AMD's New DRM

DefectiveByDesign writes "Remember how AMD said they'd make use of ATI's GPU technology to make better technology? Well, not all change is progress. InfoWorld's Tom Yager reports that AMD plans to block access to the framebuffer in hardware to help enforce DRM schemes, such as allowing more restricted playback of Sony Blu-Ray disks. They can pry my Print Screen key from my cold, dead fingers."

Comments

Why do this?

[growse]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one. Whether that's because they need it not to be restricted, or they think they need it in the future, or they just object to the principle, I'm betting few people would go "Gee, well, this one stops me doing this, so I better get that".

So the only reason AMD is doing this is to pander to the content providers. I wonder, what's in it for AMD. Money? Too simplistic somehow. Can't think what else..... Surely it can't just be because Sony/whoever turned up with a big cheque?

Re:Why do this?

[grub]

Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one

In time mass acceptance by the techno-illiterate will destroy any choice. There are are only two major PC CPU manufacturers, both are big fans of limiting your control of what you buy.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not Sony? They've already blocked access to the video access on Linux on the PS3, so it's almost uses as a media player. The PS3 XMB is severely limited in what it will play, even though it had a super amount of processing power to handle the most demanding HD video streams.

As time goes on, we're getting locked out and blocked from doing what we want to do more and more. If it continues like this, we'll be limited to subscriptions services only or pay per play, and restricting media to registered devices.

Any other oldies like me out there feel like we're inching towards a media controlled dystopia?

Re:Why do this?

[pairo]

What makes you think nVidia, Intel and whoever else is on the market right now won't follow suit?

Re:Why do this?

[growse]

Oh, totally, but my point was what's the business benefit for them to develop this. Their customers by and large are either indifferent or don't want it, AMD aren't a content producer, so it must just be a fat cheque. They're taking a very big gamble on their customer base, who, traditionally I would wager are the more technically minded type than the average intel customer. People who are more likely to object to this kind of thing.

Re:Why do this?

[shystershep]

It's probably to help them with PC builders like Dell, HP, etc. If those companies wanted DRM on the chip, it would be a powerful influence for AMD to do so.

Re:Why do this?

[growse]

Still not convinced. Dell / HP / etc are like AMD - they build / put together hardware. They're not content producers, they just want to sell metal stuff to the public. They know there's no benefit to the public for DRM, so what's their business benefit in doing this?

Re:Why do this?

[Barny]

I wonder, what's in it for AMD. Money? Too simplistic somehow.

Well, looking at their current cash reserves, and their first quarter issues, I would think a large infusion from particular sources would be a boon for them.

This will make choices much much easier when buying a card for a serious gamer, Nvidia or nothing, in particular people who want to use fraps or similar to make in game action vids.

I (in the past) purchased AMD products because from my testing, they were just as good for my uses as Intel and I wanted to help keep "the little guy" going by supporting them (so long as it doesn't cost me $$$), guess what, the little guy is playing the big boy games now, and not the fun kind.

Re:Why do this?

[aminorex]

It's just corporate suicide. AMD cannot afford to piss off their customers like this. Intel could, but not AMD. I'd say it's grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.

Re:Why do this?

[grub]

I think it's all about the money. Just an example off the top of my head: the license to the innards of future DirectX versions could be held back from a non-DRM-team player so the competition would get a definate advantage in performance.

Re:Why do this?

[Hoi Polloi]

Sure this guy doesn't actually work for Intel?

Re:Why do this?

[airhed13]

I can only assume it's to comply with some niggling legal crap from the DMCA. Adding misfeatures like this costs them money, so they'd only do it if there's a valid risk/reward tradeoff. E.g., if they (a) fear major lawsuits or (b) expect the ability to play next-gen DVDs to play a major role in the marketplace viability of their products, it makes sense for them to do this.

Re:Why do this?

[MightyYar]

The fear of the competitor implementing it somehow and then having a marketing edge: "Only DELL computers can play back Blu-Ray!"

Re:Why do this?

[morgan_greywolf]

AMD aren't a content producer, so it must just be a fat cheque.

Maybe. Something to consider is that AMD's customers aren't you and I. AMD's customers are OEM PC makers, large and small. Now if one of their large customers were given a fat cheque, or if AMD were potentially interested in wooing a large PC manufacturer who isn't (yet) a customer who also happens to be a content producer, without mentioning any names *cough*Sony*cough*, then perhaps that could be the reason.

Re:Why do this?

[Gravol]

The only reason I preferred AMD was the lack of drm. The performance if Intel's product is superior. Why doesn't a company overseas develop a high-performance non-drm cpu? If I was running either Intel or AMD I would give Hollywood an ultimatum - no drm even if it means leaving the U.S. completely. Right now I'm experimenting with Xubuntu as I won't accept Vista or a newer drm cpu.

Re:Why do this?

[MBGMorden]

Via won't Seriously. They're a Taiwanese chip maker - the region/culture is famous for making devices that don't obey copy protections schemes in general. It's strange that I've noticed that the more expensive a DVD player is, the more likely it is to have trouble playing discs. Those $30 ones from Taiwan will play anything you through at them, usually even out of region stuff with little to no effort.

My guess is that as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD start to implement stuff like this, a market for Via processors and more off the wall graphics ships like S3 and Trident (is Trident still in business) will open up amongst the hacker/enthusiast community. The question is will you accept a computer that might run a tad slower (and might not run some commercial software programs at all) for the price of using it how you see fit.

Re:Why do this?

[Jerry]

Because Microsoft WANTS it. And if they offend Microsoft their ad rebates will dry up, which accounts for a large part of their profits.

IAAM.

Re:Why do this?

[jfengel]

In particular, it's pointless without support from the higher-ups (the OS drivers and the video players).

Perhaps there's some new layer of DRM in the offing. Here's a possible scenario: Apple's movie downloads are of limited quality, perhaps partly because the studios don't want high-resolution rips made. (They already know that you can get low-resolution rips off the DVD.)

So Apple says to AMD, "We'll start supporting your chips if you give us something to take to the studios so they'll let us have high-resolution movies."

That's just a guess, but it highlights exactly what your question is bringing up: this is a useless feature without a lot of support. So I've got to assume that somebody has plans to use it to offer content that they wouldn't otherwise release for fear of having it ripped.

(Or, alternatively, somebody had threatened to pull their existing content unless future computers are made more secure against this mode of ripping.)

That's still odd. You'd expect this to come from an OS vendor, who tells both AMD and Intel what to do about it. Which implies that Intel is planning something similar soon, and that both will offer a driver so that the OS can use it to enforce whatever DRM scheme they have in mind.

Re:Why do this?

[wytcld]

As TFA points out, it's not just the content providers who can benefit. Businesses want to be sure that their internal and client communications are secure. This would allow sending, for example, PDFs of sensitive documents that couldn't be easily copied by a rogue employee and sent off to a competitor. If you think corporate spies aren't a fact of life, you're either wrong or not in a successful enough enterprise to be worth spying on. Now, your rogue employee still might actually photograph their screen, if they're authorized to at least view the document. But that's not nearly as convenient as doing a screen capture, and can't be automated to run in the background.

If you're a major corporation with any trade secrets at all (which is to say, any major corporation), your obvious best choice is to buy systems with this technology. As home users we may have an ethical right to total root access to our personal systems; but when we go to work, if our sysadmins aren't locking down our systems from spying (which can be between divisions in a corporation, too), then they aren't doing their jobs. And you'd probably rather that the IRS were using security measures along these lines, too. This is good tech in a business or government context.

  We just need laws regarding hardware ownership clarified so that it becomes illegal to implement restrictions on equipment which the equipment owner - whether person or corporation - can't disable at will. That wouldn't interfere with corporate- and government-owned systems being properly locked down, while preserving the property rights of individuals.

Re:Why do this?

[jimstapleton]

actually, it's an interesting duality there.

AMD, the more obscure of the two (AMD vs. Intel) was usually only picked by the tech-knowledgeable (but by no means had a monopoly on this group), and the indifferents/I-don't-cares typically went to intel

So, while this hurts the AMD fan base, what we are looking at here is ATi related...

In the big GPU vendors, until recently, nVidia was the vendor that didn't get the 'I-don't know or care' crowd, while it was ATi who got that crowed as well as the 'I know and care' crowd. Lately, the 'I don't know or care' crowd has been shuffled over to intel (I won't say they moved, because that could imply their own intent and planning).

So, until recently, this would not have been a bad move for ATi, but as of 2 years ago or so, ATi, like nVidia does tend to get more of it's users from the 'I know and care' crowd.

Re:Why do this?

[Opportunist]

Be realistic. In the presence of two identical performing chips, the vast majority will buy the cheaper one. When you talk about DRM, most people ask whether that's one of the US agencies or a terrorist group.

And I'm usually not really sure which one would be more fitting.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming a choice is offered, it will not be framed in this manner. The choice will be "Do you want the chip that cannot play movies or the one that does?"
The one that does play movies is the one with hardware DRM which restricts the capabilities of the device. However, in this kind of a context, that is a feature.

Re:Why do this?

[trigeek]

If they don't do this, the companies that write DVD viewers will not allow their software to play HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs on AMD systems. The software developers signed an agreement with the AACS consortium, and they are responsible for any breaches in AACS security.

That's why AMD is doing this.

Which would be more unpalettable to consumers: Not being able to watch their High Definition DVDs on their new laptop, or not being able to save the frame buffer? Most consumers don't care about the latter.

Re:Why do this?

[Opportunist]

Well, like you said in your first paragraph, the chance that the crappy hardware from Taiwan is more likely to run the commercial program than the high profile Intel/AMD/Whatever chips, simply because they don't give a rat's rear about restriction crap.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of freedom comes out of countries you don't really consider "free". Boggles the mind.

Re:Why do this?

[AndersOSU]

Seems like a pretty flagrant flaunting of the anti-trust ruling. Not that that would stop them, but I'd expect lawsuits and quick if Microsoft did something like this.

Re:Why do this?

[zappepcs]

My guess is that as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD start to implement stuff like this, a market for Via processors and more off the wall graphics ships like S3 and Trident (is Trident still in business) will open up amongst the hacker/enthusiast community. The question is will you accept a computer that might run a tad slower (and might not run some commercial software programs at all) for the price of using it how you see fit. YES

Re:Why do this?

[twistedcubic]

Those $30 ones from Taiwan will play anything you through at them, usually even out of region stuff with little to no effort.

Indeed, I got a $20 loss-leader DVD player from Best Buy, and it plays everything.

The question is will you accept a computer that might run a tad slower (and might not run some commercial software programs at all) for the price of using it how you see fit.

Why would it run slower? The computer I'm using now has no commercial software, so I, like other freedom fighters, should be o.k.

Re:Why do this?

[colganc]

The choice in those two identically performing chips is: watching BluRay and not watching BluRay. The one with the restrictions will let you watch BluRay. I bet most people will choose the restricted one.

Re:Why do this?

[oliverthered]

Implement some kind of drm enforcing hardware.
Get all the studios to require your hardware if their customers want to play their discs on a PC
Profit.

Re:Why do this?

[mutende]

See also 'Phoenix BIOS only for Windows Vista'.

Re:Why do this?

[ajs318]

I think you mis-spelled "antitrust lawsuit" in your last line.

Re:Why do this?

[smadasam]

Thanks for another reason why not to buy ATI GPUs.

Re:Why do this?

[Pojut]

The computer I'm using now has no commercial software, so I, like other freedom fighters, should be o.k.

"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" -George Carlin

Re:Why do this?

[LoudMusic]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one. Keep in mind that consumers aren't hardware manufacturer's only customers. People like Sony use AMD's hardware also, and rely on such hardware to sell their own products. Sony makes the content consumers want to see and AMD wants Sony to cater to AMD so AMD caters to Sony.

Re:Why do this?

[norminator]

Customers aren't going to be really aware of any problems. Try reading the article summary to you mother or your sister, or some non-techie friend. They'll say "Wha? Huh? What are you talking aboout?" Then explain it to them in terms of how it limits what they can do with media. At least half of them will probably say "Why would I want to do that?".

Now take away the explanations, and tell them that AMD is coming out with some super awesome new AMD MegaLIVE!++ media PC that will automagically buy and download every movie and TV show they ever wanted to watch, and will let them listen to music and watch movies everywhere they go, and it will cure cancer, stop global warming, end our dependence on foreign oil, and bring about world peace. They'll say "That sounds cool, I don't really need it, but if it could be included in the next computer I was going to buy anyway, maybe I'd like that.

The marketing hype isn't going to mention the drawbacks, and it will be louder than any outcry from pissed-off Slashdot-reading customers.

Re:Why do this?

[twistedcubic]

What do freedom fighters fight? "for freedom" :)

Re:Why do this?

[nurb432]

Don't forget the eventual mandating of DRM like this by the government ' to protect us from pirates and terrorists '.

Re:Why do this?

[pipatron]

Well, those of us outside the united states generally ceased to think of the USA as a free country about 7 years ago.

Re:Why do this?

[TheGavster]

If Via's C7 were near the performance level of a Core 2 Duo or an Athlon FX, they would probably sell a lot more of them owing to them retailing for a fraction the price.

Re:Why do this?

[Opportunist]

Still, I don't consider China, Taiwan, Hongkong etc. as the pinnacle of freedom. That our way to get "freedom" regardless of the attempts of the industry should come from there... It's just surreal.

Re:Why do this?

[john g the 4th]

AMD, Dell and HP have plenty of beneficial reasons for supporting DRM. They may not produce content, but they sure as hell sell stuff for content producers. For example.. AMD chooses to support DRM, thus it makes it easier for Dell to adopt them and get a bigger bonus support from Philips and/or Sony for their hardware or software bundles.

Thats almost too basic, but thats the principle here. AMD's move will make it easier for volume distributors to adopt them, as DRM slowly but surely becomes a part of our lives. AMD will more than likely have huge support from content producers such as Sony, and BMG. With that support comes money and advertising.

Re:Why do this?

[erroneus]

Their customers are hardware manufacturers. And the hardware makers need to adhere to the licensing demands of those who own the standards they manufacture under. So this would make AMD's customers happy since it would make the licensors happy that they use such restrictive technology.

It's not a matter of pandering to content providers as much as it is pandering to their customer's desires on the matter... and if AMD/ATI didn't do it, someone else will if they aren't already and crush them in terms of sales. And those of us who know what a tragedy this really is are so few in number that our refusing to buy it makes no impact.

The solution for all of this nonsense is to get to the source of the problem... the content people.

Re:Why do this?

[oliverthered]

There's nothing stopping anyone else from blocking access to the framebuffer.

Re:Why do this?

[munk3h]

B I N G O !

Re:Why do this?

[mpcooke3]

If in the future unrestricted chips can't play the majority of content then most people will want the "restricted" version.

sadly.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The author has obviously been drinking some suspect koolaid. If you can see or hear it, you can copy it. DRM hasn't worked for the MPAA or the RIAA and it isn't going to work for businesses either.

Re:Why do this?

[Deagol]

Why doesn't a company overseas develop a high-performance non-drm cpu?

My guess is because it takes a huge amount of R&D (we're talking ~50 years to catch up w/ the US here). I recall an article a few years ago about the Chinese governemt/industry cloning the old MIPS (or was it Sparc) CPUs, rather than invent their own technology. It's not like there isn't the manpower, capital, or skill in China these days. It just takes an obscene amount of effort to reach that goal.

Nevermind that anything that isn't backward compatible with 20 years of Wintel platforms won't ever be accepted by the mass market.

Re:Why do this?

[miskatonic alumnus]

I still don't understand why anyone would want to watch a movie on their computer. Tinny little satellite speakers with a 17-20" monitor vs. Full blown 150W 7.1 surround sound and 50" widescreen tv. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Re:Why do this?

[Rob the Bold]

. . . when we go to work, if our sysadmins aren't locking down our systems from spying (which can be between divisions in a corporation, too), then they aren't doing their jobs.

I think that when a company starts spying on itself, it's probably a sign that it has grown too big.

Re:Why do this?

[koreaman]

Then you're wrong. Although freedoms in the U.S. have been eroding for the past few years, we are still certainly a "free country" when you look at the rest of the world. Specifically, we have perfect freedom of religion, almost-perfect freedom of speech and of the press (better than most of Europe), freedom from imprisonment without a trial (except for non-citizens, apparently, see Gitmo), etc.

Re:Why do this?

[Ravenscall]

Try 11, or did you forget the 1996 Ant-Terrorism act?

Re:Why do this?

[Finuance]

Of course Americans don't consider those countries as "free." It's called branding. Corporations do it all the time and so do governments.

Re:Why do this?

[EzInKy]

...we have perfect freedom of religion...


Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion.

Re:Why do this?

[Merusdraconis]

Okay, wait, wait wait.

I may be working from faulty assumptions here, but they intend to block hardware access to the framebuffer, right?

Don't most blurring special effects in games, such as light bloom and trails and suchlike, use the framebuffer? Isn't this going to negatively impact the performance of those games? (I note that World of Warcraft has light bloom effects on by default.)

And isn't gaming the primary application of these cards?

I guess I am working off faulty assumptions here, because this scenario seems too impossibly bone-headed to come to fruition.

Re:Why do this?

[heinousjay]

Don't you interrupt a subtle Bush bash you right-wing fascist. Let our superiors in Eurofreeland tell us how to live, please.

Re:Why do this?

[Ravenscall]

I think this has everything to do with Apple actually.

You notice how as soon as AMD picks up ATI, they start pushing Macs out the door with nVidia cards again? That switch is not totally implimented yet, but I would put money on that decision being based on Intel being a partner now.

Now, AMD is implimenting on chip DRM, and Apple has been wanting to sell more movies. If this was not a carrot for them, I would be surprised.

Re:Why do this?

[daem0n1x]

I guess it's because the new demands for Vista compatibility. M$ will not allow drivers to be installed if they are not signed. To be signed, they must comply to a lot of DRM shit, and hardware must support it.

Since most of the sheep out there will eventually use Vista, the hardware manufacturers don't have any interest in keeping 2 lines of products so they go happily after the Gates demands.

M$ demands even go further. They demand that the hardware specs be kept secret, to avoid the creation of open-source drivers. In the end, this will hurt us and also the hardware manufacturers, because they will have to support hardware that is more complicated and also they will be even more at the mercy of Micro$oft. But I guess this will only get worse until some governments step in and stop all this monopolistic madness.

Re:Why do this?

[Opportunist]

Whoopsie. Sorry, didn't know it's supposed to be "freedom (registered trademark of the USofA)".

Well, you learn something new every day...

Re:Why do this?

[koreaman]

Alright then, we don't have 100% perfect freedom of religion, due to the references to religion on money, in the Pledge... you could also mention the fact that the President is sworn in on the Bible, as well as I'm sure several other examples.

Although I think these examples are all bad and anti-freedom, I don't think that they're important enough to make one say that the United States are not a free country. When you look at the United States next to the set of countries, the freedoms enjoyed by their citizens are quite substantial.

Re:Why do this?

[smellsofbikes]

I think what you're predicting will happen for a while, but since the content-providers are highly motivated to work towards DRM, they'll produce more content, and entire content-delivery systems, that'll only work on the high-end, limiting systems. SecondLife will only run on ATI or Nvidia graphics boards. Until recently, Flash9 only ran on Win/Mac. WMA10 or whatever it is only runs on Windows. I may be wrong with some of those -- I don't use Windows or Mac so I haven't kept very good track, but I know a fair number of things don't function or only function with lots of workarounds on my linux system, and eventually if whole new areas of media only run on a subset of hardware the content providers trust, we're screwed until people can provide liberated workarounds, and that is going to become increasingly difficult (especially as more material moves to net-connection requirements, meaning remote verification and encrypted channels of confirmation.) One question is: if individuals keep producing sufficient content to maintain the interest of joe sixpack, there will still be a demand for connectivity to an unregulated net with nonstandardized content. As long as that happens, we have a chance of keeping freed hardware viable. If everyone just wants to stream the latest Sony/NBC videos, well, probably within five years we'll buy completely locked-down hardware that only connects to approved content provider material, whether Internet or TV or whatever -- because essentially it'll all be the same material.

In all honesty, I sort of like the idea of people having these dedicated media servers that only run approved material, but beside them, old or import machines that connect to this greynet full of user-created material. There are billions of us and only a few big companies: we can outproduce them on quantity, and for any given specific interest, in quality. Individuals can't crank out stuff with broad-market appeal *and* high quality because that costs huge amounts of money, but for any subset of interests, enthusiasts can make better material than the big companies can afford to produce.

Re:Why do this?

[Ravenscall]

Heh, I can stand Bush less than I can stand Clinton, I just acknowledge that they are both corporate pawns instead of playing the this flase choice is better than your false choice game.

Re:Why do this?

[KDR_11k]

Actually AMD sells a lot to private builders (may be receeding because of the Core chips beating AMD across the board), their marketshare with OEMs is pretty small, mostly because many of them get incentives to only sell Intel machines.

Re:Why do this?

[kpainter]

Something to consider is that AMD's customers aren't you and I. AMD's customers are OEM PC makers, large and small. That is wrong. They may sell to the OEMs but if they take your view that the OEM is THE customer, they are going to bite it hard. If AMD produces products that the OEMs love but the consumer hates, ultimately, the OEM will hate it too (Unless you are Microsoft).
I will think hard before I buy a bunch of DRMed crap. That means I won't buy anything Sony.

Re:Why do this?

[oyenstikker]

"As home users we may have an ethical right to total root access to our personal systems."

You are right up there with the GNU folk when they say "To release a non-free program is always ethically tainted." Which ethics demand that other people consult you and design their product to your wants before offering it for sale when you may not even buy it?

Re:Why do this?

[nasch]

I must have misplaced my 7.1 surround sound and 50" TV. Or maybe some people don't have a home theater system, that could be possible. Maybe there's somebody on this planet with a computer, nice LCD monitor, decent headphones, and a DVD drive, and they have a crappy TV and no external speakers. Or no TV at all. Or then again maybe everybody is just like you.

Re:Why do this?

[bogjobber]

There are more examples like the line "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights" from the Declaration of Independence. Those statements do not in any way restrict the free expression of your own religion (or lack thereof). Freedom of religion is not freedom *from* religion. So yes, I would say that we do in fact have perfect freedom of religion. Care to give some examples of actual restrictions of religious freedom that exist in the US?

Re:Why do this?

[SL Baur]

+5 Insightful? Too many moderators on crack, I guess.

You're an idiot if you think this began 7 years ago. It's been happening all my life and I am sure it didn't start in the 1960's. Look through the cypherpunks mailing list archives whereever they are these days. Loss of freedom in the US has been a long slow process for a looooong time.

Re:Why do this?

[KDR_11k]

Non-Americans haven't heard of that.

Re:Why do this?

[Fex303]

I still don't understand why anyone would want to watch a movie on their computer. Tinny little satellite speakers with a 17-20" monitor vs. Full blown 150W 7.1 surround sound and 50" widescreen tv. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

My computer's screen has a higher resolution than my TV and is connected to my stereo, which gives better sound than my TV.

I'd love an over-the-top home theater system, but a) I don't have the space and b) I'd rather spend the money on other things (eg. food, shelter, computer).

Given that I don't spend that much time watching TV or DVDs I can't understand why I, or anyone else in my situation, would want to duplicate the main features of a home theater system (hi-res screen and sounds system) for their computer and TV (and stereo).

That said, I wouldn't buy one of these chips if I could possibly avoid it. If that means I can't watch a specific DRMed format, then I guess I'll just download it. Same thing happened with those damn copy-protected CDs.

Re:Why do this?

[0xABADC0DA]

...we have perfect freedom of religion...

Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion. In America we have perfect freedom of religion, what we are missing is freedom from religion. And ironically only god has the power to give us freedom from religion, by suicide, but unfortunately he doesn't want to take the chance of going to hell.

Yes apparently god's immortal soul is more important than our utopia. What a self-centered mofo. Jesus died for us, why won't god?

Re:Why do this?

[tji]

> if our sysadmins aren't locking down our systems from spying (which can be between divisions in a corporation, too), then they aren't doing their jobs

Wow, that's the IT equivalent of martial law.. or worse.

Complete lockdown, to assure the employees that they are untrustworthy risks to mother company. How's that working out for you?

The problem is, you're locking down more and more obscure attacks, that require many other security measures in order to be truly secure (you need to lock down all copying, secure all long term storage, disable any printing, ban all laptops, disable cut&paste, deny camera phones, etc.)

The overhead of operating in this manner is not worth the effort. It impacts all employees - the vast majority of them not spys, and generally hurts your business, and generaly decreases productivity. All to add security that can be trivially bypassed by a suitably motivated person (digital pictures of the document displayed on the screen are not hard to do).

No, this technology is not about protecting businesses or my personal financial information (which I'm sure will also be thrown in there as one of the big benefits.. anti-phishing). This is all about the big media companies colluding with big software companies and chip manufacturers to lock down PCs from those dirty users. No thanks. I can live without blue-ray movies on my laptop if this is the cost of entry.

Re:Why do this?

[bl8n8r]

> Given the choice between two identically performing chips,

that's just the problem. you haven't a choice. Sounds like AMD is dragging it's customers into something they don't want. This is very unwise, but perhaps the last gasp for air from a company with it's head bobbing under. Maybe they haven't any choice at this point. AMD said they would bring their figures up for the next quarter, but didn't mention how. This must be Hector's brainstorm. It will be a bad day for consumers when there is only one CPU mfgr left.

Re:Why do this?

[morgan_greywolf]

Actually AMD sells a lot to private builders (may be receeding because of the Core chips beating AMD across the board), their marketshare with OEMs is pretty small, mostly because many of them get incentives to only sell Intel machines.

Really? Did you buy your AMD CPU from AMD? I'll bet you didn't. AMD doesn't sell to end-users, only to volume customers. You probably bought your AMD CPU from Newegg, CDW, TigerDirect or one any number of other online or brick-and-mortar vendors. These companies sell AMD CPUs because they also build PCs with AMD chips in them. They are AMD's customer, not you. That also means for AMD, OEMs are the vast majority of their sales.

Still, while quite a few AMD CPUs get sold to private builders from these vendors, I'll still wager that the largest installed-base of AMD processors comes from prebuilt systems.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have watched videos and movies on small screens (laptops, old CRTs) for most of my life. I can't remember when wide screens became a must.
I don't even own a TV set. No, not even a tiny one. Do I have to feel weird?

Re:Why do this?

[zombieflesheater]

"Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion."

Oh, I don't know. It doesn't say in *which* god you should trust ;-)

Re:Why do this?

[cayenne8]

"Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion."

Sure it is. It is just saying God, as in a higher being, it isn't promoting any ONE religion.....

I supposed you might bring up the atheist...but, that's not a religion...so, doesn't count.

:-)

Freedom of Religion Freedom FROM Religion

Re:Why do this?

[cayenne8]

Freedom of Religion Freedom FROM Religion

Oops..should have previewed...

Freedom of Religion ! = Freedom FROM Religion

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

That... well... does not follow.

For one, they are free to not to comply with the requests of those who value their liberty and accept that they won't sell anything to them. Secondly, to releasing the program free instead of non-free hasn't anything to do with the design of the product. And even if it had, it should be considered good business sense to ask what the customers want instead of throwing random stuff on the market and hoping someone buys it and then suing everyone who doesn't.

But as you don't accept this argumentation, please tell me which ethics allow those other people to force me to buy things which I do not want because they take my freedom away and make me slave of the whims of the providers?

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the fact that many laws are on the books based solely on religion?

Banning gay marriage anyone?

There are lots of examples, this country hasn't felt free since the Republicans took over congress, the white house, OH YEAH and the supreme court. Wow. thats like all 3 branches of government that they had working for them to do whatever the fuck that they wanted, and the really sad thing is that everyone in this country is so afraid to just stand up for their rights, and nobody seems willing to stand up for others rights either.

I'm ashamed that no matter what happens, I will always be thought of as an American. It doesn't matter that I was a minor and the rest of the majority of the people in this country are F*ing sheep.

Re:Why do this?

[guardian-ct]

They're talking about blocking the framebuffer from access by anything other than the GPU.

The GPU itself does most of those special effects these days. So it shouldn't have any effect on gaming at all, other than maybe making screenshots more difficult to get.

Anyone want to try making a SVGA port to framebuffer card? Sort of the inverse of a GPU.

Re:Why do this?

[hedora]

On the freedom of religion front, there's also Bush's attempt to withhold AIDS treatment from Africans that have access to abortions, and the faith based initiatives.

The other areas actually look worse. Under Clinton, US radio stations were consolidated into the hands of a few by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Television and newspapers are following. The trend has accelerated, and now the military (now, government) is even writing some of our news for us, and ISPs are lobbying congress so they can control speech online. The NSA has been building up networks to log all IP connections made over the Internet background.

Also, the US just opened a special not-so-secret illegal prison in Indiana for Muslim and middle eastern US citizens suspected of terrorism.

Re:Why do this?

[grumpygrodyguy]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.

Yep, I've been an AMD fan for the last 8 years, the C2D chips have had me on the fence...but reading this has cinched the deal for me. It will be years before I buy another AMD/ATI product for my home PCs...and I've bought at least 10 AMD CPUs in the past 8 years. Note to manufacturers: go with DRM and you will lose your core customers...and that negativity will filter to forums, IRC, word of mouth etc. I don't just buy CPUs for myself, I give advice to dozens of people like my girlfriend, family, friends, etc. because I'm the 'computer guy'. If the 'computer guy' says 'AMD sucks, you'll be much happier with an Intel chip', they listen.

Can AMD screw up any worse?

Re:Why do this?

[BloodyIron]

OEM's will probably be pressured to give priority to DRM-enabled processors such as this. Sell it to the informed? I don't think so!

Re:Why do this?

[aelbric]

I don't know what everyone else will do, but I will personally have made my last AMD purchase if this is true.

Re:Why do this?

[kanani]

Congressman Ellison of Minnesota (a muslim) was sworn in with his hand a Koran, don't see why they wouldn't extend the same courtesy to other religions. Of course if Hillary gets elected they'll be using the Devil's Bibble.

Re:Why do this?

[gnuman99]

No, customers would not go for the unrestricted one. All you need is catchphrases like "AMD, now with DRM technology powering the future of streaming video". You just have to spin it right. Customers are clueless and they think anything that is advertised must be good.

For references, see Skype vs. other SIP VoIP providers. Who has the market share? The DRM stuff because of advertising. Even when one can get better hardware for SIP providers (see Grandstream phones for example).

Or in real life, see politicians. All you have to do is spin your position on something. Like George W. with his promise on cutting spending and living within one's means. The ballooning deficits (trade and fiscal) say otherwise, but still most people would trust George to do a better job than those spend, spend democrats like Clinton.

Spin is where you win customers, not openness.

Re:Why do this?

[hedora]

Ever since the merger, I've wondered what would happen when AMD put GPU's on chip. After all, the GPU's instruction set is secret, but the processor's interface is nice and open. I figured it would go one of two ways. Hopefully, AMD would open up the GPU so people could develop software for their [CG]PU hybrid without going through binary blob compilers or JITs or whatever.

Alternatively, the ATI wing would lock down the CPU and bus infrastructure, and AMD would just give up on seriously serving Linux / BSD / server markets. (Binary blob motherboard / CPU drivers... they're not just a bad idea, they're the LAW.)

Round 1 just ended, and it's AMD 0, ATI 1.

*sigh*

Re:Why do this?

[jZnat]

Well, as a college student without a job right now, I'd have to say that C2D and AFX chips are far too expensive for my tastes, and I'd prefer a lower-performance chip if it meant that it cost less and more importantly preserved my freedom.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you have perfect freedom of religion, it even is so perfect that one religion can be so free to take control of the government and attempt to convert everyone else.

Of course you have almost-perfect freedom of speech, why should you restrict it when you can make everyone look the other way when one speaks up because the media portray it as insignificant or slander and libel anyone who dares to speak so he is unbelievable in the eyes of the public?

Of course nobody needs to restrict freedom of the press when the press voluntarily does the Gleichschaltung itself.

Of course you have freedom from imprisonment without a trial (non-citizens obviously don't matter to you and that according to law even citizens can be deported to Gitmo), there's no need to take away this freedom as one can just make up some vile terrorist plot to accuse someone of - and never mind random arrests at protests.

And in any case there is no need to resist the erosion of your freedoms, it's just all for the best if they go away one after another, because when they are all gone, the terrorists have no more reason to hate you - and it's not as if you have used them, anyway.

Sarcasm aside. Don't just swallow the propaganda that the US is free. Don't be happy that the US is still more free than some totalitarian states. Look around you and weep at the loss of your freedom.

Re:Why do this?

[jZnat]

Which would be more unpalettable to consumers: Not being able to watch their High Definition DVDs on their new laptop, or not being able to save the frame buffer? Most consumers don't care about the latter. And judging by the lackluster sales in HD media, I'd also have to say that most "consumers" don't care about the former either.

Re:Why do this?

[statusbar]

Show me a HDDVD or Blu-Ray disk that has a worthwhile movie on it!

It is no loss to me if my new laptop does not play them. I'd rather use my laptop for content creation not consumption. And I'd rather my laptop not hinder my own content creation abilities.

--jeffk++

Re:Why do this?

[bberens]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. PC hardware has become a lot like the cable television business. Even though you send your check to the cable provider every month you are not the customer. You are the product provided to their advertisers. AMD and Intel need content providers to provide content on their hardware so that you will buy it. PC manufacturers are happy to sell you to their content providers.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone should just buy AMD then. They'll getting cheaper every year now, too...

Re:Why do this?

[devnull17]

Count me in. I'm officially off the AMD bandwagon. I'll be buying Intel from now on, at least until they announce their equivalent product next week.

After that, I have no idea what I'll do. Maybe build a shack in the woods in Montana.

Re:Why do this?

[barrkel]

The rationalization they have is actually for customers, believe it or not. They way they talk, it's "we do this, then Hollywood etc. will put their content on PCs, therefore consumers get extra content". Yes, I know, I swapped customers for consumers, but that's symptomatic of typical contempt for customer education.

It seems to me that the whole DRM thing is a play by MSFT to lock in entertainment in the living room in the same way as APPL has tried to lock in music on portable devices. MSFT wants Hollywood etc. to buy in, and that means making them feel safe, and that in turn means convincing hardware vendors to play along. The hoped-for end result of this play is that MSFT has a new monopoly, protected by both law and technology.

It's also related to their XBox gaming strategy, of course.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy.

AMD's customers are OEMs, who in turn are obliged to do whatever Microsoft (as the controller of the platform) tells them to do. Microsoft, in turn, panders to the content providers.

It's a food chain.

Re:Why do this?

[644bd346996]

I don't think the mods are too far out of line. Yes, civil liberties have been on the decline for more than seven years, but the decline has accelerated recently to the point that it is being noticed by most outsiders. That is a scary line we've crossed.

Re:Why do this?

[devnull17]

Or money. I wouldn't be surprised if they took a big payoff from some content producer to do this. Or maybe got some kind of licensing deal with one of the media standards boards. That would be incredibly slimy, of course. But they're in this for the money, not to benefit their reputation.

Re:Why do this?

[barrkel]

Oops, I meant AAPL of course.

Re:Why do this?

[pseudorand]

1. AMD Chip with DRM: $150
2. Estimated cost of content I consume without paying in 2 years (CPU lifespan): ~$150 (hypothetically, of course)
3. AMD Chip without DRM: $300

Of course, this doesn't take into account the fact that my current Athlon does quite well and I'm perfectly happy extending the chip life to 4 years and simply "acquiring" DRM-free versions of the content I want. If others agree, this simply means lines one and two will decrease as demand declines.

Re:Why do this?

[gad_zuki!]

>Money? Too simplistic somehow.

Umm, of course its money. This is a business not a philosophy. If ATI, Apple, Intel and MS didn't support DRM then there will be a big sticker that says "Cannot play blu-ray content on this computer" which will turn off buyers. This is the price of bluray playback, no conspiracy theories needed.

Re:Why do this?

[devnull17]

That's misleading.

Where did you buy your last car? Let's assume it's a Honda. Did you buy your Honda car from Honda? I'll bet you didn't. Honda doesn't sell to end-users, only to volume customers. You probably bought your car from a local dealership. These companies are Honda's customer, not you. That means for Honda, resellers are the vast majority of their sales.

That doesn't mean Honda doesn't want your business, nor that they don't stand to benefit from it. If people stop buying cars from resellers, Honda stops being able to sell cars to resellers. If you buy an AMD CPU standalone, you're an AMD customer, and it would make sense for them to listen to you.

Re:Why do this?

[Jarnis]

"other than maybe making screenshots more difficult to get."

That would mean the card is DOA for every game reviewer out there. ... and believe me, those guys will make their displeasure *very* well known. The card would be instant DOA among the prime target market (hardcore gamers) once every game and hardware reviewer has panned it for breaking the ability to take screenshots. In fact, hardcore gamers are one reason why Vista is being treated like a disease right now - games have ton of problem with Vista - part of it is immature drivers, part is game code not playing nice with the whole 'no admin access for normal users' thing and part is just general buggyness of Vista, but the end result is the same - early adopter hardcore gamers are telling their friends 'Vista sucks', and the story spreads from end user to end user.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ding ding. You've hit the irony in all this: the cruel, unjust, unfree Chinese government is being pushed by the free, open, amazingly wonderful American government to enforce tighter controls on copyright. I believe that's the sound of the irony train rolling down the track to run us down.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, just remember that the "God" in both of those refer to Bob

Re:Why do this?

[doshell]

Sure it is. It is just saying God, as in a higher being, it isn't promoting any ONE religion.....

I supposed you might bring up the atheist...but, that's not a religion...so, doesn't count.

:-)

Freedom of Religion Freedom FROM Religion

Perhaps you were just trying to be witty, but I find it funny how you attempted to shift the argument by invoking the meaning of a preposition.

It's painfully obvious that "freedom of religion" in any acceptable sense *has* to contemplate one's right to be an atheist. To say the contrary is akin to saying that "freedom of speech" compels everyone to shout their opinions out loud.

You're just pretending you didn't understand what the GP meant while you make up silly grammatical excuses.

Re:Why do this?

[Thirdsin]

So the only reason AMD is doing this is to pander to the content providers I thought DRM was finally slowly dying into oblivion. We are seeing the music industry taking rapid steps away from DRM (horray!). Now i suppose we just need to wait for everyother industry to see consumers hate DRM and follow suit. I wonder how long that is going to take... damnit.

Re:Why do this?

[FrostedChaos]

Having "In God we trust" on currency excludes polytheists.

Don't forget that humanity has been around for about 100,000 years, and for most of that time, "religion" meant some variant of polytheism.

Re:Why do this?

[JohnFluxx]

What about a religion with no God?(Buddism) or multiple Gods? Or even a religion with Gods you don't like and don't trust? (Many Pagan Gods)

Re:Why do this?

[couchslug]

"They're taking a very big gamble on their customer base, who, traditionally I would wager are the more technically minded type than the average intel customer. People who are more likely to object to this kind of thing."

Which is why we should raise a stink. Customer loyalty among fans kept AMD going in the enthusiast market, and they defecate on users like this?

Re:Why do this?

[violet16]

AMD is coming out with some super awesome new AMD MegaLIVE!++ media PC that will automagically buy and download every movie and TV show they ever wanted to watch, and will let them listen to music and watch movies everywhere they go, and it will cure cancer, stop global warming, end our dependence on foreign oil, and bring about world peace.

Yeah, but does it run Linux?

Re:Why do this?

[springbox]

I was under the impression that Nvidia's cards were still well ahead of ATI's stuff in terms of price, performance, and quality (mostly concerning the drivers.) At least that's what I'm seeing after reading a bunch of reviews for different generations of fairly recent graphics cards.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion.

Furthermore, having an official Pledge of Allegiance is not freedom at all.

Re:Why do this?

[robbiethefett]

ok, check it out.. the media is abuzz with next-gen hd media being cracked. the content providers know damn well the physical limitations of drm schemes.. so now you have AMD, a company who's market share is more than just slip sliding away, making a desperate bid to gain the good graces of our media overlords by allowing drm to be even more hard-coded into PCs. AMD arent stupid.. they know that if they want to hold on to their slice of the pie, they need a niche, and they need to hold onto that niche. the current generation of amd cpus no longer offer top-shelf computing power at bottom-shelf prices, so they are being smart and dynamic and adjusting their business model to cater to another crowd. what does this mean for Joe Consumer? simply that his Dell media center PC is going to have AMD under the hood instead of a core 2. really, thats about it.. (well, other than he payed $600 more than it's worth, and it came pre-loaded with bloatware.) i know DRM is an issue /. folks like to get all worked up about, but this doesnt mean AMD is going to sneak into your house at night and wreck up the joint..

Re:Why do this?

[cswiger]

You are right up there with the GNU folk when they say "To release a non-free program is always ethically tainted." Which ethics demand that other people consult you and design their product to your wants before offering it for sale when you may not even buy it?

None whatsoever. You've responded to the grandparent, but your response veers in an entirely different path than the original point.

While there are a few people who believe that non-free programs are always tainted, and RMS probably leads that list-- there are plenty of people writing GPL'ed software who also do commercial/proprietary development from time to time, or even every day as a part of their normal job. I don't see anything wrong with someone writing and selling software if they and their customers agree, so long as they don't try to prevent other people from writing free software which can do similar things.

To get back to the original point, if you own a machine, it's yours and you have the right to control what it does, what software runs on it, and so forth. If you want to run proprietary software, free software, or some combination of both, that's entirely up to you. The problem comes when proprietary software tries to prevent you from controlling what your machine does, ie by installing malicious software which cannot be easily deleted, or which runs and does things you don't want the software to do (ie, send out spam, display pop-up ads, prevent you from burning CD's [think StarForce], etc).

Re:Why do this?

[westlake]

They know there's no benefit to the public for DRM, so what's their business benefit in doing this?

Sales.

The 50 GB optical drive.

The wide-screen monitor. The HDTV. DTS Audio. Windows Home Server. The portable video player.

Buyers will want - they will expect - to play protected HD media on their computers. Out of the box. So much the better if they can with one click save HD video to their hard drives or download low-res copies for play on their iPod.

Microsoft understands this. Apple understands this. Walmart understands this. Which is why OEM Linux makes a quick exit from big box retail.

Re:Why do this?

[Brad Eleven]

AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy.

For sure they aren't doing it to make us happy. You and I know that the content providers aren't their customers, but they must be getting something substantially gratuitous in return. Kind of like the way that many supermarkets get part of their profits from product placement, even agreements not to carry competitors' products. The subtle difference between this scheme and that of commercial media--where the customers are the advertisers--is left as an exercise to the reader.

Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.

Right, I agree again, but ... AMD just announced drastic reductions in prices for X2 processors.

Re:Why do this?

[westlake]

as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD start to implement stuff like this, a market for Via processors and more off the wall graphics ships like S3 and Trident will open up amongst the hacker/enthusiast community.

The consumer market is really, really big.

The hobbyist market is really, really small. Difficult and expensive to service.

OEMs don't manfacture product for the american market that can't be sold in the american market, whether the barriers are legal or economic doesn't in the end make much difference.

The geek can turn his back on the first generation Blu-Ray drive at $800.

But when the price of the 50GB optical drive drops to $90 that underpowered CPU, incompatible motherboard, and no-name video card begins to look like a piss-poor investment.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of people delude themselves into thinking ATI is an option.

Re:Why do this?

[mdhoover]

No need to clone Sparc, Its open hardware nowadays... you can download the VHDL and whack it on an FPGA...

Re:Why do this?

[SanityInAnarchy]

At least half of them will probably say "Why would I want to do that?".

That depends.

First, the obvious ones. They own iPods, some own video iPods. Explain to them how DRM makes it illegal to put a DVD they bought onto their iPod. (Or PSP. Or cell phone.) Explain how this chip will make it not only illegal, but impossible.

Next, point to one DRM annoyance that everyone has experienced, at some point or another: You pop in a DVD, it immediately starts playing some previews, you hit "fastforward" or "next" or "menu", and it tells you "This button has been disabled by the disc."

The simplest way to demonstrate that is to put it on a computer -- on a Windows PC or a Mac -- and show VLC next to real DVD players. Show how with VLC, if you don't like the ad (especially those "you filthy pirate you" ads), you push "next", and it doesn't even ask if you're sure, it simply ignores what the disc wants you to do.

Now they're listening. So, now you can explain about region codes, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD blacklisting, this new anti-screenshot bullshit, and the Sony Rootkit."

Blacklisting is especially fun. Explain to them how, for no apparent reason, they might one day pop in a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD that would cause their player to self-destruct, or at least disable itself till you get an update. This will be hard for them to believe, but they will be listening now.

So, to the first approach, you might get a few "Why would I want to do that?" responses. To the second, they're going to get pissed, and they're going to care. And they're probably still going to buy exactly what they wanted to buy, but at least now they know about it, so when you have a reasonable alternative, they'll listen (emusic/mindawn/magnatune and un-DRM'd iTunes vs iTunes/napster/Zune)

Re:Why do this?

[MBGMorden]

The hobbyist market is really, really small. Difficult and expensive to service. Indeed, but if you look hard enough there are still addons and hardware coming out for the COMMODORE 64! Mod chips for every console that can be modded are made in mass numbers. Satellite TV receivers's have all sorts of goodies to decode the signal without paying. Trust me. Where there's a market for specialty hardware, there will be products made. They'll cost more, but they will be there.

You see there is a whole community of people who don't want their computers locked down. That's a large driving force behind things like Linux. Those users WILL seek out the hardware that doesn't lock them down, and it will work as well on Linux as any other hardware because the source is open, and the community can tailor the OS to work well with that "no name video card".

Re:Why do this?

[oyenstikker]

"The problem comes when proprietary software tries to prevent you from controlling what your machine does. . ."

You bought and installed the proprietary software willingly. If you don't like what it does, don't buy it and install it.

If the software in question says it does one thing and does another, that is a whole different issue of lying and false advertising.

Re:Why do this?

[fourchannel]

i know DRM is an issue /. folks like to get all worked up about, but this doesnt mean AMD is going to sneak into your house at night and wreck up the joint. No, not tonight, nor tommorrow. But how about in 5 years? If the general public is completely unaware of what DRM even is (likely), or better yet, unaware of the various flavors of "trusted computing" (most certainly), then they will go ahead and buy that new computer from Dell. When they try to copy a DRM'd source, and can't, who can they turn to for help? Dell. Is Dell the only source of computer knowledge? For them, I suspect that they would think it is.

Will this be the end of the commonly held belief that you can copy discs/songs/whatever, if the only place where the extremely computer illiterate masses can go is Dell? Yes. 5 years from now, the only choices of quality chips are shipped with "trusted computing" already built in. It got this way because millions of unaware people threw their wallets at Microsoft, Dell, and the MPAA -- who probably will not announce this to the masses, or advertise it as a new "feature". It does not matter if you don't plan on buying it now, but if you want to upgrade your computer someday, then say hello to a big steaming shitpile of 1984.

This is why it is important to address the issue now.

Re:Why do this?

[robbiethefett]

yea, and huge hovering robots will roam the earth in extermination teams to get rid of the last few human strongholds.. sorry.. not gonna happen. tinfoil hats aside, the current market climate and legal climates will prevent this from ever growing up into a big scary monster. hell, microsoft is having a hard time getting vista to grow up into a big snarling dog, let alone a monster.

Re:Why do this?

[devnull17]

But who are they catering to? The content producers certainly don't buy a sufficient number of CPU's to justify this change.

The most plausible explanation that I've heard is that Vista pretty much requires this level of compliance, or it'll just act like your hardware is broken. Which, of course, will end up getting blamed on the manufacturer, whether or not it's their fault.

And our fair use rights are clearly slipping away. I agree that it won't be the end of the world if I can no longer make backup copies, but it will still suck. It's only going to get harder to fight to protect our rights as they start to disappear. If people are going to stand up for this, the best time to do it is now.

Re:Why do this?

[fourchannel]

First off, Microsoft makes the OS, which can be hacked. So their efforts to make vista drm secure are undone due to the plastic nature of software. AMD is a hardware manufacturer, and should they put a limitation on the hardware, then, extreme effort asside, it will no longer be possible to circumvent drm, which will then make vista into a real bitch. So these things compound themselves once AMD places unmovable ground upon which drm will rest.

No, I don't think this problem will manifest itself in the form of some kind of apocalypse. But looking at what has happened, I am close to surrenduring my hopes in people to recognize antithetical "progress" in the form of computing technology. I do not resign my beliefs in people's good intentions though, but what isn't apparent or understood, is not readily objected to. This is the general public's nature. There is no blame nor attribution; it is simply the nature of any mass uncoordinated system. So I do think that this will go largely unprotested by the general public. You and I understand what this means, and I believe we both share a distaste for DRM -- and so it is up to people like us to recognize, avert, and warn whom and whatever when we see these things.

It is when we do nothing about it now, and left unadulterated, that one more freedom we enjoy starts fading into the dark. For a parallel, Disney has turned copyright into a terminal plague, ideas are not spread amongst the populace, there is legalistic locktight in the gears of society. Stagnation is evident, though not consolidated. Terminal, in the sense, that you and I will likely die before we are unrestricted to build off any idea that was published during our early childhood and forwards. And to what purpose is Shakespeare copyrighted? That who was responsible for any truely passionate creation, I'm sure of, views its lucritive side as an afterthought. Why does someone get to claim an idea first, and then prevent the rest of us (now), from utilizing it? Wait 75 years and let our grandkids use it? Why not now, or 3 years max? Can't we all realize that all of humanity needs to work together to better life around the world. It is futile to work individually, and due to its very nature, is the result of copyright law. That person, who had an idea, gets to exploit people for money, and take it to the grave. I don't have a problem with someone wanting to be able to make money off of their creation. The problem rests with the impossibility of others to take parts of it and, in turn, create even more. This will ultimately get us nowhere. The end of this world will not be marked by the rain of fire, but the slow rise of a beaurocratic sea of inhumanity.

This is my point -- our society has veered far from an actual path of enlightenment. Of course it can't be fixed in a day, but we should change our focus from capitalization and profit, to enriching the global quality of life. This trusted computing bullshit is an insulting slap in the face of what great and capable beings we could be.

Also, would you mind further explaining your point on the current market and legal climates? I'm not saying you don't have a point -- it's just that I don't understand your angle.

Re:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently tried to build a "router" from one of those via chip/motherboards ...

I returned it because, despite paying 180 for a motherboard/combo thats inferior to a p3, it came with Macrovision.

What point were you trying to make?

Re:Why do this?

[robbiethefett]

i didnt mean to imply that AMD was literally selling chips to the content providers.. what i meant was that AMD creates the chips, and once they exist, the content providers put heavy force on the OEMs like dell and HP to put those chips in PCs. pretend you produced a device that could detect and disarm any car bombs within a 1 mile radius. then pretend that the US uses it's political power to force several countries in a region to purchase the device. ok, thats not really an outstanding, or particularly realistic analogy, but you get the idea, right? sorry, i'm on pain meds after dental surgery and it's making me quite useless.

Re:Why do this?

[bigpicture]

Via make low power (green) CPU chips, and HP is putting them in their PCs sold in China. We do have choice, and with China's stance on all the copy protection hoopla, I don't see Via putting this in their chips any time soon.

Re:Why do this?

[acheslow]

The competition is not between AMD/Intel, HP/Dell, or MSFT/Linux. The competition is between PC and CE. The PC industry will do what they perceive as necessary to bring "premium" content into PCs so that they remain relevant. At the same time, everyone is trying to get into the CE space to hedge their bets, but most of these companies are still trying to protect their cash cows.

AMD.

[AltGrendel]

I've never used AMD, just Intel.

Now I have another reason (other than processor heat) to stay away from AMD.

Re:AMD.

[MetalliQaZ]

If you don't think Intel is going to jump on the DRM bandwagon, you are sadly mistaken.

-d

Re:AMD.

[LWATCDR]

"Now I have another reason (other than processor heat) to stay away from AMD."
So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo.
AMD isn't known for making hot running chips Intel is. I also guess you haven't heard about Intel's trusted platform...
Plus this is just a rumor.

Man you can jump high enough to reach any conclusion you want too.

Re:AMD.

[Anonymous Coward]

You might just be joking, but... Intel is already doing DRM. They're building the features required for TCPA into CPUs now.

This is a non-story really, because this is called "curtained memory", and it is a part of the TCPA specification. TCPA hypervisors can prevent programs accessing memory at a level that you, the user, cannot circumvent. At least, not without breaking the "trusted" nature of your system and stopping some applications from executing.

Given AMD's commitment to TCPA, shared with Intel, ARM, MIPS, IBM and most other processor manufacturers, it is no surprise that they are allowing the GPU memory to be curtained. Your next CPU is defective by design.

Re:AMD.

[Cythrawl]

Do I need to start posting links to articles that show that AMD have less heat than Intel and have done since the AMD64 was released?

The heat argument died when the AthlonXP did which was the biggest culprit of heat. Just running that chip without a heatsink properly seated would burn the chip (seen it personally).

Please do some fecking research before posting crap dated arguments that mean nothing you troll, thanks..

Re:AMD.

[Lumpy]

exactly. I'm using a Latitude 131L now witht he turion64X2 in it and it kicks the crap out of the Intel based laptops in the same range. I get far more battery life than the equal D620 series ordered at the same time. Plus after I uninstalled Vista and upgraded to XP It's faster than the vista laptop.

Re:AMD.

[LuxMaker]

"curtained memory" == Nothing too see here. Move along.

Re:AMD.

[Technician]

So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo.

I'm not the guy you are replying to, but since the shoe fits..

I'm replying on a P-III 1 GHZ machine right now. I did build another machine using a P4 chip, but I built it for my kids. I didn't want to disrupt my current install.

After they trashed Windows 98 SE twice (budget box, used a legal retail copy I had here) I put Ubuntu on it. Other than a 5 month wait for Flash 9 the kids had no complaints. It worked so well, I put Ubuntu on an old laptop and then I partitioned the drive on this machine and put on Ubuntu. I almost never boot into the Windows partition any more.

A couple months ago I picked up an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700. I'm waiting for the tax refund to build a nice Linux Media Center Edition box with it. Needless to say, anything not compatible with it will be a hard sell.

Yes, I do vote with my wallet.

If more people did, then the industry would figure out what product they need to provide to sell the content. Keep up the anti-DRM fight.

Part of the fight is public education. That is why I mention the Kalidascope decision to friends (possible precident setting case for the home private use ripping of DVD's). I also mention problems I've had with DRM such as the SONY release of Open Season. They know why I'm not buying any more of their titles. So does much of Slashdot.

Re:AMD.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the TPM will be disabled in every kernel I ever build even if I have to hack the hardware to disable it. The choices are 1. TPM disabled or 2. go without any computing device. So I don't see how this is relevant?

Re:AMD.

[orangesquid]

Everybody is jumping on the DRM bandwagon to some extent. If they don't, the big media companies will shun them, and they'll lose a lot of potential market.

The part that worries me most about DRM is that I don't see any point at which it can stop (the slippery-slope problem). For example---what if we could imprint an experience upon your nervous system via EM fields? That closes the "analog hole"---the content goes straight from the media to the brain. (You can argue that the reverse process could be used to hijack the data stream: in short, a highly-advanced brain scanner (which of course would be illegal to own under some futuristic DMCA).) Another idea: we don't want people to have the potential to infringe on intellectual property, so we design movies to have a hypnotic effect that causes mild amnesia; you can't remember all the parts of the plot, but you remember loving the film. So, you pay to see it again and again...

I'm not trying to troll. I'm just scared, in a I-just-read-1984 kind-of way.

My examples above aren't too far-fetched. We can already beam picturesbeam an image straight into someone's retina, and there was a recent slashdot article about audio transmission through bone. Highly selective amnesia through hypnosis is possible, so there's a real possibility that, in the future, you will love a movie but not quite remember how it goes, so you will have to see it again (and again.. and again... and again...)

Re:AMD.

[onedobb]

"Your next CPU is defective by design."

Our current CPU's are defective by design. Do a little research on the X86 platform. Or for the old school computer guys the 486 SX, and DX processors.

Re:AMD.

[discord5]

Now I have another reason (other than processor heat) to stay away from AMD.

Enjoy your viiv, fanboy :)

Re:AMD.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess he hit a hot spot on you... ;)
Actually AMD were known for making hot chips before 130nm P4s.

Re:AMD.

[LWATCDR]

"So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo."
That was because he said he always used Intel and now had another reason not to use AMD besides heat. The P4 line of CPUs where great space heaters compared to the AMD64s. The P3 was a good chip as far as speed to heat the P4 sucked.

I am all for not buying DRM but.
1. Intel has their trusted platform with DRM and has not given the full hardware specs of their graphic chips to the FOSS community to protect DRM video playback. To be fair they have give more details then ATI and nVidia.
2. This is a rumor. Not unlike the Novell and cleartype junk. If AMD does DRM their video chips and Intel doesn't I too will be an Intel convert but again this is a rumor.
3. My feeling on DRM is simply this. I think if you DRM material you shouldn't get any legal copyright protection. Their are laws to prevent copying and the idea of copyrights is after a reasonable amount of time these materials become public domain. If you DRM it then it can not be preserved for the future so I feel that you then should get no legal protection. So take your pick protect yourself or have the force of law to protect you. And yes I hate the extensions of copyright. It is just wrong.

Re:AMD.

[codemachine]

Yeah, but back in the "race to 1GHz" days, the only way the AMD Thunderbirds were keeping up to the P3 chips were by pumping out absurd abounts of heat. Especially around the time of the 1.2GHz Thunderbird and such. But the AMD chips did generally get better performance for much less money, if you didn't mind the space heater.

Then Intel came out with P4. What a mistake that was. Now you could get an Intel space heater that performed worse per clock cycle for more money than the AMD chips. Not a surprise that AMD started to get serious attention at that point, and further hype when they got x86_64 and hypertransport out the door while Intel was still riding Itanic.

The Core architecture certainly has helped Intel regain some respect, and finally both companies are ending the stupidity that involved cranking up the heat, power consumption, and GHz.

Your point that staying away from AMD for DRM reasons makes no sense is still valid though - Intel talked about "trusted computing" earlier and more often than AMD. I'm not sure that either of them are the bad guys in this battle though.

Re:AMD.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do that then your ISP won't let you on the internet, read up on Trusted Network Connect.

Bread & Circuses

[grub]

The drooling masses will eat up the slop fed to them so they can watch their DRM'd BluRay edition of Friends and Threes Company.

Re:Bread & Circuses

[Hoi Polloi]

[Sung to the tune of "Three's Company"]

"Come and buy our crap,"
"we're now shilling to you"
"Where the rights are only ours and ours and ours,"
"we're now a DRM company too!"

Re:Bread & Circuses

[zotz]

Dude! I ca nget Threes Company on BluRay? Where do I sign up?

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zotzbro

Re:Bread & Circuses

[Gr8Apes]

Hopefully the horribly large visible imperfections in those close face shots will make the drool either stop or exponentially increase solving the problem either way.

Re:Bread & Circuses

[mbourgon]

That's a bit harsh to compare them to those drooling fools, isn't it? I mean, Jack _was_ living with 2 women simultaneously...

Re:Bread & Circuses

[johnny cashed]

Isn't a DRM'd edition of Friends preferable to a non-DRM'd version? I would like to see that show locked up as tight as possible.

Re:Bread & Circuses

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, think about those hi-res closeups of Susan Summer's erect nipples.

Re:Bread & Circuses

[Hoi Polloi]

It's times like this I wish I had mod points to give out.

Someone please tell me why that show is supposed to be funny? I tried to watch it once, really I tried.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Guess what I'm not buying anytime soon?

[1mck]

I'll give you 3 guesses, and the first 2 don't count! You've got be kidding me!!! It's none of their business what the hell I've got on my computer! If I don't use any of their newer formats for DVD's does that mean they won't be trying to find out what's on my computer? This is going to be the fastest way for a format to die, and die quick, and also for their company to start losing money real fast!

Re:Guess what I'm not buying anytime soon?

[Dextrously]

I'll throw my lot in with you. If this actually is true, and they go through with it, I will not buy it. At this point I would say that Vista and AMD have something in common. I mean other than DRM. ;P Vista and AMD will both have a selling point (vista's security and amd's "drm enhancement") end up being a *huge* consideration by the consumer. Although, it might be possible to use a move like this to force most consumers to take a step back from the industry while AMD isn't doing so hot. After they catch up on technology, maybe they'll remove the DRM to get attention back on themselves again? I'm just throwing ideas out there. *puts on his tin foil hat*

Re:Guess what I'm not buying anytime soon?

[nurb432]

Its not your computer any more, You are just leasing the right to use their software.

Re:Guess what I'm not buying anytime soon?

[Wyzard]

This has nothing to do with enabling AMD or anyone else to spy on what's on your monitor. It's just to prevent you, the user, from taking unauthorized screenshots while copyrighted content is being displayed.

print screen?

[mastershake_phd]

The print screen button already doesnt work for video most of the time in windows. You just get black where the video is suppose to be.

Re:print screen?

[gnasher719]

'' The print screen button already doesnt work for video most of the time in windows. You just get black where the video is suppose to be. ''

Quite likely because it is an overlay and not the screen buffer.

Re:print screen?

[SighKoPath]

Disable hardware acceleration of video, and you'll get your printed screens just fine.

Re:print screen?

[brunascle]

you can often get that to work by turning off hardware video acceleration (i forget how in windows). it wont looks as good, and will take up a lot of CPU, but you can capture it like the rest of your screen.

Re:print screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always had a problem where I get the black square on my tv screen when trying to watch a movie using video out. iTunes is the only video player I've found that works, but it doesn't play all formats. I'll give this a try and see if it does it.

Thanks.

Re:print screen?

[ajs318]

That's because your application is writing directly to the graphics card's (hardware) frame buffer, not going via the Xorg (software) frame buffer. Ironically, closed-source players (which can't access the hardware frame buffer) are entirely visible to XScreenshot and co.

Re:print screen?

[crabpeople]

If your using media player classic, simply set the playback output to VMR9 renderless.

AMD stock price

[snarkasaurus]

I bought AMD and Intel recently, when their stock bottomed out. Possibly AMD has farther south to go if they are going to pull this kind of crap. Maybe I'll sell it and buy more Intel.

Hey, AMD guys! People are not going to buy cripleware. Build the good stuff, or prepare to go out of business.

Re:AMD stock price

[nasch]

Hey, AMD guys! People are not going to buy cripleware. Build the good stuff, or prepare to go out of business.

If nobody is selling anything but crippleware, guess what people are gonna buy? Intel will be just as DRMed as AMD. Maybe not both at the same time, but it's going to happen. Cost of entry to this market is so steep that we cannot count on another player entering it with uncrippled chipsets either. So what do we do? Seriously. The only options I see are to grit teeth and buy crippled hardware, or keep your old stuff and hope it lasts longer than this DRM insanity. And the likelihood of the latter happening this century is obviously up for debate.

Re:AMD stock price

[snarkasaurus]

The pessimist in me fears you may be right.

But then, is Windows Vista selling? Nuh uh. People aren't buying the crap, lots of people are looking hard at alternatives. Mickeysoft stock is declining. That's super bad for them, because they make a good chunk of profit every year from manipulating their own stock.

Intel, AMD, Nvidia etc., these guys lay out HUGE money to design a processor. If AMD comes out with their next generation and the sales suck because of DRM, they will take a huge beating. Their stock is $13.75 or so right now, if it goes much lower they are going to be in some serious shit.

Bottom line, if you buy a computer for fun and it isn't any because of goofy DRM, will you buy another? Nope. You'll buy a console, or a Wii, or hell, maybe a boat.

It's just a rumor right now.

[solafide]

If they go through with this, I'm selling my AMD stock. However, I'm waiting till we hear a press release, because right now this is a rumor: "Person said that person said that AMD would help DRM this way".

Re:It's just a rumor right now.

[hal2814]

I like your style. Buy high, sell low.

Re:It's just a rumor right now.

[solafide]

There's no good reason that AMD should be 13 dollars except that people are pessimistic about them. I'm confident in the superiority of AMD, but DRM would be one too many missteps. Buying ATI was one mistake, DRM will be too far.

Yes, I've lost night on 40% of my investment in AMD.

Re:It's just a rumor right now.

[Technician]

If they go through with this, I'm selling my AMD stock.

Are you on a buy high sell low kick? Unless you just bought the stock, you couldn't pick a lower price to sell unless they go bust. Have you seen the chart for the last year? Might as well hang on much like those hanging on to SCO stock. AMD has a better chance of recovery than SCO.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AMD&t=1y&l=off&z=m &q=l&c=AAPL

I would much rather have Apple stock over the same time. AMD is less than half it's value a year ago. How long have you had AMD stock? If you bought a year and a half ago, you should be in tears by now.

Re:It's just a rumor right now.

[Knara]

At this point, it can only increase their stock price.

There's also the matter that selling the stock only indirectly effects the company. Unless you've got a significant number of shares (in which case, why are you on slashdot and not having sex with hot Jamaican girlfriend #7 on the beach?), AMD doesn't really care that you're selling their stock (unless everyone else is).

Great

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So where do we go for our chips now?

I was looking at getting AMD since Intel are doing this shit, but now AMD joined the band wagon how exactly are we ment to get DRM free hardware these days?

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

You could always try VIA I guess.

Re:Great

[TheSunborn]

The same 2 companies we have always got our cpus from.
Just don't run DRM enabled software. Remember the 'you can't access the framebuffer' can be set/unset in software, so just don't run any DRM enabled operation system.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

so just don't run any DRM enabled operation system.

Yeah, like ... Linux.
(Not trolling, DRM support has been in the kernel for quite some time, and no I don't mean this DRM.)

Re:Hm

[aadvancedGIR]

Since they bought ATI, they are really short on cash, so maybe their idea was simply to do whatever is needed to avoid a big suit for a while.

Weird

[91degrees]

So, they think they can increase sales of their processor by reducing its utility to the customer, and increasing its utility to someone else entirely; effectively giving a component of the CPU to someone else?

How many other devices are marketted on intagible potential benfits?

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowadays you (the customer) are not supposed to do what you like with your computer.
You're supposed to run Windows Vista, work with Microsoft Office, only play games you download via "great" content delivery services like Steam, watch movies in formats and ways major Movie Studios want you to watch them, program exclusively with Visual Studio .NET and preferably in C#, design websites so they work in Internet Explorer, use Google as soon as you start your browser and so on...

There's a reason why stuff like the Free Software Movement exists.
What you can do is to
1. NOT buy or use software and hardware that restrict your freedom of what you can do with the things YOU own and
2. educate others ("Joe User") why they shouldn't buy or use certain software and hardware.

- pflakes

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that a little simplistic? The crippled hardware will have the attractive feature of BlueRay video playback, something that consumers will certainly pay for.

Re:Weird

[Technician]

How many other devices are marketted on intagible potential benfits?

Umm have you taken a marketing class? You market the benifits.

Our new wizbang product plays high def movies. It worked for SONY and Microsoft. They both sold a bunch of next gen Hi Def DVD players for their game consoles. One was included, the other was an accessory. Both sold on features marketed, not on the included DRM.

Re:Weird

[91degrees]

Can't you get blu-ray players for non-crippled hardware?

Pointless

[Wienaren]

This will either be dead-slow (drivers need read-access for some graphics operations, since hardware can't accelerate everything) or moot (smells like needing a shadow frame buffer for current OS implementations). Either way, I'll give it a week before work-arounds exist.

Re:Pointless

[brunascle]

Either way, I'll give it a week before work-arounds exist.

quick! someone invent a camcorder!

Re:Pointless

[TheRaven64]

It's a bit pointless since render-to-texture came along. Instead of outputting the data to the frame buffer, you'll render it to a texture and then grab it from there.

Re:Pointless

[ifrag]

So if some 'trusted' drivers have read-access to it, then a workaround will be simply based around how that driver gets it's data out. Seems like it's gonna have to be hardwired to not allow it to have any chance at not being broken quickly.

What about making a software emulated video card driver? That sounds like more work than it's worth though.

Didn't these people ever watch Star Wars?

[Stachybotris]

Because the more they tighten their grasp, the more users will slip through their fingers...

Re:Didn't these people ever watch Star Wars?

[wild_berry]

They're in cahoots with George Lucas. In the next edition he releases, that line's edited to say "Better technical prevention measures will prevent Star Systems from slipping through our fingers".

Re:Didn't these people ever watch Star Wars?

[Opportunist]

Does that still make sense then?

Then again, what sense does it make for a bounty hunter to shoot a guy has to bring back alive...

Derrr

[Zigurd]

You have to wonder what management is thinking: On the heels of having to announce that AMD must go back to competing based on significantly lower prices because they have lost a performance advantage, they announce a new DRM technology that subtracts value from their products. Derrr.

Re:Derrr

[Mornedhel]

they announce a new DRM technology that subtracts value from their products. Derrr. Well, from their point of view, it doesn't...

Re:Derrr

[dreamchaser]

They were thinking that 99% of their customers will read this as saying 'AMD Graphics Cards enable next generation Blu-Ray High Definition Movies on your PC!' and don't even know what DRM is.

Abstract of article

[Bearhouse]

From the article: '...ATI's new GPU ... will ship with software that plays movies on Blu-ray discs. The AMD rep ... said that the new chips will "block unauthorized access to the frame buffer." In short, that means an unauthorized party can't save the contents of the display to a file on disk unless the content owner approves it.' Looks like things are going the same (unhappy) way that the HD-TV did. The web's full of dire stories about people suffering from IBM (Incompatible Bits of Machinery) - most of it shiny new and very expensive. Imagine Vista on this... *shudders* How long after release before DVD-Jon or someone else breaks this? Not long. It's just piss of the legit, non-expert user, like most DRM.

Last straw

[orclevegam]

I used to really like AMD. They were the under-dog, they made CPUs that didn't require a massive heatsink just to run at the normal clock speed without frying, and they actually had a rather nice 64 bit CPU. That being said, there latest acquisition of ATI, who I refuse to buy any products from after the last couple I had kept glitching, and then I couldn't get updated drives for because the website you downloaded them from kept redirecting back to ATIs homepage, and now this boneheaded move, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go Intel. They've also been having issues competing on the high end market, and lately the heatsinks on there CPUs have gotten just as bad if not worse than those of Intel. I'm sorry for AMD, I really wanted to like them, but they made one goof to many.

Re:Last straw

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? My AMD K6-2 350 MHz w/ 3dnow! overheated regularly. As did the K7 733 MHz. My Intel Celeron (Mendocino) 467 MHz OTOH doesn't even need a cooler in summer, when the temperature approaches 40 degrees (infact, my hard drive* is much more likely to run into problems).

*Speaking about legacy hardware, it's a Quantum Bigfoot TX4.0AT, 4GB :) The "Bigfoot" in the name means it's in a 5.25" form factor.

Grammar tip of the day: if you can replace the noun you're talking about by a "him"/"her"/..., you should say "whom", as in "That being said, their latest acquisition of ATI, whom I refuse [...]". Heh, I guess the other mistakes are too obvious ... Sorry, just my Anime-QC'ing shining through ^____^

Yeah, anyway. No matter what we might think, I don't think that consumers care about frame buffers much, to be honest.

workaround

[physicsboy500]

Gosh, nobody has EVER been able to break DRM schemes...

whatever shall we do?!?

The only funny thing here...

[bealzabobs_youruncle]

is how many people thought AMD would abstain from DRM technology and that they were some how the "good guys" in all of this. Big business pwns all over mainstream society without their knowledge and often with their consent. You really have 2 choices, enjoy the content or ignore it?

again, seriously - so?

[dAzED1]

I've personally been boycotting the RIAA for 10 years now due to their shenanigans, and I've been tight with MPA. That being said, there's life outside of watching a farkin movie for free on your computer. No, seriously.

All this "fair use" is silly; it'll still be easy to copy the disk, so that's not the issue. The issue is just that if someone wants to try to restrict who can watch their video, esp one online, they'll have more tools to do that.

I've been a contributor to FOSS for 13 years now, and I'm just as anti-capitalism as the next guy if not more (no, seriously), but things should be open because the creators want them to be, not because you take it from them. If we're going to go the violent revolution route, lots of you folks are going to have to start working out a bit, and stepping away from the cheetos.

Re:again, seriously - so?

[EvilMaus]

Because this is yet another instance in which the drive to restrict copying and improve DRM is hampering the use of the hardware for other, non-related purposes. It's a fairly established pattern now that whenever a new restriction comes along to "protect" content, something unrelated is taken as a casualty.

Re:again, seriously - so?

[dAzED1]

so if they don't succeed with minimal tools, because such just gets circumvented within hours, they should just give up?

Personally, I'd like to see really strict requirements that the MPA and RIAA require to be able to play their crap. Then, I'd like to have the option to not be able to play their crap. Unfortunately, no mass-producer of PCs will put out something that can't play movies or music cds. Which means, Intel and AMD won't produce processors that don't have the restrictive crap.

I could always get cells or something, I guess...

Re:again, seriously - so?

[rolfwind]

This has little to do with watching pirated movies for free on my computer.

It's about who controls my computer - I or some random 3rd party. (Since I run Linux, I'm pretty sure I do on all major levels). I'm pretty sure I don't want random 3rd parties to control my computer, especially as it becomes a security nightmare.

While you are anti-capitalist, I am pro-capitalist but only to the extent that companies can and should not infringe on the rights of people. If that means that they can't bear the burden of piracy without restricting others, you know what, get out of that business and start doing something else completely like construction (no piracy there, I'm sure). No one is forcing the movie studios to make their shitty movies.

Instead, they bribe politicians to pass shit like the DMCA. The DMCA basically states you can't do what you want to with what you paid for and own in the privacy of your own home. I believe that a basic principle has beenn violated here and if AMD goes this route without offering consumers a choice, I avoid their products and tell everyone else to do so as well.

Yes, it has uses in the corporation. But not my home. I don't care how much the content providers whine. Fuck them. This punishes only the people who have legit copies, as they have always done, while the pirate can sit back, laugh, and enjoy the product without restrictions.

Have no fear.

[igotmybfg]

History is littered with the remnants of "unbreakable" restriction/protection/encryption schemes; it's just a matter of time. Consider, for example, Van Eck Phreaking (which may provoke some sort of black market for CRTs?). And anyway, the Luddite in me would say that we got along for x thousand (million?) years without movies. Maybe it made living in the moment that much richer.

Re:Have no fear.

[wirelessbuzzers]

I haven't seen any demos of it, but my impression was that Van Eck Phreaking has terrible, terrible quality. You'd be much better off pointing a camera at the display, since you don't really have to be covert here.

Also, restricted content probably won't play on standard CRTs; it'll require some kind of HDMI nastiness, that'll mostly (if not exclusively) be implemented on LCDs.

Time to Look Overseas

[dethndrek]

If this trend continues and Western technology companies continue to pander to DRM and other silly schemes to prevent us from the freedom to use our computers, it's only a matter of time before cheap, powerful, and open Eastern manufacturers (read Chinese manufacturers) gain marketshare in the U.S. and elsewhere. The Chinese are already experimenting with their own CPUs (see http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/10/18/HNintell audschina_1.html) and will no doubt be happy to increase their revenues.

Re:Time to Look Overseas

[Anonymous Coward]

That's totally true.

Western entertainment copyright holding companies have been very strong lobbying legislation, they are using all available legal venues and strong-arm hardware manufacturers, now even the largest CPU makers.

The interest of a limited business group (western entertainment industry) may put in danger Western high-tech, like CPU manufacturing on a longer run.

China and other parts of the world have no interest to protect or help to extend the protection of Western entertainment industry copy rights. They are technologically becoming able to produce competing products and a solid segment of their customer base could be Western customers, who feel abandoned, betrayed and sold-out by Western hardware/software companies, which seem to go to any extent to gang up with the Western entertainment industry, on the expense of the actual customers.

What might happen down the road, in the not-so-distant future, is that Western economies will loose their cutting edge technologies and products in return of protecting the Western entertainment industry.

No matter how big the Western entertainment industry is, the Western economy would be completely foolish to risk loosing its position in key high tech industries.

from MPAA to DELL

[way2trivial]

would you like to sell hardware with blu-ray or HDDVD licensed drives?
consumers WANT to play blu-ray and HDDVD's on their home pc's
business users WANT to back up 50gb of data on a optical disc

if you DON'T help us protect the content, you won't be able to purchase drives.

Re:from MPAA to DELL

[CelticWhisper]

Except that the MPAA doesn't manufacture the drives either. Granted, you have a point where movies on HDDVD/BD are concerned, but corporate users can still back up 50+ GB of data without the need for any licensing from the movie industry. In fact, wasn't that how DVD+R came into being in the first place? Companies wanted the storage benefits of DVD-R without having to pay tribute to the "king" that was/is the DVD Forum.

Then again, Dell/HP/Compaq/Gateway do stand to make or lose quite a bit based on "Ooh shiny!" from home/residential/non-corporate users and their desire for HD-everything. Dell, though, should be able to make something of a stand given how many companies I've seen that have massive Dell-based infrastructures in place and doubtless have contracts with Dell for all their kit.

Hmm, I wonder if any media companies are among Dell's corporate customers. That could make for an interesting scenario. Almost mutually-assured destruction. "Want to force your DRM terms on us/our chipmakers? That's funny, we can't seem to find any records of your volume discount or, oh, what's this, even your on-site service agreements."

Re:from MPAA to DELL

[Miseph]

You seem to be operating under the pretense that Dell is willing to not only take a stand for their home customers, but willing to do so against extremely large corporate interests. I'm not sure where you got this idea, but I assure you it is quite wrong. If nothing else, Michael Dell wants DRM for political reasons; he's a top Republican, and cramming this through could probably net him some serious political (and financial) capital in "liberal" Hollywood.

This is almost as stupid as thinking the Nazgul are on "our" side, and that if a FOSS user is in hot water with M$ etc. they'll swoop in and save the poor soul in order to protect open source... it's a nice dream, but they'd much rather cut all ties between you and IBM, burden you with any number of minor problems they can scrounge up, and watch you go down in flames as their patsy.

Re:from MPAA to DELL

[Chandon Seldon]

BD-R disks work fine with no DRM hardware support. This stuff is only an issue if screw up and buy a "content disk" instead of downloading a movie or TV show from The Pirate Bay.

Re:Power to the empire

[operagost]

What do Christians have to do with this?

My processors

[C_Kode]

At first I bought Intel processors (didn't use Macs) I bought them up until I had a Pentium 2 333Mhz chip. Then I bought my first AMD K6-2 450Mhz and kept buying AMD up until I bought a AMD Athlon 3200+ at 2.2Ghz with the 400mhz front side bus over 3 years ago. I just built it's replacement and I've converted back to Intel with the E6600 Core 2 Duo. (I love this processor!) I've found AMD to be lacking and this type of news doesn't help me want to return to AMD. If only Open Hardware could catch on and be competitive, but because of the way the *system* works, open hardware will probably never lead the way and it will always be better (performance wise) to purchase from non-open vendors.

It won't be just AMD

[Bullfish]

It will also be nVidia and ultimately Intel once it makes the GPU/CPU they are rambling about. This is about the content and the delivery of such to the living room and you can bet that the content providers are after this... we are talking MPAA and RIAA here ultimately as the drivers. The CPU/GPU manufacturers are well aware people aren't crazy about DRM, but they want into the living room and they want access to the content. Most people out there will just go along wih it, for the rest of us, really, what DRM scheme has lasted more than a few months under the capable hands of the DVD Jon's of the world? Don't be surrpised by such announcments/discoveries, and don't sweat them either.

Re:It won't be just AMD

[Opportunist]

To crack something open, you need to be able to place the crowbar somewhere. Today, that's trivial. It's far from impossible to get access to keys and the content they secure.

As soon as hardware and software work together seamlessly, without a hole left open, you're standing in front of a monolithic structure that doesn't allow you to place your crowbar somewhere against it.

This won't happen overnight. Vista certainly won't be the OS for it, neither will this generation of CPUs be. We're in a transit time again, just as it was a time for transition from 16 bit to 32 bit. Win95 would run a fair deal of DOS programs, simply because it was necessary. 98 still did, since it was built on the same foundation, and still had the DOS core. From 2k on, the Windows mainstream systems were built on an NT core, and they more often than not refused to cooperate with DOS programs. But by then, that was no limiting factor anymore, since most DOS programs have been phased out by then.

It will be the same with DRM infestation in your computers. The current DRM machines do run your "insecure" software allright, you won't notice the DRM, but they can also handle restricted tools and content. You will be able to break them easily. Over time, the hardware and software integration will become more and more seamless, and they will finally snap the door shut and your "insecure" software won't run anymore. Which won't matter to the majority, by then those programs will be rendered obsolete for most people, just like it was in the times when the mainstream Windows system cores switched towards NT.

Re:It won't be just AMD

[Bullfish]

Oh, I don't know. Ultimately there will be mod chips carrying custom bios etc if things get to that point. People will find a way. The thing about computers is that nothing at all happens without software, and that software can always be diddled. If you are having trouble getting the crowbar in, you just need a better tool to chisel out a gap.

Re:It won't be just AMD

[maxwell demon]

But the other thing about computers is that nothing at all happens without hardware, and if your processor simply refuses to run your instructions (or there aren't even instructions to do what you want), there's nothing you can do. Note that as soon as CPU and GPU are integrated, it's possible that the unencrypted data never leaves the die.

Yes, in principle you could reverse engineer the chip hardware, but I don't think that's something you can do with the ressources of a DVD Jon.

Does this even work?

[lavalyn]

Just as audio has the Analog Hole that can never be plugged, framebuffer access restrictions can't continue once it gets out of the DVI cable.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

ATI

[metamatic]

Well, if true, it'll no doubt mean that ATI drivers will start to suck even harder. As a customer, I'd really rather they spent time fixing their OpenGL implementation so that it could actually render antialiased lines correctly.

I've been an AMD supporter for years, but if they go through with this I'm going to be firmly in the Intel camp.

Congratulations AMD!

[Lethyos]

You have successfully alienated what I believe is your largest customer base: the technically savvy who, in being such, understand “defective by design” and choose to avoid it. (I do not expect their stock-value free-fall to come to an end any time soon.)

Re:Congratulations AMD!

[Migraineman]

Looks like they're expanding their leadership role in the "Foot-Firearm Interface" arena. I can imagine a recent BoD meeting that began like this ...
[Farnsworth]
"Good news, everyone ... "
[/Farnsworth]

Frame Buffer OSS 3D drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA
"The AMD rep spelled it out in words that would have been undiplomatic coming from me: He said that the new chips will "block unauthorized access to the frame buffer." In short, that means an unauthorized party can't save the contents of the display to a file on disk unless the content owner approves it."

Doesn't this mean that this will interfere (prevent) OSS drivers that are capable of doing 3D acceleration?

This is a serious question; not a troll.

Not for long.

[Lethyos]

HDCP.

Re:Not for long.

[brunascle]

as long as you can see or hear it, the analog hole will always be there. worst case scenario: point a camera at the monitor and a microphone at the speakers.

Re:Not for long.

[Opportunist]

...until they invent something that makes sure you can see/hear and understand it, but cannot record it clearly. Remember those movie screens you can't film with the cell cams? What makes you think they won't try the same for home entertainment?

Re:Not for long.

[ajs318]

TTBOMK, "un-camcordable" cinema screens work by saturating the camera with infra-red -- which is invisible to human eyes, but very visible to the camera's image sensor. I'm not sure that it wouldn't cause (at the very least) some discomfort to certain sensitive individuals over the course of a 2-hour film. Projectionists would be even worse affected. Is it legitimate to blind someone for fear that others might be making copies of your movies? And if the cinemas cover their backsides by issuing protective IR-blocking goggles on request, what's to stop someone using them over a camcorder lens?

There is going to come a point, somewhere along the way, where consumers are going to get seriously annoyed by all this, and the question will be asked: What proportion of the price of an entertainment product (cinema ticket, DVD, music CD) is being spent on flawed copy-prevention schemes?

Re:Not for long.

[maxwell demon]

VEIL

Re:Not for long.

[wboelen]

It's time to mod a monitor in such a way that it sends a clean signal over DVI after decoding it instead of sending it to a screen.

Re:Not for long.

[Khyber]

High-def camera and some simple professional microphones, run into a mixer to record the output, will work just fine. HDCP means precisely jack shit once the image is showing on the screen, available for all analog eyeballs to deal with.

The end of competition?

[crhylove]

As a consumer, I was enjoying the processor wars between AMD and Intel. I've long been a fan of AMD as their price/performance ratio has kept them in the lead (up until Core 2 Duo). It's sad that now AMD is embracing a path for which I will no longer be a fan of theirs, much less use their crippled products, or build machines for others incorporating their crippled products.

I thought it was bad enough that they were joining with the very Linux unfriendly ATI, but now.....

Yeah, I'm all Intel inside, just from this rumor alone! Thanks AMD!

My history of processors:
Intel 386sx
Intel 486
Intel Pentium 2
AMD K6-2
AMD K6-3
AMD Athlon
AMD Athlon 64
Intel ?.....

Seriously, somebody needs to hand these CEOs that think completely infuriating their entire customer base is a good thing the clue stick.

rhY

Re:The end of competition?

[Opportunist]

When your choice is only shooting or hanging, do you think your executioner cares which one you choose?

Intel and AMD are going to have that crap. You think you have a choice?

Re:The end of competition?

[crhylove]

Yeah, but one can hope SOMEBODY at AMD reads /. and might at least MENTION to anyone at all there that what they are doing is pissing customers off, reducing market share, and there's a chance that somebody somewhere in the organization will have half the brain to at least CONSIDER mitigating this absolute, complete, and horrific BULLSHIT that half the industry is already paying lip service to disavowing.

rhY

Re:The end of competition?

[Opportunist]

IF someone at AMD is reading /., it's one of the techs.

And since when do techs influence a decision done by a tie?

Re:The end of competition?

[linguae]

Some would argue that we've already lost processor competition for desktops and servers. Look at what has happened to Alpha, PA-RISC, MIPS, and the PowerPC. With both Intel and AMD supporters of DRM and members of the TPCA, I knew it was only a matter of time before AMD caved in as well.

Re:The end of competition?

[crhylove]

Man, why do you have to be so RIGHT and shit. Jerk.

Re:Power to the empire

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's a bit of a tangent. I assume that the GP's brain is in "dystopian" mode, and is imagining how future DRM technology might be used by an oppressive government to monitor citizens and control their access to information. Indeed, this is an obvious application of TCPA. Licenced TCPA-secured computers could run unmodifiable government software for blacklisting information and sending messages to Big Brother. What better way to monitor for sin and make sure everyone goes to church.

They'll see it like this, really

[Moraelin]

You might see it as:

1. Chip A who isn't restricted,

2. Chip B who is restricted to comply with some DRM scheme.

What Joe Sixpack and Jane Housewife will see it as, and what the marketting machine will sell it to them as, is:

1. Chip A which doesn't play BlueRay and HD-DVD movies, or plays it with a crappy pixelated resolution, worse than an old DVD

2. Chip B which plays BlueRay and HD-DVD movies in MediaPlayer with no problems. In 1080p, even.

Why, _of_ _course_ Chip B is better. It's obviously so much more powerful too. I mean, it obviously has all the horsepower to play 1080p, unlike Chip A who's obviously so underpowered that it has to play the same movies at a decreased resolution.

Re:Hm

[Reverend528]

I was hoping for Linux support rival to Intel's and no DRM.

There's already Linux support for the new cards. Since the framebuffer will act as write-only memory, they can just reuse the null device driver.

Next step is the tilt bits...

[BlueParrot]

This was predicted some time ago... http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html#hardware

We know that DRM doesn't work ( no really ) so I'm guessing this is just ATI responding to Microsoft's attempt to stop Linux on the desktop. Same paper again http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html#oss

Truth is of course that this will just piss of customers. Oh well, they will learn eventually... if they don't they will get overtaken by someone else.

I don't know about you...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it looks like my current machine is going to be my last machine for a long time. I'd better go stock up on Socket 939 dual-core Opterons and appropriate motherboards, because I may need the spare parts many years down the road.

You hear that, you assclowns! I'm not going to buy your shit! You can take your DRM and shove it 'til it comes out your mouth!

Yeah right

[Doctor-Optimal]

Tell that to Admiral Motti...

What about pointing an HD camera at your screen

[weld]

How are they going to stop someone from pointing an HD camera at a 1920x1080 LCD screen. Consumer HD camcorders are only $1000 (not 1080p yet). And some record straight to hard disk for easy transfer. Sure there would be some degradation but clearly this would be a better picture than a DVD. The PC's SP/DIF digital audio could be recorded directly as this has no encryption. Ideally you would want an HD camcorder that recorded straight to Divx.

Re:What about pointing an HD camera at your screen

[Opportunist]

Maybe similar technology as in cinemas to prevent filming in your next-gen screen?

DRM isn't going to work flawlessly within the next 5 years. But if we don't stop it before that, it will. It comes piece by piece. For now, there's always some kind of 'hole' we can punch through, some place where the signal can be tapped. The holes are being closed, and over time, we're locked in.

Re:What about pointing an HD camera at your screen

[cyborg_zx]

Even if it requires having a light sensor for each light emitter on a screen it can be done. It is simply an impossible goal.

Re:What about pointing an HD camera at your screen

[Anonymous Coward]

One could imagine, for example, tying your DNA information to some unique digital watermark of the camcorder upon purchase, and sending the black helicopters after you if said watermark shows up on Bittorrent. Or simply making it illegal to own, use, Google search for or even think about digital (or analogue) camcorders.

Last AMD CPU

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Looks like I've bought my last AMD CPU. Well, maybe one more that DOESN'T have this and then thats it.

Don't disable acceleration!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you're using Windows here. Don't disable hardware acceleration. Download a good media player such as Media Player Classic by gabest. Like the first guy said, it's because you're using overlay to display the video. In MPC or any other good media player, you can switch to VMR9 for better looking video, the ability to use shaders (to deinterlace or do silly things like display the video on a sphere), and... content will show up when you press "Print Screen."

After so many years of Intel vs AMD...

[tehwebguy]

...it looks like AMD has ended it.

The industry doesn't seem to get it

[Opportunist]

DRM does not add to your product's value. It actually decreases it. At least it would in a free trade market.

Can you imagine marketing it? "Now with DRM!" would come close to advertising an air refreshener with "Now with horseshit smell". It's just a no-seller. So you won't advertize that it smells like equine manure now and wait for your customer to find out the moment he wants to use it, preferably just before a date. That sure as hell leaves a lingering memory, whether your house smells like a stable or the cheezy movie you wanted to watch with your girl to get her "in the mood" stayed dark, it pisses you off.

Re:The industry doesn't seem to get it

[benzapp]

I think you are overestimating the average consumer, and not accurately portraying how this scheme will be marketed.

AMD isn't going to say "Now with DRM!". They are going to say "Capable of playing those new Blue Ray movies you can display on youre new 1080p monitor!".

And that's the truth. Most consumers won't give a shit about DRM, but will care if they can't play the latest movie in 1080p.

Yes yes, these same HDTV people are still probably watching regular 4:3 televsion broadcasts stretched on their HDTV screens, but still...

Yeah, I'm a bit of a cynic - I hope you're right, but I'm dubious.

Re:The industry doesn't seem to get it

[Opportunist]

I hope I'm not right. Actually your scenario looks quite realistic.

If I'm right, we'll be sitting in a brave new world of shiny bullcrap sprayed at us in about 5 years, without the ability to create anything by ourselves.

Re:Power to the empire

[Cerberus7]

Did you not get the memo? Christian bashing is ALWAYS relevant.

Re:Power to the empire

[operagost]

Anyone could use technology for evil. Again, why focus on Christians? The only Christian theocracy on earth is the Vatican-- although I should note that Denmark and (arguably) the UK have state churches that would never fly under the US Constitution.

Isnt it funny....

[Cythrawl]

How when you mention DRM on any /. article the salvering masses come out of the woodwork and say "AMD is gonna die for this" or "Microsoft made them do it" or "Im jumping to Intel Right now coz AMD are assholes", etc etc ad nausium

Fact: AMD isnt going to die/lose customers
Fact: Its not M$'s fault its the MPAA et all
Fact: its probably not going to affect 98% of AMD's Customer base as it is anyway.
its the same with Vista and its DRM, the slavering masses came out of the woodwork again saying that Vista wont let you do jack all. Totally untrue and all FUD.

I can in fact rip a DVD in Vista and burn it and play nonDRM video files just fine in Vista. What I CANNOT do is to use Windows Drag and drop copy to copy my protected DVD Content to the ahrd drive. But a little tool called DVDDecryptor (which is old as dirt and no longer in development) still works in Vista and with one click of a button I have copied content to the hard drive for porcessing and burning.

Im 100% sure that someone will make software that will do the same thing (do what you are not supposed to do) in this case too. Its only so AMD can keep MPAA, Sony etc happy. Intel will probably be the same if/when this comes to light. so what are you all gonna do then? all start breaking out the Commodore Amiga's and C64's so you are DRM free..

Please if you dont have anything good to say, or just are going to spread FUD, then please do us all a favor and STFU.

Re:Isnt it funny....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: AMD isn't going to die/lose customers They lost me as customer.
 

Fact: Its not M$'s fault its the MPAA et all MS is endorsing measures like this in their operating system and I can't even blame them a little? COME ON!
 

Fact: its probably not going to affect 98% of AMD's Customer base as it is anyway. I wouldn't say it's not gonna affect them but they probably won't blame AMD for anything because THAY HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON.
 

its the same with Vista and its DRM, the slavering masses came out of the woodwork again saying that Vista wont let you do jack all. Totally untrue and all FUD. I don't remember anyone saying you can't do anything with Vista but Fact: it has all the DRM goodness in it so it might bite you in the ass later on.
Who the hell uses Vista already anyway. SP1 isn't even out yet.
 

But a little tool called DVDDecryptor (which is old as dirt and no longer in development) ..and there's a reason for it. It's illegal to use this tool in the US and its dev got a nice cease and desist letter for it. Lovely.
 

so what are you all gonna do then? all start breaking out the Commodore Amiga's and C64's so you are DRM free.. Maybe, and then you can laugh at us when you play your awesome DirectX 10 games. You rule!
 

Please if you dont have anything good to say, or just are going to spread FUD, then please do us all a favor and STFU. Me so little. Me not worthy.

Re:Isnt it funny....

[Anonymous Coward]

Please take your own advice. The fact is that you are running specific tools to bypass the DRM so you glibly say isn't in the products you supported in your post. Microsoft IS to blame, just as much as the MPIAA.

Re:Isnt it funny....

[Cythrawl]

and thats why you are all anonymous cowards... because I am the troll and you are Trolling cowards?????? asswipes

Re:Isnt it funny....

[Lithdren]

Fact: its probably not going to affect 98% of AMD's Customer base as it is anyway.
Fact: Its quite possible that just maybe, something may be true with this random number i've pulled out of a magic hat.
Fact: Oh look, its a bunny!
Fact: ...
Fact: Profit!

Im 100% sure...Intel will probably be the same if/when...
Please if you dont have anything good to say, or just are going to spread FUD, then please do us all a favor and STFU. Fact: Hypocrites tend to prove it in their own words.

All the time or just when HD content is being play

[Joe The Dragon]

played?

Any why there can still be Linux / debug / other drivers that let you read the frame buffer but won't play hd content

Integrated systems only

[Saffaya]

I don't see how this would affect my PCIe nVidia graphic card ?

Unless you are planning to use an integrated graphics solution (CPU+GPU) for your display needs, this shouldn't affect you.

I won't be able to play BR if I don't use the on-board GPU ? Well .. who told you I was even interested in that ?
MPEG-TS runs fine on my graphics card, thank you very much.

Re:Learn who their customers are...

[Technician]

The assumption is the end user is the customer.. This is FALSE..

The media cartel is their customer. Let me explain.

1 The chip and graphics card manufactures want to sell product. The assumption is the end user is the consumer.. Wrong.

The media cartel says we are the customer and we have this subscriber base looking for comptatible hardware. To sell to them your hardware must meet the specifications to be compatible with the new content.

Either their hardware won't play DRM content and declaired incompatible, or they fall in line. The only vote the end user has is with their wallet. Unfortunately the canidate the end user wants won't be on the ballot.

They want to play the new content and retain their ripper/print screen key.

Be sure to vote!

I Don't have a SACD player. Same for HD DVD in either format. I have DVD's now that they are easly rippable and they work on Linux. A purchased used DVD will play ok on my DVD player unlike a DRM Janis, MTP, or FairPlay music file on my MP3 player.

Customers don't learn

[Opportunist]

It's a sad revelation I had to come to. You, me, the rest of the people here, we know what's cooking. And more important, we care. But when you discuss that matter with "ordinary" people, you invariably get a response out of this list:

1. (blank stare)

2. (blank stare with a shrug)

3. Ok, whatever, I buy my movies anyway.

4. So what, someone's gonna write a crack.

5. Naaaah, they can't do that!

6. Yeah, that's gonna make the movies cheaper 'cause everyone's gotta buy them.

The general reaction to those DRM-infested machines is "ohhh, shiny", simply because they don't know, don't care and until now it's worked "somehow" anyway. They don't want to believe that even you as the "law abiding" customer might get shafted 'cause something went wrong in the chain of command. They don't want to hear (or don't care, or simply don't believe) that this can be used as a tool to silence unwanted voices.

What bothers me most is that people simply don't care about being able to speak freely. People fought hard and died for that right, and so many people all over the world still do, but we take it as granted. Worse, we don't care about it. We don't care whether we may say what we want and publish our opinion, as long as we're doing well, have our DVD players, hamburgers and fries.

It's true. Humanity doesn't progress. We're still at the bread and games level.

Re:Power to the empire

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not defending him, but I think people focus on Christians because of America, President Bush, and extremely vocal American media commentators who call for a Christian version of Sharia law at every opportunity. Because of these loudmouths and the people who listen to them, there is a common perception that a majority of Americans want to collapse the separation of church and state and introduce a raft of moral laws to persecute non-Christians. Needless to say, non-Christians (and, I would hope, Christians who follow Jesus rather than some preacher) are worried and upset by this possibility.

Personally, I think that the American government only claims to be Christian, much as the Nazis did.

It's not about the customers

[norminator]

Oh, totally, but my point was what's the business benefit for them to develop this. Their customers by and large are either indifferent or don't want it, AMD aren't a content producer...

I think it's fairly obvious that it's about AMD Live! versus Intel's Viiv. Each of those two brands is trying to be the ultimate living room multimedia PC. I think that customers haven't really caught on (why would we... who needs an expensive fully decked-out hot and noisy desktop PC masquerading as a media appliance in their living room?), but they seem convinced that this is where the market is going with or without the consumer. I think the whole media center PC has very little thought for the customer, and this AMD DRM issue highlights that very well.

It's funny how Vista is being hailed as the future for the media PC... I used to be able to watch DVDs perfectly well on my P3 (600MHz, 128 MB RAM) back when it was running Windows 98. But a few years ago I "upgraded" to XP, and now it won't play the same DVDs. It has a very hard time with most video content. But MS (along with AMD and Intel) wants us to believe that we need the next super-shiny version of their software, which gets less and less efficient with each release, in order to keep up with the time and have the media experience of the future. Sure, HD content requires more horsepower to decode and display, but if they didn't keep fattening up the OS, and the player software, and the whole Media Center environment, it wouldn't need that much more horweposer. From my experience, my 2.6Ghz P4 with 2GB of RAM can't even play videos in the Vista Media Center at all. Any PC related living room media devices should be small, quiet, run cool, and be inexpensive, and not have lots of bright lights. But of course all the hardware manufacturers want to push the latest hot, fast hardware... because it's the fastest. They want your attention to be drawn to the PC so you know how cool it is. Lame.

So to make a long story short, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and all the rest want to cram the media experience down our throats... This seems to me like it's the equivalent of Circuit City's DIVX, only the players involved are much bigger, and mostly working together to make an inescapable dragnet. They want to make their own brands successful (Win MCE, AMD Live! Viiv), and they know that the average consumer doesn't even know why he or she would care about Viiv or Live. So they want to make all PCs move in this direction, and if they can't get the consumers excited about it, they can at least get the content providers excited about it, so they don't have the same fate as DIVX.

Re:It's not about the customers

[MattW]

You know, I think the PC probably WOULD become the "ultimate living room appliance", but not when it undergoes lockdown like this. The whole point of using a PC for things like this is flexibility. The whole point of the RIAA and the MPAA, and especially the DVD-CSS association, is to LIMIT what you can do. The CSS people should have been the ones pushing to license their scheme out to device makers to try to help get adoption up of popular, specialized living room devices.

Not only are people not really interested in this, but this still falls into the adage: the harder you make it for consumers to get your content, the less they'll buy it. (Are you listening, RIAA? (props to emi))

Re:It's not about the customers

[CubicleView]

Slightly off the main point of your argument, but anyway. Generally speaking the chip makers are in competition with each other, so they have to release new products to remain competitive. They upgrade or build new fabs to produce the new stuff, and over time are left unable to produce the old stuff. At this point as a company, if they weren't pushing "the latest hot, fast hardware" they'd be pushing up daisies instead. They have made a lot of advances reducing power consumption etc, at a guess I'd say if you were to under clock a modern processor so that it had the equivalent processing power of an old one, it would I believe, run cooler than the old one (Though I'll admit I'm speculating a bit there). As for software bloat, I dislike that myself, but modern OSes are designed with modern machines in mind. Windows is more or less an all or nothing deal, if you want the new features you gotta handle the bloat as well.

Re:It's not about the customers

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a media PC that is not in my living room, but is cabled to my TV-(32" 720p, running 1024x768). It's a 900Mhz, 384mb of ram, GeForce 5500 video, and Creative Audigy sound card, on WinXP with the opensource 'Media Portal' program on it. It plays everything, I mean everything. The home pc was invented when they came out with 700Mhz and WinXP. The average home user (non-gaming) doesn't need more than that.

Re:It's not about the customers

[dr.badass]

Any PC related living room media devices should be small, quiet, run cool, and be inexpensive, and not have lots of bright lights. But of course all the hardware manufacturers want to push the latest hot, fast hardware... because it's the fastest.

Not all of them.

Re:It's not about the customers

[ghyd]

Wouldn't VLC be an answer to your media playing problem?

Re:It's not about the customers

[norminator]

Actually, I thought about the Apple TV when I was posting that. It's almost there. Although according to Paul Thurrott, it runs quite hot. I don't really know myself, as I haven't ever seen one running. Of course, he is a big time MS shill, so he can't really be trusted all that much. Can anybody confirm how hot/cool the Apple TV runs?

Re:It's not about the customers

[MojoStan]

I think it's fairly obvious that it's about AMD Live! versus Intel's Viiv. Each of those two brands is trying to be the ultimate living room multimedia PC. I think that customers haven't really caught on (why would we... who needs an expensive fully decked-out hot and noisy desktop PC masquerading as a media appliance in their living room?) With Media Center Extenders, customers don't need to put their LIVE! or Viiv PCs in the living room. Unfortunately, these extenders haven't hit the market by storm. I think most have been discontinued and the only current ones available are the Xbox and Xbox 360. On that page I linked to, Microsoft claims more are coming "throughout 2007" in set-top boxes, built into HD televisions, and DVD players.

Personally, I think Media Center Extenders were always a much better idea than putting a powerful Media Center PC in the living room. Think Apple TV, but better. These extenders can control almost all of the Media Center functions from another room's PC, including DVR functions.

Bye bye

[Yaa 101]

Bye bye AMD, for years I bought your stuff, now you fucked up.

Is it DRM'ed if I'm not playing protected content"

[dpilot]

One poster mentioned that this is essentially covering the framebuffer with the TCPA "curtained memory" spec.

TCPA is and has always been a 2-edged sword that can also be sheathed. I can completely ignore it, I can use it to my own benefit.... or I can surrender control of my computer to The Dark Side.

Is this "hidden framebuffer" the same way? In other words, if I'm not touching protected content can I still access the framebuffer as I wish? Is it also possible that I can use this as extra security? We've taken to encrypting filesystems and swapfiles, and moved from xhost to xauth, it seems to me that the framebuffer could be considered another leakage point. (Won't comment on the difficulty of exploiting.)

Theoretically TCPA can be a good thing, and most of people's fears center around it being required and locked away from the owner. I'm not sure I ever see that being an issue, simply because of implementation and legal difficulties. What I can see is "If you want to use ??AA media, surrender control of your computer, for this boot." As long as I can reboot and have complete control of my own computer, that is.

The shills are in favor

[teflaime]

I see the Infoworld shill who wrote the article thinks this is a wonderful thing. Slaves to advertising, Infoworld can always be trusted to approve of whatever nasty and horrible thing the conglomerates think up.

So Long AMD then..

[Mdentari]

I thought you understood your customers. The ones who through word of mouth told all the regular no tech savvy friends and family what to buy. Now we will tell them what to buy and it won't be you.

So What?!?

[Transported Mutton]

No matter what drm gets added on there will be people much smarter than the drm supporters that will figure a way to strip out the trash and then burn the cleaned up version. If it is a digital format, it WILL be possible to copy. The only people who will suffer are the loyal customers who try to play by the rules.

things that will happen

[Anonymous Coward]

imho, things that will happen if this goes forward:

- someone just hacks the processor and disables the drm
- hello new cpu manufacturers that do not use shitty drm

more likely the first option

Damn..

[Tingler]

Does this make me an Intel fanboy now?

"Analog Hole"

[nurb432]

Just another one about to be plugged.

Id say boycott them, but what other choice do you really have now, Intel? They arent any better.

with a glimmer of hope in voice...

[andyr0ck]

...you are being sarcastic.....aren't you??

So what?

[apodyopsis]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.

So what? Given the choice most consumer electronics manufacturers and large corporations would choose the other one, and they are the ones making equipment.

I think you'll find that what the people want really does not matter.

Not likely to work

[jandersen]

One can only speculate what they think they will achieve with this, but it seem to me they shoot themselves in the foot. DRM has never worked so far, and everything we've seen locks the customer into a situation that is perceived as next to impossible to live with. What I think may well happen is something like:

1. AMD make it impossible to use frambuffer if the DRM says you aren't allowed.
2. Some competitor comes up with a workaround that makes this irrelevant.
3. AMD die off or change their way.

The thing is, as long as there are countries in the world that do not have the same kind of draconic IP laws as the US, it will be possible to circumvent this kind of nonsense. America can make it 'mandatory' that all computers have this crap installed, but all it will do is isolate the country in yet another way. Sigh.

I'm not worried

[Shinra]

It's not like I'm in a hurry to go out and get Blu-Ray/HD-DVDs when I have my perfectly fine non-DRM'd DVD players & DVDs to entertain me.

Is this a late April Fool joke?

[clickclickdrone]

Because it really doesn't make sense on any realistic level if AMD expect to have any kind of medium to long term future.

Virtualization

[imbaczek]

But what if have a (decent) hypervisor? It won't be able to get to its own framebuffer? This cat and mouse game we have here will become really interesting real soon.

what to buy?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok...
this stuff is important... so you actually will know what NOT to buy...
but what if I wanted to know what I CAN buy that is without any form of tcpa?
now that will be useful for everyone.
right now everyone is saying we shouldn't buy from ati, nvidia, intel, now (maybe) amd...
so what? what do you expect the customer will do if he doesn't know what he CAN buy? ...
can anyone post a link?

Re:Power to the empire

[PDanger]

Psalms x64-x86
"And God said unto the Israelites
'Blessed is he who protects content
and, ye, shall the masses loath it
but God shall smile upon you,
and bless your blu-ray player
and the copy of Batman Begins
housed within it.' "

AMD and frame buffer blockage

[woboyle]

Well, so much for AMD if they proceed with this knuckle-headed plan. I am boycotting Sony for their DRM imbroglios (root-kit anyone?), and if AMD pursues this I will boycott them as well. There are a lot of image-processing algorithms that can only be performed within a reasonable time frame (sic) if one can get at the raw frame data. This will preclude AMD graphics chips or AMD CPU's with embedded graphics processors from many high-end image processing applications. So, all I will say now is - GET A CLUE AMD! Do NOT presume you know what is best for your customers, or you will soon find that you don't have any...

This is timely

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm currently putting together the specs for my new PC.
Originally I planned on having an AMD chip in it, but with this news I have decided to give my money to Intel.
I am not kidding. AMD, you just lost a sale.

Oh how insightful...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Isn't it funny [...] (paraphrased) how people complain about things they dont like"

Yes, it's absolutely hilarious. Why don't you go tell that one to the dissident Chinese?

People are entitled and should be encouraged to share their displeasure.

AMD can suck a shitty dogs cock, my PC = my rules.

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

You are absolutely correct. The Chinese will see DRM for what it is: an opportunity. It turns out we actually need communists to free us from the tyranny of the copyright industry.

What an Empty Promise.

[Erris]

The author blatantly contradicts himself here:

If they perfect that unbreakable link between the media and the delivery end point, if theres never another DVD image splattered all over the Internet, then IT will be able to make a promise that, to date, it couldnt: Nobody can view or copy your data without authorization.

and here, where he points out the long list of people who will be able to view or copy your data without authorization:

There is a short list of parties who will be unauthorized to access your frame buffer: You. There is a long list of parties who are authorized to access your frame buffer, and that list includes Microsoft, Apple, AMD, Intel, ATI, NVidia, Sony Pictures, Paramount, HBO, CBS, Macrovision, and all other content owners and enablers that want your machine to themselves whenever youre watching, listening to, reading, or shooting monsters with their products.

The only thing he gets wrong above is that it's still your machine. With systems like this, the computer on your desk is more the property of the your software's owners than it ever was yours.

I'll only be concerned if hardware changes can lock out "unauthorized" software and the adoption of stupid file formats that won't work with free software. The futility of such measures is demonstrated by taking a screen shot with a pocket camera. Widespread adoption by the ignorant and coerced will perpetuate and encourage non free computing without any benefit.

Copyright protection schemesss = a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

These copyright schemes always have unintended consequences, such as the junk music CDs with copyright protection that the music industry put out a few years ago. They wouldn't play on some standard computer CD-ROM drives. My neighbor had that happen with a stack of CDs that she bought from BMG. She didn't realize it was a copy protection scheme (there was no on-screen message explaining why the CDs didn't work) and twice she had BMG send her replacement CDs until finally she asked me if I could figure out the problem for her.

It will break screen readers for the blind...

[gkearney]

and in doing so make any computer inaccessible and not purchasable by government. Between this and the fact that none of the windows screen readers work with Vista it seems as it everyone is working over time to have the blind and print disabled move from Windows to Mac, Linux or Sun.

At some point will we need legislation that requires that computing equipment be accessible the way we now require such of telephone equipment?

Change of stance?

[flogger]

A (what seems) long time ago, I was at the "Million-Man Lan" in KY. (Maybe it was a Lanfest -- I get them confused). AMD had some people there as guest speakers. After a time they answered questions from the audience and gave away a new processor to people with insightful/intellegent questions. I was called on and asked something to the effect of, "In upcoming processors and trhough yuor current R&D what is AMD doing to include or exclude DRM?" I was basically laughed at and told the they would leave all the DRM to Intel and Microsoft. I didn't get a processor. Bastages! I want a processor! :-)

No Framebuffer..no Linux on pigopolistGPU's PC's

[Anonymous Coward]

Having read down over two thirds of the comments on this post and having yet to find this very relevant implication, I am forced to post SOMETHING to give voice to a seemingly ignored issue, assuming that letters to this effect have not been edited out and IP's recorded for RIAA/MPAA/homeland security gestapo and deathcamp roundup squads. Any of our local morons ever tried to run linux on laptops lately? If so the few that were successfull and the fewer still that really looked at the boot on sequence that some distro providers try to cover up like windows does [Novell I am talking to YOU! and your mishandling of SuSE...and others] will have noticed that the GUI display is a framebuffer. Without the framebuffer, Linux will not have a display unless you like a cobbled 640x480 two or eight color mishmash of bad dither. The old phrase that the: "'BIOS' ain't done til' Linux don't run!" comes to mind here. I appears that none of you geniuses caught this. This is a way to cut off linux at the processor level. It is time to start using Intel and old AMD procs and never buy anything from AMD again. That means no new AMD procs, no new motherboards with AMD chips on them, no imbedded systems containing AMD chips. As this kind of disrespect for the needs and rights of consumers proliferates industrywide, it calls to mind a cute trite phrase from the days of the Great Patriotic War...never give a sucker an even break! The industry will try to force this on us by buying or pressuring all suppliers to play their DRM game, and footstomp this by attempting to regulate all that don't play ball with them out of the marketplace or out of existance. Another writer actually hit on the solution to this! Look to the East! Look to China and maybe to Russia for new chipmakers that can supply uncrippled processor chips. It is Darwinian determinism that these will come into being. Nations for their own security will want chips that obey them and not some monopoly that can provide them with cheaper equipment at a cost of the lives of their nation's servicemen and women when the viruses and malware imbedded by definition in these DRM chips is activated by enemies that purchased the keys to this malware from the same companies that sold the chips to these 'sucker' countries in the first place. Want confirmation of this. Ask a cop who will honestly tell you who manufactures his radar gun that he uses to victimise motorists to raise money for the governing organs for whom they slave. Then ask a truck driver who makes his radar detector...or better yet go to a large truck stop and see them on the shelf for yourself. While there you might even spot the spoofers that are sold under the counter to 'test' the radar 'guns'. Somewhere in your travels you will find the same manufacturers or holding corporations of manufacturers who lurk above the whole scene pulling strings like a puppeteer. Or if you are a serviceman in Irak, ask an Iraki soldier who served in air defense under Sadaam and will admit it. Ask him if his American supplied anti-air defense system running windows suddenly stopped working on the day we invaded or shortly before. Remember in the years running up to the first Iraki war in '91 that we were Sadaam's supposed 'friend' and supplied him with everything his little pink heart desired in the hope that he would be able to murder and torture more Iranians. The Iranians were right when they said that we created that monster. Hey would'nt it be neat if the Iranians that can give booosh the finger and make nooooks right under his nose decide to make powerful CPU and GPU chips. I might even be persuaded to face east five times a day and praise Allah for delivering us from bondage to the MPAA , the CIA, the RIAA, the NSA, the BSA, the HSD.... might even go out and start reading a Koran and believing it. You know the Koran teaches that all men and women are created equal? Tell that to a rich man or corporation! You know that the Koran teaches its believers never to lie? Tell that to a Republican politician!

Im using ONLY amd cpu&boards for 6 years and

[unity100]

the day they pull this shit is the day i switch to intel, nomatter what the cost.

i cant anyone leveraging more authority in MY pc, even if that anyone was my long dead father or mother.

contradiction

[Anonymous Coward]

An appliance is something simple with a dedicated function. A PC is a flexible, general purpose machine. If you make a PC into an applicance it stops being a PC - it's an Xbox, or a Tivo. This kind of thing is pretty popular in the living room. I'm a geek so I have a real (silent) PC in mine.

Not really

[gillbates]

I work for a major corporation. Why don't we bother with this DRM sort of thing? The short list:

• It means employees can't work from home, or work at home. The prospect of unpaid overtime is too valuable for a corporation to give up.
• It doesn't prevent someone from photographing their screen, or even hand copying the information.
• It doesn't prevent the employee from picking up the phone and describing the invention to their competitor.

Often, the truly valuable things in a company are the ideas and business strategies. This is low bandwidth information. The others - such as code, source masks, etc... already have the legal protection afforded trade secrets and copyrights. While it might not be practical to hand copy source code, this kind of espionage is rare and not very valuable. If company A stole company B's source code, company B would probably have a pretty good legal case against company A. However, the case for stealing ideas is a bit murkier and harder to prove.

Why they do it.

[Kadin2048]

Why they do it is pretty simple.

Imagine we have two makers of some piece of technology, who are in stiff competition. Some other company waltzes in and offers both companies a fat wad of cash, if they're willing to compromise their products in some way. One company says "sure," and takes the cash. The other company doesn't.

The company who bends over takes a small portion of their kickback, and uses it to depress the price on their unit. Since they've already made a lot of money, before they even sell a single board, they can afford to price their model a bit lower than the competition's.

The public, which is made up mostly of idiots who don't look beyond the price tag, only notice that one company's is cheaper than the other, and flock to it.

End result: more compromised units end up being sold; that hardware design becomes standard; the company who tried to produce good hardware and sell it goes out of business.

Micro$ucks strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD is doing this response to my favorite company to hate's latest demands. If AMD doesn't comply, then their cards won't work with M$'s latest DRM scheme for Vista. In fact, all hardware companies will have to do this if they touch DRM'ed content. Once again, Chairman Bill and Co. demonstrate a monopoly's power to hurt their customers and still pull in huge profits. By the way, my next computer will be a Mac.

AMD Stock

[SQLz]

I've already lost 40% of my investement on AMD stock within the last year, looks like that is going to get even worse. Obviously I should cut my losses and just sell now.

Re:AMD Stock

[maxwell demon]

If you sell, please tell AMD's investor relations that you sell because of the DRM plans.

Wow.

[koreaman]

Unless the DRM Cartels start controlling monitors, there will always be a way to get around something like this. Just build a device that, using the same standard used by GCs and monitors to communicate with each other, communicates with the GC and saves the data it sends off. Easy as pie.

Although I wouldn't put it past them to get together with monitor makers, change everything to a closed standard and make something like this impossible.

Anyone?

[kahrytan]

  Did anyone realize this has "Screw You Linux" written all over it?

Re:Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone realize this has "Screw You Linux" written all over it?

Well this page basically has "Screw you AMD" written all over it, so the sentiment is mutual.

Re:Anyone?

[kahrytan]

On the other hand, AMD has opened to the door for Intervideo or Cyberlink. Linux users will be forced to buy their software to play HD DVDs on their HTPC systems.

Re:Anyone?

[Wesley Felter]

Not really; Linux can just run in insecure mode. It may not be allowed to play Blu-ray or HD-DVD, but since there is no such (official) player software for Linux anyway it doesn't matter.

Who doesn't consider Taiwan "free"?

[Kadin2048]

I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of freedom comes out of countries you don't really consider "free". Boggles the mind.

Taiwan, speaking broadly here, isn't that "unfree." It's not like PRC/mainland China, anyway.

Sure, they're not exactly a libertarian data haven, but I don't think you should be tarring them with the Russia/China brush. (I mean, they didn't get medieval and had a basically rational, collected response, when they had a bunch of Neo-Nazis hold a rally, which would probably land you in prison in many "free" countries in Europe.)

They're a secular, representative democracy, with a strong respect for individual rights. Yeah, as a nation they have some not-too-savory stuff in their collective past involving the treatment of the native population, but you could say the same thing about the U.S. or Australia or any number of other nations. Frankly, I think Taiwan deserves a lot more U.S. support than it gets (although, I suppose these days, they might not want it).

Re:Who doesn't consider Taiwan "free"?

[KDR_11k]

they had a bunch of Neo-Nazis hold a rally, which would probably land you in prison in many "free" countries in Europe.

Depends on how the neonazis do it. They regularly demonstrate in Germany and apparently are more likely to obey the laws than left-extremist demonstrations. The only issue is that every time the neonazis rally about ten to a hundred times as many nazi-haters rally and the police has a difficult job preventing them from reaching the neonazis and beating them up (guess that's called democracy).

Is VNC affected?

[dalesc]

How does this affect remote desktops with VNC? Does this read the frame buffer?

Re:Is VNC affected?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the video is rendered onto the framebuffer just before it's sent to the monitor, it may be that the area with video simply appears black, just like when you try and take a screenshot with certain TV cards. However, an absolutely excellent point. Mod up.

There goes democracy...

[gillbates]

No more whistle-blower hassles for Diebold.

Re:Learn who their customers are...

[Skye16]

I won't be getting an SACD player. I see no point in HD DVD with the DRM available. Honestly, I wouldn't mind it in the slightest if they replaced the disc for cost of production and shipping whenever I scratch it, but that isn't going to happen. I scratch way too many CDs and DVDs to use the originals all the time. I realize he's a character in a movie, and thus doesn't actually exist, but I probably do more damage to optical discs than Edward Fucking Scissorhands. It's true, and quite unfortunate (for me). That's why I use DVDShrink and Nero to make a copy of every DVD the moment I get it. I don't make copies for anyone else, but I do make them for me. And I'm constantly making new ones, but that's okay. At least the originals stay in relatively good shape. I'm not going to blame the producers of these discs for my inability to take proper care of them. That's my bad. But to expect me to pay 20$ over and over and over again for what amounts to a license is preposterous. Either I'm buying the disc to own, or I'm licensing the content. Pick one and stick with it. Regardless, since I won't be able to do this with any of the HD formats, why exactly should I purchase them? Sure, I have the Sony 50" SRXD LCD projection. Yes, I can totally rock it out in true hi-def and cream in my pants. But what's the point in doing that if I have to spend 25$ every 4th or 5th time I put the movie in because I scratched it past recognition? Thanks, but no thanks. If I can't make backups, or if you won't promise to sell me replacements at cost + shipping, then I'm just flat out not interested, and won't be participating in your reindeer games.

What a load of bull

[SmallFurryCreature]

Your "logic" is flawed to the extreme mostly because you seem to have swallowed the DRM spin whole.

I will ask you these questions. Would you find the security you describe to be important in place like say hospitals and/or financial institutions?

If yes, then aswner my next question, why do most of these BAN Vista and such from being used with their sensitive data?

Because DRM takes the control of the content away from the owner of the machine and puts it in the hands of some outside party.

It started with Windows XP I think when an update to Media Player had the clause that MS was to be allowed full access to the machine, and any data on it, or accesible to it.

Exactly how do you match you business need to stop spies with giving MS or anyother DRM controller on your new AMD machine with security?

You are very right that the owner needs to be in control of their machine. DRM in general and this AMD drm in specific does NOT allow this.

After all if the owner, YOU, controlled the DRM, how could the media companies control it as well? Word of honor? In fact your business needs rule out ANY third party controlled DRM.

How is that for a twist eh?

But, but... the RIAA needs Print Screen

[fahrbot-bot]

They can pry my Print Screen key from my cold, dead fingers.

If Print Screen is disabled, how will the RIAA gather evidence?

Re:But, but... the RIAA needs Print Screen

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Paint, just like now.

Oh, wait...

Try Some Reading Comprehension

[Anonymous Coward]

Its about freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

I win. You lose.

Re:Try Some Reading Comprehension

[EzInKy]

Its about freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.


If it were about freedom of religion it would be "In ______ We Trust" and "Under ______", so people could plug in their diety(s) of choice.

Re:Try Some Reading Comprehension

[amRadioHed]

Freedom of relgion is freedom from religion if you choose not to follow a faith.

Re:Try Some Reading Comprehension

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Its about freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

My religion is that there is no conclusive evidence of God existing, or otherwise.

I win. You lose.

Oops. It would seem just declared a jihad on me. So much for the "freedom of religion" bullshit. Its "any religion as long as it is my religion" kind of "freedom" you believe in, isn't it?

Bigot.

Re:Try Some Reading Comprehension

[Thomas Shaddack]

If it's on money, why not "In Cash We Trust"?

If religion is a pointer to a structure, NULL should be allowed as its value.

Poor AMD

[Skeith]

For the longest time AMD appealed to the people who built their own PCs, their chips had superior performance, used less power and were cheaper. Now the tables have turned and AMD has the dubious honor of producing both the CPU and video card ranked second in a two product race. Complete with the benchmarks behind closed doors proving how great their future product is.

I eagerly await the Barcelona since any solid competition will drive down the quad/soon octi core prices and up performance.

Don't blame AMD here - Its MPAA and MSFT

[Anonymous Coward]

AMD is doing this because they're -required- to if they want to sell hardware to be used in computers running software from Microsoft or capable of playing the latest DRM shit from the likes of the MPAA. They have no choice in the matter.

but what about linux?

[TheCoop1984]

Does anyone know if this required OS support? ie, will it just be a problem under windows, and will linux be able to bypass it?

It's quite simple

[zombieflesheater]

Microsoft wants to own the distribution channel for high-definition video, because they see that owning the distribution channel for music has made record labels a lot of money in the past. They've therefore offered Hollywood a veto on Vista support for any hardware not conforming to its stringent DRM specifications. In return, they hope that Hollywood will buy into the Vista DRM platform.

If AMD don't conform to the spec, then Hollywood won't approve their hardware designs, and Microsoft won't digitally sign their graphics card drivers for use with Windows Vista.

I predict we'll here lamentable stories of the same ilk from NVidia, Intel and all the other major players in the GFX hardware market before too long.

Re:It's quite simple

[DCheesi]

Mod parent up --this is the reason why AMD/ATI is doing this. Although if I understand things correctly, it's technically M$ itself approving DRM-compliant designs/drivers. I actually think that the studios would easier to please, if only because they don't know enough about the technologies involved to see the obvious loopholes. M$ is likely to be more draconian than the **AA themselves would be, at least at first.

Re:Have no fear...Exactly

[vthokie69]

This article has been producing a lot of knee-jerk comments about not buying AMD any more and so on. The thing people tend to forget when you have a duopoly such as Intel and AMD is that the green grass on the other side is spray paint. Intel and AMD are simply responding to consumer demand for the playing of HD content on a computer while catering to the demands of the content holders. They're caught in the middle. The real bad guys are the RIAA and the MPAA. The only way you can really get back at these guys is to hit them in the wallet by minimizing the money you spend on them. Instead of going to movies or buying movies, get Netflix. Instead of buying cds or itunes, get an XM radio subscription. There are so many alternatives for entertainment. You could play recreational sports, shoot pool, go bowling, go for a bike ride, hike trails, visit museums, or watch live music or live sports. The world provides an endless supply of ways for us to entertain ourselves that don't involve buying DVDs or CDs. The best way to tackle the content control freaks is to simply not accept the content on their own terms and hit them where it counts, their wallet.

No VNC?

[Anonymous Coward]

VNC servers typically read the framebuffer memory, right? So does this mean future AMD-based computers won't be accessible by VNC?

I haven't actually been able to read the article yet. It's very slashdotted.

Bad move for AMD; Pointless work; Dumb article

[wonkavader]

Ridiculous. An unbreakable link will soon be here to keep HONEST people from accessing their frame buffers. The rest of us will find a circumvention, because this stuff BY DEFINITION has an open hole. This is just silly, and bad for America's productivity (wasted development effort and wasted cycles on useless code, once it's sold to consumers).

AMD is making a colossal mistake here, because it will lose them support from tech people. They will sell LESS chips this way, it won't solve the real problem, and it will increase the pain for of the common user.

It's an idiotic move, and the conclusion of the article is silly. Yager for a moment believes what they want is possible -- Only an executive unwilling to change his business model would listen to such stupidity. It is not new tech which will solve this problem, it is a police-state control of general purpose computers -- and that is where MPAA/RIAA will attempt to take us rather than change.

Absolutely agree

[Weaselmancer]

I have a P600 in my basement that I watch divx movies on while I work. It's an XP box. I always had to shrink the playback window to about 300x200 so they wouldn't stutter. I always figured it was that there just wasn't enough horsepower in the cpu or bandwidth to the video card to do full screen.

Then I tried VLC Media Player Portable one day, since I was having a codec problem with one of my movies.

So, I'd start a movie and out of habit shrink the window down to a non-stutter size. But one day a buddy was in the shop and clicked the full screen mode. And surprise! It worked 100%, without a single stutter. They all did. Turns out my P600 had plenty enough horsepower to play full screen movies. It was WMP that was the problem.

Just goes to show you what tight code and self discipline can do when you're programming.

Re:Absolutely agree

[grub]

VLC is sweet. For family and friends who aren't geeks I usually point them to that or Media Player Classic (not an MS product)

Freedom matters.

[jbn-o]

Then /. readers should be taught the real value of "the freedom of choice" and myths about how the market will cater to our interests as users if there were fewer restrictions on it. Your freedom to control your computer as you see fit simply isn't adequately addressed by either. Richard Stallman reminds us in his talk about free software from Zagreb on 9 March 2006:

It's a mistake to equate freedom to "the freedom of choice". Freedom is something much bigger than having a choice between a few specific options. Freedom means having control of your own life. When people try to analyse freedom by reducing it to the freedom of choice, they've already thrown away nearly all of it and what's left is such a small fraction of real freedom, that they can easily prove it doesn't really matter very much. So that term is very often the first step in the fallacious argument that freedom is not important.

To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master.

Will fail too

[Fujisawa Sensei]

This will fail too.

All encryption schemes can be hacked, it only a matter of finding the weak component. Some component will be hacked; such as the software on the CPU, or the DRM and the system rendered useless. Its only a matter of time.

Vista: the cowtow starts now

[Mateo_LeFou]

It's a pitiful state we've got in. Just this morning we learned about a product that users really want being prettymuch yanked out of the market. Now DRM -- a product that no user wants -- is being shoved down everyone's throats.

And I still hear *daily posturing about how the "free market" should decide things like net neutrality, document formats, etc.

Re:Vista: the cowtow starts now

[NSIM]

Implementing DRM functions in the CPU is not cowtowing to Vista, it's responding to the same rights management pressures that VISTA had to accommodate. VISTA's DRM is there to satisfy the demands of the content providers so that Vista can play back DRMed media from those providers. I know you want to blame MS for all the ills of the World, but you'd do better directing your misplaced anger at things like the BluRay consortium which make the DRM demands that Vista meets.

Re:Vista: the cowtow starts now

[Panzergheist]

Implementing DRM functions in the CPU is not cowtowing to Vista, it's responding to the same rights management pressures that VISTA had to accommodate. VISTA's DRM is there to satisfy the demands of the content providers so that Vista can play back DRMed media from those providers. I know you want to blame Sony for all the ills of the World, but you'd do better directing your misplaced anger at things like the RIAA and MPAA which make the DRM demands that Vista meets.

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:Vista: the cowtow starts now

[symbolic]

MS didn't HAVE to do this. IT was a choice. Do you think it would have mattered even the slightest if MS told the media companies to get bent, and that it was THEIR responsibility to protect their oh-so-precious content?

Re:Vista: the cowtow starts now

[RobertB-DC]

Cowtow? As in, towing bovines? I didn't realize Microsoft was in the cattle hauling business (though it's been suggested that they're in the cattle byproduct business, fertilizer in particular).

Sitting Pretty: The Custom of Kowtow
"'Sitting' [as understood in ancient times] is generally known as kowtow today: Both knees bent down on the mat, with the buttocks resting on the heels. When meeting a guest, the host usually had to stretch the upper part of the body to show respect. Gradually, the custom of kowtow became a part of daily life."

What can we linux/bsd/hurd/... users do? go cell?

[shoor]

I've been buying motherboards and installing linux on them for a long time. I've also toyed with
other liberated OSs (various BSD versions, plan 9, etc). I've often thought about trying other architecture
families. I do have a mac mini with power pc architecture, but I don't want to muck with it as it's
kind of my when everything else goes wrong computer (sometimes you're talking to support people and
if there's already enough hassle in your life at the moment, it's just easier to tell them you've got a
mac than that you're running linux).

So, if AMD does this and Intel follows suit (are they following suit? Will they?) I'll be inclined
to vote nay to them with my pocketbook. What else can I use? I remember when the DEC alpha chip
came out I was very tempted to get a 'puter with one, but I never did. If I had, it would be something
for the museum now, along with my still working Atari 520ST.

What's the status of alternate architectures? I've read that linux can be installed on the PS3 for example.
But would it support all goodies (blender, lyx, cinerrella...)? Can anyone give an informed opinion on how
to get really good performance with lots of apps for unencumbered OSes on computer architectures not derived
from the 386, at a reasonable price? (I know this is slashdot, but well informed people do sometimes post
good stuff here, I'm hoping I'll get lucky with followups to this post)

I agree sorta

[Mateo_LeFou]

MS is a symptom as often as they are a cause of this problem, as here. The fundamental problem is the forced-upgrade/planned obsolescence cycle.

My point is simply that this cycle doesn't get as firm a foothold when the market is (relatively) free, i.e. when there is not a monopoly engaging in anticompetitive behavior and raising artificial barriers to entry.

Re:What can we linux/bsd/hurd/... users do? go cel

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the status of alternate architectures? I've read that linux can be installed on the PS3 for example.
But would it support all goodies (blender, lyx, cinerrella...)? No. No graphics drivers, hypervisor, not enough RAM, bla bla bla.

There's no real option in sight. You might just have to stick to older hardware if this DRM trend continues.

This doesn't just affect frame pirates...

[Glasswire]

Many medical and other specialized applications render images onto the dedicated graphics memory then grab the framebuffer contents back for other processing. I assume this will break those apps unless they get some kind of special exemption access - which would probably be crackable if you allowed it at all.
Hardware vendors have to fully think through the implications of what they do to enforce DRM.

no bueno

[pak9rabid]

Welp, this long-time AMD supporter is no more. Good thing I started earlier than planned and went for a Core 2 Duo-based laptop instead of a Turion X2...Granted I'm sure Intel will be rolling something similar out soon (if they havn't already). Via is starting to look more and more attractive as time rolls on...

Macrovision's gain

[Anonymous Coward]

ATI has Macrovision embedded on a good number of their chips. It seems ATI, before the AMD buyout, was "forgetting" to collect Macrovision royalties and they caught on. Given the respective finanacial conditions of the two companies, AMD/ATI is in a tight spot. Macrovision may see a lawsuit against AMD may not be as fruitful as influence to enhance the usage of DRM.

Poor Little Microsoft

[NickFortune]

you'd do better directing your misplaced anger at things like the BluRay consortium which make the DRM demands that Vista meets.

"Things like the BluRay consortium". That would inlcude the HD-DVD group right? Only, Microsoft are members of that consortium. So maybe it's ok to be mad in that case. It's not like this feature is going to be BluRay only, after all.

And after all is said and done, Microsoft surely do seem to have a passion for hardware that restricts what the users can do. Remember Paladium? Microsoft were founder members of the TPCA. And they've gifted the world with no shortage of software DRM. There's the Plays For Sure fiasco, and all the helpful DRM features built into windows media player... And somehow I can't help think that if they were opposed to the idea, they could do something about it. Then there's

Microsoft may not be solely to blame in this instance, but somehow I have difficulties buying into this image of them as weak and helpless, adrift at the mercy of Market Forces.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[NSIM]

"Things like the BluRay consortium". That would inlcude the HD-DVD group right? Only, Microsoft are members of that consortium. So maybe it's ok to be mad in that case. It's not like this feature is going to be BluRay only, after all.

But both the BluRay and HD-DVD consortiums had to include DRM otherwise the studios had made it very clear that they would not produce HD content on those standards. So again, blaming Microsoft is missing the target, the real villains are the MPAA and the studios. I don't think MS is blamesless by any means when it comes to DRM, as you rightly point out their music-DRM efforts have been a fiasco of their own making. But just blaming MS for everything that's wrong with DRM is just plain wrong.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[Altus]

I dont know... its not like MS couldn't have just said no to the DRM. So HD-DVDs and Blue-Ray disks wont play on windows its not like everyone is going to go out and get a mac just to play those disks.

People give apple a hard time about the DRM thing saying they could just say no to the studios... MS could do the same thing. That said, I certainly understand why both of them have chosen to go along with DRM.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[zippthorne]

Microsoft had nearly $50 billion in revenue last year. This compares favorably with the entire domestic motion picture industry. If they don't want to do something, they have enormous bargaining power. More likely is that they are complicit, or actively engaged in DRM advocacy. To pretend they don't have a dog in the fight is naive.

AMD supporting DRM however will not be viewed as reducing freedom. It will be viewed as adding the freedom to access DRM protected content.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[NSIM]

Microsoft had nearly $50 billion in revenue last year. This compares favorably with the entire domestic motion picture industry. If they don't want to do something, they have enormous bargaining power. More likely is that they are complicit, or actively engaged in DRM advocacy. To pretend they don't have a dog in the fight is naive.

If MS had tried to force the studios abandon DRM because of their control of the market, the MPAA would have gone to court in a heartbeat with anti-trust complaints. Which, given the anti-trust climate against MS at the time, they would have one.

I've heard lots of folks claim that DRM is some sort of MS sponsored conspiracy, but I've yet to see a rational explanation for why DRM is in MS interest since they are not a content creator, at most they are distributor of content. So please explain why MS would want strong DRM, what's the benefit to them. On the other hand the idea that MS took the path of least resistance and didn't fight DRM inflicted on the world by the MPAA is much easier to understand. Given the rather nebulous conspiracy theories vs. "the path of least resistance" I'm inclined to accept the Occam's Razor principle.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[NSIM]

I don't know... its not like MS couldn't have just said no to the DRM. So HD-DVDs and Blue-Ray disks wont play on windows its not like everyone is going to go out and get a mac just to play those disks.

All that would have done is close of the PC to HD content, DRM for HD and BluRay was a done deal. What they did was implement DRM and consumers the choice of whether they want to buy DRM media or not. If you don't like DRM, don't buy content protected by it and you'll never know that DRM safeguards are in the OS.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

how about control of the distribution platform?

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[Altus]

yea... I agree... I just find it funny that people take this same argument against apple and their DRM.

I am a bit concerned however, about the level of DRM in vista. Its not just the basics of implementing something like DeCSS (and making sure a system level debugger isnt installed) but it goes further (as I understand it) to lock down the whole multi-media system from end to end. Now I understand this, because one could intercept the data from the HD-DVD and use it but it does seem a little more extreme than what is necessary to stop casual piracy. I wonder how much of this is a requirement of the format and how much MS did on their own to get in with the content producers. It will be intersting to look at apples implantation and see if their protections are more like the ones in the Apple DVD player or like the ones in vista.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[NSIM]

but it goes further (as I understand it) to lock down the whole multi-media system from end to end. Now I understand this, because one could intercept the data from the HD-DVD and use it but it does seem a little more extreme than what is necessary to stop casual piracy.

I think you'll find that the fully protected media path was a requirement for playback on PCs from the AACS spec. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is something rather similar in Leopard, assuming Apple expects to enable playback of HD and BluRay media. Being Apple though, they are probably working on the principle that people wouldn't bey any happier if they knew and just not talking about the feature.

Re:Poor Little Microsoft

[Altus]

Well as long as it has no impact on any media other than the HD-DVDs and BlueRay DVDs I guess I really dont care that much about how many hoops they have to jump through. Its a shame that both Apple and MS have to do this but clearly consumers are going to want support for these formats.

How about this?

[John.P.Jones]

Remember how you used to have all these CDs laying around to listen to music?
Isn't it so much nicer to have all your music available form a central, easilly reproducable source?
You know all those DVDs laying around your living room?
Wouldn't it be nice if you could do with your movies what you did with your music?
Well you can't because...

No more AMD/ATI for me.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Intel looks to be doing similar things...

So what now free world? I ask because we're losing the entire idea behind home computers.

Remember when you could invent things with your computer? How long before Microsoft stops selling programming tools to the general public? How long before programming requires a government issued liscense?

What happens to all of the screen capture applications and the uses for them? How do people make tutorials? I use screen capture quite a bit as an artist. I often will capture viewport renders out of xsi and post them as works in progress for clients etc. I'll often use it to capture windows that contain a color that i like in another program, and i paste it into photoshop to see what its value was...

The second a tool that allows more freedom is widely used, it is squashed and controlled from higher powers capable of dictatorship under the guise of law... in a so called free society. Same things happening to the entire country as a whole. Taiwan is more free than us? China is more free than us?

How ridiculous.

That would put a nail in AMD

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

If AMD restricts access to the GPU, then I will no longer buy AMD products!
The market drives change. DRM is dieing becuase of that. Now AMD wants to implement this? Well that would
just mean the end of AMD. I used to like that company. My new Linux box now is a PowerMac G5. I had to take
the video card out and swap it for an ATI 3D card since NVIDIA did not release the code for Linux on PPC. bastards.

VLC

[norminator]

That is a good point, and I have had VLC installed on that PC for a little while now... I haven't tried it with DVDs, but even VLC stutters when playing video recorded by my mythbox (using a Hauppage 150 hardware MPEG2 encoder, which should be pretty similar to playing a DVD), and even playing at half resolution. And, for the record, there's now 512 MB of RAM in that P3/600.

Good bye AMD

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been an AMD user since the days of the 486.

Have always used AMD CPUs till now, and always recommended and built systems for friends based on AMD CPUs. I guess the last AMD system build by me for a friend will be the AM2 from a month back.

I may have only helped them get about another extra 50 sales over the years - but how many others like me are now going to stop being pro-AMD? How many 1000s or more sales will AMD fail to get now?

Good bye AMD. You will be missed.

Hello again Intel / Via (For the small form factor stuff).

If you can..

[Anonymous Coward]

See it, Hear it, you can record it. and its very simple to do so.
and NO I don't mean using a handycam.

I assume AMD is only doing this to get its products into SONY devices.

Whats going to be the next DRM? wipe your memory in your head, so you cant recall how a Movie or Game ended, or the story line?

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

> And ironically only god has the power to give us freedom from religion, by suicide, but unfortunately he doesn't want to take the chance of going to hell.

> Yes apparently god's immortal soul is more important than our utopia. What a self-centered mofo. Jesus died for us, why won't god?

Just curious, but what part of that line of reasoning did the moderators interpret as making any sense, whatsoever?

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion doesn't make sense. You're just figuring this out now? The mod's figured it out a long time ago.

drm

[ralph1]

same thing will happen to them that happened to cd's we aint a gonna buy it. ati is already high on my list of things never to buy and amd cpus are on my list of looking back to intel.

What about textures?

[OrangeTide]

You can render to a texture too, very useful for cool 3d flipping effects and cube effects among other goodies you see on Vista, Mac OS X, and Beryl.

If you can't manipulate a texture and play video to it, then I guess you won't be doing this cool effects while playing your blu-ray. Small loss I suppose, but it's kind of sad what we must sacrifice for DRM.

Fvck this. I'm selling my AMD shares.

[brxndxn]

If AMD does anything to enforce DRM, I'm selling my shares.

Rationality

[Morosoph]

As rational beings who have learnt economics starting with supply and demand, we look in vain for good reasons for AMD to do something like this.

Business people do not start with supply and demand. They begin with property. Capitalism and free-marketry are sufficiently similar to confuse with one another, but they are not the same thing.

Management will see property ownership (the flip-side of rights restrictions) as inherently good. Their instinct is to perpetuate the business 'good', and receive a slice of that 'good' in due course. This is how they implement long-termism. 'Good' accumulates on 'good', and eventually the property that they created is expected to bring dividends. In a large company, the dividends are unlikely to be directly to themselves; so they are rewarded for being seen to have promoted the 'good' (in this case, creating new property).

The only thing that is missing from this equation is whether it actually brings benefits to the bottom line. When there is class war going on (in this case management against engineers), this side is often missed. When functionality fights a propertarian ideology, you're going to need mutiny to prevent propertarianism from winning. Engineers are trying to feed their families, are likely to be fatalist, and might be trying to win management favour besides. It's not as if it were a union issue; they're not protecting their own interests, so ethics and consumer interest will fail.

The shareholders will surely comply themselves, regardless of their true interests; when faced with a choice of slightly greater profits, and the promotion of their own propertarian ideology, they will choose "common sense" over analysis. Ie, they will choose propertarianism, for failure to do so is to oppose Locke and the American dream; something that they will not do for a couple of basis points on the dividend. Companies that choose analysis over "common sense" will be following a "risky" (non-conservative) strategy; thus their shares will be marked down, and the company will find it harder to raise money.

Market corrections to this kind of tendency are long-term, and people are born and indoctrinated too fast for them to do more than push a little the other way. Powerful social pressures strengthen naïve propertarianism; mere economics cannot compete.

When is hardware going to be used to bypass DRM?

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

Surely someone knows how to create hardware copies of video cards (plus the hooks to capture the content),sound cards.

Wouldn't this be unstoppable??

What am I missing?

How Completely Sad

[flyneye]

For Me this is like finding out Linus decided to code it into the kernel.
Now the choice between Intel and AMD is like the choice between Democrat and Republican,equally as repugnant.Yet,somehow I can't bring myself to buy a Mac.
        Excuse me,I need a belt of bourbon.

I still have freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who cares, as long as I use open source software I am free and there isn't anything that AMD can do about that."

oh wait.. whoops.

All in the sales pitch.

[Shark]

Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.

The obvious marketing trick here is: "This lets you watch all these new HD movies on your computer."

Gonna be fun putting together User Documentation..

[mdhoover]

This is quite amusing. I do a lot of contract work and when it comes time to writing up the implementation documentation for pointy-clicky GUI applications what do you use?

Screenshots.

Tech writers are gonna love this... the idiots just dont understand the law of unintended consequences...

On the plus side, when this becomes widespread you'll have an excuse for not having to write up the damned doco...

But we need access...

[KlausBreuer]

Lately, quite a few people have looked at transferring work from the CPU to the GPU.
Not all that trivial, but a great idea, and it can seriously increase processing power - for example for proton beam therapy planning in medicine.

Add some DRM crap to block us from doing this? Okay - we'll shop from your competition.

Not blame MS? Heresy! (But seriously...)

[SanityInAnarchy]

How can the Blu-Ray consortium possibly hope to threaten Microsoft here?

I can understand PC manufacturers wanting this -- as someone else puts it, a nightmare for (say) HP might be "Only Dell computers can play Blu-Ray!"

And thus, if AMD supports it, and Intel doesn't, Dell will either buy AMD chips exclusively, or advertise their AMD offerings as being Blu-Ray compatible, while their Intel offerings aren't. Meaning that, in this sense, AMD has to support it for the same reason Dell does, except they don't even have to directly market this to consumers.

So, I can see hardware manufacturers rushing to support this, because they actually have competition. They could form a somewhat-illegal oligopoly by deciding to not support it -- neither Intel nor AMD -- but that buys them nothing. Whereas, if AMD supports this, and Intel/nVidia doesn't -- which seems likely -- then AMD could indirectly make money (through Dell selling AMD stuff as "Blu-Ray compatible").

I don't like it. Many here on Slashdot are fond of saying "Businesses exist to make money," as if that's an excuse here. AMD could certainly take a risk and simply develop the tech, but never sell it on a single chip until Intel does something similar.

But what does this have to do with Microsoft? With no competition, can't they just deliver a big "FUCK YOU" to the record labels and refuse to support this shit in their OS? At this point, it becomes irrelevant for AMD or any hardware manufacturer to try anything, as Windows won't support it. Without cooperation from Microsoft, it seems like it would be a lot harder to build a hardware/software platform on top of Windows designed to lock anything in.

So, what are they afraid of? "Fine, only MACS will support Blu-Ray!" Is that actually a threat? Linux would be even more laughable, here...

I mean, I can understand why they did it -- they cooperate with corporations, not individuals. Oh, and they want to make sure they get stuff for the Zune store, and there's really no reason for them not to...

Still, notice how Steve Jobs has managed to get EMI's stuff DRM-free. I'm sure if Microsoft even tried here... "Remove your DRM if you want this stuff to work on Windows."

New Ctalyst Media Center vs all-in-wonder

[multicsfan]

I had my local computer shop build me a nice new XP Machine. I tried to get al All-in-wonder video card and they don't make them anymore. I finally decided on the TV wonder 650. The cards seems nice, the new catalyst media software is terrible. It Can't find all the local over the air channels due to needing to change antennae direction for some. Unlike the older Catalyst media center there is no way to manually tell it about channels that do exist even if it can't find them. The sofware takes several extra mouse clicks to get to the functions you want. You can't just make an ATI TV icon on the desktop for quick access to the TV function. The program guide interface is the worst I've ever seen. You can't eaisly get any type of gride showing what's playing other then one station at a time.

I've removed the software and installed an older PCI tv wonder card with the old media center. I'm about to start experimenting with non-ATI solutions for my video capture and tv watching needs. ATI has lost a customer. I've bought at least 6 ATI AIW cards since the old ISA days.

it has to be said

[deimios666]

MAFIAA: All your rights are belong to us!

Re: Alcoholic Rights Management

[Douglas Goodall]

A mug with a ARM cap that only allows authorized people to drink the contents. Microsoft employees only. Linux users will be dry.

Two words: Via Nano-ITX

[Anonymous Coward]

These bad boys are what I'm aiming at for my next box--which will hopefully be a portable DIY laptop if I have anything to say about it...

They come with two Serial ATA connectors for full featured native SATA II RAID 0, 1, 0+1, configured using the VIA DriveStation SATA RAID with the VIA CX700M2, an Ethernet port for seamless broadband connectivity with the optional upgrade of Gigabit Ethernet, and supports up to 1GB of DDR2 400/533MHz SO-DIMM memory.

Not to mention the VIA CX700M2 system media processor, the all-in-one digital media IGP chipset integrating the VIA UniChrome Pro II 2D/3D graphics core and an extensive array of high end audio and video technologies, including Vinyl Multi-channel HD audio, hardware MPEG-2/-4 and WMV9 video decoding acceleration, and a built-in HDTV encoder up to 1080i for the richest entertainment experience...

The kicker? The whole thing is only 4.7 inches squared!

It comes with Linux support out of the gate, so why should I bother downgrading to Mickeysoft?

--bornagainpenguin