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."
And the winner is... (Score:2, Interesting)
What side is the pr0n industry on?
Slave to the server (Score:5, Interesting)
Another "slave to the server" DRM scheme. Those have a finite lifetime.
What's the longest-lived "slaved to a server" DRM scheme? Has any such scheme been working for ten years? iTunes may be the oldest, but they didn't support video until 2005, and they've been moving away from DRM on audio.
Think of what al-Queda could do with the signing key for Windows Update.
This isn't a difficult decision (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, I read TFE, and it seems to me that for consumers (which is what I personally am concerned about) there's a clear choice -- buy content (if reasonably priced) from Warner Brothers, Paramount, NBC Universal, Sony and Fox, and torrent content from Disney. What standards war?
Of course, if both solutions are confining and/or expensive, neither will be adopted en-masse. For the first time, consumers have a third choice -- free -- and to compete with that, content providers will have to provide something that benefits consumers instead of annoying them. I wonder if the content providers get this yet.
The art of the possible. (Score:4, Interesting)
All the major media companies except Disney and Apple are supporting a media-purchase-validation system that won't work unless your purchase is DRM'd. Disney and Apple are proposing one that works equally well with un-DRM'd media.
Jobs is at it again.
As long as the studios sell atoms to the consumer- (Score:4, Interesting)
-I.E., DVD/BluRay discs, any DRM is useless and will be subverted.
Encode the bits all the way to the monitor/TV display. It makes no difference. Someone, somewhere will figure out how to convince the data stream that it's driving an encryption compliant display, while in actuality, that now unencrypted data stream is being written to a hard drive as an H.264 video/audio file.
Even if eventually, everything comes from the cloud, the Chinese will be happy to sell you a greymarket flatscreen TV/Monitor with all the audio/video out ports you could ever want on the back of the display. All ready to plug into your computer.
Until then, ffmpeg and Handbrake/MacTheRipper are your archiving friends.
As for torrents, I look at the Internet as my own personal Digital Video Recorder that automatically edits out the commercials.
Oh, and lastly, I buy almost all my DVDs used. No point in paying the studios/networks/production companies that DRM their products.
Re:Who Won the HD DVD War? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, these numbers are slightly skewed by the fact that seasons of TV shows count as single DVD or BluRay titles but each episode counts as a separate streaming title, but it's more interesting when I look at the numbers added in the last three months:
They're still adding a lot of new DVD titles. That's still where their money is. I don't have a BD player and I watch things on a projector that only does 800x600. The streaming titles look a bit worse than DVDs, but not much. Things I stream from iPlayer are very close to DVD quality now, and I'm not even watching the 720p streams. By the time I replace my projector, in a couple of years, iPlayer will probably have increased the 720p streams to 1080p. There doesn't seem much attraction in renting BD over streaming.
If you buy films then it might make sense, but I rarely watch films more than a couple of times, and I'd rather watch a new film than re-watch an old one. I have a library of around 100 DVDs that I almost never watch. I can rent more than a dozen DVDs over the course of a month for less than the cost of buying one BD, so there's no incentive to buy.
Except fo Course... (Score:5, Interesting)
You _aren't_ going to get a key for "The White Album" you are going to get a key for "the 2011 release of 'The White Album" in MP3 format from Sony Interactive for use on sPlayer #xxxxxxx" simply because they _can_ be that specific and they _don't_ want to sell anything once that they can sell a million times.
DRM == RENT, and illegal prior restraint, and a scheme that can never actually work because it is a system that violates every principle of both software engineering and cryptography. No matter how you slice it, DRM is a stupid waste of leptons, time, and money. It is a system based on a complete lack of modularity and locality.
DRM is a classic case of "who will watch the watchers?" and not just at the corporate and financial and cultural levels. As a simple exercise in software engineering DRM must fail. It is a system that must be part of every element of a system (which is the failure of locality and modularity etc) to the degree that you need to have DRM policing the DRM system.
DRM is the Perpetual Motion of Software. People keep inventing new versions of it that don't quite work because no version of it can _ever_ deliver what is promised. Companies keep buying into the hype because they are blinded by "the potential". The only difference is that we are all being forced to buy these perpetual motion machines. Sure _this_ one has a battery in it, _that_ one has to be hooked up to the electrical mains. Some other one needs a waterwheel or a solar panel, and they will all tear off an arm or crush your child if you aren't careful... but we are _almost_ there... just one more scheme and we'll have it right...
The whole thing is a tax, levied by the stupid, paid by the sheep, and ready to break businesses when, I don't know, say Microsoft (or whomever) forgets to update a certificate (or whatever) before it expires (or whatever).
Where the heck do I find the Opt-Out?
Re:Hang on... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why don't you get back to us when that actually happens.
In the meantime, the rest of us will be doing what this technology only promises.
Some of us will be paying our own way. Most of us won't. Either way, all of us
will be taking advantage of what the tech has to offer rather than waiting for
the moguls to give us permission to do what should be our right to do.
Although the n00bs will probably get comfortable with the alternatives before
the moguls deliver on their promises. If that means that most people are used
to and comfortable with pirating then it will be the industry's own damn fault.
Formats are irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)
For the computer/HTPC/media player box, it's even simpler. Those boxes already include CODECs for dozens of different formats, and many of those boxes include near automatic firmware upgrades to permit installing more CODECs and capabilities continuously.
Re:And the winner is... (Score:1, Interesting)
The one hour limit was Beta's main downfall.
Huh? There is not a one hour limit on Beta. They made different length tapes (just like VHS), and had different recording speeds (just like VHS), to get up to eight hours per tape. I still have some.
Re:Slave to the server (Score:3, Interesting)
Audible.com has been running since 1997, and I think the DRM is relatively unchanged since 2000.
Re:Much Ado about nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
DECE isn't really about a new DRM format, it's about everyone using the same DRM format. That idea, and a centralized license manager, are both different approaches to solving the same problem: being able to play your DRMed files on different devices.
The author glosses over the specifics, but the basic conflict is as described.
Re:We vote with our wallets (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it is more realistic to think this will be the case; and in the event that it is: what are our options? Are they running afoul of some FTC regulation relating to price fixing and anti-competitive behavior? Or will we have to file a class action suit, on the dwindling hope that Fair Use still means something to the courts?
What about FOSS OS's? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm more curious on how this will work with concepts to FOSS OS's.
On the one side we have DECE which has Microsoft on it's side whom wouldn't mind all this new DRM being used because they won't need to port it over to Linux/BSD using the answer of 'the market isn't big enough' meaning 'Windows PC's will stay Windows PC's or lose all sorts of functionality of digital media'. While something like a DeCSS hack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS) could be used to overcome these problems, it wouldn't be legal in places like the US due to the DMCA and possibly most first world nations in the future with how the ACTA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement) is shaping up with it's global DMCA policies.
On the other side we had the Keychest which has Apple on it. And Apple has shown many times they don't like the idea of there stuff being used in ways they don't appove of. This is shown through concepts of iTunes only being available on Windows and their own OS X and not on Linux/BSD. While work arounds have been made they no longer work with the newer versions of IPod/iTouch due to the modifications made to the firmwares (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1831236). Mac OS only being able to be installed on Mac hardware (while this was a more non-issue when they were using the PowerPC chipsets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerpc) which were different then normal PC's x86 architecture, the newer models all run Intel x86 chips makes this a more controlling issue then a lack of useablity. Things like the iPhone and iTouch needing to be jailbroken (no doubt will be covered and made illegal with ACTA) just to make/install programs you choose.
Way I'm seeing it, this is more likely going to be bad or worse for FOSS OS's with the only 2 major companys that will be effected not caring about that problem since it will only help kill the competition, leaving us back to MS or Apple. Or maybe Google but last I heard the Google Chrome OS is being made for Netbooks not full blown PCs