Is The Public Stuck With The Broadcast Flag? 302
peeping_Thomist writes "The only company that sells HDTV tuner cards for Linux has run out of cards to sell, and they are now missing deadlines for new getting new cards. Linux users who want to view and record HDTV face an uphill battle. Meanwhile, the dreaded July 1, 2005 deadline for manufacturing DRM-free HDTV tuners is fast approaching. MythTV supports HDTV tuner cards, but so far no one has made a move to, as the EFF puts it, "buy, build, and sell fully-capable, non-flag-compliant HDTV receivers" prior to the July 1 deadline. The current combination of MythTV and pcHDTV (assuming pcHDTV cards become available again) may, as the EFF says, be "great for geeks," but it is a far cry from the TIVO-esque simplicity a mass market demands. Unless someone can get bring a DRM-free hdtv recorder to market before the deadline, it seems the general public will have no chance to avoid the broadcast flag."
Pirate TV Stations (Score:3, Interesting)
Pirate TV is big in Italy (Score:4, Informative)
How about just not watching TV? (Score:2, Insightful)
Go swim. Visit friends. Talk with your spouse or mate about their goals, dreams and fears. Talk about politics or religion.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
the benefit/cost of TV has been plummeting sharply for some time now.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:5, Interesting)
the benefit/cost of TV has been plummeting sharply for some time now."
Ah, but you are missing the point... what if DVD's go away and you are only "allowed" to watch DRM'd discs or downloads on a "per viewing" fee structure... and you couldn't make backups of the content (ok the DMCA ships already sailed, but still why let another one sail)
Right now PVRs/DVRs etc give you the advantage of watchign what you want, when you want... furthermore the problem isn't there's nothing worth watching, is that there's sooo much crap, on sooo many channels is that you need a willing guide (PVR) to help you sort through it... so when YOU are done mounting climbing for the day you can kick back, fire up your PVR and see all sorts of stuff that will interest you (no doubt Outdoor life network rugged how to "climb better shows" )and oh by the way zoom pass the commercials to nearly halve your coma couch time.
But back to the point of the article... you lose some of core abilities to manage content how you'd like (in the US) once it's been DRMd...
Between the broadcast flag, and the INDUCE act (oh and toss the patriot act in for good measure) we will soon (in the US) have less freedoms and transfer all the control to the MPAA/RIAA/etc...
all our content are belong to them.
blah
e.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
then I don't watch. the same benefit/cost analysis applies. making things difficult for me == making me not bother with it.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
There seems to be a lot of alarmism along the lines of "Microsoft is going to hijack the internet", or "MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft/Hardware manufacturers and friends are going to implement DRM so we won't be able to make copies of anything." You know what? I don't care. When all this comes about, I'll throw the DVD player in the trash, burn the TV, turn off the computer, and I don't know, LIVE maybe.
Besides, MOST of what is released today, whether a newspaper, book, movie, music recording, whateve
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who invented FTP? (Score:3, Informative)
In Europe, the cheaper class of DV cams has disabled DV-in, because the Wise Public Servants decided that higher tax applies to VCRs than to cameras, and if it can record from external input, it is a VCR. (Bunch of filthy bastards. If somebody turns Brussels into a vat of molten glass, and drowns all the bureaucrats in it, I won't cry for them. Radioactive fallout from such flash-bang would be easier to cope with than the en
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't want to go outside. They don't want to be active. They certainly don't want to care about the broadcast flag.
People aren't going to know that the broadcast flag infringes on their rights because they don't know their rights and they don't care to know them. They want to sit down on their couch as soon as they come home and let the cable TV wash over them.
Thinking, being active, and life without TV is something that most people could not handle. Talking about religion? No way! That's no PC. Talking about politics? You mean talking about who is going to be voted off Survivor right? Because voting isn't important to people.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
As for the public not caring about the broadcast flag, they'll start caring when they find they can't do things they've been able to do for years and years. People, however lazy you claim them to be, will generally not buy something they feel doesn't work for them, or will return something they feel is broken. Businesses will cater to the customer if they care abo
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
PVR technology is a good thing for both people who watch a lot of TV and those who only watch a little.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
You mean like P2P downloads of popular shows? That franky is one of my favorites. Expect for the pesky issue that it does interfear with the broadcast rights of local stations, and everyone trims out the comercials for obvious reasons.
Now... if local broadcast stations were able to service their broadcast
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:2)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:4, Insightful)
TV is a form of entertainment, no more or less a waste of time than watching movies, playing video games, reading or perusing the intraweb-- which all have their ratio of good-stuff-to-crap. If I want a way to record the Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Strangers with Candy, Larry Sanders, King of The Hill, The Office etc. so I can watch them when I feel like it, then please stay out of it. Believe it or not, I can watch a couple hours of TV a day and still have time to ride my bike and hang out with friends.
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is rather odd, considering we all live just a short amount of time...
No, the grandparent didn't say watch less or watch quality TV. He stated it in black and white terms, as if you are either a zombie slave to the idiot box or you truly "live", talking politics with friends and taking nature strolls. Of c
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about just not watching TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't. She's watching TV.
What about Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about Windows? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:What about Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
*Shrug* What I really want is a PCI card that works with CableCard, to decode digital cable right into my pc and presumably HDTV (without the need for an external digital cable box... like some HDTV's are shipping with CableCard "slots"...)
Of course a DRM'less solution would be preferred... A cablecard enabled PCI card would allow for LEGITIMATE digital cable viewing on a PC
blah... i'm not too optimistic.
The FCC takes a step forward (requiring firewire on digital cable tuner/boxes on consumer demand)
and two steps back... (in)decency brouhaha, broadcast flag BS. etc
e.
Re:Why not use an external cable box with firewire (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about Windows? (Score:3, Informative)
www.dvico.com
i have a fusion hdtv 3 gold
I works fine for me, but if you have a radeon card the harware assist will put less load on your cpu for decoding
Re: Yes - what about these? (Score:2, Interesting)
I would really like to get the bottom line on whether these HDTV tuners are Broadcast-Flag compliant. (Of course, I want the answer to be "no" to all.)
ATI HDTV Wonder
DVICO FusionHDTV III
Hauppauge WinTV-HD
Itech AccessDTV
MIT MyHD MDP-120
pcHDTV HD-2000
Sasem OnAirUSB-HDTV
I pressed and pressed ATI support for an answer, and finally got them to say it DOESN'T respect the BF. I'm just not 100% sure I believe them.
Does anyone know about these??? How do we get a reliable answer? The listings on the EFF [eff.org]
Re: Yes - what about these? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about Windows? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about Windows? (Score:2)
Most on slashdot using windows? Where do you get those stats from?
But seriously, their drivers are open source so I guess it would be possible for someone to create a driver for windows for the pcHDTV cards. It's not like if they were keeping the card's specification a secret.
Access at work... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I sometimes use IE to read Slashdot from work.
In light of the lack of Linux HDTV cards - (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as DRM-disabled tivos....I doubt it will happen....Even if someone rolled out one, no doubt it'd be stopped before it hit the shelves.....
*Disclaimer - I don't know much about HDTV cards..Know how they work and all, but I don't know what's available on the market.....
Re:In light of the lack of Linux HDTV cards - (Score:2)
Well, let's see. I have a Hauppauge WinTV Go card. Evidently they've changed the tuner chip to something that bttv doesn't know about (it reports "tuner=<NULL> (-1)" in dmesg), and thus I am SOL, at least for the time being. If Hauppauge supports Linux in any way, I'm unawar
Re:In light of the lack of Linux HDTV cards - (Score:2)
Linux-only company (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Bob
Re:Linux-only company (Score:3, Funny)
pchdtv and the future (Score:3, Informative)
The new card is supposed to have windows drivers. I suspect it's in peoples best interest to help if possible to make sure they get good working Linux AND Windows drivers for the same hardware. When the flag goes into effect, they will likely have to
What about Europe? (Score:5, Interesting)
And HDTV is HDTV, right? A common standard, unlike NTSC and PAL, right?
So will we see Americans buying HDTV cards from Europe in the future?
Is there a chance this will go the same way as DVD region-protection?
Re:What about Europe? (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean in active use right? Because most DVDs I run into are region encoded. You know that most people don't know what region encoding is right? You know that most people don't give a shit either right?
They put in their DVD that they bought at Target/Walmart for $9.97 and they watch it. Region encoding doesn't affect them any so they just don't care.
They aren't going to care about HDTV broadcast flags either because they just don't need to care about it. It won't affect them.
Yeah, the geeks/videophiles are going to be up in arms about it because they understand their rights and they want to exercise them. The general public, OTOH, just wants to be blissfully unaware.
Re:What about Europe? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the situation in the USA, that's right. Because the USA has decently cheap DVDs, and it's the primary release market.
In Europe, it's not like that, because the DVDs are more expensive, and they hit the stores much later than in the USA. So there's a market there for import-DVDs.
The result of this is that most europeans buying a DVD player do know what region-encoding is, and they do give a shit. DVD players are marketed as "Region free!". It's almost difficult to find one which does have region encoding.
(Not quite true, they're usually sold with region-encoding, and they'll tell you at the store how to disable it.)
Right here [dvdworld.co.uk] is an example for you, a UK DVD player merchandiser. The region-free ones are clearly marked.
So yes, I do think that if the USA enforces this broadcast flag, and Europe does not, that you might end up with the same situation, except reversed.
Re:What about Europe? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What about Europe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about Europe? (Score:4, Interesting)
More accurately 'Americans will continue to allow themselves to be stripped of their rights'.
Re:What about Europe? (Score:5, Informative)
They barely even have HDTV, just one channel called Euro1080.
And HDTV is HDTV, right? A common standard, unlike NTSC and PAL, right?
Nope, the USA uses 8-VSB for the frequency encoding which is generally better suited to the wide-open spaces of rural America while Europe uses COFDM which is generally better suited for the tightly-packed urban centers of Europe.
Plus, because of historical reasons (aka PAL), they tend to use 25FPS frame rate which I'm pretty sure is not part of the ATSC standard.
Re:What about Europe? (Score:3, Insightful)
Both ATSC and DVB are combined service information and transmission standards, using MPEG-2 to encode video and both MPEG-2 and Dolby AC-3 for audio. Australia uses DVB with MP@HL MPEG-2 video (HD), the US uses ATSC with MP@HL MPEG-2 video, and Europe uses DVB with MP@ML (SD) MPEG-2 video.
Re:What about Europe? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you've got thirty of them and in
my theory... (Score:2)
Unless im confused.
Of course I'd much prefer that someone step in and change the FCC's course on this (and many other issues).
e.
How to make criminals of the market.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The market will demand DRM free cards to access media that is not copyrighted yet fails to play because of DRM restrictions.
We will see cards that can be reflashed, making us all criminals that do such, to be DRM free.
Go that market pressure.
Tune out - and unplug. (Score:5, Insightful)
In short - screw 'em. They make their money from advertisers and if the advertisers don't get eyeballs, they can't make money.
I'm not planning on buying any HDTV gear until I hear what way the broadcast flag useage is trending. And if PBS is using the broadcast flag, my donations will go away there also.
Re:Tune out - and unplug. (Score:3, Insightful)
>Why act like this is the end of the world? Just
>stop 'consuming' the 'product' if you do not like
>the 'terms' the 'product' is offering.
They cannot admit that they are addicted to it. Quitting television is *very* difficult, and takes effort and sacrifice. For many, the very idea is inconceivable, they laugh at the mere suggestion that they could do without television, or even, at the idea that they could reduce the number of hours spent in front of the tube.
Re:Tune out - and unplug. (Score:3, Funny)
Very true. I can't even think of what I'd do if I missed an episode of the Real World.
Re:Tune out - and unplug. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, it does not.
I've no doubt a few people are "really addicted", but most just watch a lot because it's really easy and comforting.
I tend to go through periods with and without a TV (e.g., flatmate owns TV, moves out). While I veg out a lot in front of the TV just like everybody else during the "have TV" periods, there's only a brief moment of consternation when it dissapears -- a few twinges of "oh, blahblah is on now, that was amusing..." and then I just go do something else.
People can cope; TV is a nice bit of artificial companionship and an easy way to waste time, but it's not addictive like cigarettes or even coffee or gambling can be.
Indeed I suspect most people these days would probably just spend more time trolling slashdot...
I felt some anxiety.. (Score:5, Funny)
There is always choice (Score:2)
Re:There is always choice (Score:3, Insightful)
I watch a lot of TV, but ss nice as HDTV surely is, I can't say that I miss not having it.
Re:There is always choice (Score:5, Insightful)
So... when the FCC declares analog broadcast waves dead, and every digital receiver legally manufactured has a broadcast flag, where's the choice then?
Sure, *I'll* be exercising the choice not to watch, as I already do, and perhaps you will as well. But for the millions who can't do without the real opiate of the masses....
Re:There is always choice (Score:2)
How many of them know how to do more than watch tapes on their VCR, anyways? The blinking 12:00 is all too common for this to get politically interesting numbers of people up in arms.
Mandate-eriffic! (Score:4, Insightful)
Mandate all you want about DRM or HDTV broadcasts, and while you're at it, mandate that pi=3, and that g=9, it's still not going to make much of a difference. The deadlines will be extended, and HDTV will continue to be reserved for a minority of channels of the cable and satellite broadcasters for at least the next half decade, simply because there's limited bandwidth.
Go ahead government, make our tv's stop working. We dare you. As for the DRM side, by the time that HDTV's actually do have a majority of the market the DRM will be cracked open, with the yellow encryption key yolk spilling out on the floor.
Relax mon!
Re:Mandate-eriffic! (Score:3, Interesting)
We we
Wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong way (Score:2)
I couldn't disagree more. Stop it now.
What you propose will only hurt the manufacturers (you think THEY want to implement this crap?).
Stop the boneheads in the FCC being influenced by the MPAA/etc lobby before they do more damage.
Re:Wrong way (Score:2)
Re:Wrong way (Score:3, Interesting)
Its for the geeks, for now.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't see HDTV DRM being much different. Tivo modifications are not uncommon, I even saw a few how-to books for it at B&N last week. Eventually consumers will clue in and WANT to record HDTV, legally, like they do now with NTSC and a VCR.
The only difference with HDTV is that it is almost being forced out to consumers where Mp3's, DVD's and CD's were slowly introduced and adapted. Even my friends who are usually early adopters haven't said a damned thing about getting an HDTV card, decoder, or HDTV-ready TV. There has been very little chatter about this from the tech media. Yet, the broadcasters, electronic makers,and the government have already started tossing around legislation for HDTV. The point is that DRM is being forced on consumers, so is HDTV.
You have to trick consumers into buying what you want them to buy and the current HDTV and DRM crowds are not being that subtle. Consumers will be revolting ('well mostly they're just rude') as soon as this crap starts to complicate what used to be a simple task.
heh (Score:4, Insightful)
What me worry? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:What me worry? (Score:4, Insightful)
And between the DMCA and INDUCE act they'll/we'll be carted off to jail (or sued the pants off by RIAA/MPAA/etc)
plus isn't it much better to NOT have such a fool restriction in place (and stop it before it comes into play) than it is to have to circumvent it later?
Do we want to have to have a "broadcastflagJon"?
e.
Re:What me worry? (Score:3, Informative)
I assume nothing... see my other points in this topic, where I point out frequently (US)...
It is interesting to note that DVDjon/DeCSSjon was NOT an american and still got into hot water...
If you watch content that originates from US/hollywood/etc... sooner or later this will effect yo
Re:What me worry? (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a company that builds systems for use with digital television and when I 1st read of the proposed broadcast flag and it's implementation I had a very easy to do bypass method devised in a matter of minutes. In fact, beating this broadcast flag will be child's play and will not even require 'hacking' a receiver or any modifications to it.
The OTA digital tv signals you receive in your home contain an ATSC Transport Stream, based on an MPEG-2 Transport Stream, as part of the ATSC standard, (A/53 I think) where the broadcast flag was mandated.
Within the transport stream, there are packets each of 188 bytes long; the broadcast flag carries a packet PID of 0xA0, (again I could be wrong but it has been a few months since I looked into the specific pid values).
In order to beat the broadcast flag, one would need a simple box with a pair of 8VSB tuners with a Xilinx (or other FPGA) in the middle. The 1st tuner would demodulate the signal and pass it into the Xilinx whose sole job would be restamping pids, should it come across a packet with the pid denoting that it is carrying a broadcast flag, it could simply change the pid of this packet to 0x1FFF (a null packet). On the other end, the 2nd tuner would modulate the signal back into 8VSB and to what ever you might have receiving. The beauty of this solution is that null packets carry no payload in a transport stream, thus would be ignored by anything down stream.
All in all, a device like this would cost about $100 (even in mass production) as tuners and FPGA's are generally not cheap.
Re:What me worry? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is very nice, but the question is: how many would you be able to sell before your company was tied up in court, or if current trends continue, its officers (i.e. you) imprisoned?
Re:What me worry? (Score:4, Informative)
The trick of selling this device would be labeling it as a packet restamper, allow a user to specify what pids to restamp and to what. Yes, you could use it to remove the broadcast flag from OTA transmissions, but that would be illegal.
Hence, you could argue substantial non infringing use, however for such an argument you'd need to show some reason as to why you'd want to restamp pids in a transport stream and nothing else.
Broadcasters do pid restamping all of the time, however they also modify the pat and pmt's accordingly as well... the solution mentioned above would be incapable of that as described, however a little extra Veralog code could do it.
As I do not know electrical design at all, I've been meaning to plug a couple of PCI card solutions we sell (cheapest of the 2 runs 2k) and have someone build me a new Xilinx load (~1 hour of their time), this will get me by provided I can find some old prototype boards.
I should mention another drawback of this device... it would only work on one channel at a time, and every time you change the channel on your receiver, you'd have to do so on this device in order to see programming.
Re:What me worry? (Score:4, Informative)
Now this is just a small thing... that people could logically buy the unit for. Let it leak though that changing one byte in it's firmware before upload not only makes it clean up the packet stream but also throw away a "trash" packet that just happens to contain the broadcast flag.
If you havn't noticed it almost all of the DVD players now have some quick hack to go region and macrovision free... You think that is just coincidence?
Re:What me worry? (Score:4, Informative)
However, people could legally build their own 8VSB demodulator, and not break any laws as long as they did not try to sell it. Such a project would be expensive and difficult for a hobbyist, to say the least.
Re:What me worry? (Score:3, Funny)
One Possible Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Open source software that is not sold, is freely available, and freely modifiable is very much non-commercial and therefore not subject to this regulation.
Thus, and IAAL (I get sworn in TOMOROW) but not a techie anymore, it seems that if there is any way to get a signal to your computer, a free, open source software program could render it - and no laws would be broken.
Re:One Possible Solution (Score:2)
Your logic has a fatal flaw: you can sell GPL'd software, and Linux distributors do it all the time. Therefore, it is indeed commercial.
-Erwos
Re:One Possible Solution (Score:2)
When software is not sold and is freely available, it's not commercial.
Yes, you can sell GPL software, but you don't have to, GPL (well, any) software that is given away rather than sold falls into the category our resident lawyer is flagging up.
Maybe if you give away something for commercial ends (freebies, back handers, etc) th
Re:One Possible Solution (Score:2)
well going from digital to analog to re-encode back to digital, is less than ideal...
presumably the digital outs on these BF'd devices won't let you suck down the DRM'd content on to a PC/mac/etc...
But then again, even you went the analog "ripping" route... some sort of evil macrovision type of crap will surface... (ever try to make a backup of a DVD ont
Re:One Possible Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
PCHDTV - Come to Canada. (Score:2)
We have plenty of room ready, especially in preperation for the dogers after President Bush reinstates the draft to fight his war(s) (if gets back in).
NO! Join a theatre group (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be a victim to the broadcast flag -- be creative and make your own entertainment.
(Also beware of performing copyrighted scripts -- you're not even allowed to videotape such performances. Be creative in the script department as well.)
Re:NO! Join a theatre group (Score:2)
Of course you have to schedule around them, no time shifting... but then it looks like we can't do that anym
Predicted in Linux Magazine recently (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I wonder how long it will be before some assHatch^H^H^H^H^Hhole attempts to make it illegal even to own one of these devices...
GNURadio (Score:2, Interesting)
Boo hoo hoo!!! (Score:2, Funny)
You people make me SICK!!! I hope anyone caught modifying their TVs is "Waco'd" along with their families. Quit whining, the New World Order is here and it's here to stay! Do a
And if TV was worth watching... (Score:2, Redundant)
But there is nothing good on over-the-air TV. Nothing. I can't name a single show that's watchable. I have the rabbit ears - I don't really use them.
I thought about getting cable, but I realized that I'd be paying $50 a month to get The Daily Show. Which is nice - and probably the best show on TV - but hardly worth $1.66 a day. I wish I could subscribe to just that one show - and maybe some of the adult swim stuff on Cartoon Network - a la carte channels just
Re:And if TV was worth watching... (Score:3, Interesting)
you are quite wrong.
We do not watch TV anymore, we watch ReplayTV. Jeremiah on HBO, Stargate and it's spin-off are great this season, with many films off of sundance and IFC are great. and for my deviant entertainment my weekly dose of "the venture brothers" from Cartoon network is an absolute hoot!.
add to that tons of other random things that can fill up a 200 hour Replay quickly, while increasing the
Why by July 1? (Score:2)
Buy a Real Demodulator (Score:2, Informative)
If you're looking for a proper HDTV tuner, get the Sencore IRD3384A [sencore.com], which is what the DTV station I installed uses to monitor its own signal.
This gives you the MPEG transport stream on both SMPTE 310M and ASI interfaces, plus uncompressed digital video (SDI).
(Don't expect to see one at Best Buy any time soon, though...)
temporary problem only (Score:2)
All kinds of specialist hardware has disappeared over the years as the function could be implemented as s/w -- cheaper to develop, cheaper to deploy.
A h/w decoder has some chance of being controlled by an outside agency if only because there is a company to take to court. The s/w equivalent is uncontrollable.
Nobody will care soon (Score:5, Interesting)
My prediction is that it is going into a death spiral caused by the following
1) There are many other things to do that watch tv all evening unlike 20 years ago (dvd, internet, games for example)
2) The programs they are increasingly producing are aimed at the lowest common denominator to reduce costs and increase audience share for that program. But that's causing an increasing number of people to find *nothing* they want to watch at all.
3) It takes a few years of inertia for people who on't actually like any of the programs to realise this and turn off.
4) An older generation from 20-40 years ago who watched the peak of mass market tv are slowly being replaced by a younger audience who don't have that shared culture of watching tv every evening, instead gaming and the internet are important.
5) There are a lot more channels making it almost impossible to get huge audiences for any particular show.
6) As audiences drop the amount of money available to TV companies will drop. They'll panic and stop producing more fringe stuff and concentrate *even more* on the lowest common denominator stuff which is turning many people who don't like that stuff away.
7) As the audience drops more and increasing number of children who already have alternatives will not be "educated" in the culture of watching mass broadcast television.
I firmly belive that there is a death spiral here which is almost unavoidable. I predict that mass TV will have an audience reduced by at least 25% in 5-10 years time, and will have dropped to below 50% in 15 years time as todays children grow up without the culture of watching all that TV.
I can see television being a quaint old fashioned thing in 20 years time...
On the other hand I think that movies and DVDs and perhaps internet broadcast shows have a good future ahead of them. The demand for quality entertainment isn't going away and I believe that it won't be long before we start seeing produced for DVD shows happening that are never broadcast.
Why not record the signal directly? (Score:5, Interesting)
I realize that to sample the raw HDTV signal at double its frequency would require enormous amounts of storage available, but storage always becomes cheaper and bigger.
I may be completely wrong here, but I think if DRM enabled equipement becomes too ubiquitus (I am not talking only HDTV here) analog methods of aquiring the information could become rather usefull. The information could then be stored in non-DRM formats. How big would be the loss if I capture a song from a decent sound card using the built-in A-D converter? And if the degradation using a sound card is not acceptable, there must be better equipement available for a reasonal price.
go ahead and let them (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine what will happen if Joe Consumer finds he can watch whatever shows he wants, whenever the hell he wants, never missing any of them, and never having to sit through a single ad. If you're thinking "it'll never happen" because it's on a computer and not on those nifty big-screen TVs, do try to remember that starting with the year 2000 TV viewership fell by nearly 3% in the United States, the first decline in the history of TV. Not only that but viewership has continued to decline with each successive year, much to the consternation of the conglomerates. What are those people doing instead of watching TV? *They're on the internet*. Add what makes TV attractive to the other forms of amusement the internet provides and watch the conglomerates really start to shit a brick....
Max
Re:go ahead and let them (Score:3, Insightful)
now you know why the MPAA is attacking the internet so desperately.
GNURadio (Score:3, Informative)
The GNURadio [gnu.org] project has a HDTV implementation which AFAIK is grandfathered, and can *IGNORE* the broadcast flag. Hardware for GNURadio continues to be developed and prices for the high-speed electronics required continue to fall.
Phew, close one.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sell them in canada? (to US visitors?) (Score:4, Funny)