Thursday, March 2, 2006
IGN: Next-Gen DVD Copy-Protection Debacle
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 10:33 AM
"In perhaps the greatest disservice to the general consumer market yet perpetrated by players in the electronic entertainment industry, it has been revealed that next-generation DVD technologies (HD-DVD and Blu-ray) will only function with monitors and HDTVs with HDMI or DVI connections. What does that mean to you? If you purchased an HDTV more than a couple of years ago, chances are you are using Component Video (the red, green, and blue plugs) to connect HD sources to your TV. Component Video is an analog transmission, which means that it can't work with the absurdly stringent AACS copy-protection Hollywood has insisted be integrated into the new formats. Thus, no HDMI input on your TV, no hi-def DVD for you. If you don't have a compatible TV, you'll either receive a massively downgraded sub-720p resolution version of the content, or what the studios are suggesting, a warning screen followed by nothing."
This is no surprise to the people who read this site - well, who read any technology site - but when Joe Consumer wants to buy an HD-DVD player this Christmas season and he finds out that it won't work with his TV...Joe Consumer isn't going to be very happy. People replace their TVs very infrequently - in fact, I'd venture to say that out of every consumer electronics device in the home, the TV is the one that people keep the longest. It's generally the most expensive, and is expected to last the longest. The consumer electronics industry is setting itself up for a lot of pain in the year few years. It might not happen this year, as most people buying first-generation high-definition DVD players will be paying a premium and will understand the type of TV they need. But as the cost on HD-DVD and Blu-ray players fall in 2007/2008, they'll be hitting a huge wall of consumers who won't be buying because their TV won't support it. I'm fortunate in that my DLP TV has DVI and HDMI, but I got an HDTV quite late compared to many of my friends.
This is no surprise to the people who read this site - well, who read any technology site - but when Joe Consumer wants to buy an HD-DVD player this Christmas season and he finds out that it won't work with his TV...Joe Consumer isn't going to be very happy. People replace their TVs very infrequently - in fact, I'd venture to say that out of every consumer electronics device in the home, the TV is the one that people keep the longest. It's generally the most expensive, and is expected to last the longest. The consumer electronics industry is setting itself up for a lot of pain in the year few years. It might not happen this year, as most people buying first-generation high-definition DVD players will be paying a premium and will understand the type of TV they need. But as the cost on HD-DVD and Blu-ray players fall in 2007/2008, they'll be hitting a huge wall of consumers who won't be buying because their TV won't support it. I'm fortunate in that my DLP TV has DVI and HDMI, but I got an HDTV quite late compared to many of my friends.
