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High-Def fiasco with computers? (1 Viewer)

JeremyErwin

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No, it's not you. I see it a lot in unreadable technical specifications. Perhaps the authors fear that their drivel might be read by an actual consumer.
 

Shawn Perron

Supporting Actor
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Oct 25, 2002
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Yes, but there is nothing preventing aditional security above and beyond AACS. Just as BD+ is going to add additional security to Blu-Ray hardware, Microsoft is going to add additional protection to the PC environment. If there is not a PVP HDCP path to the monitor, the videocards will downscale the video to 960x540p.
 

Ryan-G

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Of course, the question becomes if PowerDVD and WinDVD have to abide by Microsoft's rules, or if they can output in the same manner that Non-Computer hardware does.

Which, if I'm thinking correctly, still means that all that is required is DVI or HDMI outputs. But I'll leave that to the better educated than me.

It sounds to me like this whole "Protected Path" thing is MS only, and PowerDVD and WinDVD don't have to abide by it.
 

Aaron_Brez

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Apr 22, 2000
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Basically:

AACS contains a flag (ICT) saying, "Downrez over analog | don't downrez over analog". There is no similar flag or rule for "downrez over DVI/HDMI", there is only the HDCP flag: "encrypt over DVI/HDMI | don't encrypt over DVI/HDMI".

So if ICT is enabled, it has no effect on DVI/HDMI resolution; if you have an HDCP-protected disk but a non-HDCP compliant display or video path (i.e. video card), you'll just get no image over DVI/HDMI. A "turn HDCP encryption off" flag is present, but not likely to be used by for-profit studios-- perhaps on some public domain titles, or something similar-- because it shuts the whole digital protection scheme down and anyone could legally capture unencrypted the pristine digital bitstream, which is of course the idea Hollywood fears most.

Microsoft could, in theory, change this behavior-- but why would they? They don't have a horse in the content race-- and in fact, they will want the customer to have the best possible picture they are allowed by the AACS license to provide because they want eyeballs looking at a MS Vista-provided image instead of a Pioneer or Sony image.
 

Daniel_TS

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If the AACS ICT flag is set or not, the Microsoft’s PVP-OPM has to do the same thing on the way out. Otherwise, the Microsoft content protection environment won’t be licensed by AACS.
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/4...inhec051gd.jpg
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/6743/aacs3bf.jpg

BD+ is not another “application” output content protection environment like PVP-OPM.
As far as I understand, in the Blu-ray protection scheme, BD+ is a master “system” content protection environment; AACS is just a slave “system” protection environment.
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/7052/1hd2zl.jpg
http://www.cryptography.com/technolo...te_papers.html

Another “application” output content protection environment from InterVideo:
http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/1797/0windvd7fa.jpg
http://img452.imageshack.us/img452/7672/1windvd2tt.jpg
 

Shawn Perron

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Microsoft wants physical media to disappear. A lot of the speculation as to why Microsoft is backing HD-DVD is that they are trying to cloud the market until a PPV type business model comes in and replaces it. They stand to gain a huge amount of money if Vista is the main conduit for SD/HDTV delivery into your home. Just use google and you can read number of very recent speeches and interviews with Microsoft employees, including Bill Gates, talking about how physical media is about to be a thing of the past.

Microsoft also needs a way to make everyone want new a Vista pc. If people can't play HD movies on your current computer, it will be a huge draw to upgrade to a brand new pc. Really, at this moment do you see any need to leave XP behind?

Microsoft also wants into everyone's living room. Since you need a new PC anyway for HD, why not go all out and buy yourself a Vista media pc? Connect it to your internet and you can surf, watch tv, play games and movies all from your couch. Apple really beat them to the punch with itunes, Microsoft is unlikely to let that happen again with HD delivery into your home.

Also think about it, isn't there a good explaination why no PC software, hardware or monitors are HDCP ready? My conspiracy theory answer would be: now you have to buy a brand new product from everyone that makes your PC work. Not being able to watch HD is going to drive huge sales by those that want to watch HD.


Under the first link "Trusted Driver". What exactly is a trusted driver?

Under the second link "System requirements: Dual Core CPU" This rules out 95% of all PCs anyway.

I'd bet you that "Trusted Driver" is only going be a Microsoft certified driver, and they will not do so if you do not have a HDCP compliant card.

So by InterVideo's own mouths, you can see that not every coputer will be capabale of playing HD.
 

Daniel_TS

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"Before PVP-OPM or PVP-UAB can be used, the operating system must verify whether a valid graphics subsystem is present, to avoid sending content to a hacker’s emulation device. The following are the stages of the authentication process:
1. The vendor-supplied driver must establish that it is talking to authentic and uniquely identifiable graphics hardware. It does this using Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS).
2. The operating system must establish that it talking with a valid and conformant vendor-supplied driver. It does this by checking that the driver has a valid certificate.
3. The operating system’s media environment also must prove its authenticity. The content’s interests are represented by an Input Trust Authority (ITA) module, which checks the authenticity of the media environment and the version number of its global revocation list, before allowing the content-delivery security to be removed."
(Output Content Protection and Windows Longhorn)

http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/5755/0cp7kj.jpg
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8913/0hd6jv.jpg
 

Aaron_Brez

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Apr 22, 2000
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Was anyone truly under the illusion that all they'd have to do to play HD DVD and/or Blu-ray on their current PC was buy a drive and perhaps some Intervideo software? Anyone who's been paying attention in the last six months or so?

I mean, like it or not (and frankly, I don't), this has been fairly well-established for the past year or so. Perhaps longer.

The big scam (or, to be politically correct about it, "concern") here is that ATI GPUs, while nominally "support[ing] HDCP", have not shown up on real products as yet, so people who saw those GPU specs and bought ATI cards in an attempt to be forward-looking feel deceived. This is true to a lesser extent with Nvidia, since they only supply the chips and perhaps a reference design spec and it's up to a vendor to provide the actual card design.
 

Thomas Newton

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Thomas Newton

Can't have the movie unencrypted now, can we? Because then, when the copyright expired and the movie reverted to full public domain, the surviving copies would be usable for making more public domain copies. And the public might actually get the unfettered access to the work for which the copyright was granted in the first place. :D
 

Aaron_Brez

Supporting Actor
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Apr 22, 2000
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You are clearly out of touch, Thomas. Real copyrights don't expire, they just come up for Congressional renewal every so often. ;)

(By the time copyrights on current movies expire [even should Congress not extend them again], the technology in a digital watch will be able to crack the current encryption using brute force. If digital watches still exist and the digits aren't just superimposed on your retina by microlasers implanted in your eyelids.)
 

Ryan-G

Supporting Actor
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Oct 13, 2005
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More information on ATI here, looks like they've started trying to cover up.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=851

Also interesting to note that Nvidia states HDCP is only possible at the time of manufacturing. No Driver, Bios, or Add-in card seems possible.

Plus side is many of Nvidia's board partners already offer trade-in for upgrades.

IMO Class action for ATI, Class action or Anti-trust against MS by Linux camp, and Nvidia stands to gain especially if there's alot of boards out there with Trade-in support.
 

Aaron_Brez

Supporting Actor
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Apr 22, 2000
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Idiots. Total class action possibilities.

Anti-trust against MS? Probably not, since they are only one of ten or so signatories to AACS, and there's nothing which prohibits, say, Red Hat from coming up with a solution. In fact, Toshiba's initial set-top players are built on Linux.
 

AaronMK

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Aaron Karp

Well, I would have added an HDCP compliant graphics card, sound card, and monitor to the list of needed purchases. That is still a far cry from a full new computer and OS.

If those components traded keys and negotiated sessions over the bus in the same way components would over and HDMI cable connection, would that have been any less secure? You could have the InterVideo software be open source, since all it would really be is a remote control and user friendly interface; no content really being processed by the software in the clear on its stack or heap, except for maybe a portion of the interactive layers.

For software decoding, I could understand the need for a new OS and security features in the base architecture. However, I would imagine pushing HD decoding to a general purpose CPU instead of a specialized stream processor would make as much sense as having a CPU emulate GPU functionality. (Very little)
 

Aaron_Brez

Supporting Actor
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Unfortunately, there isn't a bus which transfers information straight from the drive to the graphics card, else you're right, using HDCP protocols over something like an HDMI interface would probably be sufficient. The open construction of the PC is such that using the standard PCI bus to transfer the data is tremendously insecure (PCI snooping is cheap and easy), so protected video path is required in order to satiate Hollywood's paranoia.
 

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