Warner Brothers, Intel Begin Futile Legal Assault To Defend Ultra HD And 4K DRM
from the let-the-whac-a-mole-commence! dept
If you've recently decided to jump on board the ultra-high-definition (UHD) and 4K TV craze and bought a shiny new UHD set, you've probably run into HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) 2.2 by now. It's the latest version of the entertainment industry's video copy protection standard designed to secure UHD content. Unfortunately for consumers who rushed out to buy a new 4KTV set, they soon realized that every device in your home theater chain needs to support HDCP 2.2 in order to enjoy UHD.That means that anybody with a new HDCP 2.2 compliant set also needs to spend money to upgrade their home audio receiver to one that's HDCP 2.2 compliant, just so the entertainment industry can be provided with a false sense of security for a standard everybody knows will be bypassed in months.
And bypassed it quickly was. Last November copies of most major UHD/4K movies started showing up on BitTorrent. It's believed that most of these copies were thanks to a Chinese company by the name of LegendSky, which has been selling HDCP 2.2 stripping hardware under the HDFury brand. Variations of these sleek-looking devices start at $200 and sit between HDCP 2.2 compliant devices:
"HDCP plays a critical role in linking consumer electronics devices, personal computers, cable and satellite set-top boxes, and other Digital Devices to allow consumers to access and enjoy digital audiovisual content across a wide array of products, all while effectively protecting the rights of copyright owners and controlling access to copyrighted digital content.Of course, the only thing HDCP 2.2 "links" is the consumer's wallet to companies making new HDCP 2.2 compliant home theater components they may or may not actually need. Warner Brothers hopes that it can get HDFury's gear off the market before the company releases 35 movies on Ultra HD Blu-ray for the first time later this year. But the damage has been done, and it's only a matter of time before countless more HDCP 2.2 bypassing solutions flood the market, once again highlighting DRM's incredible ability to do little more than eat money and annoy paying consumers.
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Filed Under: 4k tv, anti-circumvention, copy protection, dmca, dmca 1201, drm, hd, hdcp, hdfury, uhd
Companies: digital content protection, intel, legendsky, warner brothers
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Balderdash
As such, if they can shut down HDFury, and somehow prevent the genie from taking up employment elsewhere(perhaps by stuffing him back in a bottle somewhere), that will be the end of any DRM bypassing, until they introduce the next form of even better DRM, which will be even more beyond the ability of mortals to bypass.
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Is more necessary or just better to some?
Is 4K or UHD really that much better, or is it something that will be used to measure geekiness, which will only be effective amongst geeks who care? I know a few geeks who's high testosterone levels will make them care, but the general marketplace?
It is also a safe assumption that all these new high definition sets will be 'smart' and reporting the size of your whatzitz should you walk into the room naked. No thanks to that either.
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
You alluded to the reason [the main one for most normal people anyway] in your post:
I'm old enough to remember when SD color and 19" was considered a really big deal. Such a huge television was only suitable for the living room. Nowadays I regularly hear of people putting 40" class televisions in their bedrooms. 70"+ are common and I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see 100"+ televisions become a common sight in living rooms everywhere.
So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
With 1080p and 20"-40" sets it was a question of how close you had to sit to be able to tell the difference between DVD (480p) and HD (1080p).
With sets approaching or exceeding 100" and finite room sizes, I think the new question is how high does the resolution need to be (4K, 8K) so that you no longer see the individual pixels on the screen.
That's my take anyway.
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Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
A 4K set would need to double that dimension. Make it smaller, and you’d need to sit closer, not further.
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Re: Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
If I have an 8ft high room, I can comfortably fit a 210" class television (larger if I have a larger room, say 10ft high, though 8ft is common enough) with a typical viewing distance of 10ft, how high would the resolution need to be to not see the pixels from that distance?
If history tells us anything, people won't get a smaller television, just because they don't have a big enough house.
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Re: how high would the resolution need to be
should give you the answer.
I suspect this is the point where a curved screen would start to show its worth...
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Re: Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
They can be as small as they want (and, with analogue films, they're really really tiny, they're the film grain), and you don't need to sit any closer because of that.
Of course, there could be more details to be seen if you go to the border where you nearly can see individual pixels, and it makes economical sense not to have pixels so small you can't discern them anyway, no matter the distance.
So for 136cm diagonal at 3m, 1080p is only "optimal" in the sense that you don't "waste" any resolution. Lean forward and you'll see pixels, go backward and the field of view gets smaller.
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Re: Re: Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
How is that different?
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
Since we are only licensing the content, we should be free to format and media shift as desired, it's not like we actually BOUGHT those movies on VHS, we only licensed the content on that archaic format...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
if film == HD
iMax == ???
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Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
iMax == Larger HD
Film is analog. People seem to have forgotten the concept already.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
64k should be enough for anyone.
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Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
That making it really hard to type.
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
But it would be interesting if the content changed with the size of your whatzitz.
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Meh. Meh I say.
This even goes for a lot of "big screen movies".
Few films actually benefit from the extra clarity.
...and yes, I do project my B&W reruns from the 50s onto a 120 inch screen.
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Re: Meh. Meh I say.
And I can pretty much discern 720p from anything less. I actually sometimes can't see much difference between 720p and 1080p, but anything below 720p really has a "bad quality" feel.
But then, I'm myopic, and my glasses don't correct everything, so it's entirely possible someone with better eyesight would really see a huge difference between 1080p and 720p.
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Re: Re: Meh. Meh I say.
Heck, I'll even watch the occasional cam if it's interesting enough (e.g. The Force Awakens, after seeing it in the theater first which, while fun, reminded me why I don't go there anymore).
I've never seen much of a difference between 720p and 1080p either though, hence why nearly all of my Bluray/HD-DVD rips are 720p. I feel the hard drive space I've saved did indeed make it the better choice (around 9.8TB by my estimate).
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
SD used NTSC for its color space, HD uses Rec.709, and UHD uses Rec.2020. The difference between 709 and 2020 is huge. UHD can display a LOT more colors than HD can.
The difference is very apparent in good quality UHD displays. Reds and greens are especially much more vibrant. That's a difference you can see no matter how big or small your TV is, or how far away you are sitting.
Yes, in terms of resolution, you might not see much of a difference based on the size of TV and how far away you are. But the difference in color is pretty astounding. Standard def looks pale and bland compared to HD... and HD looks the same compared to UHD (at least when shown on a TV that handles it properly).
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Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
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Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
Imagine if you had to buy $1000 glasses to watch Television, Not television on your glasses. Glasses to decrypt the special visual signal that came out of the TV instead of the video itself. Because "people who haven't bought their own viewing license might be watching from your couch".
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So yeah. The real incredible thing in all of this is they keep trying with DRM and failing over and over and over and over....
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Re:
The crypto was probably developed by seasoned professionals. They simply had an impossible job.
Cory Doctorow once explained it in a talk to the Microsoft Research group:
Cryptography - secret writing - is the practice of keeping secrets. It involves three parties: a sender, a receiver and an attacker [...]. We usually call these people Alice, Bob and Carol. [A few explanations of cipher, ciphertext and key] In DRM, the attacker is *also the recipient*. It's not Alice and Bob and Carol, it's just Alice and Bob. So Alice has to provide Bob - the attacker - with the key, the cipher and the ciphertext. Hilarity ensues.
Which is why encryption is just part of the defense; most of the rest is DMCA-style laws against breaking the encryption, backed by import controls.
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Re:
I don't know for sure, but maybe they could halt imports of the devices. The Chinese company would care about that.
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Making off-site backups is simple common sense. Especially when your DVD, Blu-Ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are typically not covered by insurance.
And especially with the long history of HDCP-compliant devices not talking to each other.
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And this is news, why?
It's about as effective as forcing non-infringing users to watch the unskippable "You might be a pirate" messages on DVD and Blu-rays. After the DRM, those are probably the first thing that gets stripped from unauthorized copies of movies. Soon followed by ads and other unskippable marketing.
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1. WB and Intel buy stock in major home entertainment equipment manufacturers, and secretly buy HDFury
2. Tweak a few lines of code and you have HDCP 2.3
3. Every sucker has to buy new equipment
4. Enter HDFury and pretend like it's a bad thing, and sue, sue, sue
5. Goto 2 and add .1 to the version number
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Re:
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Not likely. DRM's only function is to prevent that linking. So the consumer gets to pay more for this "feature" that will hobble the interface for years to come. That $200 box should not even be needed.
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Re:
And similarly for any other MPAA member?
Or RIAA member for that matter.
(answers left as an exercise for the reader)
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How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
For your protection, naturally. (think: Macrovision quality protection)
Devices could be continually up to date with the latest firmware. For your protection.
Think how much this would improve your life vs the olden days when your TV, VCR, toaster and vacuum cleaner could not get updates from the manufacturer which could fundamentally change their technology. (think: PS3 getting downgraded after you buy it)
The ability to make remote connections into your devices would only be used to update the DRM. Never anything else. Not for spying. Collecting and correlating information between vendors. And certainly not by hackers. All these devices inside your firewall continuously connected to their respective mother ships would not represent a security concern.
Imagine if the MPAA could disable your kitchen appliances and lock the refrigerator door when the TV is playing a commercial.
The biggest benefit of all is that continuously updated devices would never be obsolete.
Oh, the blessings of technology.
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Re: How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
Funny man, devices would be bricked would be unable to sup[port the latest DRM every time the manufacturer needed more sales to boost profits, and this would render them useless.
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Re: How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
Please refrain from giving them ideas.
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Re: How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
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Wrong
Wrong. HDMI does that. HDCP's specific role is to PREVENT those connection.
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I'm sure SlySoft will be on it, too
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we all know drm is wrong
Right now it's just a silly cycle: someone makes it...mean corp. puts a lock/payment code on it...someone breaks said lock/payment doohickey...on and on ad infinitum...
What's the fix?
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Re: we all know drm is wrong
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Re: we all know drm is wrong
Stop applying DRM to everything. It never works, it's always broken, it always has unintended consequences, and it never affects pirates for very long, only people who legally bought the product. Legal purchasers will be pissing around with the DRM long after pirates are able to get 4K movies with no DRM.
The cries of "you can't compete with free" have been proven wrong time and time again. People will pay for content, even if a pirated version is available. Not every person for every copy, but this has never happened anyway. Nothing needs to change about payment methods, royalty structures, etc. to pay artists.
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Re: we all know drm is wrong
The music business abandoned DRM a decade ago. The music you download from iTunes and Amazon is DRM free, and yet iTunes and Amazon thrives as a business and most of that music is still under copyright. They don't need DRM to run their business.
And not all DRM is bad. Netflix uses DRM, and aside from hindering Linux users it's worked out fine for them. DRM's only bad when it gets in the way of something a legitimate customer is trying to do. In this case, simply watch a movie they bought on incompatible equipment. The only thing illegal going on is breaking the DRM, which is why DRM is wrong here, and having a law against breaking DRM is wrong.
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DRM & Jobs
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Oh, HDCP and Cinavia you drive audio visual salesmen to dap dance
Streaming? Sorry I can't stop laughing at that pile of DRM based headache.
However, I love Amazon Prime and xfinity online via 27" iMac. Note: 300Mbit/s cable modem, theoretical.
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Re: Oh, HDCP and Cinavia you drive audio visual salesmen to dap dance
However, I love Amazon Prime and xfinity online via 27" iMac.
Um... unless you're referring to ordering discs via Amazon Prime... that would be streaming, yes?
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Re: Oh, HDCP and Cinavia you drive audio visual salesmen to dap dance
"I love Amazon Prime"
So you do a lot of laughing while watching your streamed movies on Amazon?
Seriously, though, while I despise DRM on purchases, at least it makes some sense with rented content, which is what streaming is. I'd still prefer it not to be there for device compatibility reasons and promoting adoption of open source, but it's easy to understand why it persists.
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update
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