DRM Group Set To Phase Out "Analog Hole"

eldavojohn writes "In yet another bid to make your life a little more annoying, our DRM overlords at the AACS Licensing Authority have released a new AACS Adopter Agreement. The riveting, 188-page PDF will inform you that — in the name of Digital Rights Management — there will be new limitations set on devices that decrypt Blu-Ray discs. HDMI already has the awesome encryption of HDCP between the device and the display unit. But Blu-Ray still has the Achilles heel of analog players that allow someone to merely re-encode the analog signal back to an unencrypted digital format. So if you have an analog HDTV, hang on to those analog decoders and hope they never break; by 2013 you won't be able to buy a new one. Ars points out the inherent stupidity in this charade: 'Particularly puzzling is the fact that plugging the so-called "analog hole" won't stop direct digital ripping, enabled by software such as AnyDVD HD. And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole.' And so the cat and mouse game continues. On that subject, DVD Jon's legit company just brought out a billboard ad for his product doubleTwist next to Apple's San Fransisco store. It reads, 'The Cure for iPhone Envy. Your iTunes library on any device. In seconds.' So while he's busy taunting Apple, I'm certain there are others who might have some free time to look at Blu-Ray and the 'uncrackable' AACS."

Comments

DRM

[portnux]

That is one compelling reason to not upgrade to Blu-Ray, if you ask me.

Re:DRM

[elrous0]

Sadly, there are no non-DRM'ed alternatives. The downloaded stuff is the only other option and it has even *WORSE* DRM.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, I've never seen any DRM on the stuff I download ;)

Re:DRM

[qortra]

I haven't upgraded for that same reason - however, keep in mind DVDs had DRM too. It just sucked.

Re:DRM

[tjonnyc999]

Yeah, me neither. Also, what are those "previews" and "FBI warnings" people are complaining about?

Re:DRM

[zwei2stein]

Are you sure, there are no alternatives?

Just small example: www.starwreck.com

Re:DRM

[mark-t]

Uhmmm... look around...

What else is there?

Re:DRM

[Taibhsear]

Yeah, I just upgraded to .mkv from tpb. Saves me the hassle of yet another clunky box under my tv and repurchasing every movie I already own.

Re:DRM

[cheftw]

I thought real man's entertainment was ignoring good points made by others in order to complain about their lack of nescessary apostrophe.

Re:DRM

[elrous0]

LOL, no LEGAL alternatives.

Re:DRM

[Reece400]

Even most VHS copy protection (macrovision).

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

Piracy. No, seriously. These people are creating new rights for themselves, by locking up their content in a way that was never intended by those who invented copyright. Copyright exists for one single purpose: to create an incentive for the creation of new content, and it was structured as a time-limited monopoly, not a perpetual one. As such, I have absolutely no qualms with breaking the laws they've bought over the past 50 years.

Now, if you do have problems with piracy, might I suggest this alternative: by the Blu-ray disc, thus paying the content creator for their work, and then download a pirated copy. At least then you can still avail yourself of the rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you. Of course, this still rewards the content creators, thus encouraging further attempts to restrict your use of the material you bought with your hard-earned cash...

Re:DRM

[poetmatt]

Fail. It's never been declared illegal.

So once again, I've never seen FBI warnings or DRM on anything I've downloaded.

Re:DRM

[noidentity]

That is one compelling reason to not upgrade to Blu-Ray, if you ask me.

I think you mean "downgrade". But don't worry, if you get the pirated version, it won't have this restriction (and you will be able to start the feature immediately, without all the unskippable warnings, advertisements, and menu animations).

Re:DRM

[mcvos]

Even most VHS copy protection (macrovision).

That reminds me of a guy who bought a third VHS recorder in order to copy protected tapes.

Re:DRM

[Abreu]

It's legal to download where I live

Re:DRM

[ShieldW0lf]

Can you try calling them entitlements? When you call them rights, you play into the hands of those you philosophically oppose. Telling someone you want to take away a group of peoples rights always sounds bad and closes the discussion before it's begun. Tell someone you want to take away a group of peoples entitlements and suddenly they want to discuss the merits of your proposal.

Re:DRM

[silanea]

The users of ThePirateBay may beg to differ. It is maddening, really. I can get everything there in wonderful quality, convenient and widely usable formats, and usually in a timely manner. Music in lossless quality, current episodes of US TV shows in HD quality and without any commercials, HD films with both original audio and translations - no regional discrimination, no formats that only Windows Mediaplayer can handle, no forced trailers, anti-piracy propaganda or "you may not do x, y and z with this film" nonsense, no annoying menus that take the better part of a minute to actually present me a button to watch the film, and I can freely convert all of it for my portable devices and take it with me. Plus the catalogue is huge! Even really obscure stuff that no retailer carries is available there. I have yet to see any commercial offering that even remotely comes close to this. The only feature I miss in the Bay is an option to directly send money to the artist(s).

Re:DRM

[Abreu]

Or buy the Blu-Ray disc and support the efforts of those who develop ways to bypass the restrictions of the media you have bought so that you can view it on Linux, create backups, etc.

God knows I have had to make several copies of my kids' DVDs (once I had to use gdd_rescue!)

Re:DRM

[Enuratique]

Now, if you do have problems with piracy, might I suggest this alternative: by the Blu-ray disc, thus paying the content creator for their work, and then download a pirated copy. At least then you can still avail yourself of the rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you. Of course, this still rewards the content creators, thus encouraging further attempts to restrict your use of the material you bought with your hard-earned cash...

Would you feel morally justified in buying the DVD and downloading the Blu-Ray? It might send the message to them that DVD is worth more to consumers than these latest shenanigans.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you send money directly to the "artists" of a TV show?

Would you Paypal a penny each to the actors, directors, and the key grip guy? How would the caterer get paid, and his staff? How about the electric company?

Re:DRM

[nitehawk214]

Now, if you do have problems with piracy, might I suggest this alternative: by [sic] the Blu-ray disc, thus paying the content creator for their work, and then download a pirated copy.

You have got to be kidding me. You want me to go through hoops in order to play content, then pay them for it? This would give them reason to put even more draconian policies in place since they are actually making money.

The only way to hurt these guys is to hit them in the wallet. If I can't get the movies and music I want legally without hassle... I will simply seek out different movies and music.

Re:DRM

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Indeed. Similar to calling it "DRM" - a meaningless phrase that most people assume is a Good Thing, or else why would windows sometimes download DRM updates? That must mean it's fixing stuff, right?

Re:DRM

[Lumpy]

Sure there is.

All TV shows I get off of EZTV.IT have no DRM. and every Movie in my Media center, yes even the HD movies like Quantum of Solace have no DRM.

Anything I cant get without DRM, I get the tools I need to strip it.

Plus, I have a device that rips the DRM out of the HDMI cable, works great with my non HDCP complaint projector to shut up the Cable box from complaining about an insecure video path.

Re:DRM

[SanityInAnarchy]

And that's the problem.

When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

Since they are so late to the game at even thinking of providing legal downloads, and those downloads are still so amazingly technically inferior, they couldn't compete with piracy even if they were free, and they're not.

The sad thing is, it's trivially easy to compete with piracy, but so far, I don't see anyone besides Hulu even making a decent effort -- and even Hulu is questionable, as piracy is still a convenient way to break them out of that player and skip the ads.

Re:DRM

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, it's not even that...

The fact is, none of these are so much the creator's rights, as their ability to restrict yours. Put in that context, it suddenly becomes very clear whose rights are being violated.

Re:DRM

[16384]

Very funny... do those things annoy me. I BOUGHT the damn DVD, stop annoying me and show me the damn movie! If I had downloaded it I'd get a better service. But I don't, and I have to endure their brainwashing. I always think, if they are so worried that someone will steal their movie they should have better backups, it would be pretty stupid to have a single copy. And anyway, the movie has been released already, they can always get another DVD from a store...

Re:DRM

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It should be that easy to view the product you have purchased, in whatever format is convenient to you. You are, after all, not paying for the format it's in - you're paying for the movie/music.

The only feature I miss in the Bay is an option to directly send money to the artist(s).

Yeah, that would be nice. However, because you don't have that option, you /are/ paying for the original product before downloading in this super-convenient format, right? Because you think that you should be paying for products and services you enjoy? I'm sure that's what that vast majority of bay users do, wouldn't you say?

Um, guys? Where'd you go? Guys?

Seriously. If the answer to that question is no, convenience of format is just as much an excuse to take what you want as "information wants to be free".

Cue flamebait mods. I can take it.

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

So if they set the DRM so that the limitations are removed when the copyright runs out, you'd be all for it? Digital Rights Management, after all, could be used to manage the rights in accordance with copyright law.

Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them. And that's fine, but don't pretend there's some righteous cause behind it.

Re:DRM

[timeOday]

keep in mind DVDs had DRM too. It just sucked.

I still find that about 20% of DVDs won't play on my Linux HTPC, so it's still enough to be a nuisance. I wonder how people create bittorrents of those DVDs?

Re:DRM

[Red Flayer]

That's just because among certain people, "entitlements" is a codeword for "welfare" and "affirmative action", which has its own set of negative connotations among those people.

Better to call it something else entirely that is not overly burdened by connotations.

Re:DRM

[Dishevel]

I thought real man's entertainment consisted of strippers and Pr0n.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

So if they set the DRM so that the limitations are removed when the copyright runs out, you'd be all for it?

It would help, but unfortunately, they're still trying to take away the "rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you" (yes, it's a little crass to quote yourself, but either you missed that part, or neglected to comprehend it's significance). DRM gives content provides rights *they should never have had in the first place*. Format shifting, time shifting... these are things I can expect to do with the content I've purchased. Hell, if these guys had their way, the VCR would be illegal.

So, while time limitations on DRM would help (and I think should be mandated by the state, lest, decades from now, we run the risk of losing access to large portions of our culture), it doesn't fully address the issue, IMHO.

Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them.

Not at all. I understand that creating content costs money. I happily pay for music (primary from indie bands), DVDs, or movies in the theatre. But I'm not willing to cede my rights simply because the content creators want to find new ways to further soak me.

Re:DRM

[plague3106]

You want me to go through hoops in order to play content, then pay them for it? This would give them reason to put even more draconian policies in place since they are actually making money.

Yes, because it puts you in the right. Buying it and then unlocking it for format shifting purposes if not morally wrong.

Re:DRM

[Reziac]

If they can create new rights (or entitlements, as Shieldw0lf more accurately calls it) for themselves, why can't we??

I suggest that for each new DRM lockup entitlement, one form of what is now called piracy should be legalized. Fair is fair!

Re:DRM

[Reziac]

"The fact is, none of these are so much the creator's rights, as their ability to restrict yours. Put in that context, it suddenly becomes very clear whose rights are being violated."

Good point. The more so if you also happen to be the creator of the work, but no longer own the rights to it thanks to some usorious contract.

Re:DRM

[Jafafa Hots]

I like to think of them as incentives. That's all they are, really. Copyright law when originated actually was based on the understanding that information, once made public, naturally becomes public domain... that this is GOOD, and to be encouraged... and they encouraged it by a temporary artificial monopoly with the end goal being MORE PUBLIC DOMAIN WORKS.

The propaganda by the beneficiaries of this public largess has been so successful that most people now actually think that copyright violation is stealing, actually think that information in MY head can be someone else's property... actually think that this is natural and proper. Insane.

Copyright was an incentive. Like a government small business loan, enterprise zones, tax breaks, cheap hydro power for industry, taxpayer subsidized NFL stadiums, whatever.

Re:DRM

[TheCycoONE]

It's pretty hard to argue that copying something is morally wrong to begin with, and buying something then unlocking it is legally wrong; at least in the United States (See DCMA on DRM)

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you? In the digital world, just because you paid for BluRay doesn't mean you have the rights to do whatever you please with the content - you only paid for the right to use the content as they intended, as that's all they've offered for sale. There's no law that states that when a content provider offers some content for sale it must offer the same access as you can get with... when was the last time content was freely format and time shiftable? VHS? Cassette? If you really want those rights you can go rent the film reel - fully time and format shiftable (though again, probably not legal as that's not what was offered for sale).

I think the nerd community's expectations of digital rights is tainted by the availability of ripped downloads (I hesitate to say pirated here because real piracy is very very different, and sucks immensely) - those offer unrestricted access to the content, so why should content providers offer any less when selling their content? But you have to realize that the unrestricted access to the content offered by ripped downloads was never legally granted, and nobody should expect it as any kind of "right".

Re:DRM

[TheGratefulNet]

As such, I have absolutely no qualms with breaking the laws they've bought over the past 50 years.

I take PRIDE in breaking bad laws.

just look at some of the bad laws we've had on our books. and I'm not even talking about the media-mogul purchased laws.

following stupid laws is - stupid. mankind was meant to use judgement in all things and that includes judging bad laws and working around them.

Re:DRM

[ShieldW0lf]

That's just because among certain people, "entitlements" is a codeword for "welfare" and "affirmative action", which has its own set of negative connotations among those people.

I think the comparison is apt, personally. I say that as one of the individuals who these "entitlements" are supposedly benefiting.

Re:DRM

[Runaway1956]

Portnux speaks true words of wisdom. People need to stop being led around by the nose. Big Company comes out with a new format, and spends millions convincing the non-thinking masses that the format is "better" in some way. Betty Bimbo and Joe Jock decide that they MUST HAVE the newest and bestest, but they aren't smart enough to realize they are being ripped off in the first place.

Only later when they are forced to jump through hoops to use what they have paid for do they even begin to realize that what they USED TO HAVE was just as good, without the headache.

Don't downgrade to Blu-Ray, people. Don't pay the corporation to decide if/when/how you may or may not use the content that you purchased.

Re:DRM

[drinkypoo]

Yeah, that would be nice. However, because you don't have that option, you /are/ paying for the original product before downloading in this super-convenient format, right?

They don't offer me the original product. They only offer the original product plus a bunch of shit I don't want, which is to say CSS which seeks to prevent me from exercising my fair use rights, bad menus, and FBI warnings. You're arguing that people should purchase a product they don't want to legitimize receiving a product they do want. It's not a totally unfair argument, but it's not cut-and-dried.

Re:DRM

[DinDaddy]

Upscaled DVD output over analog is already prohibited on DVD (and BD) players. So really, it's a good reason not to buy their product in any form.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you?

Because those rights always existed until the media cartels decided to try and take them away? Again, the VCR is a classic example. It embodies both format and time shifting, and was ruled entirely legal by the US legal system. To be specific, the right is called "fair use", and it's pretty well established in law. In fact, format- and time-shifting is *still* legal, and considered fair use, even in the wake of the DMCA. What's *not* legal is the distribution of a device who's purpose is to bypass DRM... and that's the case because the media cartels managed to by the DMCA.

A better question you should be asking is, why *don't* you expect rights like time- and format-shifting? How dare the owners of the copyright to these works attempt to dictate what you can and can't do with the copy you purchased with your hard-earned dollars? Who are they to decide if, for your own personal use, you should take a CD and rip it to an MP3? Or copy a DVD onto your media server so I can watch it without needing to pop in a disc?

I think the nerd community's expectations of digital rights is tainted by the availability of ripped downloads

And I think your expectations are coloured by the fact that you've just come to expect content to be restricted (heck, depending on your age, you've probably become fully indoctrinated in the idea). But, historically, it's a relatively new phenomenon, and it's one we shouldn't simply accept as not only inevitable, but moral, as it's neither.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

Or copy a DVD onto your media server so I can watch it without needing to pop in a disc?

ROFL, obviously I meant so *you* can watch it without needing to pop in a disc. :)

Re:DRM

[DinDaddy]

Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you? .

The courts that ruled them as fair use in rather well publicized decisions?

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

A much better option, as the former will actually make me liable in all sorts of unpleasant ways...

Re:DRM

[plague3106]

No, I think there's a good argument that we need copyright to encourage people to make money off their works... otherwise everyone would just take and enjoy without giving back to the person which created it.

Its pretty simple; I invest time and effort and money to create a piece of softwar, I should be able to charge for it, and someone using my software without paying me is stealing.

As for the latter part of your comment, yes, it is illegal and we need to fix the law.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

The point with Hulu is precisely that it does not prevent piracy, but as you say competes with it. Most people don't mind ads as a means for paying for things that they would not lay down money for, and Hulu provides those of us who care about it the means to support the production of entertainment while not paying money.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

So if they set the DRM so that the limitations are removed when the copyright runs out, you'd be all for it? Digital Rights Management, after all, could be used to manage the rights in accordance with copyright law.

That's what we have now. Copyrights never expire and DRM never stops. I think you might want to read the comment you replied to more closely.

Re:DRM

[AK Marc]

Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you?

I'm not sure what rights you are talking about. Before copyright, we had those rights. There was no restriction on copying, shifting in time, format, or anything else. However, the government saw people stating that the inability to commercialize such items because of the copying was harming society as a whole. The reasoning was that creators would fail to share their creations with the people, or just fail to create if they were unable to profit from it. So, copyright was invented to give a temporary distribution monopoly to creators to encourage creation of works.

There is no right to prevent someone from using them however they want once purchased. You can remix it in your own home, as long as you show no one. You can pause, shift, transfer, or whatever else you want, as long as you don't distribute it. "copy" was the word they chose for distribution, as it was a shorter word, and when a copy was necessary for distribution, meant the same thing in the time of books and presses.

However, if copyright does not promote the creation of arts and sciences, it is illegal. If copyright isn't "limited" in time, the it is illegal. Copyright wasn't created to benefit creators. Copyright was invented to benefit the people, and if it doesn't do so, it should be revoked. That's why I should expect the right to format-shift and time-shift. I have those rights, and copyright hasn't taken them from me. The copyright holders have taken them, and in a manner against copyright.

Re:DRM

[sbeckstead]

or pronouns even.

Re:DRM

[tsm_sf]

Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them. And that's fine, but don't pretend there's some righteous cause behind it.

That's like saying the civil rights movement was all about screwing white wimmin.

Re:DRM

[Cajun Hell]

I love it, but can we work this into a new catchy acronym to replace DRM? All I can come up with are variations on Entitlement Enforcing Technical Measures (EETM, which is not catchy), Restriction Causing Entitlements (RCE, not catchy), etc.

Re:DRM

[Gerzel]

You are not a customer. You and everyone else who pays for their content is a potential criminal. The only thing keeping you from being a criminal is your regular payments to them for the content you watch, and you have to be careful only to keep and watch content that you have paid for.

The **AAs have a very difficult job of keeping these maybe criminals from becoming real criminals and all they get is flack and complaints from the people they serve; which just goes to show just how criminal those people really are.

Re:DRM

[pjt33]

I haven't yet found a DVD where I can't skip past the FBI warnings in Xine.

Re:DRM

[Rary]

Yeah, that would be nice. However, because you don't have that option, you /are/ paying for the original product before downloading in this super-convenient format, right? Because you think that you should be paying for products and services you enjoy?

But, by doing that, people would be discarding their ability to influence the market, thus causing the market to fail.

You see, if a producer is providing a product that isn't to your liking, what is supposed to happen is that you turn to the competitor instead, thereby informing the producer through your lack of purchasing their product that the product is not what you want. This, ideally, will influence the producer to change the product in order to compete.

If, however, the black market is the only competitor, and you try to "do the right thing" by buying the product and then getting its more convenient equivalent from the black market, you are telling the producer that their product is what you want, and therefore failing to influence the producer to change their product in order to compete.

So, most people see the choice as this: either buy the product as its offered and accept its limitations, or go to the black market to get what you want and send a message to the producer that their product is not acceptable.

What GP was saying is that he'd like to send the appropriate message to the producer, while still rewarding the creators for their effort (note: creators != producers).

Re:DRM

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You're arguing that people should purchase a product they don't want to legitimize receiving a product they do want. It's not a totally unfair argument, but it's not cut-and-dried.

More or less, I suppose that is my point. What other choice is given? "Acquire" for free and ensure that the people behind it receive /nothing/ for their parts in its creation -- or pay for it in what way we can, while still enjoying use as we should be able to.

My argument is more that you're not paying for the useless crap - you're paying for the content you /do/ use.

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

>> Because those rights always existed until the media cartels decided to try and take them away? Again, the VCR is a classic example.

I'd say those rights weren't so much granted as with the technology of the time it was difficult enough to enforce that nobody bothered to specify either way. I wouldn't say that this grants full access rights to all commercial content perpetually.

>> To be specific, the right is called "fair use", and it's pretty well established in law. In fact, format- and time-shifting is *still* legal, and considered fair use, even in the wake of the DMCA.

Reading up on fair use laws in the US, it appears fair use is subject to quite a few limitations.

107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall includeâ"
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

It appears timeshifting and formatshifting for personal use does satisfy 1), although since we're discussing the "spirit of the law" in regards to copyright I'd say the spirit of fair use in this particular clause is for copyrighted works to be used in nonprofit educational settings, which private viewing at home isn't really. I'll leave a lawyer to work that one out.

2) doesn't seem particularly relevant. 3), though, might be, since most fair use cases only use an excerpt of a work, whereas with the access we're talking about here we're looking at the whole of the work. 4) is obviously the point that is the one that gets brought up the most in media downloading cases, but isn't particularly relevant for personal copying.

So, it looks like personal copying may or may not satisfy the conditions listed above, depending on how you argue it. However, fair use only specifies that you MAY use the content this way - not that the content must be provided to you such that you CAN use it this way. And if it's not provided as such, any attempts to circumvent the protection IS illegal under the DMCA. I think this particular point was well clarified on /. when the DMCA was first introduced - even if the act of copying is not illegal, circumventing protection to do so is.

So, I don't think fair use is a good argument against DRM, since it doesn't say anything about whether the content must be provided to be fair-usable. And hey, if you really want to use the content for fair use purposes, you can always take a camcorder and record it as it plays on your TV.

>> And I think your expectations are coloured by the fact that you've just come to expect content to be restricted (heck, depending on your age, you've probably become fully indoctrinated in the idea).

21, and Canadian. That should tell you about the contents of my harddrive ;)
It just bugs me when people act like unrestricted content access is their god-given right, because I know the cost of "producing" the content I download - the rippers, etc, are constantly risking their hide because what they're doing (circumventing protection, and probably violating a few clauses of section 170 above) HAS been ruled illegal, and I appreciate that fact. I just wish other people did as well, and and don't act like they somehow deserve this kind of access straight from the manufacturer.

Re:DRM

[justwill]

Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them. And that's fine, but don't pretend there's some righteous cause behind it.

The "spirit of copyright" is not a red herring. There are a large number of people who are becoming more and more concerned about the vast amount of our shared culture that is being locked away from us. A large and expansive public domain is a good thing and I, for one, find it disturbing how few works are allowed into public domain anymore.

Hey - I'm all for finding ways to ensure there are incentives for the creation of new work. I want to see artists rewarded for their labor. I don't want to see the shared fabric of our collective culture held off-limits by a few corporations with a profit motive. Without the ability to use, discuss freely, and transform cultural artifacts we lose the ability to participate in culture. I don't like the direction that path leads - where the vast majority of our society is a passive consumer of culture which is 'owned' by someone else who dictates how we can experience it.

While there are some who jump on the bandwagon because they simply want things without having to pay for it, there are definitely others who feel this is an important struggle to retain the ability to participate in our own culture.

I'm reminded of the introduction to my much-beloved edition of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card; he says something to the effect of (paraphrasing) "The story isn't something that I create on my own. The story grows and transforms with each reader and ultimately the story is what is created in that interaction." I really believe that to be the case. The 'culture' created there has as much to do with the people experiencing the artwork as it does with the creator. We are in danger of losing this aspect of our collective interaction with art.

Re:DRM

[sbeckstead]

Well there is no DRM on an oil painting. Suppose I want to format shift it to acrylics. Assuming a device that could do it, would it be ethical? Would I have the "right" to sell the oil painting and keep the acrylic version? Would the acrylic version be just as valuable as the oil version? Would the oil version retain it's value if a copy existed?
Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them.
That is unfortunately exactly the vibe I get from most of the people on /. who rail against DRM and copyrights in general. It feels like petulant children who have been told that they are not entitled to the cookie after all.
Sad but true?

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

...Huh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Duration

I could give you the same advice.

Re:DRM

[sbeckstead]

How dare the owners of the copyright to these works attempt to dictate what you can and can't do with the copy you purchased with your hard-earned dollars?
How dare you assume that since I granted you the ability to play my work in the format you bought that you should be able to play it in any other format without paying me again.
Who has the paramount right here? You seem to assume that you have all the rights but the copyright holder by right of either paying for it's creation or creating it himself has rights that you seem intent in walking all over? This needs to be adjudicated better.

Re:DRM

[zmollusc]

Well, when I am asked to part with my money for content, the vendor keeps quiet about exactly what i am buying in terms of what the content provider intends to allow me to do. It is all 'BUY EXPLODATRON II - THE RECKONING only £18.99'. Maybe the law should mandate a big poster listing what i get for my money?

EXPLODATRON II - THE RECKONING
You can watch the film in your own home with a couple of your immediate family, unless our DRM glitches or is no longer availible. Oh and if it is working you are forced to watch a load of ads, propaganda etc which you can't fastwind through. If you scratch the disk, although you are buying the right to watch the film, you will have to pay full price for a new disk. No matter what happens, we keep your money, ha ha ha, fuck you, peasant!
ONLY £18.99

Re:DRM

[harl]

Buying the disc does not mean the content creator receives any money. The original content creator may no longer hold the rights. A third party could be the only one profiting from the DVD sales.

Likely not true with newer content. Likely very true with older content.

Re:DRM

[sbeckstead]

Copyright wasn't created to benefit creators. Copyright was invented to benefit the people, and if it doesn't do so, it should be revoked.
You seem to assume that creators aren't people. I beg to differ with your opinion which you state as fact.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Do you have any idea what will happen if they really try to close the ANALog hole in Blueray?

Ob joke:
The brain, heart, and guts were trying to decide who is the leader.
The brain said that it was the leader since it made all the decisions.
The guts said, not so fast, without me digesting your food would wouldn't have enough energy to think.
The heart said, yes but if I stopped pumping, both of you would be dead within the hour.
So they argued on and on until the bum mumbled, "Excuse me, I'm the leader".
They all laughed and told the bum to shut up.
And so it did:-)
One month later they all begged the bum to accept the crown of leadership.
This goes to prove that if you want to be a leader, you don't need a mind, or have a good heart, or even have guts. All you need, is to be an asshole. :-)

More seriously, if they try to close the analog hole, they'll need to be able to control everything between the disk and your brain since anything they can't control (e.g. a screen) is an analog hole. That would ensure that DRM users would only be able to run on extremely specialized hardware which almost no-one could buy, and even then unless such hardware requires surgery to use, there is still a hole. Anyone who tries to truly close the analog hole would end up like the body parts in the above joke -- you'd choke yourself off so many customers that you'll be begging to make DRM-free software just to survive.

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

I'm not sure what rights you are talking about. Before copyright, we had those rights. There was no restriction on copying, shifting in time, format, or anything else.

You're confusing something here. "Historically unrestricted" doesn't mean "granted right". The right to bear arms in the US, for example, is an explicit right that was granted to US citizens. On the other hand, there is no restriction for US citizens throwing themselves into the Sun - but that doesn't mean throwing yourself into the Sun is your right. Once we get to the point where we're technologically capable of throwing ourselves into the Sun, there may well be limitations against it, and "throwing ourselves into the Sun is our right because there was no restriction on doing so" would be just as poor an argument as the above.

I think you have to understand that a person at the start of life (whenever you define that to be, that's another sticky topic altogether) has zero rights. Some rights are instantaneously granted by the State due to the agreement between the State and its people, citizens or otherwise. In a region where no State has influence, one's rights are determined solely by the current social hierarchy, and you could be simply snuffed at birth simply because someone has determined that you haven't been granted the right to live.

There is no right to prevent someone from using them however they want once purchased.

It is their product, which they're offering for sale, so they can do with it as they please. That is their right to their property as granted by the State.

You can remix it in your own home, as long as you show no one. You can pause, shift, transfer, or whatever else you want

Not if they've restricted their property such that you cannot do so. Keep in mind what they are offering for sale is such a restricted product, and you're free to accept the restrictions or not to purchase it.

as long as you don't distribute it.

Actually, distribution may be permissible under fair use in some cases.

However, if copyright does not promote the creation of arts and sciences, it is illegal.

And "remix it in your own home, as long as you show no one [...] pause, shift, transfer, or whatever else you want" is just as illegal if it is not for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

Who has the paramount right here?

As the property owner, I do, naturally. I bought a copy of the work. That copy is now mine. I own it and can do what I wish with it, save for copying it and redistributing it to the public. That'd be why time- and format-shifting are already legal (ignoring the DMCA's workaround for the moment).

I'm shocked you feel this point is even debatable. Again, copyright is just a government granted monopoly, and it only applies to creating and redistributing copies of the work. Once an individual has acquired a legally distributed copy of the work, it's theirs to do with as they please. Period.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

It appears timeshifting and formatshifting for personal use does satisfy 1), although since we're discussing the "spirit of the law" in regards to copyright I'd say the spirit of fair use in this particular clause is for copyrighted works to be used in nonprofit educational settings, which private viewing at home isn't really. I'll leave a lawyer to work that one out.

They already did. That's why VCRs are legal. :)

So, I don't think fair use is a good argument against DRM, since it doesn't say anything about whether the content must be provided to be fair-usable.

Well, you are technically correct, in that fair use isn't an affirmative right, but rather a legal defense. That said, fair use, even just for education, research, commentary, or parody, is an extremely valuable activity, and making that activity difficult or impossible deprives society as a whole. As such, DRM actively *hurts us all*. All to enrich a few robber barons.

Again, copyright is a *privilege*, granted by the government, providing a limited monopoly to the rights holders in order to encourage creation. But it's a *compromise*. The rights holder gets a monopoly for a short period of time, and then the content is given over to the public domain, enriching everyone. Or, at least, that's how it was supposed to work.

I just wish other people did as well, and and don't act like they somehow deserve this kind of access straight from the manufacturer.

Umm... why don't they? If they've purchased a copy of the content, and that copy is now their property. Why *shouldn't* they have the right to use their property in whatever way they please? Again, it's about the work, not the media. When I buy a CD, I bought *the music on the CD*. Once I've paid for that music, I think it's completely reasonable, and in fact entirely rational, to believe that the copy of the music I purchased is now mine to do with as I please. That includes shifting the format, playing, manipulating, citing portions of it in scholarly works, creating parodies of it, and so forth.

Honestly, I find your attitude utterly baffling. You ascribe rights to the copyright holder that are entirely unreasonable... after all, if I buy an iPod, am I not free to open it up and modify it as I see fit? Heck, if I had the wherewithal, am I not within my rights to make a duplicate of it for my own use? Or do you believe that Apple has the right to dictate what I can and can't do with the item I've purchased? And if not, why on earth do you believe copyrighted materials should be treated any differently?

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

Well, they don't have to explicitly state that you can't copy it for personal use, since they've restricted such that you can't. And if you bypass their restrictions you should already know what you're getting into.

As to other restrictions such as on reselling, retransmission, etc, it is on the case, not to mention the FBI warning screens (do those exist on Bluray?). If you want to make the writing bigger you'll have to talk to your government representative.

Re:DRM

[BikeHelmet]

I BOUGHT the damn DVD, stop annoying me and show me the damn movie!

Okay, you bought it - now download it so you aren't annoyed by those FBI warnings! :P (personal use backup rights should cover this; the DRM makes it ludicrously difficult to make a backup copy, but you're still entitled to one; IANAL; I'm Canadian.)

Or you can be an honourable pirate. (download everything first, and buy the good stuff)

Or you can be a dishonourable scumbag pirate. (download everything first, and laugh)

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

If you honestly believe in copyright etc. as a tool to promote culture, more power to you. Same thing if you just want free stuff and are honest about it.

It is the hypocrites who use it as an excuse to demand free entertainment I'm attacking here.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

What about when they outlaw dumb?

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

Well there is no DRM on an oil painting. Suppose I want to format shift it to acrylics. Assuming a device that could do it, would it be ethical?

If you owned the painting, yes, why not?

Would I have the "right" to sell the oil painting and keep the acrylic version?

No, as that would be distributing a copy of the work, a right you do not have (legally and, IMHO, morally).

It feels like petulant children who have been told that they are not entitled to the cookie after all.

Read again. I'm far more concerned with the robbing of the public domain, and the attempt by the media cartels to lock away large portions of our collective culture simply to enrich themselves.

See, your mistake, I think, is that you believe the copyright issue is a small one, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and really just about people wanting to download things for free. But in that, you are wrong. What we're seeing the the progressive destruction of culture. I mean, imagine if Shakespeare's works had been protected under a DRM layer? The works would likely have been lost to us, and I think it's safe to say that that would've been disastrous.

Re:DRM

[ratboy666]

Don't buy the blu-ray. Buy the DVD. The material you are downloading is usually of no better quality anyway. And, if you get the DVD you can rip it yourself.

Let the blue-rays rot on the shelf.

Re:DRM

[JasterBobaMereel]

Amount that most of the people get from "Residuals" i.e. more than their original salary is 0!

So paying for the Blu-Ray will give most of these people nothing, they already got paid and the money to pay them came from the TV companies that paid for the show to be made, and they made back all the money to pay for this from advertising

The Blu-Ray/DVD/Download sales pay the publisher and sometimes the producer/director and the "stars" the "little people" get nothing
Note the publisher get the most the "Artists" get very very little if anything ....

Re:DRM

[MozeeToby]

If you want to boycott what you see as their unfair practices and deprive them of revenue that's fine. But that hardly gives you the right to go and download their product for free and claim that you're doing it 'in protest' of their practices. It should be noted that boycots are about sacrifice too; it's showing the company you're boycotting that you don't need their product. Everytime someone says they won't buy a movie because of [your reason here] and then goes out and downloads it, that just tells the movie studios that they need better DRM to prevent you from downloading it since you obviously want to watch it and are willing to take a certain amount of risk to do so.

Re:DRM

[StikyPad]

God knows I have had to make several copies of my kids' DVDs

My solution is that if they scratch the disc, they get no replacement. Either they learn to take care of their shit, or else I get to avoid hearing HSM3 for the 50th time. Win-win.

--
Slow down, cowboy! It's been 3 hours and 24 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

I think we fundamentally disagree what it is you're purchasing. I say you're purchasing the media which is a delivery path for the content, and you say you're purchasing the content itself. I don't think we can agree with each other no matter how much we quibble over the details.

Re:DRM

[LordKazan]

Maybe it is different in the US than here, but I'm not sure why you expect rights like format-shifting and time-shifting - who granted those rights to you?

I'm in the US and I can tell you EXACTLY who recognized the existence of those rights: The Supreme Court of the United States

Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. 464 U.S. 417 (1984)

Re:DRM

[somersault]

I'm glad I'm not the only crazy one that thinks entertainment is actually worth paying for.

Not that I have been a saint myself, but now that I have a job I pay for stuff - even some stuff that I have already acquired through other means when I was a student.

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

Actually, look at it this way. If you broke your disk or it got scratched up, can you take it to the reseller and demand a new copy because what you own is the content, not the media? I think this should demonstrate exactly what you've purchased.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

I think we fundamentally disagree what it is you're purchasing. I say you're purchasing the media which is a delivery path for the content, and you say you're purchasing the content itself. I don't think we can agree with each other no matter how much we quibble over the details.

But... what's copyright about if it's not fundamentally about the content? Heck, copyright is specifically a right to copy a work and redistribute it. The medium doesn't play into it at all. It's simply, as you say, a delivery path for the content.

I mean, given your perspective, when you buy a song from iTunes, you receive *nothing at all*, as all you get is the content, which you apparently didn't buy. Or something.

Frankly, I don't understand what your position is. :)

Re:DRM

[Bert64]

Actually, the only usable alternative is illegal downloads...

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

If you broke your disk or it got scratched up, can you take it to the reseller and demand a new copy because what you own is the content, not the media?

Well, no and yes. No, in that part of the cost I paid initially was for the cost of the media itself, as well as for the copy of the content resident on that media. But my answer is also yes, in that I believe I should be able to pay for the replacement cost of the media and receive a new copy. Of course, the media cartels wouldn't want that, so of course the service isn't provided.

As such, I should be allowed to create a backup copy of the content in case something happens to the copy I purchased. Or do you not believe people should be allowed to backup their PCs, either?

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

I'm not familiar with the iTunes system, but if it's like other online music stores then what I've purchased is a license to play that music, under their term. This same license is implied with the purchase of physical media.

Re:DRM

[Abcd1234]

I'm not familiar with the iTunes system, but if it's like other online music stores then what I've purchased is a license to play that music, under their term.

So you don't believe you have a right to back up the audio file you've apparently only licensed but not actually purchased, despite said file being in your possession? Interesting... weird, but interesting. :)

It's also wrong as far as copyright is concerned. What you paid for is a copy of the content. You had to pay because the rights holder required payment before distributing a copy to you. That's it. Copyright law then simply states that you do not have the right to distribute copies of the work.

Now, as part of the agreement you may have also agreed to a contract which further restricts your use of your copy of the work. But that's entirely outside the realm of copyright law.

Re:DRM

[zmollusc]

Well, they don't have to explicitly state that you can't copy it for personal use, since they've restricted such that you can't. And if you bypass their restrictions you should already know what you're getting into.

Then surely, by the same reasoning, if they make something that can be seen and heard by humans in an age when recording of audio and video by(and of) citizens is commonplace, they should already know what they are getting into?
Unlike the content providers, I do not have the financial wherewithall to purchase a government representative.

Re:DRM

[Pentium100]

Choose:
If I purchase the media, not the content, then me copying the content onto another media and giving it away/selling it does not deprive the copyright holder of anything (since they are selling plastic disks (not the content) and I am selling FTP access).

If I purchase the content, not the media, then I should be able to access the content even without the media, however, I cannot copy the content and distribute it.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed, except about the quality: all downloading sites I hae found are pretty hit/miss, sometimes the quality will be tops, other times its frankly piss poor. I do try to buy as much of the really good stuff as I can, but if it sucks, well nothing lost but some bandwidth and a few minutes of browsing/searching.

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

And you're free to set up a camcorder to record it from your TV.

Re:DRM

[Pentium100]

Also, eztv has a very convenient feature called RSS. I set it up and no longer need to check their site. I wake up and some episode is already on my hard drive, ready for watching.

Re:DRM

[Pentium100]

How are they different from the regular DVDs? I haven't tried this with a lot of DVDs, but I could rip any DVD I tried (maybe my "special" DVDROM helped).

Re:DRM

[zmollusc]

I think they use teh 1337 haxxings.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. This is an industry that excels at shooting itself in the foot time and time again.

But let them try...

The efforts of the industry are technologically primitive and ultimately insufficient to prevent *anything*. This is not a war -- it is a hilariously doomed mission which has zero chance of success. The industry's actions will only deplete the industry of resources which they could have spent in far more profitable ways.

So let them try. Let them fail. They are hopelessly outgunned by superior numbers, superior technology and superior talent. They are not only losing the fight -- but their insistence on fighting the fight dangerously accelerates their loss and provokes the "enemy". They would be wise to read Sun Tzu. This battle is done. They have already lost. To continue fighting is unwise.

The age-old weapon of those whose business models have failed is to take legal recourse. Never once in history has this strategy worked for anything longer than a few years. So have at it Mr. Recording Industry. You're not smart enough, rich enough or agile enough to pull this off. Not by a long shot.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

I say that as one of the individuals who these "entitlements" are supposedly benefiting.

Welfare does not exist for your personal benefit. It exists to benefit society as a whole. The Constitution allows the federal government to provide for the *general* welfare, not your personal interests. In stark contrast, DRM "rights" exist only to promote a single group's narrow interests. Comparing this to welfare is playing into their arguments that DRM is healthy for society.

Re:DRM

[LanMan04]

Yeah, that would be nice. However, because you don't have that option, you /are/ paying for the original product before downloading in this super-convenient format, right? Because you think that you should be paying for products and services you enjoy? I'm sure that's what that vast majority of bay users do, wouldn't you say?

It's not the payment that matters, it's who the payment is made TO that matters. I would happily send my $10 directly to the artist, but I will not happily send my $10 to the middleman who eats 93% of it before passing on a pittance to the artist.

Re:DRM

[misexistentialist]

It would be better if they took online donations. It's discouraging when half of your money is going towards a useless disk and retailers. And really 80% of content deserves no money because it not only lacks talent but even effort. Whatever they got for product placement is enough.

Re:DRM

[elrous0]

The funny thing is that I would actually gladly *pay* for those kind of downloads. When Amazon opened its DRM-free music store selling mp3's, I actually started *buying* all my music (or everything I wanted in their catalog). It wasn't about the money nearly as much as it was about the freedom. I don't mind dropping $1 for a song in mp3 format that I can play anywhere--but I'll be damned if I would pay even 1 cent for a song loaded with DRM that actually PUNISHES me for trying to be honest.

Re:DRM

[Thinboy00]

It's pretty hard to argue that copying something is morally wrong to begin with, and buying something then unlocking it is legally wrong; at least in the United States (See DCMA on DRM)

IANAL, but the constitutionality of the DMCA hasn't been squarely addressed. (be sure to read the last few paragraphs if you RTFLink at all)

Re:DRM

[Lennie]

I life in the Netherlands, downloading isn't illegal here, just uploading. ;-)

Re:DRM

[amoeba1911]

Stop calling it piracy. Piracy is when you make an unauthorized copy and sell it and profit, that's bad. Piracy is also hijacking for profit, like hijacking ships off the coast of Somalia, that's bad too. Copying stuff to share with your loved ones or a community of Internet based loved ones for no profit: that's sharing, as in sharing is caring.

As for analog hole, I think they should stick their heads out of their analog holes and take a look around. They created an imaginary world for themselves with imaginary laws and imaginary rules and they expect people to obey their imaginary laws. Those aren't our laws, they just made this stuff up for their own profit. They hijacked the legal system. They are the real pirates.

It's a shame they brainwashed us into thinking we're pirates because people associate piracy with bad things. I think PirateBay would be better off if it was called Sharing&Caring Bay. It's a community of people who like sharing.

Re:DRM

[sahonen]

who granted those rights to you?

That's not how rights work. Rights are not granted because we already have them. They can only be taken away. The US constitution starts with the assumption that every person has all possible rights available to them, and from there those rights are restricted. The constitutional amendments stating the specific rights that we have are in no way comprehensive, and the 9th amendment in fact makes that clear.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, imagine if Shakespeare's works had been protected under a DRM layer? The works would likely have been lost to us, and I think it's safe to say that that would've been disastrous.

You're still thinking too small, or at least stating the case too small. Not having Shakespeare is kind of meh, but not a huge loss in the grand scheme of things. The problem of DRM lies not in the inavailability of any particular work, but in the inavailability of all of them. You can't legally get access to anything older than a couple of decades, which also means new works won't be copying ideas from older works, because the authors won't be aware of those older works.

Re:DRM

[cheftw]

where's that?

Re:DRM

[Ornedan]

The duration has been retroactively extended whenever any works are about to fall out of scope. So it effectively never ends. Moreover, even if the duration were not to be extended anymore, from the point of an actual human it never ends, since the duration is longer than a human lifetime already.

Re:DRM

[Sinbios]

I think you are the one that doesn't understand how rights work. The constitution starts with the assumption that God has granted humans certain rights. I'm not really a fan of that idea so I'm going to pretend the constitution gave you those basic rights. But those rights were in the end given to you by another party, not something that you have by default.

Imagine in a society without a body to grant rights to people. Do you have the right to life? Nope, I can kill you as I please. Do you have the right to property? Nope, I can take whatever I want from you. You can attempt to defend yourself, but the point is there is no one else to come to your defense should your imaginary "rights" be violated. This is why prior cultures had to rely on God as the ultimate granter of rights, it came down to my-dad-could-beat-your-dad-up.

Rights are only meaningful when they are granted by a party that could protect them.

Re:DRM

[codex24]

Now, if you do have problems with piracy, might I suggest this alternative: by the Blu-ray disc, thus paying the content creator for their work, and then download a pirated copy. At least then you can still avail yourself of the rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you.

How about this: I make a payment directly to the artist via an open-standards-based micropayment system, and then is doesn't matter where I get the content from or in what format, but preferably in the highest fidelity version I choose to pay for (including as little as bandwidth-only) from from first-hand or authorized second-hand distributors. Now get out there and write it.

Re:DRM

[DarkPixel]

Actually, if you buy a dvd/blu-ray you ARE paying for the format and not the content. If we were paying for the content, then my purchase of the Alien Trilogy on VHS should've included reasonably priced upgrades to newer formats based on the cost of new media. So, if today I decided to finally get the DVD version of Alien, I should only have to pay for disc+shipping or so. Same for blu-ray.

As it stands, we aren't paying for the content. Otherwise we wouldn't be forced to buy the content multiple times depending on our choice of playback device and preference of data quality.

So when we download from the Bay, we are acquiring content without any of the chains. Years ago I downloaded the Alien DVD rip. Today I downloaded the Alien blu-ray (making a point, I don't think it exists yet). Tomorrow I will download the Alien holo-disc. I already paid for my Alien "content" twice, when I saw it in the theaters, and when I bought it on VHS.

Maybe the industry needs to rethink how they sell content (if they even want to do that at all) to the folks who love watching movies/shows outside the theater. Maybe when content gets created it should get digitally stored in data centers using the highest reasonably possible format. Then, when people purchase the "content" the studios fetch it from the datacenters, transcode it down to the desired format/media delivery system. So the first time you buy a movie for example, you'll pay two fees. One for the content, and one for the processing and delivery. But consecutively you'll only pay processing and delivery if you choose to keep getting that content in new formats. As I mentioned earlier, the prices should be reasonable... not $5 VHS -> $15 DVD -> $35 blu-ray, but instead maybe $5 VHS -> $5 DVD -> $5 blu-ray

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

They're going to consider your download a lost sale regardless. And probably triple it for good measure.

Additionally, by downloading it, you're depriving them of the ability to charge more for the ability to access the content in multiple ways on multiple devices! That's most of their profit! So really, you're no more morally in the clear.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

"....or go to the black market to get what you want and send a message to the producer that their product is not acceptable."

Doing that does not send any message at all.

The producer does not know that you download your movies from the pirate bay, and as you are no longer participating in the only market where they can make a living, they do not care either.

Re:DRM

[cinderblock]

Telling someone you want to take away a group of peoples rights always sounds bad and closes the discussion before it's begun.

Until you pass Prop 8.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why would I give money to the people who want to f**k me and the artists in the a**? (assuming I'm not gay or a sucker for punishment)

Re:DRM

[amRadioHed]

I don't know about you, but when I buy a CD I don't do it because I like the shiny disc. I'm paying for the music.

Re:DRM

[Renraku]

Lets say that a store is selling a rake for $30. A rake of decent quality and material. However, the Rake Association has put a GPS device into every rake, so that you have to calibrate it when you get it home, so you can't use it in a neighbor's yard, and everyone has to buy this rake. You pay an extra $100 fee for this GPS device.

Now lets say that someone found out how easy it was to make these rakes, because they found the schematics. Your friend takes you to the place where he made his rake, and you make your rake based from said schematics.

This is a free market economy at its finest. Priced reasonably, without restrictions, most people I would say would buy the rake and not go through the trouble to make their own.

Re:DRM

[drinkypoo]

My argument is more that you're not paying for the useless crap - you're paying for the content you /do/ use.

My argument is that the crap put in my way explicitly to prevent me from exercising my rights reduces the value of the media.

Re:DRM

[mfnickster]

I think you are the one that doesn't understand how rights work. The constitution starts with the assumption that God has granted humans certain rights.

You're thinking of the Declaration of Independence. The U.S. Constitution does not mention God or a creator.

Re:DRM

[arminw]

...Some rights are instantaneously granted by the State ....

The state as represented by my next-door neighbor never has and never can give me any rights. It can only take them away. All rights are given by God as it clearly states in our Declaration of Independence. No government anywhere has ever given rights to anybody but only taken them away.

For thousands of years people have lived without copyrights and still created art because it is within the human being to want to create as our Creator did. It is only now that human creativity has become a commercial activity, is it necessary to prevent others from profiting by someone else's creativity. The key ought to be "profiting", not the mere use of content.

Re:DRM

[Omestes]

More importantly, it is less effort (which also is a cost) than the illegal free equivalent. Sure, you can download the show ad-free in 10-30 minutes, but with Hulu (at least for those of us in the US), you can immediately watch the show.

I wonder what the statistics are for the rate of piracy on the selection of shows on Hulu before and after the service became popular.

If these hypothetical stats (rolling 2d10 says it went down 59%) bear me out, then perhaps some Hollywood bigwig should put up a Hulu for movies, have then in 720p, have them streaming, and have them ad-sponsored with no barrier to entry. I'm guessing this would remove some piracy, while keeping the incentive to actually buy DVDs. I'm guessing most people who pirate a film are doing it for a one-off viewing, and not to keep as a permanent copy. (hypothetically this will reduce movie piracy by 2d20=78%)

Music will always be more problematic, since it isn't really made for passive listening. People want to take it with them to a higher degree than TV shows or movies, and also want a higher degree of control over the content. iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic are good starts in making legal solutions somewhat competitive with piracy, but it still isn't as convenient, especially with the need for specialty clients. I can find free pirated tracks in the exact same amount of time as I could find them on a pay site.

Re:DRM

[AK Marc]

You seem to assume that creators aren't people.

You seem to not understand there is a difference between "a person" and "the people."

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice of you to overlook the fact that the money you pay to buy a CD or DVD doesn't go directly to the people responsible for producing the content. In fact, they usually never see a penny of it.

Re:DRM

[sbeckstead]

There is no difference and if you think there is go back to 4th grade do not pass go do not collect your adult card.

Re:DRM

[AK Marc]

Not if they've restricted their property such that you cannot do so. Keep in mind what they are offering for sale is such a restricted product, and you're free to accept the restrictions or not to purchase it.

That does not compute. Did they sell it to me, in which case it's mine, and not "restricted" or did they not sell it to me? Ford sells a "restricted" car in that it comes with cheap tires, but they don't sue me if I replace them with better ones and tell others where to go to buy tires. Is it mine, or isn't it?

Actually, distribution may be permissible under fair use in some cases.

Excuse, me. Fuck you. You aren't arguing a point. You are arguing a fight. You take one stance in one sentence, and a different one in another. What good is "fair use" if you have a restricted product that removes all allowable fair use capabilities?

I think you have to understand that a person at the start of life (whenever you define that to be, that's another sticky topic altogether) has zero rights.

Not according to the people that granted them to us. We are endowed by the creator with inalienable rights. That makes you wrong. I don't know who you are arguing with, but you seem to be taking the law as the basis one one side (fair use is a completely arbitrary legal construct you argue from) and the philosophical stance on the other, ignoring law and precedent. Are you just bored? What is your point? You just tried to tear my statements apart, but used directly contradictory premises and logic to do so. You argued against yourself much more effectively than you argued against me. "Whenever you define that to be"? What the hell is that? Another attempt to not say anything, but instead get someone else to say something so you can attack it again? Next time, try saying something. You just came across as a bittle whiny little bitch this time. What are rights, and what are the rights regarding creative works for both the creator and the people the creator shares them with?

Re:DRM

[Rary]

The producer does not know that you download your movies from the pirate bay, and as you are no longer participating in the only market where they can make a living, they do not care either.

So, they're trying to shut down services like TPB because they don't know anyone's using them and they don't care?

Wait... what?

Re:DRM

[arminw]

...Heck, if I had the wherewithal, am I not within my rights to make a duplicate of it for my own use...

Therein is the major difference between real property and intellectual property. Real property contains intellectual property, but it is not easily copied. The key is when somebody is making a profit from someone else's work. It comes down to the golden rule, if you create something then you don't want someone else to profit from your creativity.

The whole idea of copyright is to give the creator the exclusive right to distribute copies of his or her work. When a private individual makes a copy for their iPod or other device, they are not in distributing nor profiting by doing this. However, if he or she were giving the CD music to all her friends who were putting it on the Internet, that is wrong because it means they are actually distributing someone else's work.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should they care?

It doesn't matter to the producers what people steal, only what they buy.

They don't make any money from the pirates, they don't get to place advertising trailers in the films the pirates watch, the pirates only cost them sales. It's a legal/policing matter like any theft, of no concern to the entertainment business.

Therefore, the chance of the pirates activities 'sending a message' to the producers is around zero. The pirates have voluntary left the market, and no longer participate in it's process.

Note that I am not agreeing with the way the RIAA is conducting itself at the moment. I think preventing piracy is a policing matter, no direct concern of the record/movie industry itself. In the same way, I don't expect a grocery store to set up it's own international operation to prevent people stealing cabbages worldwide.

Re:DRM

[arminw]

.....Rights are only meaningful when they are granted by a party that could protect them....

You are advocating the law of the jungle, the law tooth and claw, whoever has the bigger gun. For example the basic right to life. You cannot create life or preserve from death, so what makes you think that you or the government or anybody has the right to take it away. Corporations do not create anything, but it is the individual people applying their God-given creativity that do the creating. If people lived by the golden rule, then there would be no need for copyright or most other laws. If you write a song or perform an act which is then recorded, it is yours or whoever you give it to. If someone takes a recording thereof and distributes it, that person is not living by golden rule. People who do not wish to obey the simple golden rule will not obey 1 billion laws or more.

All rights come from the giver of life, God himself, whether you or anybody else agrees with that or not. All human rights to derive from the basic right to life itself, which only God can give. Anyone who cannot give life must not take it away.

Re:DRM

[arminw]

... a community of Internet based loved ones ...

I think the Internet is more like a public square. Do you really think that giving away copies of someone else's work in the public square is something you would like if it were done to your work? Giving away some copyrighted work to your loved ones may be morally defensible, but handing someone's work out in public is illegal and immoral.

Re:DRM

[AK Marc]

There is no difference and if you think there is go back to 4th grade do not pass go do not collect your adult card.

You are funny. You are asserting that "society" and "a single person" are exactly the same thing. Perhaps you should grab a dictionary sometime and see what it says.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing something here. "Historically unrestricted" doesn't mean "granted right". The right to bear arms in the US, for example, is an explicit right that was granted to US citizens.

I think you're the one who's confused!

The 2nd Amendment does not grant any rights - it guarantees protection of a right claimed by the people.

You'll notice it doesn't say "the right of the People to keep and bear Arms is hereby granted." It says "the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It acknowledges that the right already exists.

Re:DRM

[KingBenny]

i remember when the news broke about this 'new' thing called dvd, it was like a cd that could hold up to 17GB of data ... so far i've only seen the 4 and 8gb kind

Re:DRM

[kialara]

So, most people see the choice as this: either buy the product as its offered and accept its limitations, or go to the black market to get what you want and send a message to the producer that their product is not acceptable.

And therein lies the false dichotomy. There's another option:

DON'T OBTAIN THE MATERIAL.

You don't need the movie that much. You can choose neither, and still send the message that the product is not acceptable.

Re:DRM

[Dutch Gun]

The right to bear arms in the US, for example, is an explicit right that was granted to US citizens.

This was pointed out in another place, but it bears repeating. The US Constitution does not grant us rights. It limits the power of government by specifically *enumerating* our rights and telling the government what it can and cannot do. The premise is that all people are "endowed by our Creator" (or consider it natural law if you don't wish to involve a deity), and those inherent rights must be preserved.

It may seem like semantic nit-picking, but it's a crucial difference. If rights were granted by the government, it would also mean they could be taken away by the government. By declaring these inalienable human rights, derived from natural law, we draw from an authority higher than that of the government - something of a safety measure against an oppressive government that claims to have the authority to suspend our rights at will.

Re:DRM

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

So, most people see the choice as this: either buy the product as its offered and accept its limitations, or go to the black market to get what you want and send a message to the producer that their product is not acceptable.

And therein lies the false dichotomy. There's another option:

DON'T OBTAIN THE MATERIAL.

You don't need the movie that much. You can choose neither, and still send the message that the product is not acceptable.

Indeed. I've given up on trying to convince anyone on that line of reasoning though. The idea of doing without seems rather foreign.

Re:DRM

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You could also argue that the premium on BluRay is for the HD content that you can't get on DVD...

Re:DRM

[Abreu]

Dude, calm down... my kids are 4 and 2 years old respectively!

And the movies they watch with most regularity are Pixar movies, Lilo and Stitch, and the original Star Wars trilogy

So yeah, I cut them a little slack

Re:DRM

[perryizgr8]

i don't fucking care about morality. tell me this. i want to watch the dark knight in 1080p on my big lcd tv. i have two options. either i can order a blu-ray dvd for big buck$ and wait 3-4 days for it to come and play it on my real expen$ive blu-ray player, fucking un-skippable trailers and all. another option that i have is the i go to tpb and search for "the dark knight 1080p" and download it through utorrent. this process takes about 2 (two) hours. then i connect my decent pc to my tv through hdmi and watch the movie (without any of the crap).
guess what i choose?
if something better (ie, more convenient for the consumer) can be done through common tech available to almost everyone, why in hell can't sony provide it to me? if sony pictures sets up an online store that charges me a good price and guarantees me that i will get what i want and in perfect quality (something that isn't always true with tpb), i would pay. but i won't pay if i can have a product that's better and more convenient for me for free.
summary: give me what i want (what i want is quite possible and easy to do with current tech), or i will take it anyway, regardless of compensation to you.

Re:DRM

[perryizgr8]

the point is not about rights. the point is that what CAN be easily done with current tech, WILL be done, whether anyone likes it or not.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

> There's another option: DON'T OBTAIN THE MATERIAL.

Why do you hate America??

Re:DRM

[collinstocks]

He said, "...invented to benefit the people...", not "...invented to benefit people..."

You are twisting his words instead of coming up with a real counter-argument.

Note: there are real counter-arguments, but you have not produced one here.

Re:DRM

[plague3106]

Sony can't provide it for you free of charge, which is what you want.

Your argument is "I ONLY want it this way, otherwise I'll steal it." I don't really have any sympathy for you; either pay for dark knight in one of the options legally available, or go without. It's not "big bucks," you can buy a BR Dark Knight for $29.99 at your local best buy, and a player costs $129.99, and that's a one time expense.

You clearly can afford the $1,000+ TV that does 1080p, so take your selfish dumbass arguement and shove it up your ass.

The reason TPB can "afford" to give you the movie is because they're criminals that didn't foot the bill to pay for the movie to be made to begin with.

Re:DRM

[Rary]

So, most people see the choice as this: either buy the product as its offered and accept its limitations, or go to the black market to get what you want and send a message to the producer that their product is not acceptable.

And therein lies the false dichotomy. There's another option:

DON'T OBTAIN THE MATERIAL.

You don't need the movie that much. You can choose neither, and still send the message that the product is not acceptable.

It's not a false dichotomy. Yes, you always have the option of not acquiring the product at all. What I was discussing was the options available that result in getting the desired movie.

All discussion of whether or not we really truly need movies/music/etc in the grand scheme of things aside, when looking at choices that result in actually getting the movie, people only see the two choices I described previously. Your third choice has a completely different outcome, and is a valid choice (you're right, I should have mentioned it), but with the realization that it is a different category of choice.

Re:DRM

[TheCycoONE]

The GP that I was addressing was talking about copying something for one's own use after purchasing it. Try arguing that that is morally wrong.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

It might sound harsh, but I'm quite calm. Appropriate leniency is shielding children from the full consequences of their actions when they can't handle it, which is necessary 99% of the time. E.g., a toddler can't clean up spilled juice. A child can't pay for hospital bills when they injure themselves or a sibling. Scratching a DVD or breaking a toy is not one of those times, allowing them to suffer loss is not being too harsh, and you should jump at the opportunity to teach a valuable life lesson with minimal fuss. Yes, copying a DVD is cheap and easy, but you teach them today with things that are cheap so that you don't have to go through it with phones, laptops, or cars later.

Also, you might notice that 5 minutes after the DVD incident, their emotional state will be based on something completely different. They might have been happy because you fixed their DVD, but they're now unhappy because their sibling called them a name, or they can't find their blankey, or cats don't like being stepped on, or whatever. So you're not really making them feel better in any meaningful or lasting way, AND you're robbing them of the learning experience that breaking something results in its loss. Repeating this "make everything better" parenting for years (which, trust me, is all too easy when you start out that way) can very easily result in spoiled kids with a sense of entitlement. They won't feel empathy for a victim of theft, and therefore may also feel that theft is ok, because things are never gone -- everyone just gets a new one.

So do your kids a favor.. throw away their scratched DVDs, make them pay for their own cars & insurance (it may seem like the distant future, but it will pass in the blink of an eye), and teach them responsibility from a young age.

Re:DRM

[silanea]

No. They do not know that person X who shelled out for a licensed copy of Y then downloads Y from TPB because of the annoying DRM that came with their legit copy.

The only way for X to make their disagreement with Y's terms known to Y's producer/publisher is to not buy Y. Whether X then downloads Y does not matter much in this regard.

Re:DRM

[silanea]

Would you Paypal a penny each to the actors, directors, and the key grip guy?

Why not? Makes the most sense after all.

How would the caterer get paid, and his staff? How about the electric company?

Sorry, that is a rather stupid question.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way for X to make their disagreement with Y's terms known to Y's producer/publisher is to not buy Y.

But then Y has no way to know whether X didn't buy because they disagreed with the terms, or doesn't have enough money, or just doesn't care much for Y.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

As a parent of an 18-year-old and 15-year old, I can tell you there's some truth to this.

My kids have turned into complaining, whining spoiled brats. The help I gave all along their rearing has bitten me in the ass. They don't appreciate anything. I'm also the parent of a 6-year-old and you can bet I've changed my parenting style based on the first two. I hope I can turn her around before it's too late.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one do not welcome our AACS DRM overlords!

I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

[tjonnyc999]

And wish them a heartfelt "goodluckwiththat".

Re:I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

[GreenTech11]

I hope they have baked cookies for the angry mod that will be outside thier offices tomorrow morning

Angry mobs like cookies..

Re:I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

[mcvos]

I hope they have baked cookies for the angry mod that will be outside thier offices tomorrow morning

Or they might lose karma!

Re:I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

[Voyager529]

Or they might lose karma!

Did they have any to begin with that was worth keeping?

Re:I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

[nine-times]

Yeah, I don't get it. If you think you're closing the "analog hole" then I think you've missed the point of what the "analog hole" is. Sooner or later, the digital signal has to be displayed. The audio has to be pumped to a speaker, and the video to a display, at which point it can be captured. If it can't be captured before it hits the display and speakers, then worst case scenario, you set up a mic and camera and record it that way.

Really, what's going on is that you have tech companies coming out with snake-oil DRM schemes that won't work, and continuing to re-sell them to media companies over and over again. It's fitting, I suppose.

Re:I, for one, welcome our new DRM overlords.

[Lennie]

I did see someone mention, they will probably release digital camera's with watermark recognition, so recording from analog to digital isn't possible that way either.

Well, I guess it's time to upgrade

[Nerdfest]

I'm still stuck with these ridiculous analog eyes and ears. Stupid forced upgrade path.

Re:Well, I guess it's time to upgrade

[Abreu]

You are not upgradable!

You will perish under maximum deletion!

DELETE! DELEEETE!!!

Re:Well, I guess it's time to upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

Just think about a hearing aid with DRM, just think...

You mean Blu-ray, right?

[TPJ-Basin]

Your journalism teacher just gave you 50% off your paper for misspelling a proper noun. It's 'Blu-ray', not 'Blu-Ray'. Carry on.

Re:You mean Blu-ray, right?

[eldavojohn]

Your journalism teacher just gave you 50% off your paper for misspelling a proper noun.

Good sir, implying I ever took a journalism course or received direction on the subject is libel and slander! Furthermore I hereby demand you retract such a statement or I shall receive satisfaction!

Should you imply I am a journalist again, I may go so far as to insult you with the label of 'lawyer!'

BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that still around? Everywhere I see that carries any BR disks, the inventory is next to nothing now.

When are these companies going to give up with BR? The format just wasn't going to catch on since most people see plain DVD as "good enough". And, in fact, it is, for the most part. Sure, BR is "better" but when you're watching a movie, you're not going to be able to tell the difference unless you're watching closely, most of the time.

Also, they can take my SD CRT television when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. This forced upgrade to a technology with a terrible, inherent flaw (tearing and lagging from any significant motion, even with the best, most current technology) is unacceptable. When they wise up and replace LCD/plasma with viable technology, I'll be on board but until then, to hell with this cheaply done forced upgrade crap to appease people who like shiny new things.

Re:BluRay?

[Viol8]

"When they wise up and replace LCD/plasma with viable technology,"

The screen technology isn't the issue - its all the digital decoding that goes in inside the TV. The days of LCD screens having noticable lag are long gone though I'll admit they're still not as good as the best CRT. However , LED screens will be along in (hopefully) 5 or so years and it will leave LCD and plasma as a footnote in the techno history books as its way better than either picture wise plus it uses less power.

Re:BluRay?

[FredFredrickson]

As somebody who crossed to the other side- I can agree.

I got a nice 50" plasma and decided it was time to upgrade to blu-ray to make sure I'm geting the most out of my set. So I went out and bought myself a nice Sony Blu-ray player and set out for an adventure. At first I was a little dissapointed, I needed a flash drive to get BD-LIVE to work, but none the less I was determined to get everything out of my $300 that I just plopped down. I plugged in my USB drive and started up BD-Live, only to find out it's literally just trailers for other movies. Why is this a feature? There are other "BD-Live" apps, which if I recall correctly, are written in Java. I always thought the idea of Java really opened up the doors for the platform, but it turns out nobody cares, nobody's trying for anything revolutionary. There's a program to Re-Edit a movie with your own notes and captions, and there's this trailer app. And you need the disc in to use them.

To keep this short, I'll say this, the BD-Live features seemed like something the studios should be paying me for. I really don't understand why a new venue for advertising to me is a feature I should be excited about.

Anyway, the picture quality itself was good, but rewind, fast foward and similar features responded so slowly, that they were useless. It felt like the remote just wasn't connecting- but if you pressed the button once and waited five minutes, it would eventually pause/rewind/fast foward.

I decided I didn't like it, and returned it for a samsung with netflix and pandora- oh what a mistake that was. The features were minimal. No animated menus, clunky browsing, impossibly slow, same issues as the last- but this one had tracking off on both digital and analog audio signals. I can't make my audio receiver make the audio faster- only delay. The TV, unfortunately, don't have any such feature for the delay. How annoying.

TLDR; Blu-Ray has been aroung long enough that it should be a stable technology. They're selling shit for big prices trying to convince people it's better, but it's worse than DVD (and dvds and players are cheap). There's no reason to upgrade. Even if the picture is nicer, I don't care.

P.S. I'm returning my last Blu-Ray and not buying a new one.

Re:BluRay?

[CastrTroy]

BluRay really does look better. A lot better than a DVD. However, most people aren't willing to pay extra to get that better experience. Just like everybody could spend $3000 on a computer to play all their games at ultra high resolutions with really high framerates. But they don't. Because whatever quality they get is good enough, and the extra money doesn't justify the cost. If they really wanted to make BluRay catch on, they would price the discs the same price as DVD. A new movie isn't worth an extra $10 just because the resolution better. I'd rather buy 3 DVDs than 2 BluRays.

Re:BluRay?

[Taibhsear]

This forced upgrade to a technology with a terrible, inherent flaw (tearing and lagging from any significant motion, even with the best, most current technology) is unacceptable. When they wise up and replace LCD/plasma with viable technology, I'll be on board but until then, to hell with this cheaply done forced upgrade crap to appease people who like shiny new things.

The issue isn't the tv technology, it's your nearby broadcasting station. I actually saw the exact opposite. I never could get a few channels (huge name ones at that, like ABC) in chicago on SD. Once we got our HDTV we got perfect crystal clear HD signal in 1080 on just an old shitty pair of bunny ears from the SDtv, including channels I never could get before, as well as ones I didn't even know existed. And that was in a basement apt. Once the stations go full power on the digital channels the tearing issue you complain about won't be an issue.

Re:BluRay?

[Mastadex]

BlueRay might catch on in the Game Console or PC markets because it can store a TON of data. As for TV, I'm happy with my DVDs.

Re:BluRay?

[mr_mischief]

Early models are already for sale. Samsung has been selling them for a while now. The price needs to come down to be a great alternative, but the power savings of having the pixels generate light rather than having a harsh backlight shining through the screen should help.

Re:BluRay?

[DrLang21]

My biggest problem with Blu-ray is that there's a huge entry cost and the return is little to none. Most of the movies in my collection were never filmed in high definition, so the quality improvements in switching to Blu-ray would be minimal. To get those minimal improvements, I need an HD TV, a Blu-ray player, and then I need to pay the exorbitant extra cost for Blu-ray media. I can understand why the entertainment industry doesn't understand this though. They still have not figured out that originality and quality of story are far more important than special effects and rehashed garbage if they want people to continue to legitimately purchase their product.

Re:BluRay?

[mr_mischief]

Another thing they could do is make recordable disks a hell of a lot cheaper. DVDs and players caught on really well around the time people could make and play a DVD home movie as cheaply and easily as a VHS one. $25 for a 25GB recordable disk is outrageous, even if you're willing to buy the recording drive for $150 or $200. Five 4.7GB DVDs cost less than a dollar, and hold a home movie, company training spot, or product info spot just fine.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

50" Plasma? Most plasma TVs are only capable of 720p, so blu-ray would probably not look noticeably better on them than standard DVDs.

The first batch of blu-ray drives were very slow, yes. They are finally improving.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard similar horror stories about other stand-alone BluRay players.

If you're interested in playing back BluRay content, get a Sony PlayStation 3. It's one of the very best players around, and since it has a full blown network enabled OS on it, it can get updates as easily as any other operating system.

I hate DRM, I love Linux, I've developed open source software. BluRay definitely has some problems. However, it is the single best quality format for consumer video playback to date. I have a Samsung 46" 1080p HDTV, and I can tell you that BluRay playback looks noticeably better than any DVD or satellite broadcast.

Re:BluRay?

[Talderas]

All PS3 disks are Blu-ray.

IIRC, Metal Gear Solid 4 is currently the largest game out there. It utilizes nearly the entire storage capacity of a dual-layer Blu-ray disk (50gb), and they had to cut out content to avoid needing two disks.

In other words PS3 game disk = x6 360 game disks.

Plus you could optimize how data is stored on the disk to decrease read times by replicating the data on the disk in multiple places.

Re:BluRay?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

When are these companies going to give up with BR?

If I had to guess, I would say when it stops being profitable.

The time for BD to fail is ending. HDTV sets are becoming increasingly popular, and the price of both players and discs are dropping. Demand is only going to increase.

Re:BluRay?

[FredFredrickson]

Mine screen is 1080.

Don't forget, While Dvds will look ok at 720 vs 1080, Dvds themselves are 480, while bluray is 1080. Even on a 720, a bluray should be considerably better than a dvd.

Re:BluRay?

[jambox]

I was in a big store the other day standing in front of some expensive TVs (£1000-£500) and every single one had really, really bad tearing problems. As long as the camera doesn't pan, then everything is great - beautiful colours, greaty contrast, incredible detail... but as soon as even a moderately fast panning shot comes up... if what you saw were a noise it would be "KRKRRKRRRRRRKKRKRR". Not good. The bigger the TV the worse it was.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought bd-live was basically a huge gimmick, just dvd extras++. I mean who really cares about dvd extras, that .0001% of the population that cared about dvd extras are probably the same ones who hold out high hopes and love their bd-live. It would be nice if they would not focus on the gimmicks and just fill up the disc with the best picture and sound quality they possibly can, think superbit dvds that did the same thing, doing away with extras in favor of quality. TI think you hit the nail on the head, its just another way to market more crap and have the consumer believe they are actually paying to receive something worthwhile.

Re:BluRay?

[je ne sais quoi]

Blu-Ray has been aroung long enough that it should be a stable technology. They're selling shit for big prices trying to convince people it's better, but it's worse than DVD (and dvds and players are cheap). There's no reason to upgrade. Even if the picture is nicer, I don't care. P.S. I'm returning my last Blu-Ray and not buying a new one.

Good plan. You were lucky. If AACS thinks that stopping an analogue hole is going to help anything at all they are seriously stupid, people are breaking copy protection on blu-rays all the time just to watch their discs:

I recently built a new computer and decided that while I was upgrading hardware I would buy a blu-ray drive and see the latest and greatest. So I went to Target and first was completely shocked at the prices of new blu-ray. That's okay, even since the winter holidays the blu-ray discs have been on sale fairly often (e.g. buy two get the third free) so that at least brings the price down to DVD levels. I bought a few movies I thought would look good in Blu-ray like the newest version of Bladerunner and pop it into my drive and VLC won't run the blu-ray movies because of the DRM. No problem, I boot windows and start up the powerdvd that came with the drive and low and behold, I get a helpful message that my widescreen monitor is not HDCP compliant so I can't watch the movie in high resolution. So I head over to doom9 and download dumpHD, but no dice, my drive has had its firmware updated and that blocked the access key dumpHD was using. Okay, well, I thought, I'll get anyDVD and strip that copy protection right out. So I do that and now the movie plays at full resolution, except that the powerDVD that came with my drive is a crippled copy and won't play surround sound, only stereo. No problem, I go back to vlc which now helpfully plays the un-DRMed m2ts files and play the individual movie files (just not the virtual machine). Only problem is now I have surround sound, except if the disc has DTS, the channels are mixed up so the center channel is the surround and the surround left is the center and the surround right has nothing. What I'm left with is having to boot into windows to run AnyDVD, then run eac3to.exe to strip the DTS sound file to an AC3, then run tsmuxer to remux the sound and video files, and then watch that using VLC (not to mention the amount of hard drive space I need for these movies is huge).

All of this crap just to watch my legally purchased blu-ray movies on my legally purchased blu-ray player on my legally purchased computer. What a load of horse shit, I hope Sony goes completely completely out of business and blu-ray goes extinct.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop spewing this blatant misinformation. Those TVs are LED backlit LCDs. The pixels don't generate any light, they only block light. Samsung does *not* make any LED TVs as far as I know, it's all marketing lies. They should get sued for it.

Re:BluRay?

[CopaceticOpus]

I've had a better experience. I bought a PS3, which is the best Blu-Ray player out there. It plays perfectly with none of the glitches you described, and if there are any future firmware updates needed, it will be the first to get them. I also play games, so I get a lot of value from it.

I don't buy movies anymore, since I realized how rarely I re-watch movies. I also don't get cable. I have a Netflix subscription with Blu-Ray, which provides me with all the movies I could want. I really prefer watching TV shows on disc, where I don't have to worry about commercials and scheduling.

I can watch anything in hi def, I'm paying a low amount per month, and if I want to switch to a different technology in the future, it won't be painful. It's hard to beat that.

Re:BluRay?

[je ne sais quoi]

Most of the movies in my collection were never filmed in high definition

I thought about this too, but I realized something: movies shot with analog film have a much better resolution than the DVDs they were later transferred to. Unfortunately I can't find a nice link right now for it, but ultimately the resolution of an analog film is determined by the size of the light sensitive crystals used on the film roll when it was shot. Regardless of what that is, it's much better than the 720×480 (for NTSC) that DVDs are. A blu-ray is getting closer to the resolution of the original film that was lost with the DVD that followed television standards. E.g., when I watched full metal jacket on blu-ray on a big monitor, you could actually see the graininess of the film. I don't remember seeing the last time I watched the movie on DVD. Maybe it's because they needed to do a restoration and re-master before they cut the blu-ray, but I was impressed.

Re:BluRay?

[eldavojohn]

Mine screen is 1080.

Ja!? So ist mine!

Vell be happy! Mien schreen hazen ze dead pixels! Not so wunderbar nau, ja?

Re:BluRay?

[Luyseyal]

Indeed while the Samsung LED TVs are not true LED TVs, I noticed that they are using free software in them. Page 91 of the fine manual reads...

• This product uses parts of the software from the Independent JPEG Group.
• This product uses parts of the software owned by the Freetype Project (www.freetype.org).
• This product uses some software programs which are distributed under the GPL/LGPL license. Accordingly, the following GPL and LGPL software source codes that have been used in this product can be provided after asking to vdswmanager@ samsung.com.
  GPL software: Linux Kernel, Busybox, Binutils
  LGPL software: Glibc, ffmpeg, smpeg, libgphoto, libusb, SDL

Kinda neat, though I wonder what kind of VD they have in mind for their software manager...
-l

Re:BluRay?

[krakelohm]

Thank you very much Mr. Howard Stringer.

Re:BluRay?

[Animats]

they can take my SD CRT television when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

So be it. After midnight tonight, it will never work again.

Re:BluRay?

[Lumpy]

Not when you are the typical rich idiot and put that 58" TV 16 feet from where they sit and it's up over the fireplace.

It blows my mind how many of my clients want their new TV in a really stupid place, they might as well watch 480i because they are so far away from it they cant see the difference.

Re:BluRay?

[Lumpy]

BluRay and HDDVD CAN look better than DVD. Problem is a lot of the releases are really old and are crappy to begin with. My HDDVD copy of the Evil Dead is not better than the DVD I have. Hell the TopGUN copy is only marginally better than the DVD.

Recent releases? YES. Quantum of Solace is ROCKIN' clear. but most of the classics or even films made 4 years ago are worthless on BluRAY.

Re:BluRay?

[Sinbios]

>> Also, they can take my SD CRT television when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I can see why you think DVD is "good enough".

Personally, I can't stand blurry SD video anymore.

Re:BluRay?

[wagnerrp]

Most of the movies in my collection were never filmed in high definition, so the quality improvements in switching to Blu-ray would be minimal.

They were filmed in.... film, typically 35mm. 35mm is generally considered to be equivalent to 10-20MP depending on quality and age, with an upper limit somewhere around 25MP. Even after being clipped, cropped, spliced, edited, and composited with multiple layers and digital effects, a proper remaster should still be able to achieve at least 1920x800 (~1.5MP).

The only reason your collection wouldn't be able to be brought up to spec is because its full of low budget B movies, or you have a bunch of old movies that have degraded or been lost.

Re:BluRay?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Is that still around? Everywhere I see that carries any BR disks, the inventory is next to nothing now.

Just goes to show. The places I get video from carry more and more BR stock every month since HD-DVD died. BR in blockbuster is slowly taking over the DVD racks, encroaching from the outside in. Netflix adds more to their BR selection ever month too.

Also, they can take my SD CRT television when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. This forced upgrade to a technology with a terrible, inherent flaw (tearing and lagging from any significant motion, even with the best, most current technology) is unacceptable

Did you last look 10 years ago? Seriously, I have a sub-$1000 46" store brand LCD, the picture is great. I have never seen any tearing or other issues. While I think spending thousands of dollars on one of these is ridiculous, denying that there could possibly be any merit because you just want people to get off your lawn is equally so.

When they wise up and replace LCD/plasma with viable technology, I'll be on board but until then, to hell with this cheaply done forced upgrade crap to appease people who like shiny new things.

Yeah, dude, my last TV was a black and white. I totally know what you mean. Anything since black and white has been a waste of money, designed to appease peopelw ho like shiny new things.

Re:BluRay?

[TheGratefulNet]

Most of the movies in my collection were never filmed in high definition,

I bet they were. if they came from FILM, they can be scanned into higher res. film is inherently a very high res media.

Re:BluRay?

[DragonWriter]

When are these companies going to give up with BR? The format just wasn't going to catch on since most people see plain DVD as "good enough".

Most people saw plain VHS as "good enough", and the same argument as you make against BluRay was made against Laser Disc first, and DVD after that. It turned out right in the first case, with only a narrow segment ever adopting the technology, and wrong in the second case, with eventual fairly broad adoption. There are certainly ways in which BluRay looks a lot more like DVD in the time when it had not yet become the prime choice but was spreading (available widely for things other than dedicated video players, e.g., game machines and PCs; carried in most of the places that carry DVD, no major playback deficiencies compared to the DVD along the lines of the disk-flipping that went with LDs compared to the dominant, no physical media inconveniences compared to DVD the way the size of LDs was a problem, etc.)

OTOH, there's a lot more competition for physical media now, too.

Re:BluRay?

[TheGratefulNet]

geeze.

I'm pretty technical but halfway thru your post, I got a headache, myself.

no one should have to practice such 'rituals' to WATCH TV. sheesh.

I also hope BD goes away and sony loses their investment in this money-grab they've hoisted on us.

Re:BluRay?

[iamhassi]

"they can take my SD CRT television when they pry it from my cold, dead hands....When they wise up and replace LCD/plasma with viable technology"

I was in the same boat, very happy with my SD CRT, until I bought a ps3 for one particular game. The game looks great, but when I tried playing other games like Quake Wars and Pixel Junk Monsters, the text and details are just too small and fuzzy to see. I've tried messing with the settings but it doesn't seem to help, the games were just not designed with SD in mind.

Re:BluRay?

[cjsm]

Yeah, HD DVD was actually better implemented then Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray had more storage capacity, but the HD DVD menus and interface were better designed and had more features, at least up until last year at the point in time when HD DVD expired. But Blu-Ray will keep on improving as time goes on.

Re:BluRay?

[CodeBuster]

I plugged in my USB drive and started up BD-Live, only to find out it's literally just trailers for other movies. Why is this a feature?

Does anyone else remember the scene from A Christmas Story where the protagonist goes to great lengths and effort to get a ROT13 decoder wheel from the cereal box company so that he can decode the "secret message" at the end of his favorite radio program only to find out that the "secret message" is actually just another advertisement?

BTW: Why buy your blue ray player from Sony, the same company that spits on your rights and installs root kits on your PC? I wouldn't buy anything from Sony, even if they were the only vendor left, after the crap they pulled with those root kits.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

So be it. After midnight tonight, it will never work again.

SD CRT != OTA analog

It'll work just fine for anyone with cable, a satellite dish, DVD player, Blu Ray player with composite outs, etc.

Re:BluRay?

[iamhassi]

" I bought a PS3, which is the best Blu-Ray player out there."

I'm glad to hear that. I also bought a PS3, since used ones are going for mid $200s on ebay now. Unless you can find a good bluray player for less than $100 I'd recommend just getting a PS3. Not only does it play bluray and games, but you can rent movies and tv episodes through it. Highly recommended for the price.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Mine screen is 1080.

Which model is it?

Most plasma screens can't visually resolve anything higher than about 1280x1024, which is about 2/3 the pixels in a 1080 picture, even if they can accept a 1080 signal.

Re:BluRay?

[DinDaddy]

50" Plasma? Most plasma TVs are only capable of 720p.

You are about 2 years out of date. They virtually don't make plasmas smaller than 42" any more and the majority of the models offered are 1080p. LCD ate their lunch in the lower res and smaller size market. They only compete at the premium sizes now.

Re:BluRay?

[spire3661]

Its not that they werent FILMED in HD, its that they werent transferred in HD. Go check out some of the old Law and Orders that run on TNT HD. They have been remastered and formatted for HD from the original films. They look fantastic for how old the episodes are.

Re:BluRay?

[MikeBabcock]

If your eyes and ears work and you have a good TV and stereo system, the return on investment is very high, assuming you like movies and TV in the first place. As for your movie collection, which were probably filmed

The maximum resolutions that film currently offers are 2485Ã--2970 or 1420Ã--3390, UHD, a future digital video format, will offer a massive resolution of 7680Ã--4320, surpassing all current film resolutions. The only viable competitor to these new innovations is IMAX which can play film content at an extreme 10000Ã--7000 resolution

All of these are much higher than Blu-Ray's 1920x1080 which they would be down-scaled to when scanned into a digital format.

Audio of course has a nearly infinite resolution, a very large amount of which is tapped by current Dolby Digital and dts technology, but uncompressed PCM in 7+ channels does sound noticeably better.

In the end of course, your enjoyment mileage may vary, but don't go spreading falsehoods about the technology.

Re:BluRay?

[DinDaddy]

It has little to do with the age of the film, and mostly to do with the effort the studio puts into the release. Unfortunately, they often seem to think they can just take a crappy 2K scan they did for hidef TV broadcast 5 years ago and port that over to blu-ray, bump the price up and sell it.

Look at titles where they have put in an effort, and regardless of the age of the film, they are pretty stellar. 2001, Planet of the Apes, Bladerunner, Sleeping Beauty, Fistful of Dollars, all the old James Bond film rereleases, there are quite a few BDs of films 30-60 years old that look incredible.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tearing and lagging? Time to visit a TV store sometime this decade. Blu-Ray on a high end Sony Bravia looks awesome. I won't watch DVDs anymore - you might as well rub dirt in my eyes.

Re:BluRay?

[cens0r]

What movies do you have in your collection, because your statement doesn't seem to make sense. Almost all movies and TV shows are shot on film. Only the cheapest TV shows and live events were shot on video, and even then almost all the video for TV for at least the last 5 years has been HD video.

Even very old movies look really great on Blu-ray because you get high resolution scans of the original negatives or film stock. Most people agree that 35mm film has an effective resolution of somewhere between 1.5x - 2x Blu-ray, so pretty much any movie is going to look better on Blu-ray than DVD (unless the film stock was badly damaged or something). About the only example I can think of where the quality wasn't leaps and bounds better than DVD is my Firefly Series. It was shot on film, but all the special effects were rendered in 480p (because Fox wasn't broadcasting in real HD at the time). Because of this, the effects shots don't look much better than the DVD run through a good up-converter. However, the non-effects shots look much better.

I also don't think the costs are exorbitant. You basically can't get a TV anymore that isn't HD. I tend to be on a 5 year or so TV upgrade cycle, even if you are on a longer cycle; most people are going to have an HDTV shortly. Blu-ray players are still a little too pricey, but if you wait around you can get one in the $150 range. And you can get a pretty good one with profile 2.0 and netflix for less than $250. I paid around $500 for my first DVD player, so I think the price of the players is a little overblown by people who didn't start buying DVD players until they were under $100. By this time next year I expect players to be under $100. I also don't think the movies themselves are that expensive. I never pay more than $20 for a movie I purchase. Sure it might retail for $39, but Amazon and other places discount the heavily. If you wait for sales and also look for used copies the movies aren't bad at all. Plus it costs me more than $20 to take my wife to a theater, so the purchase price of the movies actually seems like a good deal.

Re:BluRay?

[DrgnDancer]

Get a good DVD player with HD out. I'm sure there IS a difference in quality between a BR and a regular DVD player with HD out, but unless you put them side by side I doubt you can tell. I'm QUITE happy with the ways normal DVDs look on my 42 inch LCD. I simply can't justify the $300 to upgrade to BR (not to mention that the movies are more expensive).

Re:BluRay?

[Rary]

Because whatever quality they get is good enough, and the extra money doesn't justify the cost.

This is exactly it. "Good enough" is more than enough for most people. DVDs are good enough. In fact, VHS is usually good enough.

I still watch the occasional VHS tape. When I do, I always find that for the first 20 seconds or so, I'm noticing the poor picture quality in comparison to what I'm used to watching (DVDs and downloaded AVIs). After the first 20 seconds, I'm too engrossed in the story to care about picture quality.

That's the thing: you don't watch the picture, you watch the movie. It's always nice to have decent quality, and really poor quality can detract from the movie, but as long as the quality is good enough to not detract from the movie, then any higher quality is pointless.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of me wants to call you a grammar nazi but the larger parts are too busy laughing.

Re:BluRay?

[cyberjock1980]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_video

Most major motion pictures are shot on film. Film is a very high resolving medium, with resolution measured by testing its ability to resolve pairs of black and white lines, the unit of measurement is cycles/mm - one "cycle" consists of a pair of lines and is equivalent to two pixels, one black and one white. Film by itself can commonly resolve from 50 c/mm to 400 c/mm (100 pixels/mm to 800 pixels/mm) depending on emulsion stock. However, since the image on film is formed by exposing it through a lens and this lens also has its own resolution limits, the final resolution on the photographed negative is always less than each component's individual resolution.

Depending on the year and format a movie was filmed in, the exposed image can vary greatly in size. Sizes range from as big as 24 mm × 36 mm for VistaVision/Technirama 8 perforation cameras (same as 35 mm still photo film) going down through 18 mm × 24 mm for Silent Films or Full Frame 4 perforations cameras to as small as 9 mm × 21 mm in Academy Sound Aperture cameras modified for the Techniscope 2 perforation format. Movies are also produced using other film gauges, including 70 mm films (22 mm × 48 mm) or the rarely used 55 mm and CINERAMA.

The four major film formats provide pixel resolutions (calculated from pixels per millimeter) roughly as follows:

Academy Sound (Sound movies before 1955): 15 mm × 21 mm (1.375) = 2160 × 2970
Academy camera US Widescreen: 11 mm × 21 mm (1.85) = 1605 × 2970
Current Anamorphic Panavision ("Scope"): 17.5 mm × 21 mm (2.39) = 2485 × 2970
Super-35 for Anamorphic prints: 10 mm × 24 mm (2.39) = 1420 × 3390

In the process of making prints for exhibition, this negative is copied onto other film (negative interpositive internegative print) causing the resolution to be reduced with each emulsion copying step and when the image passes through a lens (for example, on a projector). In many cases, the resolution can be reduced down to 1/6th of the original negative's resolution (or worse). Note that resolution values for 70 mm film are higher than those listed above.

Typical high-definition home video uses the following resolutions:

1280 × 720
1920 × 1080
Usually when studios master movies for home video release they use assets in high resolution and then master them to 1920 × 1080 and/or 1280 × 720. For standard definition applications (e.g., DVD or SDTV), they are also anamorphically compressed and mastered to 720 × 576 (PAL) and 720 × 480 (NTSC).

So yeah. Even those really old movies will look much better in HD since the original films from even 1955 exceed 1920x1080 resolution. Quite a few old movies I see that weren't recorded in digital film are 'grainy'. That is, you can see the grains from the film.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true. I just watched Saturday Night Fever from a Blu-Ray rip and it looked amazing (graininess and all).

Re:BluRay?

[mfnickster]

The manufacturers and studios could have been sitting on a gold mine if they had done the following:

- Picked a single standard with the best features of HD-DVD and Blu-ray
- Picked a "switchover" date when every new player sold would play both HD and SD DVDs, and output both HD and SD signals
- Started packaging movie release with both an HD and SD disk in the box.

That way, those with SD televisions could still watch HD content - sell the content now, with the benefit down the road if the user buys an HD set.

Everybody's happy because there's a single new video format that anyone can watch on any new player and set.

Instead, they decided to bet on being able to sell marginally improved quality at a premium price. Fail.

Re:BluRay?

[Pentium100]

And that's why I play games on my PC with a 21" CRT monitor capable of 2048x1536.

Re:BluRay?

[LanMan04]

This is 100% true. One of the BEST high-def movies I've seen in terms of image quality (no idea if it was BluRay or HDDVD in it's original format, it was an h264 file) is Kubrick's "The Shining". Looked sharper than anything else I've seen, including movies from this century.

Re:BluRay?

[zmollusc]

Blu-Ray will keep on improving as time goes on, you say?
That's what I was hoping for with ordinary DVD.
They are cutting it a bit fine if they are going to bring in all the different camera angles and alternate endings and stuff that we were promised when DVD came out.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

get a projector. i have a dell DLP projector. Great HD and no screen lag. and the difference between standard and HD is noticable for a lot of movies. but I agree for your average movie its not really needed. Go with a cartoon or documentary and man oh man if eyes could orgasm.

Re:BluRay?

[daemonburrito]

A note to people considering this route:

As far as I have seen, the media cartel pulled a fast one with upscaled DVD. While a good idea in theory, all the DVD players except for the boutique stuff requires using HDMI for HD resolutions (even though the component connection is capable of 720p/1080i), and will not work without an HDCP-compliant display.

There are players out there that will send the upscaled signal down DVI (unHDCP'd) and component, but everything I have seen at big box retailers just forces HDCP on people. Caveat emptor.

Re:BluRay?

[Omestes]

The problem was DVD was a decent improvement over VHS, at a decent cost-point (Laserdisk was too, but NOT at a good cost point, that and the size of those things was annoying). Also, you could use DVD on your existent TV without any problems, with an improvement on sound and picture quality.

Blue Ray isn't a very large improvement over DVDs, not enough to warrant spending any amount of extra money on, at least. On a SDTV, Blue Ray is nothing but a waste of money (if it even plays thanks to restrictive DRM). To get the full benefit of Blue Ray (which still isn't very noticeable by the placement of most people's TVs), you need to go buy a new TV. A lot of people can't afford to, or don't want to be forced to buy a new dvd/TV combo, just to gain a small difference. This is especially true in the economy.

It also is a pain in the ass to set up at times. the DRM crap, and the need to update it is a pain.

Blue Ray will only be accepted when all the perfectly functional SDTVs die off naturally, or when Blue Ray becomes a ubiquitous storage medium, like CDs and DVDs did (which helped their market share and price). But the question is, will these things come to pass before we move onto to a purely online model? I'm guessing this Blue Ray crap is nothing but a transitional measure to where physical media dies off.

Re:BluRay?

[SpooForBrains]

I can't comment about BluRay, but I have an Xbox 360 hooked up to a 37" 720p capable Dell LCD TV, and the Xbox HD DVD player. I cannot really tell the difference between a DVD played on the 360 and an HD DVD.

However, the difference betwwen a DVD played on the 360 via HDMI and a DVD played on a regular DVD player via SCART is very noticable.

The marble of this story? Get a good upscaling DVD player.

Re:BluRay?

[DrgnDancer]

Mine uses YPrPb RCA, but it's also fairly old as upscaling DVD players go. I didn't even realize it could do upscaling till I moved and noticed the YPrPb ports.

Re:BluRay?

[Anonymous Coward]

A well mastered anamorphic PAL DVD can look very good at HD resolutions. The film is encoded at 720x576 (a 5:4 ratio) and unsquashed to 1024x576 (16:9 ratio). 2x2 pixels gives an upscaled resolution of 2048x1152. Unless your viewing distance permits you to discriminate individual pixels at 1920x1080 resolution the result should be quite acceptable.

Re:BluRay?

[mr_mischief]

Sorry, then, I was mislead by their false marketing.

Not-so-awesome encryption

[tjonnyc999]

HDMI already has the awesome encryption of HDCP between the device and the display unit

As usual, an encryption system that (likely) cost millions to develop, can be defeated with a simple device.

http://www.hdfury.com/

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with this company in any way; this is not an endorsement, only a link to a potentially useful resource.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[rsmith-mac]

For varying levels of "defeated" at least. That's just an HDMI to VGA converter, apparently one that has a valid HDCP handshake, but none the less one that's ultimately only useful for taking advantage of the analog hole. A HDMI->HDMI/DVI HDCP stripper would be far more useful, and much more impressive. Who even has a RGB input on their TV these days?

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[greyblack]

Think I will just buy a shitload of these and store them away until 2013 arrives and friends, friends' parents and friends of friends' parents starts calling for help.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[AcidPenguin9873]

The HDCP authorities can revoke that device's HDCP key for violating whatever clause in the HDCP license agreement (not allowing analog holes, for example). Then any new Blu-Ray discs will have that device's key on a revocation list, and those discs won't play back with it. I don't think any HDCP keys have been revoked yet, and who knows if any ever will be, but the mechanism is in place to disable devices like this from being used on future media.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[AmiMoJo]

The idea that they can close the analogue hole is itself ludicrous. How do they intend to get the image to my eye balls, by beaning it directly into my brain?

Presumably they know that their efforts will be futile, and their goal is to make it harder for people. Problem is, it only takes one person to rip a disc and torrent it, and everyone can get it.

All they will do is put off people who would otherwise buy their products. I really wanted to play GTA IV but ended up giving it a miss because of the really nasty DRM. I will not buy any Blu Ray discs until you can get region free players and rip/back them up effortlessly.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[tepples]

Who even has a RGB input on their TV these days?

Pretty much every HDTV at Walmart* has both RGB and HDMI inputs. Yes, they have HDMI, but they also have RGB. If you mean "RGB and no HDMI", that might include people who use a PC monitor to watch TV, who used to use a TV tuner card in the days of analog TV.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Chaos Incarnate]

There have been some key revocations for software players, but I'm not aware of any for hardware ones.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Big Boss]

Um, anyone with an HDTV has an RGB input. They call it component video, and it's been available on every HDTV ever shipped, and some newer SDTVs. HDMI and DVI are quite new in comparison. The HDFury claims to be able to take HDMI/HDCP and output component 1080p. That's a damn handy device when paired with older non-HDCP displays and things like the HD-PVR that can record component and output h264 digital streams.

Irritating as hell that one would have to spend a couple hundred on something like that when we have perfectly capable component video inputs and outputs though.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

Who even has a RGB input on their TV these days?

Anyone who has a TV with a SCART socket?

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[DrLang21]

How do they intend to get the image to my eye balls, by beaning it directly into my brain?

Rest at east knowing their engineers and scientists are working on this very problem.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

You can tell it's a good product too because of how many exclamation marks they use in their marketing material.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the TVs I've seen labeled component are referring to YPrPb component, not RGB. If they have RGB they label it as RGB, VGA, or something else like that.

YPrPb has Y as the luminance and sync. Pr carries Red-Y. Pb carries Blue-Y. (Green is obtained from the YPrPb signals).

RGB = Red, Green, Blue.
I have a Component->RGB colorspace converter ($75, plans I've seen are some op-amps and other basic analog electronics) so I can use an old RGB monitor for watching component things. (It's 4:3, 27" and handles RGB signals w/ horizontal from 15-45 KHz, so 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i are usable. Also has composite and S-Video and can flip between NTSC and PAL. Cost about $1/pound ($150, I'm recovering surplus sale addict)).

Now I'm pretty sure I've seen some machines and TVs that can do YPrPb over the HD-15 (what I see refereed to as VGA plug), but on the one TVs I've seen that do that you have to tell them which colorspace to use. Not every TV I've seen will allow YPrPb over the VGA plug however. On the other end, I know I've seen cables (no electronics, just wire to a plug) that split a VGA plug out to YPrPb, but that would require the video card itself to output a YPrPb signal.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

What about changing the device's key? Most hardware these days has a way to update the software running on the device. If that is possible then it should be possible to modify the key as well, and replace a revoked key with a known good key.

I don't know very much about Blu-Ray's protection mechanisms, so this may not be a viable option, but it seems like it would work.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[MobyDisk]

I can't wait until they do something like this. Someone will sue the studio, forcing them to re-release the disc without the revocation list, effectively crippling the DRM for violating fair use rights. That will be a wonderful day. In my dreamworld, the DOJ follows-up with an investigation for antitrust violations and includes all the other MPAA/RIAA members.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[TheGratefulNet]

this is another reason to boycott drm that is part of bd.

the 'disable' list.

do you want your video card, tv (etc) marked as 'do not run' ?

its RISKY to even mount a BD disc, given that it has unknown malicious (truly, if you think about it) code.

"a virus with every movie. for no extra charge."

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[AcidPenguin9873]

Device keys have to be issued by the HDCP key authority because all the HDCP device keys have special numeric properties that make the two-way handshake possible. Both sides of the connection have to arrive at the same 56-bit number to successfully encrypt/decrypt stuff. The only way to give out keys that have the correct properties that make them usable is for the HDCP key authority to control distribution of said keys [1]. And if the HDCP key authority revoked this manufacturer's keys once, they're not likely to give them more keys.

I suppose you can try to obtain a different device's HDCP key(s) and program those in. But once the HDCP authority notices that a different device's device keys have been compromised, it may revoke those keys too.

Of course, say it's one of Sony's HDTV models whose HDCP keys get compromised, and the HDCP key authority revokes those keys. Sony HDTV owners will be furious that new Blu-Ray discs don't work on their TV, and Sony will have to issue a firmware update to get new keys and somehow "protect" them better this time. All in all, a total losing proposition.

[1] See http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/pubs/hdcppaper.ps for more info. I read this a while ago and it's pretty foggy now, but it gave a good overview of HDCP and the key/encryption math behind it.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[domatic]

I suppose you can try to obtain a different device's HDCP key(s) and program those in. But once the HDCP authority notices that a different device's device keys have been compromised, it may revoke those keys too.

Of course, say it's one of Sony's HDTV models whose HDCP keys get compromised, and the HDCP key authority revokes those keys. Sony HDTV owners will be furious that new Blu-Ray discs don't work on their TV, and Sony will have to issue a firmware update to get new keys and somehow "protect" them better this time. All in all, a total losing proposition.

If one has obtained the keys for a number of popular devices then you could force the HDCP authority to DDOS itself. Done correctly it would be quite the nice black eye for DRM.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Xelios]

It's already been done as far back as 2001. The gist of it is this:

Each device has its own secret key, which is 40 numbers long, that the device isn't supposed to reveal to any other device. In addition each device gets an addition rule, which basically says "Add the numbers at positions x and y of your private key together and give me the result". This addition rule is public, all you need to do to acquire it is try to start a HDCP handshake with the device in question. So device A wants to complete a handshake with device B, both B and A send each other their addition rules, carry out the addition on the specified numbers and send each other the result. Through some mathematical voodoo (thanks to the ultra secret "Master key") the result will always match if both devices are legitimate.

As it turns out it's pretty easy to guess a device's secret key by using at least 40 other devices. All you need is the addition rule of the device to be broken, which is publicly available. You then apply the addition rule to each of the 40 other devices and store every result. When you're done you're left with 40 algebraic equations, like x1 + x4 = 23, x7+x12 = 65 etc. From here you can use some algebraic voodoo to reconstruct the target's private key, which you then spoof to authenticate any HDCP session to any device (until that key is revoked).

But it's worse than that. Turns out it's also possible to figure out the master key (a 40x40 matrix of 56 bit numbers) used to create all the private keys once you uncover at least 40 private keys. It's not easy, but it can be done, and since the whole system relies on the secrecy of this matrix once it's released to the public HDCP will be useless. This break was discussed here on /. 3 years ago, and it's just one of several methods that can break HDCP. As far as I know this particular vulnerability still exists, though I haven't been keeping up with developments lately.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[DinDaddy]

Component is not RGB in spite of the color scheme they have chosen for the connectors. It is split as luma (brightness) and two chroma channels where the third color channel is derived from subtracting the two sent from the brightness. RGB explicitly sends a red, green, and blue color signal, with sync sent either separately or muxed into green.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[DrgnDancer]

I'm not sure, but I think some people might be confusing three channel component RCA with RGB, I don't think I've ever seen a TV with RGB. Most HD TV's I've seen have two or three channels of 3 channel component RCA (video, left sound, right sound), two or three channels of YPrPb RCA (The five RCA connector cables that most people think of as "HD"), an HDMI channel, a VGA channel, and a "TV" input for receiving regular OTA TV signals. RGB (as I'm sure you know, but for the benefit of those that don't) is usually 5 coax cables, one each for red, green, blue, and right and left sound. The only place I've seen it used a lot is in video remoting and/or switching systems used in computer labs of various sorts.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[csartanis]

Component is not RGB, its YPbPr. My tv does however have a vga dsub input.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[bazorg]

Who even has a RGB input on their TV these days?

Sammy does. Sammy as in Samsung.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Khyber]

"Who even has a RGB input on their TV these days?"

My samsung S550 has D-SUB RGB on it.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

Except if they ever do, that very same revocation certificate's parameters can be used for generating arbitary valid HDCP device keys. Or you could buy less than 100 HDCP-supporting devices with appropriate device keys and break the whole system by generating arbitary valid HDCP device keys that way.

HDCP's been cracked for years.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[kvezach]

Then they can merely manufacture their own keys. Granted, it requires knowledge of the private keys of a number of devices, but once that's done, game over. The paper also shows how to impersonate another device by only using its public key.

Re:Not-so-awesome encryption

[dkf]

"a virus with every movie. for no extra charge."

Of course. How else are you supposed to know that it was Sony who developed it?

DVD Jon is a brave man

[elrous0]

I took a lot of guts to crack DVD encryption, but it takes even MORE guts to take on Apple. Those guys will sue someone who even looks at them funny.

Re:DVD Jon is a brave man

[SSCGWLB]

Hey! The party line is:
1) Apple is awesome
2) Their OS is the best in existence...it's UNIX!!
3) Their i$OBJECT_OF_DESIRE is the best in existence; The more expensive and shiny a object is the more awesome it is
4) Apple is always right, even when they aren't
5) Steve Jobs defends us from alien invasion(s), Windows, and Zerg rushes
6) All the cool kids use Apple

Get with the program man....

/tongue in cheek

No coincidence that...

[Anonymous Coward]

2013 is about when most jurisdictions will have switched off analogue TV. By the time the unwashed masses realise that something is wrong, it will be too late to object or choose to use an alternative.

Maybe You Should Read the Article

[eldavojohn]

Umm, that ad for DoubleTwist was pulled down a week ago:

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/06/vdouble_twists_ad_ripped_down_by_bart_before_wwdc_too_dark_really.html

Seriously, Slashdot is becoming great lately for re-reading old news that I read on other tech sites days earlier.

Yeah, I realize this but if you read the Wired article that I linked:

Johansen wanted the ad displayed Monday, the first day of the Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. That's when the Cupertino, California-based company unveiled a host of new products and prices. But it was taken down, Johansen said, because he was told the ad did not allow enough light through the subway station window.

The entrepreneur said he submitted the same ad to Titan Worldwide with a white background instead of a black one. He said Titan rejected that one, too.

Finally, the ad with a transparent background was approved and displayed Wednesday afternoon, Johansen said. Pending another brouhaha, the ad will remain there for months, he said.

I may have been this-side-up blitzed last night when I submitted this and I may have no recollection of submitting it but that ad is still on display!

Funny how it is you who are the one that is out of date ... Sweet Spaghetti Monster my head hurts.

Hooray for Slashdot editors...again

[XcepticZP]

It's spelled heel, not heal... How much bloody effort does it take to spell and grammar check one single paragraph?!

Re:Hooray for Slashdot editors...again

[Anonymous Coward]

No fucking kidding. I'm so sick of seeing posts written by people who just sort of type what they hear without actually knowing what the words are.

Re:Hooray for Slashdot editors...again

[XcepticZP]

Great they fixed it... Now I look like an idiot. I'd post a screenshot, but as any self-respecting geek knows, those are very easy to fake.

Re:Hooray for Slashdot editors...again

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason you look like an idiot is that you're shouting and swearing, in public, about a common spelling mistake.

Not true...

[Jaysyn]

... This will only annoy people who *buy* their crap. Problem solved!

Plugging the analog hole

[Narnie]

I expect the next 188-page PDF will feature a device that will plug directly into your forehead to inject a digital signal to your brain.

NEWS FLASH: Until we start augmenting ourselves with electronics, people perceive the environment around them in ANALOG ONLY! To me that sound like a pretty big hole to plug.

Re:Plugging the analog hole

[Tanktalus]

Doesn't quantum physics say that nothing is analog, and it's all discrete?

</pedant-to-the-point-that-it-misses-the-point>

Re:Plugging the analog hole

[DigitalSorceress]

'zactly... The universe is digital, it's just that it's got a REALLY high resolution (1.6*10^35 bits per meter) :p

Re:Very timely information...

[Nursie]

Yeah, and if you RTFA you can see it was put back up on wednesday.

FAIL.

Sound Familiar

[segedunum]

Presumably, this it the 'analogue hole' that they have talked about 'fixing' for a number of years now with a number of DRM companies coming out of the woodwork to say they can do it, ripping off some money and then disappearing with their directors retiring to some island somewhere with naked women?

Any techology that relies on a device sold and physically owned by a consumer denying access to said consumer is doomed to failure. Rinse and repeat.

It's one of the reasons, but certanly not the main one, why I am totally non-plussed by so-called 'High Definition' and BluRay. I did try setting up a theatre system once for someone with a receiver box relaying video through HDMI to a TV. HDCP refused to play ball because the BluRay player didn't like the arrangement. Hmmmmm. Not only do I get to not watch something because of a DRM system, I also have to buy completely new content that is currently a lot more expensive. Bound to be a success.

Re:Sound Familiar

[segedunum]

On another related note, I was going to say that if BluRay and AACS do end up getting reliably cracked and 'free' copies of films can be made then the bizarre twisted thing is that it might just end up making BluRay ubiquitously popular and give it the critical mass it needs to pull DVD back.

Re:Sound Familiar

[cellurl]

I agree.
What they need is to phase out all tv's and everyone use tv-goggles.
http://www.zetronix.com/index.php?cPath=26

Re:Sound Familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, does anyone know what IS the current state of the art for cracking AACS and BluRay? Is it trivial now, with the equivalent of DVDDecrypter available? Lemme know the URLs of some good articles, and what websites you guys like for this.

DRM Protection on Disks

[myspace-cn]

Doesn't it just make the poor little arm that goes back and forth break faster? I mean seriously.
Example:

I just bought William Shakespeare's Hamlet awhile back, the 2 DVD set..
http://www.buy.com/prod/hamlet/q/loc/322/204647810.html

Disk 1 played one time, then froze in the middle, (with lots of noise at the beginning/load) it started chirping, clicking and clacking and got all nicked up.
Disk 2 played perfect.

I never even got to SEE the thing.
I took it back got another.
SAME THING.

This time, I took it to a local gamestop to have them buff the nic's out.

DRM is crap!

Re:DRM Protection on Disks

[characterZer0]

Your DVD player is nicking up your DVDs? How is that the DRM's fault?

Re:DRM Protection on Disks

[myspace-cn]

Due to the fact, it was brand new, and it plays every other disk just fine.

Re:DRM Protection on Disks

[myspace-cn]

DVD player brand new.
DVD disk set brand new.
DVD disk set #1 returned with nic's.
DVD disk set #2 couldn't be returned cause I waited too long.

Error with nicking only happens on DVD disk #1.

You could watch a beer box full of stargate, atlantis, pirates of the caribean, deadwood v1,2,3, Miami Vice many volumes, 300, Highlander, basically about 4 boxes of shit work just fine, then put that disk #1 from Hamlet in and click click click, nick nick nick. On load...

And you blame this on a brand new DVD player?

It's not the hardware, It's the software on DISK #1 Hamlet. (Which cost over $20 at the time)
I know the difference between a hardware and a software problem.

It's the disk, not the hardware.

Re:DRM Protection on Disks

[Gunnut1124]

Ok, so let's review how DRM works.

DRM is the process by which the content of the disk is encoded in such a way that only endorsed devices can decode the content. The bits stored on the disk are not technically different than on "normal" dvd's, only their arrangement. The data reading performed by the "Little Arm" is happening at the same rate, all DRM does is change the way the data that has been read from disk is handled on the inside.

That said, I, in no way, support the use of DRM as a way to control the use of copyrighted materials. All DRM ends up doing is forcing the user to jump through increasingly-complex hoops and leading them to frustration.

Re:DRM Protection on Disks

[characterZer0]

My program can give the square root of every other number, but if you give it 4, it says -7. It's not the program, it's the input.

The DVD player should not nick the disc. There may very well be something wrong with the disc, but if the DVD player is physically damaging it, there is something wrong with the DVD player.

What kind of DVD player is it?

Re:DRM Protection on Disks

[myspace-cn]

Samsung DVD Recorder
DVD-R135 /XAA
Manufacture Date: 2006

It was new at the time this happened.
The disk #1 was new from TWO NEW DVD packages, both times when it happened.

No other disk has had a problem playing.
No other disk has been nicked since.
The dvd recorder device is still fully operational and in service.

Looking at disk #1 on a computer

E:\JACKET_P
J00___5L .MP2 208,896 r... 4-16-07 20:45:14
J00___5M .MP2 22,528 r... 4-16-07 20:45:34
J00___5S .MP2 8,192 r... 4-16-07 20:45:43

E:\VIDEO_TS

VIDEO_TS .BUP 16,384 r... 5-10-07 10:34:23
VIDEO_TS .IFO 16,384 r... 5-10-07 10:34:23
VIDEO_TS .VOB 110,592 r... 5-10-07 10:29:14
VTS_01_0 .BUP 16,384 r... 5-08-07 14:39:26
VTS_01_0 .IFO 16,384 r... 5-08-07 14:39:26
VTS_01_0 .VOB 0 r... 5-08-07 14:39:24
VTS_01_1 .VOB 280,371,200 r... 5-08-07 14:39:39
VTS_02_0 .BUP 108,544 r... 5-10-07 10:29:34
VTS_02_0 .IFO 108,544 r... 5-10-07 10:29:34
VTS_02_0 .VOB 2,867,200 r... 5-10-07 10:29:17
VTS_02_1 .VOB 1,048,574Kr... 5-10-07 10:30:17
VTS_02_2 .VOB 1,048,574Kr... 5-10-07 10:31:02
VTS_02_3 .VOB 1,048,574Kr... 5-10-07 10:31:39
VTS_02_4 .VOB 95,717,376 r... 5-10-07 10:31:42
VTS_02_5 .VOB 1,048,574Kr... 5-10-07 10:32:29
VTS_02_6 .VOB 1,048,574Kr... 5-10-07 10:33:08
VTS_02_7 .VOB 1,048,574Kr... 5-10-07 10:33:46
VTS_02_8 .VOB 848,572,416 r... 5-10-07 10:34:21
VTS_03_0 .BUP 14,336 r... 5-08-07 14:47:57
VTS_03_0 .IFO 14,336 r... 5-08-07 14:47:57
VTS_03_0 .VOB 0 r... 5-08-07 14:47:56
VTS_03_1 .VOB 11,429,888 r... 5-08-07 14:47:58

AACS??

[EddydaSquige]

American Association of Cosmetology Schools?

Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[javacowboy]

The content industry has not made a compelling case for me to ditch my DVD collection. My upscaling DVD player makes most of my DVDs look great on my HDTV. Why should I subject myself to DRM and an incomplete spec by upgrading?

What's more, if Apple succeeds in making HD downloads seamless and reasonably fast with their new compression technologies (and/or internet bandwidth improves significantly in North America), then it's game over for Blu-Ray. Why should I invest in Blu-Ray and bother driving to a brick-and-mortar store when I might not have to?

Apple left out Blu-Ray from Macs for a reason.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you "ditch your DVD collection"? You realize blu-ray players work just fine as upscaling DVD players, right? This notion that you either do not have a blu-ray player or you do and therefore must throw out your existing collection of movies is common on slashdot, and absurdly stupid. This isn't VHS->DVD, there is perfect backwards compatibility here. If you aren't interested in blu-ray, that's your prerogative. But this and the other common slashdot reason for not adopting (DRM; you know, just like how DVDs have DRM...) are ludicrous.

Additionally; Apple? Seriously? The company that says it is illegal for me to install their operating system on my computer because it's not the right brand is the champion of openness? Allow me to let you in on a secret. Apple doesn't sell computers with blu-ray drives because they want you to buy your high definition video content on iTunes rather than from the local video store, plain and simple.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Chaos Incarnate]

Blu-ray has a 2-3 year head start on marketplace penetration, and Apple hasn't even managed to match the most basic of features (video resolution & # of sound channels), much less matching video/sound quality or allowing any bonus features. Overtaking Blu-ray with downloads at this point will require divine intervention.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Weeksauce]

Seriously, why are you assuming that it has to be Apple of all companies to make digitial HD a reality? In case you haven't noticed, Netflix and Amazon have been offering very solid HD solutions on a plethora of players that hook directly to your tv. Apple TV has been nothing short of an epic failure! I'm assuming, due to your sig, that being a Mac fanboy has blinded you from any alternative.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[jedidiah]

> Overtaking Blu-ray with downloads at this point will require divine intervention.

You're on crack.

Apple has the most successful online media outlet on the planet.

They are one of the biggest Music retailers period.

They've already got a built in distribution channel and there are plenty of
consumers that haven't bought into Bluray at all yet. Many aren't even aware
of the whole "high definition" thing. There's still plenty of time for Apple
to steal Sony's thunder here.

Walmart or Amazon could do it too.

However, Apple already has it's little "reservation" built up already.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know how much data is on a Blu-Ray? Do you know what compression does? (it's not lossless) These so called 'HD' downloads do not compete with a Blu-Ray (maybe DVD).

There should be some sort of consumer protection to what can be called HD because I feel that a lot of these so called 'instant downloadable HD' are not HD quality.

I agree with the bandwidth improvement comment; but I unfortunately I feel we're still far away from that. Blu-Ray can have it's time to shine but I think the regular Joe couldn't care a less for the quality difference.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[javacowboy]

Are these solutions cross-platform, or do they require Windows DRM? AFAIK, Apple is the only vendor that offers content for both Windows and Mac.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Lumpy]

Which is a killing point. Back 6 years ago my $4800.00 Farujia Upscaler and my $8500.00 DENON dvd player produced an incredible picture in my 108" screen home theater.

Today a $299.00 upscaling DVD player produces as good as a picture as my high end gear. IF a normal consumer on their 720P 42" screen compared a DVD on a good upscaling DVD player to a bluray from their normal sitting position, they generally dont notice enough of a difference to buy the bluray player and it's overpriced discs.

They simply cant entice the general public to buy into it. And with the economy the way it is now, It's even harder.

I actually reccomend to people to go on amazon.com and buy a HDDVD player and grab HDDVD's for $1.00 to $6.00 each as well Far cheaper and you get the same video quality but no new releases, which many people dont care about.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Sinbios]

Well, technically Blu-Ray is compressed too with MPEG-4 part 10, but generally BluRay movie contents come at something like 20-30GB per. An intimidating download, at least, and I can't see anyone offering downloads true to that quality any time soon with our infrastructure. Not to mention the harddrives you'd need to maintain even a modest film collection.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[wagnerrp]

What's more, if Apple succeeds in making HD downloads seamless and reasonably fast with their new compression technologies, then it's game over for Blu-Ray.

Apple doesn't have any 'new compression technologies', they just use standard H264. Furthermore, they use CAVLC, which is about 30% less efficient than the more commonly used CABAC. At the moment, the best the iTunes store offers is relatively low bitrate 720p.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[gbarules2999]

Do you know how much data is on a Blu-Ray?

Significantly less space than my $50 portable hard drive.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[DrgnDancer]

I'm a good bit more technical that "Average Joe" and I couldn't care less about the quality difference. if you stick them next to each other and I squint I can tell the difference between upscaled DVD and BR on a decent sized HD TV, but since I don't usually have them sitting next to each other DVD looks fine. I was actually considering a BR player for a while, but when I moved recently I noticed that my DVD player had a YPrPb out. When I hooked that up and saw what an upscaled DVD looked like, I gave up my BR plans immediately (Made me wish I'd pulled the DVD player out to look at the back 8 months earlier when I bought the TV).

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Weeksauce]

These solutions are completely platform independent. You can stream Netflix on Mac's as well as DVD players, Xbox 360, and Roku boxes. Several TV's even have Netflix streaming built in and there is talk of PS3 Netflix Streaming.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Firethorn]

I have a 42" 1080P TV that I paid less than $700 for. Of course, I shopped for it for a while.

I'll fully admit that the difference between a DVD and a BD disk is what I'd consider 'minimal', especially since I'm at a better distance for 720 than 1080. The 1080 was cheaper though... And I can always scoot up if I want to see the 'full glory'.

I've obtained a few movies on both DVD and BD for the express purpose of comparison - my conclusion is that I'm NOT going to go on a campaign to replace all my movies with BD versions, though I will buy the BD version if it's cheap enough. They're not getting an extra $20 out of me for it, more like $5, maybe $10 for an exceptionally 'visual' movie.

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[IICV]

So... what you're saying can be paraphrased as, "Can't change the resolution. Worse sound than Blu-Ray. Lame."

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Chaos Incarnate]

Touché. (Though Apple has been more proactive about iPod updates than Apple TV so far.)

Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content

[Anonymous Coward]

Fanboy much?

Ignore them?

[John Hasler]

> "I'm certain there are others who might have some free time to look at Blu-Ray and the
> 'uncrackable' AACS."

On the other hand, one could simply ignore BlueRay altogether. Believe it or not, you almost certainly can live without it.

Re:Ignore them?

[jedidiah]

I suspect that we will see the same thing with video that we did with music.

The normal consumer when presented with the choice between "quality" and "convenience"
will choose convenience. The ability to have the bulk of your DVD collection in the
palm of you hand where ever you go will probably be considered more desirable than
image quality on a large screen that you many not have or may not percieve or may
not care about.

Give a kid the complete Ben 10 in the palm of his hand and he
won't even realize that there is a much bigger TV in the room.

Re:Ignore them?

[TheGratefulNet]

you can live without their CODECs, too.

boycott all 'hd audio' codecs.

without going into long boring tech reasons, the new 'hd audio' codecs are lying sacks of shit. the analog sections of your typical home system can't keep up with even 24bit/96k audio. do you really think that 'lossless' audio on multichannel is going to make your life that much sweeter? really? are you THAT shallow?

I get sick when I see people plunking down hard earned money to REBUY their stereos because - well - the studios told them to!

my god, people - think! you are being played.

all movies will continue to have 5.1 audio tracks. you don't NEED hd audio tracks - its the same thing but with more word depth and more drm. its not regular spdif anymore - its a closed spec and you can't even encode to it (like you can with spdif/pcm).

hd audio codecs: just say no! keep your old stereos. don't buy into the fake hype. shitting movie sound tracks will still be shitty; their mixing and 'loudness wars' won't get any better by having more bit depth in your digital audio.

Re:Ignore them?

[minasoko]

You may be right for a considerable subset of consumers, but as long as there are film nerds, there is a market for Bluray or other premium delivery formats. The chance to to own examples of your favourite art form delivered at original film frame rate in 2k progressive resolution and with lossless audio in the comfort of your own home is too tempting to ignore.

I'm sure, 4k displays and content will arrive in time, but for most of these customers, their home can't accommodate a screen large enough to do 4096x2160 justice, which means Bluray will be around for some time to come.

Re:Ignore them?

[jedidiah]

I am right for the VAST MAJORITY of consumers.

That's rather the point of the example of Music.

It is 4K DVD that will appeal to a vanishingly small subset of the market (much like Laserdisc).

Much like low bitrate mp3's, most people are content with DVD or can't even percieve any "improvement".

If they do this, I will have no choice...

[Junior J. Junior III]

..but to rip them a new a-hole.

Seriously, how do you stop the analog hole? Stop the laws of physics? The Human sensory organs are analog. At some point, you are going to have an analog signal traversing the gap from the output device to the human.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't think for a second that the powers to be have not thought about replacing these sensory organs with digital HDCP-compliant equivalents.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[MikeBabcock]

Just you wait, they'll find a way to tap the optic nerve directly eventually.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[jvkjvk]

Seriously, how do you stop the analog hole? Stop the laws of physics? The Human sensory organs are analog. At some point, you are going to have an analog signal traversing the gap from the output device to the human.

Yes, the point of music as well as movies is for humans to experience. And currently, humans only do that properly in analog.

However, the 'analog hole' is not a synonym for all analog capture and recording (which would include human viewers), just device capture and recording (this assumes that one does not define a human as a device). Unless you have a device capable of playing Spiderman II from your brain in HD. Somehow, I don't think so.

I always get a chuckle reading the responses where somehow the 'analog hole' is impossible to stop because people are analog!1!!one!!. Now, I like herring as much as the next person, just not in my conversations. While I'm sure that the content distributors would like nothing more than to ship blank disks, at this point they still expect that people will want to experience the content.

Seriously, how do you stop the analog hole?

Well, mandate that unDRM'd A/D converters are banned. Modify content or display tech to produce detectable patterns for use in the A/D converters. All new recording devices then refuse to record anything with the pattern. Very simplified, but do-able, i think.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[Voyager529]

Apparently you haven't seen The Matrix.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[Pentium100]

Well, mandate that unDRM'd A/D converters are banned. Modify content or display tech to produce detectable patterns for use in the A/D converters. All new recording devices then refuse to record anything with the pattern. Very simplified, but do-able, i think.

1) They probably won't be banned in all countries. All it takes is one country disobeying this ban.
2) People can use their old devices that were made before the ban (unless you are planning to go to everyone's houses and take their camcorders)
3) You can also use a high resolution analog storage medium (W-VHS or something else), no A/D converters needed.

This is for video. For audio, I'll always be able to connect my tape recorder to the speakers (at the very least) and record the music.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[Omestes]

To quibble; Even then, to communicate directly with the nerves the signal will have to be converted to analogue, no matter how far down the neurological perception ladder we move, there still be have to be an analogue step for it to be perceived by humans.

Our brains, and all their components, "speak" analogue, so any digital signal will have to end as analogue at some point in time.

Re:If they do this, I will have no choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

pssshhhh, you're still ANALOG?

heh, noob.

Just wait...

[ThePhilips]

And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole.

Just wait for MPAA to get a wind of watermarking and demand camcorder makers to embed watermark recognition to disable video capture of the oh-so-precious intellectual property of theirs.

Re:Just wait...

[maxwell demon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Encoded_Invisible_Light

Note the second paragraph.

Re:Just wait...

[Shatrat]

That would be great.
Then I could turn off any camcorder by displaying the watermark somehow. Depending on how they implemented it, it could maybe be as easy as a printout of a particular frame of the movie.
Then I could just wander around disney land and crashing weddings ruining peoples home videos.

Re:Just wait...

[ThePhilips]

Then I could just wander around disney land and crashing weddings ruining peoples home videos.

You can't imagine how many husbands would be glad if you did. LOL.

Hmmm...

[copponex]

If any of their lawyers are listening, I have a very novel way of plugging their "analog" holes. Contact me for details and to set up a consultation.

I'm gonna tell them to...

[SteveHeadroom]

Kiss my analog hole.

Ther's no TV in Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I know why TV died in the era of Star Trek. People just got tired of all the DRM.

On the up side, they did invent warp drive and transporters...

So, maybe DRM isn't all bad.

opting out

[viridari]

I don't own a Blu Ray player. I briefly owned an HDTV but went back to the old analog TV. Sorry, but I'm opting out. The digital entertainment revolution today isn't selling anything that I'm buying. If that means I miss out on things, so be it.

When it was easy to back up a DVD, I legitimately purchased over 600 movies. As the copy protections became increasingly difficult to work around, I simply stopped buying. Hollywood stopped getting my money. I took all that money that I was spending on DVD's and bought a motorcycle instead. Now instead of sitting on the couch wasting 90-120 minutes of my life at a time, I'm spending that time enjoying getting around (rain or shine) like never before.

It's been a year since I ditched the HDTV and maybe 2 years since I stopped buying DVD's. I don't miss it.

Don't like the terms they are giving you? OPT OUT!

Re:opting out

[stox]

Let us all know how well that analog TV is working after today.
( For those who have been in a coma, today is finally the cutover day to DTV )

Re:opting out

[cdfh]

Now instead of sitting on the couch wasting 90-120 minutes of my life at a time, I'm spending that time enjoying getting around

Or to reverse that argument:

Now, instead of sitting on my bike, wasting days of my life travelling, I'm spending my time enjoying films in 90-120 minute blocks!

:-)

Disclaimer: I've just come back from a long weekend touring with my bike

Re:opting out

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like he's not using it anyways, so I'm not sure that he would care. Besides, there's always those free converter boxes. zomg.

Re:opting out

[Anonymous Coward]

You purchased over 600 movies? How many of those movies do you actually watch on a regular basis? What a waste of money. Hoarder! Be careful you don't start collecting cats next.

Re:opting out

[maxume]

Odds are he has cable or some other non-ota source, meaning his TV is probably working just fine and will continue to do so.

Re:opting out

[MaWeiTao]

Don't like the terms they are giving you? OPT OUT!

This is a very important point. Far too many people nowadays complain about some service or technology but hand over their money anyway. It reminds me of this idiot post I read recently where people were complaining about a game developer. This guy actually posts that he was going to buy this particular game anyway, but he was going to give them the finger on the way out the door.

Congratulations, what this guy has accomplished is the equivalent of being kicked in the nuts and giving the attacker a back rub in response.

The clearest message a consumer can make is to not buy products from companies they're not happy with. And this means not pirating as well, because by pirating you're merely saying that the demand exists and thus justifying the constant push for DRM. These companies are obviously convinced that some day they're going to develop totally effective DRM.

Don't like it? Don't buy it. Especially considering that none of this is really a necessity for living. There are other, potentially more fulfilling, ways to entertain yourself.

Re:opting out

[viridari]

The analog TV works fine with my digital tuner box. The other analog TV works fine with my MythTV. I'm not worried.

Re:opting out

[JasterBobaMereel]

Why buy a movie on BluRay that you can buy on DVD cheaper with your current setup .... ...and will be available free on your TV in a years time in HD?

If you want to see it now, go tot the Cinema and watch it on a screen bigger than you could ever hope to buy and it will cost you less

If a movie is good enough to watch again and again it was not for the effects?

Re:opting out

[AK Marc]

The analog TV works fine with my digital tuner box.

You are still watching digital TV, just on an analog TV after a conversion. It's like the worst of both worlds.

Re:opting out

[zmollusc]

Yep! I keep having this conversation;

Bloke: Hey, you're a gadget freak, you must have a bluray player. What are they like? Is it worth buying one?
Me: I can't buy bluray stuff.
Bloke: Really, why not?
Me: Because FUCK SONY, that's why.
Bloke: Ah. This is a one of those religious things again, isn't it? Ok.

 

"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Anonymous Coward]

"But Blu-Ray still has the Achilles heel of analog players that allow someone to merely re-encode the analog signal back to an unencrypted digital format. "

OK so if analog is "good enough", then what's the point of having digital?

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Big Boss]

It's easier to encrypt digital signals?

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[jedidiah]

It lets you easily copy things.

You can make 10 copies with one click of the mouse.

You can back up your stuff multiple times and even have an offsite backup.

You don't have to buy the next format that the industry tries to shove at
you. You can just setup your own PC based player to play back whatever you
happen to have.

Admittedly, these are "consumer" benefits and don't really do the media moguls any good.

I never have to buy "Escape" ever again regardless of what new formats the industry comes up with.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[mr_mischief]

The main problems with analog technology are related to degradation over distance, degradation under interference, and degradation of the media over time. Doing a high-quality decode to a high-resolution analog signal and then immediately encoding that back to digital can lose very little quality. It's often so little, in fact, that you won't notice. Then your source and interface are digital again and once again more resistant to degradation.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Sinbios]

Trouble is some people actually care about legality.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[jedidiah]

Legal?

I OWN everything I copy.

What's "illegal" about translating my copy of "Escape" from
one format to another or one device to another? In some places,
this is even a statutory right that isn't even watered down by
newer laws bought by Big Content.

The real threat to Big Content is not the pirate.

The real threat to Big Content is the paying customer that doesn't have to pay anymore.

Much like Microsoft, the RIAA's biggest competition is the back catalog.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Sinbios]

>> What's "illegal" about translating my copy of "Escape" from one format to another or one device to another?

It's illegal because that's not the right you paid for. You only paid for the right to view it, in private. If you tried to show it in public you'd get in just as much trouble.

>> In some places, this is even a statutory right that isn't even watered down by newer laws bought by Big Content.

If you could find and quote those statutory rights, and are located in a region where those rights apply, then I'm sure you could bring it up with the people who provide you with those rights to make sure those rights are offered by the content providers in that area. If they are unable to do that then they have no business offering those rights to you.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[DrgnDancer]

Personally I think it has a lot to do with portability. Imax films are analog and extremely high resolution, but they come shipped on pallets. You could probably fit a digital movie with a similar resolution on a 1 TB hard drive. Analog can be "good enough", but digital can be "good enough" on a small, relatively rugged silver disk. VCRs were "good enough" for a lot of years, but the DVD was a HUGE improvement. They were more durable, smaller, didn't suffer from degradation over time and viewing, stored some cute "extra" content, and had a better picture.

If I capture analog content into a digital format it gains most of those advantages. Especially if it was high quality analog content to begin with (as in the case of recapturing analog content that was just taken from a high quality digital source.)

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't, which is why I cruise on the Pirate Bay and don't spend a single cent on entertainment. It's really nice.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[BetterSense]

I don't think you could fit an iMax movie onto a 1Tb hard drive. A 70mm movie frame, scanned at any reasonable DPI (for projection onto a giant wall, remember) is going to be much more than HD resolution. People argue whether 2k is sufficient to record 35mm at full quality (I think it's close, but not quite enough). Remember that an iMax frame is EIGHT TIMES as big as a 35mm frame. Supposing you scan and store it, are there even projectors?

Actually I'm not sure if the technology even exists to project footage to the resolution of iMax. Digital formats are still relatively young; I think people forget how amazing things like film are, just because they are old technology.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[BetterSense]

I doubt you could fit an IMAX feature onto a 1Tb hard drive. People argue over whether 2k is enough resolution for 35mm (I think it's close), and the only digital projectors out there are 2k, maybe extremely expensive 4k that aren't worth it because they have the resolution on paper but not a flawless implementation...like the 10mp digicam syndrome all over again. Remember, an IMAX frame is EIGHT TIMES bigger than a 35mm frame, and it's projected onto a bigger screen that is closer. I don't even know if the technology exists to duplicate IMAX digitally.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Pentium100]

With digital:
1) It's easier to have DRM.
2) It's easier to make a lot of copies from a single source.
3) You can make infinite generations of copies (a copy of a copy of ...).
4) It's easier to transfer digital signal without distortion.

Analog also has its advantages:
1) No (or easily defeated) DRM.
2) Signal degrades gracefully, while digital either works perfectly or not at all.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[jedidiah]

>>> What's "illegal" about translating my copy of "Escape" from one format to another or one device to another?
>
> It's illegal because that's not the right you paid for. You only paid for the right to view it, in private.
> If you tried to show it in public you'd get in just as much trouble.

I bought a copy. I OWN a copy.

Forget this bogus "licensing" nonsense you're trying to push.

I did not recieve an unlicensed copy and I did not transfer an unlicensed copy to anyone else.

A public performance is something else entirely.

Why do people insist on spreading RIAA propaganda.

If I were more paranoid I would think you were a paid shill.

Re:"Good enough"...to pirate.

[Sinbios]

I bought a copy. I OWN a copy.

You OWN the license to play it in private at home.

Forget this bogus "licensing" nonsense you're trying to push.

I did not recieve an unlicensed copy and I did not transfer an unlicensed copy to anyone else.

I don't understand. What do you think a "licensed" copy means? It means that the copy has been licensed to you and you must abide by the license terms.

A public performance is something else entirely.

How is it something else? Playing it in public amounts to the exact same thing - violation of your licensing terms.

Why do people insist on spreading RIAA propaganda.

If I were more paranoid I would think you were a paid shill.

So this is what it comes down to? Any opinion critical of slashdot groupthink is obviously the work of a paid *AA/Sony/Microsoft/Chinese government shill, right?

I suggest you read up on fallacies.

HDMI connections have many problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on the set up HDMI causes a lot of problems because of how devices perceive each other and communicate. It also seems to fail a lot. For example, AT&T installers actively avoid the connection on their DVR devices because when TVs go into power saving mode it shuts them down down. Some times when you are using multiple devices one of which is analog and turn on a HDMI device it switch to it whether you want to or not. It is also hard to switch between them because of the lag in renegotiating the connection.

Basically HDMI sucks at what it was supposed to do HDCP or not.

Robert

Re:HDMI connections have many problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking that there are other troubles.
On my sister's TV, they've got HDMI from DirectTV box plugged in and have never had a problem. But then this is only one TV and usually the DirectTV box is never turned off, they just flip the TV from HDMI to one of the other analogs in when they want to watch DVDs (Xbox over composite). (Of course maybe the DirectTV box isn't outputting HDCP?)

But then this is just one sample. The only other TV I've used with HDMI usually has us with laptops plugged in and no analog being used at all. (At one point it was DVD on HDMI and laptop on RGB. I don't recall it auto-switching to HDMI with the DVD was flipped on or taking a long time to go to HDMI either. But then that TV takes some time to flip between inputs so it may have been not noticed because of the input switching time.)

Re:HDMI connections have many problems

[ezelkow1]

Alot of what you posted sounds like stupid engineering mistakes. Most of it sounds like issues with CEC, which is the communication standard over HDMI that lets the products actually communicate with each besides using the tx/rx lines. If the dvr shuts off when the tv goes into power saving, that is a problem with the dvr and either how it handles cec, or just how it handles the lines going down on hdmi. The att/2wire engineers need to fix it. The other issue of switching to an hdmi device should be able to be solved by turned off CEC on your tv/receiver/whatever is doing the switching. Of course its not always called CEC and this was addressed at the plugfest back in the winter, trying to force manufacturers to call CEC what it is and not their own made up name of communication protocol.

HDCP Contact Lenses - Mandatory

[StCredZero]

Que the dystopian Sci-Fi short stories!

Actually, instead of making them mandatory by law, it would be more the "American Way" to make them a part of the normal way of life, much as happened with TV and automobiles. Are we free? Clearly not. Why is HD TV being foisted on us? At least half of us didn't want it. (I no longer get PBS reception. Analog signals degrade gracefully. Also, analog TV audio is a *very* useful low-power and robust information source in post disaster conditions. I know this first hand from hurricane Ike.)

Re:HDCP Contact Lenses - Mandatory

[EdZ]

Why is HD TV being foisted on us?

HDTV and digital broadcasting are unrelated.

Re:HDCP Contact Lenses - Mandatory

[timeOday]

I do wonder why they didn't choose a digital encoding for digital broadcast TV that can degrade gracefully? Some clever encoding where the signal appears at multiple resolutions at different frequency bands? It must be possible.

Re:HDCP Contact Lenses - Mandatory

[LordKazan]

it is, they're called subchannels.

X.1 can be the digital subchannel broadcasting 1080p
X.2 can be the digital subchannel broadcasting 480i

of course the problem is that's all packaged onto one carrier since ATSC is a MORONIC STANDARD compared to DVB-T

Anything over "there" that I need?

[pembo13]

Does anyone anticipate the average person actually needing these technologies in the near future? As opposed to just wanting it to watch something movie.

Ignore movies altogether?

[tepples]

On the other hand, one could simply ignore BlueRay altogether. Believe it or not, you almost certainly can live without it.

Yes, it is possible to live without watching new movies once DVD goes the way of VHS, but I would imagine that most Slashdot users would not want to go that far.

Re:Ignore movies altogether?

[Just Some Guy]

Yes, it is possible to live without watching new movies once DVD goes the way of VHS, but I would imagine that most Slashdot users would not want to go that far.

Are there any signs whatsoever of DVD being deprecated in favor of Blu-Ray?

Re:Ignore movies altogether?

[tepples]

Are there any signs whatsoever of DVD being deprecated in favor of Blu-Ray?

A decade ago, were there any signs whatsoever of VHS being deprecated in favor of DVD?

Re:Ignore movies altogether?

[Just Some Guy]

In 1999? Sure. Plus, DVD was substantially better by almost any metric and had no real competition. Blu-Ray is potentially a little better than DVD if you have all the equipment to take advantage of it, but faces competition from downloads.

will blu ray succeed?

[fermion]

I certainly wonder if Blu Ray is going to replace the DVD. The DVD certainly took long enough to replace the VHS, even though the VHS has disadvantages. Though the VHS was infinitely more user friendly, put it in, watch a movie, no 5th grade animation, no unskippable adverts, things like audio commentary made the DVD a compelling alternative. Combine this with the fact that the DVD was simpler to copy than the copy protected VHS that were popular at the time, and it was a reasonable choice.

But the DVD did not have netflix streaming. The DVD did not have online instant download purchase and rental. The DVD did not have the legacy of broken promised that the DVD delivered. Who believes that producers are going to invest in fully utilizing the Blu Ray features.

It seems to me that given the increases in bandwidth and processing power, in five years the movie industry will be at the place that music industry was a few years ago. Desperately trying to protect content, adding increasing layers of copy protection to the media, and losing sales because they made the purchase product so much less attractive than the alternatively acquired product. The reality is that the DVD is easy to crack, but sales are still very strong. Back in the VHS days, the copy protection did little to stop the coping of tapes.

If the copy protection is done right it will be transparent. More than likely no one will care. But I suspect that the copy protection will add costs to the products, which will make them less attractive. I suspect we will see DVDs for a long time, and when they are gone, people will just download the content. I can't imagine that Blu Ray will ever be a major player in the average household. It will be like plasma tv. An interesting plaything for people who can afford it.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[TheGratefulNet]

BD won't last.

its already too expensive in storage (if you directly rip) and people DO want to rip to their disk farms and not 'mount plastic discs' anymore.

BD is a wet dream from a MEDIA COMPANY (sony) who is less and less relevant as time goes on. we all know that.

DVD when upscaled works very well for most home theater setups. only on very large screens do you NEED higher res.

DVD is also very economical for filesystems and NASs.

finally, expect more and more drm from BD tech. not to mention the risk of having your hardware DISABLED by some blacklist that is forced to run every time you mount a bd. running code? sheesh! no way - not for me. total black box that I can't trust running 'disable me' code? no thanks!

I can afford BD. I choose to boycott such evil designs.

its ONLY movies, folks. its not like its really important that you see extra bits from a dvd vs bd. if you really can't enjoy a movie at dvd res, you have to question your whole attitude toward life and what really matters - and what is 'noise level' in the grand scheme of things.

give BD a miss. you are funding an evil empire when you buy their products (so many license fees, making evil sony richer.)

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[rolfwind]

The DVD will be the last physical format, in that, if you want to bring a movie to someone's house you don't know very well or to school, you'll probably opt for a DVD.

The reason DVD will hang on is simple - people don't care so much for image quality as convenience. Consider the physical format. CD, the first and last widespread digital physical music format, conquered tape because you didn't need to rewind to listen to a song again and again, could go to any track you want immediately as well, and other such simple things. You could also hold 25 of them in a spindle much more than ever holding tape. It also doesn't have tape hiss... These benefits combine to draw enough early adopters and reach critical mass.

The DVD vs DVD had the exact benefits - rewinding, skipping around, size of format, and analog artifacts. Same result.

There have been challengers to the music CD - minidisc, DVD-Audio, SACD. There was/is a market for them, but it's not mainstream. The benefits are fewer and usually relegated to one easily identifiable one for the average person - size (minidisc), quality (DVD-Audio), SACD, etc.

When there is only one benefit, the existing one has to be so bad at it or the new alternative so groundbreaking superior. As the CD shows, there is just "good enough" for the average person they were a higher quality alternative as diminishing returns. Even the iPod didn't offer better sound quality, just an overall package of convenience, not just in lugging around your music collection, but in buying the content as well.

We had superior things to DVD before in terms of image quality - like Laser Disc (but it had other downfalls). So I don't think consumers care about that as much as other factors. Right now HD is just too fractured and confusing to the average consumer that I doubt the industry will really get it together by the time downloads.

If blu-ray reaches true mainstream, it will probably only have the PS3 to thank. There's enough of a market for walmart to cater to, but I just don't see DVD declining like VHS did anytime soon.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[spire3661]

Dont forget VHS has advantages that DVD couldnt match economically for a very long time.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[mordred99]

I think you are missing the point for the DVD/VHS transition. DVD replaced VHS because it was pretty simple as well. Yes there are menus and features, but still before DVD, VHS cost $20 a tape. Then all of a sudden you had new $500 players and $30 dollar disks for DVDs. Does any of this sound familiar. Then all of a sudden, VHS went for cheap. Players dropped in price, so did the media and the DVD media/player went to the former VHS price point. Do you think 2 years ago I could walk into best buy, and get a movie on DVD for $7.50 (not on a holiday sale or what not) that was a $300 million seller in the US not 5 months after its DVD release? Nope .. sorry.

What you see now is a new method of deployment of the same thing. Yes it looks better, but it is the same thing. If DVDs stripped off the other soundtracks, alternate crap, etc. they could fit almost 720p on a disk. However most TVs could not handle that at the time, and also they needed something like DVI or HDMI or composite interfaces.

My point is this. We are seeing the same process again as we saw almost 12 years ago (1997) with Blu-Ray. Also I am sorry but your techno talk about copying DVDs and VHS, etc. does not hold water for anything that I can see. 90% or more of the population don't backup their DVDs. If Johnny scratches the hell out of it or Suzie uses it for a coaster in her tea set, then guess what, they buy a new one. I don't know of a single person in my family that backs up their DVDs. Let's see, 8 M.S. degrees in engineering and science, almost everyone has a B.S. and not a single one wants to spend the time to back up their DVDs. Once it is gone, they get a new one.

Can I do what you are saying? Yes. Would I love Blu-Ray? Yes. But my TV won't play it (DVI ports, no HDMI port, but has 1080P, and no ATSC tuner). Thus HDCP is the hamstring for me. Do I want to replace my 52" TV with a new one? Nope. No reason. It works. The other reason is it is EXPENSIVE to go to Blu-Ray. Once Blu-Ray comes to 10-15 dollar a disk and around 100 bucks a drive, then you will see mass adoption. Until then. It is a Christmas present to the technonerd in the family, and not going to replace the DVD embedded TVs, etc. already out there.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[Xarin]

I believe that Blu-ray is the last physical media format for movies. Movies will instead be distributed electronically. As it has been pointed out in other posts, consumers want convenience. Renting movies and returning them is not convenient. Also, I believe that consumers are tiring of purchasing a shelf full of media in one format and being told that it is now obsolete. It is also hard to justify buying shelves, allocating a bunch of space, having to pack and unpack them every time one moves.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubted that too, until I walked into the movie store today and saw that there was an entire wall of blu-ray releases of every genre, and many popular TV shows. It's definitely picking up steam in the same way that DVDs have, and there's enough selection to get you everything new you want, and most classics. The library has really fleshed out.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[ezelkow1]

Are you sure your tv doesnt support hdcp? DVI can support hdtv, I have a couple dvi tv's on my desk that support hdcp

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[ezelkow1]

whoops, meant dvi can support hdcp

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[mordred99]

My TV is 6 years old. HDCP was not around when this TV was made. I do know that DVI does support HDCP, however, my is old enough that it was not in the spec around then.

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Copying VHS involved a piece of masking tape!

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[sponga]

"An interesting plaything for people who can afford it."
What? come on...

Because technology prices never come down over time right? Come on, stop playing the game that the players will never get down to the $50 level and discs will become $5 a pop in 6 years.

Arguments like that start to get old around here, I mean even the Blu-Ray discs are starting to get around the $10-15 a disc now at FRY's and add to it that HDTV screens are getting dirt cheap.
If anything is going to take Blu-Ray down it will be VOD(Video On Demand)/Netflix(stocked with BR) and it will not be streaming movies from the internet; nobody is gonna watch a movie on their computer screen.

Only added cost to the product is going to be things like it degrading in quality over years like VHS and discs prone to easy scratching; I cannot count the number of times I had sat down to watch a VHS tape only to find that somebody had not rewinded it and don't whine to me about 5 seconds of your life taken away by an FBI message. Good old extra piece of equiptment just for rewinding VHS, oh the glorious days.

Add to it Blu-Ray has backwards compatiblity and upscaling of DVD.

Comparing Plasma to Blu-Ray isn't fair, it would be more fair to compare it to HD-DVD that is a dead technology from the start without major backing. I bet some of the advocates of HD-DVD are really regretting buying that dust collector and some of the most incompatible discs ever; there was a lot of bitterness over that war and you can see it to this day in people who scream that Blu-Ray is a dead technology. Talk about getting suckered by MS and left high and dry; they should all be offered a full refund for that.
I am waiting for $400 40"+ HDTV's and $50 BR players, add to it when blank Blu-Ray disc get cheap I am going to literally be able to cram a couple movies/TV shows on one disc and expanding storage of layers.
  Just wait till you can pick up a cake of 100(50GB per disc) BR disc for $20 and with my Verizon FIOS; holy toledo Batman!!

Anyways you can look back at this post in 5 years and think of me as the Nostradamus, repeat after me "technology gets cheaper over time"

Re:will blu ray succeed?

[jrumney]

I already thought that Blu Ray was destined for a short lifespan, with online distribution quickly supplanting it, but this decision to remove support for non-HDMI video connections will just hasten the demise. If they are removing the capability from players, then it is a near certainty that new discs coming out after that date will require such a player, so anyone buying a Blu Ray player now will be unable to buy content for it in 4 years.

not against the law

[Anonymous Coward]

Illegal is a sick bird.

'Nuff said.

Where have you been, Rip Van Winkle?

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

On another related note, I was going to say that if BluRay and AACS do end up getting reliably cracked and 'free' copies of films can be made then the bizarre twisted thing is that it might just end up making BluRay ubiquitously popular and give it the critical mass it needs to pull DVD back.

"End up getting reliably cracked"? "Free copies"?

I guess you don't keep up, so let me break the news to you. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT (in caps and bold face so you don't miss it) of BluRay discs can be cracked and copied. Every single one of them. It's been true for more than 1 year now, maybe even a year and a half. The final BluRay encryption standard, BD+, which was said (I think) to be able to last "forever" lasted a couple of months before it was cracked.

If you troll Bit Torrent or Usenet sites, you can find complete rips or at worst smaller conversions (down to DVD dual layer size) of any popular BluRay disc available.

Re:Where have you been, Rip Van Winkle?

[Repossessed]

Older BD discs can be cracked. They changed the DRM standard after a free viewing tool came out.

Re:Where have you been, Rip Van Winkle?

[Cajun Hell]

The crack isn't widely distributed, just its output.

I'm not interested in downloading pirated movies (though I'll do it if that's the only thing on the market). I'm interested in inserting a BluRay disc into a MythTV box's optical drive and being able to play it, like you can with a DVD. Unfortunately, there's a dearth of working player software; in fact I've only heard of one package that is reported to really work, and it's proprietary and only available on hardly any platforms.

So yeah, it has been cracked, but not to a sufficient degree that I can start buying BluRay movies.

More reason to pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about time these agencies grew up and realised they've missed the gravy train, they can either shut the fuck up about it now and move on or they can cry till they drown themselves in their own tears.

Instead of wasting all this money on useless measures to prevent casual copying (which lets face it, they're just trying to fleece their customers for every view) why not offer something your customers would actually use and find beneficial.

Try this for an idea: Offer your films for download at a reasonable price, as it stands in the UK, a DVD can cost around £20, not looked at blu-ray and won't do whilst this shit is ongoing. Now in the UK the minimum wage is around £5 per hour, are you that much out of touch with reality that you can't see the incentive to pirate here?
Think about it, who is going to spend 4 hours working to then fork out on a film that could turn out to be complete rubbish, or even if it is good, is it really worth working half a day just for an hour or two of entertainment? And while we're here, cut that fucking shit out with making me watch adverts, it's my purchase, I own it, I can do with it what I want, of that includes not watching your shitty adverts then that's what I'll do. If you have a big sticker on the box stating Price £0 - ad supported and you then update the ads to keep them relevant then yes of course I'll sit down and watch your ad sponsored film, hell I might even buy something if I like it and state where I saw it advertised.
Instead of fleecing your customers like you do now, offer the films as a download, for £5 permanent - of course offer the DVD's for a more reasonable price for those who like the pretty boxes etc. If you did this I'd not even bother looking for alternate sources (provided you keep the crap out like the forced ads), I'd just jump onto your website and select the film of choice and presto, few hours later I'll watch it, if it's crap no biggie.

It must be quite embarrassing that you still can't manage to work things for the better and make more money. As it stands I won't buy anything from you - however since it's legal where I now live (it's even used as a metric to how fast you can get internet here - 1 film in 24 minutes) I'll download till my heart is content.

And if you think things are bad now, just wait till the next generation are working, you'll have 0 chance of persuading them to buy your wares - they're too used to having it when they want it, how they want it.

Basically just grow up, get some balls, grab the chance before the last train really does leave and stop trying to buy your fucking way by having laws passed preventing me from doing what I want with my purchases.

Oh and by the way - just because you did some work one day a long time ago, that doesn't mean you're entitled to compensation every time someone looks at it, wish it worked that way, I'd have retired a long time ago from all the page hits I've had!

WHATTTT?

[werfu]

"And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole." WHAAAAAATTTTT? We're supposed to take this mean to do backups? Shit, aren't they just the same people who try to spread HD? Screens suck hard and they will always do. Fuck you MPAA. I'll continue to rip movies as long as I'll live or as long you won't let people what they want with the stuff they bougth. (Feels better now)

Re:WHATTTT?

[werfu]

I meant screeners.... We're the edit????

Re:WHATTTT?

[EddydaSquige]

The MPAA makes no provisions anywhere for backups. The 'point a camcorder at your tv' method is their recommended way to create fair use clips for educational purposes. They don't intend it for the whole movie.

Re:WHATTTT?

[DragonWriter]

"And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole." WHAAAAAATTTTT? We're supposed to take this mean to do backups?

No, backups are not, generally, "fair use". For some copyright-protected material, archival backups are protected under other provisions of copyright law (ISTR there is, or was, a specific provision for this for computer software), but not all exceptions to the exclusive rights under copyright are "fair use" or generally applicable in the way "fair use" is.

This just in

[Anonymous Coward]

"DRM group intends to require memory-wiping technology in Blu-ray players by 2020 to prevent copyright infringement by viewers who store illegal mental copies of films and talk about the film with their friends"

DVD's and blu-ray with digital copies

[phorm]

I do wonder if they're starting to loosen up "a bit" though. Recently I saw a few films coming out that were advertised as:

"Now available on DVD and blu-ray disc. Digital copy included"
 

Now overlooking the obvious point that both of the above are already digital formats, does this mean that an AVI or something of the sort is included for those that want to watch on an alternate device. If so, I wonder what restrictions are on those files.

The last movie I seem to remember seeing an ad like this for was "Gran Torino", if anyone has a copy they can check.

Re:DVD's and blu-ray with digital copies

[damien_kane]

"Now available on DVD and blu-ray disc. Digital copy included"

This means there's a second disc containing an AVI, yes.
That AVI is DRM-protected, such that you need special plugins for WMP or iTunes (or a handful of other media applications) to be able to open them, which needs to be authenticated against an internet server every time you want to watch or transfer the copy.

My guess is so that they can say "Look, we gave you the video in a digital format, and still you download it for your iPod, all your claims are now null, and we own your soul"

Re:DVD's and blu-ray with digital copies

[DinDaddy]

It should also be noted that they typically charge more for discs with this feature.

Re:DVD's and blu-ray with digital copies

[s73v3r]

This was included in my copy of Wall-E, but I had to buy the Special Edition 2 Disk set for it to be included. I don't believe it was included in the regular, 1 Disk version.

Just delayed the analog hole.

[jellomizer]

Even with modern electronic equipment. I don't see why you cant just Tap the signal after it has been decoded and before it goes to the display. Sure it is a hardware hack but like all DRM technology it just needs to be broken once for it to be useless and spread on the Internet.

Re:Just delayed the analog hole.

[TheGratefulNet]

with soc (system on a chip) its less and less possible to 'tap the wires'.

related: be CAUTIOUS about accepting pc systems that integrate too much in 1 chip. there is evil intent there, to be sure.

Re:Just delayed the analog hole.

[russotto]

with soc (system on a chip) its less and less possible to 'tap the wires'. related: be CAUTIOUS about accepting pc systems that integrate too much in 1 chip. there is evil intent there, to be sure.

So far I haven't seen a system including a display that couldn't theoretically be tapped at the panel interface. Probably eventually there will be a system with encryption integrated into the panel, but I don't think it's there yet. And then there's the silly idea of sticking a photosensor array onto the panel. I think that's technically infeasible today, but I doubt it will remain so.

Re:Just delayed the analog hole.

[Xarin]

Even with modern electronic equipment. I don't see why you cant just Tap the signal after it has been decoded and before it goes to the display. Sure it is a hardware hack but like all DRM technology it just needs to be broken once for it to be useless and spread on the Internet.

The problem is that the signal being carried over an HDMI connector can be encrypted using the display devices public key. If a brand of device is compromised then the key can be blacklisted for all future disks when they are produced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

Re:Just delayed the analog hole.

[jellomizer]

Could you replace a DLP chip with a flash drive taking the inputs.

Err....

[DavidR1991]

If you can see it, you can copy it. Simple as that. They can plug as many holes as they like, but unless they stop you watching the content in the first place, they can never stop piracy

Phase Out...

[hAckz0r]

What is really "phasing out" is my money going into their bank account.

With DRM you can never win. No matter what they do, since you have the keys, the published algorithm, and the encrypted data, you can always reproduce the output. If they lock the keys in the hardware it is still obtainable. They can only blacklist large sectors of hardware after you do that. Blacklisting everyone's high priced video player equipment after they spent big bucks on the device is financial suicide to say the least. What, you think that polititons and layers won't buy the same equipment you do? The DRM Group may control the specification for the system but systems can always be reversed engineered, holes in the data pathway can always be leveraged, tapped, diverted, or recorded, etc. The outcome will never be any better than a pure escalation of the age old measure, counter measure, counter counter measure, at infinitum. I ask the 'DRM Group' to just remember, it only takes one person to copy the media to an unprotected format and the game is over. Hundreds of millions of dollars in research, design, and remanufacturing all wasted because of one person that didn't like not being able to watch the movie that [s]he just bought. And then there are always the professional bootleggers that have REAL resources. When does it all end?

"You can't stop the signal, Mal"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think these people will never get the clue. Whatever one man can DRM, another man can crack -- usually in a matter of days, if not hours. Memo to DRM idiots: Stop wasting your time and money in your self-defeating efforts.

They just will not be satisfied

[Anonymous Coward]

until they lick the analog hole

  problem once and for all. They have been

EAGER to lick the analog hole

problem for quite some time. And now, seeing the end of the problem of the

analog hole in sight, they may just lick it.

These guys are morons

[PPH]

At least they've all failed their Marketing 101 courses.

The market for pirated content is well satisfied by SD resolution content. As demonstrated by the quantity of illicit content being sold that was obviously made with a camcorder slipped into a theater. I'm guessing that the market segment of people who want to save a few bucks by purchasing a copy, but are unwilling to accept SD resolution is tiny.

So, why bother with DRM? If the pirates can sell just as much product with a camcorder pointed at a TV screen as they can with a direct digital copy, nothing is gained. In fact, allowing an SD analog hole to exist might encourage people (like me) who still have some old TV sets to switch up to Blu-Ray now. As it stands now, I'm sticking with DVDs.

What about a Camera Filming a TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

When this is done, the video quality is usually crap, but I believe that in the 1950s/1960s, before VCRs, they had to use TV cameras filming a projector screen in order to get movies/prerecorded footage on TV. If they could *somehow* make it completely impossible to get an analog video signal or an unencrypted digital stream (which I doubt), it doesn't seem like it would be so hard to actually get a small HDTV in front of a pretty good digital camera, properly align them together, tweak the settings and put a "cone" (to block ambient light) around them so that the recorded video would actually be decent. Seems like the kind of DIY project that alot of people could do.

Of course, there is also the fact that LCD screens get some kind of digital signal, and that signal is usually not encrypted all the way. At some point, it has to get to that transistor matrix or whatever else turns pixels on and off... And at that point, someone could snoop the signal and transform it back to a viable format for recording. Again, this doesn't seem out of reach of amateur electronic tinkerers.

my TV has only analog

[lophophore]

I have resisted buying into BluRay because my TV has only analog (component video) inputs. No DVI. No HDMI. I have expected this move for quite some time. What TFH does not say is that even existing BluRay players with analog outputs can have the analog outputs disabled by the content. So why should I risk buying a movie that would not play on my setup?

I'm not going to replace my perfectly good HDTV with one that has the broken HDMI interface -- no way. So no BluRay for me.

Permanence

[argent]

And so we move another step towards the future described in Karl Schroeder's novel Permanence, where even the military has to pay microtransaction fees continually to keep their equipment running... even when they're chasing down people who refuse to take part in the "Rights Economy".

Re:Permanence

[Anonymous Coward]

And so we move another step towards the future described in Karl Schroeder's novel Permanence, where even the military has to pay microtransaction fees continually to keep their equipment running... even when they're chasing down people who refuse to take part in the "Rights Economy".

Actually the Federal Government, and I think the State and Local levels as well, have partial exemption to software copy-right law. IMHO, if the media corporations ever seriously tried to fully institute a "Rights Economy" on the Feds it would quickly lead to most of their legal protections made void. Unfortunately, I think the RIAA/MPAA are not quite crazy enough to self-destruct in such a gratifying fashion.:/

Re:Permanence

[argent]

Actually the Federal Government, and I think the State and Local levels as well, have partial exemption to software copy-right law.

Sure, and in Permanence they do too... they had a military ship running on credit because the projected benefit of the mission was greater than the microtransaction costs.

IMHO, if the media corporations ever seriously tried to fully institute a "Rights Economy" on the Feds it would quickly lead to most of their legal protections made void.

They just have to come up with a good enough excuse... in Permanence the excuse was that allowing the military to opt out of the rights economy would allow them to defect with military hardware. The microtransactions on the military were seen as the equivalent of a scuttling charge.

Once they impose the rights economy on everyone else, people will see the federal exceptions as the equivalent of franking privileges, and call for their elimination.

Re:Permanence

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is, the US debt with its interest could be considered as indirect microtansactions the military is paying and the Taleban, as a resistance against the US products and culture and therefore the US commercial rights as 'people who refuse to take part in the "Rights Economy"'. Once again, science fiction represents the current events clearly.

I have a PS3...

[emanem]

...and the only Blue Ray I own is The 300.
Honestly with that kind of movie the difference between DVD/BR is huge on my full-HDMI screen...
But I don't think I will buy any BR in the near future...indeed, with mediatomb I can watch everything I want on my PS3, plus DVD can be very very cheap...
Who cares about BR when I can see full HD MP4 on my PS3?
Cheers,

HAHA

[Iceykitsune]

As long as the content is to be viewed by human beings, there WILL be an analog hole!

Yep

[Sycraft-fu]

Because ok, let's say they make it so you can only buy Blu-ray players with digital outs and TVs with digital ins. Let's further say that they make it so you can't crack the encryption (ya right, but let's just say). Well then, HD camera pointed at the screen. Done. Won't be a 100% perfect copy but then when has that stopped anyone? It'd still look pretty good, those new HD camcorders are amazing.

Unless they can find a way to stick encryption in our brains, this just isn't winnable. At some point, the signal has to be converted to analogue to be sent to humans. At that point, it can be intercepted even assuming you can make an unbreakable digital signal chain (which you can't).

Breakin' the Law, Breakin' the Law!

[Cajun Hell]

Right. As xkcd explained there are two choices: You can have a movie that is legal to obtain but illegal to use, or have a movie that is illegal to obtain but legal to use. The only way to get the movie but not break the law, is wait for an OTA broadcast.

Re:Just wait... Still Waiting

[Anonymous Coward]

there have been proposals and initiatives since DVD was first ripped to require camcorders to respond to the "consensus watermark" and cease recording. (un) fortunately, there never was a consensus about which watermark technology would be used. don't think the idea is either new or even dead. I was there

Well On Its Way...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to point this out, but the "analog hole plug" campaign is well on its way - silently.

Has anyone else noticed that there is no analog output on DVD-ROM drives any longer? Look at any recent model LG drive: only SATA and power are the only two connectors. What does that say: digital extraction is better? I hardly think so.

As it turns out, drives will be able to make a "decision" for you whether you are entitled to a specific piece of content or not. It will require software to run on the drive or on the PC, but, it's well on its way. This software, of course, will only be available under Winblows, and will be closely tied to WMP. Got Linux? So sorry - your media won't play here.

Here is another one: less and less analog inputs on TVs, plus the latest generation of HDMI is going to have Ethernet capability built-in! I can only assume the worse: content keys will be downloaded directly to my TV or DVD player from a studio. I cannot wait for the retaliatory strikes: massive DDOS attacks against the keying servers causing millions of TV sets to be unusable!

video camera = ghetto pirating

[logicassasin]

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=344967&no_d2=1&cid=21179919

^^^ That reply was one of my responses to this article - http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/30/2034242

"... And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole.'"

The MPAA doesn't really realize just how many people will do something like this. I'm pretty sure there's guiys out there still making VHS copies of whatever the latest DVD release is because there's still a market for VHS movies (though quite small). Those people that still cling to VHS, and to a far lesser degree Beta and Hi8, are interested in watching the movie. They could care less about the "extras", or THX surround sound or anything of the sort. They wanna watch the movie; that's it.

So, if all that's left for pirates is to point a video camera at a TV playing the movie, then that's what they're going to do. People will still buy those bootlegs, they'll still download them from the net irregardless of how inferior the picture and sound quality is. They just want to watch the movie; that's it. Many will be fine with it.

Wanna Bet

[Voyager529]

Anyone wanna bet that the reason why all the studios switched over to Blu-Ray is *because* it supports more DRM than HD-DVD did?

So, super duper absolutley unbreakable Player...

[Chris Tucker]

...to TV DRM comes to BluRay and all players sold in the United States tomorrow.

In two weeks, you'll pay US$50 for a player made in China on the gray market that'll have a backpanel FULL of ports, each one squirting out the unencrypted video and audio, as well as region free.

You'll also be able to get at the same time, the "upgraded" digital to analog TV converter, also equipped with RF, composite, digital, etc, in/out ports for your old analog TV.
With an easily removed label: "Not to be used for avoiding DRM!"

In three weeks, Mac The Ripper, Handbrake, FFMPEG, etc, et al will have upgraded versions.

In a month, TPB, Demonoid, all those NZB sites, etc, et al, will be back to normal with unencrypted rips of all the latest DVDs, ready for downloading.

Analog is the last frontier

[nurb432]

Sure, losing analog wont stop the hard core, but it will stop most people, which is the real intent. It will give them total control over content. You want to watch that old documentary on the KKK? Welp, too bad as its now banned and nothing you have will be allowed to play it. and the very attempt will signal the authorities.

not too surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't really blame them for trying to cover their A-hole.

I don't know how else to say it...

[Commander South]

If you can see it, you can record it.
If you can hear it, you can record it.

It is utterly impossible to "phase out the analog hole".

Re:I don't know how else to say it...

[roc97007]

> It is utterly impossible to "phase out the analog hole".

There is a way. You could make the content so terrible that nobody would want to record it. Which is very nearly the case.

Re:I don't know how else to say it...

[Commander South]

Touche

I just copy my DVDs

[EkriirkE]

Keeps the original pristine, removes locked-navigation on previews/warnings. I can go straight to the menu when I pop it in, or even forgo the menu if there are no worthwhile extra features

Blu-Ray is important...

[roc97007]

Blu-Ray does have an important use, for backups and data storage. I plan to get a writer as soon as the price drops a bit.

Blu-Ray video? Enh. I seen it. I not impressed. It's just not the leap in quality that we got with the switch from VHS to DVD. Assuming well-crafted content (anyone can make a crappy DVD, or a crappy Blu-Ray disc), the weak link for the majority of consumers will be the TV. Except for a small collection of videophiles and the people who just have to have the latest thing, it's not worth the cost or the trouble. And the more restrictions enforced by content owners, the less it will be worth the cost or the trouble.

So, if I'm understanding this right, content owners are scheming to make life miserable for the few videophiles trying to use a mostly unnecessary video format. Yeah, that sounds like a business plan.

The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

How much broken technology can the corrupt content industry sell sheep consumers?

analog holes

[Anonymous Coward]

The two analog holes I have in the front are needed for watching movies and can't be plugged. I'm thinkin maybe they're thinkin of plugging the one that's kept in the dark. Ain't gonna happen.

Re:So, super duper absolutley unbreakable Player..

[^_^x]

Exactly - and until this is possible, the format isn't useful, IMO. These days we have to be very careful of the fine print of any IP, making sure we aren't just renting or leasing the content. If I buy a video, I want to be able to convert and play it on anything I have that handles video, period. I'm not going to buy a copy for my TV, one for my iPod, one for my PSP, and so on.

VHS - SVHS, DVD - Blu-Ray

[roc97007]

It's an entirely different deal. DVD was a significant improvement over VHS in quality, form factor, and durability. Blu-Ray is only an incremental improvement over DVD which most people won't notice.

Blu-Ray is to DVD what S-VHS was to VHS. And we all know how the market for S-VHS movies really took off.

It was reasonable for DVD to replace VHS over time. The improvement was significant enough that regular people were actually interested in switching after the cost of the players started to come down.

Blu-Ray has no such attraction. Same form factor, same durability, and only a small S-VHS-like improvement in quality (for most people). Compound this with draconian DRM and higher media and player costs in a down economy, and you have the makings of a genuine loser.

I'm not a seer, don't even play one on television, but I suspect that for prerecorded media, Blu-Ray will be swamped out by the Next Big Thing before it has a chance to replace DVD. It'll stick around as a recordable medium, but prerecorded content will die out. To replace a medium, you have to be Enough Better. Blu-Ray isn't.

They're working on it

[Rob Simpson]

At last a digital licensing scheme the recording industry can live with

What about the wetware hole?

[jellybear]

Okay, finally. But when do they plug the wetware hole? I had a conversation with a friend who told me about a movie he had seen. I ended up knowing about the plot and some scenes in the movie. How can we prevent this, plz? Can you please make it so after a person watches and enjoys a movie, you erase their memory so they can't just go around remembering it whenever they like? That'd be kewl.

Re:So, super duper absolutley unbreakable Player..

[Chris Tucker]

For myself, I buy "previously" viewed DVDs from any one of the diverse used CD/DVD places here in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville.

No reason to give Hollywood any more money than necessary.

I get it home, rip it to whatever format I want for whatever purpose I want. The DVD goes into the closet with the rest of them.

Its MY PROPERTY. And I do whatever I want with MY PROPERTY.