies), why at least the not the Xbox360?

Not to burst your bubble but my CRT HDTV has and HDMI input and no DVI input. Of course as my cable box doesn't have HDMI out, that input is largely useless for me.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[Kelbear]

What about dual-monitor setups? I'm using my PC and xbox360 on an HDCP compliant 20" LCD too(Dell 2007FPW). However, I also have another one that isn't HDCP compliant (Dell 2005FPW).

So what happens when I run the movie? Does it show up on the 2007fpw monitor but blur out when I drag it over to the other desktop?

I'm thinking that they'll probably just screw me and blur it out on both until I disconnect the other monitor.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[desenz]

HDMI to DVI adapters are easy to get, but it doesn't make a difference. HDCP is still present on the DVI connections.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[a_nonamiss]

Does it show up on the 2007fpw monitor but blur out when I drag it over to the other desktop?

You're giving too much credit to the MPAA. Anyone trying to view a movie on a system that doesn't have 100% HDCP compliance is obviously a pirate trying to steal content. They will probably put a virus on your PC that will cause it to format all of the hard drives and catch your house on fire.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

[Hektor_Troy]

FYI, DVI also uses HDCP

Now, if "also" and "uses" were acronyms, that'd be one hell of a sentence. Oh, wait, they are:

ALSO:
Advanced Language Solutions and Operations (system for effective use of language)
Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics
Alternative Lifestyle Organisation (Melbourne, Australia)
American Law Sources On-line

USES:
United States Employment Service

Summary correction

[PingSpike]

. As Steve Balough, the president of Digital Content Protection, the licensing company for HDCP explains, the two pieces of hardware must exchange a key, a sort of certificate of authenticity unique to each individual device, to verify a secure connection.' The problem isn't limited to the PS3 -- many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem. The fix there? Unplugging the power cable..." The summary was cut off short. The last line should have read: "Unplugging the power cable, and component cables, boxing it up and returning the half working piece of shit to the store."

The Dark Side?

[draevil]

The Dark Side of HDCP? I wasn't aware there was a bright one...

Re:The Dark Side?

[cayenne8]

"The Dark Side of HDCP? I wasn't aware there was a bright one..."

There is no dark side of the HDCP really, matter of fact, it's all dark....

*thump*thump.....*thump*thump.....*thump*thump.... .*thump*thump.....

--with apologies to Old Pink

Re:The Dark Side?

[elrous0]

I suppose the developer of this piece of shit technology was well-paid for it (MUCH more than they deserved). So I guess there's a bright side for them.

But as for the other 99.999% of the population who will be screwed by it...We're out of luck.

-Eric

Re:The Dark Side?

[kinglink]

Actually it's a situation of "dark side" and the "less dark side". The less dark side is "Blu-ray will cost less because HDCP controls our content", the dark side is "blu-ray dvds still cost 30 dollars". Similar to how a knife and a pin can prick you. A knife just has a chance to cut you open as well.

Re:The Dark Side?

[outsider007]

Dreamcast went obsolete years before ps1 because the copy protection got cracked and game developers stopped wanting to make games for it. So there's a bright side for you. This isn't HDCP's fault, it's Westinghouse's for putting out a tv w/ buggy firmware. I've got the blink problem and I don't blame sony or hdcp.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,FUD...

[thelexx]

Couldn't even be bothered to read the summary could you?

"The problem isn't limited to the PS3 -- many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem."

> The gaming world has spoken

Sounds more like one AC pissing in the wind to me.

NES, or "blinking toaster"

[tepples]

From the article

annoying little technological tic that caused the sound to cut out and the screen to blink on and off when we would launch certain games. Was it the PS3 or the Westinghouse TV? So Sony has finally caught up to where Nintendo was in 1985, right?

Re:NES, or "blinking toaster"

[noidentity]

Obviously the correct solution to this HDCP problem is to unplug the cables and blow in them , then plug them back in. The NES was obviously way ahead of its time.

Same probems happen with Cable STBs

[Stavr0]

Notably the PACE 551 HD. I had a loaner until the PVR came in, and I'd lose the HDMI connection daily with an error message stating my TV wasn't HDCP compliant (it is). I used to have my doubts about DRM. Not any more. Now I am convinced it is evil, treats consumers like criminals and is defective by design.

Re:Same probems happen with Cable STBs

[ruiner13]

That's the same POS STB that I have, and use HDMI. I found that the box has to be turned on at the same time as the TV to handshake, it apparently only tries once. Do you have the problem where if it is set to dolby digital sound, sometimes when you change channels it will switch back to stereo mode, despite still being set to DD? I then have to just highlight the setting in the config (not change it, just highlight it) and it switches back to DD. That is even more annoying than the handshaking issue, because having ADD and HATING commercials, I tend to channel surf a lot :)

I don't think I'm the only one

[letsgolightning]

I'm sure I'm not the only one that sees HDCP as (a) HanDiCaP. I've not used the technology in any way and I'm not trying to comment on its merits, but when I see HDCP and that's the first thing I think of, wouldn't that be some sort of marketing failure?

Re:I don't think I'm the only one

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

You know, you hit on a great PR idea there; the EFF can finally educate people about what HDCP is in a catchy, memorable way.

Bravo!

That was copy protection too

[Myria]

The blinking effect from the NES was the copy protection check failing. The copy protection chip would reset the NES after a second if the cartridge didn't respond properly.

Melissa

Re:That was copy protection too

[tepples]

The blinking effect from the NES was the copy protection check failing.

Exactly. The blinking effect on the PS3 is also from the copy protection check failing, albeit the TV copy protection chip rather than the game media copy protection chip.

Re:That was copy protection too

[Jtheletter]

Interesting! You wouldn't by any chance happen to have some useful NES resource links for how to fix that or other problems? My original NES finally kicked the bucket this fall and it just blinks for most games (but fails in other ways for other games) so I'm hoping there's a DIY solution somewhere on the net.

Re:That was copy protection too

[Hollinger]

This happens with legit games when the connector fails. Each of my friends has their own special ritual, involving blowing into the console, tapping the cartridge down "just right," and so on.

When you press a cartridge down, you're pressing a 72-pin spring-loaded connector. You should be able to buy a new one for $10 or so, excluding shipping (try eBay). The repair process is very easy.

~ Mike

Re:That was copy protection too

[Chris Burke]

I've also heard that a Game Genie serves well by making contact with the connector without requiring the spring-loading to work. This wouldn't work if the problem is corrosion.

Re:That was copy protection too

[nitehawk214]

You are right, this did work for years, but unforutnatly the connectors in the NES themselves being to get soft from the bending and pull out completly. If you are careful they can be resoldered. (Unfortuantly I was not so careful when I was a teenager) Lucklily by then the second edition version was out with the top loading SNES-style slot. Those should still be available used, and last much longer.

Re:That was copy protection too

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.hackaday.com/2007/01/07/oldschool-nes-r epair-how-to/
On how to repair blinking nes

It is worse than that...

[ruiner13]

Ok, to start off, I have this problem with my cable box, too. If I leave the cable box on, and simply turn the tv on or off (as most people do, i bet), when I turn on the TV, the cable box tells me it couldn't establish an HDCP connection. To actually get them to handshake, both devices have to be turned on at the same time. What a bunch of BS.

The bigger problem than handshaking issues is that there are apparently multiple versions of HDMI, the latest being 1.3. Now as a consumer, how the hell am I supposed to know which version of HDMI each of my devices have? Has anyone actually seen a version number in the specs for any device? The PS3, for instance uses the 1.3 spec. If my TV uses the 1.2 spec, anything that needs to use the 1.3 spec won't display content. How are they going to explain that to the user? "well, see, the HDMI port here is actually different than the HDMI port here. They look the same, and have nothing to distinguish one from the other, but TRUST ME, there is a difference." I expect that excuse won't fly in any court should a class action case be filed. If I ever get a PS3 (after it is... oh... half the price), and it refuses to play at full resolution because my TV is only 1.2, I will be mighty pissed off. The whole HDMI/HDCP thing is totally pointless and will end up being a royal pain in the ass to everyone except the content makers.

Re:It is worse than that...

[DeadChobi]

Boy, that sucks. When I turn my regular old television on, I don't have to worry about handshakes, DRM, blinking pictures, or any of that buggy crap. What's great about analog cable is that it works. Yessir, after reading all these horror stories about HDCP and HD televisions, I don't think I'm ever going to upgrade from good old regular televisions until they pry the thing from my cold dead fingers. When they stop selling DVDs I'll probably just pirate shows in low-def and pipe them to my TV.

The SD television standard has a total of one resolution, and only three real standards which vary by country. Not only that, my television has a cable box built in so that all I have to do is plug cable into my TV and I can watch television. Sure beats having to screw around with a box and play with it for an hour until I figure out how to get it handshaking.

In short, I'm saying that everyone who bought into the DRM-laden technologies got bit because they didn't understand the real purpose of DRM. DRM is really just designed to make your content harder to access. Reading your anecdote, it appears to be working. Anyone who bought DRM tacitly accepted the technology.

If you don't like it, vote with your wallet.

Re:It is worse than that...

[ruiner13]

The SD television standard has a total of one resolution, and only three real standards which vary by country. Not exactly. There's 480i and 480p. And other countries "standards" are not just formats, they have different resolutions and refresh rates. NTSC has 525 lines of horizontal resolution at 29.97 frames per second, whereas PAL is 625 lines at 50 frames per second. Face it, electronics will always be confusing to someone. When it works right, HD is stunning and worth the money if you are a TV/movie fan. Sports especially make a HUGE difference when watched in HD vs. SD. Being able to read all the numbers even on a whole field view is nice :) Throw in the fact that most, if not all, HDTVs have a VGA or DVI port built in, and you can use it as a computer monitor, too. There are advantages to HD, I just wish the content creators would stop being a bunch of greedy oppressive dicks about it.

Re:It is worse than that...

[Anonymous Coward]

A wee bit OT, but I've never really fancied the idea of watching sport in High Def. I'm from Scotland, and over in the UK football (soccer for you N. Americans) is what we tend to watch. Have a look at this and you will see exactly why I have no interest in watching it in HD. One sight of Wayne Rooney and I wouldn't be able to eat my half-time pie..
At least American Football players wear helmets, so you're spared the excesses of their hairdressers..

Re:It is worse than that...

[Anonymous Coward]

But in HD, you can see every blade of grass as they pretend to be fouled and hit the turf! Grass diving at its finest!

* I used to play soccer (football) but watching the pros play is pathetic. You need to be more of an actor than an athlete it seems these days...

Re:It is worse than that...

[AbRASiON]

I agree and disagree with several portions of your post.

First of all, analaog shmanalog!
Digital COULD have been awesome, it just needs to be damn well done right, I don't even need to go in to WHY - we're all technogeeks if we read slashdot - digital, SHOULD have been better.

Secondarily SD unfortately isn't a single darn standard, it's different resolutions and refresh rates, depending on your country.
HD is actually better for standards, we now have a universal 1280x720p WORLD WIDE or 1920x1080i or P, 3 standards but better than NTSC / PAL and differing regions.
Sadly we still have 60/50hz and we have 110v and 240v but otherwise it's good - sadly it comes with the digital crap mentioned above by yourself and me.

Otherwise yes I agree with you, I have a HD CRT - component hookup and it just WORKS - I'm sticking with it till this HD shit is ironed out, PROPERLY.

Re:It is worse than that...

[DeadChobi]

Right, and I'm saying that I'm not buying any of their new tech until they stop. I might make the case that SD works better than HD since SD doesn't require me to screw with resolutions, boxes, HDCP, or any of that other stuff. Especially in light of the fact that HDCP seems to break on a number of people's consoles and cable boxes.

If you bought an HD TV, quit bitching about all the DRM and stuff unless you're also prepared to back that up with money. Why did you buy the HDTV if you knew that the DRM might possibly pose a problem for you? I'd assume that you went out and did your research on the product before you bought it. Never invest in a technology that you know is designed to keep you from accessing content which you purchased.

The beauty of SD is that 100% of the time I can sit down and just watch it. Not only that, whatever country you're shopping in carries a selection of televisions that will just work. With HD you have to shop for various resolutions, make sure you're not missing any resolutions, make sure you've got HDCP compliant equipment in the right spec., order a new box from the cable company, and hope you don't have to restart both of them at the same time in order for them to work properly together.

Whatever happened to simple, reliable technology? And how is SD confusing to anyone? You don't have to worry about standards unless you switch continents.

Re:It is worse than that...

[ruiner13]

If you bought an HD TV, quit bitching about all the DRM and stuff unless you're also prepared to back that up with money. Why did you buy the HDTV if you knew that the DRM might possibly pose a problem for you? I'd assume that you went out and did your research on the product before you bought it. Never invest in a technology that you know is designed to keep you from accessing content which you purchased. Well, the only device I'm currently having issues with is the crappy-ass Pace cable box that my cable company gave me, I didn't have a choice in the matter. All the other devices I researched and have no problems. Don't get me started about the crap technology the cable companies force on us and the uncalled for prices they charge for the rights to use it...

Re:It is worse than that...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole HDMI/HDCP thing is totally pointless and will end up being a royal pain in the ass to everyone except the content makers and the commercial pirates.

Fixed that for you.

Next Week on "24"

[rlp]

"Jack, you realize what this means!!"

"Yes, the terrorists have a mole in CTU. It can only be ..."

WARNING YOUR HDTV IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH HDCP!!

"... Paris Hilton. Tonight, on NEWS at 11"

How many HDCP devices will be returned?

[ConfusedSelfHating]

Early adopters will be tolerant of the hicups of a new technology. They also tend to be more technical astute and will use high quality components. Can you imagine the problems that will occur when HDCP goes mainstream? When a mom buys a low end HDTV, a PS3 and the cheapest HDMI cables that Walmart sells. What's the chance that everything will work together without these issues. When kids are around, doing kid things. So the mom will return the "broken" devices. Because of the number of returns, retailers will not want to stock "defective" merchandise.

If you want something that works, wait until the copy protection schemes are broken and download the pirated copy. It's the reverse situation of the fake Rolex. The illegal copy is better than the original. This entire situation could be fixed by the abandoment of HDCP, but that isn't going to happen. As far as the PS3 goes, I guess it's broken by design.

Re:How many HDCP devices will be returned?

[Anonymous Coward]

But they'll start claiming it's like opened software, because you could be stealing the keys! Just you wait, it'll happen.

Too lazy to log in.

Re:How many HDCP devices will be returned?

[burnin1965]

Can you imagine the problems that will occur when HDCP goes mainstream?

The perfect storm.

Copy protection is inherently broken in every implementation. The idea that someone would sell a product which must be transmitted electrically to a transducer for consumption and yet they dont want the content to be copied is something only a moron would consider to be acheivable.

Its already known that its a waste of expense and effort because the copy protection schemes only provide short term proection, if any.

The problems with HDCP are a blessing because they will serve to pound the message home the only way these morons can understand it, make it cost them capital for their stupidity. As customers return hardware and media the costs of returned defective products will eat into their profits.

HDCP with games? WTF??

[TeknoHog]

I thought HDCP applied only with certain movies that demand it. Does this mean that everything going through the HDMI port of a PS3 is encrypted? Including what Linux displays?

If that's the case, my appreciation of DRM just went from "I couldn't like less" to "wait, I think I can". It highlights the problem that technology-enforced legislation is bound to be too greedy if it has any hope of being effective.

Re:HDCP with games? WTF??

[crabbz]

I believe HDCP is in hardware. Basically when you hook two HDCP components together they negotiate a key and encrypt everything. The content isn't involved.

On the other hand the Image Constraint Token is a flag that says to downgrade video that isn't going over an HDCP connection. I don't think it has anything to do with switching HDCP on or off.

That's how I understand it anyway...

Re:HDCP with games? WTF??

[Salsaman]

Including what Linux displays?

Unless the graphics card has a (binary only) Linux driver, the display resolution will be limited to around 640x480. It's part of the HDCP standard.

Acronyms?

[theGil]

Just a note, but did anyone else notice the discrepancy between the two acronymns? Early in the post, it's "High Definition Content Protection". Later, it's "high-bandwidth digital content protection". I believe the actual acronymn is the latter of the two.

Re:Acronyms?

[TeknoHog]

Well, neither of them is an acronym, as they cannot be pronounced like words.

Re:Acronyms?

[theGil]

(As I peel your smugness off of my skin...) Tell me where you learned we must be able to pronounce an acronymn like a normal word, because Merriam-Webster seems to think otherwise:

Acronym: a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters

Some other common acronymns: IRA, SAT, SQL, CD-ROM, BBC, DNA, LED, IEEE, VISA, GNU. These don't seem to follow your rule.

Re:Acronyms?

[theGil]

Hehe, I suppose VISA does... :-D And we try to make guh-knew and see-quhl words...

Re:Acronyms?

[TeknoHog]

(As I peel your smugness off of my skin...) Tell me where you learned we must be able to pronounce an acronymn like a normal word, because Merriam-Webster seems to think otherwise:

Initially (pun intended) I learned it from my IB Theory of Knowledge teacher, but I've come across the definition many times since.

I'm aware of some definitions that equate acronyms with initialisms, but I think there are good reasons to keep them separate. The pronounceable ones are a special case of abbreviations, and I think they deserve a separate word. For another example, 'molar' is a certain kind of tooth, yet you don't see people mixing up the two constantly. What's wrong with calling different things by different names?

Of course, language is ultimately defined by its common use, not by a dictionary. Unfortunately, with the way I see people use their language these days, I expect that the future of human languages consists of the single word 'ugh' whose meaning you have to infer from the context ;)

Re:Acronyms?

[theGil]

Kudos for the informative and articulate response. ;-)

Really, now...

[devnull17]

Is there a "light side" of HDCP?

Re:Really, now...

[MarkGriz]

"Is there a "light side" of HDCP?"

Yes, I believe it is laughing at the people who paid $600 (or worse) for a PS3
and several $1000 for an HDTV, so they could have a blinking screen.

<nelson>
HAHA
</nelson>

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony always releases a statement that their new console is the fastest selling ever, but its hardly the case, and it means nothing. The PSP was the fastest selling PlayStation product of all time, and we all know how it's crushing Nintendo in the handheld market. Also, it took over 6 months to satiate the PS2's demand in the US whereas the PS3's demand appears fulfilled after a meager 2 months.

That's it, I'm staying with Y-Pb-Pr

[greed]

So I've got a decent LCD TV with HDMI, and a satellite box with HDMI, and a DVD player that upconverts to HDMI, and the [prize] PS3 is supposed to be on its way with HDMI....

And they're all going to go through a remote-controlled component video switch I've got on order. (Currently, I'm using a manual switchbox.) I'm "opting out" of this HDCP game, I don't like the rules, and I don't want to play.

Any Blu-Ray disc I try and which doesn't play on component will go back as "defective" or "unfit for sale." The media companies want to pull these stunts on consumers, they need our co-operation for it to work. So don't play along, stay analog.

You know what? Y-Pr-Pb looks pretty damn good. Don't think you can get 1080p on it, but the Viera screen is only 768 vertical, so that doesn't matter (to me) anyways. Flat panel monitor pictures aren't "drawn" like CRTs anyway; the incoming signal is decoded to a framebuffer for driving the display.

And HDMI switches cost too much, are hard to find with digital audio switching, and I don't feel like replacing my (otherwise excellent) AV receiver because Hollywood says so.

For anyone considering a similar solution: Compare the bandwidth of co-axial digital audio and composite video (the orange RCA plug and the yellow RCA plug). They're pretty close, right? Check out the voltage and cable impedance; they're the same. What's that mean? Any AV selector switch with composite video AND component (or S) video can switch co-ax digital audio via the composite video channel. (Well, simpler ones where it doesn't try to convert composite to S or component, or put up on-screen menus or whatever.) That means there are, readily and inexpensively available, switch-boxes that don't _claim_ to have digital audio switching, but which actually work really well. I used a $30 box from Radio Shack that did S-video, composite, and left+right audio to switch S-video, digital audio, and left+right audio. (Not all laserdiscs have digital audio tracks... yeah, that makes me feel old. And the "multiroom" feature on my receiver only works with analog audio. _That_ will get me to upgrade. Hollywood get stuffed.)

Re:That's it, I'm staying with Y-Pb-Pr

[787style]

You can do 1080p over component.

Re:That's it, I'm staying with Y-Pb-Pr

[Gizzmonic]

You know what? Y-Pr-Pb looks pretty damn good. Don't think you can get 1080p on it, but

There's no technical reason why it can't. There may be a Hollywood reason, however...

Re:That's it, I'm staying with Y-Pb-Pr

[ajs318]

Why is everything Y/R-Y/B-Y nowadays? We have done fine with RGB for years, via the 21-pin SCART connector which has been fitted to every TV, video recorder, DVD player and sat-box since the mid-1980s. RGB is also exactly what a CRT or an LCD panel expects. Y/R-Y/B-Y needs to be passed through an op-amp matrix to recover the RGB signals, which introduces noise and distortion, and it needs three separate plugs instead of one! (although RGB uses more wires since there is also a timing signal and its associated ground return. But the timing signal is actually a composite video signal, which can be picked up on by TVs / recorders without RGB inputs.)

Seriously, what was ever so wrong with the way we've been doing it for years that they've had to change it?

Re:That's it, I'm staying with Y-Pb-Pr

[Anonymous Coward]

SCART is a standard coming from France, so Americans naturally don't use it.

Cycle the sources

[thatguywhoiam]

I haven't had this issue with my PS3 (hooked via HDMI to a Samsung HDTV) but a friend of mine has. However he has been able to resolve it by simply pressing the 'source' button and cycling back around to the PS3 input. You don't need to power down. Re-selecting the video input seems to initiate the handshake again.

In this case the issue isn't the PS3 but rather however your television handles the HDCP handshake. As I said, mine doesn't have an issue, but I do see a brief burst of noise when a game handshakes.

Its too bad, because HDMI is a really nice connection. But HDCP is just ass. I hope Sony can do something with the firmware to alleviate the issue on these sets that 'blink'.

Re:Cycle the sources

[mennucc1]

as a matter of fact, the original article nowhere says Unplugging the power cable. They say Unplugging and re-plugging the HDMI cable was our temporary workaround
Maybe the editor should edit the post

It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmware.

[rikkitikki]

This is a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmware. If you have one of these TVs, contact Westinghouse they'll send a rep out to upgrade your firmware.

Btw, why is a TV firmware bug in the games section? (or even on Slashdot at all?) The summary even mentions that it happens between the Westinghouse TV and cable boxes and other devices.

It's westinghouse's fault.

[codyk]

I had consistent sync / handshake problems with a 37w1. Westinghouse blamed it on the Ps3, despite obvious evidence to the contrary (would sync fine 100% of the time on one port, but with image artifacts; would only sync 10% of the time on the other) Thankfully best buy took the set back. I tested the ps3 on every other brand I could find in store, worked fine.

Big shock, new technology is implemented shoddily by cut-rate companies.

Re:It's westinghouse's fault.

[spwolfx]

yes, because it is westinghouse problem... but lets not mention that on Slashdot of course... lets blame it on HDMI, HDCP, Sony, industry, god, all because cheapest LCD TV seller on the market doesnt have working HDMI connection.

FMV copy protection

[tepples]

I thought HDCP applied only with certain movies that demand it

Does this include interactive movies like what some reviewers have called recent Final Fantasy brand games?

Including what Linux displays?

Sony OS3 and Linux both run under the PS3 hypervisor, so it's possible.

News Flash: This SHOULDN'T BE.

[Svartalf]

Not the cheap product problems. The damn DRM. If you didn't worry about protecting mostly excrement and produced quality results and improved tech, things would probably work out better. But they want you to pay and pay and pay and pay.

Heh... Good thing I have little desire for most TV and most movies these days, eh?

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[The Faywood Assassin]

100% of console video game systems use a television as their primary front end. It has been this way since the Atari 2600 and earlier.

Now you know.

Beny

The hilarious part...

[sterno]

All of this wonderful copy protection stuff doesn't actually stop piracy. Wasn't it just a day or two ago that there was a rip of an HD-DVD on BitTorrent? So why incorporate all these complex and onerous technologies when, in the end, all they do is make it so your paying customers have buggy hardware?

Re:The hilarious part...

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse yet, there are so many compatibility problems that there are devices that have to be used in order to complete a moderaly-complicated HD setup. These devices specifically perform man-in-the-middle attacks by handshaking with each device separately. So by screwing up the spec so badly that the hardware is extremely flaky, they've actually spawned devices that can be used to circumvent the protection and yet cannot be attacked because not only are the legitimate, but they're also quite often necessary in order to get everything working together.

At least CSS-enabled DVDs played in legitimate players. The protection might have been a joke, but the failings of the technology didn't stop the technology from becoming popular.

Re:The hilarious part...

[Junior J. Junior III]

What's worse, it doesn't merely fail to prevent piracy, it actually encourages it, since no sane person would want to voluntarily shackle themselves with this broken crap technology. If you have to crack DRM and rip to a non-crippled format just to guarantee yourself troublefree playback, what's the point in doing things "legally" as the copyright industry wants you to? There's zero incentive for me to put myself through this. I'll either pirate, or more likely, not even want to bother with watching movies anymore. I'll take up a hobby like model airplanes or hiking in the great outdoors. It's probably better for my health as well as my wallet and sanity.

Its not the spec!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a lot of people don't realize, (and this comes from first hand experience) is that more often than not, failed handshaking isnt necessarily a result of the devices themselves. It tends to be because of crap quality cables.

While HDMI carries a digital signal, and thus, it carries the same visual quality regardless of the cable quality, a poorly made cable, with little or no shielding, and "leaky" connectors is going to be much more susceptible to EM interference.

If you get enough interference (it doesn't take much with a 5 dollar eBay cable), you will have occasional blackouts, etc.

I was able to solve this on 3 separate occasions for family and friends, by replacing their cheap cables with higher quality, shielded cabling.

Re:Its not the spec!

[Anonymous Coward]

So where can one find a good cable that isn't price gouged? Seriously, Best Buy and their $70 cables can go fuck themselves.

Re:Its not the spec!

[cjb110]

given that hdmi is going to be used to transmit data in a lightly regulated environment, and therefore suspect to EM, cheapo cables, cheapo devices etc. Why the fuck didn't they think of that when they designed the spec? Or do we have to wait for yet another version of this cable???

the whole HDMI issue is a complete clusterfuck of the biggest proportions. can even v1.3 do everything that they original said it could?
consumers are going to be repeatedly screwed over while this is sorted out!

After the whole multiple format issue, its the 2nd biggest reason to stay clear of upgrading to HD.

Samsung TV and DVD player

[Anonymous Coward]

I have this on a regular basis between my Samsung LCD TV and my Samsung DVD player. When I switch on the DVD player I get a garbled picture on the TV, and the only thing I can do is turn the DVD player off and back on again.
But today I got something new, I got a picture, but also a very high pitched sound. Again switching the player off and back on fixed it, but it is really irritating.

Good luck with that plan

[C0deM0nkey]

Any Blu-Ray disc I try and which doesn't play on component will go back as "defective" or "unfit for sale."

Good luck with that. Don't be surprised if the retailer sends you an apology and a new copy of the disc.

Be prepared for a lot of calls to regional customer service centers and having to wade past a couple of lower tiers of "customer service" on each call in order to get someone to give you your money back or a store credit (more likely). Each lower tier will claim that they cannot refund your money because of the piracy issues.

I only state this because I've actually had to go through this whole fiasco with DVDs which were legitimately defective. Bought one...defective. Returned it, took another from the same bin in exchange. Turned out defective. Returned to store, exchanged for another...same bin...defective. Pissed off, I went to a *different* store, bought the *same* title and had no problems. The first store likely got a bad batch; I had to fight with Store #1, locally and regionally, for a few hours to get them to refund my blasted money. When I first asked for refund, I was willing to a) prove the disc was defective by playing it on any DVD player in their store (if it worked, I told them I was willing to keep it and chalk it up to a defective player on my end) and b) take a store credit because I shopped there frequently. By the end of the ordeal, I wanted cash in my hand. What a hassle.

Re:Good luck with that plan

[SithLordOfLanc]

Fortunately, if you use a credit card for the purchase, you're good to go. "What's that Mr. Sithlord, that DVD doesn't seem to function properly and (insert big-box retailer here) won't issue a refund for the 24.99 plus tax? No problem at all Mr. Sithlord, you should see that credit appear online within a day or two. Thank you for calling (V, MC, AX, DS, DC) have a great day".

Re:Good luck with that plan

[rtechie]

Be prepared for a lot of calls to regional customer service centers and having to wade past a couple of lower tiers of "customer service" on each call in order to get someone to give you your money back or a store credit (more likely). Each lower tier will claim that they cannot refund your money because of the piracy issues.

And they can kiss your ass. In California and in many other states you can't sell defective merchandise. Period. And it is the customer that determines what counts as "defective". Yeah, you can force them to take back that monitor with one bad pixel. In fact, in practice this means you have a 30 day return policy on ANYTHING in California. If they don't take it back, take them to small claims court. The filing fee is usually less than $50. Be sure to ask for an additional $500 in court for the store wasting your time.

Another alternative is to pay with a credit card and then dispute the charge if they don't agree to the return. American Express and Visa are generally very good about this. Chargebacks are very expensive for merchants.

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,FUD...

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS3 is selling at a faster rate than the PS2...

Well, then you PS3 fanbois have nothing worry about, do you? Hell, I'll even go out on a limb and say that the PS3 is probably selling more units than NES, SNES, and Gameboy combined... Nintendo is screwed!


FUD indeed.

The Dark Side of HDCP

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a light side?

Not just Westinghouse

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an off-brand TV as well (37" Protron), and I have the same issue. In the investigation that I have done, it seems that the PS3 is the cause of the problem. I have only seen the problem occur on Westinghouse sets, but as it is happening on my TV at well, to me this would an indicate the PS3 is the cause of the problem. Luckily the fix in my case is simple... turn the TV off and on and it works fine. Annoying, but it does the trick.

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[complete loony]

But why the hell does playing a game require HDCP? If you were playing a movie, then I could understand the paranoia.

"Hey dude, check out this rip of me playing [insert popular game here]."

Why the hell does sony want to stop people copying game footage? It's not like you can clone the game this way.

Philips Handshaking Problem

[Matthew Bafford]

I had no end of problems with my Philips doing this if I just change input sources for a few seconds while content is playing. The only way I could get things to work again after the handshaking failed was power-cycling the DVD player. This, obviously, was not a viable option. I returned it for another cheap upconversion model (LG). It handles switching away without a hitch. My conclusion is the Philips is particularly bad at doing its job. The interface was horrible, too, so it wasn't a hard choice to get rid of it.

Re:Stores showing HDTV's

[Technician]

Notably the PACE 551 HD. I had a loaner until the PVR came in, and I'd lose the HDMI connection daily with an error message stating my TV wasn't HDCP compliant (it is). I used to have my doubts about DRM. Not any more. Now I am convinced it is evil, treats consumers like criminals and is defective by design.

Go to any store displaying a shelf of HDTV's. Look at the connections they are using. I haven't found a single store using the HDMI connection. They all use the component RGB coax. I was wondering why HDTV can be picked up on a single coax, but requires 5 to get from the tuner to the display. (RGB, Right, Left)

Due to DRM, only RGB works with a signal splitter for a store displey of HDTVs.

I can't wait for the day all the store displays have a blank screen because the content provider shut off analog output. It's probably all the in-store displays play the demo channel and nothing else. Nothing else can display on their setup in high definition due to DRM and the multi-display setup. Next time I'm in the store, I'm tempted to have them channel surf for me just to show the tuner response time while changing channel on a HDTV tuner. It may be fun to see all the channels that don't work or have very low resolution. I bet the store staff is forbidden to show channel changes to keep the dirty secret and sell more sets.

This is why I'm not getting an HDTV

[Mr2001]

... until HDCP has been cracked well enough that I can connect any two HD components together with an unencrypted link. (Maybe the prices will be reasonable by then too.)

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[fisternipply]

It happens with lots of devices, sometimes firmware fixable and sometimes not...depends on whether the manufacturer has chosen to support the product to that level (or if they're capable). A/V integration professionals deal with this all the time, and our answer is to run everything analog component if possible. The quality difference really isn't that noticeable on most combinations of source and display, so until the content flags get enabled we're at least able to get an image up reliably. At the moment the manufacturers we work with do a lot of finger pointing, e.g. "our device complies with the spec, so the problem must be with your other equipment," but everyone knows it's a big problem. There just doesn't seem to be any recourse--the content industry has the power to set the standards.

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[Mongoose]

Actually, me and a lot of people even in this forum use an LCD monitor for game consoles. You're short 100% now.

There's another side to HDCP?

[argent]

What's the "light side"? As far as I can see it's *all* dark.

Yet another article Zonked

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary even mentions that it happens between the Westinghouse TV and cable boxes and other devices.

With the way TVs are having firmware and basically some OS running in them, I wouldn't be quick to assume the fault is with PS3(not to say that it couldn't be).

Plus with the way companies keep screwing around with copy protection and DRM systems, problems like this don't suprise me.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Duct Tape

[TommydCat]

HDCP is entirely like Duct Tape!

You know, as in Duct Tape also has two sides: light and dark, and it binds the universe together!

errm.. well, HDCP doesn't seem capable of tying two devices together reliably let alone the universe... but

Duct Tape also has two sides: light and dark!

errm.. well, I guess DHCP doesn't really have a light side as mentioned above... so

Duct Tape also has a dark side!

errm.. ok, HDCP can't really have just one "side"... it's a rather all-inclusive "darkness"... so therefore

HDCP is entirely unlike Duct Tape!

Re:You want to have your movies and play them too?

[louisadkins]

I know this was meant as a joke, but there are so many people in our current society that feel they are entitled to everything and anything that they want, just because... grr!

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[Anonymous Coward]

/me searches his Vectrex for the RF out...

Cleaning your NES

[tepples]

Want to clean your NES? Try these:

1. Clean both sides of the edge connector on each of your Game Paks with isopropyl rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab and wipe dry with the other side. The right half (with label side up and the cart edge facing you) is program code; the left half is graphics and the copy protection chip.
2. Open the NES and bend the pins of the U-connector inward slightly.
3. Get a replacement U-connector, open the NES, and install it.

See also Google:NES refurbishing.

ObTopic: Do HDMI cables attract dust the same way?

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[Anonymous Coward]

The bug is listed because Zonk clearly has some kind of ax to grind with Sony. FUCK OFF ALREADY, ZONK.

its useless

[Anonymous Coward]

did they really expect that any pirate would capture raw movie so that he could recompress it? it would take ages and introduce quality loss..

You missed the point

[Rix]

Of all those people, how many of them haven't purchased any of their content? Remember, in the free world, it's perfectly legal to make personal copies.

ASCII Silly question

[Timberwolf0122]

hopefuly I wont get a silly ansi...

So does the PS3 need to enable HDCP? Can it not just send a non-protected HD signal?? Like a reg-free DVDs that don't have CSS encryption? Or do all HD devices have to use HDCP, if so does this not inflate the price as I'm sure HDCP isn't free.

Westinghouse

[Dr. Cody]

Westinghouse actually produces lots of reasonably priced, reliable, and innovative goods... ...for the nuclear power industry.

Since when did they start making TV's?

Who pirates from the video cable?

[Benzido]

In all seriousness, who pirates videos by intercepting the signal from the video cable? Maybe back in the days of analogue tape, people used to do this. But now that we have digital discs which are readable on a computer, who would bother? When I think of the enormous expense of the widespread rollout of HDCP, and think that it has basically stopped no piracy whatsoever, it seems incredibly annoying.

Ah, but the penny just dropped for me (sorry, I'm a bit slow). I guess this allows them to sell more TVs.

Not the power cable

[PadRacerExtreme]

The fix there? Unplugging the power cable."

I know no one RTA or WTV (watch the video) but this is wrong. They didn't unplug the power cable, they unplugged the HDMI cable.

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

[archen]

It's not like you can clone the game this way.

Played Final Fantasy lately? It's close.

In a word, foresight...

[Dogtanian]

My guess would be silicon costs and/or complexity of the spec.

My point was that this would be *optional*. Not all players would be required to support it; nor even all CDs (although I really doubt it would have increased the complexity of mastering much). Machines that don't support it only need to recognise it as an unsupported feature and skip however many bytes. That's all- trivial.

You say that memory was measured in kilobytes; well, as I said, the feature would be optional, but the basic details for an album (name, artist, songs) could probably be stored in a single kilobyte of that 650MB space; and each song title would require (say) 50 bytes to be held for the display.

It's quite reasonable to assume that by the time CDs had become an established mass-market technology, things would have progressed far enough that *some* higher-end (or non-portable) players might have been able to support a rudimentary text display. Maybe not in 1982, but there's this little thing called "foresight"...

As I said, I believe it would have been trivial to add to the spec, caused no harm (or additional complexity) if the early players didn't support it, and might have proved very useful later on. It just seems risible that on a system that had (for the time) mindboggling amounts of digital storage, no-one thought to reserve a few bytes for some optional ASCII text that could be ignored anyway.

Grue

[furbearntrout]

It is dark.
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Good news, this is.

[gottabeme]

The more real technical problems DRM'ed products have, the more consumers will notice. The sooner, the better. Here's to more handshaking problems!

Re:No Widescreen iPod

[Scudsucker]

Sorry, I've been away.

Let the record show that I tried to take the (relatively) high road here.

No, the record will show that you are stupid. Stupid people deserve a certian amount of slack, but if they whine and pout and continue in their stupidity, they deserve increasing amounts of scorn.

It's funny that you're taking this intellectually arrogant attitude, because you've really offered nothing to prove that you have even the slightest idea what you're talking about.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

But when it's done at the expense of existing product lines, it's a risk. The bottom line is that Apple chose to release a phone at the expense of releasing a new "dedicated" iPod.

They released an updated iPods in the fall at cheaper prices and with more storage, and technology companies generally make radical changes in stages rather than across their entire product line.

The reason that the PS3 starts at $500 is that the blue laser diodes for the Blu-Ray drive are very difficult to manufacture in quantity, and that adds about $200 to the cost.

Okay, care to take a guess as to the number of consumers who, during Christmas shopping, pontificated on diodes vs "OMFG six hundred dollars?!?"

Sony won't eat a $500 loss on each console.

They'll eat a lot more than that if the PS3 flops. And so far, it's flopping quite hard. They need to rapidly gain marketshare to start making money off game sales, and to bring down the cost of the hardware with economies of scale. They also need to sell as many PS3's as possible to increase the number of Blu Ray drives out there vs HD-DVD. It's lose more money now or risk losing their entire investment.

Feel free to dazzle me with more of your astounding brilliance, and maybe call me a fag or something while you're at it.

I have no reason to question your sexuality. However, I do have ample reason to wonder if your mother was a heavy drinker throughout her pregnancy.

"We" did not make CDDB.

[Paradox]

And, it never happened. The promise of excellent technology, never delivered. And (I've posted on this before), the notion of track info associated with CD technology didn't emerge until we, the people, did it ourselves! with CDDB!

"We the people" didn't do CDDB. CDDB is the enterprise of Gracenote, Inc. While generated from user submissions, their database and the legal wrangling surrounding their services are somewhat legendary in the content distribution circles. Gracenote is certainly an arm, or at least in the pocket, of the RIAA.