Pact Not to Use Image Constraint Token Until 2010? 285
Devlin C. writes "Ars Technica reports that many major movie studios and several consumer electronics companies have an unofficial pact not to use the controversial Image Constraint Token in movies until at least 2010, presumably in an effort to spur early adoption. As the article at Ars notes, this would explain why both
the low-end PS3 and the Xbox360 lack HDMI. The companies think it's not necessary to have right now, and they would rather shave costs than sell future-proof hardware."
There's a point to be made (Score:5, Insightful)
Console wars are silly (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, this is anti-piracy crap and the problem with anti-piracy is that it only hurts the non-pirates. It has already been shown that the next generation copy-protections for movies can be broken. There are some mighty clever people out there who get a thrill out of doing this and not all of them live in countries that could give a shit if some hollywood studio claimes it looses billions.
Back to silly console business. The Wii is not HD and that is defended because not enough people will have HD tv's for this console generations lifespan. The low end PS3 does not have HD and is slammed for not being future proof?
This is one reason I stopped reading game reviews, because I started to notice that reviewers never heard of consistency. They would slam game A for being X and then slam game B for not being X.
Is the computer industry that immature that we can't at least attempt to judge all things equally?
Either HDMI is important or it isn't. Make up your mind. No I don't get the low end PS3 move either. Yes I am familiar with the way fastfood places offer small medium and large so that the medium looks like the better deal. However the PS3 ain't being pushed as a McD coke. At its price it is supposed to be a fine cuisine served at a top restaurant. One way to tell a good restaurant from a fast food place is the lack of supersizing.
Oh well, lets continue the endless console debate. Were we slam the console we don't like for not having the features the console we like doesn't have either.
Re:ummm (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you imagine buying a $100,000 sports car and having a regulator that won't let you use half the cylinders in the engine? I don't see why you defend this practice.
This will get people hooked (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how the drug dealers round here work, and they're making good money. Should work for the movie industry too.
They'll be hoping that, by 2010, there won't be any of the old non-DRM hardware still in use.
Drug dealer tactics (Score:1, Insightful)
They know you won't go for this if you see up front what the final cost will be. They are dishonest, dishonorouble and decietful. And in my opinion illegal, as they seek to remove your fair rights. I don't advocate copyright violation, but I do oppose the draconian restrictions that these overlords are trying to impose by stealth.
Re:There's a point to be made (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bet 90% of people of buy DVDs dont know what DRM is or what it does to them.
Consumers are just that: they consume. They buy. If the first gen DVD doesnt work anymore because HDMI, they'll just buy another one...
In a country where people pay $100 a month for premium cable, and where the main reason people buy HDTVs is Live Sporting Event, I dont think DRM will matter.
As long as Marketing is good - and the Americans are freaking good at Marketing - they'll just pay, thats just the way it works. Good luck changing that.
Re:ummm (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This will get people hooked (Score:2, Insightful)
Pretty much, and don't forget inflation. The argument also depends on believing that entertainment is as addicting as recreational drugs.
Maybe it is, I don't know. But I've spent less and less time in front of the toob as I've gotten older.
well (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that people buying videos won't know anything about he technologies involved just like now, but they *will* notice if some of their DVDs look like crap. A studio that puts out crappy looking videos is going to hurt their bottom line. People will figure, hey, why not just get the DVD cheaper instead of the HDDVD since it doesn't seem to be much better quality?
All this noise that the studios make about implementing these technologies with end to end encryption is pretty rediculous. The market at large is not concerned one way or the other with their anti piracy initiatives, but they do notice when the their equipment isn't compatible. There's already so little incentive to buy some new expensive DVD player that only makes a difference on HDTVs that no one has anyway that the industry fiddling with the standard at the last minute like this might kill HDDVD and HDTV altogether.
The public at large could easily forget about upgrading to the next generation. The current tv format has lasted a long time and could last much longer. That really doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world to me... I'm really pretty iffy on how dropping a couple of grand on the new equipment would improve my life in any measurable way.
Re:Funny, that is exactly what so many have done (Score:2, Insightful)
Studios are going to have to decide between selling blurays to people without HDMI hardware and losing sales through piracy. Perhaps they'll stop bitching about piracy and give up on DRM.
Re:The other thing is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, bootleg DVD's were on sale on the streets of NY long before the encryption was cracked. How? Simple. They just made a bitwise copy. They copied everything, copyprotection included, so it ran perfectly fine.
If nothing else, DeCss was just there to ensure that device manufacturers paid their fees. I assume HDMI is there for a similar reason.
Business as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Get consumers to re-buy their whole movie collection again in a new format
2) Move all or at least the vast majority of their movie sales for home use to a beter protected format so as to defend themselfs from what they currently percieve as their main competition - sharing of movies via the Internet.
3) Monitize or increase their profits in existing markets (for example: video/DVD rentals) and open new markets (internet distribution) while maintaining or extending their ability to control prices.
4) Increase their share of movie publishing.
DRM is the chosen mechanism by which movie publishers aim to remotelly control, enforce and even change (if an internet connection is available) any rules of their choice on the allowed uses of the movies contained on the media that consumers aquire.
Businesses being businesses, they will naturally use those remote control abilities (pun not intended) to maximize their profits - given their behaviour up to now, this will most likelly include maximizing the amount that consumers pay, up to and including pay-per-single-view.
At the same time, the bigguest part of the movie industry (as measured by sales and also, quite likelly, by lobbying power) consists of old-style, long existing, entrenched businesses - they are aiming to remain dominant beyond the next 5 years and certainly have long term strategies in place to ensure that it will be so.
It is clear to all that, before they can achieve their objectives, massive user adoption of DRM supporting hardware is necessary. Assuming that the main players in the movie industry are indeed engaged in a plan which is only expected to give fruit in a medium to long (5+ years) term, it's hardly surprising that they will start by visibly refraining from exercising the remote control that the newest DRM hardware allows them, if they believe that this will accelerate the transition from the current generation of hardware to the new (strong DRM enabled) generation of hardware.
It should also be pretty obvious, that since they haven't actually signed any contract with any consumers by which they [movie publishers] are obliged to not enable their DRM, this announcement of theirs still leaves open to them the possibility to, at any time and with no penalty to them, change their minds if they believe that the market penetration of the newest DRM enable hardware has passed the point beyond which said hardware has become the de facto standard.
In other words, their promises are as worthless as the paper they are written in.
Re:Console wars are silly (Score:2, Insightful)
The tard-box PS3 is getting slammed for not having HDMI for two reasons:
By not putting HDMI on the tard-box PS3, they severely limit the tard-box's potential as a quality Blu-Ray player. Sure, this ICT pact may mean that the tard-box will play BDs at 1080p, but for how long? Anyway, Sony only has it half right this time around. The PS2 was an attractive DVD player because it was $300 at launch, not $600. Sure, the price difference is the same percentage-wise (an average of $500 for a stand-alone DVD player vs. $300 for a PS2, an expected average of $1000 for a stand-alone Blu-Ray player vs. $600 for a PS3), but they misjudged what consumers consider "affordable". At $300, people would look at the PS2 and say, "$300 for a game machine that also plays DVDs? Sign me up!" At $600, people are looking at the PS3 and saying, "Is this game or that movie worth $600?"
The Wii has its own set of problems with respect to HD signals. Sure, Nintendo is banging the drum about gameplay, which is all well and good. However, one can't help but think that their justification that HD is unnecessary because most people don't care is predicated on the lousy sell-through of Gamecube component cables. Why did Gamecube component cables sell so poorly? Because Nintendo, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they would only sell those cables directly. Unless you happened to live in the Redmond, WA, area where you could visit Nintendo's store (which is very well hidden, BTW), the only way to get your 480p on with the 'cube was to order online and wait 6-8 weeks for delivery. They used the same justification to remove the digital output port from the cube in later revisions ("Nobody's buying the component cable, so nobody must want 480p. If nobody wants 480p, let's save a couple bucks per cube sold and get rid of the port entirely"). I bought my cube for Metroid Prime, and though I rarely play it anymore I'm glad I bought it when I did. Had I waited another year or so, I'd be stuck with composite or s-video outputs and that just sucks (it's more difficult for me to properly hook up hardware using s-video or composite than using component because I already have all of my multiplexing set up with component. For component-signal hardware, it's plug and play, without even having to change inputs on my receiver or TV. Just power on the console and the mux does the rest. Anything else requires navigating a rat's nest of cables that I should clean up some day, or sacrificing audio quality and connecting everything directly to my TV ...)
While the 360 isn't perfect, keep in mind that Microsoft backs HD-DVD, which doesn't do 1080p. Since there's no HD-DVD in the 360 out of the box, one would assume that the planned HD-DVD expansion would provide HDMI output (perhaps using a pass-through like the old 3Dfx Voodoo cards did to pass through a 2D signal). Since Microsoft hasn't done much beyond simply announcing the existence of said expansion, anything at this point is pure speculation. Finally, if you look at the Xbox's life span (4 years almost to the day between the release of Xbox 1 and Xbox 360) and extrapolate forward, you can expect another Xbox console (Xbox 3? Xbox 720? Xbox Next?) in 2009, just in time for this ICT cut-over. Whether a 4-year life cycle for a console is good or bad is left up to the reader to decide.
Re:Console wars are silly (Score:5, Insightful)
But yes, regardless of the details, if Sony had been more plain-spoken and not appeared to be arrogant, they probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much ill-will as they did.
Re:There's a point to be made (Score:3, Insightful)
90% of American consumers. If you don't live in America you encounter DVD DRM regularly when you can't play legitimately purchased DVDs on your computer.
I bought a bunch of DVDs in England when I was living there then I emigrated to Australia. Now any (mainstream) DVD I buy is Region 4 not Region 2. My DVD player is region free but my Laptop is another story so I can't play any DVD I own on My laptop when I want to because you've only got 3 Region changes before it locks.
Can anyone explain to me why a 40 year old James Bond movie needs to be "protected" from being viewed out of region? Apart from corporate greed of course. Now we've got "fair use" in Australia does that mean I can legally shift my Region locked DVDs to region free?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Value for functionality, or just for some parts? (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH, most (non-fanboi) people buy hardware for what they can do with it, not for what it is. If you just want to play games, Wii or 360 or is better value than something that makes you pay for HD movie hardware too. If you want HD games and movies, the low-end PS3 is a good option - but only so long as the studios stick to their "gentleman's agreement" - if it even exists - and leave off the ICT flag.
Fact is, unless you get a high-end PS3, then at the whim of the MPAA you could suddenly find your "value" games+HD-movies PS3 becomes good for games+DVDs only, and not such good value as you thought.
Personally I'd rather wait a while, and buy a standalone player in whatever HD format eventually wins. Prices will be cheaper then anyway, so I'll save money, there'll be more movies available and I'll feel a lot more secure about my purchase too. Putting oneself at the mercy of the MPAA is just begging for trouble.
BTW, buying a PS3 as a cheap Linux homebrew media box I can understand - but not until when/if those homebrew media apps actually exist. Until then, it's just a box of spare parts.
Re:Console wars are silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Console wars are silly (Score:3, Insightful)
On top of that, the 360 can put out one 720p image. The PS3 was talking (this may be in the past tense now because of HDMI issues and not power issues) two seperate 1080p pictures.
One thing that you have to realize, is that the XBox today can handle Half Life 2. We see a 733mhz processor, 64 megs of ram, and a 4 year old GPU and we think the hardware is weak. However, it is difficult to compare console hardware to a PC. It is in fact quite different.
Given that Oblivion is a launch title that barely utilizes the 360's capabilities, and comparing that to a PC, and then back to the PS3, I think it is a fair assessment to say the PS3 will be comparable to a $2,000 PC.
Historically consoles at launch trump gaming machines at that time. The fact that a console can compete with a gaming PC 4 years after its launch is pretty impressive.
So now, I don't believe those statements are overboard.
And for the record, I generally buy each console every generation, but am primarily a PC enthusiast.
Am I wrong here? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me that the issue isn't any of those stated, its about sales. First most 'consumers' don't know the differences between the standards, and any improvement seems good enough, so they are buying the cheapest improvement they can - that only makes sense. The standards are not in play enough to enforce a change across the buying public. The US government is still working to force all users to switch to digital television. Until that happens, joe public won't give a damn. There is only a small portion of the unwashed masses that even cares. Many of them think big screen == high definition still.
My experience is that if it says HD on it, joe public thinks its the shiznitz, they really don't care, and don't want to earn a EE degree to figure it out. Sony et al are cutting their own throats until they can convince the FCC and joe public that the 'thing they want' is 1080p and BR or whatever they decide on, as if they will ever be able to decide on something.
That may well be a cynical view, but it is the impression I get from various encounters. I have a SideKick phone, and the number of people that don't even know what it is (is that one of them blueberry's?) or what it can do is totally amazing. Trying to get even the technically savvy to understand that buying HD is difficult decision is crazy. One friend told me of spending 2500 on an HD setup (and he's happy with it) and I asked him what resolution it was.... he wasn't sure. What most people know about the technical details of what they buy is what they learned from the 18 year old salesman... who makes a commission on the sale... ya, that's working out well.
Any gentlemen's agreement is about setting the marketplace up so they can make money on the formats, and not kill their bottom line with product that isn't selling because of misinformation on the part of joe public. There is no technical reason, its all about the money. If HD products were selling, LALAwood and DVD/TV makers would very quickly work out any details in a short but sharp format war. This is all about sales, and no content provider is getting on board until the hardware makers "show 'em the money". 14 million copies of a DRM'ed movie are a liability if there is nobody to buy them. Hell, 14 million copies of a movie is a liability if there is nobody buying them even if they don't have DRM.
How may people here (raise your hands) have the capability to do more than 5.1 surround? There are better/improved sound systems... but what's the point, if your ears can't tell the difference in the money you spent? Its going to take some real education to get joe public to understand what the difference is, and then to get him to appreciate it enough to spend the extra money. Its all about the money.
Re:There's a point to be made (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess it's easier to throw around wild assumptions though.
They've planned for this already. (Score:5, Insightful)
What the whole ICT issue is going to do is create an extra upgrade cycle: everybody will get on the HD bandwagon now, and in a few years they'll roll out HDCP, and in order to watch new content, people will get new televisions.
This works well for the electronics manufacturers, because they get another shot at replacing a good chunk of the public's equipment in a few years, and although it slows the studios getting total content control by a few years, they'll still get what they want in the end.
Particularly because I don't expect the MPAA et al. to be idle in the meantime before the ICT rollout. On the contrary: I suspect they'll be watching the non-HDCP HD rollout very closely, and tallying up ridiculous numbers of dollars lost to "piracy" and "home copying", so that when HDCP comes, it won't just come from the studios, it'll have the full weight of Congress behind it.
Re:There's a point to be made (Score:3, Insightful)
But when that 0.5% has 30% of the wealth, then they're a market, even if they're a negligible portion of the population.
Re:They've planned for this already. (Score:3, Insightful)
The pact relies on HDMI becoming prevalient (Score:3, Insightful)
But if that is not the case they WILL NOT enable the flag or risk loosing many sales. That's why it is important if you are going to buy the PS3 to buy only the $500 model, to send a signal that you have no interest in HDMI. The fewer people support HDMI the longer it will take to turn on this flag, and if the timeframe is long enough no-one will ever enable it because there will be no need.