Next-Gen DVD Players to Rely on HDMI? 169
RX8 writes "For those thinking about upgrading to either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD when they become available, you may want to think again. According to Designtechnica, the next-generation players will not support 1080i or 1080P and quite possibly not even 720P using the component video connection, it will have to use HDMI. Why? Because of copyright enforcement. Hollywood wants these new players to get rid of component video all together. So if you have an HDTV and want to use these new players, chances are you are out of luck. Neither the Blu-Ray or HD-DVD camps are officially saying anything about this yet, but early players are only showing these high resolutions using the HDMI connection."
Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
"This is a major dilemma, and no one is talking about it" -- THIS is the big thing. We have to be heard to stop things like this. Sure, there's tons of conversation to follow on this thread, but we need to post elsewhere about this as well. I suggest as many people blog about it as possible. I know I will.
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
So sure you could split the ecrypted signal into s-video or whatever other form you want, but it's not going to show the video that you want to see on the screen.
So here's my question... Analog inputs still work, but are in lower resolution. How do the analog inputs running in low res mode compare to a current generation DVD running over analog inputs?
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be just like someone at Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] wrote: your HD player sometimes won't play your legal HD content on your computer or HDTV. But it will always play illegaly downloaded HD content from the Internet -- talk about shooting yourself in a foot.
Robert
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
I'm having that exact problem now with a conventional DVD that uses Macrovision's new "Ripguard" technology.
My DVD of "Cowboy Beebop Remix, Volume 4" will not even play on my Mac DVD player, however there are severall good rip programs out there which will comp
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
(You need to donate to the Mac the Ripper product to use their beta. Once it is released as the replacement for 2.6.6, it will be free.)
Go to the ripdifferent.com forums for the details.
Won't work. (Score:2)
In the age of FPGAs? Nah, they just be flashed with a "legal" software, declared as such, then reflashed back with the correct firmware securely downloaded off the Net.
Alternatively it can use a standard off-the-shelf FPGA dev board, bought 100% legally off the shelf, as the hardware part.
Customs enforcement was obsoleted by JTAG.
Re:Customs (Score:2)
Are you kidding? Customs officers in almost all countries wouldn't recognize such "copyright infringing" device even if it bit them in the ass.
Just go to any mom&pop video games shop in US or EU and ask for modded xbox/ps2. Modchips may be perhaps made in US, UK, but I'd bet a lot, that they were imported to Poland and went legally through customs.
While we're at it, I haven't heard about a single case of prosecution
Lik Sang (Score:2)
I haven't heard about a single case of prosecution against any seller of modchips alone. All the cases I've read about were really about "harddisk full of games" gratis with modded console.
Console Makers v. Lik Sang anyone?
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
According to what I've heard, it will be equal to. Current DVD is 480P. The crippled component outputs of HD-DVD will be 480, as well. Here's the quote from Toshiba:
their HD-DVD Player will ONLY output high Def on the player's HDMI output the analogue output will be downrezed to 480 lines. link [digitalspy.co.uk]
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
But as the article about the DVIMAGIC device points out, this will very likely be added to the key revocation list and it will not even affect any "legitimate" uses, because afaik Spatz only produces the DVIMAGIC and the key was officially obtained by them, so it's not like the key is stolen from some big TV producer.
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
Re:Serious "LITTLE" problem? (Score:2)
I've no doubt that the next gen dvdp's will have RCA (as in composite) and svideo output's on them when they ship anyway. but those output's don't support high def anyway, so they don't care.
There are already boxes that take a HDCP encrypted DVI input and spit out a an unencrypted DVI output, and that's much better.
The thing is, this isn't n
I'll be the first to say it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'll be the first to say it... (Score:2)
Re:I'll be the first to say it... (Score:2)
This is ribiculious... (Score:5, Insightful)
The last 1% of consumers who do backup / upload will continue to do so regardless of the protection. All it takes is a single producer to have a accidental backdoor (see X-Box exploits via a game).
Further more why are they protecting the extra quality so vigorously? From what I've seen you have get non-HD pictures without any kind of protection, but for HD you need all this crazy stuff... But who is crazy enough to upload a full quality HD movie on the 'net?
I think the copyright holders are going to KILL psychical media far faster than it otherwise would and push consumers towards platforms like iTunes for their video.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, the people who borrow a CD off a mate and rip it to their MP3 player instead of buying the CD.
Or the people who record episodes of TV shows with a DVD recorder instead of buying the DVD box set.
Or the people who buy a new computer with a new version of windows or office or some other software package and decide to install it on all their other computers as well.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Which include fair users.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
These restrictions are required to keep people fearful of the mighty power of the studios, to spook them into not downloading films and music. "If they can do this to the TV makers, just think what they can do to me!"
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:4, Insightful)
HDCP includes key revocation lists. One backdoor will work for all content predating the discovery of a flaw, but as soon as you try to play something newer with the compromised device added to its list, you lose the ability to play content dependant on the compromised device (even older content - CRLs/KRLs apply retroactively).
That might well make you wonder what happens when someone like Sony or Toshiba eventually accidentally release a device with a flaw... Would Hollywood have the balls to make a million TVs go black with one stoke of their magic red pen?
Though, on re-reading your comment, it occurs to me you may have meant something different - That once a compromise occurs, you can use it to transcode all earlier content, making revocation irrelevant? On that, I would agree with you, with one slight problem - Storage and playback. Sure, you could keep a few of your favorite movies on your HDD, but HD movies eat a LOT of bytes. And even then, you could only play it back on your computer, since any standalone device capable of playing it would bring you back to the HDCP problem you wanted to get around in the first place.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Also, there is nothing stopping you from transcoding the movie back into any format that will play on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players(or maybe just stripping AACS from the files). Once Blu-Ray burners become common I'm sure it will be a trivial task to pirate HD movies.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
The HDCP Speicification [digital-cp.com] (PDF warning), available from Digital Content Protection, LLC [digital-cp.com] describes the copy protection mechanism in detail, including the key revocation mechanism. They don't turn keys off per brand-name, as many here assume. Each piece of electronics equipme
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
This leads to an elegant solution: paid subscription to a key distribution service. The payments are used to buy the sets and extract valid keys. As only one key is needed for all the customers, pooling the money is possible. $1 per month times eg. 1000 can go a long way.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've noticed that outsiders have a difficult time understanding this concept. Th
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Take one hacker down and two more spring up, attracted with the thrill and glory.
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
These copyright holders will have lost more money from me because of copyright restrictions than they gain.
My local DVD rental store is great and has interesting films from all over the world. But very often I can't rent the DVDs because of zoning issues. And I can't be the only one that's been at an airport and thought, hey I'll buy a DVD to watch on my laptop on the flight, ony to remember that I'm in the wrong zone. The stupid thing is people who want to copy the films can do so quite easily, a
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
I didn't start buying DVDs until the advent of deCSS. But now my DVD library is reaching 700 titles, legally bought, and most of it is TV season or series box sets. (I believe a majority is still shrink-wrapped.)
They didn't get their hands into my wallet until it was possible to copy. But odd thing is, I didn't "steal" anything. I don't do rent-to-copy. Anythi
Who you gonna call? (Score:2)
So the movie studios are like Ghostbusters?
Re:This is ribiculious... (Score:2)
Still, I think (and hope) it will be a big black eye when BOTH of the new standards fail. (Although both SACD and DVD-A have failed as well, and nobody
The formats will flop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The formats will flop (Score:5, Interesting)
Right. I cannot possibly be the only one without all this next generation hi-def crap. I mean, it's all you hear about, it's all you see advertised, but 90% of america CANNOT all be spending $2300 on a TV. It's just not happening.
I'm still rockin' my 20" TV I've had since I went to college (it's dorm sized) even though I now have my own townhouse, etc. My TV at best has a composite input (like, standard RCA), and my stereo is Dolby Digital 5.1, minus the
And you know what? My next upgrade is going to be a TV in the 32-36" range. Yep, appearantly, they still exist, but Circuit City, Best Buy, and all the retailers don't advertise them and refuse to help you with one - they want to push you into the $2000 Hi-Def flat screen yada yada widescreen next-gen high-profit-margin. No Thank You, I'm on a budget of probably $600, which believe it or not will buy a decent 36" or a pretty good 32", something with at least componant and s-video inputs.
But, it's probably going to be 5-10 years before I switch to something that can do 1080i or 720p. I mean, I'm sure it looks great, but I'm a fan of "looks good enough". Besides, I just got glasses, so to me, even regular 360 lines of resolution over an RCA cable looks fantastic, whereas 2 months ago, even it looked blurry. See? I just got Hi-Def with a trip to the optomitrist!
Someone has told these people that everyone on earth has or is getting a High-Def TV, and multiple devices that can display to it, along with multiple things encoded in hi-def. The problem with this is that it's just not true. It's too expensive; no one can decide on a standard (720p, 720i, 1080i, 1080p, 480p, HDMI, component, DVI, VGA, etc etc); and no one wants to repurchase their collection of DVDs.
Thanks, but no thanks. Get your ducks in a row, get the prices down for those of us who aren't living on credit cards and conspicuous consumption, find a standard, and make it backwards compatable. Then we'll talk.
~Will
Got it in one. (Score:2)
I'll buy an HDTV
Re:Got it in one. (Score:2)
(Besides, who really needs HD for the crap that passes for television programming? A decent analog set does fine, works with cable and my cheap DVD player, and will continue to do so for a long time.)
You said it -- DVDs. Try getting widescreen or high resolution from a SDTV. Ain't gonna happen. There are a few nice things on HDTV channels, too. I watched some of the Olympics in 1080i, it looked absolutely gorgeous. Comparing the same event on a HD channel and a SD channel is like comparing.... well I don
Re:The formats will flop (Score:2)
Nope. My former hand-me-down TV finally died in late '04, so I replaced it. I took one look at the cost of HDTV and said "fuck that". I picked out an enormous (by my standards) 32" Sanyo with a ton of options for just under $300.
It has RCA jacks, a coax cable jack, S-Video, stereo outputs, game console input and several other jacks that I have yet to identify. All I know or care about is that my DVD player works now without a c
I am totaly with you (Score:2)
The only HDTV device I got is the X-Box 360 my gf bought for herself. Ridge Racers 6 still look good, TV? None that I know here which interests me. DVD? Looks fine too.
There is no need to spend 10x times the money, just to get the latest LCD-high-end-hdtv-super-duper crap
SSDD (Score:2)
Re:SSDD (Score:2)
Re:SSDD (Score:2)
Hint: The internet has had true HD rips of TV and movies for ever. HD-Xvid looks extremely good. 720p fits on a single layer DVD, 1080i on a DL.
Re:SSDD (Score:2)
Hmmm, $thousands on new hardware, or piracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
The quality of piracy has gone up massively with internet distribution. Once pirates work out a system for ripping HD-DVDs and BluRay (and they will), then they can offer high quality films that will work on computers, older HDTV sets that people invested a lot in, and so on.
Functionality is a massive selling point, enough to make even people that actually do want to pay a fair price for the real thing think about getting the more functional version.
Sadly all this expensive work spent on restricting users will not bring in much more revenue to the companies - those people mainly pirate because they can't afford it otherwise, or wouldn't pay for it being stingy bastards. Instead they'll manage on the DVD resolution version - quality isn't a big issue for them either - students can't afford HDTV systems, stingy people have 20 year old televisions.
Next Generation Players Bound To Fail (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, if this is the case, who is going to waste their money and buy one of these players?.
Consumers will be outraged (even the stupid ones). After all lets see what there is to consider:
I think many retailers will end up experiencing a large increase in returned AV equipment in the coming years so much so that perhaps some retailers may decide to stop stocking such products or at least pick stock that is known to work together.
As for me, I probably wont worry about upgrading because my existing DVD collection is sufficiently entertaining and the quality of movies being released now days is simply appalling. In the end it's just not worth it.
Re:Next Generation Players Bound To Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Next Generation Players Bound To Fail (Score:2)
OR if you have HDTV through Digital Cable or Satellite.
That's the biggest sticking point with me. I watch a DVD per week (more if I'm on holiday) but I watch HD Television every day. This will be a pain to switch back-and-forth if I want High Def movies as well.
Market for used HDTVs (Score:2)
On one hand, I kind of hope that this scheme is a success, because if it is and the early adopters act as you quoted above, then there should be a glut of high-quality HDTVs hitting the used market real soon. Then I might actually be able to afford one! And since any content I view in HD would be over the air (or perhaps *cough* "unencumbered content" aquired by other
Did they not learn the last time?? (Score:2)
My question is, who are the asshats making this decision, because they obviously have no technical background. Anyone who knows anything knows that you don't need any composite outs or decryption schemes to make a bit-for-bit copy of anything. As soon as the first PC Blue-Ray/HD-DVD drive hits the shelves, you will be able to copy these movies. That simple.
(Sure, you may not have anything to copy them *onto*, but
Re:Did they not learn the last time?? (Score:2)
This always struck me as being pretty obvious, but some people just don't seem to get it. If it was meant to prevent copying the DVD, why would, say, copying the DVD work fine?
Re:Did they not learn the last time?? (Score:2)
It would cost more in parts and labour then it would be to go just buy one.
This was true when they were first released, and is even more true now.
Unless you are talking about a software player? In which case you would just be plain wrong, CSS encryption does not protect the software binaries in any way from pirating.
Re:Did they not learn the last time?? (Score:2)
It happened anyway, but it helped prevent unlicensed players from entering hte market the better part of a decade. This meant that region controls were appropriately enforced and compatibility was maintained.
And CSS does prevent unlicensed players from playing protected content -- although there are a lot of illegal players out there using DeCSS.
Re:Did they not learn the last time?? (Score:2)
HDMI or HDCP? (Score:2)
There are already boxes out there that remove the HDCP, but they'll get their certs revoked and cease to work in future I'd guess.
Re:HDMI or HDCP? (Score:3, Informative)
One of the re
Re:HDMI or HDCP? (Score:2)
Guess what some of that innocent sounding 'signalling' consists of.
And... (Score:2)
Foot, say hello to Mr. Shotgun (Score:2)
Re:Foot, say hello to Mr. Shotgun (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm in the market for a new HD-TV now (I bought a widescreen TV when they first came out, but it's a big fat CRT and I want a nice shiny thin LCD/plasma to hang on the wall and play XBOX-2 games on), but I aint buying while there's so much confusion/disagreement on standards. I don't mind (too much) paying early adop
I'm tired... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm tired... (Score:2)
Then don't. Who held a goddam gun to your head and forced you to buy a new TV?
Re:I'm tired... (Score:2, Informative)
Congress, telling me the "old" TV format will go away; it's just a matter of when.
So? (Score:2)
Come on people, if you're about to fork out a grand or more on a "tv", don't you find it reasonable to check so it's somewhat futureproof? We all knew this would happen sooner or later, I'm just surprised it took this long. If I were MPAA I would have made sure to enforce HDMI/HDCP as soon as a ratified draft was ready.
Not tha
Re:So? (Score:2)
HDMI may be a blessing because the American worker drone has no concept of being lied to. Shoot a president, bomb a tower, it's all the same to us. But when people realize their TV has been fucked with it may be a day that lives in infamy.
Re:So? (Score:2)
I made an assumption, and as we all know, assumptions are the mother of all fsckups!
Anyway, if anyone buying a HDTV set today (or the last year) missed out on HDMI and/or DVI-HDCP, I'm not going to loose any sleep
I don't own a TV (Score:2)
Re:I don't own a TV (Score:2)
Given that you've said you've spent probably north of $6,000 on DVD's, no, I can't tell. Please tell me how conservative that is.
HOW big?? (Score:2)
That's like, what, 12 metres? Holy crap. What do you consider to be "large sized"?
HDCP and Blu Ray (Score:3, Interesting)
They are saying that it's up to the studios to disable this via the medium if they choose too. The box manufacturers want to stay as far away from this arguement as possible, they don't want the bad blood with the consumers. It could well be that the studios do choose to do this, aside from HDCP, Blu Ray also has the additional feature of being able to black list boxes. Apparently what they are doing is embedding the key of the machine that decoded the stream into the video output. That way the studios can pick up that key out of a ripped copy and then disable that unit for all future releases. Based on this, they don't want to introduce any further copy protection onto the Blu Ray discs such as a more advanced version of CSS encoding or other encryption.
However, a lot of this is up to the studios in how they want to protect their content when it's published. What happens thereafter the box manufacturers don't want to know.
Well that's what I was reading the other day anyway.
Spin vs Counter-Spin (Score:2)
So what you're REALLY saying is that all Blu-Ray manufacturers are MANDATORILY locking out the normal video outputs on the boxes to screw over the people who buy them, but that they do allow publishers to encode the disks to UNLOCK the normal video outputs. Gee, thanx. Not.
The box manufacturers want to stay as far away from this arguement as possible
If they want to stay away from the argument then they should stay the hell out of it. If they don't want "bad blood" with their customers (
Re:Spin vs Counter-Spin (Score:2)
No, they are giving the content providers a CHOICE as to whether they want to down res this output to the same standard as DVD or to leave it at HD, a debate that's still going on.
The hardware manufacturers are at the end of the day trying to sell boxes and a format to a bunch of consumers (The studios, and to a lesser extent at the moment, the public). They want their format to win, they know this is goi
Re:Spin vs Counter-Spin (Score:2)
No,
Yes. It is mandatory until the moment they offer a version that does not impose that lockout.
they are giving the content providers a CHOICE as to whether they want to down res this output
No, they are denying me a choice. The manufacturers are enforcing this on me. The content providers are perfectly free to down res THIER output all they like. They can down res the outpout all they like on machines
IT'S ACCESS CONTROL, not copy protection (Score:2, Interesting)
They are designed to restrict access to the copyrighted works only to limited, licensed, subset of devices that are designed under the tight control of media giants. MPAA wants to decide how you consume their content.
They want you to sit thru the commercials without skip ability. They want to dictate terms to both display manufacturers and end users about the type of display device used. They want region control that works to protect their price discrimination syste
What's the alternative? (Score:2)
So what's the alternative? What is the High Defintion alternative that is on the horizion that people can purchase instead?
Don't forget that the kind of people with a HD display already are the 'early adopters' who will probably buy both a Blu-Ray and a HD-DVD player.
The alternative is, uh... to watch those Petticoat Junction DVDs they sell at Walgreens for $0.99. Content is King, and t
HDMI is still very buggy (Score:2)
If these issues aren't ironed out soon, I expect the first and second generation of HD disc players will not operate with dis
suspicion... (Score:2)
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/02/20/
I wonder if Microsoft (and pals) are somehow dragging feet in the discussion to hold up the PS3?
altogether (Score:2)
Hollywood wants these new players to get rid of component video.
(Typos like this make me wonder if people actually understood why the original joke [imdb.com] was funny.)
With announcements like this... (Score:2)
The general public never adopted LaserDisc, but DVD worked out great because of the lax content restrictions. Hollywood wants to control the home theater the same way they controll the movie theater and IT WILL NEVER WORK!
Re:No problem (Score:2)
The joke is that the AUD$8.95 DVD is here to stay. People can hold off buying new releases until they're in the bargain bin, so what are the media companies going to release on these discs that we just have to have right now? A couple of months after release nobody cares either way.
Re:No problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I'll bite.
I'm as anti-DRM as anybody, but statements like yours and the article submitter's are more than a little overly dramatic. It's highly likely that "the first few thousand people" who get home with their shiny new discs will have HDMI inputs in their TV's - it's difficult to buy an HDTV these days without one and has been for about the last 5 years. Even my $600 Samsung CRT HDTV has a DVI input, which is fully compatible with HDMI (HDMI is just DVI with audio, so all it takes is a cable with HDMI on one end and DVI on the other to make it work).
The earliest HDTV's only had component inputs. But with the rate HDTV's sold in the early days vs. the rate they're selling now, I'd wager that the vast majority of HDTV's in homes are HDMI-capable. Even many early adopters have probably upgraded their sets by now with larger models that perform better, have more inputs and cost a lot less. HDTV has been around for around 10 years, remember. It's not a new technology anymore.
The joke is that the AUD$8.95 DVD is here to stay.
Yeah, you don't have an HDTV, I guess. (I admit, I don't know what the HD situation is in Australia. But here in the US, it's almost difficult to buy a non-HD set anymore.)
These new formats are specifically for people with high definition displays. DVD is not good enough for those people. You're talking the difference between 720x480 (and that's assuming the disc is anamorphic, otherwise it's more like 480x360) and 1920x1080. That's a huge difference, and it's the entire reason these people bought HDTV's in the first place. If they didn't want that extra resolution, they would have just stuck with standard-def. So there is a large market for these new formats; if you spend $2,000-$3,000 on a TV, you want a format that takes advantage of it.
Standard-def formats will continue to exist, just as standard-def TV continues to exist now. It's no "joke", and you're not saying anything anyone doesn't know. 5-10 years ago you probably would have said "the joke is that VHS is here to stay" in a discussion about the new DVD format. Change doesn't come overnight. But once you see the difference 1080i or 1080p makes over standard definition TV, it's very hard to go back.
Now, all that said, I give it a matter of months before some Chinese or Taiwanese company comes out with an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player that outputs full resolution over component. It'll be one of those "oops!" moments that the manufacturer claims was unintentional but results in a run on that particular model. Eventually, everyone will be doing it... just as happened with region codes on DVD players.
Re:No problem (Score:2)
As someone with a DVD player with HDMI and a Faroudja upscaler, and an HDTV with HDMI, I think you're wrong.
I wanted my TV to do DVD resolu
Re:No problem (Score:2)
I have a 119" 720p projector, and you will be pleased to hear that the difference between HDTV (including broadcasts in native 720p) vs. well-upscaled anamorphic DVD is very, very subtle.
To
Re:No problem (Score:2)
Right now. You don't care right now. But all it takes is a decade to kill off a medium. Can you still get cassettes of new audio recordings? VHS tapes are all but gone. How long do you think it will be until DVDs are dead?
So you may not care right now, because for the immediate future, you have a viable option. But in the predictable future, you can kiss you
Re:No problem (Score:2)
I predict a future where fast computer storage media is even cheaper, and all corporate efforts to prevent duplication via technical solutions will still be circumvented with great ease.
Look at what has happened with audio DVDs. Yes, they sound better than CDs do. Even some people who are not "golden ear" types can tell the difference, especially in cases of recordings that use 5.1 surround to full advantage, yet pre
Re:No problem (Score:2)
What advantage other than higher resolution does the new HD have over regular DVD? DVD has random access, (no rewind) non-wear out and more compact storage as compelling reasons over VHS and thus its rapid adoption. CDs have some of the same advantages over the vinyl and tapes they replaced. The newer fancy SAC and other superfidelity DVD audio never brought anything to the table over regular CDs and virtually nobody paid for any upgrade. I sus
Re:No problem (Score:2)
Though, honestly, for the majority of movies, HD doesn't have all that much WOW to it. I have HD HBO and Cinemax now, and due to the de
Re:No problem (Score:3, Funny)
The real problem is HDCP (Score:4, Informative)
But not all HDMI and DVI TV's incorporate HDCP, which is the copy protection system.
So even people with HD TVs with HDMI will not be able to use these new formats at full resolution unless they have a relatively new set that has HDCP, and it is compatible with whatever HDMI spec (did you know there are different specs? 1.1, 1.3?) and the HDCP spec used by the new systems.
Imagine buying a HDTV this summer, then for Christmas getting a BR player that doesn't work full quality because your set doesn't have HDMI 1.3 and whatever current version of HDCP...
This is a huge issue, and even the early adopters are getting fidgety about it. While some people may switch out their whole systems, at this point it will be a minority by far. Even on the high end hi-fi and videophile forums there is a lot of discussion of people not being happy about this.
Eventually we may run into a situation where the hardware manufacturers stop caving into the producers demands if we have a situation where even the typical early adopters will not bite.
Re:No problem (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what you might think from the advertisements, but if you go into any Best Buy or Circuit City, you'll find plenty of standard televisions. You'll know when you're looking at one, because the price tag will only have three digits before the decimal point.
Re:No problem (Score:2)
Re:No problem (Score:2)
I wouldn't know; I've never seen a TV set in real life that's capable of displaying 1080-line images. And I'm about to spend a fortune on a brand new, high-end LCD TV after several weeks of research, so if I haven't seen them, I'll bet you at least five 9s of the market in the UK hasn't either.
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/D
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
On the other hand, we may be seeing ones that'll do so in the future. They may be difficult to find, and illegal... But all it takes is one person who has one to rip the video and upload it.
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
As demand rises, so will supply, which will bring the price down unless they have a way to stop these things from being produced. It's also probable that this first batch of them aren't using keys cloned from actual TVs, so these strippers are probably not going to work with actual HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players.
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
Re:Solution? (Score:2)