BluRay won't downsample on analog HDTV

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2006-03-16 05:30pm

part of the news item wrote:Sony is the first studio to lay out its plans for how owners of older, analog-only HD sets would be able to watch Blu-ray content. According to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Senior VP Don Eklund, none of Sony's Blu-ray releases for the "foreseeable future" will use ICT to force downsampling.

"We have no plan to implement the Image Constraint Token. All of Sony's titles will come out of the analog output at full definition"

I take it Vista will still neuter HD video through non-HDCP monitors?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-03-16 10:02pm

Downsampling is an optional part of AACS, and Sony Pictures does not seem to be using it (that said, someone else releasing content on BD-ROM could). Presumably that would mean that Vista would display that information at full resolution on legacy equipment.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-03-17 11:44am

Whew, finally good news.

Hope other studios follow.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-17 12:31pm

Don't forget they can switch on the flag later with an update...

so there will be no downsampling NOW...

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-03-17 12:59pm

HRogge wrote:Don't forget they can switch on the flag later with an update...

so there will be no downsampling NOW...

That's why I said, "hope other studios follow". Hopefully it becomes a trend, not an exception.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-17 01:10pm

Praxis wrote:That's why I said, "hope other studios follow". Hopefully it becomes a trend, not an exception.

I think Sony plans to get customers by applying less restrictions... a few years later they will "cry about the horrible copy pirates using their feature" and switch it off.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2006-03-17 01:27pm

Can someone please explain this to the HDTV illiterates like myself.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-03-17 02:21pm

Wicked Pilot wrote:Can someone please explain this to the HDTV illiterates like myself.

The early HDTV's to come out didn't support digital input and copy protection, so Blu-ray and HD-DVD give producers three options.

1) Their disks can run fine on analog HDTV's.
2) Since there's no copy protection, it will reduce resolution to 540p (barely above regular TV with progressive)
or
3) it won't play at all on analog TV's

Most were expected to do #2, restricted resolution on analog HDTV's. Sony isn't on their movies.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-17 02:24pm

Okay...

HDTV (high definition TV) might be the next generation of TV. It has a much higher resolution (up to 1920x1024 pixel) so the images should be better.

But the video industry decided that there are too many video pirates out there to let standard HDTV screens watch their movies, so they use a lot of encryption and content "protection" systems on the next generation DVDs (called HD-DVD and Blueray-Disk).

They can prevent you from
- copying the movie
- seeing it on a computer with a special OS (Windows Vista might be the first one), a special video-card (which supports encrypted video signals) and a special display (which supports encrypted input)
- seeing it on an analog TV screen (even HDTV) in full resolution
- seeing it on an analog TV screen at all
and some other things.

Sony just said they will let you watch it on analog HDTV screens (all HDTV screens sold 2005 and before) in full resolution.

But the update feature of their new "content protection" can switch this feature off at any time, they will just place the necessary data on their future HD-DVDs/Blueray-Disks and your player will revoke the "you may see the old disks in full resolution" feature at once and for all.

Oline61 · Post by **Oline61** » 2006-03-17 07:04pm

Inevitably the analog downsample flag will get turned on. But consumers, always 1 step ahead of evil corporations will create devices to strip the protection from HDCP signals and then full digital copies will be possible. That way studios will end up worse off than they would be if they left analog output at full resolution.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-17 07:09pm

Oline61 wrote:Inevitably the analog downsample flag will get turned on. But consumers, always 1 step ahead of evil corporations will create devices to strip the protection from HDCP signals and then full digital copies will be possible. That way studios will end up worse off than they would be if they left analog output at full resolution.

Not without breaking the AES encryption key... and they can revoke keys with updates on new disks.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2006-03-17 07:26pm

Yup, HDCP is pretty difficult to crack, especially since they update the keys if a device is being used for copying to block that device.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2006-03-17 08:04pm

Naw, what would probably happen is that they would buy one legitimate player. There will be a brief area in which the image has to come out in all its unencrypted, undowngraded glory, and they tap off that and make their discs, and make a killing from angry customers.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-18 08:00am

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:Naw, what would probably happen is that they would buy one legitimate player. There will be a brief area in which the image has to come out in all its unencrypted, undowngraded glory, and they tap off that and make their discs, and make a killing from angry customers.

Unlikely...HDCP encryption is built on the fact that the decrypted data never leaves the chip.

Only in the display device the decoded data is transmitted to the screen, but this might be display specific data.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-03-18 09:54am

Thing is, the keys will likely not be individual player only. So while turning off the key is possible, as soon as it happens to a best selling model (which likely has a single key thruout the line, a couple at most), the studios can either kill the key, thus facing a massive consumer backlash or just pretend everything is A-OK and make the protection as irrelevant as the DVD protecton was. The protection mesures are not intended to stop professional criminal copying anyway.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2006-03-18 10:36am

I'm looking forward to see how Australia deals with these new technologies. When the Entertainment Industry attempted to region code Australia, they told them to go sod off and Australia is regionless. I wouldn't be surprised that the Entertainment industry will be forced to create indepdent hardware for Austraila. And then Austrailian online companies will make a shitload of money selling back to the US.

Oline61 · Post by **Oline61** » 2006-03-18 07:40pm

HRogge wrote:Not without breaking the AES encryption key... and they can revoke keys with updates on new disks.

That sucks. I'm sure it will be cracked, but sounds like a pain and a lot of work. If I am unable to make backup copies of these discs I will NOT buy them. But I will still acquire high definition versions of the movies

.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-03-19 12:58am

Oline61 wrote:That sucks. I'm sure it will be cracked, but sounds like a pain and a lot of work. If I am unable to make backup copies of these discs I will NOT buy them. But I will still acquire high definition versions of the movies .

It currently looks like you'll need a hardware device to strip out HDCP over the HDMI connector.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2006-03-19 02:12am

HRogge wrote:Unlikely...HDCP encryption is built on the fact that the decrypted data never leaves the chip.

Only in the display device the decoded data is transmitted to the screen, but this might be display specific data.

The pure unencrypted digital signal is transmited from the HDCP decrypting device to the actual screen's decoded via some wires. They arent a single hardwired device.

Anyone with enough knowhow and a little money can insert a something to capture the unencrpyted signal.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-19 03:12am

No... A LCD (or plasma) screen cannot understand standard digital video signals... they just built the decoding processor and the one that transform it into monitor specific controlling signals into one chip.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2006-03-19 03:31am

HRogge wrote:No... A LCD (or plasma) screen cannot understand standard digital video signals... they just built the decoding processor and the one that transform it into monitor specific controlling signals into one chip.

My point is they are not on the single chip. Vastly too costly todo so

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-19 05:52am

Xon wrote:My point is they are not on the single chip. Vastly too costly todo so

We will see... it's not that difficult to pack both functions in one chip today.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-03-19 08:29am

HRogge wrote:No... A LCD (or plasma) screen cannot understand standard digital video signals... they just built the decoding processor and the one that transform it into monitor specific controlling signals into one chip.

You could dump the signal back to HDMI, which IIRC is a modification of the DVI signalling standard.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2006-03-19 04:16pm

phongn wrote:
HRogge wrote:No... A LCD (or plasma) screen cannot understand standard digital video signals... they just built the decoding processor and the one that transform it into monitor specific controlling signals into one chip.
You could dump the signal back to HDMI, which IIRC is a modification of the DVI signalling standard.

Correct, which is why you can buy DVI -> HDMI cables......for a fucking PREMIUM!

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2006-03-19 05:30pm

Vertigo1 wrote:Correct, which is why you can buy DVI -> HDMI cables......for a fucking PREMIUM!

And they work because the receiver of an HDMI slot does not require the input being encrypted... it can handle it with and without encryption.

But when the transmitter requests encryption, it will not send until the other side agreed to "encryption only".