[chef423]

I have been seeing this in the forums. What is going on with this topic. I was in the market to buy, but I dont want to spend 2-4k and find out later I should have waited.


Thanks in advance,


chef423


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

MTFBWY!


Get the X-Box, you wont be dissapointed!!

 

[vruiz]

Run a search for any of these terms: DVI, HDCP, 5C, DTCP, Firewire. You'll come up with at least 20 threads dealing with this issue, going back to January.


Happy reading http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif


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

Vic Ruiz
STOP HDCP/DFAST/5C

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by chef423: I have been seeing this in the forums. What is going on with this topic. I was in the market to buy, but I dont want to spend 2-4k and find out later I should have waited. Thanks in advance, chef423

Well, you might want to read the "boycott now" topic (for amusement, if nothing else). A boycott seems laughable to me--all the current HD capable set owners (much less owners of tuners) put together represent a tiny portion of the American television viewing public. If the high value content broadcasters lost the business of any significant part of them through a boycott (which I doubt that they would) I think they'd just shrug.


The current state of things is this: on the 25th of July, a gang of equipment companies and some Hollywood studios signed off on the DVI/HDCP hardware/protocol spec. This is basically a copy-protected digital version of the analog component video connectors on the current sets: it carries the bits of a single, already tuned, already decoded and

decompressed program in digital raster from a set-top-box to a monitor for display, just as the component video cables carry an analog HD presentation of a single tuned-in program from some STB to a monitor for display. The difference is, it's a digital bitstream that can be encrypted if the content is deemed to be too valuable to be carried in the clear. It has a low bandwidth upstream channel for authorization and key-exchange with the STB. This interface is explicitly designed to be unfriendly to recording now and in the future, which has caused a lot of furor, since many people thought that the studio's acceptance of it was an attempted end-run around the FCC's Fair Use law, which it is not. DVI/DTCP, while not intended to be copied from, is also not intended to be the sole data buss in a copy-protected home digital A/V network. (For an overview, see Silicon Image's whitepaper on the topic--they developed this jointly with Intel).


A week or so before that, Sony Pictures and Warner Pictures announced their acceptance of the 1394/DTCP connection and Mitsubishi committed to adding the interface to their televisions. This is a system that has been worked on for the past three years by a consortium five companies (Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba) so it also gets called the "5C" standard. This wraps copy protection mechanisms around a tuned portion of a still compressed HDTV bitstream. This is certainly more sensible for recording--since the programming enters your home digitally compressed, why would you want to record any decompressed form of it anyway? This would be the connection between an HD recorder of some sort and whatever tuner you have.


DTCP provides multiple levels of copy protection. These are:

• "Copy Freely" for material whose copyright holders don't care how you copy it (or which is in the public domain),
• "Copy One Generation", to allow you to record high value material to which you have subscribed access,
• "Copy No More" to mark playback of recordings of "Copy One Generation" stuff and
• "Copy Never" which will mark retail prerecorded material.

"Copy Freely" stuff is not encrypted by the protocol and requires no authentication between devices--the source is allowed to send it to any requesting sink. "Copy Never" requires the highest level of security; for some reason, a little more lax authentication policy is used for "Copy One Generation" and "Copy No More". The two modes are called "Full AKE" and "Restricted AKE" (where AKE stands for "Authorization and Key Exchange"); a source transmitting "Copy Never" material must require "Full AKE" from the sink. What I believe is that recording devices are not allowed to implement "Full AKE" when acting as sinks, and thus could not even talk to an HD DVD player outputting a copy-protected program. (My source of information for this is a cursory reading of the DTCP Informational Spec Vol 1, Rev 1.2 , dated 25 July 2000--there may be a more recent spec, but I haven't found any online. Also read their whitepaper , which is a little less technical and give a little more of the philosophy and outlook of the scheme).


Now, DVI/HDCP and 1394/HDCP are not mutually exclusive and could appear in any number of combinations in HD A/V equipment. HD monitors without HD tuners could have only inexpensive DVI/HDCP connectors; monitors with built-in tuners would have 1394/HDCP ports for I/O to HD recorders and players and a slot for some sort of standardized Point-of-Deployment card (another point of hot controversy where the cable companies are dragging their feet--they really don't want to give up supplying STBs to customers) to authorize viewing of copy-protected material. Sets with tuners and 1394 ports wouldn't need DVI inputs, but they might include some to accomodate possible HD DVD players including only DVI outputs.


As to whether you should wait or not, I'm contemplating that myself. I've been sitting on the fence for a long while: in the middle of researching my own possible HDTV purchase, I discovered 5C and the fact that all the current HD STBs have built-in provisions to down-rez high-value content (one would hope only big-ticket theatrical films and only recent ones) when agreements could be reached on copy-protection. The studios are providing a relatively small amount of HD material now on a provisional basis (and I wouldn't be surprised if there are people out there making digital copies of all of it http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif ). To tell you the truth, if I were them, I would never release theatrical productions in HD--this copy protection stuff is doomed to be defeated and the hit on their after theater sales has the potential to be huge. A workable business model for the film industry if it essentially loses control of distribution of its product is very difficult to imagine.


I'm thinking it could take another year for this DVI/HDCP/1394/DTCP equipment to fall into place. In that year, I could be enjoying progressive scan DVDs and what little HD broadcast material is available now on one of the modestly priced (and modestly sized) sets available this year. I make a larger investment on a bigger and better set in four or five years when all this is sorted out and HDTV has really gotten under way.


If you do decide to buy now, you might want to buy Mitsubishi, since they've made their famous promise to upgrade all of their HD tuner-upgradeable TVs to 1394/DTCP at a "reasonable" cost expected to be less than $1000. I'm eyeing their WT-46809, which I've found online at Crazy Eddie for $1950.


-- Mike Scott


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

 

[chef423]

So you mean to tell me that all the HDTV's out there now that arent upgradable to this 1394 format will be useless?? Tell me it isnt so! That would totally piss people off to no end. And you can't sit there and tell me the average user knows this.


WTF are people worried about encryption for anyway??? They show all kinds of movies and such on the air right now. I didnt follow that part.


Could you please address my first question, this is serious.


chef423


Thanks for taking the time to write all that.


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

MTFBWY!


Get the X-Box, you wont be dissapointed!!


[This message has been edited by chef423 (edited 08-08-2001).]

 

[Bruce Embry]

He is correct. All current HDTV/Upgradable are currently useless except for Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi is the only comppany that will be provided an upgrade next year.


The New Mitsubishi Digital VHS VCR is now posted on their web sit at www.mitubishi-tv.com. This D-VHS VCR uses IEEE1394/Firewire to record 1080i HD and should be available vary soon. They are also introducing 5 HD integated TVs this fall. I expect that Promise Module will be available sometime during the 2Q of 2002.


If you want new HDTV then buy Mitsubishi.


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

Bruce.in.Cary

 

[Gary Merson]

Mike and Bruce:

Do you guys work for Mitsubishi? http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif


chef: I suggest you read my latest hdtvinsider newsletter.

Let me give you a little snippet. These issues only affect DBS (satellite) HDTV. Currently it is only HBO-HD (Directv&Echostar) and Showtime (Echostar) HD and a very limited number of PPVs. I also discuss cable and broadcast in the newsletter. As far as satellite is concerned, you are NOT protected with the Mitsubishi firewire upgrade solution as far as DirecTV is concerned (as things stand today)-read about why in the newsletter.

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by chef423: So you mean to tell me that all the HDTV's out there now that arent upgradable to this 1394 format will be useless?? Tell me it isnt so! That would totally piss people off to no end. And you can't sit there and tell me the average user knows this. WTF are people worried about encryption for anyway??? They show all kinds of movies and such on the air right now. I didnt follow that part. Could you please address my first question, this is serious. chef423 Thanks for taking the time to write all that.

Well, "useless" depends on your definition. Even when copy protection is available, the current component video based STBs will display the high value content for subscribers with older sets, just not at the full HD resolution. They will "down-rez" that content to be little better than a DVD.


However, we can hope that the amount of material that gets treated in this fashion is extremely limited. It will hopefully just be mostly newer theatrical releases and pay-per-view sporting events. That's just a small percentage of all TV (though a significant amount of current HD broadcasts). Any HD serial fiction, sports, made-for-TV movies and edited-for-TV movies on the broadcast networks, HBO and Showtime would be broadcast "Copy Freely" and passed in full HD to current equipment. Hopefully, most of the studio movies shown on HBO and Showtime will also be broadcast this way, but only time will tell.


But if it's stuff that the studios think that they can make significant money renting or selling recordings of, it will be copy-protected. If it isn't, it could be recorded off the air and freely distributed, for profit or caprice. While a digital copy of the analog component video outputs of the current STBs would require expensive equipment and would not be perfect, it would be better than any DVD of the movie.


An interesting aside is that those CCI codes ("Copy Freely", "Copy Never", etc ...) are part of the MPEG2 specification--somebody's been planning this for a long time. Also interesting to note is that DTCP has provisions in it for carrying data from Super Audio CD and DVD Audio decks. IMHO, the people behind those formats would do well to stay away from this interface and its controversy.


-- Mike Scott



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

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gary Merson: Mike and Bruce: Do you guys work for Mitsubishi? http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif chef: I suggest you read my latest hdtvinsider newsletter. Let me give you a little snippet. These issues only affect DBS (satellite) HDTV. Currently it is only HBO-HD (Directv&Echostar) and Showtime (Echostar) HD and a very limited number of PPVs. I also discuss cable and broadcast in the newsletter. As far as satellite is concerned, you are NOT protected with the Mitsubishi firewire upgrade solution as far as DirecTV is concerned (as things stand today)-read about why in the newsletter.

If DirectTV does not add firewire to their boxes, they will be in violation of Fair Use, since consumers won't be able to time-shift their broadcasts with off-the-shelf equipment. I don't think this will sit well with the FCC, even if they should offer their own HD PVRs (which they probably plan to do). They have more than a year to change their mind about this decision, or to have it changed for them.


Doesn't matter much to me, anyway, since Echostar has shown significantly greater commitment to HD and are cheaper to boot.


I don't understand how any cable system is going to get to carry any high value content in full HD without deploying copy-protected equipment after such equipment is commonly available on the market. The equipment manufacturers and satellite broadcasters aren't putting the consumers through this for grins and chuckles--the studios are insisting on it, much more than strongly. I cannot believe that they will allow the movie channels to continue to supply feeds containing full HD transfers to cable operators not employing copy protection. If they do, all of this was a waste of time. Well, it's a waste of time and money anyway but that would make it all obviously useless--like designing condoms with a big hole at the tip.


Actually, HD is available on cable to so few sets it's hardly even part of the issue. IMHO cable will not jump on board HD in any meaningful way until well into the 11th hour. According to their business model, HD is a losing proposition for them--(nearly) no one is begging them for it and it just eats up bandwidth that they could fill with many more channels of crappy poor quality programming.


And no, I don't work for Mitsubishi--until this issue came up I was leaning toward the Panasonic PT-47WX49 (I saw it nicely displayed at a Frye's Electronics in Sunnyvale just before I moved down here http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif ).


-- Mike Scott


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

 

[Sean Nelson]

This whole copy protection thing reminds me of all the uncertainty surrounding 8VSB vs. COFDM. It's bad for the HDTV business, but necessary for it to mature.


I don't see the issue being settled anytime soon because the content carriers (satellite and cable) are on one bandwagon (DVI) and the display manufacturers are on another (Firewire). Until the two camps start making equipment that can connect to each other nobody's going anywhere. If the STB manufacturers had announced firewire support, then it could start appearing in most of next year's models, but with design and manufacturing lead times I think that getting actual hardware that everyone can agree on is at least a couple of years off. Even the currently-available Firewire sets are a gamble because they don't support DVI.


In the meantime, analogue-input sets are not obsolete, and they'll continue to be capable of everything they can do today. I see no reason to wait, unless you're prepared to wait for at least a year or two.

 

[chef423]

Simply put, I am a gamer. The reason I will be buying my first HDTV(besides the fact that I can afford to) will be, A. the X-Box, and B. DVD's.


I am looking for something that is about 36-40", 4:3, and has a supurb resolution. Any ideas?


chef423


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

MTFBWY!


Get the X-Box, you wont be dissapointed!!

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sean Nelson: This whole copy protection thing reminds me of all the uncertainty surrounding 8VSB vs. COFDM. It's bad for the HDTV business, but necessary for it to mature. I don't see the issue being settled anytime soon because the content carriers (satellite and cable) are on one bandwagon (DVI) and the display manufacturers are on another (Firewire).

I believe this to be a misconception. As I said above, if DirectTV doesn't have plans to eventually put an HD recordable interface on their boxes when there a standard HD recordable interface defined, they will be taken to court on it and they will lose handily. Fair Use has been tested by IP holders many times to no avail.
Quote:

Until the two camps start making equipment that can connect to each other nobody's going anywhere.

There aren't two camps. Intel was one of the developers of DVI/HDCP and one of the developers of 1394/DTCP. They are non-mutually-exclusive interfaces designed for different purposes that will probably be used together in the same system (though not necessarily). DVI/HDCP is a cheap and simple interface (relatively, in context http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif ) to transfer decoded, decompressed video to a monitor. A monitor which only had a DVI interface and no ATSC tuner would be the cheapest and most future-proof monitor: future-proof in the sense that, should more advance video formats emerge, like say, 1080p, you could upgrade your STB to a model that could accept that format and down-rez it to the maximum your DVI display could handle. A display with a built-in tuner would just be lost (unless, of course, ATSC has provision for this that I'm unaware of).
Quote:

If the STB manufacturers had announced firewire support, then it could start appearing in most of next year's models, but with design and manufacturing lead times I think that getting actual hardware that everyone can agree on is at least a couple of years off. Even the currently-available Firewire sets are a gamble because they don't support DVI. In the meantime, analogue-input sets are not obsolete, and they'll continue to be capable of everything they can do today. I see no reason to wait, unless you're prepared to wait for at least a year or two.

I don't think that the lack of DVI on a set makes it much of a gamble, as long as it has 1394, at least in the US--by the time DirectTV plans to have support for DVI output STBs out there, they will have been disabused of the notion that they can legally provide service that won't let their subscribers time-shift any HD, ever, on at least copy-protected equipment of their choice. I feel pretty confident of that much. I'd personally rather have a set whose only HD input was DVI (or a combination of DVI and analog HD component video, to weather the transition), for the reasons stated above.


-- Mike Scott

 

[Sean Nelson]

I'll say it again:

Until the two camps start making equipment that can connect to each other nobody's going anywhere.


DVI from an STB doesn't plug into a display's Firewire port. Sounds like two camps to me. Either some display manufacturers are going to have to add a DVI port, or the STB manufacturers are going to have to add a Firewire port. Maybe both. But until some announces actual product (and even better, delivers it) I'd say it's a little premature to start counting chickens.


I agree that Firewire makes more sense and is likely the best bet - I just don't see the odds as being high enough for me yet.



[This message has been edited by Sean Nelson (edited 08-08-2001).]


[This message has been edited by Sean Nelson (edited 08-08-2001).]

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by chef423: Simply put, I am a gamer. The reason I will be buying my first HDTV(besides the fact that I can afford to) will be, A. the X-Box, and B. DVD's. I am looking for something that is about 36-40", 4:3, and has a supurb resolution. Any ideas? chef423

I'd suggest pretty much any of the 36" or 38" 16x9 direct views, but they all have ATSC (and often DirectTV) tuners built in and are therefore stupidly expensive. When set up properly, these always look incredible in the showrooms--IMHO, the blow all the big screens away, sheer picture quality wise. The only one of those I've seen on good deals is RCA's F38310--see, it lists for $3500 (though you can buy it directly from RCA for $2999), but here it is for $2339. I read this glowing review of it in Sound and Vision.


-- Mike Scott


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

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sean Nelson: I'll say it again: Until the two camps start making equipment that can connect to each other nobody's going anywhere. DVI from an STB doesn't plug into a display's Firewire port. Sounds like two camps to me.

My NTSC VCR has coax, s-video, and RCA video line outputs. My NTSC TV has coax, s-video and RCA video line inputs. When I press "play", they can all carry the video presentation of the recording from the VCR to the TV and none of their connectors plugs into either of the others--do these constitute "three different camps" in your mind???


In a recent press-release to EEtimes.com about DVI/HDCP, Silicon Image, one of the companies which designed the interface (Intel, one of five developers of the copy-protected firewire spec, was the other) made the following statement:
Quote:

DVI is the ideal digital interface for connecting a video source device-such as an STB, DVD player or D-VHS player-to an HD display. Only DVI has the bandwidth to accommodate uncompressed, HD digital video transmission in the encrypted format preferred by studios. That capability offers cost and performance advantages over IEEE 1394, which requires that MPEG decoding capability be added to the HDTV. Decoding video in this manner renders the HDTV vulnerable to obsolescence due to potential video format changes. It is preferable to have intelligence reside in the STB rather than the HDTV, since TVs have a longer life span and require a larger investment. DVI also supports video menu overlays, which enable popular features like Web browsing, picture-in-picture graphics and robust menu graphic user interfaces. DVI/HDCP protects content but does not preempt consumer rights to record or time-shift video content for personal use. DVI/HDCP does not impact the and functionality of upstream devices such as personal video recorders or digital VCRs, which are independent of the DVI connection to the HDTV. DVI/HDCP fulfills the promise of HDTV by providing access to premium content that would otherwise be unavailable.

Note that this statement presumes the existence of HD recorders, which cannot record from the DVI interface. Thus, the intended purpose of DVI is not to replace other interfaces from which HD can be recorded, but only to be a simpler, cheaper, copy-protected interface through which a source device (like a tuning STB or an HD recorder) can provide an HD image to the display.


Now, it's quite possible that DirectTV intends to pervert the intended purpose of the DVI/HDCP design in an illegal attempt to deny their customers the right (granted them explicitly by Federal law) to time-shift their programming. If so, they, and anyone else who tries something similar, will fail. I see no risk in that at all.


In any case, they could only do it by explicitly forbidding all their STB and integrated tuner licensees to add 1394/DTCP interfaces to their products, and that would make an obvious and ugly entre to court.

Quote:

I agree that Firewire makes more sense and is likely the best bet - I just don't see the odds as being high enough for me yet.

I believe that a tuning STB (or a set with an integrated ATSC tuner) should have both--DVI to accept video from recorders and prerecorded media players and firewire to output data to recorders.


Firewire connectors on a tuning STB could also be used to accept un-MPEG-decoded data from recorders to be decoded by the STB and passed through DVI to the monitor for display--after all, you're not going to watch the recorder and live TV at the same time. (It would be the same connection through which the recorder receives data to record, since firewire is bi-directional). It would make the recorders cheaper, since they wouldn't have to be capable of decoding MPEG2. I notice that Mitsubishi's new HS-HD2000U has no HD outputs except firewire. A tuning STB or A/V receiver with the capability to decode incoming copy-protected firewire and pass it to a monitor in copy-protected DVI would solve a lot of problems.


We can only wait and see what shows up.


-- Mike Scott


[This message has been edited by michaeltscott (edited 08-09-2001).]

 

[belmore]

Mike,


I have to disagree with you that these two standards were intended to co-exist. Look at part of the quote you used:

Quote:

Only DVI has the bandwidth to accommodate uncompressed, HD digital video transmission in the encrypted format preferred by studios.

Why do you suppose that HDCP is preferred by the studios? Simple. It will be much more difficult to record than a signal transmitted in compressed form. They also believe that it provides more robust copy protection. If an STB also provides firewire outputs, these benefits are completely negated.

 

[trbarry]

5C data has the advantage that it is already compressed. This means it can be transmitted around the house and recorded more cheaply.


OTOH, if there is any data that is not compressed into the stream then it is expensive to add it since mpeg2 compression is still expensive. Unfortunately this makes it hard to generalize to computer bit mapped displays, interactive TV, or program guides.


Also, while ATSC OTA is fairly well standardized on MPEG2, the satellite companies are proprietary and free to implement new and better compression methods that are already known. But they couldn't do that if anybody besides their own set top box had to be able to handle it. This probably gives them an incentive to do decoding in the STB.


I think the economics of the two schemes are different enough that they will both have to coexist for awhile.


- Tom


------------------
Getting started with HTPC:
HTPC FAQ , DScaler , Xcel's Links , and
The Anti-DMCA Website .s>
And Free Dmitri Sklyarovs>

 

[michaeltscott]

Quote:

Originally posted by belmore: I have to disagree with you that these two standards were intended to co-exist. Look at part of the quote you used: ------------------------------------- Only DVI has the bandwidth to accommodate uncompressed, HD digital video transmission in the encrypted format preferred by studios. -------------------------------------- Why do you suppose that HDCP is preferred by the studios? Simple. It will be much more difficult to record than a signal transmitted in compressed form. They also believe that it provides more robust copy protection. If an STB also provides firewire outputs, these benefits are completely negated.

<Heavy sigh>. I think that you're grouping those words incorrectly in your mind--the part that goes with "preferred by studios" is "the encrypted format". I don't hear that sentence stating that any specific encrypted format is preferred by studios--just that they prefer that their high value HD IP be encrypted. I've spent eight years previous to this one working on SNMP and CMIP agents embedded in communications equipment--I spent the last couple expanding an SNMP agent toolkit, including adding the security features of SNMPv3 to it: authentication, key-exchange, encryption. (Thank God, I've escape all that--it's as dry as unbuttered toast). I've perused both of these specs, and while I'm not a cryptographer, I can tell you that 5C seems to be at least as well protected as DVI/HDCP.


The studios may well like the fact that the sheer volume of the uncompressed data makes it unwieldy, but if I can break the cipher, there's plenty of hardware and software out there to help me turn it back into MPEG2. It would seem the least part of the determined pirates problems.


The sentence is just saying that you can't transmit uncompressed HD over Firewire, which is true, encrypted or not. It will be a while before we have equipment at consumer prices that can capture that Firewire datastream and record it and why would you want to anyway? You would just end up compressing the data for storage, since it contains such massive amounts of redundant information. The data enters your home in compressed form, and it should be recorded the way it came. If it's high-value, copy-protected stuff, it should be recorded in original encrypted form.


The studios aren't going to get to broadcast HD movies on television while denying consumers the ability to record it for personal use. That's against Federal law and that's not going to change. They know it, we know it. If the DBS or cable carriers come to market with STBs that lack HD output interfaces that can be recorded they will be taken to court and they will lose, and that's so obvious that I can't believe that they'd waste so very much money in the attempt.


You will notice that Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers have announced support for both DVI and 5C. Sony has even trademarked their 5C interface--they call it iLink. JVC has incorporated DVI into their latest D'Ahlia display; last year they announced an intention to have both DVI/HDCP and 5C connectors on their D-VHS deck (it's hard to tell what's their actually doing now).


Check this out--it's an EETime.com story giving a cogent discussion by some industry pundits of the controversy. It's interesting to note that the last paragraph has an Intel guy pooh-poohing the idea of implementing both DVI and 1394 in an STB; I'd assumed that since Intel had had a hand in the development of both interfaces (they are a member of 5C and partnered with Silicon Image on DVI), that they supported both. Intel is a big company--I guess that one hand doesn't necessarily know what the other's doing. The cost of implementing both interfaces would have to be an internal thing--the hardware for DVI is certainly cheap enough--the 24-bit high-res part (there's a "low-res" part not suitable for HDTV) sells for $15 in quantity and the cabling is neglible. Now what comes out of one of these chips and just how you mount it such that someone couldn't open up the monitor case and steal the video off the board would be interesting to know--you have to get the clear raster off the chip and out to the display somehow.


[This message has been edited by michaeltscott (edited 08-09-2001).]

 

[Bruce Embry]

Hey,

I have never seen so many in-accurate statments made about 5C, DVI, ETC, ETC.

You guys need to get it right. There are people on the forum who are taken you at your word.


First off some facts about DVI.


1) The DVI connector has 25 wires in it. It is a parallel interface. It is not a serial interface. There are 8 pairs of digital signals that are sent across the DVI interface.


2) Yes its possible to make a adapter to recombine the decoded digital information and then recompress it into MPEG2. But this adapter would be vary expensive and take years to engineer.


3) The DVI interface is not a network. For ever single DVI output device (HD-STB, HD-DVD, HD-VCR) there will have to be a corresponding DVI input port on the display monitor.


4) DVI will make your Home Theater more complex then it currently is. DVI will not simplyfied the operation of you home theater.

(5) It will be a year or more before DVI STB and Displays are ready.


Some suff about IEEE.1394 Firewire, iLink.


1) 5C is the copy protection standard that will be used on the Firewire network.


2) On a Firewire Home Theater system, the connections are daisy-chain between each componant. These Firewire enable componants can be daisy-chain in any order. Hey it a true network. So any device on the Firewire network can send data and commands to any other device on the network.


3) The Firewire network will be Plug and Play meaning whenever a new device is plug into the network, the other devices recongize the new device.


4) The Firewire Network is a serial form of the SCSI interface and uses the same type of massage sending. Which means, its mult-tasking, it is mult-master, ETC. All of these features make its perfect for Digital Home Theater system.


5) The HD digital and audio remains in the MPEG2 compressed format across the entire Firewire network. The MPEG2 compressed data will be decompressed at the monitor.


6) The Fireware IEEE.1394 interface for the Digital Home Theater will use the HAVi command sturcture. HAVi has nothing to do with DVI. HAVi will integrate you Firewire enable componants and make the Digital Home Theater systems easy to use.


7) Firewire enabled Home Theater hardware are on their way to your dealer shelf. I expect to see both Mitsubishi and Sony products in the stores vary soon. Weeks not Months.



There is a lot more information out there about all of this stuff. Like I said above you guys need to get your facts correct.


I recommend that everybody search the internet.

Here is some stuff to read; http://www.themeter.com/articles/DVIspec.shtml
http://www.firewireworld.com/news/20...0/snider.shtml


DVI enable devices will take away your rights. Why wait for it to be frought out in the courts. Do not buy any DVI equiped devices.










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

Bruce.in.Cary

 

[AmandaWalker]

Quote:

Originally posted by michaeltscott: The studios aren't going to get to broadcast HD movies on television while denying consumers the ability to record it for personal use. That's against Federal law and that's not going to change.

Of course; that's what the non-HD component outputs are for. You're more than welcome to record stuff if it's not HD, but nothing in the laws governing home recording says they have to let you do it in HD.
Quote:

They know it, we know it. If the DBS or cable carriers come to market with STBs that lack HD output interfaces that can be recorded they will be taken to court and they will lose, and that's so obvious that I can't believe that they'd waste so very much money in the attempt.:

Because it's not a copyright issue. If you read all of the stuff about DRM (Digital Rights Management) and copy protection, much less actually talk to people from studios and other content providers, it's not about copyright. Copyright governs the right to copy published material. That's not what the studios want--they want to avoid publishing it at all. DRM and copy protection are about property rights, not copyright. You never own a copy of the content, you merely have the right to view it if you've paid for a viewing.


And once the technology permits them to distribute their content without having to publish it, other providers will hop on the bandwagon. Pay per play is a gold mine for content providers.


Don't believe me? Call up the legal department of any major studio and ask them.


Amanda Walker

 

[Lee L]


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Of course; that's what the non-HD component outputs are for. You're more than welcome to record stuff if it's not HD, but nothing in the laws governing home recording says they have to let you do it in HD.

In my thinking the whole point of the DTV transition was to replace the existing analog broadcast infrastructure with digital transmission. Why else would broacast spectrum that could otherwise be auctioned off be given free for a period of time? If that is the case it should be safe to assume that any case law dealing with our right ro record should then be transferrable to a right to record digital material as well. So what if the law does not specifically say record HD, the law cannot predict future technologies and has been interpreted favorably for the studios in the past when new tech came out. When CD's first came out were you free to copy any album on CD and sell as many copies as you wanted while you could not fo the same with vinyl? No the copyright laws covered that new technology even though they were not specifically writted for it.