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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."
That is one compelling reason to not upgrade to Blu-Ray, if you ask me.
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.
> "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.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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!
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.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
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.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
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."
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."