N/A You should be MAD about the coming broadcast flag

[mikea]

This story in the San Francisco Guardian is a good explanation of the issue with the coming broadcast flag on High Definition television broadcasts in the US.

The movie industry dreams of a day when you have to pay for every single viewing of a movie, no matter if you "bought" a copy before. They want the money from the movie theater ticket, then from pay TV and/or DVD "rental" - which will erase itself - and again a while later if and when they let you "own" a copy that they won't meter.

Do you want to know what watching television will be like a few years? Look at your current DVD player: If you haven't noticed that they require your DVD player to have a setting that will MAKE YOU watch whatever trailers, ads, and commercials they put at the beginning of the DVD you haven't been paying attention. You should be really mad about that. I am.

Copied from Slashdot ...

The other day I wanted to show something to one of my kids quick as we were on our way out to return the DVD's we had rented. Put in the DVD and the usual junk starts up, so I...

Hit fast forward : Operation not permitted.
Hit the "Next Chapter" button : Operation not permitted.

We were out of time, my wife was hollering at us to get going...

Hit the Stop button : Operation not permitted.

??? You mean I'm not even allowed to Stop playing, I have to watch it???

Fortunately the MPAA can't yet override the power button on the front of the player.

It's MY DVD player. I'LL DECIDE if I want to fast-forward!

I just listened to law professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford explaining that the US has actually fallen behind the rest of the world because we let these corporations kill the use and adoption of technology.

It's why I'm also tempted to build my own "Tivo" for HDTV and why there's some urgency to do it before July 1st. I think if I find an HD video capture card that has component input - the current one is over the air only - I'll be building a MythTV.

 

[Anthony]

My issue is that as of 1/1/06, we're all going to have to go HD or get a converter box to switch the signal from HD to analog. From what I hear the picture won't be as good as the one we have now when it is converted from HD to analog. My solution? Fly more, watch TV less.

 

[Brian Austin]

The four hours of TV I watch a week is too much anyway. I'll just sell it and use the space for books.

 

[wsuffa]

The broadcast flag is intended to prevent digital copying of material broadcast in HD. Most DVD players already prevent recording of material on the highest definition componant inputs (but they'll pass it through).

It's a way of preventing piracy, but it also prevents "fair use".

 

[mikea]

The broadcast flag is intended to prevent digital copying of material broadcast in HD. Most DVD players already prevent recording of material on the highest definition componant inputs (but they'll pass it through).

It's a way of preventing piracy, but it also prevents "fair use".

If I bought an HD DVD recorder that refused to record in HD I'd take it back and complain to the state's attorney about the fraud.

"Fair use" was upheld by the US Supreme court in the Sony Betamax case and the MPAA is using the congress they bought to reverse it.

Its not going to prevent piracy because A) it only takes one professional pirate to crack it to make a single copy that gets sent out to thousands and B) there will also be a way to A for a determined few.

So the result of this is the millions of customers are burdened needlessly. One example of what happens with DVDs now. A young mother didn't want her toddlers handling and ruining the DVDs she bought them so she made the very reasonable assumption she could connect the DVD player to the ancient VCR and make tape copies for the kids. Won't work.

When I set up Jann with a DVD player, the TV she had didn't have enough inputs so I thought I'd route the cables from the DVD player IN and OUT of the VCR to the TV. Won't work.

These are not thieves. They're customers.

 

[Greebo]

I tend to think that Hollywood, in its infinite foolishness, is about to learn the hard lesson about piracy that computer programmers learned in the 80's.

That is, the harder you try to prevent something from being pirated, the more it will be, and the more it will cost your customers.

Eventually the software industry (esp. the games industry) learned to apply minimal copy protections that were inexpensive, and keep their software prices as low as possible, and accept that piracy was going to happen, so why not avoid pushing people to piracy by not making prices outlandish.

Total copy protection of movies is a pipe dream. Forcing people to pay per-play even more so. Hollywood is going to learn this lesson all over again - technology moves too fast for large, sluggish corporations to keep up.

 

[Ghery]

I thought it was just a deadline for TV stations to shut down their analog over the air transmitters. Comcast hasn't made any noise about my having to shift to digital cable by such and such a date.

If I HAVE to buy new hardware to watch TV in a year or so, I may just shut it down. My wife might disagree, but I don't see much worth watching these days.

 

[mikea]

Not to nitpick - but as I work for the cable company here, and we get this question on a daily basis - I can actually correct a few things there. First - the upgrade is from analog to digital, not HD. Second - the forced upgrade happens before 12/31/06, or 01/01/07. So we still have almost 2 years.

...

The broadcast flag that the FCC has mandated to be implemented on July 1, 2005. After that date it will illegal to import, manufacture, or sell any equipment that does not implement Digital Right Management triggered by the optional broadcast flag on any digital broadcast. Read the article above.
or http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/

The end of analog over-the-air broadcast is a lot farther off than the FCC will admit. I think when that day comes you'll be able to buy a tiny settop converter box at Wal-Mart, Walgreens or Target for $29.

Jann just bought a Sony HD TV where the ONLY digital interface for getting a DIGITAL high def signal into it is the HDMI cable which implements the broadcast flag and the required encryption between the television and any digital source device. It works great for now with digital over-the-air broadcasts, which the FCC will not allow the flag on. For now. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=515971

There already are all kinds of reports from customers with HD TVs connected with the HDMI cable to Hi Def sources, like the HD DirecTivo getting messages from the TV that reception is unauthorized because of bugs in the DRM software and/or hardware between the source and the TV. These problems can also come with the HD digital cable box you'll be selling.

Once again these are customers who have paid $1000s, not thieves.

 

[SJP]

Total copy protection of movies is a pipe dream. Forcing people to pay per-play even more so. Hollywood is going to learn this lesson all over again - technology moves too fast for large, sluggish corporations to keep up.

Didn't they already try that - was called DIVX (not to be confused with the video codex DivX) or something like that. I know Circuit City were pushing it hard a couple years back, but it failed dismally.

I wish that the DVD people would quit with all the "special features" - I wanted the movie, not 4 hours of cutting-room floor stuff that I never wanted to see anyway

 

[Anthony]

Not to nitpick - but as I work for the cable company here, and we get this question on a daily basis - I can actually correct a few things there. First - the upgrade is from analog to digital, not HD. Second - the forced upgrade happens before 12/31/06, or 01/01/07. So we still have almost 2 years.

While I don't like my job in any way shape or form, and in fact despise the company that I work for, I can say that this is one of those things that is actually necessary. Analog cable is outdated, and when a signal leaks, it causes a whole lot of problems for everyone. When analog is phased out, these problems won't be anywhere near as bad. Also - digital cable is pretty cool anyways (even though I get it for free, I'd still pay for it....just not the crazy everything included package I get from Comcast for free).

I liken this to the fact that once broadband becomes available everywhere, I'm willing to bet that dialup companies will go away too.

OK. Now I'm really confused. I already have Comcast digital cable. My TV is not HD compatible nor upgradeable. I realize that HD and Digital are two different things. If I already have digital cable, why will I need to chuck my current TV or get a different converter?

 

[SkyHog]

OK. Now I'm really confused. I already have Comcast digital cable. My TV is not HD compatible nor upgradeable. I realize that HD and Digital are two different things. If I already have digital cable, why will I need to chuck my current TV or get a different converter?

If you have digital cable, you should be fine. People who made the step to upgrade to digital cable this early shouldn't have any problems when end of 2006 comes. I'm sure as we get closer to the deadline (which as pointed out is probably going to change anyways).

The bigger problem is going to be the people who don't want digital cable because they don't want to learn how to use a cable box. Unless they purchase a digital ready tv, they'll have no choice at that point, and that will upset them.

All of these points will be made by Comcast when satellite providers use this as a sales tactic.

 

[wsuffa]

Actually, a number of existing sets will be affected. My (older) HDTV over-the-air receiver in conjunction with the DVD recorder does implement DRM on the full-digital outputs. And Mike is right, a number of the CATV providers specifically implemented DRM to prevent the use of TIVO on their cable boxes.

Be prepared for two things. First, much less flexibility in what you can do (including technological elimination of "fair use"), and Second, increases in price for services. Look at the 30% increases that some of the software providers have put into place since "product activation" came along.....

 

[mikea]

Actually, a number of existing sets will be affected. My (older) HDTV over-the-air receiver in conjunction with the DVD recorder does implement DRM on the full-digital outputs. And Mike is right, a number of the CATV providers specifically implemented DRM to prevent the use of TIVO on their cable boxes.

Comcast sent a software update to their digital cable boxes last year to disable the serial port, specifically because they were bring out their own cr**y DVR and din't want to make it easy to connect a TiVo. I put my old TiVo on Jann's Comcast box using IR control. Cable box brain damage is brain damage.. don't get me started...like how they insist on making you wade you all of the 600 channels in hopes you'll buy more. No such things as "channels I receive" or "favorites only."

There IS NO standalone HD TiVo because they're afraid they'd be sued out of business like Replay was.

Be prepared for two things. First, much less flexibility in what you can do (including technological elimination of "fair use"), and Second, increases in price for services. Look at the 30% increases that some of the software providers have put into place since "product activation" came along.....

Right...and when Joe Six Pack finds out he can't "tape" NFL football in 2008 will he know why?

That "WE WILL CONTROL YOUR TELEVISION" stuff on DVDs keeps me from buying as may of them as would otherwise. I wonder if Joe knows why FF won't work.