As I understand it, this is just one more flag in the ATSC (MPEG) stream, since we're mostly talking about Off Air DTV right? Unless the stream is encrypted, unlikely for off-air, you just need hardware that ignores the extra bit.
If it ever gets to the truely annoying point where you can't do anything but sit in front of the TV and watch it real time, there will be a whole slew of hacks to dissable this on your various hardware pieces.
This strikes me as something like the region code for DVDs. Annoying, but if you really care, you can get around it.
Yes, it would be nice to deal with this from the top by eliminating stupidity from policy making, but certainly not the end of the world if it happens.
I can tell you why, but it is stupid. When movie studios and other people feel like they have a secure medium, that will open a whole new world of offerings that we haven't even dreamt of yet. Theater movies in your living room for instance. Simply because these guys are SOOOOOO afraid of one guy and his VHS deck, they'll hold out until the last little bit of risk is gone. That's what DVD was supposed to do for them, but we know how that turned out. There is an untapped wealth of consumer offerings that are waiting for a secure medium to protect them.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, did you miss the launch last week? What's new here?
As I understand it, this is just one more flag in the ATSC (MPEG) stream, since we're mostly talking about Off Air DTV right? Unless the stream is encrypted, unlikely for off-air, you just need hardware that ignores the extra bit.
If it ever gets to the truely annoying point where you can't do anything but sit in front of the TV and watch it real time, there will be a whole slew of hacks to dissable this on your various hardware pieces.
This strikes me as something like the region code for DVDs. Annoying, but if you really care, you can get around it.
Yes, it would be nice to deal with this from the top by eliminating stupidity from policy making, but certainly not the end of the world if it happens.
My 2 cents.
I can tell you why, but it is stupid. When movie studios and other people feel like they have a secure medium, that will open a whole new world of offerings that we haven't even dreamt of yet. Theater movies in your living room for instance. Simply because these guys are SOOOOOO afraid of one guy and his VHS deck, they'll hold out until the last little bit of risk is gone. That's what DVD was supposed to do for them, but we know how that turned out. There is an untapped wealth of consumer offerings that are waiting for a secure medium to protect them.