depends how you want to view the question, it can either be yes or no.

No: as long as you watch normal stuff you should be OK

Yes: The FCC has decided that starting this year Cable/SAT can use SOC (selective output control), which means that some content (when SOC is used)will only play over HDMI, but it can only be used on content not available on disk or equivalent distribution and only for 90 days. So this is more for early release PPV.

I also use the term illegal for these offenses though I'm perfectly aware that violations of HDCP are probably not going to land anyone in jail--probably as not being a lawyer it does seem possible that unauthorized decryption of encrypted data is probably a violation of the 1990 digital copyright act.

Even if we all agree that violations of HDCP are not going to land anyone in the Big House I still think it the best language to describe HDCP violations. In SIMPL, it has been "illegal" to jam digital signals. No one goes to jail if they do this--but most people use illegal rather than disallowed or not kosher. Illegality does not always lead to jail time or a court date. "Illegal procedure" is a penalty on the football field, spit balls are illegal in baseball, I seem to recall coming across "illegal operations" in a few programming texts. Illegal and legal or often used to describe violations of rules.

Not all acts described as "illegal" cause the violator to go to jail. But illegal" is often used in the vernacular to be violating the rules. Personally, I think the word is more descriptive than "not allowed."

true, even if we don't go to rules of sports (like the spit ball) and the cops are involved it does not mean jail time. If you are speeding, illegally parked, DWI, jaywalking.... chances are that you will only get a ticket and pay a fine (if caught). If you are committing patent infringement, you will have to pay restitution....

many crimes/illegal activity, don't have jail time associated with them.

Nothing worse on these threads than a battle over semantics. I hate when a decent thread pops up trying to discuss an important industry related issue and we get caught in a middle school measuring contest.

You call semantics what I call coming to a common language. This topic has been covered to death so you find this an "important industry related issue" and to my eyes, it's much ado about nothing. Analog outputs disappear from Blurays that, almost everyone of my clients uses for streaming media.

Sure, this portends a greater shift toward HDMI, and, yes, I have heard talk from manufacturers that programming will come to TV that will require HDMI. But till the typical family has to move to HDMI to watch episodes of "The Biggest Loser" it's not going to impact anyone in a real way.

Understanding that illegal devices may pave the way toward a future where legal solutions exist as this shift toward DRM world continues requires that we come to terms with the language used. Illegal is a term I think that best describes devices that do not comply with the letter of the license and may wind with that device being invalidated--having its keys deauthorized. May that HDFury sale leave the CI open to law suits similar to those RIAA filed against parents whose children illegally downloaded music? I don't know. But those law suits would not land anyone in jail but they could land the party of the first part in the poor house.

Ultimately each CI has to weigh the risks of employing illegal devices, particularly in an environment where I have a single PM indicating a device was invalidated but no concrete proof of it taking place. Can one extrapolate from NAPSTER to HDFURY? ICT has not yet been set on many discs. We are discussing possibilities that may or may not impact current installations in an environment where few of us understand the panoply of solutions coming to market over the next few years. We are fighting about language because HDCP has yet to enforce its license in any meaningful way. We are fighting about language because there is no way save speculation to determine which solution is and is not legal--again because of the way HDCP folks handle their business. And we are debating the importance of events that to date--and the foreseeable future--have no impact on any installations because it would appear augur ill for non-HDCP installations.

Old topics based on speculation will garner discussion on language. If individuals were brought to court for copyright violations as happened with music Amir might not argue about the inadvisability of using specific language. But in the absence of economically crippling law suits his argument that illegal means jail seems reasonable and mine that though hyperbolic, it's still the best word to communicate risk/reward will continue.

Alan

And it begins.

I just got hit up with an email regarding the Ghost Busters BluRay looking worse than standard DVD quality.

This system has a Denon AVR-5308CI paired with the Sony BDP-S5000ES, driving Bowers & Wilkins CM9 & CM5s and 2 Velodyne DD-12 subs.
Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 so I'm betting on Component video and Image Constraint Token.

Hate to say I told you so

There are actually several more companies producing these HDMI --> component converters available now, even gefen has one, I do not think they would be producing these is such large numbers if they were worried about the legalities. Even if they became illegal I am sure there will still be a direct china / Taiwan connection for the black market via mail order

No, there is no ICT on it. ON the other hand it was an extremely grainy movie and it did not get DNRed (at least it does not look like it) so the BD is extremely grainy (grainiest one I have seen). My guess your customer assumes god=crystal clear (DNRed to death) and assumes seeing all the detail (like FG) in the print means it is not good.

If you see it you will know what I mean.

Thanks for proving my point. Meaningless gibberish in an appropriate thread. I didn't even read the rest of your thread after this. Get back on topic or find another discussion to muck up.

Prey, Lord of Hosts, what is the topic? Renashing the same discussion that you still don't understand?

Alan

You are correct sir.

I looked at the folder today and the system was put together with all HDMI v1.3a CL2 certified cables so I swung by to check it out.

Turns out the Ghostbusters blu-ray was a bad telecine (film-to-HDvideo) transfer. The resolution is in fact 1080p, but there is so much graininess (especially in dark scenes) that it is too distracting and ruins the movie, even when using all levels of noise reduction or reducing the sharpness. It's pretty bad and does in fact look much better on standard DVD.

I don't feel like getting into a big discussion on the topic, but in my opinion I disagree. I get the point of it being almost distracting. And I think that a bit of DNR would have not been a bad thing in this case, but the grain in the print is the grain in the print, you don't see that detail in the DVD but then again more detail is why I got into HD and BD. Yes the lack of detail in the DVD removed the graininess but it also removed all the other fine detail.

I'm bringing back this thread because I just found a white paper from Extron on Analog Sunset today. [Link: media.extron.com]

The Extron white paper is probably the best one that's been written. No FUD just facts.