Hi Everyone & Martin, Many thanks for the informative article Martin, and in reading this I cannot help but think that once again the poor consumer is being squeezed of every drop of blood by those multi-billion $$$$ conglomerates.
Although consumers like to think they are driving the process that will decide on which format/system will prevail, in reality we are just being taken to the cleaners but made to believe we are going there voluntarily!! I'm just waiting patiently to see which way it will go, and similarly to you, Martin, only see one big advantage in that more data can be saved to the blu-ray discs. Regards all, Philippe C. on 21/8/07 10:37 PM, Martin Hill at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Frankly, many people (including Mike Evangelist, Apple's "Mr Final > Cut Pro") are planning to avoid both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray not just > because it is Beta vs VHS all over, but because they both have the > particularly draconian AACS Digital Rights Management (DRM) > technologies built-in which are already causing problems in regular > day-to-day use. > > http://writersblocklive.com/part-156/all-comments/ > > http://blog.hishamrana.com/2006/03/05/boycott-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-over- > aacs-part-1/ > > For instance, if you have say a nice 23" LCD computer monitor or a > big LCD or plasma HDTV etc that doesn't have HDCP & HDMI built-in > (which is pretty much all current Apple screens and many older big > flat screen TVs) or a video card that doesn't do HDCP then the Blu- > ray or HD-DVD player will potentially degrade the quality of the > video down to plain old standard definition video or even just go > black because it can't be guaranteed a protected path for the display > of full quality HD media. Only Dell 20" and 24" LCD screens made > this year have HDCP so my lovely 24" Dell LCD purchased last year > won't cut the mustard. Grrr. > > http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070121-8665.html > > And don't think you'll necessarily be able to copy or stream the > movie from your legally purchased HD-DVD or Blu-ray disc over to your > video iPod or iPhone or cheap media player or home media centre Mac/ > PC unless all devices and discs support HDCP and "managed copy". > Even if everything works, there's no guarantee you won't have to pay > extra for the "privilege". > > The technology also has all sorts of "smarts" to detect hacking of > the hardware or software which will also trigger the degraded > playback format. Trouble is, even fluctuations in voltage or other > common glitches in hardware or firmware could potentially cause this > to happen as has already happened with the PS3 and some HDTVs. > > Apparently the new Aluminium iMacs have HDCP hardware built-in (on > the video card I think), but all older Macs will have problems > playing Blu-ray or HD-DVD movies. Not to mention the fact that Apple > has not yet decided to join the HD DRM love-fest and has yet to > include either flavour of HD drive into any Mac or support AACS in > software. Of course, Microsoft has built AACS DRM to the N-th degree > into Vista. > > There is also an "analog sunset" built-into the specification that > means come 2012 the devices will shut off the ability to output a > higher-res analog signal meaning your old monitor or HDTV will stop > being able to play 540p video and will only play 480i quality video > (lower than many current DVD players), so yet again, you'll be forced > to buy a new HDCP-equipped screen or computer. > > Here's hoping Apple succeeds in bringing Hi-Def movies to the iTunes > store with reasonable Fairplay DRM allowing us to bypass the whole > sorry next-gen DVD mess altogether. (about the only thing I wouldn't > mind a Blu-ray drive for is the 50GB capacity of dual-layer BD discs > for data storage.) > > AACS = Advanced Access Content System > HDMI = High Definition Media Interface > HDCP = High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection > > -Mart > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
