High Definition Content & Digital Rights Management

The era of high definition is nearly upon us, but there are many things we need to know before running out and purchasing this new hardware. What are all of these protection things we’ve been hearing about?

Saving
your hard earned money this year for a new Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or the
Blu-Ray compatible PS3 are we? Well slow down my friend. Did you know
that your current HDTV might not even support high definition
resolutions? That brand new -5ms LCD monitor you just bought that is 50
inches & widescreen might not either. If you were unaware of this,
don’t worry - a lot of consumers are in the same boat. The upgrade to
the High Definition Era isn’t like back in the day, where you could go
out and buy a DVD player and a composite cable for your TV, and plop
down to your favorite flick, “From Justin to Kelly”.

In my last article I detailed the battle lines between Blu-Ray and HD DVD.
I wanted to save the Digital Rights Management topic of these next
generation formats and hardware limitations so we could go into further
detail, and flush out the pitfalls to HD adoption. The Digital Rights
Management consist of various methods used for protecting and managing
digital content.

There are numerous protections we need to be aware of as we make the
jump to high definition content. The various Blu-Ray and HD DVD backers
have proposed a series of methods to help protect their content,
rightfully so, but at the same time begin to slowly degrade consumer
fair use rights. Some of the terms we need to get aquatinted with are:
AACS, HDCP, HDMI, PVP-OPM, which both Blu-Ray and HD DVD will be using,
and BD+ and ROM mark, which are used by Blu-Ray exclusively.

AACS

AACS is the Advanced Access Content System which is the major
encryption system used by both of the competing formats. It is the
older brother so to speak of CSS, or the Content Scrambling System. CSS
was developed for DVD’s, and had already been compromised and hacked by
the late 90’s. The content providers want to avoid repeating their
flaws with CSS, and hope that AACS will prove to be more secure. It
features a 128bit key per disc, per player. What exactly does that
mean? Well, suppose someone cracks a copy of Uwe Boll’s epic
masterpiece “House of the Dead” on the same player you own. The
hardware player manufacturers can then blacklist that very player, the
same one you own, from playing any future releases. Sounds pretty shady
doesn’t it?

The real benefit of AACS is licensing fees, which will get paid to both
formats’ founders whenever hardware makers want to use these formats.
Money talks and while copy protection is important, this is more of a
means to protect licenses and bring in the dollars. They can dictate
who has access to HD DVD and Blu-Ray at what ever cost they choose.

AACS does support a managed copy option, for transferring digital media
to other protected sources like your PC or media center. This is a
feature we currently don’t see with DVD’s. However recent
announcements, as the AACS spec has yet to be finalized, have stated
that neither first generation players from Blu-Ray or HD DVD will
support this function. Once this managed copy option is supported, it
is still up to the content providers to enable it on discs - possibly
even with additional costs. You may have to pay extra to stream your HD
DVD copy of “Glitter” to your media center PC, or to make a legal
backup of the classy film.

{mospagebreak heading=Introduction&title=HDMI, HDCP and More}
HDMI

HDMI is the successor to DVI (Digital Visual Interface) cables, which
many of us currently use. It stands for High Definition Multimedia
Interface. It will be the first industry-backed cable, allowing full
uncompressed audio and video over a single line. It carries full
support for all HD video formats (1080p, etc.), and up to 8 channel
audio at 192 KHz. It also suspected that HDMI will end the production
of component, s-video, and composite in most hardware.

HDMI will also support backwards compatibility with DVI via adapters,
and will support HDCP. It looks very similar to a USB cable.

HDCP

HDCP, created by Intel, stands for High Definition Content Protection.
It’s a security feature that can be used over HDMI and DVI. It prevents
unauthorized hardware from connecting to authorized hardware and the
transferring of protected and encrypted data over an insecure medium.
Basically if you are using any hardware with a HDMI output (this
includes pretty much all next generation high definition disc players
and some DVI connections), HDCP exchanges keys with the display device
you are connecting: your TV, your pc monitor, or any other display
device. If a secure key exchange isn’t made via HDCP, AACS can use the
Image Restraint Token, preventing you from viewing your movie in full
1080p to your display. It is important for us hardware folks in the
market for display/monitor upgrades to be on the lookout for hardware
that supports HDCP and HDMI to maximize future potential.

Image Constraint Token

ICT is a security feature built into AACS. This function can force full
resolution 1080p/1080i/720p (as low as 1280×720 resolution) all the way
down to 960×540 - only slightly better then DVD quality - a far cry
from what most consumers expect when using HD content.

PVP-OPM

Thanks to PVP-OPM from Microsoft, we will actually be able to play HD
DVDs and Blu-Ray discs on a PC. Before MS came up with this solution,
it was likely that we wouldn’t have been able to play these HD discs on
our home PCs. PVP-OPM stands for Protected Video Path–Output Protection
Management. Basically it’s the HDCP of computing, and will be standard
in Windows Vista. Without this support, HD content will be down-sampled
just as it would with your home theater equipment.

In my opinion this was a necessary move on Microsoft’s part. Imagine
not even having a chance to enjoy Blu-Ray or HD DVD on your PC? This
was nearly a reality. And MS, knowing how important HD content could be
to Vista , had to go along with the content providers and cave to the
DRM demands - otherwise do without them.

BD+ and ROM mark

Both of these are technologies used solely by Blu-Ray and are grouped
together as Self-Protecting Digital Content (SPDC). ROM mark is a
digital watermark so to speak, which puts a distinct identifier in
Blu-Ray discs (BD-ROM), movies, games, etc. At this time the ROM mark
can only be duplicated by officially licensed BD-ROM producers, in
theory locking out pirated or bootlegged copies of content. BD+ is a
feature that will allow updates to the copy protection in Blu-Ray
players.

BD+ seems much more difficult to implement, though it could be used via
new BD discs and possibly via an internet connection, which could
update the protection schemes. If we are lucky enough to get the
managed copy or other fair use features, they could easily be revoked
at any time.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

Audio Watermarking

HD DVD players will also feature a new protection aimed at preventing
the playback of bootleg films (i.e. cams, telesyncs, and other illegal
copies made in theaters). This is going to be sort of an audio
watermark which movie theater prints of films will have embedded in
their soundtrack and when recorded illegally can be decoded by the
players but won’t noticeable to the human ear.

This of all things is probably least likely to have an affect on your
every day consumer. However, it’s absurd to think that people who do
choose to break the law and get this data will play it only on an HD
DVD player, and thus be locked out from using it. It’s unlikely that
content is going to be pirated on HD DVD discs in the near future
anyhow (size problems), leaving people to their current means like DVD
players or their PC.

Conclusion

So what does this mean for consumers? To put it mildly, the fair use doctrine
is being thrown out the window in fear of piracy. Game makers, movie
studios, and other content providers lawfully have the right to protect
their content; I am not here to argue that. However the rights of a
consumer to fair use of products they purchase has
been steadily decreasing ever since the DMCA (Digital Millenium
Copyright Act), some would say even before that; Blu-Ray and HD DVD do
not stray from this trend at all.

Currently, most of the major movie studios have said they won’t use the
Image Constraint Token on their early movie releases, thus they won’t
be downgraded to a non-HD resolution. This was a near necessity to help
adoption of these formats, to prevent scaring off the early adopters.
However, by no means is this a permanent choice. At any time, the flag
for the ICT is contained within AACS and can be implemented on any
studio’s whim, on any releases they chose. The studios will most likely
wait for a greater HDTV adoption, and then decide whether or not to
flip the switch.

Even if keys are cracked like they were with CSS, there is no guarantee
that the keys will get published, making AACS nearly worthless because
they can’t blacklist keys they don’t know about. But what happens if
your new HD DVD player does get blacklisted because someone cracked its
key, and AACS locks you out of using it with new movies? Who is going
to take the fall for this? Are the manufacturers going to replace your
$500 HD DVD player with a new one with a non-cracked key? Sure they
will, and I have Ksharp’s child hood home in Memphis for sale… Maybe
you and your checking account are just SOL? What happens when numerous
players keys are cracked and more and more users find their players
blacklisted; can you say class action lawsuit?

In time, all of these protections will get worked around. Everything
does; piracy has become the natural order of media. If you can see it,
someone will copy it; it’s as simple as that. The professional warez
groups will not be deterred by such measures; but the home users could
end up getting the raw deal. While I don’t support piracy in any way
shape or form, I do support my fellow consumers. The media companies
are going above and beyond to lock their content but their targets will
end being the wrong people: us, your average Dick and Jane consumer.
The fear of unprotected, in-the-wild, HD content has everyone in an
uproar; taking extreme stances just to try to thwart a few piracy
groups who can’t really be impeded anyhow.

While the next generation of optical discs give us various reasons to
make the upgrade to high definition players/drives for movies, data
storage, and gaming, there are numerous hindrances to keep in mind as
we begin to open our wallets for these products. While a Blu-Ray, HD
DVD player, or even a PS3 could put us on the bleeding edge of
technology, it could be a more expensive upgrade than we initially
forsee. If at some point we are forced to down-sample content to
unprotected displays and have to purchase even more new hardware as a
result of being blacklisted, prices could be substantially higher than
expected. On top of the hardware aspects, we have to ask ourselves what
exactly “fair use” is, and what uses we expect out of products that we
spend our hard earned money on. Do we, as consumers, want to continue
down this road and support such mediums that go further than ever
before to restrict what we can do with them, where we can watch them,
and even if we can watch them? Welcome to the high definition era, are
you ready?

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