This article by Cory Doctorow is on how we got where we are and where we might be going. And what it could be.
Opinion: High-Definition Video–Bad For Consumers, Bad For Hollywood
The high-definition screen has become a kind of Christmas tree, overladen with ornaments hung by regulators, greedy entertainment execs, would-be monopolists from the tech sector, broadcasters desperate to hold onto their spectrum, and even video-game companies nostalgic for the yesteryear of impervious boxes. The tree is toppling — and it might just take out a few industries when it crashes.
But the studios and the broadcasters […] continue to use HD as a Trojan horse for smuggling in mandates over the design of commodity electronics.
The new HD technologies include anti-user nasties like “renewability” — the ability to remotely disable some or all of the device’s features without your permission.
Most extraordinary is the relationship of HD DRM to the world’s largest supply of HD screens: LCD computer monitors. The vast majority of HD-ready, 1080i-capable screens in the world are cheapo computer LCDs. Chances are you’ve got a couple at home right now.
But unless these screens are built with crippleware HDMI or DVI interfaces, they won’t be able to receive high-def signals. DRM standards call these legacy screens, and treat them as second-class citizens.
HDMI was developed and added just because HD “passes through” DVI without the broadcast flag and other DRM.
Crippleware! First time I heard that one. I expect to hear it much more.
Great piece, everyone should read it.
>“renewability” — the ability to remotely disable some or all of the
>device’s features without your permission
Did they get Microsoft’s permission to copy this feature?
Can you imagine the chaos of you trying to watch a tv show in the same screen as your wife’s watching another and you two son’s playing different consoles?
Agreed.
He omits any mention of how all those different audio stemas would be handled – maybe because it is obvious that headphones/earbuds are the only way this would be possible?
How many people currently use the “PIP” features that have been available on TVs for years??
Not a good sign that Sony has decided to add HDMI [which is fine] with HDCP capabilities [which sucks] to all models of the PS3.
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/09/22/sony_cuts_ps3_price/
They must plan on being able to turn on the HDCP flags in movies sooner than anyone thought. 🙁
90% of the improvements have been spent on the Critical idea of security.
Even with Current DVD, can you insert it in a computer anc opy it?? NO.. you need cracking software to do it.
And HD has about 300 times the size to add encoding of security features. insted of the Old (probably) 8bit security encode, they can get it to 128 bit. THATS a tuff Code to break.
THIS when we have the RIGHTS, to make backup copyies of ALL our media, JUST INCASE of fire or damage to the original media.
Im waiting for this to go to court.
My main problem, and this comes from someone in the video business, is that HD has some technical limitations that should have been worked out before it was released. I have a 45″ widescreen HD monitor.
The problem comes from the MPEG-2 compression. It is not robust enough to fit an HD channel into 19Mbps. I regularly see compression artifacts in abundance, especially in transitions. Sometimes, on real fast motion, I see pixel breakups that look like the picture shatters into little rectangles.
Its too late now to fix it for broadcast, but hopefully the HD content on most cable channels will convert to the VC-1 codec, which can be implemented int he set top boxes, which would improve the picture to where it should be.
Let us just remember that if some deity, galactic overlord, or other omnipotent yet benign organization was able to enforce what we all agree is “fair use”, I believe none of this would be happening.
There would be DRM. None. Make as many backup copies as you want. Move them to whatever device you want. Record and timeshift. The entertainment & software industries would not care.
But the galactic overlord would make sure that if fair use is violated, you die. How about that!
The problem is that any individual violation of fair use is hard to investigate, hard to prove, and very expensive compared to the nature of the individual crime. But when multiplied by millions, it does mean real economic harm. The industry has no choice to support and force DRM at their end.
I think DRM sucks, especially the hoops that honest people have to go through for fair use, but it has always seemed to me how unfair it is that no one on this forum talks about how to stop people from buying a DVD and giving away a copy to someone else for THEIR viewing (and lets not get into picayune giving away a copy vs. lending issues, you know what I’m talking about).
This article discusses some real problems but is undermined by so many canards that I almost thought it was a Dvorak piece. Maybe John should hire this guy. The legitimate alarm about DRM crap, etc., seems to inspire many people to exaggerated fear and the spreading of misinformation.
And let’s not forget that the networks/studios have legitimate fears: I download and watch so much commercial-free TV and free movies these days that I could probably cancel my cable and Netflix accounts. The old business models of producers are truly threatened by the internet, and it’s not at all clear yet how to fix them.
The internet has trained a whole generation to have contempt for copyright and to expect limitless freebies, whether it’s music, software, or video.
#6 & #7: I agree that I’d have a hard time watching a multi-window, multi-activity screen — it would make me crazy — but I think my kids, who have the attention span of a fruit-fly, would not only tolerate it, but get off on it. The next generation is already prepping for this with IM, TM, VM & etc. (all at the same time!) right now.
Mr. Doctorow seems none too bright.
DRM stinks, that’s true. Hollywood and broadcasters don’t have the consumer’s best interests at heart, that is also true. But most of his rant (and that is exactly what he is doing) is about how big screens stink and we should all stay with little screens. That may be his taste, but it sure isn’t mine, or anybody else’s I know. I haven’t seen Friends in HD but I’ve seen other programs and plenty of movies, and they look great. Polar Express on IMAX did not look creepy — it looked fantastic. I’m looking forward to my own HDTV.
Whether this guy is simply loves small images or just fears change remains to be seen… but he can take his stupid multi-screen window idea and shove it.
Eric — pretty much everyone is already on the way to one or another flavor of mpeg-4. Both major satellite services are shipping boxes capable of mpg2 and mpg4. A number of cable services are doing the same.
The satellite boxes are capable of mpg4, mpg2 and OTA reception — though all the features aren’t turned on, yet.
#7 (Mike Voice) at the moment, HDCP and the Broadcast Flag are on the negative side of limbo. Last court rulings overruled that particular aspect of industry-induced pollution.
Best guess is that if the mid-term elections retain a Congress as backwards as the current Ted Stevens brigade, Bush will appoint another Powell-style lackey to head the FCC — and lock TV consumers into another DRM pillory.
These DRM stories are starting to reach a boy-who-cried-wolf level of meaninglessness. While I appreciate the article, realistically the only bitching that matters is what happens right before DRM gets turned on, and how many customers are bitching.
10,
there IS an option for the corps…
considering that Security costs ALOT of money.
Considering these corps profit margins are AS high as Gasoline profits… Cut the security, Lower there profit margins abit…
Cut the prices, esp on new releases to ABOUT $10….
and they would sell ALOT more product, and STILL make their profit margins.
They just want to make MORE money.
How many persons watch a movie more then 1-3 times, then set it on the shelf…Or give it away?? They would LOVE for you NOT to give it away… And I THINK there is already regulations against it.
They could get rid of the security, get rid of 1/2 the lawyers(at least), and probably make ALOT of money…
They wont see it that way tho.
PS,
If they dropped the security,
They could PROBABLY get another hour or 2 onto a STANDARD DVD…
The DRM makes it progressively harder to buy digital entertainment, and the increasingly goofball content diminishes the desire to buy digital entertainment.
HDCP and the Broadcast Flag are on the negative side of limbo. Last court rulings overruled that particular aspect of industry-induced pollution.
Unfortunately, HDCP and the Broadcast Flag are two different beasts.
An appeals court rejected the FCC’s trying to impose the Broadcast Flag on the the makers of video equipment.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,67447-0.html
HDCP is not federally mandated, it is a circuit design that Intel sells/licences to video equipment makers.
http://www.intel.com/technology/computing/hw12031.htm
Intel also developed the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection* (HDCP) specification to protect digital entertainment content across the DVI interface.
There has been no court case involving HDCP, because the equipment manufacturers have “voluntarily” adopted it [even though they have to pay Intel for it], to woo the content owners into supporting their new formats.
Or, as Intel marketing puts it:
Intel believes legislative mandates stifle continued technological innovation, while effective markets yield compelling products, business models, and satisfied customers.
And what really makes me retch:
The market won’t accept a single protection technology capable of safeguarding content throughout its entire distribution and usage lifecycle. Thus, the industry has created a suite of technologies that protect content as it travels…
The “market” they refer to can only be the content providers – not consumers.
Who other than content owners feel they were screwed by the “single protection technology” on DVDs?