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64 Comments
- nightwing2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"For content owners counting on selling their libraries all over again on hi-def DVD..."
Worse yet, the longer it takes to "sort out" the more content I'll buy on plain old DVD. What are the odds I'll rebuy on HD or BluRay (aka "BluR")? My $3000 Sony TV has no digital input. I can't even buy an up-converting DVD player that feeds the component input, which is capable of 1080i. My other TV is a 37" LCD and has HDMI, but it's only 769x1280, so what's the point of buying a 1080i player or disc to watch on it? Having bought these two TVs in the last 4 years, what're the odds I'm going to shell out for another big TV?
My DVD collection is about 250 and growing. The longer I have to wait for a usable HD/BluR player and media, the more I'll buy or regular DVD. How much of that is so classic that I have to go back and re-purchase on HD/BluR? HD would have to be a mighty big improvement... I'm trying to imagine any content I "gotta have" on HD. I don't think it's sufficient improvement. I'll sit this one out until the SONY dies, then I'll see what's out there. - Gerz1219, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The marketplace will sort this out. Nobody will buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. They've pissed off millions of potential early adopters who still own perfectly good HD sets with only component connectors. Both of these formats will be relegated to SACD/DVD-A status for years to come, since most consumers consider SD DVD "good enough." The studios are just expecting billions to flow in when consumers repurchase their entire library, as though people are lemmings who feel a moral obligation to fork over thousands in disposable income to an industry which treats them like criminals. In the end, the more draconian measures will either have to be dropped (luckilly, the proposed next-gen DRM standards will allow them to do this), or the studios will put off trying to sell optical HD content for years to come.
- Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3>> "For content owners counting on selling their libraries all over again on hi-def DVD..."
That's the problem. The DVDs I have today look damn fine on my SD TV, and they look even better on my monitor. Hell, even DVD rips look genuinely awesome on my TV. If you're going to ***** me just so I can have the privilege of paying you all over for what I already have and enjoy, you're stupid.
If you have to rehash your old wares every few years to stay in business, you need to bring something new to the table. Don't punish ME because YOU can't get off your ass and produce something worth buying. - conigs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Here's the real problem, though:
If (when) the HD discs (HD-DVD & Blu-Ray) fail to sell in the numbers they are expecting, they will blame it on piracy, and pursue even harsher copy protection measures. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"zybch...seriously...don't talk again. For your own good. You make yourslef look stupid.
The number of people who use iTunes is INSIGNIFICANT compred to the number of people who pirate."
True, but those people who have just passed the 1 billionth downloaded and paid for song over iTunes could easily get their music via P2P, but didn't. Its the same with those crappy TV shows like Lost that ppl are paying a couple of bucks for rather than using bit torrent etc to get for free.
Certainly, the paid for options are, at best, a drop in the ocean, but that drop is rapidly getting bigger.
If you give people the opportunity to do the right thing, an awful lot of people will do just that. Not everyone of course, there are those who wouldn't buy a track legally to save their mother's life, but the music industry hasn't lost a dime from these people, because they'd never have bought the original CD anyway. - johnjreiser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It should be common sense that people aren't going to purchase items that decrease their utility.
The iPod is successful because the looser DRM + huge selection of music for purchase = a higher level of utility than a competing product that has a much more restrictive DRM.
Right now, people can freely record TV, provided they have VCRs and tape. If Tivo becomes less useful because it has unusable limits on recording length or deletes items after a certain time (which it's starting to do) people will resort to some other means. - Raldikuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Hunt said the marketplace would ultimately sort it out." And they wonder why people pirate movies.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow now maybe MPAA/RIAA will get it.
People won’t buy or even understand why there over priced tech toys won’t play or convert share or transform the content they have or paid for people will be pissed.
Keep writing letters to manufactures about how you will not be buying there
Next Shinny tech toy if they cause it to malfunction because of DRM.
Let content providers know they can just keep those CD’s and DVD’s on the shelf
Because you wont be buying them because of Restrictive DRM.
Did you buy a tech toy and found out that it sucked because of DRM features.
Return it and let the store know why and let the makers know why.
Did you buy a tech toy and found that it could not be hooked up to your existing.
Entertainment system because of DRM features. Vote with your feet and return it. - MrTea, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2IMO, they should have never started this encryption mess in the first place. The average person would never wait for 4 - 8 hours to download major motion picture illegally, only to wait another couple hours to convert the movie into a DVD format, and 10 - 30mins to burn it DVD-R media.
- SparQy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2
How can you argue that the market will sort itself out, and profess faith in the free market economics, then go on a lawsuit campaign when HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of potential consumers resort to piracy?
PIRACY = BROKEN BUSINESS MODEL. - stokestack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This entire "problem" is a LIE, and ignorant comments like this don't help:
"But it's fairly easy to record that signal onto pirated disks nearly as good as the hi-def original"
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Once the signal gets to analog (or even DVI), it's UNCOMPRESSED. It has just lost its ready piratability because the data-throughput and storage requirements to capture it are now massive. Uncompressing the signal as it leaves the playback device is the best copy protection they can hope for, which means DVI and analog component are FINE ALREADY.
Publishers just keep the lies coming. If their thesis is that "perfect" copies are the reason for piracy (and it has been their thesis been since DAT), then MP3s and the "analog hole" DON'T PRESENT A THREAT, because these conduits require recompression and major degradation of the media. - Inthraller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1and by "sort it out", he means "those who bought HDTVs without the digital input will realize they were screwed."
Honestly, looking at HDTVs, I'm not really that impressed. I'm probably gonna wait this whole thing out for a year or two (maybe even more) and see where everything stands. - edrift101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"One questioner asked who would be responsible for the extensive consumer education needed. Hunt's answer -- that he hoped retailers would do it -- drew dubious groans."
The yahoo's down at Best Buy will totally be able to take care of this... I'm not buying into either format. - cluelessgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Making a profit on content that costs money to produce is a requirement to give the content producer reason to produce the content in the first place (I believe everyone here understands that). DRM is a measure to attempt to force consumers to pay the content cost set by (for all intents and purposes) a monopoly. The real issue is what a free and open market would say the cost should be. If the cost is significantly higher than what the market would naturally set, expect your DRM to be broken and (relatively) honest consumers to avoid paying for the content whenever they can. If the cost is fair, DRM is unnecessary because the vast majority of consumers will voluntarily stay honest by paying for the content. The current state of affairs has come about because the cost of content in general has been set too high by a system where the consumer had little or no input over what price is fair. Guess what, the environment is changing. Consumers (that's you) are gaining more ability to "vote" whether they consider the cost to be fair. So far, it looks like the nays have it.
- jboi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It think the gaming industry is killing the movie industry much faster then piracy is.
Games these days are much more exciting then the avarage film. Xbox & playstation are quietly taking the place of our DVD players - rebrad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These old men have lost it completely. It seems that Alzheimer's is an epidemic in Hollowood. Didn't Circuit City try something like this with their self-destructing DVDs. That didn't last a year. I recommend that the old guys at the MPAA visit Oregon where suicide can be painless.
- gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know I wouldn't like it if the distributors of my content made it broken so that a good percentage of those who might have purchased it can't get it to work and get pissed off and stop buying my stuff because of it...
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1so my question is this... if the movie trade organization is not doing what its members want... why don't they fire them?
- aggies11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Not as good news as you'd hope.
Hollywood is unhappy because they WANT their content to be bullet proof, locked up tighter than fort nox. They just dont' want to have to be the ones to deal with the consumer. They know a confused consumer will not buy their products. But that doesn't mean they have our best interests at heart. If there was a way to strip us of all our rights/freedoms, while not confusing us, they'd do it in a heart beat.
Aggies - Azlen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Here's the real problem, though:
If (when) the HD discs (HD-DVD & Blu-Ray) fail to sell in the numbers they are expecting, they will blame it on piracy, and pursue even harsher copy protection measures."
I don't necessarily see this. It'll be the players rather than the media that will fail to sell, and they won't be able to blame piracy for that. - astx813, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My thoughts, exactly, Raldikuk. And he's RIGHT! Pirating is how the marketplace sorts it (or fails to sort it) out. Won't it be nice (and kinda sad) when the movie studios and the bands end up being the driving force that gets the MP&RI AAs to stop behaving like fools?
- archanoid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can someone help me here? If I buy one quality DLP Projector, one quality screen, one quality DVD player, one decent HDTV decoder, a good 5.1 speaker set, and one A/V "head end" to plug them all together TODAY, how the hell would their new scheme benefit me in any way? How would it limit me? Would I not be able to watch HDTV OTA broadcasts if they get their crap in place? Would it immediately obsolete all my DVDs, and make OTA HDTV broadcasts undecodable by my existing decoder? I don't get it.
I'm seriously considering setting up a home theater like this now. I already have a decent [whatever you call the unit you plug your DVD player, CD player, VCR, Cable, speakers, etc. into to switch between functions], and the 5 part of the 5.1 speaker setup (still need to buy a subwoofer). I have been spec'ing DLP projectors and screens and the price is coming way down making this much more affordable.
I don't give a crap if I can't watch new releases on BluRay or HD-DVD because I already have a "not too shabby" collection of DVDs. But what about once the HDTV mandatory cutover for broadcast TV hits? Will I no longer be able to watch the local news if I don't buy wholly into their analog hole blocking system?
Oh, and one other question: does anybody know if the quality of the image projected in an actual movie theater (not IMAX, just your standard movie theater) is a higher resolution than standard DVD content? Even if it is, considering it's projected on a much larger screen than I would have in my house, would the viewing experience be *that* noticably degraded watching standard DVDs on my own home 106" screen, for instance? - JinkyHinge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wrote this long post with well thought out and researched links, only to have it dissapear. Should have cut and pasted. Anyhow, look at the MPAA and the companies that are involved. Then look at who owns those companies. Then look at how many TV stations, News papers, Movies, Books..almost all of the media comes through these guys.
What the MPAA wants, it will get. We can not change the MPAA or these companies, we can only change the FCC. The FCC auctions off the broadcast frequencies to these companies which I believe is supposed to go into our national treausry. However, the plan in the works is going to take at least a billion dollars of the money that companies are spending on these frequencies and putting it towards subsidizing the adoption of HDTV into peoples homes. This part is going to be simply the Digital to Analog converter to allow people to watch HDTV broadcasts on older TV. If MPAA isn't happy with this technology, and sees it as a little stepping stone towards the complete digital DRM solution - why are WE footing the bill?
We can hate sony, WB, the MPAA and the RIAA.. but our true channel to changing these regulations is the FCC. It's time to start examining who is working in the FCC, where they are taking us, why they are taking us this way.. - Ignathius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2they can't sell it because the MPAA is full of *****, and even hollywood can see this.
- kilofox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The underlying factor of piracy is still one of self greed.
"Why should I pay for something when I can get it for free?"
While I believe that most people posting here have very valid gripes about DRM and quality... and would purchase music digitally if it were of a quality and usablilty they wanted.
However, I believe they are in the minority. Why? People can give all the lip service they want about what they do and would do when buying music... they still consult their wallet first. Thats the leading cause of piracy... saying otherwise is just ignoring human nature. When it comes to my wallet I can be as greedy as the RIAA or MPAA. - duke_nate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Here's the real problem, though:
If (when) the HD discs (HD-DVD & Blu-Ray) fail to sell in the numbers they are expecting, they will blame it on piracy, and pursue even harsher copy protection measures."
And then they wont be selling ANYTHING because no one will be able to get it to work. As far as im concerned they can sit on their Fing HD content and watch their profits hit the floor. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0When will the MPAA/RIAA and their friends reliase that people don't actually want to pirate movies/music if they don't have to.
iTMS is proof of this.
Where a reasonably priced alternative exists (iTMS, Netflix etc) people will use it.
Forcing people to ditch their recently purchased HDTVs/projectors because the movie industry can't get its act together and drag itself into the 21st century is totaly unnacceptable.
A better reason for people to continue to pirate movies I can't think of! - jaysedai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0From the article: "And he conceded to Variety later, 'They raised some interesting and valid points.'"
As if these concerns were new. Many of us have been screaming this from the tops of our lungs for going on 5 years, and just now he's seing these 'interesting and valid points'. What an idiot! - sophiaperennis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The problem for the MPAA is not content protection, that is simply a cover-up for their real concern: domination of licensing their DRM technology to the hardware vendors to support it, and when hard-media (discs) is no longer required, do the same online.
- vannyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They should just leave the anolog hole alone, It will sort itself out. why would i spen 5000 on a TV only to watch Bootlegs on it. Doesnt make sense. unless the HD or Blue ray DVD is going to cost way too much. If i spent 5000 on the TV im going to get the damn best player and Damn best content to watch it. Im not going to go to 5 dollor DVD charle for a below standard copy , even if it looks better than todays DVD.
- Deradorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have over 400 movies i bought on VHS tape over the years that I would never re buy on DVD what makes them think I'm going to re buy them on HD or Bluray at most i might buy 1 or 2 favorites the MPAA is crazy
- breakspirit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh God, I can only see this getting worse over time....
- jinexile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0nightwing, look into Hymn, google->I feel lucky
- drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ya not to mention TV these days suck. So if anything I will just stick copying DVDs to my machine. Wait for them to realize that nobody is buying $1000+ TVs, $500+ Disc players (unbelievable that they still want a physical media), and $20-$30 discs while in the end all of this is guarded with incredibly complicated protection schemes that are bound to make half of this stuff incomptable anyways...
Lets also not forget that the crap they have been releasing recently blows and I honestly don't go the movies much anymore. The industry as a whole admitted that revenue is down because less people are interested in the crap being released. This is mainly because hollywood is afraid to try things outside the box (Like "What the $#%@ do we know?") and instead use the same schemes that are boring people now and instead of fixing the problem by creating good movies that make people want to buy them, they are obsessed with copy protecting the crap they produce.
So digg members, our responsiblity is to tell the average consumers using our unique position that they should not upgrade their TVs or anything until a year or two after these new technologies are sorted out. If nobody upgrades then the corporations who wanted this ***** so badly will have put so much money into it with no return and that will result in them going bankrupt (I would love a world free of Sony). - Cerberus047, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"zybch...seriously...don't talk again. For your own good. You make yourslef look stupid.
The number of people who use iTunes is INSIGNIFICANT compred to the number of people who pirate."
Buut the majority of the people who pirate arent going to buy the cd anyway plus lots of people go to the concerts if they like the artists and its a great way to get the name out if your a struggling artist... and the number of people who use itunes is massive, and piracy has forced artists and movie companys to realize that people now know whats on cds and we wont pay money for crap like 12 dollars a cd with one good song on it... itunes is great becuase it opens the door to other buinsess models like that:digital. not this hard media that they keep trying to shove down our throughts. its ridiculus - nightwing2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0DRM???
I bought an iPod a year ago, but I still haven't bought any iTunes; it's not worth the hassle; they won't play on my other 2 MP3 players. Almost everything I want is out there as MP3 (Okay, so I'm a leech now...) or on my extensive CD collection, which rips just fine. It's not worth the hassle yet to re-record AAC as MP3 using the analog hole, I'm still looking for unlock software.
Meanwhile, maybe I'll start ripping my satellite service by the 4-hour block, then I can go back and chop it into individual songs... Let's hear it for the analog hole, the last defence against DRM. - themachina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Aggies,
You're right on the money. - gcpeart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@johnjreiser
John, your point is dead on, because not only are people choosing utility (from the DRM perspective and itunes convenience), they are in fact choosing utility in spite of the lower quality of the iTunes encoding. - oepapel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Yes, the quality of the analog movie reels is INFINITELY higher-res than even your 1080i DTV. No digital media can reproduce the resolution of pure analog."
This is not exactly true. Although technically analog, by definition, is a continuous function instead of a discrete function, that does not mean that it has infinite spatial or depth resolution. Even "pure" analog (whatever that is) has an inherent signal to noise ratio. So even a disembodied Analog signal can be represented in the digital domain without a drop in fidelity.
When you are talking about film, we can do even better. The picture is stored as the result of a photo-chemical reaction with the silver grains. Since photons travel in wave packets, they have discrete energy levels. The grains don't react in single photon increments either so this further limits the recording fidelity. Also, the energy level has an upper and lower bound whereby any more than the maximum or any less than the minimum will not produce a different chemical response in the silver grains, effectively clipping the signal. The grains themselves determine a spatial resolution as does the point-to-point resolution of the optical system which is determined by the Numerical Aperture of the lens and the wavelength of light captured.
So now that we have determined the theoretical limits of film, we can start sampling. The spatial resolution of the sampling must be at least twice that of the theoretical limit according to the Nyquist sampling theorem. The number of bits per sample is determined by the signal to noise ratio of the photo-chemical response of the film.
The digital domain version of the film can therefore capture all of the fidelity of the original and it will not degrade. Sampling any higher resolution or using more bits per sample is just "empty magnification".
And that is why the world is going digital. - the1casey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That does it. I'm not buying any new equipment for the next 20 years. Like N.W.A. said about 15 years ago "***** the MPAA"... or was it the police?
- RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Also, as others have said, piracy is about more than getting something for free. It's an expression of resentment toward the industry that keeps making it more difficult to be an honest consumer. It's looking more and more like the industry would rather burn itself to the ground than reform itself and start respecting its customers.
- cduquette, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Consumers want a standard that will last. My parents didn't buy a DVD player right away because they saw it as a VHS tape that had chapter selection and bonus features. They argued they just wanted to watch the movie from start to finish and that was it. Now 6 years later try selling them a HD-DVD player.. good luck. Better visual quality isn't going to be enough to make mainstream people run out and buy a HDTV and a player to make the switch.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The MPAA and DRM are going to kill Hollywood. No one wants to buy cripped hardware, or products that spy on them or dictate how they should be used. With that kind of overhead, they're now better off with pirated versions!
Someone who buys a game can't play without swapping discs, someone who buys a DVD can't load it onto his iPox, you can't even record a copy of a TV show to a computer that you paid for with your monthly cable or satellite bill. What's the difference between that and recording it to DVR? Now everyone is treated like a criminal. Never mind that you have to *BUY* all this new hardware to replace perfectly good hardware that is available now. - RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'll grudgingly digg this because it is important to note how the **AA problem is finally reaching the level of the popular press. Before it was just the "geek culture" sites. Now Variety is talking about it.
However, the article really does suck. It's doesn't mention any of the actual concerns that the proposed tech raises. I know this is just Variety mag but how about actually informing consumers about how consumers will be screwed? - Cerberus047, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Here's the real problem, though:
If (when) the HD discs (HD-DVD & Blu-Ray) fail to sell in the numbers they are expecting, they will blame it on piracy, and pursue even harsher copy protection measures."
I don't necessarily see this. It'll be the players rather than the media that will fail to sell, and they won't be able to blame piracy for that.
They will blame it on the people who invented the converter that will let you play it on your analog hole or can rip it to your pc... but yeah im scared i think they will do this... or worse only make their dvds play on a special player that only they make OOHHHS NOOOOEESSS - SteveR4376, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The MPAA should stick to the movie industry and leave consumer electronics alone. If some of these crusty old farts in congress knew the difference between DRM and a hole in the ground we might have a chance at defeating this copy protection *****. And, if hollywood would just make their movies available at a reasonable cost with no copy protection to defeat the normal home user from making fair use of the movie, they would be in good shape. There are plenty of laws on the books that make pirating illegal, enforce them, don't assume I'm a criminal before the fact!
- mckinnej, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0oepapel: This is not exactly true. Although technically analog, by definition, is a continuous function instead of a discrete function, [...ad nauseum]
Spoken like a true uber geek who hasn't bothered to listen to live music or look at a real tree in years. We perceive the world in analog. That's why digital images, although very clear and crisp, somehow don't seem real. They are TOO clear and crisp. The world just doesn't look like that.
I personally get dizzy when I see the digital TVs on display. The images seem to strobe, which gives me a headache. I've read that some technologies are more prone to this than others, but I have yet to see one that doesn't do at all, except analog TVs of course.
More on topic with this thread, I'm envisioning a device that captures and stores the pixels on the screen in a digital format. This device would be attached to the TV screen. This would mean that anything that is shown on the screen can be recorded and stored in a digital format. Now, how are they going to copy protect that? Force us to put jacks into our brains and pump in the signals? Right... - oepapel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Spoken like a true uber geek who hasn't bothered to listen to live music or look at a real tree in years."
LOL! I'll take the geek reference as a compliment. As for looking at a tree, I'm looking at one now. And I frequently listen to live music since one of my best friends plays live at least once a week at local bars. Refute my arguments if you want but try and keep the comments about me at least outwardly polite.
"We perceive the world in analog. That's why digital images, although very clear and crisp, somehow don't seem real. They are TOO clear and crisp. The world just doesn't look like that."
The Original poster was arguing that analog was INFINITELY better than digital. Modern science just doesn't agree with this assessment. It's true some feel that analog somehow feels more real due to inherent imperfections. It's the same neurological effect that kicks in when we see something familiar. If you grew up with and are comfortable with analog, your brain will preferentially choose it. But that only serves to highlight the viewer's bias. Later generations that grow up entirely in digital will preferentially choose digital and will shake their head at a celluloid projection.
Every playback of an analog recording is different albeit slightly. These imperfections can get added back and frequently do. There are several movies that use digital effects subtley and convincingly that most people did not even realize that they just saw an effect. For those that crave analog's inherent variability, digital is there to provide.
"I personally get dizzy when I see the digital TVs on display. The images seem to strobe, which gives me a headache. I've read that some technologies are more prone to this than others, but I have yet to see one that doesn't do at all, except analog TVs of course."
My grandmother couldn't watch TV for more than 5 minutes without going to bed with a migraine. This is not a digital only phenomenon. Also, I doubt if you could tell the difference between a tube-based rear projection TV and a DLP-based rear projection TV. Other than the fact that the DLP TV is more expensive, of course. If you have an issue with a specific digital technology, switch to another (plasma, passive LCD, TFT LCD, LCOS, etc, etc). My grandmother had no such choice. Consider yourself lucky. - dasunst3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's about time that the producers of intellectual property realize that DRM and stuff like HDCP are definitely not the way to go. Now if only the RIAA would realize this... -.-
- kilofox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Make that music or video.....
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