[mythtv-users] Time Warner & Firewire

[Brad Templeton]

On Wed, May 18, 2005 at 01:05:31PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > This I want to be clearer on.  My perception was that street DVDs came
> > from only a small number of sources, perhaps even just one source.
> 
> No, not at all. I purchased a couple of street DVDs in Mumbai, India
> and brought them home to compare with the ones I bought here. Two of
> the three were dead on Region 1 copies. No difference as far as I can
> tell. Cost me about 50 rupees each as best I remember and I probably
> got ripped off compared to the locals. No packaging, just a disk.

So sorry, how does this say they are coming from lots of independent rips?
I guess that could be true today since decss is so available, but I presumed
that short of that, we still just get one rip and everybody would copy
that until a better one came along etc.  The point being it doesn't
matter much how hard it is to rip as long as a modest number of people
can do it, because all the unskilled folks can perfectly copy those
unlocked rips.

> Sure. I don't know whether it was implemented but MacroVision
> demonstrated watermark copy protection that could be embedded in the
> digital stream but didn't become activated until the stream became
> analog. The TV would have composite type inputs with some extra

So far, AFAIK, nobody has built a watermark that was both invisible to the
viewer and which could not be removed.

What is the motive of those who build TVs with analog inputs to have
them detect the watermark?  That does not serve their customers.  Only
if they need a licence for something else that they can't get without the
watermark detector, would they have a motive to do this.  

That strikes me as an antitrust violation, but who knows?  Because there
is no much motive, that's why we saw the Hollings Bill / CDTPA.

> circuitry that would mess up the picture if this wasn't copied
> perfectly which at the time it couldn't be. Anyway, once the info is
> analog it's not a 'perfect digital copy' anymore and TTBOMK not really
> covered by 5C at all.

This again is a view I have a hard time understanding.  The key factor
about analog copying in the old days was that each generation was worse
than the prior, so after a few generations, VHS was useless.

D2A2D, on the other hand, introduces just one generation of analog errors,
and after that copies are perfect, and by and large with good A2D, hard
to tell from the original.

(In fact, I would say that with audio today, we have sound cards able to
sample much faster at higher res than CD resolution that people could
not tell an well done audio recording that was from D2A2D from the pure
digital.  That will be true for video some day too.)

So again, help me understand the reasoning over why D2A2D is not just
as much of a concern as difficult pure digital copying to the DRM groups?

> Remember, most of Hollywood was still pretty pissed off about VCRs.
> They didn't want that to happen again.

Huh?  By 1995 I thought everybody in Hollywood had figured out the VCR
was the best thing to ever happen to them.

> 
> It is my understanding that Hollywood studios, in a pretty raw show of
> strength, united and told Wintel that they wouldn't allow unencrypted
> data running around in digital formats. 5C was born out of that, not
> the other way around. (Again, as best I know.)

No that makes sense.  I did not mean the 5C meetings were this, I was
describing the sense of the negotiations between Hollywood and the tech
industry.

Why MS gave it is one that puzzled me for a time.  Bill Gates has more
money in his wallet than Hollywood makes in a year.

That's where the real suspicion of hidden agenda comes in.  Microsoft's
agenda against its competitors and Linux is not hidden, however.  If
they can make it so the media plays on Windows, but not on Linux or a
Mac or smaller competitors, it's a big win for MS.
> 
> Anyway, I think this conversation if pretty far afield for most people
> on this list. Maybe we should finish any more of it offline.

If people want.  Frankly, I think discussion of the issues can be a welcome
break after endless volumes of messages on how to configure your pvr-350!