Friday, May 26. 2006
Output Content Protection (DRM) and Windows Vista
Every year Microsoft holds a conference known as Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC). Microsoft uses this conference to let hardware vendors know what to expect from Windows in regard to hardware. All of the major computer vendors and manufacturers attend this event and use the information gathered to make plans for the next year as to what to build. Obviously this conference is not the only factor taken into account when deciding what hardware to sell, but considering Window's massive market share in the PC world it is extremely important. For its part, Microsoft is very forthcoming with information during these conferences because billions of dollars are at stake. If there is not appropriate hardware for Windows to operate on, then both the PC vendors and Microsoft lose out.
This year's conference took place this week, May 22-24, in Seattle, Washington. In advance of the conference Microsoft released the hardware specifications needed to run their new operating system known as Windows Vista. There are dozens of new features in Vista, but unlike all previous versions of Windows not all features will work on all hardware. Microsoft is currently using the terminology "Vista Experience" to describe what features will be available to users and the "experience" depends on how "good" your computer hardware is. In general there are two categories of hardware when it comes to Vista: Capable and Premium.
Vista capable PCs will have a modern processor operating at a minimum of 800 megahertz that uses the x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) instruction set. The graphics card will be DirectX 9 capable with sufficient memory and processing power to display 800x600 pixel resolution. The PC must have at least 512MB of memory and a hard disk drive with 15GB of free storage space. Finally the system must have an optical drive that is either a CD-ROM or a DVD. A Vista premium PC will have at least a 1000 megahertz processor with 1GB of memory. Both configurations require an optical drive — CD for Capable and DVD for Premium. However, the video card specifications caught our attention. The premium experience calls for a Windows Aero Capable video card.
Windows Aero is a new graphical user interface that Microsoft developed to make things prettier and provide greater options to programmers. Most people that have seen this GUI remark at how similar it is to Apple's OSX interface. There are five things that Microsoft lists as requirements for a GPU to be Aero capable.
There are two pieces of information from this list that you should wonder about: Memory and WDDM. Adequate memory is pretty easy. Pick the resolution you want to run and here are the memory requirements:
These numbers are pretty straightforward and should let you know that you will have to have a decent video card to run Vista. This is because Microsoft decided to put in quite a few special effects with Aero that require GPU instead of CPU power to work.
A WDDM driver is a bit more complicated. There are many reasons that drivers in Vista are going to be different than other Windows, but it boils down to Microsoft completely reworking the window manager and window rendering subsystem. In one way this is a good thing. It should help prevent non-responsive applications from locking up the entire system and causing reboot situations. However, as with all things we report on DRM Blog, there is DRM lurking just under the surface. In this instance the DRM's name is Output Protection Management (OPM).
Its amazing how complicated things seem when you use acronyms instead of the actual words to describe something. OPM is an umbrella term that includes PVP, PAP, PVP-UAB, SAP, and PUMA. No problem right?
Now you should see that all these acronyms actually are all under the umbrella term DRM. I will not go into detail about these technologies, but will simply point out that they will all affect your "Vista Experience" if you do not have compatible hardware.
It seems that Microsoft left a little information out with their published specifications. If you want your new Vista PC to partake in "premium content" then you must have a video card and driver combination that is PVP-OPM and PVP-UAB certified. At the 2005 WinHCE Microsoft handed out an interesting document that describes OPM in all its incarnations and what a video card vendor must do to be certified.
To get a certificate, a graphics card or GPU manufacturer will first have to sign a legal document (read contract) that specifies that the hardware or driver in question meets all of the specifications laid out in the "Compliance Rules" document. This compliance document is part of this legal contract. As it turns out, there is no testing done by Microsoft. It's an an honor system backed by a legal contract. "Content protection is about links in a chain" with each member of the PC industry being responsible "to protect premium content, to ensure that the content industry will trust its content to the PC". If a "valid report of content leakage occurs" then Microsoft will have no option but to "revoke the driver's ability to play high-level premium content". Microsoft claims that this is in the best interest for for hardware vendors and driver developers as this revocation process will "protect against actions that a content provider might take" if a leakage occurs.
The document goes on to say that the compliance rules also have a "Content Industry Agreement" for video hardware robustness and that certification can only be given to manufacturers who meet those rules. There could be several reasons for the content industry to require a certain amount of robustness in video hardware. However, the only logical one is that it will take a lot of horsepower to down sample high-definition video and audio on the fly. This is linked to the HDCP protection flag that we discussed in our last article.
Once again the consumer is the one paying for DRM and most people will never know about it. But the fun does not stop there. "If you are a graphics chip manufacturer", it is your responsibility as one of the trusted links in the PC chain to make sure that you are not selling your chips to any rogue elements who are going to make "hacker-friendly graphics boards". Logically, according to Microsoft, the easiest way to do this is to ensure that your GPU performs encryption in the chip itself. Apparently, it is also important that both the driver certificate and the private key both be "obfuscated". In fact, Microsoft has come up with an obfuscation tool that they use for their Certified Output Protection Protocol (COPP). It is assumed that the driver makers will use this same tool when obfuscating their key.
If this makes no sense to you, don't worry. The simple answer is that this is all part of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing effort. If you look up the meaning of trustworthy computing you will find marketing terms such as security, privacy, reliability, and best business practices. Don't believe the hype. It just means that all the DRM now has a pretty ribbon wrapped around it with a good name. The only trust taking place here is between very large companies that want to sell you content, hardware, and software that violates your privacy, artificially inflates prices, and makes it illegal for you to tinker with.
Author - Jimmy Palmer
This year's conference took place this week, May 22-24, in Seattle, Washington. In advance of the conference Microsoft released the hardware specifications needed to run their new operating system known as Windows Vista. There are dozens of new features in Vista, but unlike all previous versions of Windows not all features will work on all hardware. Microsoft is currently using the terminology "Vista Experience" to describe what features will be available to users and the "experience" depends on how "good" your computer hardware is. In general there are two categories of hardware when it comes to Vista: Capable and Premium.
Vista capable PCs will have a modern processor operating at a minimum of 800 megahertz that uses the x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) instruction set. The graphics card will be DirectX 9 capable with sufficient memory and processing power to display 800x600 pixel resolution. The PC must have at least 512MB of memory and a hard disk drive with 15GB of free storage space. Finally the system must have an optical drive that is either a CD-ROM or a DVD. A Vista premium PC will have at least a 1000 megahertz processor with 1GB of memory. Both configurations require an optical drive — CD for Capable and DVD for Premium. However, the video card specifications caught our attention. The premium experience calls for a Windows Aero Capable video card.
Windows Aero is a new graphical user interface that Microsoft developed to make things prettier and provide greater options to programmers. Most people that have seen this GUI remark at how similar it is to Apple's OSX interface. There are five things that Microsoft lists as requirements for a GPU to be Aero capable.
- DirectX 9-class GPU
- A Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver
- Pixel Shader 2.0 support in the hardware
- 32 bits per pixel GPU
- Adequate memory
There are two pieces of information from this list that you should wonder about: Memory and WDDM. Adequate memory is pretty easy. Pick the resolution you want to run and here are the memory requirements:
- 480,000 - 1,310,720 pixels = 800x600 - 1280x1024 = 64MB minimum memory
- up to 2,304,000 pixels = up to 1900x1200 = 128MB minimum memory
- over 2,304,000 pixels = over 1900x1200 = 256MB minimum memory
These numbers are pretty straightforward and should let you know that you will have to have a decent video card to run Vista. This is because Microsoft decided to put in quite a few special effects with Aero that require GPU instead of CPU power to work.
A WDDM driver is a bit more complicated. There are many reasons that drivers in Vista are going to be different than other Windows, but it boils down to Microsoft completely reworking the window manager and window rendering subsystem. In one way this is a good thing. It should help prevent non-responsive applications from locking up the entire system and causing reboot situations. However, as with all things we report on DRM Blog, there is DRM lurking just under the surface. In this instance the DRM's name is Output Protection Management (OPM).
Its amazing how complicated things seem when you use acronyms instead of the actual words to describe something. OPM is an umbrella term that includes PVP, PAP, PVP-UAB, SAP, and PUMA. No problem right?
- PVP - Protected Video Path
- PAP - Protected Audio Path
- PVP-UAB - PVP User-Accessible Bus
- SAP - Secure Audio Path
- PUMA - Protected User Mode Audio
Now you should see that all these acronyms actually are all under the umbrella term DRM. I will not go into detail about these technologies, but will simply point out that they will all affect your "Vista Experience" if you do not have compatible hardware.
It seems that Microsoft left a little information out with their published specifications. If you want your new Vista PC to partake in "premium content" then you must have a video card and driver combination that is PVP-OPM and PVP-UAB certified. At the 2005 WinHCE Microsoft handed out an interesting document that describes OPM in all its incarnations and what a video card vendor must do to be certified.
To get a certificate, a graphics card or GPU manufacturer will first have to sign a legal document (read contract) that specifies that the hardware or driver in question meets all of the specifications laid out in the "Compliance Rules" document. This compliance document is part of this legal contract. As it turns out, there is no testing done by Microsoft. It's an an honor system backed by a legal contract. "Content protection is about links in a chain" with each member of the PC industry being responsible "to protect premium content, to ensure that the content industry will trust its content to the PC". If a "valid report of content leakage occurs" then Microsoft will have no option but to "revoke the driver's ability to play high-level premium content". Microsoft claims that this is in the best interest for for hardware vendors and driver developers as this revocation process will "protect against actions that a content provider might take" if a leakage occurs.
The document goes on to say that the compliance rules also have a "Content Industry Agreement" for video hardware robustness and that certification can only be given to manufacturers who meet those rules. There could be several reasons for the content industry to require a certain amount of robustness in video hardware. However, the only logical one is that it will take a lot of horsepower to down sample high-definition video and audio on the fly. This is linked to the HDCP protection flag that we discussed in our last article.
Once again the consumer is the one paying for DRM and most people will never know about it. But the fun does not stop there. "If you are a graphics chip manufacturer", it is your responsibility as one of the trusted links in the PC chain to make sure that you are not selling your chips to any rogue elements who are going to make "hacker-friendly graphics boards". Logically, according to Microsoft, the easiest way to do this is to ensure that your GPU performs encryption in the chip itself. Apparently, it is also important that both the driver certificate and the private key both be "obfuscated". In fact, Microsoft has come up with an obfuscation tool that they use for their Certified Output Protection Protocol (COPP). It is assumed that the driver makers will use this same tool when obfuscating their key.
If this makes no sense to you, don't worry. The simple answer is that this is all part of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing effort. If you look up the meaning of trustworthy computing you will find marketing terms such as security, privacy, reliability, and best business practices. Don't believe the hype. It just means that all the DRM now has a pretty ribbon wrapped around it with a good name. The only trust taking place here is between very large companies that want to sell you content, hardware, and software that violates your privacy, artificially inflates prices, and makes it illegal for you to tinker with.
Author - Jimmy Palmer
Tuesday, May 23. 2006
HDTV and HDCP and DRM Questions
After our last post concerning HDCP we received some very good questions that I will attempt to answer. I hope that this clarifies some of the unclear issues.
If you are paying for digital HD-cable then yes, you are almost certainly getting HD broadcasts. I do not know how many channels you would get in HD as that will mostly depend on your subscription package. Stations like HBO and ESPN are available in HD almost everywhere. The broadcast version of HDCP is known as the broadcast flag. The broadcast flag was approved by the FCC in 2004 but the implementation was halted by a federal court on the grounds that the action over stepped the FCC charter. As of know the broadcast flag is not scheduled to be implemented; however, several bills have been introduced to congress that would either extend the FCC's power or make the broadcast flag into law. Talked to your congressman lately?
If you have HDMI connections on your television and on your player then you will get true High Definition picture. In theory, any television that has an HDMI port is also HDCP compatible. You should also be getting true digital audio also since both the video and audio run across the HDMI cable. Unlike previous analog connections you do not need a separate fiber-optic cable for digital sound.
Again, in theory, the new HD movies will come with very high quality digital audio tracks that contain up to 8 distinct audio tracks. The audio can also be protected by HDCP and down-sampled. If you are not feeding HDMI into your sound system then you probably are not getting all possible audio quality. Do you need a new HDCP/HDMI sound system? If you want to be guaranteed the best possible sound then your home theater sound system must have HDMI inputs. I think the better question to ask is "Do I have the speakers to play HD audio?". To take advantage of 7.1 surround you need 8 speakers: right front, center front, left front, right side, left side, right rear, left rear, and a sub-woofer. Very few home theaters have enough room to properly take advantage of 6 speakers and even fewer have room for all 8 that 7.1 surround requires. With that said, if you have the room and an HDMI audio system and properly placed speakers and a good sub then the experience can be well worth the effort.
Good News --err-- Good Rumors
I would like to stress that this information is not official; in fact, this information is rumor and conjecture. According to Spiegel Online, a German-language magazine, most major Hollywood studios have made a back-room handshake deal concerning the Image Constraint Token (ICT). ICT is the protection flag used in HDCP. According to this deal the studios would not implement ICT on any movie until at least 2010. The reasoning behind this thought is that Hollywood does not want to loose a large portion of its customer base over a downgraded signal. It turns out that the early adopters of HD televisions are some of the people that buy the most movies and these would be the people most affected by ICT. The second part of the reasoning is that companies like Sony and Microsoft would not be releasing HD products that could not play HD movies.
However, since none of the studios have officially announced this and none of the consumer electronics companies have announced this then I do not believe it. Why would these companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a DRM system that they do not intend to use? I am sure that there have been several meetings to discuss this potential problem; however, my guess is that most of the discussion has involved legal liability if the ICT is actually implemented. I can only imagine that there will be several law suits that come about when HDCP DRM is fully utilized.
Author: Jimmy Palmer
I have a 50" HD Plasma and the Digital HD Receiver from Comcast Cable and the receiver is connected to the television through component cables. Am I receiving "real" HD broadcasts?
If you are paying for digital HD-cable then yes, you are almost certainly getting HD broadcasts. I do not know how many channels you would get in HD as that will mostly depend on your subscription package. Stations like HBO and ESPN are available in HD almost everywhere. The broadcast version of HDCP is known as the broadcast flag. The broadcast flag was approved by the FCC in 2004 but the implementation was halted by a federal court on the grounds that the action over stepped the FCC charter. As of know the broadcast flag is not scheduled to be implemented; however, several bills have been introduced to congress that would either extend the FCC's power or make the broadcast flag into law. Talked to your congressman lately?
So if i buy the higher price PS3 and have a HDMI connection then I will have a true High Definition picture even although my television is not HDCP enabled?
I have a Pioneer PDP-1530 High Definition television that I purchased in May 2004. It has HDMI inputs will it play an HDCP protected movie or not?
If you have HDMI connections on your television and on your player then you will get true High Definition picture. In theory, any television that has an HDMI port is also HDCP compatible. You should also be getting true digital audio also since both the video and audio run across the HDMI cable. Unlike previous analog connections you do not need a separate fiber-optic cable for digital sound.
Am I going to have to have an HDCP compliant stereo?
Again, in theory, the new HD movies will come with very high quality digital audio tracks that contain up to 8 distinct audio tracks. The audio can also be protected by HDCP and down-sampled. If you are not feeding HDMI into your sound system then you probably are not getting all possible audio quality. Do you need a new HDCP/HDMI sound system? If you want to be guaranteed the best possible sound then your home theater sound system must have HDMI inputs. I think the better question to ask is "Do I have the speakers to play HD audio?". To take advantage of 7.1 surround you need 8 speakers: right front, center front, left front, right side, left side, right rear, left rear, and a sub-woofer. Very few home theaters have enough room to properly take advantage of 6 speakers and even fewer have room for all 8 that 7.1 surround requires. With that said, if you have the room and an HDMI audio system and properly placed speakers and a good sub then the experience can be well worth the effort.
Good News --err-- Good Rumors
I would like to stress that this information is not official; in fact, this information is rumor and conjecture. According to Spiegel Online, a German-language magazine, most major Hollywood studios have made a back-room handshake deal concerning the Image Constraint Token (ICT). ICT is the protection flag used in HDCP. According to this deal the studios would not implement ICT on any movie until at least 2010. The reasoning behind this thought is that Hollywood does not want to loose a large portion of its customer base over a downgraded signal. It turns out that the early adopters of HD televisions are some of the people that buy the most movies and these would be the people most affected by ICT. The second part of the reasoning is that companies like Sony and Microsoft would not be releasing HD products that could not play HD movies.
However, since none of the studios have officially announced this and none of the consumer electronics companies have announced this then I do not believe it. Why would these companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a DRM system that they do not intend to use? I am sure that there have been several meetings to discuss this potential problem; however, my guess is that most of the discussion has involved legal liability if the ICT is actually implemented. I can only imagine that there will be several law suits that come about when HDCP DRM is fully utilized.
Author: Jimmy Palmer
Monday, May 15. 2006
DTV + HDTV + HDMI + HDCP + DVI = BAD DRM
Do you own a high-definition television? Are you going to be buying a high-definition television soon? How do you know if the image you are seeing on your television is actually high-definition? What do all of those acronyms mean? And how might your picture quality be affected with a new DRM additive?
DTV + HDTV
High-definition television (HDTV) is a standard to which all new televisions in the United States will be required to adhere. The standard features two primary changes from the system currently in use. The first change is from analog to digital and the second is a change in the picture and sound quality. Televisions will be phased into this new standard over time; however, the FCC has set a deadline of March 1, 2007 for when all new televisions will be required to have a digital tuner. A digital tuner means that the television will be able to receive digital broadcasts. This is very important since all analog broadcasts will be turned off no later than April 7, 2009. This is the date set by Congress when all television stations must relinquish their analog broadcast licenses. If you do not have a digital tuner by this date then you will not be able to receive television with an antennae. The digital transmission part of HDTV is very clear and agreed upon.
The second part of HDTV, the better picture and sound, is not quite so clear. The easiest way to understand the quality difference is to examine pixel densities. Every image you see on a television screen is created using a series of small colored dots (pixels). The more pixels you can squeeze into a smaller box, the better the picture will look. In general, if you compare two analog televisions of equal quality side by side using the same video the smaller television will appear to have the better picture. This is because both televisions have the same number of pixels but the smaller television has them closer together. There is one other issue that affects the picture quality and that is how quickly the image is refreshed on the screen.
The current analog standard calls for the picture to be updated completely 30 times every second. This is accomplished by drawing one half of the image 60 times every second. This process is called interlacing and has been the standard in the US for fifty years; however, some televisions are capable of redrawing the entire picture 60 times every second, which is known as progressive scanning. So with this in mind, here are the resolutions that both analog and digital systems are capable of using.
HDMI + HDCP + DVI
So you have a television that has a digital tuner and is listed as being 1080i compatible. Congratulations! Are you watching HDTV? The answer is "maybe". As it turns out, the companies that make television programs and movies do not trust you and me. In fact, they think that given the chance you will steal from them and that they must protect themselves in any way they can. To this end the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) specifaction from Intel is a DRM scheme used to ensure that content traveling between HD devices is secure from copying. To connect these HD device you must use digital interconnect cables. Currently there are only two interconnects that can be used: Digital Visual Interface (DVI) or high-definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). DVI is primarily used to connect digital monitors to computers and HDMI is the standard used for home theater equipment.
In an earlier DRM article we talked about the two new competing DRM standards that are coming out this year. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD are both advertised as being capable of playing movies back in full 1080p resolution. This is the best possible resolution available in the HDTV standard.
To get a license to use HDCP, the licensee must agree to not only keep their HDCP keys secret but they must also agree to limit the capability of their products. When a studio creates a movie, there is an option to activate a protection flag. This flag is in place to prevent the full HD quality from being transmitted to any device that is not connected using HDCP; and, as it turns out, very few HD televisions have HDMI or DVI connections. Also, if this flag is activated, then the player must downgrade any signal that is leaving the device on an analog connection. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players honor this flag and will only output video at 540p - and as we know 540p is not really high-definition. Broadcast high-definition would not be immune to this either; in fact, the FCC had planned to use HDCP in conjunction with the Broadcast Flag to force a 480p restriction.
What's The Problem?
The problem is that for nearly a decade now electronics manufacturers have been selling televisions that have been advertised as being HD-Ready, HD-Capable, HD-Compatible, etc. Very few of those televisions have either DVI or HDMI and the Federal Communications Commission approved HDCP as a "Digital Output Protection Technology" on August 4th, 2004. To make matters worse the electronics manufacturers are still making non-HDCP compliant devices and are not warning people about this issue. In fact if you look at the computer graphics industry the two leaders are ATI and NVIDIA. As of this writing there was no card from either of these companies that was HDCP ready.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held last week and a couple of announcments spurred the creation of this post. E3 is "the world's premiere trade event exclusively dedicated to showcasing interactive entertainment". Primarily this show is for video game hardware manufacturers, software makers, and the industry press. The last two years at E3 have been dominated by talk from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft about their new console gaming devices. Both Sony and Microsoft have boasted about their ability to play games in HD. Playing games in HD is very true on these machines and games on bath machines look great; however, both Microsoft and Sony are releasing products to playback high-definition movie discs as well. Microsoft is releasing an HD-DVD add-on player for the XBox 360 while Sony's PS3 is coming standard with a Blu-Ray player.
There is a problem for both companies. Sony is releasing two versions of the PS3. The lower priced version does not have HDMI outputs but the higher priced version does. The XBox 360 does not have any HDMI outputs on either of the two models that are currently available. Furthermore, neither the XBox nor the PlayStation have DVI outputs. So according to the HDCP standard, neither the lower priced PS3 nor the XBox can display true HD movie content when the protection flag is set.
Both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray organizations are quick to point out that none of the first movies that are being released actually implement the protection flag and assure us there is nothing to worry about. The fact remains that all HDCP devices must comply with the protection flag, and the protection flag is turned on by the content makers and not the hardware makers. There is nothing illegal about what these electronics manufacturers are doing but it is certainly unethical that they are not educating their customers.
If you think this is not a problem or that the buyer should beware then please consider some recent research from Scientific-Atlanta and Forrester Research. By the end of 2006 there will be 16 million U.S. households with HDTV sets and at that time only 7 million of them will actually be getting HDTV reception. Of the people that have HDTV sets now only 51% were actually using any of their HD capability. Twenty-Five percent of the people with HDTV were hooked up to standard cable but thought they were watching HDTV because at the beginning of television shows they saw a message that said "Broadcast in HDTV where available". Finally, nearly 20% of all the people with HDTV sets had no idea that they needed additional equipment to see high-definition video. It is unethical to not educate your customers. In my opinion, there is no difference between what these electronics companies are doing and the shady salespeople who prey on senior citizen's retirement accounts.
Jimmy Palmer
DTV + HDTV
High-definition television (HDTV) is a standard to which all new televisions in the United States will be required to adhere. The standard features two primary changes from the system currently in use. The first change is from analog to digital and the second is a change in the picture and sound quality. Televisions will be phased into this new standard over time; however, the FCC has set a deadline of March 1, 2007 for when all new televisions will be required to have a digital tuner. A digital tuner means that the television will be able to receive digital broadcasts. This is very important since all analog broadcasts will be turned off no later than April 7, 2009. This is the date set by Congress when all television stations must relinquish their analog broadcast licenses. If you do not have a digital tuner by this date then you will not be able to receive television with an antennae. The digital transmission part of HDTV is very clear and agreed upon.
The second part of HDTV, the better picture and sound, is not quite so clear. The easiest way to understand the quality difference is to examine pixel densities. Every image you see on a television screen is created using a series of small colored dots (pixels). The more pixels you can squeeze into a smaller box, the better the picture will look. In general, if you compare two analog televisions of equal quality side by side using the same video the smaller television will appear to have the better picture. This is because both televisions have the same number of pixels but the smaller television has them closer together. There is one other issue that affects the picture quality and that is how quickly the image is refreshed on the screen.
The current analog standard calls for the picture to be updated completely 30 times every second. This is accomplished by drawing one half of the image 60 times every second. This process is called interlacing and has been the standard in the US for fifty years; however, some televisions are capable of redrawing the entire picture 60 times every second, which is known as progressive scanning. So with this in mind, here are the resolutions that both analog and digital systems are capable of using.
- 300 pixels x 360 pixels - VHS quality - standard VCRs record and play at this level
- 460 pixels x 360 pixels - Broadcast television - your local television station transmits this
- 560 pixels x 360 pixels - Laserdisc quality - if you do not know what an LD is, don't worry
- 720 pixels x 360 pixels - DVD quality - this is why DVDs look so much better than tape
- 640 pixels x 480 pixels - 480i or 480p - DTV either interlaced (i) or progressive (p)
- 1280 pixels x 720 pixels - 720i or 720p - DTV either interlaced (i) or progressive (p)
- 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels - 1080i or 1080p - DTV either interlaced (i) or progressive (p)
HDMI + HDCP + DVI
So you have a television that has a digital tuner and is listed as being 1080i compatible. Congratulations! Are you watching HDTV? The answer is "maybe". As it turns out, the companies that make television programs and movies do not trust you and me. In fact, they think that given the chance you will steal from them and that they must protect themselves in any way they can. To this end the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) specifaction from Intel is a DRM scheme used to ensure that content traveling between HD devices is secure from copying. To connect these HD device you must use digital interconnect cables. Currently there are only two interconnects that can be used: Digital Visual Interface (DVI) or high-definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). DVI is primarily used to connect digital monitors to computers and HDMI is the standard used for home theater equipment.
In an earlier DRM article we talked about the two new competing DRM standards that are coming out this year. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DVD are both advertised as being capable of playing movies back in full 1080p resolution. This is the best possible resolution available in the HDTV standard.
To get a license to use HDCP, the licensee must agree to not only keep their HDCP keys secret but they must also agree to limit the capability of their products. When a studio creates a movie, there is an option to activate a protection flag. This flag is in place to prevent the full HD quality from being transmitted to any device that is not connected using HDCP; and, as it turns out, very few HD televisions have HDMI or DVI connections. Also, if this flag is activated, then the player must downgrade any signal that is leaving the device on an analog connection. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players honor this flag and will only output video at 540p - and as we know 540p is not really high-definition. Broadcast high-definition would not be immune to this either; in fact, the FCC had planned to use HDCP in conjunction with the Broadcast Flag to force a 480p restriction.
What's The Problem?
The problem is that for nearly a decade now electronics manufacturers have been selling televisions that have been advertised as being HD-Ready, HD-Capable, HD-Compatible, etc. Very few of those televisions have either DVI or HDMI and the Federal Communications Commission approved HDCP as a "Digital Output Protection Technology" on August 4th, 2004. To make matters worse the electronics manufacturers are still making non-HDCP compliant devices and are not warning people about this issue. In fact if you look at the computer graphics industry the two leaders are ATI and NVIDIA. As of this writing there was no card from either of these companies that was HDCP ready.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held last week and a couple of announcments spurred the creation of this post. E3 is "the world's premiere trade event exclusively dedicated to showcasing interactive entertainment". Primarily this show is for video game hardware manufacturers, software makers, and the industry press. The last two years at E3 have been dominated by talk from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft about their new console gaming devices. Both Sony and Microsoft have boasted about their ability to play games in HD. Playing games in HD is very true on these machines and games on bath machines look great; however, both Microsoft and Sony are releasing products to playback high-definition movie discs as well. Microsoft is releasing an HD-DVD add-on player for the XBox 360 while Sony's PS3 is coming standard with a Blu-Ray player.
There is a problem for both companies. Sony is releasing two versions of the PS3. The lower priced version does not have HDMI outputs but the higher priced version does. The XBox 360 does not have any HDMI outputs on either of the two models that are currently available. Furthermore, neither the XBox nor the PlayStation have DVI outputs. So according to the HDCP standard, neither the lower priced PS3 nor the XBox can display true HD movie content when the protection flag is set.
Both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray organizations are quick to point out that none of the first movies that are being released actually implement the protection flag and assure us there is nothing to worry about. The fact remains that all HDCP devices must comply with the protection flag, and the protection flag is turned on by the content makers and not the hardware makers. There is nothing illegal about what these electronics manufacturers are doing but it is certainly unethical that they are not educating their customers.
If you think this is not a problem or that the buyer should beware then please consider some recent research from Scientific-Atlanta and Forrester Research. By the end of 2006 there will be 16 million U.S. households with HDTV sets and at that time only 7 million of them will actually be getting HDTV reception. Of the people that have HDTV sets now only 51% were actually using any of their HD capability. Twenty-Five percent of the people with HDTV were hooked up to standard cable but thought they were watching HDTV because at the beginning of television shows they saw a message that said "Broadcast in HDTV where available". Finally, nearly 20% of all the people with HDTV sets had no idea that they needed additional equipment to see high-definition video. It is unethical to not educate your customers. In my opinion, there is no difference between what these electronics companies are doing and the shady salespeople who prey on senior citizen's retirement accounts.
Jimmy Palmer
