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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."
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.
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
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
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'.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
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.