AMD's New DRM

DefectiveByDesign writes "Remember how AMD said they'd make use of ATI's GPU technology to make better technology? Well, not all change is progress. InfoWorld's Tom Yager reports that AMD plans to block access to the framebuffer in hardware to help enforce DRM schemes, such as allowing more restricted playback of Sony Blu-Ray disks. They can pry my Print Screen key from my cold, dead fingers."

Why do this?

[growse]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one. Whether that's because they need it not to be restricted, or they think they need it in the future, or they just object to the principle, I'm betting few people would go "Gee, well, this one stops me doing this, so I better get that".

So the only reason AMD is doing this is to pander to the content providers. I wonder, what's in it for AMD. Money? Too simplistic somehow. Can't think what else..... Surely it can't just be because Sony/whoever turned up with a big cheque?

Re:Why do this?

[grub]

Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one

In time mass acceptance by the techno-illiterate will destroy any choice. There are are only two major PC CPU manufacturers, both are big fans of limiting your control of what you buy.

Re:Why do this?

[growse]

Oh, totally, but my point was what's the business benefit for them to develop this. Their customers by and large are either indifferent or don't want it, AMD aren't a content producer, so it must just be a fat cheque. They're taking a very big gamble on their customer base, who, traditionally I would wager are the more technically minded type than the average intel customer. People who are more likely to object to this kind of thing.

Re:Why do this?

[shystershep]

It's probably to help them with PC builders like Dell, HP, etc. If those companies wanted DRM on the chip, it would be a powerful influence for AMD to do so.

Re:Why do this?

[growse]

Still not convinced. Dell / HP / etc are like AMD - they build / put together hardware. They're not content producers, they just want to sell metal stuff to the public. They know there's no benefit to the public for DRM, so what's their business benefit in doing this?

Re:

[airhed13]

I can only assume it's to comply with some niggling legal crap from the DMCA. Adding misfeatures like this costs them money, so they'd only do it if there's a valid risk/reward tradeoff. E.g., if they (a) fear major lawsuits or (b) expect the ability to play next-gen DVDs to play a major role in the marketplace viability of their products, it makes sense for them to do this.

Rationality

[Morosoph]

As rational beings who have learnt economics starting with supply and demand, we look in vain for good reasons for AMD to do something like this.

Business people do not start with supply and demand. They begin with property. Capitalism and free-marketry are sufficiently similar to confuse with one another, but they are not the same thing.

Management will see property ownership (the flip-side of rights restrictions) as inherently good. Their instinct is to perpetuate the business 'good', and receive a s

Re:Why do this?

[MightyYar]

The fear of the competitor implementing it somehow and then having a marketing edge: "Only DELL computers can play back Blu-Ray!"

Re:Why do this?

[Jerry]

Because Microsoft WANTS it. And if they offend Microsoft their ad rebates will dry up, which accounts for a large part of their profits.

IAAM.

Re:Vista: the cowtow starts now

[NSIM]

Implementing DRM functions in the CPU is not cowtowing to Vista, it's responding to the same rights management pressures that VISTA had to accommodate. VISTA's DRM is there to satisfy the demands of the content providers so that Vista can play back DRMed media from those providers. I know you want to blame MS for all the ills of the World, but you'd do better directing your misplaced anger at things like the BluRay consortium which make the DRM demands that Vista meets.

I agree sorta

[Mateo_LeFou]

MS is a symptom as often as they are a cause of this problem, as here. The fundamental problem is the forced-upgrade/planned obsolescence cycle.

My point is simply that this cycle doesn't get as firm a foothold when the market is (relatively) free, i.e. when there is not a monopoly engaging in anticompetitive behavior and raising artificial barriers to entry.

Poor Little Microsoft

[NickFortune]

you'd do better directing your misplaced anger at things like the BluRay consortium which make the DRM demands that Vista meets.

"Things like the BluRay consortium". That would inlcude the HD-DVD group right? Only, Microsoft are members of that consortium. So maybe it's ok to be mad in that case. It's not like this feature is going to be BluRay only, after all.

And after all is said and done, Microsoft surely do seem to have a passion for hardware that restricts what the users can do. Remember Pala

Re:

[NSIM]

"Things like the BluRay consortium". That would inlcude the HD-DVD group right? Only, Microsoft are members of that consortium. So maybe it's ok to be mad in that case. It's not like this feature is going to be BluRay only, after all.

But both the BluRay and HD-DVD consortiums had to include DRM otherwise the studios had made it very clear that they would not produce HD content on those standards. So again, blaming Microsoft is missing the target, the real villains are the MPAA and the studios. I don't th

Re:

[zippthorne]

Microsoft had nearly $50 billion in revenue last year. This compares favorably with the entire domestic motion picture industry. If they don't want to do something, they have enormous bargaining power. More likely is that they are complicit, or actively engaged in DRM advocacy. To pretend they don't have a dog in the fight is naive.

AMD supporting DRM however will not be viewed as reducing freedom. It will be viewed as adding the freedom to access DRM protected content.

Re:

[symbolic]

MS didn't HAVE to do this. IT was a choice. Do you think it would have mattered even the slightest if MS told the media companies to get bent, and that it was THEIR responsibility to protect their oh-so-precious content?

Not blame MS? Heresy! (But seriously...)

[SanityInAnarchy]

How can the Blu-Ray consortium possibly hope to threaten Microsoft here?

I can understand PC manufacturers wanting this -- as someone else puts it, a nightmare for (say) HP might be "Only Dell computers can play Blu-Ray!"

And thus, if AMD supports it, and Intel doesn't, Dell will either buy AMD chips exclusively, or advertise their AMD offerings as being Blu-Ray compatible, while their Intel offerings aren't. Meaning that, in this sense, AMD has to support it for the same reason Dell does, except they don't e

from MPAA to DELL

[way2trivial]

would you like to sell hardware with blu-ray or HDDVD licensed drives?
consumers WANT to play blu-ray and HDDVD's on their home pc's
business users WANT to back up 50gb of data on a optical disc

if you DON'T help us protect the content, you won't be able to purchase drives.

Re:from MPAA to DELL

[CelticWhisper]

Except that the MPAA doesn't manufacture the drives either. Granted, you have a point where movies on HDDVD/BD are concerned, but corporate users can still back up 50+ GB of data without the need for any licensing from the movie industry. In fact, wasn't that how DVD+R came into being in the first place? Companies wanted the storage benefits of DVD-R without having to pay tribute to the "king" that was/is the DVD Forum.

Then again, Dell/HP/Compaq/Gateway do stand to make or lose quite a bit based on "Ooh shiny!" from home/residential/non-corporate users and their desire for HD-everything. Dell, though, should be able to make something of a stand given how many companies I've seen that have massive Dell-based infrastructures in place and doubtless have contracts with Dell for all their kit.

Hmm, I wonder if any media companies are among Dell's corporate customers. That could make for an interesting scenario. Almost mutually-assured destruction. "Want to force your DRM terms on us/our chipmakers? That's funny, we can't seem to find any records of your volume discount or, oh, what's this, even your on-site service agreements."

Re:Why do this?

[morgan_greywolf]

AMD aren't a content producer, so it must just be a fat cheque.

Maybe. Something to consider is that AMD's customers aren't you and I. AMD's customers are OEM PC makers, large and small. Now if one of their large customers were given a fat cheque, or if AMD were potentially interested in wooing a large PC manufacturer who isn't (yet) a customer who also happens to be a content producer, without mentioning any names *cough*Sony*cough*, then perhaps that could be the reason.

Re:

[devnull17]

That's misleading.

Where did you buy your last car? Let's assume it's a Honda. Did you buy your Honda car from Honda? I'll bet you didn't. Honda doesn't sell to end-users, only to volume customers. You probably bought your car from a local dealership. These companies are Honda's customer, not you. That means for Honda, resellers are the vast majority of their sales.

That doesn't mean Honda doesn't want your business, nor that they don't stand to benefit from it. If people stop buying cars from resel

Re:Why do this?

[jimstapleton]

actually, it's an interesting duality there.

AMD, the more obscure of the two (AMD vs. Intel) was usually only picked by the tech-knowledgeable (but by no means had a monopoly on this group), and the indifferents/I-don't-cares typically went to intel

So, while this hurts the AMD fan base, what we are looking at here is ATi related...

In the big GPU vendors, until recently, nVidia was the vendor that didn't get the 'I-don't know or care' crowd, while it was ATi who got that crowed as well as the 'I know and care' crowd. Lately, the 'I don't know or care' crowd has been shuffled over to intel (I won't say they moved, because that could imply their own intent and planning).

So, until recently, this would not have been a bad move for ATi, but as of 2 years ago or so, ATi, like nVidia does tend to get more of it's users from the 'I know and care' crowd.

It's not about the customers

[norminator]

Oh, totally, but my point was what's the business benefit for them to develop this. Their customers by and large are either indifferent or don't want it, AMD aren't a content producer...

I think it's fairly obvious that it's about AMD Live! versus Intel's Viiv. Each of those two brands is trying to be the ultimate living room multimedia PC. I think that customers haven't really caught on (why would we... who needs an expensive fully decked-out hot and noisy desktop PC masquerading as a media appliance in their living room?), but they seem convinced that this is where the market is going with or without the consumer. I think the whole media center PC has very little thought for the customer, and this AMD DRM issue highlights that very well.

It's funny how Vista is being hailed as the future for the media PC... I used to be able to watch DVDs perfectly well on my P3 (600MHz, 128 MB RAM) back when it was running Windows 98. But a few years ago I "upgraded" to XP, and now it won't play the same DVDs. It has a very hard time with most video content. But MS (along with AMD and Intel) wants us to believe that we need the next super-shiny version of their software, which gets less and less efficient with each release, in order to keep up with the time and have the media experience of the future. Sure, HD content requires more horsepower to decode and display, but if they didn't keep fattening up the OS, and the player software, and the whole Media Center environment, it wouldn't need that much more horweposer. From my experience, my 2.6Ghz P4 with 2GB of RAM can't even play videos in the Vista Media Center at all. Any PC related living room media devices should be small, quiet, run cool, and be inexpensive, and not have lots of bright lights. But of course all the hardware manufacturers want to push the latest hot, fast hardware... because it's the fastest. They want your attention to be drawn to the PC so you know how cool it is. Lame.

So to make a long story short, AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and all the rest want to cram the media experience down our throats... This seems to me like it's the equivalent of Circuit City's DIVX [wikipedia.org], only the players involved are much bigger, and mostly working together to make an inescapable dragnet. They want to make their own brands successful (Win MCE, AMD Live! Viiv), and they know that the average consumer doesn't even know why he or she would care about Viiv or Live. So they want to make all PCs move in this direction, and if they can't get the consumers excited about it, they can at least get the content providers excited about it, so they don't have the same fate as DIVX.

Re:

[AndersOSU]

Seems like a pretty flagrant flaunting of the anti-trust ruling. Not that that would stop them, but I'd expect lawsuits and quick if Microsoft did something like this.

Re:Learn who their customers are...

[Technician]

The assumption is the end user is the customer.. This is FALSE..

The media cartel is their customer. Let me explain.

1 The chip and graphics card manufactures want to sell product. The assumption is the end user is the consumer.. Wrong.

The media cartel says we are the customer and we have this subscriber base looking for comptatible hardware. To sell to them your hardware must meet the specifications to be compatible with the new content.

Either their hardware won't play DRM content and declaired incompat

Freedom matters.

[jbn-o]

Then /. readers should be taught the real value of "the freedom of choice" and myths about how the market will cater to our interests as users if there were fewer restrictions on it. Your freedom to control your computer as you see fit simply isn't adequately addressed by either. Richard Stallman reminds us in his talk about free software from Zagreb on 9 March 2006 [fsfeurope.org]:

It's a mistake to equate freedom to "the freedom of choice". Freedom is something much bigger than having a choice between a few specific o

Re:Why do this?

[Barny]

I wonder, what's in it for AMD. Money? Too simplistic somehow.

Well, looking at their current cash reserves, and their first quarter issues, I would think a large infusion from particular sources would be a boon for them.

This will make choices much much easier when buying a card for a serious gamer, Nvidia or nothing, in particular people who want to use fraps or similar to make in game action vids.

I (in the past) purchased AMD products because from my testing, they were just as good for my uses as Intel and I wanted to help keep "the little guy" going by supporting them (so long as it doesn't cost me $$$), guess what, the little guy is playing the big boy games now, and not the fun kind.

Re:

[aminorex]

It's just corporate suicide. AMD cannot afford to piss off their customers like this. Intel could, but not AMD. I'd say it's grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.

Re:Why do this?

[norminator]

Customers aren't going to be really aware of any problems. Try reading the article summary to you mother or your sister, or some non-techie friend. They'll say "Wha? Huh? What are you talking aboout?" Then explain it to them in terms of how it limits what they can do with media. At least half of them will probably say "Why would I want to do that?".

Now take away the explanations, and tell them that AMD is coming out with some super awesome new AMD MegaLIVE!++ media PC that will automagically buy and download every movie and TV show they ever wanted to watch, and will let them listen to music and watch movies everywhere they go, and it will cure cancer, stop global warming, end our dependence on foreign oil, and bring about world peace. They'll say "That sounds cool, I don't really need it, but if it could be included in the next computer I was going to buy anyway, maybe I'd like that.

The marketing hype isn't going to mention the drawbacks, and it will be louder than any outcry from pissed-off Slashdot-reading customers.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

Sure this guy doesn't actually work for Intel?

Re:

[jfengel]

In particular, it's pointless without support from the higher-ups (the OS drivers and the video players).

Perhaps there's some new layer of DRM in the offing. Here's a possible scenario: Apple's movie downloads are of limited quality, perhaps partly because the studios don't want high-resolution rips made. (They already know that you can get low-resolution rips off the DVD.)

So Apple says to AMD, "We'll start supporting your chips if you give us something to take to the studios so they'll let us have high-r

Re:Why do this?

[wytcld]

As TFA points out, it's not just the content providers who can benefit. Businesses want to be sure that their internal and client communications are secure. This would allow sending, for example, PDFs of sensitive documents that couldn't be easily copied by a rogue employee and sent off to a competitor. If you think corporate spies aren't a fact of life, you're either wrong or not in a successful enough enterprise to be worth spying on. Now, your rogue employee still might actually photograph their screen, if they're authorized to at least view the document. But that's not nearly as convenient as doing a screen capture, and can't be automated to run in the background.

If you're a major corporation with any trade secrets at all (which is to say, any major corporation), your obvious best choice is to buy systems with this technology. As home users we may have an ethical right to total root access to our personal systems; but when we go to work, if our sysadmins aren't locking down our systems from spying (which can be between divisions in a corporation, too), then they aren't doing their jobs. And you'd probably rather that the IRS were using security measures along these lines, too. This is good tech in a business or government context.

  We just need laws regarding hardware ownership clarified so that it becomes illegal to implement restrictions on equipment which the equipment owner - whether person or corporation - can't disable at will. That wouldn't interfere with corporate- and government-owned systems being properly locked down, while preserving the property rights of individuals.

Not really

[gillbates]

I work for a major corporation. Why don't we bother with this DRM sort of thing? The short list:

• It means employees can't work from home, or work at home. The prospect of unpaid overtime is too valuable for a corporation to give up.
• It doesn't prevent someone from photographing their screen, or even hand copying the information.
• It doesn't prevent the employee from picking up the phone and describing the invention to their competitor.

Often, the truly valuable things in a company are the ideas and business strategies. This is low bandwidth information. The others - such as code, source masks, etc... already have the legal protection afforded trade secrets and copyrights. While it might not be practical to hand copy source code, this kind of espionage is rare and not very valuable. If company A stole company B's source code, company B would probably have a pretty good legal case against company A. However, the case for stealing ideas is a bit murkier and harder to prove.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Be realistic. In the presence of two identical performing chips, the vast majority will buy the cheaper one. When you talk about DRM, most people ask whether that's one of the US agencies or a terrorist group.

And I'm usually not really sure which one would be more fitting.

Re:

[trigeek]

If they don't do this, the companies that write DVD viewers will not allow their software to play HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs on AMD systems. The software developers signed an agreement with the AACS consortium, and they are responsible for any breaches in AACS security.

That's why AMD is doing this.

Which would be more unpalettable to consumers: Not being able to watch their High Definition DVDs on their new laptop, or not being able to save the frame buffer? Most consumers don't care about the latter.

They'll see it like this, really

[Moraelin]

You might see it as:

1. Chip A who isn't restricted,

2. Chip B who is restricted to comply with some DRM scheme.

What Joe Sixpack and Jane Housewife will see it as, and what the marketting machine will sell it to them as, is:

1. Chip A which doesn't play BlueRay and HD-DVD movies, or plays it with a crappy pixelated resolution, worse than an old DVD

2. Chip B which plays BlueRay and HD-DVD movies in MediaPlayer with no problems. In 1080p, even.

Why, _of_ _course_ Chip B is better. It's obviously so much more powe

Re:

[oliverthered]

Implement some kind of drm enforcing hardware.
Get all the studios to require your hardware if their customers want to play their discs on a PC
Profit.

Re:

[ajs318]

I think you mis-spelled "antitrust lawsuit" in your last line.

Re:

[mutende]

See also 'Phoenix BIOS only for Windows Vista [linuxquestions.org]'.

Re:

[LoudMusic]

Ok, so AMD aren't doing this because it makes their customers happy. Given the choice between two identically performing chips, one of which restricts your ability to do something, I'd bet most people would choose to get the unrestricted one.

Keep in mind that consumers aren't hardware manufacturer's only customers. People like Sony use AMD's hardware also, and rely on such hardware to sell their own products. Sony makes the content consumers want to see and AMD wants Sony to cater to AMD so AMD caters to Sony.

Re:Why do this?

[MBGMorden]

Via won't Seriously. They're a Taiwanese chip maker - the region/culture is famous for making devices that don't obey copy protections schemes in general. It's strange that I've noticed that the more expensive a DVD player is, the more likely it is to have trouble playing discs. Those $30 ones from Taiwan will play anything you through at them, usually even out of region stuff with little to no effort.

My guess is that as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD start to implement stuff like this, a market for Via processors and more off the wall graphics ships like S3 and Trident (is Trident still in business) will open up amongst the hacker/enthusiast community. The question is will you accept a computer that might run a tad slower (and might not run some commercial software programs at all) for the price of using it how you see fit.

Re:Why do this?

[Opportunist]

Well, like you said in your first paragraph, the chance that the crappy hardware from Taiwan is more likely to run the commercial program than the high profile Intel/AMD/Whatever chips, simply because they don't give a rat's rear about restriction crap.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of freedom comes out of countries you don't really consider "free". Boggles the mind.

Who doesn't consider Taiwan "free"?

[Kadin2048]

I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of freedom comes out of countries you don't really consider "free". Boggles the mind.

Taiwan, speaking broadly here, isn't that "unfree." It's not like PRC/mainland China, anyway.

Sure, they're not exactly a libertarian data haven, but I don't think you should be tarring them with the Russia/China brush. (I mean, they didn't get medieval and had a basically rational, collected response, when they had a bunch of Neo-Nazis hold a rally [mofa.gov.tw], which would probably land yo

Re:

[SL Baur]

+5 Insightful? Too many moderators on crack, I guess.

You're an idiot if you think this began 7 years ago. It's been happening all my life and I am sure it didn't start in the 1960's. Look through the cypherpunks mailing list archives whereever they are these days. Loss of freedom in the US has been a long slow process for a looooong time.

Re:

[Finuance]

Of course Americans don't consider those countries as "free." It's called branding. Corporations do it all the time and so do governments.

Re:

[EzInKy]

...we have perfect freedom of religion...


Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion.

Re:

[0xABADC0DA]

...we have perfect freedom of religion...

Having "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in our Pledge is not perfect freedom of religion.

In America we have perfect freedom of religion, what we are missing is freedom from religion. And ironically only god has the power to give us freedom from religion, by suicide, but unfortunately he doesn't want to take the chance of going to hell.

Yes apparently god's immortal soul is more important than our utopia. What a self-centered mofo. Jesus died for us, why won't god?

Re:

[zappepcs]

My guess is that as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD start to implement stuff like this, a market for Via processors and more off the wall graphics ships like S3 and Trident (is Trident still in business) will open up amongst the hacker/enthusiast community. The question is will you accept a computer that might run a tad slower (and might not run some commercial software programs at all) for the price of using it how you see fit.

YES

Re:

[twistedcubic]

Those $30 ones from Taiwan will play anything you through at them, usually even out of region stuff with little to no effort.

Indeed, I got a $20 loss-leader DVD player from Best Buy, and it plays everything.

The question is will you accept a computer that might run a tad slower (and might not run some commercial software programs at all) for the price of using it how you see fit.

Why would it run slower? The computer I'm using now has no commercial software, so I, like other freedom fighters, should

Re:

[Pojut]

The computer I'm using now has no commercial software, so I, like other freedom fighters, should be o.k.

"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" -George Carlin

Re:

[twistedcubic]

What do freedom fighters fight? "for freedom" :)

Bread & Circuses

[grub]

The drooling masses will eat up the slop fed to them so they can watch their DRM'd BluRay edition of Friends and Threes Company.

Re:Bread & Circuses

[Hoi Polloi]

[Sung to the tune of "Three's Company"]

"Come and buy our crap,"
"we're now shilling to you"
"Where the rights are only ours and ours and ours,"
"we're now a DRM company too!"

Re:

[zotz]

Dude! I ca nget Threes Company on BluRay? Where do I sign up?

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zotzbro [youtube.com]

It's just a rumor right now.

[solafide]

If they go through with this, I'm selling my AMD stock. However, I'm waiting till we hear a press release, because right now this is a rumor: "Person said that person said that AMD would help DRM this way".

Re:

[hal2814]

I like your style. Buy high, sell low.

Great

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So where do we go for our chips now?

I was looking at getting AMD since Intel are doing this shit, but now AMD joined the band wagon how exactly are we ment to get DRM free hardware these days?

Re:

[TheSunborn]

The same 2 companies we have always got our cpus from.
Just don't run DRM enabled software. Remember the 'you can't access the framebuffer' can be set/unset in software, so just don't run any DRM enabled operation system.

Didn't these people ever watch Star Wars?

[Stachybotris]

Because the more they tighten their grasp, the more users will slip through their fingers...

Re:

[wild_berry]

They're in cahoots with George Lucas. In the next edition he releases, that line's edited to say "Better technical prevention measures will prevent Star Systems from slipping through our fingers".

Re:

[Opportunist]

Does that still make sense then?

Then again, what sense does it make for a bounty hunter to shoot a guy has to bring back alive...

Derrr

[Zigurd]

You have to wonder what management is thinking: On the heels of having to announce that AMD must go back to competing based on significantly lower prices because they have lost a performance advantage, they announce a new DRM technology that subtracts value from their products. Derrr.

Abstract of article

[Bearhouse]

From the article: '...ATI's new GPU ... will ship with software that plays movies on Blu-ray discs. The AMD rep ... said that the new chips will "block unauthorized access to the frame buffer." In short, that means an unauthorized party can't save the contents of the display to a file on disk unless the content owner approves it.' Looks like things are going the same (unhappy) way that the HD-TV did. The web's full of dire stories about people suffering from IBM (Incompatible Bits of Machinery) - most of it shiny new and very expensive. Imagine Vista on this... *shudders* How long after release before DVD-Jon or someone else breaks this? Not long. It's just piss of the legit, non-expert user, like most DRM.

again, seriously - so?

[dAzED1]

I've personally been boycotting the RIAA for 10 years now due to their shenanigans, and I've been tight with MPA. That being said, there's life outside of watching a farkin movie for free on your computer. No, seriously.

All this "fair use" is silly; it'll still be easy to copy the disk, so that's not the issue. The issue is just that if someone wants to try to restrict who can watch their video, esp one online, they'll have more tools to do that.

I've been a contributor to FOSS for 13 years now, and I'm j

Have no fear.

[igotmybfg]

History is littered with the remnants of "unbreakable" restriction/protection/encryption schemes; it's just a matter of time. Consider, for example, Van Eck Phreaking [wikipedia.org] (which may provoke some sort of black market for CRTs?). And anyway, the Luddite in me would say that we got along for x thousand (million?) years without movies. Maybe it made living in the moment that much richer.

My processors

[C_Kode]

At first I bought Intel processors (didn't use Macs) I bought them up until I had a Pentium 2 333Mhz chip. Then I bought my first AMD K6-2 450Mhz and kept buying AMD up until I bought a AMD Athlon 3200+ at 2.2Ghz with the 400mhz front side bus over 3 years ago. I just built it's replacement and I've converted back to Intel with the E6600 Core 2 Duo. (I love this processor!) I've found AMD to be lacking and this type of news doesn't help me want to return to AMD. If only Open Hardware could catch on and

It won't be just AMD

[Bullfish]

It will also be nVidia and ultimately Intel once it makes the GPU/CPU they are rambling about. This is about the content and the delivery of such to the living room and you can bet that the content providers are after this... we are talking MPAA and RIAA here ultimately as the drivers. The CPU/GPU manufacturers are well aware people aren't crazy about DRM, but they want into the living room and they want access to the content. Most people out there will just go along wih it, for the rest of us, really, what

Re:

[Opportunist]

To crack something open, you need to be able to place the crowbar somewhere. Today, that's trivial. It's far from impossible to get access to keys and the content they secure.

As soon as hardware and software work together seamlessly, without a hole left open, you're standing in front of a monolithic structure that doesn't allow you to place your crowbar somewhere against it.

This won't happen overnight. Vista certainly won't be the OS for it, neither will this generation of CPUs be. We're in a transit time a

Re:It won't be just AMD

[Bullfish]

Oh, I don't know. Ultimately there will be mod chips carrying custom bios etc if things get to that point. People will find a way. The thing about computers is that nothing at all happens without software, and that software can always be diddled. If you are having trouble getting the crowbar in, you just need a better tool to chisel out a gap.

Does this even work?

[lavalyn]

Just as audio has the Analog Hole that can never be plugged, framebuffer access restrictions can't continue once it gets out of the DVI cable.

Not for long.

[Lethyos]

HDCP [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[brunascle]

as long as you can see or hear it, the analog hole will always be there. worst case scenario: point a camera at the monitor and a microphone at the speakers.

Re:

[Opportunist]

...until they invent something that makes sure you can see/hear and understand it, but cannot record it clearly. Remember those movie screens you can't film with the cell cams? What makes you think they won't try the same for home entertainment?

ATI

[metamatic]

Well, if true, it'll no doubt mean that ATI drivers will start to suck even harder. As a customer, I'd really rather they spent time fixing their OpenGL implementation so that it could actually render antialiased lines correctly.

I've been an AMD supporter for years, but if they go through with this I'm going to be firmly in the Intel camp.

Congratulations AMD!

[Lethyos]

You have successfully alienated what I believe is your largest customer base: the technically savvy who, in being such, understand “defective by design” and choose to avoid it. (I do not expect their stock-value free-fall to come to an end any time soon.)

What about pointing an HD camera at your screen

[weld]

How are they going to stop someone from pointing an HD camera at a 1920x1080 LCD screen. Consumer HD camcorders are only $1000 (not 1080p yet). And some record straight to hard disk for easy transfer. Sure there would be some degradation but clearly this would be a better picture than a DVD. The PC's SP/DIF digital audio could be recorded directly as this has no encryption. Ideally you would want an HD camcorder that recorded straight to Divx.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Maybe similar technology as in cinemas to prevent filming in your next-gen screen?

DRM isn't going to work flawlessly within the next 5 years. But if we don't stop it before that, it will. It comes piece by piece. For now, there's always some kind of 'hole' we can punch through, some place where the signal can be tapped. The holes are being closed, and over time, we're locked in.

After so many years of Intel vs AMD...

[tehwebguy]

...it looks like AMD has ended it.

The industry doesn't seem to get it

[Opportunist]

DRM does not add to your product's value. It actually decreases it. At least it would in a free trade market.

Can you imagine marketing it? "Now with DRM!" would come close to advertising an air refreshener with "Now with horseshit smell". It's just a no-seller. So you won't advertize that it smells like equine manure now and wait for your customer to find out the moment he wants to use it, preferably just before a date. That sure as hell leaves a lingering memory, whether your house smells like a stable or

All the time or just when HD content is being play

[Joe The Dragon]

played?

Any why there can still be Linux / debug / other drivers that let you read the frame buffer but won't play hd content

Bye bye

[Yaa 101]

Bye bye AMD, for years I bought your stuff, now you fucked up.

Is it DRM'ed if I'm not playing protected content"

[dpilot]

One poster mentioned that this is essentially covering the framebuffer with the TCPA "curtained memory" spec.

TCPA is and has always been a 2-edged sword that can also be sheathed. I can completely ignore it, I can use it to my own benefit.... or I can surrender control of my computer to The Dark Side.

Is this "hidden framebuffer" the same way? In other words, if I'm not touching protected content can I still access the framebuffer as I wish? Is it also possible that I can use this as extra security? We've taken to encrypting filesystems and swapfiles, and moved from xhost to xauth, it seems to me that the framebuffer could be considered another leakage point. (Won't comment on the difficulty of exploiting.)

Theoretically TCPA can be a good thing, and most of people's fears center around it being required and locked away from the owner. I'm not sure I ever see that being an issue, simply because of implementation and legal difficulties. What I can see is "If you want to use ??AA media, surrender control of your computer, for this boot." As long as I can reboot and have complete control of my own computer, that is.

The shills are in favor

[teflaime]

I see the Infoworld shill who wrote the article thinks this is a wonderful thing. Slaves to advertising, Infoworld can always be trusted to approve of whatever nasty and horrible thing the conglomerates think up.

"Analog Hole"

[nurb432]

Just another one about to be plugged.

Id say boycott them, but what other choice do you really have now, Intel? They arent any better.

Anyone?

[kahrytan]

  Did anyone realize this has "Screw You Linux" written all over it?

But, but... the RIAA needs Print Screen

[fahrbot-bot]

They can pry my Print Screen key from my cold, dead fingers.

If Print Screen is disabled, how will the RIAA gather evidence?

Re:

[aadvancedGIR]

Since they bought ATI, they are really short on cash, so maybe their idea was simply to do whatever is needed to avoid a big suit for a while.

Re:

[Reverend528]

I was hoping for Linux support rival to Intel's and no DRM.

There's already Linux support for the new cards. Since the framebuffer will act as write-only memory, they can just reuse the null device driver.

Re:

[gnasher719]

'' The print screen button already doesnt work for video most of the time in windows. You just get black where the video is suppose to be. ''

Quite likely because it is an overlay and not the screen buffer.

Re:

[SighKoPath]

Disable hardware acceleration of video, and you'll get your printed screens just fine.

Re:

[brunascle]

you can often get that to work by turning off hardware video acceleration (i forget how in windows). it wont looks as good, and will take up a lot of CPU, but you can capture it like the rest of your screen.

Re:AMD.

[LWATCDR]

"Now I have another reason (other than processor heat) to stay away from AMD."
So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo.
AMD isn't known for making hot running chips Intel is. I also guess you haven't heard about Intel's trusted platform...
Plus this is just a rumor.

Man you can jump high enough to reach any conclusion you want too.

Re:

[Lumpy]

exactly. I'm using a Latitude 131L now witht he turion64X2 in it and it kicks the crap out of the Intel based laptops in the same range. I get far more battery life than the equal D620 series ordered at the same time. Plus after I uninstalled Vista and upgraded to XP It's faster than the vista laptop.

Re:

[Technician]

So I am guessing you used a P3 for all these years and just now upgraded to a Core2Duo.

I'm not the guy you are replying to, but since the shoe fits..

I'm replying on a P-III 1 GHZ machine right now. I did build another machine using a P4 chip, but I built it for my kids. I didn't want to disrupt my current install.

After they trashed Windows 98 SE twice (budget box, used a legal retail copy I had here) I put Ubuntu on it. Other than a 5 month wait for Flash 9 the kids had no complaints. It worked so well,

Re:AMD.

[Anonymous Coward]

You might just be joking, but... Intel is already doing DRM. They're building the features required for TCPA into CPUs now.

This is a non-story really, because this is called "curtained memory", and it is a part of the TCPA specification. TCPA hypervisors can prevent programs accessing memory at a level that you, the user, cannot circumvent. At least, not without breaking the "trusted" nature of your system and stopping some applications from executing.

Given AMD's commitment to TCPA, shared with Intel, ARM, MIPS, IBM and most other processor manufacturers, it is no surprise that they are allowing the GPU memory to be curtained. Your next CPU is defective by design.

Re:

[operagost]

What do Christians have to do with this?

Re:Power to the empire

[PDanger]

Psalms x64-x86
"And God said unto the Israelites
'Blessed is he who protects content
and, ye, shall the masses loath it
but God shall smile upon you,
and bless your blu-ray player
and the copy of Batman Begins
housed within it.' "

Re:

[brunascle]

Either way, I'll give it a week before work-arounds exist.

quick! someone invent a camcorder!

Re:

[TheRaven64]

It's a bit pointless since render-to-texture came along. Instead of outputting the data to the frame buffer, you'll render it to a texture and then grab it from there.

Customers don't learn

[Opportunist]

It's a sad revelation I had to come to. You, me, the rest of the people here, we know what's cooking. And more important, we care. But when you discuss that matter with "ordinary" people, you invariably get a response out of this list:

1. (blank stare)

2. (blank stare with a shrug)

3. Ok, whatever, I buy my movies anyway.

4. So what, someone's gonna write a crack.

5. Naaaah, they can't do that!

6. Yeah, that's gonna make the movies cheaper 'cause everyone's gotta buy them.

The general reaction to those DRM-infeste

Re:

[Opportunist]

When your choice is only shooting or hanging, do you think your executioner cares which one you choose?

Intel and AMD are going to have that crap. You think you have a choice?