Here We Go Again — Video Standards War 2010 292
Andy Updegrove writes "Think of the words 'standards war,' and if you're of a certain age you're likely to think of the battle between the Betamax and VHS video tape formats. Fast forward, and you'll recall we just finished another video standards war between most of the same companies, this time between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Well, here we go again, except this time its the movie studios that are duking it out, and DRM issues are a big part of it. On the one side are five of the six major studios, dozens of cable, hardware, software, distribution and device vendors, and on the other side there's just Disney — and maybe Apple as well, and that's enough to have the other side worried."
Re:Nothing new here.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nothing new here.. (Score:4, Informative)
It never really slowed down pirates though, just honest people.
Re:And the winner is... (Score:3, Informative)
KeyChest isn't "DRM", at least on the file level (Score:5, Informative)
KeyChest isn't really DRM, it's a central repository for purchase information of DRMed files.
The idea is that companies opt into it, and then every device knows what you own. So when you go download Finding Nemo off iTunes, you can suddenly watch it on your cable box from the cable company, because they are both members of KeyChest and both know that you have a license to that media.
Basically, it solves the "tied to one format" problem. Each file still needs a "real" DRM format, the KeyChest just serves as a central clearing house of what licenses you have.
This would fix one of the MAJOR problems with DRM. It's still DRM, but it would be better than what we have now.
There was a short article on this somewhere (Gizmodo, Engadget, Ars Technica, somewhere) last week. I can't find it right now.
Re:Nothing new here.. (Score:1, Informative)
Or just an old enough video recorder.
I had an old recorder and copied Disney Movies without a problem. The problem arouse when we tried to copy my copy on another set of vcrs. The copy protection was still there on the copy.
The vcr copy protection required the target vcr to support copy protection.
Much Ado about nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Clarification (Score:4, Informative)
Technically, Steve Jobs is the largest single shareholder of Disney. His shares come to about 7% of Disney. He is also a shareholder in Apple but I'm not sure what about how many shares he has.
Re:And the winner is... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't want to copy, just to use fairly (Score:2, Informative)
I really don't mind paying for my movies, tv shows and music. I do regret that such a big part goes to the studio vs musicians but that's the way it is in every industry.
What I do mind is not being able to use what I have as I should.
I want to be able to move recorded shows from my PVR to my laptop/ipod/psp/whatever
I want to par a reasonable price for rent vs buy and cheaper for the electronic compressed version. Why would I pay 20$ for a compressed movie when I can get a DVD for often half that price and the DVD will be easy to rip to PSP so my kid can watch it in the car?
Re:Slave to the server (Score:4, Informative)
You can play single player Steam games offline so long as you run Steam in offline mode.
Not completely true, it depends on the game.
L4D2 will not run offline PERIOD. You get ~5 minutes of game play before the game kicks you out because it can't connect to Steam. This will happen even in offline mode...
Re:Thanks but no thanks. (Score:3, Informative)