2010 — the Year AACS and HDMI Kill Off HD Component Video 424
For home theater buffs who want (or already have) a high-def system using component-video connections, time may be growing short. Audiofan writes with this story, which begins: "Digital HD (high definition), like that enabled through HDMI and Blu-ray, is awesome. It offers amazing picture and audio quality. It allows you to conveniently connect one single cable to provide both picture and sound. It is royally going to screw up a lot of homes next year. Wait, what was that last part? After December 31, 2010, manufacturers will not be 'allowed' [to] introduce new hardware with component video outputs supplying more than an SD resolution (480i or 576i). Should this go through as planned, it's going to disable or throw a wrench in a lot of existing custom installations as soon as the end of this year." The AACS in the headline stands for Advanced Access Content System, the industry scheme to block "the analog hole" by controlling content from storage media to eyeballs.
Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Insightful)
There will still be plenty of HDMI to composite converters coming out of China, etc.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:4, Informative)
Or use a media PC as the center of your entertainment setup and rip content to remove protections that would require HDCP.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:4, Insightful)
Or just get the disinfected version from Pirate Bay.
Media industry does a pretty good imitation of The Three Stooges nowadays.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:4, Insightful)
Annoying?
The whole thing is easily automated, drop in disc and in a little while you have a nice HD video file that can be played out whatever input you want.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just download a version with protections removed.
All it takes is 1 person to figure out how to get around it and it's out on the internet.
So if my options are to buy all new gear that has HDMI instead of component or download the movie.
It's getting downloaded.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Annoying? After getting the media center configured, I don't even have to go search for a disc every time I want to play something now. I just select it from a universal remote. Sure, it's not the easiest thing to do, but you can pay someone to do it for you if you want, and then you no longer have to sit through the asinine 20 minutes of trailers and shit on a movie that you bought, ostensibly to watch the main feature, not forced to watch trailers for movies that have already been released.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's the point of TFA: You're fucked.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The irony being rich. People who are willing to obey the law, are going to have to pay good money and endure moderate inconvenience to do the right thing to be able to continue paying good money. People who break the law, well they will continue to break the law. Why I even think this irony was on penny-arcade today.
As an owner of an 8 year old DLP HDTV that only has component video, I do feel unjustly targeted.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Insightful)
People who are willing to obey the law
That's where the problems start. Good people have to be willing to ignore and break bad laws [wikipedia.org] en masse, not doing so is to participate in your own oppression. (And participate in the political process to abolish those laws of course.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And my hope is that someone will start a class action lawsuit on behalf of owners who legally bought home theater equipment and legal copies of HD movies against those DRM trolls.
I am sure that many people all over the globe will support this cause.
This is getting too ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
They will. It's just a matter of time until it's cracked.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Informative)
They already do, HDFury being the most popular one. Google for "HDCP stripper".
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I'm not going to Google any phrase containing the word "stripper". Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You are a wise men as this [google.com] was on the first page of the image results.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:4, Funny)
Pshaw, if you really had balls you'd search for "HD CP stripper".
BRB, FBI.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. HDFury is legal and sanctioned.
It's downgrading the digital connection to an analog connection. It has legit HDCP keys.
It does NOT give you a digital output, and does not crack HDCP.
If the new rules get adopted, then the manufacturer of HDFury will be unable to manufacture any more of them.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:4, Interesting)
It remains that HDCP has not been cracked.
Publicly. A while ago someone figured out there was a fundamental weakness in HDCP and didn't publish, but hinted at where to look.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Funny)
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They sure as hell do, just google for for HDCP strippers.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Funny)
I was really interested in and browsed this for almost 4 hours before I realized that my spell check changed it from HDCP to HARD.
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I'm sure someone will find a way to make it work. We all know how effective DRM is, and how hard it is to break. I doubt that this will be met with much resistance due to the fact that component only give you 1080i, and HDMI delivers 1080p. But I do find it annoying that someone's telling the market they have to "stop doing something" even though there's really no need to...
Well, unless you have an HD TV that doesn't have HDMI. If I did, and my system conked out, and I was faced with a choice of buying
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt that this will be met with much resistance due to the fact that component only give you 1080i, and HDMI delivers 1080p.
Component video can do 1080p too.
Re:Just buy the unofficial ones (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. [hdtvinfo.eu]
There's just no standard for it yet. I stand corrected.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes the point is today you can do 1080p with component and tomorrow (figuratively) you can not. I am not suggesting you should be outraged, only that you misunderstood the point.
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720p is high definition compared to 480i/p NTSC, video, and DVD content.
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Anything higher than the 720x480 that an older CRT will do is high-def. 1280x720 is almost triple the amount of pixels of standard-def video. The definition does not depend entirely on the display device... it depends on the source. Just because you can stretch SD video to your monitor size doesn't make it HD.
Why force the market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why attempt to force the market to change? Oh right, money. Someone stands to make a lot of money from a bunch of people being forced to upgrade.
I mean, they could just let the old tvs slowly die out and eventually noone will have a need for anything but HDMI, but where is the short term profit in that?
Somehow I still doubt it will work. People don't like being told they can't have their way and someone will find a way to give them what they want anyways.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
a lawsuit could probably turn this around pretty easily of people were willing to do it. That of course, is it's own problem: in order to turn around bogus crap, you have to spend exorbitant amounts of money just to turn around small stupid inconveniences that chip away at your rights.
Re:Why force the market? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the 1920s proved that.
I used to think that people don't learn history. They do. What they don't learn is the ability to see how the current, "new" situation is similar to things that have happened before under similar conditions and can be expected to yield the same results. So every new development like this is a surprise to them. When it succeeds only in creating a market (underground, if need be) for non-compliant players that do what the customer wants, I guess the businesses behind this will be surprised too.
Money Money Money (Score:5, Insightful)
What we have is a perfect recipe for greed!
Re:Money Money Money (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Money Money Money (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer the more natural feel of less pointy 1s and less defined 0s
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You left off the $200 gold-plated HDMI connectors. Since converting to gold plated, I've noticed that the digital signal has 0's which are softer and rounder, while the 1's are slimmer and pointier at the top.
I prefer the more natural feel of less pointy 1s and less defined 0s
DO NOT MOCK MY $2500 GOLD-PLATED HDMI CABLE! (sob)
Re:Money Money Money (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not. It's a very nice-looking cable.
We're mocking you.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Weirdo.
Everybody knows pointy 1's and rounder 0's are better.
Re:Money Money Money (Score:5, Funny)
Then you need gold-pressed-latinum plated HDMI cables, and our specially-crafted power strip made of ebony hand-rubbed to a sheen by naked virgins. It softens the zeros and rounds the ones ever so slightly. There's even a knob hand-carved from a Unicorn horn that stretches a bit of snipegut and can adjust the pointiness to a great level of precision. The dial even goes to 11, and there's a 12 setting available for a small extra fee of $50,000.
Re:Money Money Money (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting the last snipegut stretching knob I bought was made of rhino horn and I was unhappy with the result. Perhaps the magic of a Unicorn horn is what I need.
Where can I order one? 50k is very affordable if I will be able to convince myself it is working as you describe.
Re:Money Money Money (Score:5, Funny)
The $50K is the upgrade to 12. The unit itself is $250,000 for the base model, and extra $10,000 if you want to specify the hair color of the virgins who rub the ebony (redheads tend to have brighter, harsher treble, for example).
Of course, you'll want one for each channel to avoid any crosstalk, and one of our technicians will happily walk you through the process of having a second power feed run to your house so you don't run both channels off the same power lines, because that would be just silly.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sure, though in the interests of disclosure I didn't say the virgins were particularly attractive, or even female. Just so you're adequately warned. I don't want to be accused of cheating anyone or misrepresenting my product, after all.
Summary contradicts itself... (Score:2, Insightful)
It says that they "...will not be 'allowed' [to] introduce ____new____ hardware..." and then says, "...throw a wrench in a lot of ____existing____ custom installations..."
How are these things related? Is the submission suggestion that your component video output will suddenly cease to work? Or are they trying to make the leap of logic that old displays will not have any new gizmos to connect to them? I've never seen a piece of display equipment that couldn't be connected to an HD source through some tricker
Re:Summary contradicts itself... (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
Lest you think that this won't affect existing players, note that after January 1, 2011, the manufacturers of Blu-ray discs will be able (at their option) to insert an Image Constraint Token into any Blu-ray disc. This is a sort of "digital flag" that will turn off the high-definition component video output in the player (effectively turning it into a low-resoluton 480i/576i output). The goal is to make sure that all high-definition video will only be made possible through "secure" digital connections like HDMI.
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Re:Summary contradicts itself... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Summary contradicts itself... (Score:4, Insightful)
What good is a "high quality" picture if you aren't allowed to watch it?
"High quality" is intentionally quoted as all the extra crispness and chroma filters they run the original source through to make some BR content can make the BR look worse than the original and/or the DVD.
VHS to DVD was an obvious improvement in both quality and convenience.
DVD to BR is meh at best.
Re:Summary contradicts itself... (Score:5, Informative)
VHS to DVD was an obvious improvement in both quality and convenience. DVD to BR is meh at best.
You obviously don't watch many movies. In some rare cases, if the DVD is done just right, yes, it's hard to tell the difference between Blu-ray and upconverted DVD. However, if you're talking standard definition DVD and Blu-ray, the difference is incredibly noticeable. Even upconverted DVD and Blu-ray normally has a pretty noticeable difference in quality.
Where? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid regulation motivated by greed: USA
Stupid regulation motivated by stupidity/gullibility (often caused by the USA): mainland Europe
Stupid regulation inspired by Orwell: UK, possibly Australia
Not stupid regulation: anywhere else
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I believe pretty much "everywhere" (at least on this planet).
The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management, intended to restrict access to and copying of the next generation of optical discs and DVDs. The specification was publicly released in April 2005 and the standard has been adopted as the access restriction scheme for HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD). It is developed by AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA), a consortium that includes
Re:Where? (Score:5, Informative)
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no analogue holes (Score:5, Funny)
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I can remember when I only saw them in audio supply catalogs. At the time you didn't purchase a Monster cable because of their "wooden knob" claims (though they did stretch the truth, even back then), instead you bought them because of the lifetime warranty. Sure, I just paid $100 for a 20 foot guitar cable, but it "should" be the last 20 foot guitar cable I have to buy. No idea if they still do that.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well you gotta be careful you know. You can buy the $20 cable, but we can't guarantee it has no analogue holes. Now imagine yourself sitting down to watch the latest rental. Do you want to have to get up in the middle of it to realize you're leaking analogue all over the floor?
Re:no analogue holes (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Don't confuse... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not Shortly After, if not already. (Score:2)
Do they honestly think they can stop someone from splitting the source device?
I have many Y adapters, Not all work well, but I am sure HD has many will have many solutions.
Output a laptop HDMI to a Capture card on another system, TADA
Why don't they just give up and stop making it hard for the common user
When I hear unbreakable technology it always sounds like a challenge just calling me
Hmmm...time to buy (Score:5, Interesting)
Shrug. Only affects legitimate consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
Up to about 2001-2002 I was a legitimate consumer, but when the trend of shafting legitimate consumers became the industry standards, I went 100% piracy.
My entire entertainment system is a lean, mean, swashbuckling, pirating machine. There is no hole in which to insert a physical media; why would I need a DVD or Blu-ray source, since I have no intention of buying any discs? DVD player went to the dump with my VHS.
Now my country does levy a blank CD tax...Oh yeah, I never buy any blank discs because EVERYTHING is on Hard drives or flash cards.
I'm laughing man, because I am so not legit.
Ok, queue up the haters, I don't give a shit what any of you think.
Re:Shrug. Only affects legitimate consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
You've failed to grasp that as far as these "content cartels" are concerned, there is NO such thing as a legitimate consumer. To them the world is consists of them, and pirates. There is nothing in between, and all are guilty.
It's only reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
I think your setup is perfectly reasonable. How much moralizing do you see companies go through when they employ slave laborers to make goods or outsource your job to some third-world worker for a pittance? They are taking things away from others just because they can, so why shouldn't you do the same?
Slashtards go on about how it's okay because "corporation are amoral" and they "have a responsibility to make as much money for their shareholders as possible." If that is the case, then it's perfectly sensible to do the same thing yourself. Pirating is cheaper than buying, and allows me to have more money for other uses, therefore it is the right thing to do.
As they have sown, so they shall reap. All hail the false idol of money and bow before the might of the corporate gods.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shrug. Only affects legitimate consumers (Score:5, Insightful)
Now my country does levy a blank CD tax...Oh yeah, I never buy any blank discs because EVERYTHING is on Hard drives or flash cards.
I'm laughing man, because I am so not legit.
Ok, queue up the haters, I don't give a shit what any of you think.
You know what I think? You're not going to have to re-buy all your stuff when they come out with the next standard after blue-ray. You'll just have to download things again. Not too shabby.
Re:Shrug. Only affects legitimate consumers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shrug. Only affects legitimate consumers (Score:4, Interesting)
It's people like you who give the movie studios one more reason to make things miserable for their law-abiding, paying customers.
As if they needed one. Their approach (and that of the music outfits) has always been to murder in the womb any media reproduction technology more advanced than the LP. Forget video ... go to the theater and get in line, sheep. That's how they think ... if a new tech is capable of making copies, they want it gone. Period. Doesn't matter what we think or want. You will consume whatever crumbs we offer, and you'll pay whatever we ask. Hell, left up the likes of Jack "Ding dong the bastard's DEAD!" Valenti the VCR would have been made illegal at the Federal level. Now, that was before anyone had even begun to distribute pre-recorded tapes that could be copied. They can't even entertain the concept that someone, somewhere, might enjoy something without paying the proper amount of juice money to a bunch of literal gangsters. Fact is, these sociopaths just want absolute, unquestioned, end-to-end control of media consumption and if they don't get it they go crying to Congress, pay a few bribes, write a few laws that their tame Congresscritters then dutifully have signed into law. It's disgusting, the level of corruption the media companies are capable of, and anyone who feels the slightest twinge of guilt over a torrent of the latest theatrical release is just uninformed. The Internet and Bit Torrent gave, and is still giving, these jerks exactly what they deserve.
... pricks.
My point being that blaming people who commit copyright infringement for the actions of the media moguls is misguided. The pricks that run the content cartels are, well
Yes, Just like the last few times. (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to remember the same argument with Region Codes and DIVX. People voted with the wallet last time, why would this time be any different?
Even if they do get their way, all they will do is create a cottage industry of security-defeating technologies. And like always, the real pirates who make tons of money selling counterfeits will find ways around it.
It's the actual consumer that can't watch that latest DVD because of DRM that doesn't quite work right that get screwed.
2010 The year blu-ray gets bypassed... (Score:4, Insightful)
An overpriced underperforming platform get bypassed in favor of digital media players with increasing sizes of flash storage or hd storage.
Its a story of a clever technology undermined by its own advocates. Why buy a blu-ray player that may not play new favorites 3 months
from now when you can get a digital download. The old tech people may stick with DVD while the new tech people may switch
over to direct digital download. If Im gonna hook my player up to a network to get firmware updates, I might as well just get a network
media player.
Optical storage is dead anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Blu-ray is the latest mainstream optical storage has to offer and it's a nasty proprietary format pushed forward by the notorious DRM worshippers that are Sony. The discs are too expensive and fewer people are going out to buy movies. There isn't much point either since when you buy it it's not even yours.
Unless low-cost holographic storage becomes available without restrictions or DRM I'd say optical storage has had it's day. and anyone developing optical storage these days has to be in the least position to force DRM on the market. The SD card guys have had much more luck with peddling DRM to the masses and I expect that SD-DRM usage will become widespread any day now
No more intelligent responses... (Score:5, Insightful)
I typically try to express some kind of intelligent or informed opinion on /. stories, but all I can come up with here is, "Screw you, AACS." I have not yet moved to Blu-Ray or an HD TV, and this makes me much less likely to want to. Bastards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, considering the fact that we are the early adopter crowd that does have some relevance.
How else is grandpa going to know that there's the nifty new tech out there that he should be buying.
He's certainly not going to stumble upon this himself. And no, all of the ads and displays at Frys and Best Buy aren't going to clue him in.
After 70 years of media saturation, he probably doesn't notice any of that stuff anymore (assuming he doesn't have his hearing aid turned off).
If I can't play it in the device of
Oblig... (Score:5, Funny)
"24K gold-plated connectors help protect the cable's optical lens to ensure consistent signal transfer"
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Rocketfish%26%23153%3B+-+8'+Digital+Optical+Cable/8315147.p?id=1174694191675&skuId=8315147&st=optical [bestbuy.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, I needed that laugh.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oblig... (Score:5, Funny)
So, basically, don't bother buying blu-ray? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No not really. It means don't buy a new HDTV with only component inputs (impossible anyway so I can stop here, but I won't) in hopes of adding a blue-ray player that will be manufactured more than a year from now.
So... (Score:2)
I run a media PC. I want to buy a BD-ROM for it.
It's DVI -> HDMI for video, and a Tascam USB sound module for audio.
Should I be concerned about blurays breaking my setup in any form or fashion?
Not as bad as it sounds (Score:3, Informative)
The SD resolution you'll be restricted to is NOT 480i. It's 540p (960x540 in Widescreen). It's still better than DVD resolution (720x480 non-square pixels).
Re:Not as bad as it sounds (Score:5, Informative)
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_Constraint_Token#Operation [wikipedia.org]
Impact (Score:3, Insightful)
Patent Abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason they can enforce this is because they can refuse to issue patents related to Blu-ray to any manufacturer that does not agree to their terms, which a blatant abuse patent system.
The purpose of patents are to promote the development of novel ideas, and the primary mechanism for doing so is to allow the original inventor to be compensated when these ideas are used. A government-granted monopoly is completely unnecessary to accomplish these goals, and is a horrible anachronism in a free market society.
Patents should be reformed to require all grantees to license their patents to anyone who is willing to pay a reasonable and non-discriminatory fee. This would at least solve the problem of patents being abused to force agendas and limit competition, while still achieving the goal of compensating inventors.
The Real Analog Hole (Score:3, Interesting)
The real analog hole is the display screen.
With all the camera and video technologies coming out, I wouldn't be surprised if creating an exact digital replica in the future was as simple as putting a camera in front of a screen and loading in a "record video on a screen" app.
Play the movie once, (perhaps even at a higher speed,) and you have a perfect copy of the video.
Sound might be a bit trickier.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You think so? [wikipedia.org]
Re:The Real Analog Hole (Score:5, Insightful)
Why analog? At some point that content is being decrypted inside the screen. It should be possible to open the thing up and dump it and get a 1:1 digital un-encrypted copy. Sure, it's technically daunting but it only has to be done once per video.
HDMI = PITA (Score:3, Interesting)
Due to the enforced end-to-end DRM nature of HDMI, switching components can be a pain in the ass. I've had no end of trouble getting HDMI switching correct. It seems that if a component is already on before my receiver is up, or switched to that component, that HDMI won't negotiate correctly and often requires the whole chain to power off and power back on.
Not that it prevents the piracy that HDMI exists solely to prevent...
Pirates laughing all the way to the home theatre. (Score:5, Insightful)
So once again we have more hoops for paying customers to jump through and perhaps have their legally purchased content automatically downgrade itself in order to "protect" the MPAA and member companies. Meanwhile everyone who has given up on the ridiculously outdated and self-defeating content distribution system suffers no inconvenience whatsoever.
The further along this train wreck progresses the more my outrage turns into bemused detachment. I haven't bought any non-indie media in quite a long time now (occasionally I catch a movie or concert). I do feel somewhat sorry for the people who haven't figured out how totally messed up the system is and are going to be badly affected by this, but I just can't bring myself to the point of actual outrage over it any more.
How many people are going to just give up trying to be "good consumers" and switch over to piracy based on this? I would expect it will be far more people than will be dissuaded from participating in casual "copyright infringement" by trying to make backup copies of their media or god forbid just trying to watch a movie they bought on the wrong type of TV.
Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no intention of ever buying into BluRay precisely because of the ability to play these sort of anti-consumer games. Wake me up when they start their attack on HD OTA broadcasts.
This will hurt many businesses... (Score:4, Informative)
Most businesses in which need to run a signal a long distance need to use a Cat5 to Component system. My family owns three businesses and they all use a system in which cat5 is ran to all three of our TVs and converted to component right before reaching the TV.
As much as HDMI is great it simply is not as good as component for running an HD signal over a long distance. Component is much better with cat5 because it is split into 3 cords. That way you Cat5 can easily handle the signal. However Cat5 is insufficient for carrying the entire signal if your using HDMI.
The AACS should not have the authority to break so many people's installations. We certainly can't afford to take out our nearly one thousand dollar system of splitters and converters and I'm sure many businesses can't either.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Wii can still put out whatever they want over RGB and there is no law stating your device (TV) can't accept RGB as an input and still be included..
It states anything playing licensed MPAA content over RGB will be forced to be artificially limited to 480i.
Now what if you have your own video over 480i on say a camcorder or on a BR and would like to use RGB? That I do know if the law or the technology will differential that from "protected" content.
Re:Nintendo Wii without Component? (Score:5, Informative)
Purely FYI: AC means this cable [monoprice.com]. Thanks for the tip on monoprice, had not heard of them before. Geek fail.
Re:Bye bye Wii (Score:4, Informative)
None of this says HDTVs have to abandon analog inputs. There will continue to be models that feature them. It's more about Blu-Ray players and other devices that decode AACS protection on video not being able to output analog signals. The HDTV is the receiver, not the sender.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Huh? We need a "poster misunderstood the point of the article" flag.
Re: (Score:2)
Wii will work (Score:2)
480p component inputs on tvs will work fine its just 480p outputs on dvd/blue-ray disc players wont. Wii doesnt play DVD's
so it wont be affected by the AACS action.
In any event most wii players dont care about the difference between 480p and 480i
Re: (Score:2)
It seems that lately every manufacturer is trying to impose new standard in order to maximize their future sales.
Give me a break. The only thing that's "standard" these days is the never-ending mantra in Sales that says as long as you continue to make something that falls into the "latest and greatest" bucket every 3-6 months, you'll have gullible customers out there buying it up like hotcakes.
I mean c'mon, I like Apple and all, but they are the WORST (and the BEST) at "new and improved"...Like they REALLY did a whole hell of a lot to the "new" iPod that replaces that 6-month "old" model.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems that lately every manufacturer is trying to impose new standard in order to maximize their future sales.
I guess creating quality products that people want to buy and delivering them at competitive prices is not exciting enough anymore.
Re:Are the manufacturers getting more greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just the first time they've removed the old standard by legal caveat, rather than simple obsolescence.
Component can easily handle very high definition, but it won't be allowed because (snicker) of course it's only possible to (chortle) copy video if you (guffaw) have access to an analog data stream of it. (HA HA HA !!!!! snort)
I mean, it's just not going to be possible (tee hee) to make an unlocked copy (ha ha) of the video at its full resolution.
BWAAHAHAH!!!!! Sorry, sometimes I kill myself.
Don't you worry none, as soon as BluRay turns on this flag there'll be an MKV extractor and you won't have to fret about this silly flag nonsense.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Creating artificial scarceness to raise prises?
That's what copyright is. It's not a normal market by any stretch of the imagination. If market forces were to take hold, competition would drive the price of copies of digital goods to zero, since the marginal cost is zero.