Do the 8-15% of households with HDTV's have the HDMI port?
You are a little behind the curve.
"Downsampling" analog outout is more or less dead. But 960x540 is not going to look hal-bad on your first generation ATSC set even if the ICT token is set in some future releases.
People have been sharing with friends and acquaintances since the dawn of time.
the underlying problem is IP companies who feel they have a right to unlimited profits for the one piece of work at the expense of the general population
The Incredibles represents an investment of $90 million dollars and the labor of four hundred people.
It is not the general population that benefits from piracy.
It is the subset with a midline PC or better and a broadband connection.
It is the subset within that set which is too cheap to rent from Blockbuster and too impatient or too self-important to stand in line for a free loan from their public library.
Microsoft's position of DRM'd media content seems clear:
Mandatory managed copy.
You can save HD to back-up media or hard drive at full resolution. (Preserving closed captioning and multiple audio tracks?) You can distribute to home networks. You can painlessly downsample/download to portable devices and media.
That would meet 95% or more of anyone's "fair use" requirements.
This is simply a replay of yesterday's FUD-fest over DMA and battery life on the iPod.
The new DVD format should piggyback on the old technology and be founded on OPEN standards.
There are a half-dozen or so manufactuers world-wide with the financial backing, engineering talent and production lines needed to make HD hardware mass-market.
There are a half-dozen or so content providers whose backing you must have if your HD product is to be commercially viable. If Disney isn't on that list, you are as good as dead.
The game is closed to the little-league player.
Do you honestly think seeing Gone With the Wind will be better in HD?
Hell, yes. Have you ever seen a pristine technicolor print in large screen projection? Fort Apache in B&W?
I can already see this new format going the way of many past failures (ie. Laser Disk, Beta, Minidisk).
The timing just isnt right. Consumers are not ready to start embracing a new technology when they just barely started embracing dvds. Lots of people have just begun moving their entire collection to dvd...
An estimate posted on Slashdot the other day put HDTV in 8-15% of households. No matter how inflated, these numbers look pretty damn impressive.
RCA Color TV entered the U.S. market in 1954. It took ten years for color to become mass-market and RCA was out there alone.
In one jump, consumers are moving to large-screen, wide-screen projection, high-definition digital video and digital television sound, as standard.
DVD videos look grand on your 27" screen. But not so hot at twice that size.
In the U.S., the PC has became a plug and play office machine or home appliance. The Geek's overheated rhetoric isn't going to change that much.
Freedom to the user can mean the freedom to access protected content. iTunes. Netflix. Subscription services like Rhapsody. The latest massively multiplayer on-line game.
Apple understands this. Microsoft understands this. Walmart understands this.
Which is why the chain flirts with the HTPC at $2000 and its commitment to OEM Linux shrnks towards a single mediocre Microtel box.
Heathkit died in the eighties. DIY home electronics is for the enthusiast, not the masses. MythTV is no threat to Vista.
I should add that there are some rewards to switching. Your computer will be more stable, you'll have access to a HUGE amount of free (and gratis) software that can easily be installed, and you'll be a bit more computer literate (what can I say, I'm a philosopher, so knowledge counts for something). You'll also be supporting liberty, and, let's face it, everyone knows that having a GNU/Linux sticker on your car/bike/bookbag/laptop is guaranteed to get you laid.*
The problem is, the average Joe has ten to fifteen years experience and investment in Windows hardware, software, and peripherals.
There is almost nothing of interest to him in "Free" or "Open Source" software that hasn't been ported to Windows or which began as a native Windows app.
He has a middle class income and values his time more than money. He is not interested in running down a "gray market" codec to play a media file he can open in Windows with one click.
He does not define freedom as an operating system.
The masses are not going buy HD-DVD players (and hence any Disney titles on HD-DVD) until they have HDTVs *and* HD-DVD players get down to ~$200...
When Walmart puts HD rear-screen projection and the X-Box 360 on the front page of its four-color inserts, I think the train has left the station.
The Disney studio product sells a lot of video hardware. Always has.
Disneyland on ABC and The Wonderful World of Color on NBC are two very significant landmarks in the history of broadcast television.
Disney on laserdisc is collectable, Disney dominated VHS sales and rentals from their first release. Disney is more important to the success of any video distribution system than pornography.
The PS3 market is more or less defined as the young adult male. Home Theater is family entertainment with a much broader reach and deeper pockets. More money to spend.
Old folks can barely use VCRs, what makes the corporations think that they will be more interested in getting a $2000 TV, and $4000 worth of connectors and additional equipment + liscencing fees to play a single movie.
HD at Walmart starts at $1600 US for large screen RCA rear projection. These prices are far less in real terms than your father or grandfather paid for his first 21" color tv set.
Vacuum tube technology. Never Twice The Same Color.
The old folks BTW thought nothing of high ladder work on the roof to erect an antenna capable of receiving perhaps three suburban VHF channels.
I do not get to watch my HD movie that I paid for.
What you get in North America is an analog video output about 50% better than a standard DVD. That is probably going to look pretty good on your Toshiba.
But if blu-ray takes off in the market, how long do you think downsampling will remain turned off?:)
It will remain off until the first generation of HD sets edges towards retirement.
Downsampling for the american market still delivers a significantly better picture than standard DVDs.
By this summer, or fall, your big screen HDCP set will break the $1000 price-point at Walmart, after that, no one that matters will give a damn about the token.
There were two bits of news this past week on the HD front:
Disney will release on HD-DVD. The worst possible news for the Blu-Ray camp. The Disney logo pretty much guarantees you'll make the top 10 in video sales and rentals.
Warner seems the only hold-out on downsampling. You won't see the token invoked on HD releases from Disney, For, Paramount or Sony. Whatever the media.
The success of the project depends on government subsidies and control of distribution: making the laptops so unappealing to adults they have no value on the black market.
Remember the drumbeat here over the Linux Simputer? Yet another computer for the masses that arrived too late, delivered too little, and cost too much.
Gates won that round. He may win this one too,
With an open source OS, the applications are free too, and the internet is your helpdesk.
There is nothing free or easy about developing good software for kids. This is a state-subsidized distribution of laptops to kids, remember.
A show of hands, please, from those who have written anything as significant and durable as Oregon Trail.
The Freeplay Foundation focuses on radio because there is seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting on which to build and the infrastructure is in place.
A second show of hands, please, from those who are providing support online to grade school students and their teachers.
Kids perhaps lacking basic literacy and dependent on a hand-cranked generator and very fragile networking to maintain even minimal connectivity.
It turns out that poor people don't need eye-candy or bloat.
The laptop-for-every-child needs quality graphics and sound.
There is a reason why the Freeplay Foundation's Lifeline radio for orphaned kids is multiband AM/FM/SW and it is the same reason why Reading Radio for the Blind mixes drama and music with text.
A steady diet of instruction without relief invites rebellion. The gadget gets put on the shelf, sold on the street, or exchanged for something less confining.
Which might well be that pirated copy of VIsta SE. Geeks have a piss-poor record of understanding the needs and desires of those outside their own culture.
We have no choices. There are only two parties, each of which has about 25% of a supportable platform, as far as I am concerned. What kind of a choice is that?
The American system rewards compromise and stability.
Independent executive, Independent judiciary. Each state has equal vote in the Senate. Each Congressional district has an equal vote in the House. Life terms for judges. Staggered terms for Senators. There is no such thing as party discipline or a national party organization, as anyone in Canada or the U.K would understand it.
It can takes decades to build a consensus for significant change. This is not an environment in which a third party can thrive.
I can't help but think Rockstar is simply looking to get a rise out of people. They're using controversey to sell their games.
What worries me about Rockstar is that they may not know when to stop.
Bully isn't the only game in the pipeline that has the potential to blow up in their face. This isn't good news for anyone who thinks M rated content has a place in gaming.
Copyrighted work would seem less likely to be preserved via redundancy in media than content that can be shared freely without any fear of litigation.
If this is true, why is it that the Disney archieves are complete, and Disney films in pristine digital restoration, can be purchased anywhere in the world, at nominal cost. Something that can be said aboult almost no other studio or production house.
I thought the idea behind copyright was to grant limited protection from copying, with the understanding that it would eventually enter the public domain to the benefit of society and culture.
I would argue that society benefits most from works that claim new ground and cannot be dismissed as a mere copy or derivative.
Plus there's the fact that Shakespeare wrote at a time when work would still enter the public domain, instead of being locked up in perpetual copyright.
Shakespeare's plays were the prime assets of his theatrical company.
He was part owner of the Globe theater, remember, and he functioned under a patronage system that settled teritorial disputes privately.
Shakespeare's plays were never published in his lifetime.
The idea that plays could be read for pleasure, that English drama was something more than disposable popular entertainment scarcely exists before the death of Shakespeare.
what's to say they're not delaying to make the copy protection scheme less intrusive and more practical for end users?
That may be exactly what is happening, given the collapse of support for downsampling HD content for analog output. Microsoft may have been on the right track here all along.
I hope they pay the price for their copy protection scheme.
The good news:
The "Image Constraint Token" (downsampling of HD content for analog outputs) is more or less dead.
You won't see it invoked in the initial HD releases from SONY, Disney, Fox or Paramount. Warner may be the only significant hold-out. Not that 960x540 is half-bad:
If it wasn't Rockstar, they would be blaming Bush, or Harry Potter, or anything else but themselves for how they are taking our tax dollars and failing our children.
The problem is, they aren't blaming Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Who would have thought that there was any life left in the English boarding school novel? Or that ASOUE would draw children into a universe as dark and uncertain as anything in Dickens?
Slashdot Mirror
Why aren't we seeing D-Theater (HD-VHS) titles like Die-Hard on the list?
You are a little behind the curve.
"Downsampling" analog outout is more or less dead. But 960x540 is not going to look hal-bad on your first generation ATSC set even if the ICT token is set in some future releases.
the underlying problem is IP companies who feel they have a right to unlimited profits for the one piece of work at the expense of the general population
The Incredibles represents an investment of $90 million dollars and the labor of four hundred people.
It is not the general population that benefits from piracy.
It is the subset with a midline PC or better and a broadband connection.
It is the subset within that set which is too cheap to rent from Blockbuster and too impatient or too self-important to stand in line for a free loan from their public library.
"Living Large," from a Marxist point-of-view.
Mandatory managed copy.
You can save HD to back-up media or hard drive at full resolution. (Preserving closed captioning and multiple audio tracks?) You can distribute to home networks. You can painlessly downsample/download to portable devices and media.
That would meet 95% or more of anyone's "fair use" requirements.
This is simply a replay of yesterday's FUD-fest over DMA and battery life on the iPod.
The new DVD format should piggyback on the old technology and be founded on OPEN standards.
There are a half-dozen or so manufactuers world-wide with the financial backing, engineering talent and production lines needed to make HD hardware mass-market.
There are a half-dozen or so content providers whose backing you must have if your HD product is to be commercially viable. If Disney isn't on that list, you are as good as dead.
The game is closed to the little-league player.
Do you honestly think seeing Gone With the Wind will be better in HD?
Hell, yes. Have you ever seen a pristine technicolor print in large screen projection? Fort Apache in B&W?
The timing just isnt right. Consumers are not ready to start embracing a new technology when they just barely started embracing dvds. Lots of people have just begun moving their entire collection to dvd...
An estimate posted on Slashdot the other day put HDTV in 8-15% of households. No matter how inflated, these numbers look pretty damn impressive.
RCA Color TV entered the U.S. market in 1954. It took ten years for color to become mass-market and RCA was out there alone.
In one jump, consumers are moving to large-screen, wide-screen projection, high-definition digital video and digital television sound, as standard.
DVD videos look grand on your 27" screen. But not so hot at twice that size.
Freedom to the user can mean the freedom to access protected content. iTunes. Netflix. Subscription services like Rhapsody. The latest massively multiplayer on-line game.
Apple understands this. Microsoft understands this. Walmart understands this.
Which is why the chain flirts with the HTPC at $2000 and its commitment to OEM Linux shrnks towards a single mediocre Microtel box.
Heathkit died in the eighties. DIY home electronics is for the enthusiast, not the masses. MythTV is no threat to Vista.
The problem is, the average Joe has ten to fifteen years experience and investment in Windows hardware, software, and peripherals.
There is almost nothing of interest to him in "Free" or "Open Source" software that hasn't been ported to Windows or which began as a native Windows app.
He has a middle class income and values his time more than money. He is not interested in running down a "gray market" codec to play a media file he can open in Windows with one click.
He does not define freedom as an operating system.
When Walmart puts HD rear-screen projection and the X-Box 360 on the front page of its four-color inserts, I think the train has left the station.
The Disney studio product sells a lot of video hardware. Always has.
Disneyland on ABC and The Wonderful World of Color on NBC are two very significant landmarks in the history of broadcast television.
Disney on laserdisc is collectable, Disney dominated VHS sales and rentals from their first release. Disney is more important to the success of any video distribution system than pornography.
The PS3 market is more or less defined as the young adult male. Home Theater is family entertainment with a much broader reach and deeper pockets. More money to spend.
HD at Walmart starts at $1600 US for large screen RCA rear projection. These prices are far less in real terms than your father or grandfather paid for his first 21" color tv set.
Vacuum tube technology. Never Twice The Same Color.
The old folks BTW thought nothing of high ladder work on the roof to erect an antenna capable of receiving perhaps three suburban VHF channels.
What you get in North America is an analog video output about 50% better than a standard DVD. That is probably going to look pretty good on your Toshiba.
It will remain off until the first generation of HD sets edges towards retirement.
Downsampling for the american market still delivers a significantly better picture than standard DVDs.
By this summer, or fall, your big screen HDCP set will break the $1000 price-point at Walmart, after that, no one that matters will give a damn about the token.
There were two bits of news this past week on the HD front:
Disney will release on HD-DVD. The worst possible news for the Blu-Ray camp. The Disney logo pretty much guarantees you'll make the top 10 in video sales and rentals.
Warner seems the only hold-out on downsampling. You won't see the token invoked on HD releases from Disney, For, Paramount or Sony. Whatever the media.
MIT isn't giving anything away.
The success of the project depends on government subsidies and control of distribution: making the laptops so unappealing to adults they have no value on the black market.
Remember the drumbeat here over the Linux Simputer? Yet another computer for the masses that arrived too late, delivered too little, and cost too much. Gates won that round. He may win this one too,
There is nothing free or easy about developing good software for kids. This is a state-subsidized distribution of laptops to kids, remember.
A show of hands, please, from those who have written anything as significant and durable as Oregon Trail.
The Freeplay Foundation focuses on radio because there is seventy-five years of experience in educational broadcasting on which to build and the infrastructure is in place.
A second show of hands, please, from those who are providing support online to grade school students and their teachers.
Kids perhaps lacking basic literacy and dependent on a hand-cranked generator and very fragile networking to maintain even minimal connectivity.
The laptop-for-every-child needs quality graphics and sound.
There is a reason why the Freeplay Foundation's Lifeline radio for orphaned kids is multiband AM/FM/SW and it is the same reason why Reading Radio for the Blind mixes drama and music with text.
A steady diet of instruction without relief invites rebellion. The gadget gets put on the shelf, sold on the street, or exchanged for something less confining.
Which might well be that pirated copy of VIsta SE. Geeks have a piss-poor record of understanding the needs and desires of those outside their own culture.
For three generations, the American South had a reputation for degeneracy and sloth that had affected blacks and whites.
That ended when the Rockfeller Foundation made the first serious and sustained effort to eliminate hookworm and other endemic diseases.
The sick and starving cannot help themselves. You must begin at the beginning.
The American system rewards compromise and stability.
Independent executive, Independent judiciary. Each state has equal vote in the Senate. Each Congressional district has an equal vote in the House. Life terms for judges. Staggered terms for Senators. There is no such thing as party discipline or a national party organization, as anyone in Canada or the U.K would understand it.
It can takes decades to build a consensus for significant change. This is not an environment in which a third party can thrive.
What worries me about Rockstar is that they may not know when to stop.
Bully isn't the only game in the pipeline that has the potential to blow up in their face. This isn't good news for anyone who thinks M rated content has a place in gaming.
Rockstar's last PR binge ended with GTA:SA being pulled from the shelves at Walmart. The chain doesn't need another hit to its family-friendly image.
If this is true, why is it that the Disney archieves are complete, and Disney films in pristine digital restoration, can be purchased anywhere in the world, at nominal cost. Something that can be said aboult almost no other studio or production house.
I thought the idea behind copyright was to grant limited protection from copying, with the understanding that it would eventually enter the public domain to the benefit of society and culture.
I would argue that society benefits most from works that claim new ground and cannot be dismissed as a mere copy or derivative.
Shakespeare's plays were the prime assets of his theatrical company.
He was part owner of the Globe theater, remember, and he functioned under a patronage system that settled teritorial disputes privately.
Shakespeare's plays were never published in his lifetime.
The idea that plays could be read for pleasure, that English drama was something more than disposable popular entertainment scarcely exists before the death of Shakespeare.
That may be exactly what is happening, given the collapse of support for downsampling HD content for analog output. Microsoft may have been on the right track here all along.
The good news:
The "Image Constraint Token" (downsampling of HD content for analog outputs) is more or less dead.
You won't see it invoked in the initial HD releases from SONY, Disney, Fox or Paramount. Warner may be the only significant hold-out. Not that 960x540 is half-bad:
Sony, Others Won't Degrade HD Content on Analog Outputs
Disney to release movies on HD DVD The worst possible news for the Blu-Ray camp and something that will put enormous pressure on Time-Warner.
AACS will survive in some form. But it is beginning to look like Microsof's iHD and HD-DVD are the real winners here.
The problem is, they aren't blaming Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Who would have thought that there was any life left in the English boarding school novel? Or that ASOUE would draw children into a universe as dark and uncertain as anything in Dickens?