Build Your Own TV Without Broadcast Flags 283
doom writes "An account of an event sponsored by the EFF, a "roll your own television" build-in. The San Francisco Bay Guardian has coverage in an article entitled Build Your TV!". From the article: "According to the FCC, the flag is going to ease the nation's transition from today's analog televisions to tomorrow's high-definition televisions. What exactly does it mean for a government agency to "ease" the transition from one kind of TV signal to another? In this case, it seems to mean making the entertainment industry feel very warm and fuzzy inside." The EFF's efforts against the flag have been covered before on Slashdot.
surely this is unnecessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hence rolling your own tv would be entirely redundant?
Kit TVs (Score:5, Interesting)
Courts (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously though, I predict broadcastless recievers will become as common as regionless DVD players, and that it'd be another enormous flop.
Any Canadians know... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod Chips (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:surely this is unnecessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kit TVs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:surely this is unnecessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened was that the lawyer challenging the FCC went before the panel of judges, and they asked questions attacking his position. Then his time was up, and the FCC lawyer went before the panel, and the judges askwed questions attacking the FCC's position.
Judges do this all the time. It forces the lawyer in front of them to respond to questions he wishes no one was asking. If he has a good argument, he can provide good answers to the hard questions. It's just a technique to elicit information. It doesn't indicate anything about the judge's actual position.
Plus the court won't issue their ruling on the matter for several months still.
So the big hubbub was over nothing.
Grape-juice bricks... (Score:3, Interesting)
During Prohibition, Californian vineyards openly marketed bricks of compressed, dried Zinfandel grapes, together with a strongly worded warning to the consumer explaining that they should not any circumstances mix the grapes to five gallons of water, five pounds of sugar, and yeast.
If the **AA's can create a climate of fear and create the impression that legitimate fair use is illegal, they win--even if devices that circumvent the broadcast flag become as available as marijuana.
Maybe it doesn't matter (Score:1, Interesting)
The last time I checked, the cable operators weren't excited about the greater quality of hdtv, they were excited about the ability of a digital signal to squeeze more channels onto the co-ax. The quality would still be poor.
Anyway, there are few movies where I find the inconvenience of going to a theater worthwhile. (The theater gives me much better quality than my 22" tv of course.) Based on that, I don't care if I can only record analog quality signals. They're 'good enough'.
With hdtv, I and many others would be over-served consumers. As long as we can record low quality, we don't care.
I wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
I only hope this idea doesn't catch.
Mass system integration on chip (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you have access to xray machine, the ability to open a chip and identify and inspect traces, and just generally reverse engineer the chipset, and then reprogram it, it is a sealed component and will be very difficult to circumvent.
Not saying it couldn't be done, but a frontal assault would be extremely difficult, so as always, a backdoor located would be the approach.
But they know that.
Re:Tuner, not the TV- Broadcast flag misunderstood (Score:4, Interesting)
Further, I have a CRT-based HDTV, and when using the DVI input, it has far too much overscan. If I use component output, then I can adjust the overscan, but I can't with DVI, so going digital isn't the best option.
And even further, my TV has only one DVI input, so if I have multiple HD sources, then I have to recable my TV to change sources (like, say, a HDTiVo, satellite receiver, and broadcast ATSC tuner).
Re:Any Canadians know... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:We've seen this before... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about that. It's not like you have to decrypt something. All you have to do is write a disk copier that either ignores both bits or duplicates both bits. The DMCA doesn't force you to write software that affirms copy-protection technology, just software that doesn't go out of its way to circumvent copy-protection technology. (IANAL)
Re:Maybe it doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure you will. Even most portables have a much greater resolution than a standard TV.
Re:I hope that's all it means (Score:2, Interesting)
Put DVD in computer to watch it. "You cant play this on a device with a TV out" (or it just dosent work) Hmmm Im not even allowed to *watch* the DVD i own...
Google is my friend, lets see what it has to say... Dvd-decryptor will help... hmmm yup. I can now watch DVD with just a 500kb file. Google also helped me find Div-x at the same time... so i dont have to go though that crap every time. So i am forced to (easily) break the law just to do some perfectly lawful activity.
How much respect for the media companies do you think i have now...
At least in australia i havnt seen these lockin DVD's. i get annoyed when i have to watch a minute of intro just to get to a menu.