HDCP Fiasco

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: flashbacck
Here's something else to think about... The firingsquad article mentions the HDCP licensing requirements are $15,000/yr and $0.005/device. What happens if a company goes under and can't pay the $15,000 annual fee? Will the HDCP keys of all devices that the company made be revoked?

No, that is just for production of the hardware. The company going under will have no bearing on whether or not your hardware will continue to function.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: flashbacck
Here's something else to think about... The firingsquad article mentions the HDCP licensing requirements are $15,000/yr and $0.005/device. What happens if a company goes under and can't pay the $15,000 annual fee? Will the HDCP keys of all devices that the company made be revoked?

I hadn't even thought of that, this is getting worse and worse

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: Zebo
Jonny thanks for the link - I don't care what they "say" I have faith in market realites, like wanting to sell the products, as a basis for my prediction. Just like XP corp editions which bypasses MS's activation hurdles.

Even when / if they do get support the hardware requirements will still be there. I really hope they do crack this but I hear its going to be very difficult it possible at all.

Again I don't think they'll have to "crack it" at all. Industry will not tolerate a loss of millions of people when they decide to start getting thier news, sports and movies from OTA Networks and they'll give a work around for consumers. as far as cracking anything can be cracked if you can see or hear it to record with another device.

 

[flashbacck]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: flashbacck
Here's something else to think about... The firingsquad article mentions the HDCP licensing requirements are $15,000/yr and $0.005/device. What happens if a company goes under and can't pay the $15,000 annual fee? Will the HDCP keys of all devices that the company made be revoked?

I hadn't even thought of that, this is getting worse and worse

I'm inclined to think Golgatha's right. Hopefully this is just a manufacturing cost, not an "upkeep" cost.

I think Zebo has more faith than most of us, that the industry will cave to consumers I have more faith that HDCP will be cracked before the industry gives it up .

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Sounds like a personel problem. I'll be using w2k for another 5 years I bet.

Originally posted by: dev0lution
Guess the transition to Vista's going to be slow, painful and EXPENSIVE. I just may have to get familiar with Linux or OS X....

This is not going to change your ability to watch HDCP-protected content on your computer. Linux, OS X, Windows 2000... whatever, you won't be able to watch BD or HD-DVDs on them, period.. ... until they come up with some kind of hack to bypass protection (which hopefully won't take too long).

This isn't the biggest deal for TVs and most HD televisions have HDCP-enabled connections. I also wonder on the possibility of buying receivers which accept HDCP connections and can then output it to your television... or will that likely be made impossible?

The people getting hosed are the ones who have spent thousands of dollars on top of the line home-theatre PC systems. Blame Hollywood, not Microsoft... they are the real bloodsuckers.

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: GimpyFuzznut


... Blame Hollywood, not Microsoft... they are the real bloodsuckers.

We can indeed blame MS too. Think about it - All MS had to do was say "no". The movie industry WILL want make a few bucks off the PC market and would just find another way without HDCP. Even if it's still protected or a special player or software, it would mean no need to buy new hardware or OS.

MS' take on this is they want you to buy Vista and will support whatever encourages that.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: flashbacck
I was just reading stuff about HDCP, and were you guys aware that the HDCP licensing body can revoke HDCP-keys? For example, if someone hacks a Sony player, or manages to get a hold of it's HDCP security key, the HDCP licensing body can revoke that key. This would render any homemade devices the hacker tries to make non-HDCP compliant, as well as any legitimate Sony devices that use that key. And how are they going to get consumer devices to invalidate themselves? They're going to sneak it in on new and upcoming blu-ray/HD-DVD disks! HDCP is freak'n ri-cock-ulous!

http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/21/the-clicker-hdcps-shiny-red-button/

thats BD+ or BR+ I forgot but thats a sony only tech. Infact BluRay will have the ability to "fry" you firmware so that you have to send it in to be reflashed if the player or the Disc seem to be cracked or modded.

 

[Hikari]

Originally posted by: Topweasel

Originally posted by: flashbacck
I was just reading stuff about HDCP, and were you guys aware that the HDCP licensing body can revoke HDCP-keys? For example, if someone hacks a Sony player, or manages to get a hold of it's HDCP security key, the HDCP licensing body can revoke that key. This would render any homemade devices the hacker tries to make non-HDCP compliant, as well as any legitimate Sony devices that use that key. And how are they going to get consumer devices to invalidate themselves? They're going to sneak it in on new and upcoming blu-ray/HD-DVD disks! HDCP is freak'n ri-cock-ulous!

http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/21/the-clicker-hdcps-shiny-red-button/

thats BD+ or BR+ I forgot but thats a sony only tech. Infact BluRay will have the ability to "fry" you firmware so that you have to send it in to be reflashed if the player or the Disc seem to be cracked or modded.

That last bit is pretty stupid of them. Just wait until someone accidentally ships something that does this to a bunch of consumers.

 

[kki000]

HDCP is a nonissue. When it was first introduced, everyone thought if you had a tv without one, it'll be trash by next week.

HDCP alone probably set back hidef adoption by a good 2-3 years. The FUD factor was very high, with every 2 bit worst buy employee saying your tv was garbage without it.

Truth is non hdcp televisons are fine even to this day. The hd set i bought 6 years ago is still going strong, at my sisters house.

I firmly believe hollywood doesnt have the ballz to shut down the component output of hidef even with these players. It was supposed to happen to hidef stb and it didnt.

HDCP is a scare tactic by hollywood, always has been. The analog output can be flagged by disc, if ppl are smart they can vote with their wallets if they like their media cripped or not. They should be a little gun shy given the uproar over the sony scandal.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: kki000
HDCP is a nonissue. When it was first introduced, everyone thought if you had a tv without one, it'll be trash by next week.

HDCP alone probably set back hidef adoption by a good 2-3 years. The FUD factor was very high, with every 2 bit worst buy employee saying your tv was garbage without it.

Truth is non hdcp televisons are fine even to this day. The hd set i bought 6 years ago is still going strong, at my sisters house.

I firmly believe hollywood doesnt have the ballz to shut down the component output of hidef even with these players. It was supposed to happen to hidef stb and it didnt.

HDCP is a scare tactic by hollywood, always has been. The analog output can be flagged by disc, if ppl are smart they can vote with their wallets if they like their media cripped or not. They should be a little gun shy given the uproar over the sony scandal.

It wont be such a non issue when hd dvd's make it to market.

 

[kki000]

It wont be such a non issue when hd dvd's make it to market.

sorry, ive heard this all before.
HDCP is built into practically every hidef cable and sattelite stb built in the last few years. Each has the ability to shut down the component output and only allow hidef out to the protected digital ports. To my knowledge none has shut down component to hidef.

Of course this is no gurantee of what they will do in the future, but instituing bad customer experience as part of a new rollout will not be conducive to success. (divx)

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: kki000

It wont be such a non issue when hd dvd's make it to market.

sorry, ive heard this all before.
HDCP is built into practically every hidef cable and sattelite stb built in the last few years. Each has the ability to shut down the component output and only allow hidef out to the protected digital ports. To my knowledge none has shut down component to hidef.

(emphasis added)

A number of digital cable boxes (or, rather, digital cable providers) have done this. In most (all?) Comcast markets, you can only watch protected HD content over a connection supporting HDCP (whether DVI/HDMI or Firewire)

All OTA stuff, AFAIK, allows output over component.

As far as the original topic of this thread... that's news to me. I'm unclear on why extra hardware would be needed in the graphics card, since it's just providing the HDCP stream to the display. Maybe they won't allow tunneling it through the graphics card unless it can also do a key exchange? That's going to piss a lot of people off if it's the case.

 

[R3MF]

Originally posted by: JBT
Well if its def true those waiting for Dell 2407 for HDCP compliance should just got out an buy 2405s now lol.

lol, just did.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: kki000

It wont be such a non issue when hd dvd's make it to market.

sorry, ive heard this all before.
HDCP is built into practically every hidef cable and sattelite stb built in the last few years. Each has the ability to shut down the component output and only allow hidef out to the protected digital ports. To my knowledge none has shut down component to hidef.

Of course this is no gurantee of what they will do in the future, but instituing bad customer experience as part of a new rollout will not be conducive to success. (divx)

I have an Upsampling LG DVD player, and had a tosh that did the same. the Tosh would only upsample on a HDCP (HDMI/DVI) ouput and my current LG will only let me upsample on un protected discs through the Component output (protected only through HDMI), this made me half way tempted decrypt and burn my whole Legal collection. Its funny because this is one instance whrere legal viewers are so screwed over that making a copy seems like the only good Idea.

 

[kki000]

Yeah i know what you mean, i prefer playing my backups to the originals, skips directly to the movie with no fuss.

There are plenty of upconverting players that allow upconversion thru non hdcp hdmi/dvi. I have an oppo and a momitsu. The momitsu allows upconversion through component as well.

 

[kki000]

A number of digital cable boxes (or, rather, digital cable providers) have done this. In most (all?) Comcast markets, you can only watch protected HD content over a connection supporting HDCP (whether DVI/HDMI or Firewire)

What content? I searched all over for instances of this and only links i can find was ppl having trouble with the hdmi connections on comcast, nothing about protected content. Ive been on avsforums for a long time, i searched the programming and local hdtv info areas and ive found nothing about content being blanked out thru analog. Some device requires dvi/hdmi connections to be hdcp compliant, like my ts160 dtv box, but they do not shut off your component outputs.

 

[gsellis]

AFAIK, HDCP is part of the reason MS broke with Blu-Ray and supports HD-DVD (and why HP is on the fence). HD-DVD is much more lax on enforcement. AND it is up to the content providers to include it. Like CSS, as a content provider, I have pay a yearly fee AND a per disc fee. Lack of support and bad consumer experiences with compatibility will kill it. You cannot change consumer preference. You can find an unknown preference and profit from it, but you cannot change it.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: kki000

A number of digital cable boxes (or, rather, digital cable providers) have done this. In most (all?) Comcast markets, you can only watch protected HD content over a connection supporting HDCP (whether DVI/HDMI or Firewire)

What content? I searched all over for instances of this and only links i can find was ppl having trouble with the hdmi connections on comcast, nothing about protected content. Ive been on avsforums for a long time, i searched the programming and local hdtv info areas and ive found nothing about content being blanked out thru analog. Some device requires dvi/hdmi connections to be hdcp compliant, like my ts160 dtv box, but they do not shut off your component outputs.

I had heard this, and I was able to find a couple anecdotal things searching that supported it, but it does appear that you are right (although this makes no sense at all, since allowing HD component output at all defeats the entire purpose of using HDCP ).

AVSForum -- new agreeement reached to require downconversion on HDCP sources being output over unprotected connections

AVSForum -- guy in this thread says HD output over component works fine with Comcast cable

 

[Gatt]

As an experiment, to drive a point home, the other day I did some research into piracy via torrenting.

The end result was, for just 15 movies, a little over 7,000,000 downloads at a loss of well over 140,000,000$. From just one site that tracks downloads over life. If I added up the rest of the stuff, it'd probably land somewhere in the nieghboorhood of a half a billion dollars lost to torrenting from one site.

No industry can lose that kind of money. So it's either this or Hollywood, Movies, and TV die.

Yes, it sucks. I'm not any happier than anyone else, and I think board manufactuerers should be sued.

But I'd rather put up with the inconvience than having the only remaining TV station be PBS and the only movies being made are from Lionheads Movies video game. 'Cause at half a billion dollars in loss from a single site, that *is* what's going to happen.

Edit: The site is easy to find if you know much about torrenting, but I'm not posting it here.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Originally posted by: Gatt
As an experiment, to drive a point home, the other day I did some research into piracy via torrenting.

The end result was, for just 15 movies, a little over 7,000,000 downloads at a loss of well over 140,000,000$. From just one site that tracks downloads over life. If I added up the rest of the stuff, it'd probably land somewhere in the nieghboorhood of a half a billion dollars lost to torrenting from one site.

No industry can lose that kind of money. So it's either this or Hollywood, Movies, and TV die.

Yes, it sucks. I'm not any happier than anyone else, and I think board manufactuerers should be sued.

But I'd rather put up with the inconvience than having the only remaining TV station be PBS and the only movies being made are from Lionheads Movies video game. 'Cause at half a billion dollars in loss from a single site, that *is* what's going to happen.

Edit: The site is easy to find if you know much about torrenting, but I'm not posting it here.

Thats a little but of FUD though. You're assuming two things with that data.

1) Every single person who torrented a movie didn't buy it. This is not true. If I really like a movie I've D/L'd, I buy it. Same with anything else.
2) Every single person who torrented a movie was going to buy it anyways. This, I sincerely doubt.

I mean look at the recording industry. Their highest profits were when napster was at its peak. Now that they've cracked down (somewhat) on piracy, their sales have gone down.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah

Originally posted by: Gatt
As an experiment, to drive a point home, the other day I did some research into piracy via torrenting.

The end result was, for just 15 movies, a little over 7,000,000 downloads at a loss of well over 140,000,000$. From just one site that tracks downloads over life. If I added up the rest of the stuff, it'd probably land somewhere in the nieghboorhood of a half a billion dollars lost to torrenting from one site.

No industry can lose that kind of money. So it's either this or Hollywood, Movies, and TV die.

Yes, it sucks. I'm not any happier than anyone else, and I think board manufactuerers should be sued.

But I'd rather put up with the inconvience than having the only remaining TV station be PBS and the only movies being made are from Lionheads Movies video game. 'Cause at half a billion dollars in loss from a single site, that *is* what's going to happen.

Edit: The site is easy to find if you know much about torrenting, but I'm not posting it here.

Thats a little but of FUD though. You're assuming two things with that data.

1) Every single person who torrented a movie didn't buy it. This is not true. If I really like a movie I've D/L'd, I buy it. Same with anything else.
2) Every single person who torrented a movie was going to buy it anyways. This, I sincerely doubt.

I mean look at the recording industry. Their highest profits were when napster was at its peak. Now that they've cracked down (somewhat) on piracy, their sales have gone down.

All good points. Eminem broke first week sales records after I think the second CD from him was released. Not because it was Eminem but because everyone already knew how good the whole CD was because it was also the most downloaded CD. P2P has been about getting a hold of something early and testing it out before purchase. The companies getting hurt would be movie rental places but they will tell you that the biggest problem with them is Netflix. All this really does is make it harder for companies to make crap and expect them to pay $10-$15 bucks for it.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Topweasel
Eminem broke first week sales records after I think the second CD from him was released. Not because it was Eminem but because everyone already knew how good the whole CD was because it was also the most downloaded CD.

Your argument has a fatal flaw: correlation and causation aren't the same thing. It could very well be that high numbers of buyers caused more interest in the download world.

Whether or not piracy increases or decreases sales is totally irrelevant, because that's not the problem. The issue is about copyright violation and owners' rights (on both ends).

-Erwos

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Topweasel
All good points. Eminem broke first week sales records after I think the second CD from him was released. Not because it was Eminem but because everyone already knew how good the whole CD was because it was also the most downloaded CD. P2P has been about getting a hold of something early and testing it out before purchase. The companies getting hurt would be movie rental places but they will tell you that the biggest problem with them is Netflix. All this really does is make it harder for companies to make crap and expect them to pay $10-$15 bucks for it.

A tale from the other side...

It also makes it harder to make good stuff. I have a 2 DVD set that I am not going to release now. About 200 hrs and $1k+ in expenses wasted (I spent a week on the road with the subject and attended at least 15 performances - but hey, I was on the field at Gillette Stadium, San Antonio, Orlando, and all sorts of cool places in other major venues including Giant Stadium). Why? My licensing fees for music are about $15 per disc. Last year, I charged $10 per disc ($3.55 per disc synch rights) to a group to sell it and they retailed it at $20. It sold about 50 copies. A lot more than 50 people have 'seen it'. If I charge more, and they maintain the same behavior, I will not even get my money back (I have to pay licensing up front.) Kind of wish I had HDCP, even if I don't agree with it. What is the freaking point of doing anything like this if I know I will lose money because of piracy?

I think have a bead on a market I can make money on now. Fewer DVD projects until I get that documentary bug again.

 

[Janooo]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah

Originally posted by: Gatt
As an experiment, to drive a point home, the other day I did some research into piracy via torrenting.

The end result was, for just 15 movies, a little over 7,000,000 downloads at a loss of well over 140,000,000$. From just one site that tracks downloads over life. If I added up the rest of the stuff, it'd probably land somewhere in the nieghboorhood of a half a billion dollars lost to torrenting from one site.

No industry can lose that kind of money. So it's either this or Hollywood, Movies, and TV die.

Yes, it sucks. I'm not any happier than anyone else, and I think board manufactuerers should be sued.

But I'd rather put up with the inconvience than having the only remaining TV station be PBS and the only movies being made are from Lionheads Movies video game. 'Cause at half a billion dollars in loss from a single site, that *is* what's going to happen.

Edit: The site is easy to find if you know much about torrenting, but I'm not posting it here.

Thats a little but of FUD though. You're assuming two things with that data.

1) Every single person who torrented a movie didn't buy it. This is not true. If I really like a movie I've D/L'd, I buy it. Same with anything else.
2) Every single person who torrented a movie was going to buy it anyways. This, I sincerely doubt.

I mean look at the recording industry. Their highest profits were when napster was at its peak. Now that they've cracked down (somewhat) on piracy, their sales have gone down.

LM,

you are right. There is no way that out of 7M downloads all of them would buy the movies. All the Hollywood loses are their estimates and who knows how they make them.

 

[Gatt]

Originally posted by: Leper Messiah

Originally posted by: Gatt
As an experiment, to drive a point home, the other day I did some research into piracy via torrenting.

The end result was, for just 15 movies, a little over 7,000,000 downloads at a loss of well over 140,000,000$. From just one site that tracks downloads over life. If I added up the rest of the stuff, it'd probably land somewhere in the nieghboorhood of a half a billion dollars lost to torrenting from one site.

No industry can lose that kind of money. So it's either this or Hollywood, Movies, and TV die.

Yes, it sucks. I'm not any happier than anyone else, and I think board manufactuerers should be sued.

But I'd rather put up with the inconvience than having the only remaining TV station be PBS and the only movies being made are from Lionheads Movies video game. 'Cause at half a billion dollars in loss from a single site, that *is* what's going to happen.

Edit: The site is easy to find if you know much about torrenting, but I'm not posting it here.

Thats a little but of FUD though. You're assuming two things with that data.

1) Every single person who torrented a movie didn't buy it. This is not true. If I really like a movie I've D/L'd, I buy it. Same with anything else.
2) Every single person who torrented a movie was going to buy it anyways. This, I sincerely doubt.

I mean look at the recording industry. Their highest profits were when napster was at its peak. Now that they've cracked down (somewhat) on piracy, their sales have gone down.

Of course, OTOH, you can't compare Music with Movies. For most people, Music is something you listen to many times over, but Movies are something you watch once and don't watch again.

Equally of value is that some portion of those downloads would've been rentals which shops would've purchased copies to cover.

Also of note is the likelyhood that some number of those downloads became Ebayed copies and Fleamarket 5$ specials, which also adds a significant number of unknown losses.

Certainly, the number is higher than what would've been seen in actual sales, but since the number is so huge it doesn't really matter much. That's just one site, with that many downloads, there are many more sites and many more P2P formats. Using just that as a basis, a half a billion dollars in losses from P2P is quite conceivable.