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Ars Technica has an interesting article on how HDCP figures into Microsoft and Apple's future OS plans.
Not only will future HD content not play in pure HD on most existing monitors (it will be degraded, or not shown at all), but high-end monitors today don't support HDCP yet.
HDCP has been coming for 3+ years, but geek fantasy items such as Apple's $3,000 30" Cinema Display don't even have support for it yet!
The end result is that when Windows Vista ships (and Apple's next OS), most people won't be able to watch protected HD content on their computers."

Yes Microsoft has plans to incorperate full-on video DRM.

But Apple has never said they will - this article just postulates they will have to.

Well, before ITMS would not people have also postulated that it would be impossible for Apple to sell songs without DRM that would restrict CD burning? After all, that was the standard of the time.

Some companies are smart enough to realize that obsoleteing millions of monitors is Not Smart, and will avoid doing so if they can. And Apple has shown they can avoid the more onerous restrictions set forth by giant industries that would rather have it otherwise. And making millions of computer monitors obsolete is right up there in terms of gall.

So the story poster would have been wise to note the speculative nature of the topic instead of proclaiming it as fact from Apple.

You might think that you'll be able to buy an HDCP stripper, but there's a problem there. Once a stripper hits the (black or white) market, all a content provider needs to do is revoke the keys used by the device.

Uraniun235 wrote:

You might think that you'll be able to buy an HDCP stripper, but there's a problem there. Once a stripper hits the (black or white) market, all a content provider needs to do is revoke the keys used by the device.

Wait, I don't get this. What keys? They don't mention a key in the rest of the goddamn article. They don't define what the key is or where it's coming from. Fucking sloppy writing.

Uraniun235 wrote:

You might think that you'll be able to buy an HDCP stripper, but there's a problem there. Once a stripper hits the (black or white) market, all a content provider needs to do is revoke the keys used by the device.

Wait, I don't get this. What keys? They don't mention a key in the rest of the goddamn article. They don't define what the key is or where it's coming from. Fucking sloppy writing.

darthdavid wrote:Screw fucking DRM. It will be hacked and If someone else doesn't do it for me I will. And If I can't, well then I geuss I'll just do with out. 'Cause I'm happy with my current monitors thank you very fucking much.

Well what if it's black market and it uses the same keys as something popular. Will the render millions of new legit monitors obsolete by changing these mystery keys?

Ace Pace wrote:If I'm reading Ars right its saying the same thing, monitors and DRM won't dance together.

ggs wrote:I'll take ars technica's take over slashdot anyday.

phongn wrote:The writer assumed that most readers of ArsTechnica are familiar with the basics of content protection and the protection methods already in place for BD-ROM and HD-DVD. In short, media can be released that checks for "known-defeated" keys and refuse to play.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:My question is "why"? What does MS, Apple, or the content makers have to gain by giving people with current monitors the shaft?

Uraniun235 wrote:

phongn wrote:The writer assumed that most readers of ArsTechnica are familiar with the basics of content protection and the protection methods already in place for BD-ROM and HD-DVD. In short, media can be released that checks for "known-defeated" keys and refuse to play.

Couldn't that list grow to be infeasibly long?

Sharp-kun wrote:If MS or Apple were to release a Media Player that didn't support the standards that are being adopted then they end up with a product that won't play some media. If that media standard ends up being the norm, then the product is useless.

Its the groups that are pushing these standards that are really the problem, not MS or Apple.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:

Sharp-kun wrote:If MS or Apple were to release a Media Player that didn't support the standards that are being adopted then they end up with a product that won't play some media. If that media standard ends up being the norm, then the product is useless.

Its the groups that are pushing these standards that are really the problem, not MS or Apple.

Then what do the groups pushing the standards have to gain by including this particular set of restrictions?

phongn wrote:Control. The MPAA wants tight control over their content and definately do not want to see what happened to DVD repeat itself. Sony and Toshiba added all these copy-protection mandates to appeal to the MPAA, et. al.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:My question is "why"? What does MS, Apple, or the content makers have to gain by giving people with current monitors the shaft? How is a movie harder to pirate with this restriction in place? They're not being paid off by the monitor manufacturers or there would already be HDCP on all the new monitors, so what gives?

Ed Stroglio wrote:For the past few days, the Inquirer has had a number of articles pointing out what DRM in Longhorn-compatible systems is going to look like.

For a couple non-ranting summaries, go here and/or here. If you want to see Microsoft's much longer explanation, go there

A Quicker Summary

These protection schemes are designed to protect HDTV-standard content, and I mean protect.

What is being described here is orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the protection schemes being cracked today. The content will be encrypted up the ying-yang, and decrypting will be heavily hardware-based with constant polling at multiple points in the system.

In a sentence, if your hardware (primarily your video card and monitor) isn't up to security snuff, and you try playing a future HD-DVD or the like, legitimate or not, it either won't play at all or at best will only play in low resolution.

If you just bought a bunch of state-of-the-art, cutting-edge equipment, this means you, too. Just about any monitor sold today doesn't have the circuitry needed to make Longhorn DRM happy. It's possible to have a little box/adapter that will make it happy, but they're expensive today, and it's clear that such technology will be discouraged in the future.

If your reaction to this is, "Oh, I'll just go over to Linux," well, understand that if an HD-content doesn't find what it wants, it just won't work. I don't find it inconceivable that this could be broken, but cracking this is likely to be so complicated and cumbersome that it's unlikely to become mainstream.

I could be wrong there, but if you're looking at buying expensive equipment today that is going to have to last you longer than, say, 24 months, and you expect to eventually see HD-DVD on your machine, it would be foolish to assume that I am.

To some extent, this affects graphics cards. To a much greater degree, it will affect monitors (for instance, don't even bother buying a VGA monitor, MS is currently saying those will never work in full HD-standard, and likely won't work at all in the near future). High-end audio folks ought to be concerned, too, MS has left some ominous hints about that, too, in their white paper.

Under these circumstances, it is wise to invoke the principle, "When in doubt, don't." Don't lay out a ton for a computer monitor (or any other HD-capable screen) expecting to eventually use it for HD-DVD use unless it complies with these standards (the technical term is HDCP).

HollyOS

There can be no doubt that the draconian measures being taken are not Redmond's idea, but Hollywood's.

The horse is out of the barn for today's DVD, and these standards indicate that Hollywood won't cry over spilled milk, but they'll be damned if they let it happen again at the HD level.

It's obvious Hollywood said, "Do this, or our new DVDs won't play on PCs. Period." and they don't care what you or Microsoft or Intel or AMD or anybody else thinks about it.

If you're saying to yourself, "If Hollywood does this, I'll . . . ." Hollywood's answer to you is going to be, "Go ahead."

It's also just as obvious that this is the package which will presented to legislatures as "see, we can take care of this problem ourselves." Maybe they'll seek a little law or two that will require all systems to follow such standards, and put in serious criminal penalties for anyone who breaks them, but it's basically meant to get government off the hook on this issue, which will make them very happy.

So this will go through, and there will be tremendous wailing and gnashing of teeth, and millions of people will make mostly empty threats, and when they find out that the answer to their threat is, "Bye, and don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out," and if there's no easy way to break the protection, they'll either resume buying, or join a legal music service (perhaps there will be movie services by then), or find something else to do.

A relative few will go underground, and do whatever it takes to copy the new stuff. Rather more will keep copying under the old standards and gradually fade away.

And that will be that.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:

phongn wrote:Control. The MPAA wants tight control over their content and definately do not want to see what happened to DVD repeat itself. Sony and Toshiba added all these copy-protection mandates to appeal to the MPAA, et. al.

OK, I think I get it. By hamstringing non-HDCP monitors, they want to force in HDCP, which presumably has other benefits to them.

Praxis wrote: I don't know where he's getting this "And Apple's Next OS" thing, as Apple hasn't even mentioned HDCP.

Uraniun235 wrote:Seems to me the optimum workaround would be to get at the key database. Wonder if it'll ever get leaked.

Uraniun235 wrote:Really? They'd invalidate thousands of players out there because somebody leaked the keys? That'd be a nice way to generate some negative press.