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This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Author
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Topic: Let the HD DVD format wars begin...
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-29-2005 01:08 AM
Here's yet another news item to show many of the people working on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are idiots:
Link to Article
quote:
Most Monitors Won't Play New HD Video
Vista's content protection will block or blur high-def movies on today's displays.
Scott Spanbauer
From the November 2005 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Tuesday, October 04, 2005
If you dropped a bundle on a high-end computer display or HDTV, you could be in for an unpleasant surprise when you slip your new high-definition DVD of Star Wars: Episode III into your Windows Vista PC. Vista, the next version of Windows that's slated to appear in about a year, will feature a new systemwide content protection scheme called PVP-OPM (see box below). If your monitor doesn't work with PVP-OPM, all you'll likely see is either a fuzzy rendition of your high-def flick or Hollywood's version of the Blue Screen of Death--a message warning you that the display has been 'revoked'.
High-Def Hard-Liners
Forthcoming Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs promise higher resolution than a standard DVD's 480-line maximum. But to protect its high-quality content from pirating, the film industry, along with disc and hardware makers, has created an umbrella content protection scheme known as AACS. If Windows is to play the new discs, Microsoft has little choice but to support AACS, which is where PVP-OPM comes in. According to Microsoft, PVP-OPM will prevent pirates from attaching recording devices directly to the PC graphics card's DVI or HDMI video outputs in order to capture a pristine digital copy of the disc's otherwise encrypted content. A related component, PVP-UAB, will prevent savvy computer owners from installing data capture cards in order to grab high-def movies straight off the PCI Express bus.
Unfortunately, PVP-OPM will also shut out plenty of law-abiding video watchers whose current displays aren't future-proof. To comply with the film industry's protection scheme, PVP-OPM employs HDCP technology to determine whether graphics boards and displays are allowed to output and display high-def video. If HDCP sees a blocked display (such as a video capture device) or one that does not support HDCP (including any HDTV with only analog connectors), it prevents output or reduces the video resolution until the offending display or protected content is removed from the system.
Costly Upgrades
If that scenario sounds disturbing, it gets worse: Few existing wide-screen desktop displays support HDCP. If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of current wide-screen desktop display owners, you can probably forget about viewing Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs on your nearly new (and far from cheap) monitor. To watch high-def content, you'll likely have to upgrade your monitor. A handful of HDCP-compliant displays from NEC, Samsung, Sony, and ViewSonic are just starting to appear, according to market research firm iSuppli. And manufacturers such as Dell have plans to incorporate HDCP support into future wide-screen displays, though details are scarce.
Think you could avoid this expense by sticking with XP? No such luck. To see HD, you'll have to upgrade to Windows Vista as well; Windows XP's security and driver models lack the ability to support HDCP. Consumers intent on viewing HD discs via their PCs will have little choice but to spring for the new operating system in addition to an HDCP-compliant monitor.
Okay.
Now let me get this straight. The HDCP requirement (on DVI and HDMI connections) effectively locks out about 75% of existing HDTV set owners and any existing computer systems.
The math on this does not look very good.
Now, I called the folks doing the decision making on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray idiots. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but there has to be some explanation for the giant detail they overlooked:
You need to have a market in place, or in other words an ample supply of potential customers willing to buy HD-DVD players or Blu-Ray players when the format is launched.
If you're going to lock out every computer user and anyone who bought a HDTV before 2004 you're not going to be able to forecast any rosy format launch sales numbers. Not very many people are going to be willing to shit can their computer system or existing HDTV to watch a new disc based video format. We already have DVD, and for many people that may be just fine.
To wit, check the shit sales of DVD-A and SACD. I don't exactly see the music store shelves brimming with DVD-A and SACD content. The 20+ year old Red Book CD standard still seems to be by far the defacto standard for physical music disc sales.
Honestly, I hope both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray lay a big goose egg and provide their backers an infinite amount of humiliation. Once a few corporate honchos "fall on their swords" and a few other heads roll Sony, Toshiba and the Hollywood studios will go back to the drawing board and actually make a player people are willing to buy.
However, by the time that happens (let's say around 2010) Bill Gates' prediction may come true. He says Blu Ray and HD-DVD will be the last physical disc formats used to sell movies. By the end of the decade he predicts most of us will buy our movies online via next generation broadband connections. We'll either just watch video on demand or store the movies we want to keep on giant capacity hard discs (boasting stuff like perpendicular recording).
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