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Goodbye, HD Component Video
glogger writes "Jim Willcox, the video expert at Consumer Reports, bids farewell to our ability to get high-definition video via the analog component-video connections on Blu-ray players. Thanks to Hollywood pirate-paranoia, potentially millions of law-abiding viewers will have their choices restricted. Quoting: 'Hollywood studios now have the right to insert an ICT "flag" into a Blu-ray movie; if it detects that a player is using an analog connection that doesn't support HDCP, it downconverts the video's 1080p (1920 by 1080) native resolution to 960 by 540 (540p): better than DVD quality but only about one-quarter of full HD quality. This ensures that high-def video is available only through the copy-protected HDMI outputs.'"
So... this prevents someone copying a BD disk with a VCR? Or a TV capture card?
I’m actually confused here. Do people actually copy digital media this way any more? What does this prevent?
This kind of sounds like something that has been in the works for a while and is now irrelevant (now that AACS has been dealt with), but the guy’s at the top are two stupid (or afraid of getting fired) to stop it.
They are doing this supposedly doing this to stop piracy.
I'd be willing to bet, however, that it's to force people to buy newer televisions with an HDMI input.
And of course it's only going to be effective at controlling unauthorized copying as long as AACS doesn't get cracked. Oh, wait....
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Until they fix the "give me a good reason to buy it" hole, their vision of a world of perfect DRM won't be quite as wonderfully lucrative as they imagine it to be. To date, I've neither purchased nor pirated any Blu-Ray media. This measure doesn't change that situation one bit. Won't pirate it, won't buy it. Hope that fortune you spent on DRM was worth it.
How is this going to make me *less* likely to pirate?
My choices are:
By a blu-ray - do I have the right player? Will it down-convert to less-than-advertized quality? will it cost way too much? who knows (except for costing too much, that I know is a yes)?
Or:
Pirate it for free at a good quality, I don't have to leave my house and new releases are ready to watch in an hour tops. Also I now have just a regular old video file that I can do anything with that I want.
Why studios haven't caught onto this is a mystery to me. Seems like piracy would be dead in the water if ALL movies were offered as unprotected files for a low cost at high speed. If anyone could download any movie ever made at 1meg/s for 1 or 2 bucks with no DRM BS why even bother playing the bittorrent roulette? would some people still do it? probably. Would most law abiding citizens happliy pay rental-prices-or-less to just buy the movie they want? probably. Could they stop wasting their time and money on anti-customer schemes and start worrying about making movies? probably.
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
High minded types merely "ascend" and avoid the limitations of the physical body... er, media.
Yeah. Talk about yet another reason to RIP or just plain pirate.
This will be the biggest burden to the most clueless users out there, once again proving that DRM only punishes the paying customer.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
In your analogy, there's a mile-long queue of skilled thieves outside your door and they're busting open your locks every 5 seconds with zero effort and no repercussions. I think that in this situation, yes, people *would* tell you to stop forking out for new locks.
They might also question your policy of strip-searching invited guests before letting them into your house.
Higher quality picture? Seriously? What, then, is the pirated version ripped from? The original film print?
If you're using component cables you will soon get a higher quality picture from a pirated BluRay than an actual BluRay. That's the entire point of this /. article.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!