Philips Targets Wireless TV Retransmission At Home 367
cadfael links to this EE Times story, excerpting: "Philips is attempting to start yet another industry initiative to tackle digital rights management, this time focusing on the wirelessly networked home. 'At stake here,' said Leon Husson, executive vice president of consumer businesses at Philips Semiconductors, 'is the "free-floating" copyrighted content that will soon be "redistributed" or "rebroadcast" to different TV sets throughout a home by consumers using wireless networking technologies like IEEE802.11.'"
I fail to see the issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, whenever I buy a special package, i.e., a pay-per-view, I can watch it on all the TVs in the house...
Why I think this will work (Score:1, Insightful)
This tech will make its way into the market and content providers will quickly glom onto the idea. Customers will upgrade or face having 4 broadcast channels.
So now philips is a bad guy again? (Score:5, Insightful)
ROI (Score:4, Insightful)
The Problem with... (Score:5, Insightful)
Therefore, unless you give them a major incentive, the RIAA/MPAA is foiled again. No upgrades means that all of the time they spent plotting up yet another scheme to control what we can and can't watch is ruined by consumer apathy.
If they really wanted people to upgrade, they would (a) develop a new, proprietary format, (b) stop release of all current and future products on CD/VHS/DVD, (c) release ONLY on aforementioned proprietary format. Eventually, enough people would switch to make it worth their while.
Even with this, though, people will find a way around the Digital Rights Management schemes, as they also do.
To use a famous quote, "Where there's a will, there's a way." And when it comes to copying CDs, VHS tapes, or DVDs, there is most certainly a will.
Gawyn
Surrounded by idiots.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apoplexy now!
This will eventually have to be regulated... (Score:3, Insightful)
This certainly seems analogous to me. How can they justify this. It is effectively telling me what I'm allowed to do inside my own house!
That's crap.
T
DRM == defect (Score:4, Insightful)
Once again, we are shown that digital rights management hardware is by definition defective. They seem to think their only protection from profit stealing pirates (gasp! seeing stuff on another TV?) is to make broken equipment.
I, for one, will be voting with my wallet. F*** phillips, and anyone who follows them. I thought the hardware guys where on the side of logic and fair use...
Maybe I'll write to them and tell them that I won't buy crippled equipment from them that purposely interferes with radio transmissions- and I think the FCC would also take issue with this.
Another victory for geeks' rights (Score:1, Insightful)
Basically, the large media companies want control over their content because they want to "keep the honest people honest." Though this sounds very Big Brotherish in nature, keep in mind the fact that if 80%, 90%, or 100% of the population could make unlimited, perfect copies of digital media to share with their friends, it would likely put the entire industry out of business.
The part of DRM that many people here miss is that it is always breakable. And we geeks are the ones who will always have access to the knowledge, technology, and software that allows us to circumvent these schemes. And you may be surprised to hear it, but the media companies really don't care whether or not a few of us slashdot geeks, living in our parents' basements, can copy a DVD or decrypt a wireless feed from our satellite system. They care about tools, like DeCSS, that could potentially be used by millions of Windows-using lusers to rip them off, and that is the only reason why they cared enough to sue 2600 into oblivion.
So, this is yet another area in which we can enjoy our superiority to average non-geeks. While they "pay per play" on their new HDTV sets and are forced to pay for content, we can sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor. We've worked hard for this right, and there's nothing "they" can do to take it away from us. We deserve it.
-Isaac
Re:But should DRM always exist? (Score:5, Insightful)
That depends. Am I the company that won't get to sell you the additional DVD player, or am I the company that won't get to sell you the wireless receiver?
Wireless video (Score:2, Insightful)
Computers never mkae mestooks. - Atari 800
Moot....all moot.... (Score:3, Insightful)
NOW that said that is the weak link and an Ideal place to transmit from or encode to an alternative Digital Medium, I just got Mplayer encoding right, and guess what was horking all kinds of signals off line, my 300 gig box is just about ready to start filling up with TV shows, movies, races,etc. I want, as soon as I can get the damm remote working with this box.
Because of the above set up I dug out an OLD (15 year plus TV transmitter, I had , you hook it up and Channel 3 gets vid audio. Im too lazy to wire the upstairs and may be moving soon, so my 32" tv in the bedroom gets REBROADCASTED signaal. They sell these things on ebay for 30 bucks, they work like a charm, you could make your own with 1/3 of that in parts, no IC , all coils trimmers and pots.
My computer has a tuner card as well, and antenna and I can catch anything I want off my "TIVO KILLER" EITHER via the network, or antenna, I would LOVE to put a box in my trunk and pump over 802.1b so my kids can watch flciks on drives, upload a playlist the night before from my computer in the house to my car in the drive. (I do plan on doing this with my MP3's)
Sooooooo.....
As long as a TV can understand the signal there is NO possible way (at present) to keep that signal from being rebroadcasted. With TONS of MONEY being pouredinto this sort of DRM research its amazing our TV sets dont cost $3000 !
Why is 802.11 different from the Rabbit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I fail to see the issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
well, with coax, more than likely there isn't enough stray radiation from the coax to allow your neighbor to access your cable (of course we are all doing this anyway with splitters, etc, but that is beside the point).
with wireless, you are rebroadcasting your cable signal to your TV. the rebroadcast will probably be available to your neighbors, at least in apartment complexes.
ah, finally, free cable, without having even to drill a hole from closet to closet for the coax.
-sam
Re:Another victory for geeks' rights (Score:3, Insightful)
Until they start to cripple the computer hardware that your tools run on. Encrypt the BIOS, only allow DRM enabled OS's to access hardware, legislate open and free alternatives away as "enabling" devices that cost producers their IP. Forget fair use, that is already history. Welcome to the future, where you either work for a corporation or you're part of the problem. Get used to it!
Re:Another victory for geeks' rights (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean just like Libraries put the publishing industry out of business? (If millions of people can borrow books *for free*, why would they ever pay for them?)
Or the radio station will put live performers out of business? (Why would *ANYONE* pay to see a live performance, when they can listen to it for free over the airwaves?)
Or the home VCR put the movie industry out of business? (Why would anyone pay $5.00 at a movie theatre when they can watch it at home?)
This argument has been used for decades, (every time a new technology comes out, IIRC) and so far it's proven false every time. Stop crying wolf, nobody's buying it.
Re:But should DRM always exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
- standard resolution
- digital content delivered via analog signals (for all consumer level DVD players at least)
Until you have an HD set and HD dish/cable/OTA, this won't affect you.
All future HD devices will have Intel's HDCP (the HD version of DRM) embedded, complete with certificate revocation lists so that devices which are hacked can be retroactively disabled. Believe me, this won't be a trivial hack.
Welcome to the brave new world.
Re:This will eventually have to be regulated... (Score:4, Insightful)
This has been a battle cry for pro-recreational drug use for a long time, yet it's still illegal.
On a more on-topic note....I think this may be an attempt to prevent copying of digital content...not viewing.
Who cares if you pick up your dvd and take it into the bedroom? I think what they really care about is if you transmit a dvd movie/whatever strait to your computer.
Re:Surrounded by idiots.... (Score:0, Insightful)
I believe your strawman is on fire. You may want to put him out.
Re:But should DRM always exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds a lot like DIVX' game plan to me. If that's what they are really going for, I expect it to fail just as quickly.
Re:Why is 802.11 different from the Rabbit? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Problem with... (Score:3, Insightful)
The same will be true about DVD. The MPAA cannot suddenly stop supporting DVD without a major backlash.
Re:Big Problem, I hear (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, I'm just not seeing how wireless piracy is a big problem
It isn't that it is a problem. It's that Philips wants to develop digital broadcast technologies that will not piss Hollywood off. Hollywood's nightmare is that you could by a $50.00 device that sniffs the packets being sent from your wireless DVD or cable broadcast box to your wireless TV.
Is this a problem yet? No, of course not. But then MP3 ripping wasn't a problem when CDs were invented either. Now Hollywood wants to figure out the DRM issues but it is too late. The installed base of CD players is too large. Unfortunately, the big companies are now in a mode where they will not release new technology until after they feel like they've got the DRM security issues worked out.
If Philips doesn't move on this in advance of the demand then the initial market will be captured a tiny little company that doesn't care about DRM. Remember the first MP3 players?
Am I in favour of DRM technology? Absolutely not. But what they are trying to do makes sense from their point of view. And doing it sooner rather than later makes even more sense.
Theft of Functionality (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that the only way consumers in the future will have freedom to use the content they have paid for (think of it as media functionality) is to turn to pirated works. And once they have put forward the effort and expense to track down a suitable pirated work, one has to wonder how often the consumer will feel like bothering to purchase the legitimate product for that added bit of moral highground.
Content owners seem deturmined to shoot themselves in the foot. And its the various technology companies, and their sales/marketing team, that are assuring the industry of an oportunity ("them's feet are good eatin'") and selling the shotguns.
Re:I fail to see the issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're asking me, neither. The current business model of creating content once, then minting currency by charging fees to view/broadcast/repurpose it ad infinitum is crap. Of course, anything else would require content providers to defend their IP with content worth paying for instead of lawyers.
Re:it's not really explained, is it? (Score:2, Insightful)
you mean, instead of showing it on the widescreen TV in the lounge, the way college students have been doing ever since the invention of the VCR.
I'm just waiting for Hilary and friends to start raiding college dorms looking for DVD players in public spaces.
Another AC on Crack (Score:2, Insightful)
And hah hah, it's all funny, except for this: The computer as digital operator allows us to take all the communications that flow through our homes and do really neat things with them... and these content bastards are going to just screw it all up wanting to sniff every signal I send and impose all sorts of cumbersome rights management bullshit on my gear? Fuck them. I'm sick of these pissant media mobesters content tail wagging the giant, potential filled dog of digital media and communications technology. I'll buy another Phillips product when hell freezes over.
Re:I fail to see the issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
After all, I could just run coax to all the TVs in a house. Is this somehow different because it's wireless??? I mean, whenever I buy a special package, i.e., a pay-per-view, I can watch it on all the TVs in the house...
This is about *digital* wireless. Perfect copies of movies and sound on the internet. The path from your coax to Morpheus is pretty circuitous and lossy. On the other hand, one could imagine a $100.00 "Morpheus box" that allows anyone on the Internet to listen in on any other Internet user's television shows and pay-per-views.
Is the problem specific to wireless? No. The article says that there are already "solutions" for wire-based digital content. "One existing specification, called Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP), defines a cryptographic protocol for safeguarding audio/video entertainment content against illegal copying, intercepting and tampering as it traverses high-performance digital buses, such as the IEEE1394 standard." "Trying to apply the DTCP -- which requires high-speed encryption and decryption at every digital interface -- over a wireless network is not easy, said Husson."
So the social "problem" they are solving is not unique to wireless. It is just that they believe that wireless requires a different solution for technical reasons.