[videohot]

The topic line says much of it.


While the hardware is still not available does anyone think the there might be potential for some smart lawyer to threaten a lawsuit based on the fact ...at least..that CE manufacturers are currently and in the past have been selling devices that won't work for the advertised purpose?


Larry




------------------

DFAST is EVIL! BOYCOTT ANTI-CONSUMER 5C/DVI/HDCP/DMCA MANUFACTURERS!

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[shahram72]

That's a good question, and I would highly support it. But, I think there is a line in the warranty of every product that states the manufacturer makes no representation of the product being suitable for any particular purpose. I don't know if it would apply in this case but I do know that some states don't acknowledge such exclusions.

 

[propeller_beach]

Couldn't manufacturers just claim that the powers that be above and beyond their control made necessary they sweep their product under the carpet? As in...unforseen changes at time of production...as in Tinseltown changing the rules in mid flight?


Deceive and claim innocent! Isn't that what politicians do all the time?


I'm sure they'll be able to get out of it somehow, just as I'm sure tomorrow's sun will rise from the east again.


Luca


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PICTURES OF MY THEATER
albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1659592&a=12715694&f=0


[This message has been edited by propeller_beach (edited 08-14-2001).]

 

[abigpicture]

I don't see how a manufacturer can be held responsable for a change in the signal path brought about by a third party.


Besides...consumers rarely benefit from class action..in fact awards typically fill the pockets of lawyers and its the consumers who have to pay higher prices on other items to offset the award.


Regards.

John

 

[keithsimp]

I hate to admit it but I have to agree with John. The televisions will give you a HD picture, but the 3rd party boxes are not going to give the signal to you unless have the connections. Whose to blame? I think it's more the HD converters than the televisions. Plus I've heard, but can't confirm it, but these HDCP/5C boxes will deliver a picture to the televisions via a down converted analog signal, if you don't have the right digital connection.

This also reminds me of the early years right when cable tv was hitting the market. All the companies started coming out with "cable ready" tv. Come to find out that all that meant was that you could connect an F-connector to the back of the set. I didn't mean you could tune the darn thing.

Anyway "it ain't over 'til it's over" is what I say. So, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this whole thing turns out. In the mean time enjoy all the HD programming that you can.




------------------

Keith S.

 

[propeller_beach]

Yes, enjoy it and make lots of copies for the archives while you can...


The above poster reminded me that actually, the manufacturers are already complying with their "HDTV Ready" promise under the proposed copyright scheme, cause downconverting to 480p still means they are "technically" within the HDTV realm, as 480p is just one of the multiple standards of the ATSC format.


Hmmm...


Luca


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PICTURES OF MY THEATER
albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1659592&a=12715694&f=0

 

[Bernd]

I am not a lawyer, but.....


It is fraud to sell someone something when you know that it will be useless for the advertised purpose in a year or two. Every display device that we are concerned about advertises 1080i compatiblity. So, I think we have a very clear case (and here comes the bad news), once injury has occured.


You cannot sue for fraud that is going to happen. As of yet, no one has actually been damaged. Someone actually has to be denied the ability to use an analog HDTV set to view content broadcast in 1080i in order for that person to be damaged. So, unfortunately, we are going to have to wait until that event occurs.


Now, if there is a lawyer amoung us, who is willing to write a letter to the CE vendors, the studios, the DBS networks, and the cable networks threatening class action, then we might be able to prevent this whole thing from happening. We might even be able to get the above set of folks to agree that a converter box from DVI to component and RGB is a good thing, and enable its production.


Cheers,


Bernd

 

[thebland]

Wake up and smell the coffee. This isn't a Matlock episode.


Upgrade the projector and, next time,don't be first to delve into a new technology with its accompanying promises of the future.


Jeff

 

[Gary McCoy]

I think it's a better scheme not to upgrade the projector, and simply not view programming that has copy protection flags. For more detail, see my post "5C/DVI/HDCP Nonsense".


Every single installed HDTV and every single projector and every satellite receiver today does not comply with 5C/DVI/HDCP, at least none contain the necessary circuitry to fully implement the standard, anyway the part where the digital DVI display decrypts the copy-protected broadcast.


Vote against the 5C/DVI/HDCP nonsense by how you choose to spend your money. Demonstrate to the MPAA, to the OTA, satellite and cable broadcasters, and to the equipment manufacturers, that you won't spend money for equipment containing copy protection features. If one manufacturer, or one broadcast network stands up to the MPAA, they will then take the lions share of the market, and the remaining networks and manufacturers will either line up behind them or go under. It is up to us.


Gary

 

[Jonmx]

Quote:

Originally posted by Bernd: It is fraud to sell someone something when you know that it will be useless for the advertised purpose in a year or two. Every display device that we are concerned about advertises 1080i compatiblity. So, I think we have a very clear case (and here comes the bad news), once injury has occured.

How could they possibly know it will be useless. Even now this is speculation over what may or may not happen. The anger should be against those who are actively trying to make millions of projectors obsolete. BTW, I can't imagine this will actually happen. HDTV is having a hard enough time taking off, now they are gonna piss off the base of users they have. I really don't think this will happen without some solution for existing technology. This whole idea has less of a chance of success than DIVX.

 

[Dean McManis]

The MPAA is largely made up of lawyers, and the studios are convinced by the bean counters that the potential loss of profits from piracy will be billions of dollars.


Of course it's rubbish, and a regular 5C analog-connected system would work fine to protect against all but the most skilled hackers, and those guys will get through these digital encryption technologies as well.


Circuit City lost 100+ million trying to defend/promote DIVX, so it's doubtful that the MPAA will balk at legal action.


But at this time any legal action would just be sabre rattling. At the time of the introduction of these displays and STBs HDTV will still be accessable via broadcast OTA DTV, so the manufacturers will be able to claim that the only restriction will be DSS and cable HD reception initially.


The manufacturers have not openly promoted their various encrypted connection plans, and until they put there cards on the table there is little we can do except just enjoy our displays today.


I think that the greatest potential weapon against these non-compliant technologies will be just not buying the HDCP, DTCP, and DFAST devices when they are introduced, and educate people of the pitfalls of buying these products.


Ultimately, DIVX failed because the word got out that it was a bad idea, and these encrypted technologies could be killed within a year if everyone simply doesn't buy them, and educate folks who are looking to buy, but don't know the pitfalls of non-compliant DTV products.


-Dean.

 

[Bernd]

Dean,


I completely agree with you which is why I started a thread in the HDTV hardware forum entitled "Don't Wait for DVI/HDCP, Boycott It".


We are the early adopters of high end HT technology. If we stand united against this nonsense, then little to no money will be made selling the hardware and the copy protected PPV content. Red ink will teach these clowns a lesson that they are apparently unable to learn any other way.


Cheers,


Bernd

 

[Dave W]

The current HDTV displays will always be able to show the HDTV analog signals as they advertised. It's the broadcasters and content providers that may choose not to support those analog signals.


The display manufacturers are hardly making massive profits off of high-def equipment yet. The revenue and profit potential is enormous however. If you put yourself in their shoes, you can see that their situation is not very good either. They started selling equipment according to the original HDTV standard. Sales have been lukewarm at best. Now they're faced with the standards being thrown back up into the air. There are no definite answers yet. What should they do? Pull all their HDTVs off the market? Provide some sort of upgrade "guarantee" that might not even be possible? They could just charge us twice as much for the equipment, so they're covered in case they need to replace it. If you insist the manufacturers should assume all the risk, then they'll have to adjust their prices accordingly. If the standards all change, they're covered. If the standards don't change, more profit for them. Fluctuating standards are bad for everyone, consumers and producers alike.


Dave

 

[DanHouck]

This is another Divx and needs to be handled the same way. All out war against it on the internet.


Dan

 

[Knuck]

A product must be fit for the purpose to which it was designed. Also, a manafacturer cannot advertise that a product will do something it is not capable of doing.


Technological products, however, present different problems. Because technologies evolve so quickly, it may be difficult to determine if the product did comply with an original standard, but no longer complies as a result of the standard changing, or if it never complied to begin with.


For example, in the case of DVI/HDCP, if a projector was sold as "HDTV ready" and does not comply with the upcoming encryption technology, but does comply with current HDTV broadcasts, then the manafacturer would not be liable. One cannot warrant product compatibility for some future development unless the manafacturer knew or ought to have known that the product, as a result of an upcoming standard, could not possibly do what they represented the product would do.


If, however, the manafacturer represented that a projector was "HDTV ready" and could not decode current HDTV broadcasts then the manafacture would clearly be liable.


A myriad of situations unfortunately will fall within these extremes and the result would not be so obvious. Each would have to be looked at on a case to case basis.


Of course the above is only my opinion and I would not suggest anyone rely upon it.

 

[mblank]



I don't think anyone could file suit at this point, simply because nobody has yet been harmed.


- Marc

 

[rickfritz]

Forget a lawsuit, the only thing that will do is put money in the lawyers pockets. Here's the way it would work: Everybody that bought a projector that was advertised HDTV ready will get a coupon for maybe $50.00 off their next projector assuming it is bought at full retail directly from the manufacturer. Oh yaah and the lawyers will get $50 million for their troubles. Happens all the time, look at the Iomega class action. I think the settlement was something like a $5.00 coupon if you bought 10 zip disks.


If you want to hit them where it hurts, write the MPAA a letter saying that you refuse to go to or purchase or rent anymore movies. Then comes the hard part, you have to do it. If 10 million people did that it would have an effect. Problem is you won't get 10 million people to do that. You might get 10 million to say they were going to do it, but they would still buy or rent a movie here and there.


The biggest problem is education. A large percentage of people have heard about HDTV, but I bet less then 1% even know about what is going on in this copy protection fight. Certainly the manufacturers and the MPAA are not going to educate them. This is too technical for the news media and forget the average mega retailer. In the end Joe six-pack will site down, watch his 480p movie and say "boy this sure beats my 25" Symphonic". The sad thing is he probably is right, but he will never know how great it could have been.

 

[videohot]

Common sense tells me that no jury in the world will support the thought that a manufacturer can sell a car, that runs on gasoline, the carmaker says this car will last for years, then the same company makes cars that run on hydrogen and makes it illegal for you to buy gasoline or modify your car to run on hydrogen. They made a mistake by entering into this agreement when its supported by only the DMCA and nothing else IMHO. Legal Eagles should be able to judge the merits of this type of case without too much reseach I would think.


Someone elses example in another thread but perfectly logical to me.


Larry


------------------

DFAST is EVIL! BOYCOTT ANTI-CONSUMER 5C/DVI/HDCP/DMCA MANUFACTURERS!

Join Electronic Freedom Foundation
http://www.eff.org/

 

[Mark Hunter]

Plus, I don't see how a manufacturer could claim that a device was not designed to be "fit for a particular purpose" if the packaging yells "HDTV Ready" or "HDTV Capable".


By clearly stating this feature, I would think that the device would have to carry through...regardless of the legalese fine print.

 

[Kirk]

Rick & John, you have hurt me.


Kirk, Esq.