Comments on: New DVDs already sparking copy-protection confusion

Consumer confusion over what computers will need to play the new high-definition DVDs is already beginning.

[Scree]

Shocking

It's a shame that something like this will only make torrenting even bigger.

[City_Of_LA]

My exact thoughts

Does this mean I'm going to have to spend more time downloading the latest Hollywood crap and manufactured music?

[amigabill]

Copy via DVI? How??

>Even worse is the so-called DVI plug that sends
>high-quality digital signals to a monitor but also
>doesn't support copy protection.
>
>That offers an even greater risk of copying in
>Hollywood's eyes.

Why? How? Do DVI "tuner" or capture cards even exist? I'm pretty sure tht if they were at Best Buy or other popular retailers that I'd have one. I don't get the paranoia. If us customers, uh sorry, I mean pirates don't have the tools available to copy by DVI, then where does this fear come from?

At least I haven't made any high-end hardware purchases recently that are effectively voided by this situation. And I ain't gonna buy any graphics cards or LCD monitors or other related items until this situation is cleared up. How long will that take? Will there be drivers for Linux? (I'd be very happy with closed-source Linux drivers ala NVidia's regular graphics drivers are today, I'm not an OSS fundamentalist I just want things to work)

[ajbright]

HD Capture devices

do exist but are sort of illegal.

New laws are either in play or about to be that makes video capture in high definition a big no - but if you search the net you'll find quite a few.

Whether they have dvi input I can't say, most are geared towards capturing HD signals from cable or satellite, which still use coax to connect to traditional HD tuner boxers, which in turn use DVI to connect to your TV.

I suspect, however, that quite a few do have DVI inputs, so which the appropriate anti-macrovision software installed capturing HD movies would be possible.

[BartleyF]

Forgot HDCP in Alpha-soup

The real story here is about HDCP but it wasn't in your 'soup' list...

[Azzuro10]

They Are Putting Petrol Into Their Own Fire!

The more you try to treat non-pirating and honest consumers like criminals, the more consumers will turn to piracy. If you throw a criminal into jail, they become more of a criminal when they get out. I think you can see my analogy.

What the movie studios should do is try to maintain their existing margin rather than trying to increase it and get more sales growth at the same time.

The EBIT margins of movie studios have doubled since the introduction of DVD. Now they are getting too greedy which will in-turn hurt them because their greed will fuel more piracy.

Look at the financial woes of Sony! They put themselves in that position by being too anal. Now the movie industry is following Sony's philosophy and they are going to get hurt too because as you can see from every poster here....no-one will bother buying BD or HDDVD.

[sent2null]

it gets worse...

as you pointed out the movie industry is greedy, the hardware makers are facilitating their plans and government is also helping them along the way to restricting how the consumer can use products they've purchased.

In the ideal world for corporate america every product they sell would die conveniently after so long freeing the consumer to ..well consume again! I don't believe like some conspiracy nuts do that the hardware manufacturers are in collusion to do such a nefarious thing, no instead their actions are guided by one thing the hunt for that all might dollar and ever rising profits.

After all corporations be definition require increasing profits to look good in the eye of the investor, stable profits in a publicly traded company are almost as unpaletable as no profits. So corporations are compelled to reinvent the wheel, compelled to sell what their customers don't need but say that they do, compelled to change "tiny" things from model to model to provide the illusion of advance to compel consumers to buy more.

There is a reason that software companies are falling all over themselves in an effort to switch from shrink wrapped to services based software. Why is MS offering Office "live" ?? Because by selling access to office over and over again, they can make far more money for far longer period of time than if they continue to constant, feature bloat, point upgrade, force users to buy, software cycle we've been dealing with for 20 years. With software as a service they have the ultimate ability to charge us per hour, per document or even per character if they wanted. You may think being charged per character for writing a word doc. is outlandish now, but then if I told you 20 years ago that there would come a day when you couldn't make personal copies of videos that I've purchased for your own private use use, or told you that one day for each computer you have in your home (living room, kids room, office..etc.) You'd have to buy a separate physical copy of a desired windows OS...you would have laughed at me then, but those restrictions are reality today.

Getting back to the restrictions on HD playback, it's the same game all over, the restrictions secure (albiet temporarily) a profit sector fo the companies. They look at these sectors not because they are having hard times now (they aren't) it's simply because they must continue to have growth to be successful...and this gets us into a philosophical debate over how capitalism works. How can an entity that requires endless growth compete fairly in a market with limited resources??? Short answer, look at evolution and competing species (the model for the free market mind you) the answer is, it can't.

[Hallie Miles]

I refuse to submit...

Well, this is one consumer who won't be buying into the whole new media set-up.

I refuse to buy a computer that has built-in DRM. If that means that I can't buy the parts needed to build a new system in the future, so be it. It's my hobby, not my living.

I will not buy Vista; XP works just fine for what I do with my computers. It's not like the switch from 98 (which crashed on me twice a day) to XP (which is stable on my machines.) I'll just make sure that I have all of the updates current and archived when Microsoft decides to stop supporting the OS.

I will not buy a software format that restricts my Fair Use rights. Nothing's come out of the film industry in the past few years that I will miss owning, anyway; what I want to collect is already released -- I can get it on a compatible disc now. The same goes for the music industry -- 99.999% of the current product is dreck; I haven't been the target demographic for 10-15 years. The last CD I bought was about six years ago, and THAT was a compilation CD of '70's music. What I want to own I pretty much DO own. And what passes for entertainment on American television -- no thanks. The last thing I saw that I enjoyed was Doctor Who 2005, and I had to BitTorrent that.

Don't get me wrong, though. I LIKE new toys. I bought my first computer in 1981 and have owned at least one ever since. I was the first on in my circle of friends to buy a VCR and the only one to get into laserdisc; I've always owned a nice TV and sound system. However, it's always been on MY terms -- what I buy, I own, and I do with it what I want. If the powers-that-be who run the entertainment industry have decided in their infinite wisdom that I'm not a valued source of income, I'M not hurt by it, they are. I have music, movies, books, video files and games to last me for a long while, so they can go scratch as far as I'm concerned.

[rarpsl]

Dr Who 2005 Availability

"The last thing I saw that I enjoyed was Doctor Who 2005, and I had to BitTorrent that."

This show starts running here in the US on SCI-FI Channel in March. As to DVD Copies, BBC Video USA has announced the Region 1 Release (it was already Region 2 released in the UK last year) as of 4July2006 (it was due to release this February but it was pushed back when Sci-fi Channel picked up the show to give them the needed 13 Weeks to air it first).

[nonstopdoc1]

Cheers

..

[wanorris]

Good luck, electonics companies

I'm sure no one will mind that the $2000 HDTV they just bought won't actually play HD movies.

Oh, wait. Yes they will.

So, basically, out of the 20% saturation of HDTV that's out there now, exactly zero of them will play HD movies. People who've already bought their HDTVs are the best possble market for a new DVD format. And yet for existing HDTVs, the only access option will be 480p analog -- no better than current DVDs.

And heaven knows that they need consumers badly -- they'll have $500+ players with only a few titles and an ongoing standards war between formats.

Good luck with getting consumer adoption of the new formats.

My guess is that these things will die on the vine unless they sell out the movie industry and offers up an analog adapter that allows you to watch 720 and 1080 video through component video connectors.

[kstich]

Why make consumers criminals?

Why make consumers criminals? It doesn't make sense! If you buy this technology shouldn't you be allowed to play it?

I have a collection of CD's which I have uploaded to my computer. I play these through my stereo system as a music jukebox. In the RIAA's mind I am not abiding by fair use. They forget the fact that I, unlike many others, have paid for every CD that I have. Still they label me as being unfair and would gladly label me a criminal if they could!

The same thing is happening with the movie studios. If I were to purchase a new format HD movie, I would be a criminal in their eyes for playing it on my computer. But remember, I am saying if I purchased it, not downloaded it or anything else, purchased it. I suppose I could download the HD video from some peer-to-peer system and not have any restrictions on how I play it (and save my money). I won't though, but maybe thats what they want...

I have been building up my computer system for some time to make it a big part of my home theater. It seems to be the logical step. I guess I won't be purchasing a Media Center PC as I thought I would as it would most likely restrict my access as well.

Why consider a paying consumer to be a criminal for getting a simple movie to play on your computer in the rewsolution it would be presented on a HD player? It definately won't stop the real criminals from pirating movies, but it might stop me from purchasing the new format.

Sadly though, I am one of the people that was really looking forward to HD and probably would have been an early adopter...

[KsprayDad]

It takes one to know one...

They have been in a monopolistic situation for so long that they have forgotten that the consumer is paying the freight.

[kimberley365]

Do all these companies think we are made of money?

How much more debt do they want us to be, come on, I mean this is insane, having to buy another Drive, just to make the new dvds work in the computer, or not knowing if the monitor will work with the new discs when they come out..I don't know about everyone else but I just purchased my computer 2years ago, and I might not be able to watch dvd movies in it?? I think they are nuts to have to make us have to spend more money just to make everything work the way that "they want it too" not everyone steals movies, there are lot of people who buy them" and as for music, most of the songs that people get these days are the ones that have already been out for years and years prior all the royalities have already been given to the people who made them, and songs these days aren't made like they were before, most people these days use computers to create their cds, they don't stand in a booth and create the music the way it used to be made a long time ago, these days music groups want easier ways to make the music, which means using a computer or using a song that has since already been out, and redoing it, not many singers use their own songs these days anyhow.. they take them from other singers who have sung them years and years earlier to put their own spin on them..isn't that stealing from them?
Anyway, my point is this, I'm stick of having to upgrade and upgrade my system just because they've decided that something needs to be changed, but their putting everyone else in debt because of it. Can they make a computer that can be upgraded just with software, and that will take all the hardware drivers, that are out there, and the hardware thats in the computer would work like the drivers that are installed? Seems to me that would be a lot cheaper on many people if someone created something like that. A computer that has to be upgraded after a motherboard is no good is a waist, we should be able to interchange the motherboard for the things that we want, just like legos...

[bobby_brady]

This format will be STILLBORN

With the complex DRM equipment needed just to get the HD picture quality...and the notion that all consumers are criminals, I doubt many consumers will be stupid enough to support this "new" format. HD quality isn't even much better than the PQ of a progressive output DVD player.

[dvdwilly]

De'ja vu...Betamax and VHS

Until the infighting stops and the developers get their stuff together (...this is a public forum) they exactly ZERO of my dollars. They need to play out their industrial warfare between themselves and not use the consumers as soldiers in a battle for supremacy. I'll play ONLY after somebody decides to yield and we have one and only one HD format for DVD.

OK, Got it! Just wait 5 years

This is the biggest mess I have ever heard of, I work in technology, if I would subject our customers with this wishy-washy crap, half baked mixed with two different standards at... well almost both ends... I would be out of business... oh wait, I just have to be a cartel. LOL

Seriously, if you think I'm seriously going to go through all this trouble just to see a movie, forget it, I'll find another way to relax. Besides what is so low quality with DVDs today that I would want even higher definition? They just want us to pay for their initial lack of proper copy protection, the only way to get us to buy in is to make us think we need higher definition. Thanks for the push style marketing ploy but I'm not made of money, no Rolls sitting in my guarage. LOL

[Jeremiah256]

THE WAITING GAME

For me, this is definitely a time to not only let the formats slug it out, but to decide whether it is time stop buying entertainment 'atoms' and switch permanently to buying 'bits'.

There's too much going on now with. Rumors also say that Sony's PS3 will force the consumer to go online and register their games...and disallow someone else from playing that same game on their box...no more letting a buddy borrow your game. If that works for their games, do you think DVDs/CDs are far behind?

For the forseeable future, I'm forgoing buying anything. I stick to my digital cable and get my movies at home via HBO/ShowTime. I'll buy my music online and take it and play it where ever I want. When the dusts clears (probably sometime in 2007) I'll decide what is best.

[lwdierlam]

This is great lol.

All this is going to do is turn the hacker community against them even more. Within a few weeks there should be a patch available for vista. In the mean time it just shows why you should not update to vista. With the software and hardware incompatibilities being as bad as they are and microsoft pulling this stunt why buy would you even want there new OS. More of a reason to go Linux which a lot of people already have. I would say mac but friends dont let friends go mac.