DRM does not hurt consumers

[Nate the great]

Yeah, right.

Summary:
Fox recently released two titles on Blu-ray DVDs. These title utilize the latest DRM measures. This would be all well and good, except Fox forgot to check to see if the manufacturers have updated the player's firmware to give the player the ability to cope with the the new DRM. Most had not. It's not that the customers hadn't updated yet, the manufacturers were not yet done writing the firmware! Some players were still on the original 1.0 firmware.

Just remember: DRM is your friend.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...e-devices.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ible-dvds.html

I don't know about you, but the fact they expect the customer to regularly upgrade the firmware really pisses me off.

[Bob Russell]

Sony goofed this way with the Casino Royale Bond movie on DVD. But they offered free replacements to all buyers who called with problems.

[edsohsmith]

Customer convenience is often last on any manufacturers / distributors list.

[RalphTrickey]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I don't know about you, but the fact they expect the customer to regularly upgrade the firmware really pisses me off.

Given the number of people can even program the timer on a VCR, expecting them to upgrade to the latest version of software boggles my mind.

I can imagine the tech support center steps...
Do you have a PC with MS Windows XP/VIsta and a CD-R drive and a high-speed connection?
No? We'll send you a CD if you're in warranty, just send us $20 shipping and handling.

You have one?
Turn on the computer
Open a Web Browser
Go to www.Manufacturer.com
go to downloads
find your model number
download the firmware
go to another web site
download alcohol120
burn a CD from that image
put the CD in the DVD drive. (Hit the magic key sequence?)
Wait, let's hope it didn't break anything.....

How long do you think it would take to walk a non-technical person through the steps?

I expect my PC to need care and feeding. I don't expect my Toaster, Refrigerator or DVD player to need regular updates.

The big box policy of not allowing returns on opened items is just the icing on the cake

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I don't know about you, but the fact they expect the customer to regularly upgrade the firmware really pisses me off.

I very much agree. I also make a product where we release firmware from time to time and in my experience most customers find this a daunting process if they're even aware that it can be done. Your typical customer isn't going to delve that deeply into the manual or support site. If they do end up contacting support and are told to upgrade, they're usually quite resistant to doing it because they're afraid to mess it up. Heck, most end users would rather buy a new computer than upgrade their OS.

[Lemurion]

The simple fact is that in the current climate a large part of the content industry is much more concerned with making sure that unauthorized consumers cannot access content than whether authorized ones can. In many ways it seems that they're trying to get the best of both worlds when selling DRM'd media; treating it as whichever of a physical sale or grant of license will give them the fewest obligations towards the consumer. All they want us to do is pay for the content. Using it is not a factor.

[CCDMan]

Sooner or later these companies are going to push too hard and go too far. History shows that once that happens, serious government regulation follows. Buying off Congress critters only works as long as the general public is not seriously pissed. Once they become seriously pissed, Congress has to listen, lobbyists or no lobbyists. The question only remains as to how long it will be before these companies get the general public (as opposed to us tech types) seriously pissed. They are working on it. <g>

Hmmm, I wonder if an HD-SDI mod would eliminate these DRM issues?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by CCDMan

Sooner or later these companies are going to push too hard and go too far. History shows that once that happens, serious government regulation follows. Buying off Congress critters only works as long as the general public is not seriously pissed. Once they become seriously pissed, Congress has to listen, lobbyists or no lobbyists. The question only remains as to how long it will be before these companies get the general public (as opposed to us tech types) seriously pissed. They are working on it. <g>

Hmmm, I wonder if an HD-SDI mod would eliminate these DRM issues?

I think they already have.

It takes a fair amount of work to update the firmware. It takes the same amount of work to use a hacked version of the firmware that bypasses all the DRM. The work by the customer to abide by the DRM is now equal to the effort to bypass it!

And what's worse, the existence of the firmware updates makes it 10 times easier to bypass the DRM. The hacker doesn't have to guess at how the DRM functions, he or she can take apart the update and simply know.

[Nate the great]

I just had another thought:

Most people do not have software that recognizes ISO files as disk images. I am pretty sure that it does not come in a standard installation of Windows. I have two desktops and a laptop in my house. Only the laptop identified a sample ISO file as a disk image.

I really hope that the firmware is provided with something that makes it less than impossible for the customer to use.

[jbenny]

7Zip opens ISO files just fine. And 7Zip is free, open source and opens lots of archive formats.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by jbenny

7Zip opens ISO files just fine. And 7Zip is free, open source and opens lots of archive formats.

I'm sure it does. But it is unreasonable to expect the average consumer to have to do it.

[balok]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The simple fact is that in the current climate a large part of the content industry is much more concerned with making sure that unauthorized consumers cannot access content than whether authorized ones can.

I don't see how DRM can be all that useful for the video industry. It seems to me that DRM is only useful for protecting the original data stream. It can do nothing to keep a user from recording the analog output. All you need is a compatible video output on your legitimate blu-ray/hd-dvd player, and plug it into your video card. Heck, you can just use your good old VCR. When they find a way to completely integrate the television itself with the disc player, so that you can't pull this trick, there will always be the crude method of recording the tv screen with a handycam.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by balok

I don't see how DRM can be all that useful for the video industry. It seems to me that DRM is only useful for protecting the original data stream. It can do nothing to keep a user from recording the analog output. All you need is a compatible video output on your legitimate blu-ray/hd-dvd player, and plug it into your video card. Heck, you can just use your good old VCR. When they find a way to completely integrate the television itself with the disc player, so that you can't pull this trick, there will always be the crude method of recording the tv screen with a handycam.

You're right, DRM can't do anything from recording an analog output; this is why the majority of HD capable video players do not support analog output at HD resolutions and the content industry wants to use HDCP which will automatically prevent any system from outputting an HD data stream unless the receiver is authenticated. They haven't fully implemented this yet, but it's a deliberate attempt to close the analog hole.

In the meantime, most consumer HD video players can only output HD video through the HDMI interface that supports the HDCP protection, they don't give full output over any of the conventional analog output options.

[Azayzel]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

You're right, DRM can't do anything from recording an analog output; this is why the majority of HD capable video players do not support analog output at HD resolutions and the content industry wants to use HDCP which will automatically prevent any system from outputting an HD data stream unless the receiver is authenticated. They haven't fully implemented this yet, but it's a deliberate attempt to close the analog hole.

In the meantime, most consumer HD video players can only output HD video through the HDMI interface that supports the HDCP protection, they don't give full output over any of the conventional analog output options.

I've totally seen this issue even with a standard DVD. I have my PC hooked up directly to my TV, so I generally watch DVD's through the PC's DVD drive. A few DVD's I've run across wouldn't output an image to the component-out or DVI cable and I was stuck firing up the 'ol reliable stand-alone DVD player. I even ran into the problem trying to watch TV on my tuner card when a show was broadcast with the secure-bit (or whatever they're calling it) active, and had to switch over to the standard cable box. I have my PS3 hooked up to the TV via a HDMI-to-DVI convertor and haven't had any problems just yet watching BD-DVD's, but then again I don't own too many of them since they are so over-priced.

I can understand why they do this, to prevent people from capturing the signal and later distributing it, but it's still a PITA for me to have to deal with.

[Hadrien]

You mean DRM does not (heart) consumer right ? ;-)