The Great HDCP Fiasco

[Geo]

That guy is really missing the big picture, and rather late to the plate as well. Here is an article from last year that goes into much better detail on what it will take to acomplish HDCP protected content playback on PCs:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1871&page=1

Interesting article.

What about this:

The PE is built on certified hardware using certified drivers, and can be invalidated by the presence of 'un-trusted' software, drivers or hardware. What constitutes unsafe software will likely be decided by Microsoft and concerned interests like the RIAA and movie industries.

Whazzat? "Untrusted drivers"? So this gets added to the WHQL process in some fashion? How does the list of trusted drivers get updated? What impact if any does this have for fans of NV beta-of-the-day?

 

[London Geezer]

Heh, THANK GOD i'm on a PC-upgrade break.. for the next 5 years or so... I only buy PCs or PC upgrades every 5 years or so, or when i know that what i'm buying will work properly for a long time, cause it's just stupid to keep upgrading, knowing there could be situations where i woul dbe wasting my money big time.

So for me the next 5 years are all about consoles, and most probably PS3 because of Bluray - i'm cheap u see...

 

[Rolf N]

Here's coming to the restaurant. Table for two. Eheh.

"Hi"
"Hi, I would like huh.."
"I'm sorry but as it is I can't serve you. You first need to go to the hat shop next door and buy this wonderful hat with feathers before I can serve you."
"err. I've always eaten here without wearing a hat. Why would I need to buy a hat now ?"
"Sure. There was no technical reasons we couldn't serve you if you had no hat. But we've just signed an agreement with the shop next door that makes it legally impossible for us to serve you if you didn't get a hat from that shop before."
"What the ..! I'm off. I'm leaving to another restaurant"
"Actually all the restaurants in town have signed the same agreement with that hat shop. Really you shouldn't complain. What you should realize is that hat is not really a *hat*, it's more like an *enabler*. After buying this one you'll be able to enjoy any restaurant in town without constraint."

So comply or starve !

The analogy is incomplete.
The couple could go home, produce some hot amateur pr0n in 1080p, encode it with XVid, burn it on CD-Rs and sell them. Without any hats

Err, I meant they can open their own restaurant. Or someone else with more money or better skills. If enough people are pissed off about a service that is so well within reach as "providing food for guests", someone is eventually going to try their own luck.

When I'm taking a glance at the music business, I see "the industry" pumping out shite and moving towards a well deserved and painful death, but OTOH there are actually many independent bands that do healthy business and at the same time hate DRM just as much as all normal people do. There is life without radio and without the mainstream press.

The movie industry will probably just crash and burn though.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The analogy is incomplete.
The couple could go home, produce some hot amateur pr0n in 1080p, encode it with XVid, burn it on CD-Rs and sell them. Without any hats

The movie industry will probably just crash and burn though.

They probably can't unless they buy an expensive licence to show that their content is "trusted".

This isn't about priracy, this is about controlling what you do with any content you buy, locking out competitors, and monetizing all the things we take for granted now.

 

[Rolf N]

They probably can't unless they buy an expensive licence to show that their content is "trusted".

There's nothing preventing you from encoding (and decoding) video at "HD" resolutions without ever being infected with DRM. Just use the right codecs. You can play anything on a PC at least, and stand-alone players that lock "unprotected" content out are just business lost to HTPCs.

This isn't about priracy, this is about controlling what you do with any content you buy, locking out competitors, and monetizing all the things we take for granted now.

I don't need to consume movies. And I don't see myself buying any "protected" content, I'll just go to the cinema three times a year or so, as I do now, and be done with it. That isn't saying I'm compensating by pirating movies, I just don't need to watch them. I don't listen to the radio nor do I watch tv, for similar reasons (advertisements, mostly).

I don't want any of that crap in my household.

 

[pascal]

Will I have to buy an whole new expensive PC to play HD content?

It is time to HDdecrypter

 

[_xxx_]

$15,000 isn't cheap.

Of course it's cheap. Dirt cheap, even. That 0.005 per copy is less so, but still bearable.

EDIT: talking corporate customers here, of course

 

[neliz]

Whazzat? "Untrusted drivers"? So this gets added to the WHQL process in some fashion? How does the list of trusted drivers get updated? What impact if any does this have for fans of NV beta-of-the-day?

You read that right..

HDCP is the first real step into trusted computing.

The output device on the videocard encrypts the data before sending it to the external device, which can decrypt it. as far as I'm aware, trusted computing will be all about "certificates" the stuff that makes webbrowsing a hell as it is allready.

So "uncertified" software will constitute anything that might remotely infringe copyrights.
Read, Vista could check upong executing of WMP-HD if there is any uncertified software loaded, screengrabbers, FRAPS. .stuff like that.

so we get a SAFE environment (no more execution of uncertified applications, this will all be checked on-line) and we get a STABLE environment, no more open source programs etc. since these small group based programs simply don't have the funds to acquire installation licenses etc.

Again, WE don't like it..but het.. we see what happens with PCIe and AGP.. it's a bit of a skewed analogy but OEM's will offer it to every customer anyway so the installed base of HDCP ready Home theaters will grow by the millions each month.

 

[Sxotty]

This isn't about priracy, this is about controlling what you do with any content you buy, locking out competitors, and monetizing all the things we take for granted now.

That unfortunately seems to be true. It is a sad state of affairs. and yes I realize $15,000 isn't much to a corporation, but the point was it is not cheap to an individual. Hollywood should have designed a system so a regular person who was messing about could still abide by the rules and do so for free if they were really into protecting content. The point being the more widespread the use the better. There is no excuse for them to charge at all for this. The fact that they are going to is like a slap in the face...


Before we get all angry at Nvidia and ATI may I make a small suggestion. Think about this: They may be fighting our battles for us by not including this crap they might make it so those of us with new monitors can still use them, and so the movie studios can't pull this crap. Think about the fact that the only card that does this is a SONY card. That says something about it.

 

[Geo]

Before we get all angry at Nvidia and ATI may I make a small suggestion. Think about this: They may be fighting our battles for us by not including this crap they might make it so those of us with new monitors can still use them, and so the movie studios can't pull this crap. Think about the fact that the only card that does this is a SONY card. That says something about it.

Because having the consumer DVD/TV people lined up in lock-step, the content providers will quail at the disapproval of the PC enthusiast community? No, I don't think so. I can easily imagine that distaste for the idea is slowing stuff down on the PC side. . .but it has zero long-term effect on the big picture, and I really don't think the IHVs are kidding themselves that it will. It just makes it somewhat more painful for PC enthusiasts to make the transition gracefully.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

There's nothing preventing you from encoding (and decoding) video at "HD" resolutions without ever being infected with DRM. Just use the right codecs. You can play anything on a PC at least, and stand-alone players that lock "unprotected" content out are just business lost to HTPCs.

You can now, but you won't be able to in the future. With hardware DRM & OS support only trusting content that has a licence, you won't be able to run anything at HD res unless it's "trusted".

Instead of assuming that anything without DRM is simply not protected as happens now, anything without DRM will be assumed to have been ripped, and will not be "trusted" or in some cases even played at all. At least that's they way things are going, especially if hardware and software makers give in to the media cartels. There may not be a choice if those same media cartels get the draconian laws they want enacted by their paid-for senators.

I don't need to consume movies. And I don't see myself buying any "protected" content, I'll just go to the cinema three times a year or so, as I do now, and be done with it. That isn't saying I'm compensating by pirating movies, I just don't need to watch them. I don't listen to the radio nor do I watch tv, for similar reasons (advertisements, mostly).
I don't want any of that crap in my household.

This is what I think will happen. People will just find other things to do than pay more money to get less from the cartels. There are serious moves afoot to stop you timeshifting, or charge you for doing so, for repeated viewings, viewings at other people's homes, etc. The cartels want to "monetize" every "privilege" we currently enjoy, such as recording a program and then watching it the next day, or skipping through the commercial breaks, or watching at the higher resolution we paid for.

 

[kyleb]

With hardware DRM & OS support only trusting content that has a licence, you won't be able to run anything at HD res unless it's "trusted".

You are confusing the issue here. The content's copy protection is what has to trust the hardware and software, not the other way around.

 

[Geo]

From a Hexus interview with Godfrey Cheng of ATI late last year:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3702&page=4

<B>Is HDCP in the current driver and working, so you've got content protection out of the box?

We have HDCP working great today but we are rolling it out for OEMs SKUs first. As you may know, we have developed HDCP solutions for the CE market where we have shipped millions of units. By leveraging our CE technologies, we can assure our OEM and retail customers that they will be getting a reliable and tested HDCP solution. We have not finalized our retail HDCP plans yet but we would be able to roll that out fairly quickly should the market want this technology. I predict that it will be fairly common on graphics cards by mid next year.



​

</B>

While the question/answer was a little too subtle for this non-techie to get "no reverse compatibility for shipping skus" out of, in retrospect possibly the most interesting part was the prediction re HDCP skus by mid-year this year.

Anyone care to take a crack at what he's pointing at there, given that we better understand now that he must mean new skus?

 

[neliz]

You are confusing the issue here. The content's copy protection is what has to trust the hardware and software, not the other way around.

It's all about status "trusted" or not a simple check for a video channel, if all components are "trusted", i.e. no vga dongle attached or something, then video playback will happen..
a non-trusted system can also be a system that does not have a compliant dell 30" screen

 

[kyleb]

Heh, I don't see where my comment which you quoted has anything to do with what you said, and the requirment is for HDCP support in the display in general and not something that will relegate playback to a particular brand and model. Are you looking for an excuse to justify that fancy monitor?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

You are confusing the issue here. The content's copy protection is what has to trust the hardware and software, not the other way around.

And if the content has no copy protection? This why they have been talking about "all content must have a licence", even if it is a licence that says "freely distributable". That licence will cost money. Don't forget, the OS of the hardware is the final arbiter of what does or doesn't get played, and the way things are going, it will be a case of "no licence, no play" in order to prevent people simply ripping out content and distributing it without DRM.

 

[kyleb]

Were are you getting this? I don't see anyone talking about "all content must have a licence" and have heard absolutely nothing suggesting people would have to pay to aquire "freely distributable" licences to facilitate playback their own creations.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Were are you getting this? I don't see anyone talking about "all content must have a licence" and have heard absolutely nothing suggesting people would have to pay to aquire "freely distributable" licences to facilitate playback their own creations.

I guess you don't keep up on the DRM and possibilities of the trusted platform concept. That's the way the media cartels want it, because then they can get these capabilities under the radar and activate them later.

You already know that without trusted hardware you won't get full HD/Blu-Ray playback or any playback at all. How are you going to do as a previous poster suggested above, ie make your own HD content and be able to use it if the hardware doesn't see this content as valid, licenced content? If the hardware is happy to play HD content without any sort of authentication, how will it help to stop people who just rip the content out of official discs and distribute it without licences?

 

[ANova]

Were are you getting this? I don't see anyone talking about "all content must have a licence" and have heard absolutely nothing suggesting people would have to pay to aquire "freely distributable" licences to facilitate playback their own creations.

He's saying that once this is all in place there will be nothing to stop corporations from preventing you from watching, listening or running anything that doesn't have a license.

There's more to the "trusted computing platform" idea than merely the prevention of pirated software. It's purpose is to kill two birds with one stone, the second bird being an end to consumer choice and maximization of profit.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

He's saying that once this is all in place there will be nothing to stop corporations from preventing you from watching, listening or running anything that doesn't have a license.

There's more to the "trusted computing platform" idea than merely the prevention of pirated software. It's purpose is to kill two birds with one stone, the second bird being an end to consumer choice and maximization of profit.

It's also laying the groundwork for pay-per-use on everthing - watching, timeshifting, fast-forwarding through commercials, software applications and OS use, etc. It's a business model shift that they think will make them more money if they can get the market to accept it.