MPAA DVR Blocking Initiative

[SprDtyF350]

So what does this mean??

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...nitiative.html

[mikejaner]

Basically, the MPAA wants to have the power to shut down or downres analog outputs, for OnDemand movies before they are released on DVD, BluRay, etc...

So, they are saying, "If you let us temporarily shut down outputs on Cable Boxes, like Component Video and Analog Audio, we will allow cable companies to put out OnDemand movies in HD which haven't hit DVD or BluRay yet." They are asking for this ability to only be enforceable during the said timeframe, before release to DVD, etc. After that timeframe ends, The ports would no longer be disabled for whatever movie, since it is availible in DVD etc...

There is the obvious argument from the people who are paranoid about the possible missuse of this power. The reason for this, is the "Proposal/Request" from the MPAA is vague enough that they leave open the posiblity of shuting down whatever ports they want, both Analog and Digital.

Some are saying the request needs to be modified to strictly specify only Analog ports can be shut down, and it can't affect CableCard devices etc.....



So, this is a quick rundown of how it would work if everybody gets their way, except for the people who don't want anything changed.

Dark Knight comes out in the movie theaters on July 18th
Planned release date for DVD, and BluRay is December 14th (not actual date, just an example)
MPAA allows for VOD release in HD on August 15th.
I order VOD HD version of Dark Knight on August 16th.
While watching Dark Knight, my cable box Component output and Stereo audio jacks are disabled. HDMI output works normally.
When movie ends, I switch to Discovery HD and my Component output and Stereo audio jacks are working again. HDMI still works also.
I decide I want to rent the movie again on December 15th, one day after the DVD release. This time while watching the movie, both my Component and HDMI outputs work normally.

[mickp]

I guess that you can get an hd fury or similar if your "display device" doesn't support hdcp.

http://www.hdfury.com/

I'm kinda suprised that these are licensed.

Mick.

[stuckless]

So, this is a quick rundown of how it would work if everybody gets their way, except for the people who don't want anything changed.

I guess the people that don't get their way are the suckers who bought their HDTV before HDCP was available on ALL tvs. I know people who have TVs that only 4 years old that were marketed as HDTV, but they don't have HDCP.

WHen I bought my tv 2 years, I was fortunate enough to know that HDCP was something that I needed (not wanted), and I had to check several models of televisions to make sure that one that bought did contain HDCP.

So, I guess if the MPAA was willing to upgrade everyone that has an HDTV that is not HDCP enabled... I'd be ok with this.

The irony is that HDCP does nothing for the consumer, except cause problems for honest people, but yet smart intelligent people still make statements that this is for the consumer's benefit I bought an HDMI, switcher with HDCP, for a friend of mine. Worked great on his dvd player, but PS3 failed. Since then, I've come to realize that many HDMI switchers don't work with the PS3, even though both support HDCP. I honestly didn't see any consumer benefit there.. but maybe missed something.

[bcjenkins]

I bought my first HDTV 8 years ago, Pioneer Elite 710HD, and it is still running strong in my theater room. My issue is that this "feature" would make this set unusable for this and whatever else is offered up as an excuse for the cable companies to shut off component ports. So much for jumping on the bandwagon early in HDTV

B

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I bought my first HDTV 8 years ago, Pioneer Elite 710HD, and it is still running strong in my theater room. My issue is that this "feature" would make this set unusable for this and whatever else is offered up as an excuse for the cable companies to shut off component ports. So much for jumping on the bandwagon early in HDTV

B

TBH though, nothing would change from what you have now. All you would lose by using your old set would be the ability to watch movies in HD on-demand before the DVD release date, which you can't do right now anyways.

They aren't taking anything FROM anyone with this, (as long as they stick to what has been described here), they are just putting this contengency on pre-release HD movies BEFORE allowing their distribution.

[sic0048]

I'll place myself firmly in the camp of people that believe this is the start of a slippery slope that will be the death nail for HD over component outputs. With devices like the HD-PVR out now, the MPAA is working overtime to kill HD output over component. I believe this is just the first step in a much larger grand scheme to kill it off.

Just another way big business is sticking it to the consumer IMHO.

I have nothing against stopping HD PPV movies over component until the Blue Ray disk is released. But the MPAA is purposely leaving the language very vague. Therefore I would be against this proposal unless they clean up the language and make it actually match what they are claiming they want the proposal for.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by sic0048

I'll place myself firmly in the camp of people that believe this is the start of a slippery slope that will be the death nail for HD over component outputs. With devices like the HD-PVR out now, the MPAA is working overtime to kill HD output over component. I believe this is just the first step in a much larger grand scheme to kill it off.

Just another way big business is sticking it to the consumer IMHO.

I have nothing against stopping HD PPV movies over component until the Blue Ray disk is released. But the MPAA is purposely leaving the language very vague. Therefore I would be against this proposal unless they clean up the language and make it actually match what they are claiming they want the proposal for.

I totally agree. The tail end of the article describes how some groups are stating exactly that. If they clean up the request to specify exacly that they can only temporarily shut down the analog ports on a cable box, and only during the time period. Also some are even saying that this should be a trial period for a few years, then the rule gets killed and re-evaluated, to see what the results are.

I guess that you can get an hd fury or similar if your "display device" doesn't support hdcp.

http://www.hdfury.com/

I'm kinda suprised that these are licensed.

Mick.

I have done some digging on the HD Fury, and it appears, IMHO, to be not legit (legal) at all. Even in their FAQ they seem to skirt around the idea that what they are doing is known to be violating the agreement with the group who controls HDCP (the chip they are using is an approved HDCP device, just not for the purpose they are using it for). The agreement states that any HDCP compliant device has to make it difficult for the video output of the device to be copied or used other than for viewing. We all know that outputing VGA from an HDMI signal, is not exactly hard to copy. Especially if you convert it to Component, then plug it into an HD-PVR ;-)
I personally am torn between, waiting to see if they come out with a straight HDMI to Component converter, or getting a few of these, before they get shut down. Being in a different country may be what has protected them to this point.

[stuckless]

TBH though, nothing would change from what you have now. All you would lose by using your old set would be the ability to watch movies in HD on-demand before the DVD release date, which you can't do right now anyways.

True, but today, no-one, HDCP or not can watch a movie before it's released on DVD/HD. But under the new proposal, some people will be able to... and the others (component video) will not. I hardly see this as "nothing being lost" to those component video folks. After all.... it's because of those early adopters, we are have HD. If the early adopters refused to by into the hype, then HD would have died. Our thanks to those people is, "too bad", now go buy a new TV.

HD movies will be leaked onto the internet with or without HDCP... So all this does is punish early adopters for adopting HD.

[sleonard]

Yep, first step on a slippery slope. Whether they clean up the language or not they will soon have another scenario that "requires" them to turn off component in order to "protect" their content. Then another and another ...

On the HDFury, I also think that the legitimacy of their HDCP chip/key is somewhat sketchy. On the "Hard to copy" rule could it be argued that converting the signal to analog makes it impossible to copy the original digital stream? That might be how they are justifying it, I don't really know.

I do know that I would have been OK with some reasonable copyright protections but since they don't seem to have any regard for my fair use than I am wondering why I should have any regard for their copyrights. The term civil disobedience is coming to mind more and more these days and when the HDFury 2 (HDMI in, Component out) is released in the next month or so I'll probably pick up a few just in case.

S

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

There is the obvious argument from the people who are paranoid about the possible missuse of this power.

I wouldn't call it paranoia:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/18/b...and-microsoft/

Some are saying the request needs to be modified to strictly specify only Analog ports can be shut down, and it can't affect CableCard devices etc.....

Doesn't matter how it's worded, the Broadcast Flag technically doesn't exist, yet somehow it's still preventing recordings on occasion. Does anybody really think that SOC won't do the same thing?

On top of that, the MPAA's carrot is of dubious benefit anyway. Especially with how quickly stuff transitions from theater to home these days.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Doesn't matter how it's worded, the Broadcast Flag technically doesn't exist, yet somehow it's still preventing recordings on occasion. Does anybody really think that SOC won't do the same thing?

On top of that, the MPAA's carrot is of dubious benefit anyway. Especially with how quickly stuff transitions from theater to home these days.

hehe, I would say the Broadcast Flag, doesn't legally exist, cause if technically it didn't exist, we would all be able to record American Gladiators.

You do have a good point, movies do seem to take less and less time come to disc.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I bought my first HDTV 8 years ago, Pioneer Elite 710HD, and it is still running strong in my theater room. My issue is that this "feature" would make this set unusable for this and whatever else is offered up as an excuse for the cable companies to shut off component ports. So much for jumping on the bandwagon early in HDTV

B

Ditto, down the the nice TV he owns that still works great.

Originally Posted by stuckless

True, but today, no-one, HDCP or not can watch a movie before it's released on DVD/HD. But under the new proposal, some people will be able to... and the others (component video) will not. I hardly see this as "nothing being lost" to those component video folks. After all.... it's because of those early adopters, we are have HD. If the early adopters refused to by into the hype, then HD would have died. Our thanks to those people is, "too bad", now go buy a new TV.

HD movies will be leaked onto the internet with or without HDCP... So all this does is punish early adopters for adopting HD.

As you can image, I agree completely.

[sic0048]

I'd request that everyone send the FCC comments on the petition. I realize it is David vs Goliath here, but every little bit helps.

File a reply-to-comment with the FCC on this issue here. The docket number for field #1 ("proceeding") is 08-82.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I bought my first HDTV 8 years ago, Pioneer Elite 710HD, and it is still running strong in my theater room. My issue is that this "feature" would make this set unusable for this and whatever else is offered up as an excuse for the cable companies to shut off component ports. So much for jumping on the bandwagon early in HDTV

B

No kidding. My current HD video components I bought in 2000 (Mitsubishi & Runco). I have no HDMI capable stuff anywhere in the chain and hope to keep it that way for as long as possible.

[PGPfan]

Just finished sending, thanks for the link!

-PGPfan

[yacht_boy]

At the risk of being political, here's a link to something that will affect all of us if it passes--selectable output control, the media industry's latest burst of idiocy: http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol...pm=2&u1=friend

As always, Cory Doctorow has a good roundup of what the technology means. I think we can all agree that regardless of your political leanings, this is one thing worth lobbying against. Call your elected rep and voice your opinion!

Some of the commenters on BoingBoing where this is also posted note that Cory doesn't have the best technical grasp of the technology, but I think that all of us using the HD PVR can see how locking a signal to something other than composite would be a very very bad thing!

Snip:

Chances are, you haven't heard of Selectable Output Control (SOC), a proposed digital TV technology that would allow broadcasters or copyright holders to tag their video with a list of receiver-outputs that were allowed to carry it. That's because it's an insane idea.

Picture this: you power up your home theater, an near-incomprehensible tangle of game-consoles, AV switchers, cable boxes, PVRs, DVD players, 5.1 speakers, amps -- maybe a home theater PC or a projector, too. After some fiddling and locating the correct remote, you start to surf up the dial. All good. Then you hit MTV and the gorgeous, perfectly balanced sound stops. Why has it stopped? Because your cable-receiver has received a SOC flag from MTV disallowing high-end audio unless it has some obscure DRM that isn't compatible with any of your gear (especially not your beautiful hand-built tube-amp). MTV doesn't want you digitizing the songs that accompany the (increasingly rare) music videos they play, so if you want sound while watching MTV, you've got to turn on the tiny internal speakers that came with your TV.

You flip up the dial (get up again and turn off the internal speakers), and flip to HBO and your screen goes dark. That's because HBO is showing a movie that has been flagged as "no analog" -- which means that your beautiful, 42" plasma display won't work because you connected it via the composite analog video cables coming off the back of your AV switcher, rather than via the DRM-locked HDCP output. To watch the movie, you'll need to move the entire shelving unit (remember to take down the family photos first, doofus, otherwise you risk shattering the glass if they tip over), disconnect the analog cables, find the HDCP cable that came with the TV (or was it the cable box?) in the garage, and rewire your set. When the kids want to play a couple hours of Paper Mario on the Wii, you're going to need to move it again and reconnect things. (Coming soon to a Make issue: HOWTO put your home theater on wheels for easy rewiring).

* merged *

[sandor]

ha. sounds like the broadcast flags on all ATSC broadcasts...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag

US Court of Appeals found the FCC overstepped their authority in requiring broadcast flags, yet there is one company that released their DVR software to fully comply with the FCC's ATSC broadcast flag - Microsoft.

So certain shows were unrecordable by WMC...

[TallMomof2]

I guess we'll have to add an HD Fury $$$ in order to get the HD-PVR to work.

According to Ars Technica this will make 20 million+ HDTVs obselete if SOC is fully implemented.

[SHS]

I think but not 100% sure they only wanted to do this on custom channel kind a like Video on Demand (VOD) or Pay Per View (PPV) but it only to get Theatres Release Movie out much sooner then DVD/Bluray disc.
But I do agree the RIAA and MPPA should not have that kind of power over home audio/video equipment and most likely overtime they start applying this to Premium Subscription then Basic & Extended Subscription and over-the-air TV which is not good but then agien you may as well kiss the HD Fury good by it fall under the copyright infringement if FCC allow for SOC.