On Monday, June 3, 2002, at 08:40 AM, Trei, Peter wrote:

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OnThe MPAA does not have to 'will them out of existance', or even make them illegal. They plan to change the broadcast standard so they are not supported.

At least, this is my interpretation:

The FCC has mandated a change to all-digital formats over the next 5 years or so. After that, analog (NTSC) transmission will be phased out.

My strong hunch is that there is essentially no chance of this happening. For a mix of reasons which I'll just briefly list: Item: The mess with HDTV, which is of course the same issue, is continuing to get messier. Very few stations are broadcasting HDTV, even fewer customers (proportionately) are buying HDTV sets (*) (* Many of the big screen sets today are "HDTV-ready," but customers typically don't bother to set up the HDTV part, according to the local Circuit City salesdroids I've talked to. Typically the customers have a large collection of DVDs and are happy to use NTSC, albeit with the increased scan resolution available with stuff like "3:2 pulldown." Note: I have a Sony DVD-NS700P player which offers this "3:2 pulldown," but my 35-inch monitor is only NTSC-capable. Still, the resolution is enough at the distances I view from, and my library of DVDs ensures that I will be playing DVDs for years, even decades, to come. The next item explores this point.) Item: DVDs are the hottest thing out there. Customers around the world are buying them in stupendous numbers. They will be playing them on NTSC (or PAL and SECAM) televisions for decades to come. They will reject notions that they need to buy "all digital sets" which aren't backward compatible. (Had HDTV arrived earlier--and the first HDTV set I saw was in 1988-89, a large Sony monitor--and had DVDs been "HDTV-DVDs--then maybe, just maybe, the resolution might have been enough to cause the current DVD revolution to be a revolution for HDTV. But it didn't, and they didn't. And now the huge volume of DVDs pretty much means the current technology will be solidly entrenched for a decade to come.) Item: Most people simply don't care about getting a thousand lines of picture resolution. Just as they don't really care about audio quality, as shown by the popularity of heavily compressed MP3 and ear bud headsets. (Not all ear buds are bad. I use a pair of Etymotics which are better than my Grados and almost as good as my Stax electrostatics. And when I digitize my CDs for my iPod, I use the 256K samples per second MP3 setting.) item: Not only was the first generation of HDTV (like the Sony mentioned above) obsoleted by the "actual, final, we really mean it this time!" version of HDTV, but I just heard that the proposed MPAA/FCC/Cabal standards will obsolete the _current_ generation of HDTV. So those relatively small number of consumers who bought expensive HDTV receivers and monitors will be told "Oops." Will they buy yet another HDTV set-up? As the saying goes, " I don't _think_ so." Item: Friends of mine have systems which reflect a more realistic, and even anarchic (yay!), way that ultra high resolution will enter households. First, they have several hundred laser discs, the old kind, which they want to play. Second, they have about as many DVDs, skewed toward recent releases, natch. Third, they have a 15-foot projection screen, motorized, with a commercial-grade Sony 3-lens projector capable of delivering, if I recall the specs correctly, about 1600 x 1280 at the screen. Maybe even more. (What I know is that projecting at this resolution on a screen this large is really great for computer demos!) They drive this system with an ATI Radeon 8500, the one with the video in/out extra stuff. Into this go there various laser disc and DVD players, or, I assume, directly from the DVDs in the computer they have the 8500 mounted in. (This 8500 card costs about $350, perhaps less by now, and has massive amounts of processing.) They played some DVDs on this system and the results were awesome: not a single visible scan line, even up close in front of this 15-foot screen. The biggest problem is of course brightness. Just no way to get high brightness over such a large surface without extraordinarily large amounts of projector power and the concomitant heat and bulb replacement costs. Viewing is best done in a completely dark room. Which is why I expect to stick with my 35-inch standard tube for a while. Item: Their system, my system, and tens of millions like them, are already giving so many "degrees of freedom" that the cat is already out of the bag. An attempt to make future DVDs incompatible with the tens of millions of existing systems will be met with anger, boycotts, and seeking of alternatives (e.g., a studio which continues to sell DVDs will win out over ones which offer only newer and incompatible versions). Throw in the pissed-off folks who bought HDTV systems in 1997-2003 and are then told that they'll have to scrap even those systems! Item: An entire generation of viewers is now used to watching DVDs on their computers. In dorm rooms, in bedrooms, even at work...people throw in a DVD and watch on the same screen they play games on, use for surfing the Net, etc. This won't change. This is of course just the "convergence" talked about by many. And the newer and larger LCD monitors, such as Apple's gorgeous 23-inch displays, will make watching on computer screens even more desirable. And there will be vast numbers of these systems out there. Item: The key issue: DVDs becoming the videotape of this generation. And there is no clamoring for more resolution. (In fact, few sources can "justify" more resolution. Double in fact, many human actors and actresses simply are not pleasant to look at at incredibly high resolutions!) I give the chance that Jack Valenti and his bunch will be able to force a conversion to a new video standard no chance of happening. Manufacturers will back off if they see sales trending downward (for the reasons cited above).

Until these standards are settled one way or the other, anyone buying digital video equipment (HDTV or otherwise) runs a very substantial risk of finding themselves with a set of expensive and otherwise useless doorstops.

Which is deterring huge numbers of people from even looking at HDTV. And so they buy more DVDs, which are vastly better than the VHS tapes they've been watching for years. Most of them apparently see little compelling reason to upgrade to HDTV.

Progress and innovation in electronics will occur only at the whim (and in the interest) of the entertainment industry.

Actually, I disagree. There are many examples--MP3s, Napster, the system my friends have that I described, etc.--where the "street" does its own thing regardless of what the entertainment industry and Jack Valenti want. Final personal note: About a year ago I saw the absolutely gorgeous, splendiferous Apple 22-inch "Cinema Display." A huge TFT flat monitor, with a resolution of 1600 x 1024. And they've now added a slightly larger version with an ever higher resolution (1920 x 1200). I see myself getting one of these--or the 30-inch version which will probably be available for the same price in 2 years--and rigging it as my main high-res viewing system. (Yeah, these systems are not so great for families and for viewing parties, but, let's face it, when was the last time this kind of viewing happened to you? Most of my own viewing, and that of nearly everyone I know, is personal.) The degrees of freedom will win out over the control freaks. --Tim May "Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001