* You get HD on component! * You use today's already inexpensive DVD technology! * You get HD movies on a single DVD! * With DivX's new version, you get menus, etc.
Let's send the message that we aren't going to stand for this crap!
No, I'm not being pedantic. I think you lost the thread somehwhere:
The grandparent to my orignal response said: "You can copy it without decrypting it. It should be bit-identical to the original, and play in any player." (emphasis mine)
The parent indicated that single-layer DVD*Rs wouldn't hold most movies due to size issues (which is true).
I was just pointing out that even if you could fit the data onto a DVD*R (single or dual layer), a bit-for-bit copy wouldn't play, due to the lack of encryption keys.
Even if the DVD is a single layer, you can't make a bit-for-bit copy on a DVD*R. There is a special area on the pressed DVD containing the keys for decryption. That area isn't burnable on DVD*Rs. So while you can copy the bits from the pressed DVD, your DVD player won't be able to play them back without the keys.
RawDigits:I would imagine an operation as large as DirecTV is probably not going to be re-encoding an MPEG2 signal, but using a more raw format for HD and compressing it from the 'master' copy just as they do when they convert to mpeg2 now...
mecro:The FCC only gave broadcasters a small chunk of the spectrum to broadcast, which means the MPEG2 signal is compressed somewhere between 49-55:1.. That's insane, and MPEG 4 will hopefully lessen the compression ratio.
flimflam:Yes, though not at the specific data rates used for broadcast. In general MPEG4 is vastly superior to MPEG2, however. Also, an MPEG2 stream would never be recompressed as MPEG4, the broadcaster would feed the uncompressed signal into the MPEG4 compressor. All in all this is a move to increase quality at the same bandwidth.
For OTA signals, DirectTV and Dish currently have an antenna in the city that receives the analog OTA signal, which they compress for transmission. They only have a direct connection to the national signals they provide to people too far from local affiliates (I believe from NY and LA). It's unlikely they will obtain a more direct connection for digital OTA signals. So it's almost certain that the video will be doubly compressed--MPEG-2 by the channels, MPEG-4 by DirectTV.
Satellite channels (ESPN-HD, etc.) are currently pulled off of the high bitrate (MPEG-2) satellite feeds and compressed to low bitrate MPEG-2 by DirectTV and Dish. The encoder will likely be MPEG-4 for these types of sources.
jchapman16:Note that cable providers recompress the original MPEG2 streams themselves to reduce bandwidth used by HD channels.
I can't speak for every cable provider, but stream analysis done by those of us with FusionHDTV cards (capable of recording cable's QAM modulated HD streams) have shown that the video is not recompressed. It is re-wrapped, with much of the transport stream adjusted, but the data itself is not decompressed and re-compressed.
But at the same time, efforts have been made to make breaking the encryptions illegal, and more difficult.
So, while there are methods of breaking copy protection on CDs, and encryption on DVDs today, there very well may not be such a piece of software in the future.
Then how does this library break them? This ruling seems to count on the availability of a circumvention tool. All while the industries are doing everything they can to discourage development and distribution of such tools.
I guess the library will need to spend countless euros paying someone to crack every single new encryption scheme as they are released...all at taxpayers expense.
There are two reasons a player won't play a DVD*R(W):
1. It can't handle the optical properties of the DVD*R(W).
2. It doesn't recognize the media type and refuses to play.
DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) use exactly the same materials. Once burned, the optical properties are identical (the differences are in the technology used for tracking the burning process), and the bit pattern of the same data is the same (assuming no record-time glitches that trigger Just-Link type compensation, and ignoring some extremely trivial differences such as the slight difference in the total number of burnable bits). So once burned, DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) optical compatibility is exactly the same.
So any player that can play + and not -, or vice-versa, is failing to play one format because it doesn't recognize the media type (and it is too stupid to give it a try instead of failing). There are utilities that allow DVD+R(W) burners to lie about the media type. This can make some players handle DVD+R(W) media better, but some players that worked before actually fail when they are lied to (I have one that will refuse to play a DVD+RW ID'd as a DVD-ROM, but works fine when it's ID'd as a DVD+RW).
The bottom line is that the argument over +/- compatibility is dead. They are equal. You may have a player that won't play one, but you'll find a matching person somewhere that has a player that won't play the other. DVD*R compability is well above 80%, and DVD*RW compatibility is over 50%. Both numbers go to near 100% if the player was made in the last couple of years. (DVD+R9 compatibility is still a question, because the price of the media is too high for there to be much market penetration so far. However, initial tests seem very promising.)
If you can intercept the digital stream, you can save it. The ATSC (OTA) tuner cards you mention, as well as the QAM ones do this.
But once the video has been decoded, like on a DVI or component connection, you have to re-encode it. That means capturing about 62 MB/s and then encoding HD in real time.
The codec doesn't matter, as long as you have a decoder, but candidates would include MPEG-2, MPEG-4, h.264, WMV9, etc. However, good luck finding a computer fast enough to encode any of these formats in real time. So you need dedicated hardware. But since the number of customers for such a device is limited (today it's TV broadcasters), the prices are extremely high.
'Cause you know there is no software piracy on cheaper hardware devices like the X-Box (isn't that about a $100 PC?) or PS2. And DVD players are so cheap that no-one wants to pirate movies.
Will we be able to download the program(me)s and archive them locally? I see one of the previews is in MP3 format, which would be perfect for my portable player. Will I be in luck?
Did the poster actually read the ruling!? (Oh, I forgot, this is/.)
Mr. Brown worked on manual conversion of low-level code to high-level code at Alcatel. Alcatel researched automated versions of this several times, and at least one of the researchers reported to him! Then he announced to Alcatel that he had an idea to automate the process, but he wanted it all on his own.
Is it reasonable to expect that an employee who works at a job and comes up with a new idea based on direct experience funded by the company should be required to share the idea with the company? I think so. Sure, they should be rewarded by the company. But walking out the door with IP that they paid for is pretty unconscionable in and of itself (read the finding for my feeble attempt at irony).
Oops, I just remembered that I did see something about this a few years ago, but I think it was still a heart assist, not a full heart. There was something about a modification to the design that diverted bloodflow back into the device periodically. This allowed the device to create an artificial pulse.
I saw this technology in a documentary on PBS at least fifteen years ago, but it was for a full heart replacement. They were reviewing artificial heart research after the Jarvik-7 was implanted. The odd thing was that the show went into a bit of detail about a centrifugal pump and its power supply, but I haven't seen anything about it since then.
Apparently a small nuclear pellet was used in the battery, which was in a lead-lined container about the size of half a D-size battery. The battery could be implanted completely, unlike the Jarvik, which requires a dangerous (susceptible to infection) tube running through the skin to a suitcase sized pneumatic pump. The issue they focused on was the danger of the radioactive pellet. Apparently concern had been raised about the possibility of an artificial heart recipient being in a plane crash. The fear was that the radioactive battery would leak. So they went to great pains to test it, including shooting it out of a gun, to show it was safe.
IIRC, the concept of being without a pulse, and the need for more research about this, was mentioned almost as an afterthought. But I've wondered ever since then what happened to this type of artificial heart. A completely self-contained apparatus would seem to be a godsend. But I always assumed that lack of pulse was the gotcha.
I even discovered that Marilyn Vos Savant, whose Q&A column appears each week in the national Parade insert to many Sunday newspapers. is married to Robert Jarvik, and consdered writing him in care of her about this device. But I never got a round tuit.
OK, so how do I tell whether my machine is infected or if SPAMmers are just using my return address? I'm getting bounced e-mails that I didn't send! I've scanned my machine, but I don't find any viruses. Also, the date and time for one of the bounces was while my machine was shut down over the weekend. Of course, the date can be wrong, but how do I tell? And if it's just SPAMmers using my return address, how do we stop this? Can't we modify the e-mail system to validate e-mail came from whoever it says it did!?
Isn't that like suing the phone company because when someone looks up a business in the Yellow Pages, their competitors are on the page as well? Should Coke be able to sue the YP when (a completely contrived example) a Pepsi ad is listed under "Soft Drinks" along with Coke? What if the ad for Pepsi says "twice as many people drink Pepsi as Coke?" Is the YP liable for this if it is untrue?
What is the justification that would require Google, a search engine, to filter each and every brand name for its validity or relationship with every other? This doesn't seem to be an attack on their business model as much as on common sense. It makes about as much sense as suing the browser makers or monitor manufacturers for creating a way to view this situation.
"The present invention specifically relates to methods and apparatus useful in video compression systems..."
and
"Typically, the system determines differences between the current input signals and the previous input signals..."
(Emphasis mine)
JPEG is not a video compression system, nor does it use differences with previous "signals." MPEG, WMV, and before that Indeo, Cinepak, and other methods of compressing video (almost always) do.
Give me a break. The old boundaries were gerrymandered to get more Democratic districts, and the new boundaries were gerrymandered to get more Republican districts. Both were wrong. The only difference is that the new gerrymandered districts represent a closer match to the popular distribution of Democrats and Republicans in Texas than the old gerrymandered districts.
"
Do I get to keep the USDTV set top box after my one-year contract is up? "Yes, you will be able to keep the USDTV receiver after your contract is up, but you will only be able to receive your local channels if you cancel your USDTV contract."
I wonder what the penalty is for cancelling early? I thought maybe this might be a VERY inexepensive DTV settop box. But then I saw the following at the bottom of this page:
"
IMPORTANT NOTE : The enclosed HDTV receiver will not receive ANY channels without a USDTV service agreement. Credit card required for monthly service fees."
Those seem to be contradictory. So do we have a doorstop if they go out of business or not?
I'm really confused by this. Isn't there an FCC rule about using TV frequencies for non-TV uses? I thought there was. So that should mean they have to use a TV transmission format. That would include NOT being encrypted, or it wouldn't be compliant. So does this mean a regular DTV can receive these channels? Or do they work around this by disguising the signals as digital streams in the DTV signal?
I had a similar idea a few years back. I thought some company with a groups of networks should buy a local tower in the larger cities and put several of their commercial networks on one channel using simulcasting (like ESPN, ESPN-2, ESPN News, etc. or Fox, Fox News, Fox Sports, etc.). The extra viewers would allow the advertising on these channels to make more money, and put pressure on cable and satellite providers.
But these guys are somehow able to charge us to use public airwaves. I don't believe I like that.
Slashdot Mirror
I say we boycott both HD-DVD and BlueRay and push our own:
Today's red laser DVDs with DivX (or h.264). There are already several players on the market and they have component out!
* You get HD on component!
* You use today's already inexpensive DVD technology!
* You get HD movies on a single DVD!
* With DivX's new version, you get menus, etc.
Let's send the message that we aren't going to stand for this crap!
Xesdeeni
No, I'm not being pedantic. I think you lost the thread somehwhere:
The grandparent to my orignal response said:
"You can copy it without decrypting it. It should be bit-identical to the original, and play in any player." (emphasis mine)
The parent indicated that single-layer DVD*Rs wouldn't hold most movies due to size issues (which is true).
I was just pointing out that even if you could fit the data onto a DVD*R (single or dual layer), a bit-for-bit copy wouldn't play, due to the lack of encryption keys.
Xesdeeni
Umm...then that's not a bit-for-bit copy.
Xesdeeni
Even if the DVD is a single layer, you can't make a bit-for-bit copy on a DVD*R. There is a special area on the pressed DVD containing the keys for decryption. That area isn't burnable on DVD*Rs. So while you can copy the bits from the pressed DVD, your DVD player won't be able to play them back without the keys.
Xesdeeni
And you don't feel bad of depriving disney, pixar and all of these guys of a couple dozen replacement DVDs @ 30$ each every year?
Umm. Have you tried to purchase any replacement Disney movies lately? They aren't for sale! Disney pulls their movies after a year or so.
No, I don't feel bad for backing up my $30 DVDs before my 2 and 4-yr-olds get hold of them, when I can't get a replacement.
(Sure, I could get a used one, which may have withstood more abuse than mine already...but used sales don't benefit Disney anyway!)
Xesdeeni
RawDigits: I would imagine an operation as large as DirecTV is probably not going to be re-encoding an MPEG2 signal, but using a more raw format for HD and compressing it from the 'master' copy just as they do when they convert to mpeg2 now ...
mecro: The FCC only gave broadcasters a small chunk of the spectrum to broadcast, which means the MPEG2 signal is compressed somewhere between 49-55:1.. That's insane, and MPEG 4 will hopefully lessen the compression ratio.
flimflam: Yes, though not at the specific data rates used for broadcast. In general MPEG4 is vastly superior to MPEG2, however. Also, an MPEG2 stream would never be recompressed as MPEG4, the broadcaster would feed the uncompressed signal into the MPEG4 compressor. All in all this is a move to increase quality at the same bandwidth.
For OTA signals, DirectTV and Dish currently have an antenna in the city that receives the analog OTA signal, which they compress for transmission. They only have a direct connection to the national signals they provide to people too far from local affiliates (I believe from NY and LA). It's unlikely they will obtain a more direct connection for digital OTA signals. So it's almost certain that the video will be doubly compressed--MPEG-2 by the channels, MPEG-4 by DirectTV.
Satellite channels (ESPN-HD, etc.) are currently pulled off of the high bitrate (MPEG-2) satellite feeds and compressed to low bitrate MPEG-2 by DirectTV and Dish. The encoder will likely be MPEG-4 for these types of sources.
jchapman16: Note that cable providers recompress the original MPEG2 streams themselves to reduce bandwidth used by HD channels.
I can't speak for every cable provider, but stream analysis done by those of us with FusionHDTV cards (capable of recording cable's QAM modulated HD streams) have shown that the video is not recompressed. It is re-wrapped, with much of the transport stream adjusted, but the data itself is not decompressed and re-compressed.
Xesdeeni
But at the same time, efforts have been made to make breaking the encryptions illegal, and more difficult.
So, while there are methods of breaking copy protection on CDs, and encryption on DVDs today, there very well may not be such a piece of software in the future.
Then how does this library break them? This ruling seems to count on the availability of a circumvention tool. All while the industries are doing everything they can to discourage development and distribution of such tools.
I guess the library will need to spend countless euros paying someone to crack every single new encryption scheme as they are released...all at taxpayers expense.
Xesdeeni
There are two reasons a player won't play a DVD*R(W):
1. It can't handle the optical properties of the DVD*R(W).
2. It doesn't recognize the media type and refuses to play.
DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) use exactly the same materials. Once burned, the optical properties are identical (the differences are in the technology used for tracking the burning process), and the bit pattern of the same data is the same (assuming no record-time glitches that trigger Just-Link type compensation, and ignoring some extremely trivial differences such as the slight difference in the total number of burnable bits). So once burned, DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) optical compatibility is exactly the same.
So any player that can play + and not -, or vice-versa, is failing to play one format because it doesn't recognize the media type (and it is too stupid to give it a try instead of failing). There are utilities that allow DVD+R(W) burners to lie about the media type. This can make some players handle DVD+R(W) media better, but some players that worked before actually fail when they are lied to (I have one that will refuse to play a DVD+RW ID'd as a DVD-ROM, but works fine when it's ID'd as a DVD+RW).
The bottom line is that the argument over +/- compatibility is dead. They are equal. You may have a player that won't play one, but you'll find a matching person somewhere that has a player that won't play the other. DVD*R compability is well above 80%, and DVD*RW compatibility is over 50%. Both numbers go to near 100% if the player was made in the last couple of years. (DVD+R9 compatibility is still a question, because the price of the media is too high for there to be much market penetration so far. However, initial tests seem very promising.)
Xesdeeni
If you can intercept the digital stream, you can save it. The ATSC (OTA) tuner cards you mention, as well as the QAM ones do this.
But once the video has been decoded, like on a DVI or component connection, you have to re-encode it. That means capturing about 62 MB/s and then encoding HD in real time.
The codec doesn't matter, as long as you have a decoder, but candidates would include MPEG-2, MPEG-4, h.264, WMV9, etc. However, good luck finding a computer fast enough to encode any of these formats in real time. So you need dedicated hardware. But since the number of customers for such a device is limited (today it's TV broadcasters), the prices are extremely high.
Xesdeeni
'Cause you know there is no software piracy on cheaper hardware devices like the X-Box (isn't that about a $100 PC?) or PS2.
And DVD players are so cheap that no-one wants to pirate movies.
Xesdeeni
Will we be able to download the program(me)s and archive them locally? I see one of the previews is in MP3 format, which would be perfect for my portable player. Will I be in luck?
Xesdeeni
Did the poster actually read the ruling!? (Oh, I forgot, this is /.)
Mr. Brown worked on manual conversion of low-level code to high-level code at Alcatel. Alcatel researched automated versions of this several times, and at least one of the researchers reported to him! Then he announced to Alcatel that he had an idea to automate the process, but he wanted it all on his own.
Is it reasonable to expect that an employee who works at a job and comes up with a new idea based on direct experience funded by the company should be required to share the idea with the company? I think so. Sure, they should be rewarded by the company. But walking out the door with IP that they paid for is pretty unconscionable in and of itself (read the finding for my feeble attempt at irony).
Xesdeeni
Oops, I just remembered that I did see something about this a few years ago, but I think it was still a heart assist, not a full heart. There was something about a modification to the design that diverted bloodflow back into the device periodically. This allowed the device to create an artificial pulse.
Xesdeeni
I saw this technology in a documentary on PBS at least fifteen years ago, but it was for a full heart replacement. They were reviewing artificial heart research after the Jarvik-7 was implanted. The odd thing was that the show went into a bit of detail about a centrifugal pump and its power supply, but I haven't seen anything about it since then.
Apparently a small nuclear pellet was used in the battery, which was in a lead-lined container about the size of half a D-size battery. The battery could be implanted completely, unlike the Jarvik, which requires a dangerous (susceptible to infection) tube running through the skin to a suitcase sized pneumatic pump. The issue they focused on was the danger of the radioactive pellet. Apparently concern had been raised about the possibility of an artificial heart recipient being in a plane crash. The fear was that the radioactive battery would leak. So they went to great pains to test it, including shooting it out of a gun, to show it was safe.
IIRC, the concept of being without a pulse, and the need for more research about this, was mentioned almost as an afterthought. But I've wondered ever since then what happened to this type of artificial heart. A completely self-contained apparatus would seem to be a godsend. But I always assumed that lack of pulse was the gotcha.
I even discovered that Marilyn Vos Savant, whose Q&A column appears each week in the national Parade insert to many Sunday newspapers. is married to Robert Jarvik, and consdered writing him in care of her about this device. But I never got a round tuit.
Xesdeeni
I got (what I think was) the first leather bound volume, labeled on the spine as:
:-).
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe
The Restaurant at the End of the Galaxy
So Long And Thanks for All the Fish
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Glad to hear the same guy who did my book's spine is still employed doing yours
Xesdeeni
OK, so how do I tell whether my machine is infected or if SPAMmers are just using my return address? I'm getting bounced e-mails that I didn't send! I've scanned my machine, but I don't find any viruses. Also, the date and time for one of the bounces was while my machine was shut down over the weekend. Of course, the date can be wrong, but how do I tell? And if it's just SPAMmers using my return address, how do we stop this? Can't we modify the e-mail system to validate e-mail came from whoever it says it did!?
Xesdeeni
...it was a mistake for the C and C++ committees to use the word byte for that unit of storage
I've never seen "byte" as a keyword in C or C++. The smallest unit is the "char." Is "byte" mentioned in the spec?
Xesdeeni
Isn't this just wishful thinking, since there are no dual-layer DVDs out yet on which to test such hacks?
Xesdeeni
When is some company that gets screwed by the incompetence of the Patent Office going to sue them for the damages they cause?
Xesdeeni
Isn't that like suing the phone company because when someone looks up a business in the Yellow Pages, their competitors are on the page as well? Should Coke be able to sue the YP when (a completely contrived example) a Pepsi ad is listed under "Soft Drinks" along with Coke? What if the ad for Pepsi says "twice as many people drink Pepsi as Coke?" Is the YP liable for this if it is untrue?
What is the justification that would require Google, a search engine, to filter each and every brand name for its validity or relationship with every other? This doesn't seem to be an attack on their business model as much as on common sense. It makes about as much sense as suing the browser makers or monitor manufacturers for creating a way to view this situation.
Xesdeeni
The abstract of the patent specifically states
"The present invention specifically relates to methods and apparatus useful in video compression systems..."
and
"Typically, the system determines differences between the current input signals and the previous input signals..."
(Emphasis mine)
JPEG is not a video compression system, nor does it use differences with previous "signals." MPEG, WMV, and before that Indeo, Cinepak, and other methods of compressing video (almost always) do.
Xesdeeni
Give me a break. The old boundaries were gerrymandered to get more Democratic districts, and the new boundaries were gerrymandered to get more Republican districts. Both were wrong. The only difference is that the new gerrymandered districts represent a closer match to the popular distribution of Democrats and Republicans in Texas than the old gerrymandered districts.
Xesdeeni
But one interesting thing I saw on their FAQ:I wonder what the penalty is for cancelling early? I thought maybe this might be a VERY inexepensive DTV settop box. But then I saw the following at the bottom of this page:Those seem to be contradictory. So do we have a doorstop if they go out of business or not?
Xesdeeni
I'm really confused by this. Isn't there an FCC rule about using TV frequencies for non-TV uses? I thought there was. So that should mean they have to use a TV transmission format. That would include NOT being encrypted, or it wouldn't be compliant. So does this mean a regular DTV can receive these channels? Or do they work around this by disguising the signals as digital streams in the DTV signal?
I had a similar idea a few years back. I thought some company with a groups of networks should buy a local tower in the larger cities and put several of their commercial networks on one channel using simulcasting (like ESPN, ESPN-2, ESPN News, etc. or Fox, Fox News, Fox Sports, etc.). The extra viewers would allow the advertising on these channels to make more money, and put pressure on cable and satellite providers.
But these guys are somehow able to charge us to use public airwaves. I don't believe I like that.
Xesdeeni
So, what, we can copy the front but not the back?
Xesdeeni