High definition video

[kennydoe]

Originally Posted by fettouhi

Only 3k???

If had bought this here at home that would have set me back at least 15k.

Regards

André

I'm a really good shopper

[Carlo]

Originally Posted by jemsite

maybe they will, maybe they will not.

Either way with a $499 pricetag, no upscaling DVD, no IR remote and no analog outputs (to play TrueHD on your 2 year old receiver), the PS3 doesn't qualify for a I MUST BUY THIS NOW home theater item anytime soon.

YMMV... glen

yeah, and plus...no decent games worth playing. Sony still has a lot of improvements to make.

btw, I noticed Xbox360 now offers downloadable HD movies and tv programms, as well as 1080p support. Anyone tried this yet? Damn, I need a bigger harddrive.

[microdmitry]

Would Xbox be able to play future releases that require HDCP? That's the question I had when deciding between Xbox and PS3.

[jemsite]

i haven't downloaded a HD movie from xbox live to test as i have netflix. i have downloaded many 720p trailers and they look magnificent. A+ quality HD. No pixelization or bit-starvation. IMHO this service is going to take off as it's the only one that really links a "download device" (ie. 360) to a HDTV. walmart, netflix, whoever else requires PC and most people just don't care about HD movies on a small PC screen.

Originally Posted by microdmitry

Would Xbox be able to play future releases that require HDCP? That's the question I had when deciding between Xbox and PS3.

yes indeed.

HDCP doesn't apply to VGA so you can do 1920x1080p from VGA out from 360 + HD-DVD attachment without any restriction. analog hole always open. 360 upscales to 1080p over VGA too.

HD-DVD via 360 over component... if the studios ever enabled ICT (image contraint token) on HD-DVD (or bluray) software (which seems very unlikely anytime soon) you could be limited to 960x540p but that does for anything without HDCP. Of course if you have a PS3 hooked up via component the same scenario applies

for video games 360 has no restrictions ... nor does the PS3 for gaming as HDCP is irrelevant to games only media.

MS announced IPTV deals for 360 so you'll no doubt see a HDMI equipped 360 with larger HDD in the near future (xmas?) but hopefully combo players will come out in low price making gaming irrelevant to HD optical movie wars.

[microdmitry]

HDCP applies to video playback, period. If studios turn on the bit, VGA out will simply NOT get any signal or will downscale it to SD, because that's what the spec says. Otherwise it's just too easy to hook up A/D converter and get "better than DVD quality" rips of the movies. In order to prevent that HDCP was implemented. HDCP doesn't work on VGA, obviously.

Note that this is just HD _disk_ playback restriction, downloads will still play (unless studios lean on Microsoft to disable that as well).

So I think the only real guarantee is HDMI out.

[microdmitry]

Actually, there's another possibility. Since HDCP is a retarded standard that has been broken already, studios may refrain from shooting themselves in the feet indefinitely. But given their greed and stupidity I wouldn't bet on that.

[jemsite]

Originally Posted by microdmitry

HDCP applies to video playback, period. If studios turn on the bit, VGA out will simply NOT get any signal or will downscale it to SD

incorrect again.

what i stated above is 100% correct published spec.

i don't get why you ASK something if you don't want to hear the answer? ...glen

ps - hdcp isn't broken nor is AACS but of course the keys to the door were left under the doormat

[microdmitry]

HDCP was broken before it was even ratified as a standard, in 2001. Read up more on it. Pretty much every aspect of it was broken, from content protection to key revocation.

And anything not protected by HDCP is supposed to be downscaled if ICT flag is set. That includes VGA.

AACS seems pretty solid, though. Here's what I predict will happen with it. About every year a group of hackers will break a software player and rip/decrypt all movies released before that date using keys from that player. Over the lifetime of the fomat (10-15 years) they only need to do this 10-15 times. And if they're smart enough to keep things secret (i.e. not tell everyone which piece of software they get the keys from), they can release new titles as they come out. The issue here is that files are gigantic. It's one thing when you rip a DVD and put it on torrent as 800MB file, it's quite another when you have a 30GB file you can't compress any further because it's already compressed efficiently.

If anything I want AACS to be broken for fair use purposes. My kid is harsh on DVDs, so I make identical copies of the ones he likes to watch and leave masters in their boxes. Even though I haven't yet seen a scratch on a BD disk (even those that come from Netflix), I don't think this newfangled surface coat is a match for my kid.

[microdmitry]

Actually, according to the article below, studios have unofficially agreed to not use ICT until at least 2010. By then players will be a dime a dozen and every TV will have an HDMI port.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060521-6880.html

[jemsite]

Originally Posted by microdmitry

Actually, according to the article below, studios have unofficially agreed to not use ICT until at least 2010. By then players will be a dime a dozen and every TV will have an HDMI port.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060521-6880.html

yup, and less and less will have a VGA port

HDCP does *not* effect VGA.

Your use of the word "broken" needs to be defined. Right now you can't buy a HDCP stripper that would work forward, as key revocation would render it useless. To me that's not "broken" but again your situation points out the futility of thinking HD discs are going to replace DVDs anytime this decade. They don't play in minivans, in kids bedrooms, in your bedoom, portables, 360/wii/PS2... you need to upgrade every device... glen