[mythtv-users] HD input in the future (DVI and HDMI)

[Brad Templeton]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 09:52:42PM -0800, Alex wrote:
> This assumes that a STB would always enable HDCP.  Perhaps they do. 
> However it would be possible for instance for an ATSC tuner to only
> enable HDCP when the broadcast flag is set.   It would depend on the
> content.

What I mean is, today if you had a set top box which would only give
you some significant part of your programming via HDCP (ie. for
example all your non-OTA, plus all your OTA with BF set) this would be
a hard sell, because too many people would not accept it, they don't
have HDCP.  They don't even have DVI on their older sets.

A few years from now, they hope that this changes, and nobody refuses
to take an STB just because it uses HDCP.
> 
> The point of HDCP is to make the content providers comfortable enough
> to enable these devices to play it.

Well, that's what they say, isn't it?   History shows this to be false,
that the vast majority of the content providers in the end, if they can't
have their way on DRM, still release the content without DRM.   However,
the CE companies have bought into it anyway, largely because it creates
barriers to entry for small competitors and open source competitors.

Or so it is suspected.  They would not say such in public.  Though I did
get one to say in public that it's all there because they have to do
something (even something that won't work or won't work for long) until
they can figure out what the hell is going on.

> Few consumers know anything about any of this technology.  
> The just want to plug it in and turn it on.  
> Very few consumers have a digital link from their player to their display.

Indeed, though one has to assume that's going to change.  I mean
from a technical standpoint, going digital all the way is what you
want.   In theory, the pixel captured on the digital camera should
stay digital until it is converted into the signals that adjust the
DLP mirror in your TV for that specific pixel.   Signals should not
be transcoded, just decompressed at the final stage.    Though it is
OK to use lossless methods and compressed stream edits, plus of course
overlay channels with alpha for OSD.   We are not there yet but want to be.
 Unfortunately this is also perfect for DRM.