Comments on: DRM is like a vampire: It’s hard to kill and it sucks. http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76 [ 4C ][ 30 ][ 47 ][ 31 ][ 43 ] Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:02:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: 013 http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76&cpage=1#comment-137 013 Thu, 20 May 2010 06:13:35 +0000 http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76#comment-137 I have no problem getting video to the TV. The problem is with the audio. My receiver is a repeater that does not decrypt the HDCP encrypted signal, so it can't pull the audio from the HDMI cable. It can only pass it through to the TV. If I eliminate the TOSLINK and Digital Coax, I do not get surround sound. Period. There is no way to do it. Oddly, the HDCP compliant devices have no problem outputting the audio signal digitally to the receiver unencrypted, as long as it's not over HDMI. Frankly though, the techincal details aren't all that relevant. I should not have to shell out extra dollars to get a receiver with HDCP decryption and decoding just to watch movies in surround sound. HDCP was cryptographcially broken before it was even released as a digital content protection scheme. Pirates had the ability to copy content almost immediately. All HDCP does now is make it complex to connect many devices to audio and video output devices. Pirates remain undeterred. I have no problem getting video to the TV. The problem is with the audio. My receiver is a repeater that does not decrypt the HDCP encrypted signal, so it can’t pull the audio from the HDMI cable. It can only pass it through to the TV. If I eliminate the TOSLINK and Digital Coax, I do not get surround sound. Period. There is no way to do it. Oddly, the HDCP compliant devices have no problem outputting the audio signal digitally to the receiver unencrypted, as long as it’s not over HDMI.

Frankly though, the techincal details aren’t all that relevant. I should not have to shell out extra dollars to get a receiver with HDCP decryption and decoding just to watch movies in surround sound. HDCP was cryptographcially broken before it was even released as a digital content protection scheme. Pirates had the ability to copy content almost immediately. All HDCP does now is make it complex to connect many devices to audio and video output devices. Pirates remain undeterred.

]]> By: Dabade http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76&cpage=1#comment-135 Dabade Wed, 12 May 2010 06:21:50 +0000 http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76#comment-135 No, you simply don't understand how to, or do not have the correct hardware. Everything should be connected to your receiver via HDMI (or whatever the best connection you have available), and then the receiver will pass though the video to the display when required. This way you use the receiver as the "hub" instead of the TV, and the HDCP rules are not broken. So, one cable from Receiver to TV, and once cable from each device to receiver. Problem solved. If you stick to 1 brand (I use Sony with braviasync), then the devices will even control each other over the HDMI cables according to your preferences, which while not needed, is a nicety. eg, turn on the PS3, and it will turn on the receiver and TV (and set the right inputs) for you, and you can use the TV remote to control the PS3 - handy for blu-ray playback). Or if the TV is on, and you turn on the reciever the TV will mute and the audio will come only from the receiver (and switch back the the tv if you turn it off). Yes, there are still compatibility issues, you may feel duped into buying a new receiver, and it can be counter-intuitive at times, but with a bit of thought a good solution can be found with minumum cable-age. No, you simply don’t understand how to, or do not have the correct hardware.

Everything should be connected to your receiver via HDMI (or whatever the best connection you have available), and then the receiver will pass though the video to the display when required.

This way you use the receiver as the “hub” instead of the TV, and the HDCP rules are not broken.
So, one cable from Receiver to TV, and once cable from each device to receiver. Problem solved.

If you stick to 1 brand (I use Sony with braviasync), then the devices will even control each other over the HDMI cables according to your preferences, which while not needed, is a nicety.

eg, turn on the PS3, and it will turn on the receiver and TV (and set the right inputs) for you, and you can use the TV remote to control the PS3 – handy for blu-ray playback).

Or if the TV is on, and you turn on the reciever the TV will mute and the audio will come only from the receiver (and switch back the the tv if you turn it off).

Yes, there are still compatibility issues, you may feel duped into buying a new receiver, and it can be counter-intuitive at times, but with a bit of thought a good solution can be found with minumum cable-age.

]]> By: 007 http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76&cpage=1#comment-96 007 Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:27:58 +0000 http://brokenhivemind.com/?p=76#comment-96 Phew, I feel your pain. Every technological industry seems to be fighting each other on just one front that makes our experience a bit annoying as we straighten out their systems. This process leads to smaller, upstart companies to solve problems that shouldn't exist to fix things that are supposed to be transparent to the user, etc. Allow me to elaborate. First let me say that people really need to understand that many artists don't make money when they deal with companies unless they are really big like Metallica, etc. The companies charge us tons for the media and pay the artist very little unless they're huge. They then front money to the artists and run unnecessary multi-million dollar add campaigns so the artists in the end always owe them the money back. The artists try to make money by putting on concerts, and this sometimes works out, but usually the money made goes back into their advertising costs and leads to ticket prices that are $50 and up for nose bleed seats. So the system doesn't work for artists which is why many have gone independent and is why we need to stop buying media from major distributors whenever possible. The dead artist explanation works best here. Miles Davis is dead, yet you will still pay $15 and up for his recordings, many of them made when he was between 20 and 50 years old. The record company simply makes almost pure profit off of this stuff. The guy is dead, he doesn't need his money. You are paying for a great album, but you're also paying to cover the cost of the record companies mistakes, like promoting artists that suck in comparison. The same is true of the movie industry. Remember how the first Mickey Mouse cartoon was made in 1928? Mickey has been around so long that he is an American icon, and was about to become public domain. Ever wonder why he didn't? Disney could afford to rewrite the law. They can do this partially by making their stuff in sweatshops, and partially by charging you $20 and up for their oldest movies. Look at a Disney display in most stores. Ever notice how really dated media is still expensive from major companies, especially if it's popular? It's because the company looks at this old media as an investment, and will always charge you the most. Part of this is business, but part of it is pure greed. The people that made the movies often work on contracts and are paid when the movie is completed so they will never make extra money on it, only the company will. Plus in many cases they are totally dead. Meaning that the amount of people to pay has gone down significantly. Companies love to overcharge for old media because the profit margin is so big. Just grab a master tape, pay some kid too little to push it through a set of converters and release it again on a new format. Sure that was an oversimplification, but if you grab some old movie with proper mono tracks and then listen to what the converters do to them when their wizards turn on track into 6 or more you'll know what I'm taking about. Sure there are some people that specialize in restoration, even teams, but that hardly justifies a re-release of some old Hitchcock movie that has been "restored" and had it's audio track screwed up at a rate of $27 bucks and up. So why do the manufacturers play ball. Obviously the distributors think they are benefiting from this process and then want to lock down the media so that they don't lose the material they "stole" so craftily from so many artists. The hardware manufacturers want compatibility to be open, but only on the standards that they produce. Still they don't want to deal with DRM unless they distribute media as well and this is the problem. Hardware guys want your stuff to work on their hardware so they can sell it to you, but they want you to use something that uses the S/PDIF standard (Sony and Phillips especially like it when you use this), but in comparison with DRM this is a moot point. The hardware guys say, fine we're going to use TOSLINK, HDMI, RCA, and whatever and then making those things work with other hardware is essential to getting you to buy their equipment. So although their is some proprietary BS at this stage, it comes out in the wash, but the distributors say "hey what about us, we need our booze money too?" So they demand DRM so they can charge you again and again for the same crap and keep you from sharing it. This problem is best viewed from the point of the CD. You see every other form of media wore out and created a worse copy of itself when copied from device to device. They loved records, cassettes and even 8-track because they could just wait you out and get you to buy another one, but the hardware guys wanted to bring you better and better stuff to buy so you would upgrade your equipment. Both want your equipment to fail, and want you to buy the same thing again, but a consumer that has watched the VHS of Star Wars 26 times, before it broke in half, isn't that likely to buy it again if they are simply buying the same thing again. So we got CD, an awesome, lossless format, that covers the entire human hearing range and doesn't really wear out. At first the record companies, well just about everyone, loved this because people bought a ton of them. Finally a format where they could buy something of great quality, and as long as they didn't misuse or damage the disc, have it for decades at the very least and make clean copies from. Of course there was a legit market for better formats to come out like SACD, etc. So the motion picture industry followed suit with DVD and one day the executives woke up and said "what the hell is wrong with us, we gave consumers a format that doesn't inherently wear out?" The rest is the history that led to DRM. Still this is a problem with consumers and their lack of technological understanding. When DVDs were region coded to only play in certain countries the motion picture industry wanted it because they didn't want you getting your hands on the same film, traded legally, for less from another country. The manfacturers had to follow suit because they actually wanted content that would play in the players they were building, and consumers went "well it's just like how I had to get a different Betamax and VHS deck to play foreign films" because they didn't understand the reasons behind it. The tapes were encoded from masters magnetically using different frame rates, and different electrically in some cases. The tapes were physically different. DVD players do not have that problem. They convert whatever power they're getting to usable power so a region 1 DVD will play the same way in Germany as it does here as long as the player has power, and it is region free or being played on a region free player. Region codes existed to screw consumers that the motion picture industry simply decided should pay more, but most consumers never understood this. Region coding requires chips, programming, etc. and therefore can fail meaning that your may not be able to watch the movies you paid for much less pirated. This simple problem becomes more complex when way more complex tools are used to restrict media playback, copying, etc. like in current DRM schemes. The companies think they are getting what they want, control, with transparent technology providing it, but even if this stuff worked correctly consumers should be outraged. Also, two last points. Digital copies can be excellent, but they are not always perfect. The converters used to make the copy can make you lose some bits here and there so no one should be messing with the source you paid for. If you use a crappy 16-bit converter to copy 16-bit stuff from your CD you may actually end up with 15 bits, and so on as you copy it. Sure it's still a good copy, and if you have a good converter the loss is less, but consumers have a right to backup the media they paid for. Also, XKCD is awesome, but he is probably preaching to the choir. Most people still turn their brains off when you talk tech in general and that is a problem that shows itself very well with a problem like DRM. People don't even know that they're being messed with and stolen from in the long run, and when you try to explain it, many of them don't care to listen. Phew, I feel your pain. Every technological industry seems to be fighting each other on just one front that makes our experience a bit annoying as we straighten out their systems. This process leads to smaller, upstart companies to solve problems that shouldn’t exist to fix things that are supposed to be transparent to the user, etc. Allow me to elaborate. First let me say that people really need to understand that many artists don’t make money when they deal with companies unless they are really big like Metallica, etc. The companies charge us tons for the media and pay the artist very little unless they’re huge. They then front money to the artists and run unnecessary multi-million dollar add campaigns so the artists in the end always owe them the money back. The artists try to make money by putting on concerts, and this sometimes works out, but usually the money made goes back into their advertising costs and leads to ticket prices that are $50 and up for nose bleed seats. So the system doesn’t work for artists which is why many have gone independent and is why we need to stop buying media from major distributors whenever possible. The dead artist explanation works best here. Miles Davis is dead, yet you will still pay $15 and up for his recordings, many of them made when he was between 20 and 50 years old. The record company simply makes almost pure profit off of this stuff. The guy is dead, he doesn’t need his money. You are paying for a great album, but you’re also paying to cover the cost of the record companies mistakes, like promoting artists that suck in comparison. The same is true of the movie industry. Remember how the first Mickey Mouse cartoon was made in 1928? Mickey has been around so long that he is an American icon, and was about to become public domain. Ever wonder why he didn’t? Disney could afford to rewrite the law. They can do this partially by making their stuff in sweatshops, and partially by charging you $20 and up for their oldest movies. Look at a Disney display in most stores. Ever notice how really dated media is still expensive from major companies, especially if it’s popular? It’s because the company looks at this old media as an investment, and will always charge you the most. Part of this is business, but part of it is pure greed. The people that made the movies often work on contracts and are paid when the movie is completed so they will never make extra money on it, only the company will. Plus in many cases they are totally dead. Meaning that the amount of people to pay has gone down significantly. Companies love to overcharge for old media because the profit margin is so big. Just grab a master tape, pay some kid too little to push it through a set of converters and release it again on a new format. Sure that was an oversimplification, but if you grab some old movie with proper mono tracks and then listen to what the converters do to them when their wizards turn on track into 6 or more you’ll know what I’m taking about. Sure there are some people that specialize in restoration, even teams, but that hardly justifies a re-release of some old Hitchcock movie that has been “restored” and had it’s audio track screwed up at a rate of $27 bucks and up.
So why do the manufacturers play ball. Obviously the distributors think they are benefiting from this process and then want to lock down the media so that they don’t lose the material they “stole” so craftily from so many artists. The hardware manufacturers want compatibility to be open, but only on the standards that they produce. Still they don’t want to deal with DRM unless they distribute media as well and this is the problem. Hardware guys want your stuff to work on their hardware so they can sell it to you, but they want you to use something that uses the S/PDIF standard (Sony and Phillips especially like it when you use this), but in comparison with DRM this is a moot point. The hardware guys say, fine we’re going to use TOSLINK, HDMI, RCA, and whatever and then making those things work with other hardware is essential to getting you to buy their equipment. So although their is some proprietary BS at this stage, it comes out in the wash, but the distributors say “hey what about us, we need our booze money too?” So they demand DRM so they can charge you again and again for the same crap and keep you from sharing it.
This problem is best viewed from the point of the CD. You see every other form of media wore out and created a worse copy of itself when copied from device to device. They loved records, cassettes and even 8-track because they could just wait you out and get you to buy another one, but the hardware guys wanted to bring you better and better stuff to buy so you would upgrade your equipment. Both want your equipment to fail, and want you to buy the same thing again, but a consumer that has watched the VHS of Star Wars 26 times, before it broke in half, isn’t that likely to buy it again if they are simply buying the same thing again. So we got CD, an awesome, lossless format, that covers the entire human hearing range and doesn’t really wear out. At first the record companies, well just about everyone, loved this because people bought a ton of them. Finally a format where they could buy something of great quality, and as long as they didn’t misuse or damage the disc, have it for decades at the very least and make clean copies from. Of course there was a legit market for better formats to come out like SACD, etc. So the motion picture industry followed suit with DVD and one day the executives woke up and said “what the hell is wrong with us, we gave consumers a format that doesn’t inherently wear out?” The rest is the history that led to DRM.
Still this is a problem with consumers and their lack of technological understanding. When DVDs were region coded to only play in certain countries the motion picture industry wanted it because they didn’t want you getting your hands on the same film, traded legally, for less from another country. The manfacturers had to follow suit because they actually wanted content that would play in the players they were building, and consumers went “well it’s just like how I had to get a different Betamax and VHS deck to play foreign films” because they didn’t understand the reasons behind it. The tapes were encoded from masters magnetically using different frame rates, and different electrically in some cases. The tapes were physically different. DVD players do not have that problem. They convert whatever power they’re getting to usable power so a region 1 DVD will play the same way in Germany as it does here as long as the player has power, and it is region free or being played on a region free player. Region codes existed to screw consumers that the motion picture industry simply decided should pay more, but most consumers never understood this. Region coding requires chips, programming, etc. and therefore can fail meaning that your may not be able to watch the movies you paid for much less pirated. This simple problem becomes more complex when way more complex tools are used to restrict media playback, copying, etc. like in current DRM schemes. The companies think they are getting what they want, control, with transparent technology providing it, but even if this stuff worked correctly consumers should be outraged.
Also, two last points. Digital copies can be excellent, but they are not always perfect. The converters used to make the copy can make you lose some bits here and there so no one should be messing with the source you paid for. If you use a crappy 16-bit converter to copy 16-bit stuff from your CD you may actually end up with 15 bits, and so on as you copy it. Sure it’s still a good copy, and if you have a good converter the loss is less, but consumers have a right to backup the media they paid for. Also, XKCD is awesome, but he is probably preaching to the choir. Most people still turn their brains off when you talk tech in general and that is a problem that shows itself very well with a problem like DRM. People don’t even know that they’re being messed with and stolen from in the long run, and when you try to explain it, many of them don’t care to listen.

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