It's official: BOTH Blu-ray and HD-DVD downrez component (1 Viewer)

[Vader]

"I know I said, 'never again Lord'. But, I also know that you know what a weak-willed person I am." - Phillipe Gaston, Ladyhawke

Thanks a lot, Juan! This is gonna be tough... Do I finally get my SVS sub with my tax return, or jump in to Pioneer's BR player?... crap. Robert's is the voice of sanity, however. Better to wait and see how things pan out (not gonna make it much easier, though)...

 

[Mark Kalzer]

You'd think this HD vs Blu-Ray war could be so easily decided if just ONE decided NOT to use the ICT scheme. Unfortunantly it doesn't look like the hardware makers have much choice here.

I only wonder, why would pirates chase HD video in the first place? The pirated material on the internet has never been great quality and clearly picture quality is not of high importance to pirates. HD video would be by nature much harder to copy then DVD. Unless they expect HD to replace DVD very quickly I suppose, which just ain't gonna happen I feel.

 

[Juan C]

My pleasure. Just don't kill me if it finally doesn't happen (crossing fingers).

This will benefit also those of us who are not affected by ICT - our first-year players will become valuable merchandise in time!!

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I believe post #59 to be one of the most sensible to the situation the studios (& us) find themselves in, thanks Ryan.

HATE THE PIRATES
HATE THE DOWNLOADERS
HATE THE FILESHARERS

And for those, you know who you are, saying the studios are just making all this up to crush us, their customers, put your efforts into stopping pirates as well, so the studios have nothing to hold against us and you can stop calling them every name in the book.

 

[Vader]

If this is true concerning the ICT flag not affecting first generation machines, does that include the PS3?

 

[Ken_F]

Just a rumor at this point...

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Ed,

You need to calm down and read the context of the messages you're quoting here. You're lashing out at your intellectual allies as well as those who oppose you. The quotes of mine you've chosen seem almost deliberately selected to mischaracterize my position as one who condones piracy, and that is manifestly not my position if you read the rest of the messages you took them from.

 

[Cees Alons]

Ed,

I have to agree with Aaron. You're effectively ttaking my trxt out of con-text.
If I'm not receiving monies I hoped for - that's worse than my business could be. But that's not the point (I could *always* make more money - and it would be good business if I did). But the point here was: it's not the same morally, or even literally.

And just like Aaron, I clearly and explicitly don't condone piracy either.


Cees

 

[FrancisP]

The studios need to start helping themselves. They could start by keeping track of their product so Revenge of the Sith does not show up with bootleg dvds and illegal downloads the same day it hits the theatre. Legitimate dvd users are not responsible for that.

I do not believe that piracy is the issue. Hollywood wants to regain the control over their product that they lost with the betamax decision. Now they want control over media that goes over the air and cable as well as hard media. That is why they want a 90 minute limit on time-shifting. Their ultimate goal is to create a type of pay per view. If you want to keep it then you pay for it.

This doomsday scenario that some want to paint for Hollywood is ridiculous. There are all sorts of opportunities for the studios. Everyone is trying to put portable media into PSP, cellphones, and every portable device known. A year ago, MS and RealPlayer were locking up in court. Now they're locking up on portable media projects. All of this is going to take content. Content that Hollywood has.

Every industry suffers from piracy. Other than Hollywood, they concentrate on getting the bad guys and not inconveniencing customers. They shoul go after the download sites rather than sueing grandmothers because their granddaughter downloaded something.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Ed,

you've never been to your buddy's place while he/she is playing a movie and you're just chatting with the person and from the snippets you happen to see you find the movie so interesting you buy it anyway?

Don't judge somebody in your shoes. Judge somebody in THEIR shoes.

You really love taking people's posts out of context for your personal "mightier than thou" agenda. I'm an artist. My husband too. My friends too. We make money from salary, per-project-payment AND royalties. Why would we condone piracy?

 

[RobertSiegel]

I didn't agree with Ed that we should be mad at the pirates rather than the studios. Of course we are mad at the pirates, we are all educated enough to know what they are doing and that it is hurting us. But throughout history, there has ALWAYS been illegal activity, and I find in most of these cases, it has never solved the problem to go after the honest people, and that's exactly what they are doing. Yet it goes on. To refuse me a full HD picture because I bought a projector early is absolutely and 100% wrong and an attack on me and all the money I have spent with them. If you walked into a retail store and somebody did this something like this to you, would you buy there again? Would you want to? I wonder how many people with only component outputs will now START to illegally download once the hackers figure it out, which won't be long, so they can view their movies in 1080? Did they ever think of that? (No, I personally would not but I think many will).

Hollywood has already made much law in this country by paying millions of dollars through their "lobbying" in Washington, and those who don't realize much of our laws have to do with payola are living in a cave. This is true for the drug industry and you name it. Now, they include going after the good customers. So do we just sit back and say "Ok that's the way it is, I guess I have to be a sheep and follow along" or do we all start to make alot of noise on this issue, and let them know the early adopters aren't going to buy a new projector or tv and are not going to buy discs that look only slightly better than dvd. In a previous post I asked if anyone wanted to start something like a web site and really get the word out, and I would gladly donate my time, but not one of the people complaining here responded. So does anyone consider their voice important enough to at least try and let them know how we feel?

I think I will unsubscribe from this paticular board, it's really depressing me. I walk to my tv and projector and the excitement of what was coming this year in HD is gone completely! Maybe I will start taking up tennis, because I am not going to buy these movies unless the first set of players bypass this down-grading rip-off. I cannot afford another projector. I am disabled now and living on limited disability and saved for YEARS for my projector, it is probably going to be my last projector.

The best post on this page was from Francis P who says "Every industry suffers from piracy. Other than Hollywood, they concentrate on getting the bad guys and not inconveniencing customers." We need to let Hollywood know this was a big slap in the face, not that they would care.....have they ever?

 

[JackKay]

Robert Siegel:



Many will? How do you figure? Apparently you have not read many threads on this forum, if you did you would know it is far from the truth. Here at the Home Theater Forum we have a great respect for copyright holders, what this thread is all about is being excluded from newer tech only because we were "early adapters" and spent big bucks to get state of the art home theater to see movies in the highest quality we could. Now with the possibility of being shunned (even though our equipment is fully capable of displaying it) of High Def movies we all dreamed of, we feel curious that we are being excluded (well, we will see when we know what movies will be flagged)and want our voices to be heard.

Never the less, any copyright holder (and this is from the beginning, not legislation in the past hundred years) may put any restriction it wishes on their work. Period. Some may be crazy, and they won't make any money, but it is their decision and right.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Ed, I can't agree. They always go after the honest people, just because the dishonest ones are too much trouble to capture. Do not forget that everything we buy in stores has a price that covers shoplifting!

While it is true that knockoffs are made in other industries, I think that ripping DVD's is the easiest, and thus has made a much bigger impact then knockoffs of golf clubs or washing machines.

Unfortunately, and I have to stress this again, the piracy won't stop (assuming that the new 'flags' can't be cracked), until every new release comes out on their new format only. They will not put a dent into piracy as long as they continue to crank out SD's.

Glenn

 

[Ric Easton]

Sigh... You ever hate a thread but cannot stay away from it? You ever try to keep your mouth shut for as long as you can? This thing just gets more depressing.

Here, I go... No, I don't download movies and have it play in the background to determine if I will buy it. Music is for playing in the background... and I buy that as well.



As for myself, I don't watch movies in snippets. For those that do, I don't see any connection with this and downloading stuff so you can "play it in the background" One is legal, one is not. It's not holier than thou attitude. It's just not stealing.

And yes, lets get back to, why should I suffer because I was an early adopter and supported HDTV in the beginning?

 

[RobertSiegel]

Jack, I didn't say anyone here at the forum were going to illegally download movies and not respectful of copyright, I never mentioned specifics like that.....I wasn't pointing any fingers at anyone here. Of course most of us are respectful of copyright holders, myself included....but I also think there are many home theater lovers out there who are illegal downloaders as well. I was only stating that there are people who, when they can't get what they want legally....will find a way to get it illegally. So my point was, as soon as the code-crackers learn the codes to illegally record movies from the digital outputs (and it won't take long), there are some people who own only component equipment who will find these movies in 1080i or 1080p any way they can, and will think it's ok because the studios screwed them over. That was my point, not to accuse anyone here. I truly believe the people on HTF overall, are very respectful of the law ands the studios (maybe not since this last announcement hehe)...but there's always some people everywhere who will find what they want, legal or not....after all, that's why we have this problem in the first place.

 

[Ryan-G]

You've contradicted yourself badly here. The Granddaughter *illegally* downloaded(stole) large amounts of media, making her the Bad Guy. Considering how P2P functions, it is also *highly* likely she also uploaded vast amounts of copyrighted material as well. As such, by your logic, Hollywood is doing exactly what it should be, getting the Bad Guy. The person who downloaded and uploaded copyrighted material en masse.

You also clearly illustrate, it is the customers that are the Bad Guys. Going after "Download sites" is only part of the solution, because a single solitary torrent can spread across vast numbers of people through just E-mail alone with nary a Download Site present to target.

Fortunately, people who are torrenting identify themselves clearly, as torrenting displays clear characteristics not found in most normal traffic that can easily identify potentially illegal activity. As such, it's a small matter to intercede and eliminate the issue. Usage patterns alone would be clear indicators.

As far as invasion of privacy goes, if I have large amounts of people going in and out of my house it's legal for the police to watch the traffic and try to identify if there's illegal activity going on, and then aquire a search warrant to check the premises. No real difference between large amounts of traffic in my front door and large amounts of traffic on my modem, both are abnormal except under extreme circumstances that are almost always illegal in nature. So there's no new invasion of privacy in them checking what you're transferring if you're chewing through unrealistic amounts of bandwidth.

(Note: Torrenting and most P2P results in static levels of constant upload and download traffic, usually at or near the maximum allowed on the line, no other traffic has a similiar pattern until you get to Server levels, even gameplay is sporadic transfers well below maximum rates. Downloading even very large files like game demos from legal sites does not consume full upload bandwidth by any means, differentiating it clearly).

At that point, torrenting movies is effectively dead, without vast numbers of bandwidth unlimited participants torrenting and P2P don't work.

 

[Lew Crippen]

While I sympathize Robert and while Francis has some valid points, the statement you quote is not close to true: most industries do not (in fact) suffer from piracy. Though it is closer to true that most holders of popular copyright material do suffer infringement on that material.

I’d also observe that the conclusion of the statement you quote is also not accurate—or at least is not proven. Industries, companies, copyright holders and even governments concentrate on reducing or eliminating the piracy (or copyright infringement) and do not concentrate on getting the bad guys.

Getting the bad guys is a by-product of the quest to stamp out the piracy—at least for companies who really just want to maximize their profits.

As a further note, I’d observe that grandmothers and granddaughters who are downloading material without permission or payment are ‘bad guys’. It just helps the argument to substitute those emotionally charged words for more neutral ones.

 

[Kyle_D]

Sometimes the studios do go after the bad guys. From IMDB:

 

[Ed St. Clair]

That sounded to me like your saying; "so why not?", to pirates. Hope this not just my take on it. It was just difficult, for me, not to think; "What the heck is he saying?".


Since, not one person answered my previous questions. And people think I am the biggest loser posting here, just trying to pick fights, just trying to pump up my ego by asking about your posts...
THERE IS NO NEED TO ANSWER TO THIS POST
Just hope if anyone reads this will understand that I was indeed asking questions to posts I found to be difficult to grasp to being helpful to the Home Theater Community to achieve the goal of HD in our homes.
Thank you.

 

[Aaron_Brez]

I thought I was being clear, but evidently not: that was from a casual "home" pirate's perspective. "I can do it, so why not?"

Obviously it's illegal and immoral; only people who have no respect for intellectual property assert otherwise. The point was that they do it because they can and it's easy, not because they would have made a purchase, except the prices were too high, as the "piracy would go away if studios didn't overcharge for DVDs" folks would assert. I'd wager a $1 would be "too high" for this species of people (although for some reason I believe they'd pay pennies... it's a psychological thing).

I don't think you're the biggest loser posting here. It's just that I am essentially on your side, and your quoting of my made it look like I wasn't.