Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (
More info?)
On Sun, 04 Sep 2005 15:53:20 GMT numeric <numeric@att.net> wrote:
| None of the feature data sheets for my HDTV even vaguely hints that it
| may be obsolete in the near future. The issue has nothing to do with the
| progress of technology; but coercion and deliberate manipulation. To
| imply that no one expects five year old computer driven TV technology to
| work is simply wrong. I did expect, at the time of purchase, that my
| older HDTV would be compatable with future technology and I suspect many
| others also. Technically, there are solutions to provide HD programming
| to the TV.
You can get an STB and get SD quality which your HDTV can display.
Or you can wait for HCPD to be cracked, as it surely will be, since
people do desire to watch all HD content on their HDTV.
Of course, if Hollywood were to replace, at their own cost, every HDTV
that has no HDCP, with a like one that does (in trade for the old unit
which they could symbolically bulldoze or smash into oblivion), they
would be eliminating _legitimate_ desires to make use of any crack that
come out. If they do NOT do such replacement, they cannot _rightly_
claim that anyone possessing a pre-HDCP set _and_ the HDCP crack tools,
is doing so for piracy purposes.
|> I do agree that this entire situation is brought about because of
|> Hollywood's insistence on copy protection. And whilst I agree with you
|> that it's an unreasonable demand on legitimate consumers and likely to
|> result in them loosing business, possibly from the early aopters they
|> most need, at the end of the day, it's their copyright and they can
|> choose to licence it to you in any way they see fit.
|
| I would prefer that they stick their copyright up their ass; but
| otherwise, how can the consumer win when Hollywood and the US Congress
| has conspired against them?
The problem is they insist on perfect 100% protection.
One of the things they miss, as does the music industry, is that 95% or
more of piracy is by people who would NOT ever buy this anyway, had no
means to pirate existed. I know someone who now has downloaded more music
(over 3 terabytes) than he can possibly ever listen to in his lifetime.
It isn't about listening ... it's about the elitism of having it all (for
a lot of the pirates).
HDCP is getting close to a means I proposed many years ago. That system
is that all content be encrypted in a way that can only be decrypted at
the time of playing, if one has purchased time-based keys. Keys could be
sold for a given piece of music "for all time", or keys could be sold for
"any music" for a finit time (like maybe one month).
The idea is that no matter how much of a _selection_ of music one has (or
videos as the case may be), there is maximum amount of time they can listen
(or view) this content in each day (24 hours peak). Content should be sold
on a "playback" basis, with constraints to specific content to specific time
or both, based on what is paid for.
There are details in how the system works that I'm not covering here. But
one very interesting feature is that this system actually ALLOWS, and even
ENCOURAGES sharing and trading of content in its encrypted form. A computer
would play the content by simply passing the encrypted stream on to the
device which would decrypt it.
HDCP would be moot. The content would be encrypted, and any transparent
bit stream can carry it. The display device would decrypt it, if it had
the valid key (it's not just one key ... it is a rather complex system
involving public/private keys that prevent key-reuse and sharing). You
can download the next great movie even before you have the key, and make
copies for all your friends. Then you buy a key (maybe for just that one
movie) that allows playing it (maybe for a finit time period).
My system wouldn't be 100% perfect, either, but I believe it would be
better than HDCP. For one thing, it would not require any particular
type of media connection (only requiring it pass data bits unchanged),
nor any particular software (computer playback software would simply
pass the encrypted bits to the playback device).
--
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| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http
/linuxhomepage.com/ http
/ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http
/phil.ipal.org/ http
/ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
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