HD DVD/BR players forced to "down-convert" signals over analog

RC Cola · Jan 21, 2006

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6300812.html

Some buyers of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players might not get everything they bargained for.

In a deal reached this week after tense negotiations, the eight-company consortium behind the Advanced Access Content System, created for use by both high-def formats to prevent unauthorized copying, has agreed to require hardware makers to bar some high-def signals from being sent from players to displays over analog connections, sources said.

Instead, the affected analog signal must be “down-converted” from the full 1920x1080 lines of resolution the players are capable of outputting to 960x540 lines—a resolution closer to standard DVDs than to high-def. Standard DVDs are typically encoded at 720 horizontal by 480 vertical lines of resolution.

The 960x540 standard stipulated in the AACS agreement represents 50% higher resolution than standard-def, but only one-quarter the resolution of full high-def. Whether a particular movie is down-converted will be up to the studio.

The players will be required to recognize and respond to a digital flag, called an Image Constraint Token, inserted into the movie data.

If the flag is set to “on,” the player must down-convert the analog signal. If set to “off,” the player can pass the full high-def signal over the analog connections.

The studios are divided over whether to require such down-conversion and are likely to follow separate policies.

Hardware makers had generally resisted the requirement, but under the new deal, ICT recognition will be included in the AACS license that all device makers and playback software vendors will have to sign.

Estimates differ on how many consumers might be affected by the new requirement.

Many first-generation HDTV sets are equipped only with analog inputs, because at the time they were manufactured, there was no agreed-on industry standard for copy-protected digital connections between devices.

Now that there is, however, the studios are anxious to move all signal traffic to protected digital inputs and outputs.

Although movies in both Blu-ray and HD DVD will be encrypted while on the disc, the digital encryption is lost once the signal is converted to analog. Some studios fear that pirates will be able to capture and record the unencrypted analog signal, which could then be re-converted into a pristine, unprotected digital copy.

Down-converting the analog signal from high-def to something closer to standard-definition would at least prevent pirates from starting with the highest-quality image.

The effect, however, will be to deny those HDTV owners with analog-only sets the full capabilities of the new disc formats.

As part of the deal with hardware makers, the studios will be required to disclose on a movie’s packaging whether the image will be down-converted.

Supporters of Image Constraint argue that few consumers will be able to tell the difference between down-converted analog and high-def.

Many so-called HDTV sets are actually capable of displaying only 720 lines of resolution, regardless of the source, so viewers would not be getting full high-def anyway, even over digital connections.

Once the analog image is down-sampled to 540 lines, moreover, players will be permitted to use a signal processor to “up-convert” it to 720 or 1,080 lines.

Although such up-conversion does not restore the detail lost through down-sampling, it does improve overall picture sharpness.

No studio would comment on whether it plans to take advantage of the Image Constraint option.

Within the AACS consortium, however, Warner Home Video was consistently the strongest proponent of the idea, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is not a member of AACS, but has argued against the idea in other forums.

AACS-member Disney, as well as non-members NBC Universal and Paramount, are likely to take advantage of the option, according to sources with knowledge of the studios’ thinking.

Although Sony is a member of AACS, where it sometimes clashed with Warner on the issue, sources said it is still unclear whether Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will take advantage of the ICT option now that it is in place.
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Regarding the last part of the article, there's also this info from a while back:

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=15908

+ ICT (Image Constrain Token) must be supported by AACS software and hardware as Warner wanted. ICT is utilized to limit hi-res analog output. But in countries such as Japan in which the laws prohibit ICT, it's not required until 2011. Contents providers except for Warner say they don't use ICT, but according to Honda even Warner won't use it because of commercial reasons.
Click to expand...

So the situation may not be as bad as once thought (no HD at all if you didn't have an HDMI port), but "down-converting" is still going to happen, at least by some studios. Hopefully for those of you who have an HDTV that doesn't support HDMI, maybe the second quote I offered will be accurate.

Although even in a worst-case scenario (meaning you'll need a new TV), at least the prices are coming down a lot.

Invisible Fan · Jan 21, 2006

They're being real b****es all because of piracy.

They're already enforcing the HDCP format so that any set without that port can't receive High-Def signals. This excludes 1st generation sets, most computer monitors: LCD or CRT. If you bought a nice 30" Apple LCD, it ain't gonna play on that Blu-Ray player.

Total bull****. Their only sell for people to upgrade is the bigger resolution. Media companies aren't going to add more content. The content will be nearly similar to current DVDs

Well their plan is going to blow up on them. If people don't know how to download digital movies so they can play on old sets, they will.

They also forgot that China and Hong Kong existed...

Davidoff · Jan 21, 2006

haha.. I love that the movie and music industry still think they can stop piracy, get with the times and learn what the software industry did.. Pirates will always reverse engineer products, but it's always the common user who ends up getting screwed with all the changes and limitations that these companies end up making..

droxford · Jan 21, 2006

They're attacking any analog link in the chain as a security hole (which it is).

The hacking community has a large shopping list of tasks to complete that are building up:

learn how to decrypt incoming digital cable
learn how to decrypt HD blu-ray and HDDVD media
learn how to strip any security flags from within movie data

..(*sigh*) I wish I was guru on hacking, decrypting, and advanced electronic hardware.

I would think that hardware manufactures are getting pretty sick of the movie-company consortiums telling them "your hardware must do this and that, and your hardware can't do this and that." I know I'd get sick of it. And as they continue to change their security, they're going to expect the hardware manufacturers to change their hardware. This is a short road - people aren't going to go out and buy new TV sets every two years because the security crap has changed and isn't supported by their old set.

If the hardware manufacturers knew what was good for 'em, they'd stick to their guns a bit and only comply with SOME of what the consortiums want, and only do it once. They shouldn't allow themselves to be pushed around year after year.

Dr of Dunk · Jan 22, 2006

Da-Glyde said:

haha.. I love that the movie and music industry still think they can stop piracy, get with the times and learn what the software industry did.. Pirates will always reverse engineer products, but it's always the common user who ends up getting screwed with all the changes and limitations that these companies end up making..
Click to expand...

This is the bizarre response I just don't get. Piracy is forcing hardware manufacturers to resort to this stuff, but "the common user" blames the hardware manufacturers. Huh?

Invisible Fan · Jan 22, 2006

Maybe the common user blames the hardware manufacturers for being tools to the media industry.

It's kind of like the iPod cellphone. It seems like a great idea but big media's strong-arming the manufacturers into submission.

The common user's shooting the messenger.

rrj_gamz · Jan 22, 2006

Invisible Fan said:

They're being real b****es all because of piracy.

They're already enforcing the HDCP format so that any set without that port can't receive High-Def signals. This excludes 1st generation sets, most computer monitors: LCD or CRT. If you bought a nice 30" Apple LCD, it ain't gonna play on that Blu-Ray player.

Total bull****. Their only sell for people to upgrade is the bigger resolution. Media companies aren't going to add more content. The content will be nearly similar to current DVDs

Well their plan is going to blow up on them. If people don't know how to download digital movies so they can play on old sets, they will.

They also forgot that China and Hong Kong existed...
Click to expand...

What he said...total BS...

RC Cola · Jan 22, 2006

While I'm disappointed in the news, there are some bright spots. As opposed to just the specifications of BR/HD DVD screwing the consumers, basically individual movie studios will be. Since they're supposed to say on the box whether or not the movie down-converts, people can always "boycott" the movie studios by not buying those discs (assuming other studios, or even other movies from that studio, are not down-converting).

It doesn't even really make sense why they would do this to prevent piracy though, IMO. I mean, I think most pirates would love to pirate 960x540 versions of these movies (better than DVD, not to mention smaller in size). In fact, the ICT supporters even said that "few consumers will be able to tell the difference between down-converted analog and high-def." The following screen seems to support that I guess:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7295/leno1080pcompareqtrrez5lg.jpg
(half is full 1080i, other half is downsampled to 960x540 and then resized)

So...why even do it? Especially since it doesn't sound too hard to get around this, and even if it was, I'm sure the pirates would be able to find a way, as always. Maybe this will just be used in extreme cases or something. I was always under the impression that EVERY movie would use this, but it sounds like it can vary from studio to studio and even movie to movie. As I said in the OP, hopefully that quote is accurate about not many studios really wanting to use this, outside of maybe some extreme cases, and it won't really be too much of a factor.

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