[Ebby]

Originally Posted by HOM One of the unpublicized features of Blu Ray (don't know about HD-DVD) is that a new disc can brick a player if that player's DRM has been cracked

Legally they can not "brick" the DVD player. (As you so eloquently put it) What would happen is newer disks would be prevented from playing leaving the DVD player permanently "frozen in time". You run into all sorts of legal/financial obligations if the player stops doing what it is supposed to, but since this loophole in this system doesn't actually break the player, just stops it from using newer disks, it is seen as a compatibility issue so the MPAA frees its self from responsibility and doesn't owe you a thing to replace it.

[HOM]

Originally Posted by Ebby Legally they can not "brick" the DVD player. (As you so eloquently put it) What would happen is newer disks would be prevented from playing leaving the DVD player permanently "frozen in time". You run into all sorts of legal/financial obligations if the player stops doing what it is supposed to, but since this loophole in this system doesn't actually break the player, just stops it from using newer disks, it is seen as a compatibility issue so the MPAA frees its self from responsibility and doesn't owe you a thing to replace it.

According to Reuters via Engadet

On top of that, consumers should expect punishment for tinkering with their Blu-ray players, as many have done with current DVD players, for instance to remove regional coding. The new, Internet-connected and secure players will report any "hack" and the device can be disabled remotely.

And from http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1917210

"In an announcement (warning: links to a PDF) last night, the Blu-ray Disc Association, led by Sony, representing one of two competing high-definition DVD formats (the other being HD-DVD, led by Toshiba), stated it will simultaneously embrace digital watermarking, programmable cryptography, and a self-destruct code for Blu-ray disc players.

They can and will brick your player. You may own the hardware, but all of them are going to be sold under very restrictive EULAs that will included the manufacture's ability to be disable them.

[Ryan]

I'm curious, have shrinkwrap EULA's been tried in court yet? It seems that's what this would be. Open the box, agree to the terms. IANAL, but would a court upload an EULA that gave the MPAA permission to disable (one might be able to make an argument that it was damaged, I don't know how the copy protection on this one works) the player.

Also, I've read that these players will be networked. I wonder if it would be possible to trick the player into going to a different server? You could set up the player to connect through your computer and then set up the hosts file to redirect whatever IP it's supposed to connect to to localhost, and somehow forge the key it needs. Maybe if you let it connect once to the MPAA's servers and captured the packets?

Of course, I have no idea if this would work. I'm just thinking aloud...

[Robo]

I'm so close to just giving up on the whole HDTV thing. I mean, I'll get a cheap Samsung HDTV for games - that's the biggest graphical advantage of the next generation - but it's not like I was that eager to "upgrade" my DVD collection in the first place. This DRM bullshit is reaching critical mass.

I think I might send a letter to the MPAA, telling them quite vocally that they've DRM'd themself out of a customer. A huge videophile and movie collector, at that.

[Moogs]

They don't care. They know most people are sheep and will buy if they market enough and put enough fluffy language around their products. fuckin jerks

[Ebby]

Originally Posted by HOM They can and will brick your player. You may own the hardware, but all of them are going to be sold under very restrictive EULAs that will included the manufacture's ability to be disable them.

Ah! I see the confusion. In order to remotely brick your player, you need to physically attempt to hack or modify the hardware of your DVD player. They can't however stop your player from working if it is factory-sealed and unmodified just because someone across the world successfully hacked theirs.

[Moogs]

Advice needed: should I get the extended warranty from Abt? It's not a replacement plan, and dead pixels aren't covered unless it's a manufacturer defect (i.e. out of the box I think). 4 years, $249 on site service, but I think that means they just keep trying to repair it until they think it makes more sense to replace it (like Best Buy).

Or, standard 1 yr parts and labor, plus a 30 day return guarantee. My instinct says if anything is going to blip out on me, most likely it will be in the first 30 days of heavy use. Otherwise I think I can take it back to Abt for servicing.

Did you gets get extended plans on yours?

[Moogs]

Well we settled on the Sharp LC-26D6U as a short-term stop-gap. First impressions:

• Very nice build quality, attractive speaker-below-screen design

• Menu system very flexible but a little confusing in the signal setup area (more below)

• Manual does a poor job of describing cable set up options and when you should use which plugs, etc. There are three co-ax options and none of them are described well. Other parts of the manual detailed and useful.

• Some standard Def cable channels look blocky as expected. Network TV looks good.

• Movies look good, sports about the same as before but with better color.

• Graphics look excellent

• Widescreen DVDs are excellent. Fluid motion, crisp, amazing color

• Will keep you posted once we get DirecTV HD

Next set will probably be this one's big brother LC-37D6U, with whatever next year's variant is. Also the Sony WEGA LCD models (without the XBR) were very nice also. The XBR models too me seemed saturated almost to the point of being phony. It could've been a store setup issue but it just looked unnatural. All the other 20 or so sets were different variations on what appeared to be neutral colors but the XBR models were something different.

[MCQ]

That's good to hear Moogs. Heh, these things are expensive.

I'm a cheapskate, so I currently have a $150 HDTV tuner hooked up to my PC and watching on my 20" Dell LCD.

Anyone know if this HP is any good? Saw it via a link at Techbargains, it seemed cheap... doesn't mean it's necessarily a good value though.

http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4051474

[Moogs]

Regarding the HP, if you want a TV I would go with Sharp or Sony. I've done a lot of research and my impression is that computer-based LCDs look overly saturated when watching regular TV or movies. Sort of like the XBR thing. Samsung's TVs look this way, and it's not surprising considering they're a leader in PC LCDs.

Nothing wrong with going the inexpensive route though. We got the 26" model instead of the 32" because the costs are still pretty high. It would've been about 2 grand with a 4 year "anything covered but abuse, usually we replace it" policy. As it is, we spent about $1600. We went to a very good local retailer who specializes in home electronics, got them to price match another brick and mortar place from pricegrabber, then added the 4 year plan. So essentially we got the plan at no cost.

Normally we don't buy warranty stuff but to me this is still an immature technology and when it's this expensive and used every day, makes sense to get it. Chances are anything goes wrong and they come right to our house, take a look at the old one, and give us a new one. Can't beat it.

[Moogs]

I have a support email into Sharp about this, but I thought I'd ask here, too.

Can anyone think of a reason why, once or twice a day, our new LCD tv will turn itself off, then on again 5-10 seconds later? All the connections seem fine, the remotes are working properly and not being sat on, etc. And there's no line of site out windows for someone with a TV-B-Gone or similar gadget to turn the thing off. Sleep timer is also off. \

WTF DOT COM

Any ideas or similar experiences?

[Moogs]

No love for the Moogs... I'm starting to think it's an AC problem where static builds up and it automatically shuts itself off to discharge or something like that.

[alcimedes]

Throw it on a UPS.

[Moogs]

Well it's already hooked into an APS surge protector (one of the beefy kinds not the little wus-strips), but maybe I have too much stuff hooked into it (stereo amp for one, although the amp has never been turned on when this happens).

[alcimedes]

Surge protectors will protect from spikes, but not dips in power. A UPS will give clean, consistent power the entire time.

[Moogs]

Hmm. Good point. There's not a lot of room behind / under our entertainment, any model in particular you can recommend? 26" LCD with built-in speakers, simple DVD player, satellite box and then a big amp that will never be used at the same time as the TV....

Would this work?

[Ryan]

That's the theater I hope to build once I move. I might have to get a different projector, if the Sony doesn't come down in price enough by August or September.

The equipment rack and snack bar are both in a closet. I plan on getting an equipment rack on casters so that I can roll it out for access to the back. I'm not sure how that's going to work yet, though.

The snack bar will have a microwave and a mini-fridge. Mostly sodas and popcorn.

We'll be painting the room soon. I'm not sure what color we're going to use, that's not my decision. We're also going to have an electrician add a power outlet to the closet and ceiling, as well as wire the video cables up to the projector. The room is already wired for surround sound.

[Moogs]

Holy shit. I'm comin' over for the Stanley Cup Finals, all right? I'll BMOB.

[Ryan]

Well, I just came up with another layout that puts the screen along the narrow wall which gives me a 138" diagonal screen.

























I'd cut a hole in the closest on the opposite wall that the projector would be mounted in. This would also make it easier to install, because I wouldn't have to run electrical and video to it through a wall, and an exterior one at that. I'd just run an extension cord and a long HDMI cable along the inside wall. Plus, a bigger screen.

I'll upload the new one as soon as I remake it in Photoshop. Right now it's just on graph paper.

BTW, the 96" in the layout for the screen is width, not diagonal length.

[Moogs]

You are a man of considerable vision. I commend you for your efforts.

[BarracksSi]

Originally Posted by Moogs Answer: nearly everyone who was originally planning on seeing it, dickhead! Joe Hacker geek with his broadband connection and DivX suite may be stealing your movies, but the other 98% of us aren't. ....... so stop pretending like it is and get us a technology that is consumer-friendly, you stinge-wad media fucks!

Heh.. nice rant!

I refuse to buy a HD TV or DVD setup until everything is sorted out.

Some days I really miss over-the-air TV with decent reception and analog dials (yes, analog dials, which could tune faster than anything produced since... flick of the wrist and I'm watching Carson instead of Nightline).

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Moogs You are a man of considerable vision. I commend you for your efforts.

Thank you.

And now, here is my alternate version, with an even bigger screen.



That's right. 119 inches.



(That's 3 meters for those of you outside the US)

[Ebby]

Originally Posted by Ryan (That's 3 meters for those of you outside the US)

Oh yea, my projector casts a variable 6'-10' wide image or more based on aspect ratio.

Still working on that surround sound though...

[Artap99]

Originally Posted by Ryan Thank you. And now, here is my alternate version, with an even bigger screen. That's right. 119 inches. (That's 3 meters for those of you outside the US)

Should I be jealous of a few black lines on a white piece of paper? Because I am

[Moogs]

I'm going to go watch curling on my lowly 26" LCD now... I'm no longer worthy of posting amongst AV giants such as Ryan. My tv is navel lint.

[Ryan]

Don't worry, till I finish it all I have is an old CRT with a crappy DVD player. No surround, no progressive scan, nothing. I won't even start building till June, and I don't expect to finish until October. OTOH, I've already gotten an agreement on how much we'll spend on this thing, and it all fits nicely, but I might have to start with a smaller sub. I'm also hoping the projector comes down in price by the time I'm ready to buy, or I'll have to find a different model that can fit in my budget.

BTW, if you want to see real AV giants, go look at the gallery on AVSForum.com Those are theaters.

[Moogs]

Crap. My TV keeps turning itself off at random intervals and then turning itself back on. The behavior to me seems like it could be more AC related than TV related but I don't want to take any chances. I've tried pulling it off the APC and plugging it into its own socket, switching sockets... nothing works.

So the question is do I buy a $50 line regulator before asking them to come and get the TV for repair. Truthfully, nothing else on the APC is drawing power other than the satellite box so I have a hard time believing it's a surge, and if it were a power dip, then why wouldn't the satellite box also shut off at the same time?

[Koodari]

Originally Posted by HOM They can and will brick your player. You may own the hardware, but all of them are going to be sold under very restrictive EULAs that will included the manufacture's ability to be disable them.

In countries like mine where after-sale, click-through EULAs are not legally binding (as they obviously should not be - after all it makes no sense if the terms of a sale can be retroactively and unilaterally changed), they'll have to replace every single one of those bricked players with a working one. If the involved companies resist, it's a simple matter of reporting them to the customer protection bureau.

HDCP itself is fundamentally broken in a way that allows new device codes to be generated at will once there are enough public device keys (40?) available. That means complete crack of the protection.

And if they were to combat that by using less than that amount of codes, once one of them is leaked, there is a minimum granularity for bricking the devices. Assuming code limit of 40, and that there are only 40 million HDCP devices, they have to lock one million devices (best case) and lose one of the codes, making any subsequent leak even worse. With real numbers, make that tens of millions of devices. I don't think it is going to happen.

Personally I'm not buying any of these new video sources or disks until I know I can use them with my non-HDCP, non-HDMI screen, rip and make backups.

[Moogs]

Update: fed up, I called the dealer and they are replacing the TV this week since it's within 30 days. They didn't even suggest trying to fix it. This is why I'm glad I price matched a brick-and-web retailer, rather than just going with the cheapest deal online. Service counts for something with big appliances.

[Moogs]

New TV works fine. Just had a lemon is all. Proof positive you should price-match from an online place to bring the price down / negate sales tax, but ultimately buy from brick and mortar place, so you don't have mail and insure a TV that needs to be sent back ($$$).

Now for HD service. Coming Friday to a Receiver near me. Couldn't get the LNB-5 dish unfortunately (locals will remain SD, which sucks because Chicago has all four networks on HD satellite), but ultimately it doesn't matter because the existing DVR they sell doesn't record MP4, which is what the local HD channels are.

I wonder if they're using H.264 to keep high quality but scrunch the bandwidth down. Would make sense for all HD channels to go that route. Eventually it probably will? Just hoping by the end of 2006 there will be several more HD channels added to the existing lineup (which is pretty sparse).