[Moogs]

Hollywood studios, electronics companies and retailers are apparently scheming and team to come up with a universal video-on-demand type system that lets you watch your video content on all of your devices and -of course- store it on the cloud somewhere so you can "access anywhere".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080912/media_nm/dece_dc

I haven't read up on all the details yet but would be interested to get your take on whether this should be welcomed or not, given who is involved and their various agendas. We all saw how nice and friendly they made HDMI (HDCP), etc but OTOH maybe this is akin to Apple starting the iTMS... creating a new model that benefits all parties more or less equally. Discuss.

[Ryan]

Apple, AFAIK, hasn't signed on, so it won't work on iPods. That right there puts up a serious roadblock to adoption.

[Banana]

In theory, this is quite elegant solution to the problem; instead of calling your customers a theif because they made backup copy, provide the backup copy yourself and a mean to access the content anywhere, so there's no infringement if you happened to bring along your DVD to a friend who has a better threatre set up.

So, all of this is great.

It's just that I don't have much confidence in the companies involved to get out of the RIAA/MPAA mindset and do something totally half-assed and render it useless with dracocian DRM.

[Souflay123]

more DRM = more pirating, hasn't anyone learned?

[JohnnyTheA]

All that collusion among companies means each one will want a piece of the pie. So the cost to the end consumer will be higher. I would imagine that you will have to pay (monthly) to have access to your own "rights locker", there will be restrictions among devices that work, and the rules of the game could totally change after you have invested money in your own thingies to put in your locker (like maybe stuff won't work with new devices you wan to buy). Those would be my fears.

I prefer my own rights locker. That is, my own hard drive on my own network, with my own "backups" of my own bought media.

The concept of what they are proposing is a really good idea. It eliminates the backup requirements of my method. I just don't trust the parties involved to do to my liking.

JTA

[JohnnyTheA]

Originally Posted by Souflay123 more DRM = more pirating, hasn't anyone learned?

I don't completely agree. In the past yes. But I think for new types of media (blue ray), they certainly can lock down the DRM so tight that there will be less pirating. They won't get rid of it but they can control it. Any doing vid captures of analog signals doesn't count as pirating in my mind.

Because people WANT to back up their own copies of media they buy, I would think a better statement would be:

More DRM equals lower sales of DRM products.

DVD still looks good to me....

JTA

[onlyafterdark]

Originally Posted by JohnnyTheA I don't completely agree. In the past yes. But I think for new types of media (blue ray), they certainly can lock down the DRM so tight that there will be less pirating.

I dont think they will ever win with DRM on BR discs. It has already been cracked and has been for a while. They still havent gotten to the root of the pirating problem and continue to make things harder for the average joe to do what they want with what they have paid for.

This is a step in the right direction but I still feel more comfortable controlling the media I have bought my way. Seems like a great idea in theory but we will see if it can actually come to fruition without any major DRM crap.

[Moogs]

Speak of the devil, here's Macworld's take on things...

http://www.macworld.com/article/1355...8/09/dece.html

[Souflay123]

Originally Posted by JohnnyTheA I don't completely agree. In the past yes. But I think for new types of media (blue ray), they certainly can lock down the DRM so tight that there will be less pirating. They won't get rid of it but they can control it. Any doing vid captures of analog signals doesn't count as pirating in my mind. Because people WANT to back up their own copies of media they buy, I would think a better statement would be: More DRM equals lower sales of DRM products. DVD still looks good to me.... JTA

I am not really referring to blu-ray, b/c it is relatively new and getting the media off of the disks is still kinda difficult. More so music and dvd's, for example if I can download a cd for free that is fine with me b/c that means that I can do whatever I want with it. I am not stealing b/c I go out and buy the CD also but I used to buy all of my music from iTunes, I own more than 5 computers and there is where I ran in to the issue. I can get my music from my old old computer that I dont use anymore to my new air without a huge bit of issues. I would say from just me the more that it is regulated the more that I just go download it and when I have time go out and buy the CD.

[Bryson]

Not cool, Apple.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: buying a HDCP display is letting the bastards win.

[Banana]

Bryson, are you sure that this was something Apple could decide on? I remember seeing some posts indicating that Apple would have had preferred DRM-free stuff but some labels were insistent on this and hence FairPlay, no?

But yes, I agree with you- it's just ass-backward to buy something only to find that you don't have the equipment to play it. It's not too dissimilar to a seller promising to sell you a vinyl record of X band, but upon receipt of money, hands you a 8-track cartridge and refuse to refund your money.

But they fail to understand that unlike the analogy, it's just binary and it can be reassembled into something... e.g. cracked.

[Kickaha]

It's a bit odd - if you play the same file on a pre-HDCP system, it ignores any flags. If you play the file on a new HDCP-compliant laptop, and run the signal out through the DisplayPort -> DVI adapter, does it still block it??

[Enki]

According to that Engadget article Bryson linked, yes. Apparently DisplayPort is the hardware that enables the HDCP chain.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Kickaha It's a bit odd - if you play the same file on a pre-HDCP system, it ignores any flags. If you play the file on a new HDCP-compliant laptop, and run the signal out through the DisplayPort -> DVI adapter, does it still block it??

Only if the display doesn't have HDCP built in.

[Moogs]

Anything added to the chain that denies formerly accepted hardware (via iTunes) for the same media product, is bullcrap IMO. It's one thing for people buying the media after this was implemented (even then pretty iffy), but for people who already owned and have been enjoying their purchase, this is ridiculous. I don't buy movies over iTunes so it doesn't affect me per se, but I'd be pretty pissed if this happened to me.

That said, if Apple and all the screen manufacturers out there would move to HDMI as their display IO, eventually as people continue to upgrade their hardware through the normal course of events, stuff like this will matter less and less.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Moogs That said, if Apple and all the screen manufacturers out there would move to HDMI DisplayPort as their display IO, eventually as people continue to upgrade their hardware through the normal course of events, stuff like this will matter less and less.

T,FTFY.

DisplayPort has some *very* nice features above and beyond HDMI that are aimed at computer use, such as peer-to-peer addressing over one cable (think video routing - one cable, n monitors), and the same spec/hardware for both external and internal displays.