WndrBr3d
02-24-2006, 12:55 PM
Link (http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/early_hdtv_adopters_screwed_by_hddisc_rules.html#m ore)
If you're one of the first adopters who mortgaged the house to buy the earliest HDTV displays, don't expect to get full HD resolution when you take out a second mortgage for a high-def disc player when they come out later this year. Today the copy-protection rules for Blu-ray or HD DVD — the two formats competing to be the standard for HD discs — are being unveiled. Called Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the rules clearly show the major movie studios are determined to stymie potential piracy, but their efforts may short-change people with older HDTVs. AACS says the new players won't output a full-HD signal from their component-video connections, since those jacks are analog instead of digital and thus have no copy protection. The "down-rezzed" signals will be limited to a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels — exactly one-quarter the 1,920 x 1,080 pixels that you'll get through the copy-protected digital connectors on the players. The potentially huge problem with this strategy is that the only HD inputs on a lot of older HDTVs are component video. Estimates vary, but it's believed 3 to 6.6 million such displays are in U.S. households. And the sun will set on analog video for good after Dec. 31, 2013, when AACS-licensed players can't be made or sold with any analog video outputs, including the familiar yellow composite-video jack.
Damn it. :mad:
If you're one of the first adopters who mortgaged the house to buy the earliest HDTV displays, don't expect to get full HD resolution when you take out a second mortgage for a high-def disc player when they come out later this year. Today the copy-protection rules for Blu-ray or HD DVD — the two formats competing to be the standard for HD discs — are being unveiled. Called Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the rules clearly show the major movie studios are determined to stymie potential piracy, but their efforts may short-change people with older HDTVs. AACS says the new players won't output a full-HD signal from their component-video connections, since those jacks are analog instead of digital and thus have no copy protection. The "down-rezzed" signals will be limited to a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels — exactly one-quarter the 1,920 x 1,080 pixels that you'll get through the copy-protected digital connectors on the players. The potentially huge problem with this strategy is that the only HD inputs on a lot of older HDTVs are component video. Estimates vary, but it's believed 3 to 6.6 million such displays are in U.S. households. And the sun will set on analog video for good after Dec. 31, 2013, when AACS-licensed players can't be made or sold with any analog video outputs, including the familiar yellow composite-video jack.
Damn it. :mad: