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cotts Valley (CA) - Harddrives using perpendicular recording are on track to hit the market in early 2006 with capacities of up to 160 or even 200 GByte in 2.5-inch form factors. Consumer electronics using these devices could follow soon thereafter - but Hollywod may have a say in how quickly these monster drives make their way into portable audio and video players, Tom's Hardware Guide has learned.

More space for portable consumer electronics is a no brainer. Who wouldn't want more space on their iPods and enough room for several movies on PMPs and currently rumored video iPods? Some analysts claim its not as easy as just building these new drives into devices. If there is to be a roadblock, it may come from content and media providers, including Hollywood studios, which may seek to enact regulations or legislation mandating the inclusion of digital rights management (DRM) facilities in CE devices that use high-capacity drives, as Michael Cai, senior analyst with Parks Associates, told Tom's Hardware Guide.

The moment you become capable of reading and writing movies and transporting that content across borders, Cai said, "Hollywood can get really concerned. What if you can carry like 20 movies with you all the time, and they can't control the content any more?" It's the possible crossing of geographic boundaries that's the problem, Cai said - a problem that wouldn't crop up if the media device were made to sit on your desktop at home, no matter how small it becomes.

The technology that may make this capability - as well as this debate - possible is called perpendicular storage. The technology vastly increases storage densities in harddrives by changing the way magnetic elements are polarized, so that their magnetic pull upon one another doesn't cause them to flip each other at the extremely close range that small form factors require. As analysts tell us, Seagate's accelerated development will inevitably expedite the plans of competitors who have also made announcements in the perpendicular space, including Toshiba, Hitachi, Western Digital, and Maxtor.

Dave Reinsel, storage analyst for IDC, disagrees. With regard to Cai's theory that digital rights management could--though not necessarily--hold up perpendicular drive implementation in small devices, Reinsel told us, "I fail to see the link between perpendicular recording and that phenomenon. There's likely to be DRM-type strategies, especially with some of the latest court rulings, imposed upon the industry, and hard drive manufacturers may find themselves in the thick of it in helping to enable compliance to these DRMs, but that's more in the electronics strategy, not storage."

Smaller, higher-capacity hard drives could lead to the development of smaller, portable video devices with both record and playback capabilities. Seagate spokesperson David Szabados told Tom's Hardware Guide today, "In many cases, it is the disk drive itself that has directly enabled the introduction of many of these new devices we see. As we increase overall capacities using perpendicular recording, we'll see an advancement in those existing products as well as new unique applications as well. For example, it's only a matter of time before devices specifically designed to store and playback high-definition television become mainstream."

Squint carefully at Szabados' statement, and you might just be able to make out the term, "video iPod."
If DRM does not pose any obstacles whatsoever to perpendicular's adoption, Cai believes there's nothing else preventing CE manufacturers such as Apple from implementing new drives from Seagate and other manufacturers, leading to a new wave of high-capacity portable storage devices as soon as Christmas 2006. "Since [Seagate and competitors] have established relationships with a lot of the CE manufacturers now," said Cai, "I think the migration is smoother...I see the lead time may not be as long as we might have imagined, because most hard drive companies already have done CE drives already, so they have the expertise."

This morning, Seagate CFO Charles Pope, in a conference call to analysts, stated nearly all his company's hard drives produced at the end of 2006 will feature perpendicular recording technology.

According to Szabados, desktop computers will not be the first devices to see perpendicular recording drives, and probably not high-def DV-Rs. "The most logical areas to introduce perpendicular recording," remarked Szabados, "are with devices and areas that are severely space-constrained and/or portable but need further storage capacity, which is why you'll hear about them used in notebooks and CE devices first. While the transition will also occur in disk drives used within enterprise-class servers for example, it's less critical since a typical data center is a bit more flexible with regards to storage. Also, an enterprise server environment is often focused more on performance I/O needs to get information out to client systems, and overall capacity is less of an issue."

"At this point," related IDC's Reinsel, "we know that the last place it's likely to show up is in desktops, which happens to be a large part of the volume." Instead, Reinsel said, the pressure comes from CE manufacturers who are looking for smaller hard drives as a low-cost substitute or even replacement for flash memory. "I think that's where the battle is," said Reinsel, "bringing laptop/notebook type devices to a capacity that's commensurate with desktop PCs that's using 3.5", and then also providing leverage in a dollar-per-gig advantage from flash in the MP3 player space. That's where the two instances of perpendicular are going to show up first."

While the storage industry at large may not be in as much of a rush as has been reported lately to retool for perpendicular, said Reinsel, he agreed that the timeframe Seagate outlined today should lead to the availability of high-capacity CE devices by early 2007.

For its part - true to form - spokespersons for Apple Computer declined comment for this article.

MKSheppard wrote:Hollywood needs to fucking die, end of story.

MKSheppard wrote:Hollywood needs to fucking die, end of story.

the .303 bookworm wrote:I suppose it's too much to hope that the video store on itunes will let you burn it to dvd or a non iPod pmp.

the .303 bookworm wrote:I find it hard to remember the time that I actually felt guilty for downloading music, however hollywoods crackdowns have made me feel guily for downloading whole albums.

Chmee wrote:I can see the DRM crap being enforced at the device level -- portable video players, etc. -- but not at the hard drive level, datacenter customers just won't go for that shit. They can kiss my big fat RAID array if they try to put DRM on my home network's hard-drives.

Molyneux wrote:Wait...why the fuck would the manufacturers want to listen to Hollywood on this? WHO are they selling these devices to, fer chrissakes?!

General Brock wrote:

Molyneux wrote:Wait...why the fuck would the manufacturers want to listen to Hollywood on this? WHO are they selling these devices to, fer chrissakes?!

I think its about that 'sue you' thingy that Hollywood in particular is good at. Electronics manufacturing is competitive, not so much of a shellgame as moviemaking, and the R&D outlays are huge. They can be hit a lot easier by costly legal action, even if they are in the right.

the .303 bookworm wrote:I suppose it's too much to hope that the video store on itunes will let you burn it to dvd or a non iPod pmp.

What Windows Vista Means to the Open PC Platform
Category: Industry Buzz - July 24, 2005
By Alexander Grundner [1214 Reads]

This post started out to a response to forum comments regarding Windows Vista's DRM and its upcoming effect on the open PC platform, but it turned into a full-blown overview of where we are and what's to come in Windows personal computing and media playback. Have a read and let me know if I'm off base (if I am, where?) or if it's worse than even I suspect.

Disclosure: I've been a dedicated Microsoft Windows user for the past several years, now. However, I like to consider myself platform-neutral, since I'm comfortable using Apple and Linux based computers.

Open PC Platform:

Let's get back to basics for a few seconds and discuss what an "open PC platform" is. An open PC platform is one where ANYONE can buy off-the-shelf PC hardware components and build their own PC ? mixing, matching, and upgrading hardware at their own discretion. Moreover, depending on the PC architecture one chooses, the user has the option of installing one of various operating systems (OS) to suit their needs.

Microsoft Windows:

Microsoft Windows, to a fair extent, has embraced and leveraged the open PC platform in its mission to dominate the world's PC market (this is one of the main reasons why Apple's computers, which are relatively closed systems, have never been able to gain a market share large enough to compete with Microsoft). Windows users, up to Windows 98, have enjoyed this freedom to custom configure, swap, and upgrade their components. However, with the introduction of Windows XP, Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to protect their OS from unauthorized duplication by tying its installation with the CPU, motherboard, and hard drive serial numbers and requiring online registration.

Microsoft's DRM Direction for Windows Vista (aka Longhorn):

As I've stated before, most of the DRM Microsoft is introducing in its future OS release is designed to appease the MPAA and RIAA. It turns out that having only a software based DRM solution, in their eyes, is not sufficient for the playback of copy-protected content on a PC. Content owners are demanding both a software and hardware DRM solution before they are comfortable letting digital works play on a PC. (Remember, though, that 90%+ of what people use their computers for are commonplace tasks like: writing e-mail, surfing the Web, word processing, finances, and gaming.)

So what does this mean? The open platform PC you have grown to love is inevitably going to disappear (at least for Windows users). Here's what my crystal ball shows me (see Media Advances for the Windows PC Architecture, The Four Musketeers, and Intel to cut Linux out of the content market):

In order to have a trusted/secure computer for the playback of premium digital content, computer owners will be required to have the following certified, DRM-embedded hardware: CPU, motherboard, hard drive, graphics card, sound card, and monitor (yes, even the monitor).

Microsoft Overview: Windows Longhorn Output Content Protection:
Protected Video Path (PVP) provides encryption of premium content as it passes over the user-accessible PCIe bus to discrete graphics cards. It uses Diffie Hellman to establish a session key and seeded hardware functionality scan (HFS) for authentication, and an AES 128-bit counter mode and an optional high-bandwidth cipher to encrypt the data.

Output protection management (OPM) provides secure control of the various output protection schemes such as High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), Macrovision, CGMS-A, and resolution constrictors. It uses a simpler form of HFS for authentication and requires content industry robustness rules to be met for hardware implementations. [Note: OPM is incompatible with most monitors sold today. Joe Wilcox explains , "People with non-supported monitors would not be able to play certain types of content, presumably high-definition, at all or full quality."]

Protected User-Mode Audio (PUMA) is the user-mode audio engine (completely new for Windows Longhorn) that runs in the software protected environment. PUMA also includes the same level of audio output protection management that Secondary Audio Programming (SAP) provides in Windows XP, but it is done in a completely different way and takes advantage of the Windows Longhorn software PE.

Protected Audio Path (PAP) is a longer term project to introduce audio encryption all the way to the audio codec chips.

Significant hardware features must be implemented in graphics chips for Windows Longhorn to support PVP and OPM, with additional larger implications for the drivers. This session provides an overview of those requirements.

The bottom line is that if you decide to swap out one of the above mentioned hardware items with a non-certified component, the system will be crippled, or worse, unable to boot! That's the impression I'm getting. On top of that, I can see the scenario where you'll have to update your registration with Microsoft every time you change a component ? unless your computer can talk to an online Microsoft hardware database that can give the computer the green light to claim itself a "protected environment" once it checks in.

My other concern is with software developers. If Microsoft is disabling software that circumvents copy-protection, how about software that uses codecs that Microsoft doesn't deem secure? Or how about PVR companies like SnapStream, will they be put out of commission on Windows machines because Microsoft certified hardware won't allow their software to access broadcast or premium content being played through the computer unless they use Microsoft's DRM technologies? (Say bye, bye to your DivX TV show recordings.)

Streaming Content over the Home Network:
Chris Lanier, in his forum comments to my previous post, notes that the PC is the center of digital home experience and that by using only stand-alone devices to gather and share content from, consumers will get "a lot less interoperability." Both are valid points, but both issues can be easily addressed with interoperable DRM (which I've been pushing for) that can be played back on any device regardless of OS platform and integrating UPnP functionality.

Conclusion:
My thoughts are that DRM is a necessary evil, but that PC users shouldn't have to give up their open PC platform to accommodate secure media playback functionality. If the content creators are so bent on having a locked down system, then maybe Microsoft should consider selling a locked down media center PC to consumers that will offer CE product security, but will be able to share and stream content securely (say, using DTCP-IP or CGMS-A ) to other devices and networked computers. Unfortunately, that prospect is not in the cards. Microsoft wants to make ALL future computers "protected environments," like it or not ? most likely for the reason that computers are becoming a commodity. "Why upgrade when you can buy a new computer?" is their reasoning. As to how consumers are going to react to these changes, we'll have to wait and see. But I, for one, will think long and hard before continuing down Microsoft's upgrade path.

Windows users, up to Windows 98, have enjoyed this freedom to custom configure, swap, and upgrade their components. However, with the introduction of Windows XP, Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to protect their OS from unauthorized duplication by tying its installation with the CPU, motherboard, and hard drive serial numbers and requiring online registration.

Uraniun235 wrote: Why'd he say 98 and not 2000?

frankly, if there isn't any compelling reason to upgrade to Longhorn ... then I'm not sure why people would drop the cash on it. ... how many people here at SDN still use 98? How long has it taken for 98 to finally start dying? XP will be with us for a very long time.

General Brock wrote:Thanks for the heads up.

I've been looking at taking the plunge into Linux, but I've accumulated so Windows software\

FedRebel wrote:

General Brock wrote:Thanks for the heads up.

I've been looking at taking the plunge into Linux, but I've accumulated so Windows software\

Lindows and Winiux could be good alternatives

Suse 9.3 Pro can share your HD with Windows

General Brock wrote:

FedRebel wrote:

General Brock wrote:Thanks for the heads up.

I've been looking at taking the plunge into Linux, but I've accumulated so Windows software\

Lindows and Winiux could be good alternatives

Suse 9.3 Pro can share your HD with Windows

OK, thanks I'll research them as well. Sorry it took so long to respond.

Durandal wrote:

the .303 bookworm wrote:I suppose it's too much to hope that the video store on itunes will let you burn it to dvd or a non iPod pmp.

There is no Apple movie store. And if there is, they'll most likely allow a limited number of DVD burns.