FC: Hollywood wants to plug "analog hole," regulate A-D

[Trei, Peter]

> Dave Emery[SMTP:die at die.com] wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 08:59:43PM -0500, Neil Johnson wrote:
> 
> > Remember it only requires ONE high-quality non-watermarked analog to
> digital 
> > copy to make it on the net and it's all over.
> 
> 	And that is what this whole nonsensical scheme founders on.
> 
> 	There are probably 300-500 million existing sound cards out
> there and at least millions of existing NTSC analog capture cards.  
> Many if not most can do acceptable fidelity conversion of analog audio
> and video to digital formats if programmed correctly. And there are even
> a few tens of thousands (or more) of new generation PCI cards that
> capture ATSC digital video (including HDTV) direct to disk in the clear.
> 
> 	The MPAA cannot will these out of existance.  
> 
The 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. There is currently a lot of work being done within
the BPDG (Broadcast Protection Discussion Group) to provide
watermark checking, cryptographic and physical protection of 
digital video and audio data all the way to the display device, and 
forbid 'complying devices' from having accessible unencrypted 
outputs or busses. There are even proposals that if a 'complying 
device' is found to be hackable, that there should be a backdoor to
enable the manufacturer to modify or disable it remotely.

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.

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

Check out the BPDG documents at
http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/cat_bpdg_drafts.html

Peter Trei
Disclaimer: The above is my opinion only, and should not
be misconstrued to represent the opinions of others.