I wonder how many people are happy with the alternative to DRM:
- The police kicking in doors, searching our homes, and arresting housewives and children
- The government shutting down popular online services used for legitimate purposes
- Universities having to work for the police in sniffing their networks and forced to provide RIAA-friendly services
- The TSA demanding our passwords to search through our most private files
The RIAA will pursue both DRM and the police-state options until one is found to be most effective. If DRM can be made seamless and match a modern definition of fair use, then it will become the default for ordinary law-abiding citizens and then, maybe, we can go back to being treated like law-abiding citizens.
I think the transition from SD to HD is being used as a kind of ground zero for HDCP implementation. Once DRM has become the default, then distributors will start to compete on the ease of use factor, an area where Apple excel.
I wonder how many people are happy with the alternative to DRM:
- The police kicking in doors, searching our homes, and arresting housewives and children
- The government shutting down popular online services used for legitimate purposes
- Universities having to work for the police in sniffing their networks and forced to provide RIAA-friendly services
- The TSA demanding our passwords to search through our most private files
The RIAA will pursue both DRM and the police-state options until one is found to be most effective. If DRM can be made seamless and match a modern definition of fair use, then it will become the default for ordinary law-abiding citizens and then, maybe, we can go back to being treated like law-abiding citizens.
Knowing the RIAA, I really doubt that they're going to stop there. DRM has never been shown to be effective in what its proponents say anyway.
I won't disagree with the fact that HDCP has no value to the consumer. But it does have value to the movie studios. No, it (and the other forms of DRM) won't stop large-scale piracy. It's not meant to, it's meant to curb the casual piracy that has helped to send CD sales into the toilet. It's meant to limit how easy it is for Joe Public to say to his friend, "Sure, I'll make you a copy of that." It's meant to make it hard enough that the average user will decide its just easier to go buy a copy.
You are lumping HDCP in with the other DRM forms and they are much much different, particularly if we are talking about casual piracy. HDCP is an attempt to lock EVERYTHING down, 100% with no holes whatsoever. This is the only conclusion that makes sense, why? because joe public doesn't have the technical skill or even the patience to sit there and capture full uncompressed digital frames over a DVI line along with the 5.1 channel digital track, then put them into some kind of editor and sync the two, re-compress it and hand it out to a friend. The scenarios one can come up with that are at all plausible in which joe public is being stopped from casual piracy by HDCP are all equally absurd, because that isn't what HDCP is for. HDCP is an irrational overreaction to a non-existent problem, users capturing digital HD content casually in their houses and passing them around. Whats more, AACS and BD+ are both broken from a standpoint of preventing these things from ending up on the internet, and in fact will be broken most of the time even for preventing casual piracy, so there is not now, nor will there ever be a need for people to go to the trouble of capturing DVI signals just to give copies to friends.
Quote:
In all the years I've owned DVD, the DRM involved never got in the way of me enjoying the movies on the disc the way that Apple's Fairplay has with music. I can't play those movies on any non-Apple product. I can easily take that DVD out of my Sony PS3 and go upstairs and enjoy it on my Pioneer DVD player. In the year and a half I've bought Blu-Ray discs, the DRM has never gotten in my way.
DVD never bothered me either because it just trys to keep the movie on the disc, it doesn't try to limit who can play it, doesn't limit your resale rights, doesn't suddenly stop playing because your monitor is too old etc.
DVD never bothered me either because it just trys to keep the movie on the disc, it doesn't try to limit who can play it, doesn't limit your resale rights, doesn't suddenly stop playing because your monitor is too old etc.
That is only true because the DVD CSS encryption was hacked long ago, and DVD players are cheap. When DVDs first came out I was a Linux user, and even though I had a DVD drive in my computer, I couldn't watch DVDs on it because of the encryption. DVDs definitely attempt to limit who can play them, its just that their efforts were long ago foiled.
That is only true because the DVD CSS encryption was hacked long ago, and DVD players are cheap. When DVDs first came out I was a Linux user, and even though I had a DVD drive in my computer, I couldn't watch DVDs on it because of the encryption. DVDs definitely attempt to limit who can play them, its just that their efforts were long ago foiled.
Sure, but that is much different than literally linking a copy of a movie to one person, which is what fairplay does. You can sell the DVD to someone after watching with no problem. Can't do that with fairplay stuff, can't even loan it to someone.
You are lumping HDCP in with the other DRM forms and they are much much different, particularly if we are talking about casual piracy. HDCP is an attempt to lock EVERYTHING down, 100% with no holes whatsoever. This is the only conclusion that makes sense, why? because joe public doesn't have the technical skill or even the patience to sit there and capture full uncompressed digital frames over a DVI line along with the 5.1 channel digital track, then put them into some kind of editor and sync the two, re-compress it and hand it out to a friend. The scenarios one can come up with that are at all plausible in which joe public is being stopped from casual piracy by HDCP are all equally absurd, because that isn't what HDCP is for. HDCP is an irrational overreaction to a non-existent problem, users capturing digital HD content casually in their houses and passing them around. Whats more, AACS and BD+ are both broken from a standpoint of preventing these things from ending up on the internet, and in fact will be broken most of the time even for preventing casual piracy, so there is not now, nor will there ever be a need for people to go to the trouble of capturing DVI signals just to give copies to friends.
Good point. I was lumping HDCP and FairPlay-type DRM together. One (Fairplay, CSS, etc) attempt to prevent you from sharing the digital file, the other (HDCP) prevents you from capturing a stream. Once you've broken the first method and free software tools become available (ie, Handbrake for CSS) it's trivial to begin illegally sharing the content. But even if HDCP is broken, or didn't exist in the first place, there is still a huge barrier to overcome. At a minimum, you'd likely need to obtain some specialized hardware to capture the stream. That alone would probably stop most "casual theft."
I for one would like to know what Apple's overall strategy is. For music, it appears they are moving to no DRM at all. This makes sense because pretty much all music is available on CDs which can be easily ripped, and even the slowest internet connection is adequate to download pirated music files. No DRM, higher quality than on illegal download sites and a reasonable price makes DRM-free music a viable business model.
Video is a different story. Even VHS tapes have Macrovision. So we've been living with DRM on video for quite some time. But with VHS and DVD, it was exchangable, resellable, bequeathable. And you could take it to a friend's house to watch. This is where it all really breaks down. After I've accumulated $100s in purchased video it all expires when I do!
I'll buy the occassional TV show if I've missed an episode (only because there is no option to rent TV shows). And I have no problem renting movies regardless of any DRM restrictions since it's cheap and disposable. But I'll continue to only purchase movies on disc until they've figured out the portability and transferability of the content. Which, BTW, has little or nothing do with the HDCP!
I wonder how many people are happy with the alternative to DRM:
- The police kicking in doors, searching our homes, and arresting housewives and children
- The government shutting down popular online services used for legitimate purposes
- Universities having to work for the police in sniffing their networks and forced to provide RIAA-friendly services
- The TSA demanding our passwords to search through our most private files
The RIAA will pursue both DRM and the police-state options until one is found to be most effective. If DRM can be made seamless and match a modern definition of fair use, then it will become the default for ordinary law-abiding citizens and then, maybe, we can go back to being treated like law-abiding citizens.
I think the transition from SD to HD is being used as a kind of ground zero for HDCP implementation. Once DRM has become the default, then distributors will start to compete on the ease of use factor, an area where Apple excel.
Talk about fatalism. We're not doomed to choose between broken DRM-schemes or police state dystopia. And even if DRM could be made into a seamless experience(which I find quite unlikely), what makes you think that the RIAA would hand over its power and dismantle its threats, its lobbyism, its corporativistic strong-arming? Simply, there would soon be a new threat emerging. It is completely possible to tame the beast that RIAA has become, given enough political will. DRM has already failed as a business model for music and will probably do so for video, too. Streaming/renting might be different, or it might not.
So if I am not mistaken, users will now be able to watch everything they could before HDCP was introduced, plus users with new macbooks and a hdcp compatible monitor will be able to watch high def movies from their computer.
From what I understand, users were never able to watch the high def itunes movies on their computer, they could only do that through apple tv. If they can do that now, that's a good thing.
While I hate HDCP, it doesn't make sense for Apple to hold out if everyone else complies with it. It would only mean that mac users would not have access to high def content. Of course adding HDCP also signals a certain bag of hurt coming to the mac fairly soon (maybe).
You are lumping HDCP in with the other DRM forms and they are much much different, particularly if we are talking about casual piracy. HDCP is an attempt to lock EVERYTHING down, 100% with no holes whatsoever. This is the only conclusion that makes sense, why? because joe public doesn't have the technical skill or even the patience to sit there and capture full uncompressed digital frames over a DVI line along with the 5.1 channel digital track, then put them into some kind of editor and sync the two, re-compress it and hand it out to a friend. The scenarios one can come up with that are at all plausible in which joe public is being stopped from casual piracy by HDCP are all equally absurd, because that isn't what HDCP is for. HDCP is an irrational overreaction to a non-existent problem, users capturing digital HD content casually in their houses and passing them around. Whats more, AACS and BD+ are both broken from a standpoint of preventing these things from ending up on the internet, and in fact will be broken most of the time even for preventing casual piracy, so there is not now, nor will there ever be a need for people to go to the trouble of capturing DVI signals just to give copies to friends.
DVD never bothered me either because it just trys to keep the movie on the disc, it doesn't try to limit who can play it, doesn't limit your resale rights, doesn't suddenly stop playing because your monitor is too old etc.
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
It all comes down to making it harder to pirate things. Yes, for the hard-core pirates it won't matter, but for the casual DRM/copy protection of whatever type may make some difference. Even it's only a 5% difference, that's still an improvement.
Even if it stops nothing, HDCP should be transparent to about 99% of the populace. Just like the copy protection on DVD and Blu-Ray is transparent to 99% of the people. And the 1% it isn't transparent to are exactly the people the movie studios don't want it to be transparent to. If Apple had implement HDCP correctly, it would have been transparent and not stopped people from playing videos on older monitors either. Which is exactly what this update fixed, Apple's messed up implementation.
[QUOTE=cmf2;1343539]So if I am not mistaken, users will now be able to watch everything they could before HDCP was introduced, plus users with new macbooks and a hdcp compatible monitor will be able to watch high def movies from their computer.
From what I understand, users were never able to watch the high def itunes movies on their computer, they could only do that through apple tv. If they can do that now, that's a good thing.
[QUOTE]
No HD movies on Macs yet, not even with the new MacBooks. But this is probably laying the ground work for it. Perhaps a January MacWorld announcement?
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
Joe Public doesn't know such devices exist, doesn't know where to get one and probably couldn't operate one even if he had it. I have never seen a device actually capable of capturing the uncompressed frames and putting it on something usable. If we are talking about HD here, thats hundreds of gigabytes of video alone.
Then you have the issue of what to do with that huge file, it does in fact have to be recompressed somewhere, and at that point syncing it to the audio is an issue if a minor one.
Joe public can't do that stuff. Give joe public a 1.5tb drive with an uncompressed digital copy of an HD movie and he wouldn't know what to do with it, and thats AFTER getting around the capture problem.
It's a non-existent problem, joe public, nor hardcore pirates, were ever going to be going this route for any sort of piracy, not casual, not internet based, not commercial. It is in fact easier to crack the encryption and get the original copy off the blu-ray disc, and it is much easier to get around fairplay, so implementing HDCP for iTunes stuff is simply absurd, no one was ever going to try to capture it in the first place.
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
It all comes down to making it harder to pirate things. Yes, for the hard-core pirates it won't matter, but for the casual DRM/copy protection of whatever type may make some difference. Even it's only a 5% difference, that's still an improvement.
Even if it stops nothing, HDCP should be transparent to about 99% of the populace. Just like the copy protection on DVD and Blu-Ray is transparent to 99% of the people. And the 1% it isn't transparent to are exactly the people the movie studios don't want it to be transparent to. If Apple had implement HDCP correctly, it would have been transparent and not stopped people from playing videos on older monitors either. Which is exactly what this update fixed, Apple's messed up implementation.
Where are the rights of the consumer though? Why can I not copy my movies to my computer for my personal use? Of course I can get around copy protection with handbrake, but that is not my point. It shouldn't be there in the first place, I should be able to insert my movies and import them in itunes just like I do with CD's. If DRM is to be effective, it must stop everyone from copying it, it only takes one copy to become a torrent, which is then available to everyone. In the end, DRM only makes things tougher for the paying consumer, with a negligible (imo) reduction in the number of people copying the product.
I do not agree that a 5% reduction (if that's what it is) in people stealing the media is worth the tradeoff of the freedom of the paying consumer (even if it is transparent to most). That 5% decrease in pirating will not represent a 5% increase in sales as most people will simply not aquire the media at all if they can't get it for free.
On the topic of HDCP, it will never be transparent. There is a licensing fee, so that cost will always be passed on to the consumer. When did watching the media you lawfully purchased become a privilage?
Unfortunately, as I said in my last post, Apple has little choice but to comply, or else mac users will not get to see content in high definition.
[QUOTE=Wiggin;1343549][QUOTE=cmf2;1343539]So if I am not mistaken, users will now be able to watch everything they could before HDCP was introduced, plus users with new macbooks and a hdcp compatible monitor will be able to watch high def movies from their computer.
From what I understand, users were never able to watch the high def itunes movies on their computer, they could only do that through apple tv. If they can do that now, that's a good thing.
Quote:
No HD movies on Macs yet, not even with the new MacBooks. But this is probably laying the ground work for it. Perhaps a January MacWorld announcement?
Good to know, I do believe that will be the direction they go though, as it makes sense.
Eitherway, I don't download from itunes due to the other forms of DRM. Until it is gone, I will continue to purchase physical media.
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
HDMI/DisplayPort deliver uncompressed, demuxed audio and video. You would either have to store a boatload of uncompressed data (where I suspect you might have sync issues when you went to put the A/V back together) or resync and recompress them on the fly. Maybe not rocket science, but non-trivial given most people's home computer hardware.
Last I checked, hardware to capture just digital video off of DVI was not cheap and limited in the resolution it could capture. No integrated audio support, and they tended to do frame-by-frame capture, so you'd have to put the frames back into a more typical format.
If you have a list of "any number of devices capable of recording audio and video" from HDMI, please post.
Apple is complicit in all this as well, they implemented the system for iTunes, they sell the content and make some amount of money on it, and such content makes their own hardware more attractive.
you do realize that in some cases, Apple isn't given a choice. if the record labels and studios want something and don't get it they can always pull out of itunes. which would hurt Apple seriously and the content companies know this.
not unlike ATT being allowed to change the rules on iphone set up and force activation at time of purchase. Apple likely doesn't care that much since they don't see the bulk of the monthly fees but their deal with ATT puts them in a tight spot on the issue and they have to give in.
DRM is irrelevant. It doesn't work, never will work.
There is already a major shift in social consciousness towards digital freedom. Freedom of information, freedom to hear music, freedom of humanity.
The days of suing 5 year old girls because they sang 'Happy Birthday', are over.
The best and brightest musicians are doing it themselves now. Besides, who listens to top 40 RIAA crap anymore? Or to the radio for music?
Video equipment is getting better and better, cheaper and cheaper, and special effects can be done on a home computer. Small movie studio's are popping up all over the place.
Like Metallica, Hollywood is becoming more and more irrelevant. Video games are taking over movies as a source of entertainment.
All that DRM does is continue to drive people towards a new shift in consciousness. People want music back. They are pissed that it was hi-jacked by big business. Just look at what they did to online radio.
Besides, people have better things to do then read 50 pages of disclaimers to watch a movie. Disclaimer on your OS, Disclaimer on iTunes, Disclaimer on setting up iTunes account, Disclaimer on renting iTunes movie. Disclaimer on dvd software, disclaimer on Quicktime software, disclaimer on movie, disclaimer on 'Handbrake' or Mac the ripper if you want to watch it on your ipod, disclaimers on everything.
Much easier to download a torrent and ignore the disclaimers. Besides, what municipality has the funds to hire police to investigate and kick down doors to arrest women and children for downloading a song?
The cat is out of the bag, and there is no chance he's going back in.
Video games are taking over movies as a source of entertainment.
I was with you up until this sentence. Unless you're referring to useless popcorn action summer blockbuster trash, what the hell are you going on about? I'm a gamer myself, but "games are taking over movies"? That's either a load of ignorant nonsense or just a very frightening prospect.
Comments
- The police kicking in doors, searching our homes, and arresting housewives and children
- The government shutting down popular online services used for legitimate purposes
- Universities having to work for the police in sniffing their networks and forced to provide RIAA-friendly services
- The TSA demanding our passwords to search through our most private files
The RIAA will pursue both DRM and the police-state options until one is found to be most effective. If DRM can be made seamless and match a modern definition of fair use, then it will become the default for ordinary law-abiding citizens and then, maybe, we can go back to being treated like law-abiding citizens.
I think the transition from SD to HD is being used as a kind of ground zero for HDCP implementation. Once DRM has become the default, then distributors will start to compete on the ease of use factor, an area where Apple excel.
I wonder how many people are happy with the alternative to DRM:
- The police kicking in doors, searching our homes, and arresting housewives and children
- The government shutting down popular online services used for legitimate purposes
- Universities having to work for the police in sniffing their networks and forced to provide RIAA-friendly services
- The TSA demanding our passwords to search through our most private files
The RIAA will pursue both DRM and the police-state options until one is found to be most effective. If DRM can be made seamless and match a modern definition of fair use, then it will become the default for ordinary law-abiding citizens and then, maybe, we can go back to being treated like law-abiding citizens.
Knowing the RIAA, I really doubt that they're going to stop there. DRM has never been shown to be effective in what its proponents say anyway.
I won't disagree with the fact that HDCP has no value to the consumer. But it does have value to the movie studios. No, it (and the other forms of DRM) won't stop large-scale piracy. It's not meant to, it's meant to curb the casual piracy that has helped to send CD sales into the toilet. It's meant to limit how easy it is for Joe Public to say to his friend, "Sure, I'll make you a copy of that." It's meant to make it hard enough that the average user will decide its just easier to go buy a copy.
You are lumping HDCP in with the other DRM forms and they are much much different, particularly if we are talking about casual piracy. HDCP is an attempt to lock EVERYTHING down, 100% with no holes whatsoever. This is the only conclusion that makes sense, why? because joe public doesn't have the technical skill or even the patience to sit there and capture full uncompressed digital frames over a DVI line along with the 5.1 channel digital track, then put them into some kind of editor and sync the two, re-compress it and hand it out to a friend. The scenarios one can come up with that are at all plausible in which joe public is being stopped from casual piracy by HDCP are all equally absurd, because that isn't what HDCP is for. HDCP is an irrational overreaction to a non-existent problem, users capturing digital HD content casually in their houses and passing them around. Whats more, AACS and BD+ are both broken from a standpoint of preventing these things from ending up on the internet, and in fact will be broken most of the time even for preventing casual piracy, so there is not now, nor will there ever be a need for people to go to the trouble of capturing DVI signals just to give copies to friends.
In all the years I've owned DVD, the DRM involved never got in the way of me enjoying the movies on the disc the way that Apple's Fairplay has with music. I can't play those movies on any non-Apple product. I can easily take that DVD out of my Sony PS3 and go upstairs and enjoy it on my Pioneer DVD player. In the year and a half I've bought Blu-Ray discs, the DRM has never gotten in my way.
DVD never bothered me either because it just trys to keep the movie on the disc, it doesn't try to limit who can play it, doesn't limit your resale rights, doesn't suddenly stop playing because your monitor is too old etc.
DVD never bothered me either because it just trys to keep the movie on the disc, it doesn't try to limit who can play it, doesn't limit your resale rights, doesn't suddenly stop playing because your monitor is too old etc.
That is only true because the DVD CSS encryption was hacked long ago, and DVD players are cheap. When DVDs first came out I was a Linux user, and even though I had a DVD drive in my computer, I couldn't watch DVDs on it because of the encryption. DVDs definitely attempt to limit who can play them, its just that their efforts were long ago foiled.
That is only true because the DVD CSS encryption was hacked long ago, and DVD players are cheap. When DVDs first came out I was a Linux user, and even though I had a DVD drive in my computer, I couldn't watch DVDs on it because of the encryption. DVDs definitely attempt to limit who can play them, its just that their efforts were long ago foiled.
Sure, but that is much different than literally linking a copy of a movie to one person, which is what fairplay does. You can sell the DVD to someone after watching with no problem. Can't do that with fairplay stuff, can't even loan it to someone.
You are lumping HDCP in with the other DRM forms and they are much much different, particularly if we are talking about casual piracy. HDCP is an attempt to lock EVERYTHING down, 100% with no holes whatsoever. This is the only conclusion that makes sense, why? because joe public doesn't have the technical skill or even the patience to sit there and capture full uncompressed digital frames over a DVI line along with the 5.1 channel digital track, then put them into some kind of editor and sync the two, re-compress it and hand it out to a friend. The scenarios one can come up with that are at all plausible in which joe public is being stopped from casual piracy by HDCP are all equally absurd, because that isn't what HDCP is for. HDCP is an irrational overreaction to a non-existent problem, users capturing digital HD content casually in their houses and passing them around. Whats more, AACS and BD+ are both broken from a standpoint of preventing these things from ending up on the internet, and in fact will be broken most of the time even for preventing casual piracy, so there is not now, nor will there ever be a need for people to go to the trouble of capturing DVI signals just to give copies to friends.
Good point. I was lumping HDCP and FairPlay-type DRM together. One (Fairplay, CSS, etc) attempt to prevent you from sharing the digital file, the other (HDCP) prevents you from capturing a stream. Once you've broken the first method and free software tools become available (ie, Handbrake for CSS) it's trivial to begin illegally sharing the content. But even if HDCP is broken, or didn't exist in the first place, there is still a huge barrier to overcome. At a minimum, you'd likely need to obtain some specialized hardware to capture the stream. That alone would probably stop most "casual theft."
I for one would like to know what Apple's overall strategy is. For music, it appears they are moving to no DRM at all. This makes sense because pretty much all music is available on CDs which can be easily ripped, and even the slowest internet connection is adequate to download pirated music files. No DRM, higher quality than on illegal download sites and a reasonable price makes DRM-free music a viable business model.
Video is a different story. Even VHS tapes have Macrovision. So we've been living with DRM on video for quite some time. But with VHS and DVD, it was exchangable, resellable, bequeathable. And you could take it to a friend's house to watch. This is where it all really breaks down. After I've accumulated $100s in purchased video it all expires when I do!
I'll buy the occassional TV show if I've missed an episode (only because there is no option to rent TV shows). And I have no problem renting movies regardless of any DRM restrictions since it's cheap and disposable. But I'll continue to only purchase movies on disc until they've figured out the portability and transferability of the content. Which, BTW, has little or nothing do with the HDCP!
I wonder how many people are happy with the alternative to DRM:
- The police kicking in doors, searching our homes, and arresting housewives and children
- The government shutting down popular online services used for legitimate purposes
- Universities having to work for the police in sniffing their networks and forced to provide RIAA-friendly services
- The TSA demanding our passwords to search through our most private files
The RIAA will pursue both DRM and the police-state options until one is found to be most effective. If DRM can be made seamless and match a modern definition of fair use, then it will become the default for ordinary law-abiding citizens and then, maybe, we can go back to being treated like law-abiding citizens.
I think the transition from SD to HD is being used as a kind of ground zero for HDCP implementation. Once DRM has become the default, then distributors will start to compete on the ease of use factor, an area where Apple excel.
Talk about fatalism. We're not doomed to choose between broken DRM-schemes or police state dystopia. And even if DRM could be made into a seamless experience(which I find quite unlikely), what makes you think that the RIAA would hand over its power and dismantle its threats, its lobbyism, its corporativistic strong-arming? Simply, there would soon be a new threat emerging. It is completely possible to tame the beast that RIAA has become, given enough political will. DRM has already failed as a business model for music and will probably do so for video, too. Streaming/renting might be different, or it might not.
From what I understand, users were never able to watch the high def itunes movies on their computer, they could only do that through apple tv. If they can do that now, that's a good thing.
While I hate HDCP, it doesn't make sense for Apple to hold out if everyone else complies with it. It would only mean that mac users would not have access to high def content. Of course adding HDCP also signals a certain bag of hurt coming to the mac fairly soon (maybe).
You are lumping HDCP in with the other DRM forms and they are much much different, particularly if we are talking about casual piracy. HDCP is an attempt to lock EVERYTHING down, 100% with no holes whatsoever. This is the only conclusion that makes sense, why? because joe public doesn't have the technical skill or even the patience to sit there and capture full uncompressed digital frames over a DVI line along with the 5.1 channel digital track, then put them into some kind of editor and sync the two, re-compress it and hand it out to a friend. The scenarios one can come up with that are at all plausible in which joe public is being stopped from casual piracy by HDCP are all equally absurd, because that isn't what HDCP is for. HDCP is an irrational overreaction to a non-existent problem, users capturing digital HD content casually in their houses and passing them around. Whats more, AACS and BD+ are both broken from a standpoint of preventing these things from ending up on the internet, and in fact will be broken most of the time even for preventing casual piracy, so there is not now, nor will there ever be a need for people to go to the trouble of capturing DVI signals just to give copies to friends.
DVD never bothered me either because it just trys to keep the movie on the disc, it doesn't try to limit who can play it, doesn't limit your resale rights, doesn't suddenly stop playing because your monitor is too old etc.
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
It all comes down to making it harder to pirate things. Yes, for the hard-core pirates it won't matter, but for the casual DRM/copy protection of whatever type may make some difference. Even it's only a 5% difference, that's still an improvement.
Even if it stops nothing, HDCP should be transparent to about 99% of the populace. Just like the copy protection on DVD and Blu-Ray is transparent to 99% of the people. And the 1% it isn't transparent to are exactly the people the movie studios don't want it to be transparent to. If Apple had implement HDCP correctly, it would have been transparent and not stopped people from playing videos on older monitors either. Which is exactly what this update fixed, Apple's messed up implementation.
From what I understand, users were never able to watch the high def itunes movies on their computer, they could only do that through apple tv. If they can do that now, that's a good thing.
[QUOTE]
No HD movies on Macs yet, not even with the new MacBooks. But this is probably laying the ground work for it. Perhaps a January MacWorld announcement?
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
Joe Public doesn't know such devices exist, doesn't know where to get one and probably couldn't operate one even if he had it. I have never seen a device actually capable of capturing the uncompressed frames and putting it on something usable. If we are talking about HD here, thats hundreds of gigabytes of video alone.
Then you have the issue of what to do with that huge file, it does in fact have to be recompressed somewhere, and at that point syncing it to the audio is an issue if a minor one.
Joe public can't do that stuff. Give joe public a 1.5tb drive with an uncompressed digital copy of an HD movie and he wouldn't know what to do with it, and thats AFTER getting around the capture problem.
It's a non-existent problem, joe public, nor hardcore pirates, were ever going to be going this route for any sort of piracy, not casual, not internet based, not commercial. It is in fact easier to crack the encryption and get the original copy off the blu-ray disc, and it is much easier to get around fairplay, so implementing HDCP for iTunes stuff is simply absurd, no one was ever going to try to capture it in the first place.
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
It all comes down to making it harder to pirate things. Yes, for the hard-core pirates it won't matter, but for the casual DRM/copy protection of whatever type may make some difference. Even it's only a 5% difference, that's still an improvement.
Even if it stops nothing, HDCP should be transparent to about 99% of the populace. Just like the copy protection on DVD and Blu-Ray is transparent to 99% of the people. And the 1% it isn't transparent to are exactly the people the movie studios don't want it to be transparent to. If Apple had implement HDCP correctly, it would have been transparent and not stopped people from playing videos on older monitors either. Which is exactly what this update fixed, Apple's messed up implementation.
Where are the rights of the consumer though? Why can I not copy my movies to my computer for my personal use? Of course I can get around copy protection with handbrake, but that is not my point. It shouldn't be there in the first place, I should be able to insert my movies and import them in itunes just like I do with CD's. If DRM is to be effective, it must stop everyone from copying it, it only takes one copy to become a torrent, which is then available to everyone. In the end, DRM only makes things tougher for the paying consumer, with a negligible (imo) reduction in the number of people copying the product.
I do not agree that a 5% reduction (if that's what it is) in people stealing the media is worth the tradeoff of the freedom of the paying consumer (even if it is transparent to most). That 5% decrease in pirating will not represent a 5% increase in sales as most people will simply not aquire the media at all if they can't get it for free.
On the topic of HDCP, it will never be transparent. There is a licensing fee, so that cost will always be passed on to the consumer. When did watching the media you lawfully purchased become a privilage?
Unfortunately, as I said in my last post, Apple has little choice but to comply, or else mac users will not get to see content in high definition.
From what I understand, users were never able to watch the high def itunes movies on their computer, they could only do that through apple tv. If they can do that now, that's a good thing.
No HD movies on Macs yet, not even with the new MacBooks. But this is probably laying the ground work for it. Perhaps a January MacWorld announcement?
Good to know, I do believe that will be the direction they go though, as it makes sense.
Eitherway, I don't download from itunes due to the other forms of DRM. Until it is gone, I will continue to purchase physical media.
HDMI (and the full DisplayPort spec) is capable of delivering both audio and video simultaneously, thus there would be no need to resync as you stated. Really, without HDCP, all it would come down to is plugging the cable into any number of devices capable of recording audio and video. Not the rocket science you are trying to turn it into.
HDMI/DisplayPort deliver uncompressed, demuxed audio and video. You would either have to store a boatload of uncompressed data (where I suspect you might have sync issues when you went to put the A/V back together) or resync and recompress them on the fly. Maybe not rocket science, but non-trivial given most people's home computer hardware.
Last I checked, hardware to capture just digital video off of DVI was not cheap and limited in the resolution it could capture. No integrated audio support, and they tended to do frame-by-frame capture, so you'd have to put the frames back into a more typical format.
If you have a list of "any number of devices capable of recording audio and video" from HDMI, please post.
Apple is complicit in all this as well, they implemented the system for iTunes, they sell the content and make some amount of money on it, and such content makes their own hardware more attractive.
you do realize that in some cases, Apple isn't given a choice. if the record labels and studios want something and don't get it they can always pull out of itunes. which would hurt Apple seriously and the content companies know this.
not unlike ATT being allowed to change the rules on iphone set up and force activation at time of purchase. Apple likely doesn't care that much since they don't see the bulk of the monthly fees but their deal with ATT puts them in a tight spot on the issue and they have to give in.
There is already a major shift in social consciousness towards digital freedom. Freedom of information, freedom to hear music, freedom of humanity.
The days of suing 5 year old girls because they sang 'Happy Birthday', are over.
The best and brightest musicians are doing it themselves now. Besides, who listens to top 40 RIAA crap anymore? Or to the radio for music?
Video equipment is getting better and better, cheaper and cheaper, and special effects can be done on a home computer. Small movie studio's are popping up all over the place.
Like Metallica, Hollywood is becoming more and more irrelevant. Video games are taking over movies as a source of entertainment.
All that DRM does is continue to drive people towards a new shift in consciousness. People want music back. They are pissed that it was hi-jacked by big business. Just look at what they did to online radio.
Besides, people have better things to do then read 50 pages of disclaimers to watch a movie. Disclaimer on your OS, Disclaimer on iTunes, Disclaimer on setting up iTunes account, Disclaimer on renting iTunes movie. Disclaimer on dvd software, disclaimer on Quicktime software, disclaimer on movie, disclaimer on 'Handbrake' or Mac the ripper if you want to watch it on your ipod, disclaimers on everything.
Much easier to download a torrent and ignore the disclaimers. Besides, what municipality has the funds to hire police to investigate and kick down doors to arrest women and children for downloading a song?
The cat is out of the bag, and there is no chance he's going back in.
Video games are taking over movies as a source of entertainment.
I was with you up until this sentence. Unless you're referring to useless popcorn action summer blockbuster trash, what the hell are you going on about? I'm a gamer myself, but "games are taking over movies"? That's either a load of ignorant nonsense or just a very frightening prospect.