What would keep you from buying into the HD formats? (1 Viewer)

[Ed St. Clair]

1. Cost (hardware & software)
2. Lack of features (hardware & software)
3. non-1080p (hardware & software)
4. non-OAR/OST
5. No lossless soundtrack
6. Fan
7. Lack of titles
8. Poor Audio and/or Video transfer
9. Build quality
10. Lack of performance quality
"It goes to eleven"
11. Lack of perceivable support for the future of the format (hardware & software)

 

[Marko Berg]

If only it were that black-and-white.

Like with other stuff that gets pirated, such as brand name clothing, the pirates keep getting better at their work. I've seen on TV e.g. a truckload of pirated CDs that were made in Russia and stopped by Customs at the border. The quality was very professional and the discs were silk-screened and the jewel cases shrink-wrapped. I think the Madonna album that was shown in close-ups even had a hologram on the back just like the original disc. It would be impossible for the average consumer to detect any problems with the discs.

This was a few years ago and I'm sure pirates will have improved the quality of the pirated merchandise since then.

Of course you could argue things should only be bought from reputable dealers but it still leaves the potential for many unhappy customers whose new, expensive HD machines are rendered junk when the pirates hit.

 

[george kaplan]

Look, I'm not saying any of this is going to happen. I'm only saying that I'm not willing to close my eyes and say it won't happen.

You say that they're only trying to block content that's been PIRATED. Ok. Let's say that they conclude that the only sure way to block pirated material, is to not play material that isn't certified as NON-PIRATED.

This isn't really any different than macrovision. It was only put in place to stop piracy, but the fact that it also screwed up legitimate playback was just "too bad".

There seems to be this general feeling that "Studios won't do [insert bad thing here] cause that would be stupid cause consumers will be upset." Well, studios take a very advesarial view of consumers, and they don't give a damn whether we're upset and they have a LONG history of doing "stupid" things. [cough]DIVX[cough]pan & scan[cough]rootkit[cough]Armageddon[cough]unskippable ads/fbi warnings[cough] etc, etc, etc.

Do I think it's likely they're going to do some of these things on the first generation HD players. No, possible, but not likely. Do I think at some point in the future when they do a pro/con analysis and decide that they don't need to keep the customer who has old dvds happy, and can perfectly afford to shut him out in hopes that he'll buy new media instead, that they might implement such stuff. I certainly do.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Studios can't really do a damn thing about it, once machines are out there. If it's not in the AACS spec (and it's not), and not in the HD DVD spec, and not in the Blu-ray spec, they can't dictate to the manufacturers how to play or not play DVDs.

The manufacturers don't want HDCP or ICT, but the studios forced their hand by cutting off content to get it put in the spec. Once machines are out there, they won't be able to exert that same level of influence. I don't trust the studios to have my best interests in mind. I do trust the manufacturers to look after their own best interests and continue to allow DVD-R and DVD-RW to work properly.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

You don't get it: The copy-protection scheme is NOT set up to just block anything that merely lacks copy-protection. Pirated software is recognized as pirated because there are watermarks that can be read and verified against...Pirated software is not not just software that's encryption-free.

We might as well worry and argue about HD DVD and BD players containig hidden cameras and microphones to help the government spy on us in our living rooms. Is it possible? Sure. Is it part of the copy-protection spec for HD DVD or Blu-ray players? NO.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

David is right. The algorithm is not:

load disk
if disk copyrighted
..play
else
..don't play

the algorithm is

load disk
if disk is pressed
..play
else
..if disk is recordable
....if disk has watermark indicating the material is copyrighted
......don't play
....else
......play

In other words, the disk has to have something on it which indicates it has copyrighted material on it to activate the "don't play" circuitry. The default behavior is "play everything".

At any rate, I've heard nothing to indicate that DVDs will even be checked in this manner, only high-def disks.

Edit: actually, technically the behavior when it is a "pressed" disk is a little more complicated with BD ROM Mark, but that doesn't change the point.

 

[george kaplan]

Well, I see your point and concede that almost certainly you're right. But I do have to wonder, seriously, if someone had mentioned the rootkit stuff BEFORE it had happened, whether or not people would have made similar assurances that it wouldn't happen.

Well I'm really not anymore worried about that than I am that the Government would wiretap our phones without getting a warrant.

Seriously, I'm not worried about this, but on the other hand I don't 100% dismiss it. So long as no word gets out about it happening, I won't be keeping out of HD because of this. But I certainly won't buy a Xth generation machine with mandatory internet connection, and I certainly won't be an early adopter of any firmware upgrades.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Amen

 

[JediFonger]

1. HDMI on my front projector. i know a HDMI defeater is already out (for use on regular computer displays that can do 1920x1080p), but mine's VGA (RGB) so i'd need some sort of a HDMI->DVI->VGA converter.

2. A new A/V reciever that decodes Dolby Digital HD, TrueHD and DTS-HD, THX certs of all those along with older formats.

3. universal HD-DVD/BluRay/SACD/DVD-Audio/Divx/mp3 player that outputs everything via 1 HDMI cable to a/v receiver.

 

[FrancisP]

When you talk about what a HD player does today that does not mean that it can't change. You can't stop the firmware from being updated unless you plan on never buying a HD disc.

The real qustion to me is what the firmware is capable of
doing. The current equivalent in SD is not very worrisome because it is much more limited in what it can do and cannot be updated. One of the developers of BD+ suggested to studios that HD players be shut off over recorded material. They seem to think that it could be done with the
current firmware. Hollywood wants the hardware to respond to broadcast flags so firmware is likely to do that. It is not inconceivable the firmware could be used to impose a divyx-like scheme.

It it likely to happen in the near future? Not likely. As long as SD is around it constrains what they can do. However
should HD be the only standard, then there is no alternative. The bottom line is a lot of fees.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Who among us will pay a fee on anything we have purchased in full, previously?
What would be the legal president for a company to charge user fee's on a product that had been paid for with the intent of personal ownership & no future fee's?
Am I saying nothing is "possible" in the future?
No!
I am predicting this act, would come with colossal consumer contempt. I imagine tons of discs plying up in front of Sony stores!

Francis,
Do you see the studios seceding with your scenario?

 

[Ryan-G]

Yes you can. All you'd need to do is burn a disc with a hacked version of firmware on it, and put that in the player and let it install, so that it'll never install firmware without your permission again.

Hackers would be spreading this app on the 'net in record time.

There is *nothing* that can be done in firmware that can't be undone with ease. Only ROM is safe from widespread hacking. Everything else will be bypassable by anyone with a net connection and the appropriate burner, or a friend who has it.

 

[george kaplan]

And of course, the studios can also put out HD software that will only play on machines with a certain firmware. They couldn't do that retroactively to your collection, but could certainly do so on all titles sold after a certain date.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Sure, though it would limit their sales, and they'd probably try not to do that unless matters were quite dire and they felt that they had more sales to gain by doing so than lose by doing so.

 

[Gabriel.H]

1.If certain titles are only available in either HD-DVD or Blu-ray, then there had better be dual format players

2.With Dolby Digital+ 7.1 and DTS-HD 7.1, hopefully the players have discrete 8 ch outputs so I don't have to buy a new receiver just to be able to play 7.1 over optical or coax.

3.Pricing....I'm not buying until both players and movies go down a bit.

 

[JediFonger]

i was just visiting:
http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html

today and noticed that the latest video cards support h.264 and future BR/HD-DVD decoding via GPU hardware. what that means is (hopefully) you can playback HD content on the computer. that bodes well for people like me with HTPC because that's how i started playing back DVDs in 2000, with a DVDROM that costs about $80. so, with any luck, even if the BR/HD ROm costs $250-400 that's still a pretty good deal for playing back HD content. i think HDMI will be required though =).

 

[Shawn Perron]

With the level of encryption available to the studios, hacking encrypted firmware is just about impossible. Check out the Sony PSP firmware if you want to see how difficult it can be. Despite 1000's of manhours by talented hackers, no one to this day has broken the encryption. They can use exploits in the operating system to play games, but they can't change 1 byte of the firmware without rendering the system completely useless.

On the bright side, the PSP is 1 uniform piece of hardware with 1 manufacturer. With all the manufacturers that will be making Blu-Ray, I don't think 1 universal firmware will work for all models for all years. Unless the BDA really stomps on manufacturers from straying too far from spec, there will be far too much variance in hardware to fit under a universal firmware umbrella.

If the firmware is heavily encrypted, no one will be hacking it. Unless some bozo makes a huge mistake somewhere during the design phase, there probably won't be many exploits to get around the firmware either. The Sony PSP has USA military grade encryption (seriously, it meets requirements for top level military use), and hollywood is 100x more paranoid then the designers of the PSP. I'm thinking the new players firmware will be next to impossible to modifiy if Sony applies thier PSP experience to the Blu-Ray design.

That being said, someone will probably manage to get an unencrypted firmware from a leak at some manufacturers company. It'll be interesting to see what the BDA comes up with to lock the players down.

 

[Eric F]

You don't need hardware support. If you have a relatively up to date PC there are already software H.264 codecs that handle it just fine. 1080p and higher with full surround.

 

[JediFonger]

i dunno about you, but i've tried playing a few 1080p quicktime h.264 trailers (from quicktime.com) on amd dualcore x2 4800 and a few dualcore opteron workstations w/x1800xt, 7800gtx as well as on p4 dualcores with as much config. it's still stuttering. =(.

@home i've got a dual mp2800 w/x850xt pe and that doesn't play either.

i duno if it's just the quicktime wrapper that's the problem, but i've not played back any other h.264 containers. now 1920x1080p t2's wmv-hd progresssive i can playback easily. so either way, i'd prefer hardware acceleration. if the power's there why not? =).

 

[Ed St. Clair]

YiFeng,
Welcome to the Home Theater Forum!