phenom

I recently purchased a 51HW40 from Best Buy. So far I'm somewhat unsatisfied with the performance, however, I'm running comcast "digital" cable. The plan is to upgrade to HDTV Directv service sometime between now and Xmas, so the quality is just fine, for now.

Unfortunately I didn't do enough research before buying. I thought I had, but I knew nothing about DVI before my purchase. Now I've had the TV a week and am thinking I might've paid $2K+ for something that could be at least partially obsolete.

My last TV was a 27" Sony Trinitron that I bought about 10 years ago. This is still an awesome TV, but a little too small for my viewing area now. Did I mention I bought it 10 years ago? I don't plan on buying another TV for another 10 years or so, and it seems my 51HW40 won't fully support that.

So now I'm considering returning the HW (I'm still within the return period) and waiting until the new TVs come out with the DVI connector. After reading through this and other forums, it seems that I couldn't go wrong by getting the DVI interface, even if it doesn't become a pay-per-view "standard."

So I called Sony to ask about this. I was told they have NO information about new products and that I'd have to go to the website if I'd hoped to find anything. I told them a press release by SONY on their own website prompted my call, to which I was told "we don't have any information about new products until about a week before they come out." Nice. So I asked if there was ANYBODY who might be able to give me a smidgen of info on whether my TV was gonna be less-than-desirable in the very near future, and the lady paused and told me no. Also nice. Nobody seems to know anything. Is it just me or is Sony really pulling the corporate wool over everyone's eyes?

Great. Now what.

rayvrwc

Phenom,

I am in the same boat, only I can't return my Sony40xbr700. I bought it thinking it would survive future technology. Boy, was I wrong! Had I only waited a few more months. Then, I read the Sony press release that this fall they were adding DVI to their HD ready tvs. In my case, it's the Sony 40xbr800. I would take the tv back asap and wait for this winter to buy one with the DVI inputs. I read an interesting article in WideScreenReview on the new JVC30k recorder, and they indicated it will have analog component output, but I wonder if the picture will be as good using either firewire or other means of connecting to the tv. Good luck.

Ray

Ray

I had the same problem with Hitachi. I Emailed customer service and was told to call 1-800-Hitachi. The customer service rep had no idea what HDTV was let alone DVI, so she told me to E mail Hitachi when I did they did respond in 24 hours as is their policy.
There answer: Hitachi has no official position on DVI or Firewire connections. However if you look at the april 17th copy of USA Today they are listed as a backer of DVI

another Ray

JoeInBH

I've got the same Sony and am very pleased with it. Regular cable could be better, but for the resolution and size I'm pleasantly surprised. DVD's look great. By the way, if you own a recent Sony RPTV, don't blow the extra money for a progressive-scan DVD player - the built-in line doubler is better than you'd get in a progressive scan DVD player, so there is absolutely no difference when using a progressive scan DVD player. Half of my viewing is HD (via OTA) and it looks spectacular. I have had no problems with DVI to date. I know of no programming currently out there that is in any way compromised to those of us without DVI. I think our TV's are safe for 10 years - 5 at an absolute minimum. At that time, without too much disappointment, I'll gladly shell out the $100-$200 for a box to convert the full-res DVI signal coming off my future HD-DVD or STB into a full-res component signal to feed my TV. I really don't understand what all the fuss is about - DVI will not affect any of us for quite some time, and when it does start to cause some problems, those problems are easily solved.

Joe

phenom

But the issue is the DVI decoding will occur within the set. That, I believe, is the biggest issue on the DVI front now. If, in fact, STBs are created that will decode DVI into better than a 480p resolution, there won't be a problem. However, if I owned my TV for 2 years and couldn't watch HBO or Showtime in better than 480p, I'd be pretty upset.

So my 51 is going back on Monday, and I'm gonna hold out until the new sets come out. I hadn't planned on buying a TV until later in the year anyway, so I have no qualms about waiting.

JoeInBH

If you weren't planning on purchasing until later in the year, by all means take it back and wait. As for external STB's, it is apparently relatively simple to un-encrypt the DVI signal and convert it to an analog signal - I read about a professor who ticked the movie people off by doing it in 2 days. With millions of HDTV's sold with only component analog inputs, there would be a decent market for such converters. If the day ever comes when such a converter would be useful and a major manufacturer is not marketting the converters at my local BestBuy, I'll rush in an try to patent the idea myself. Apparently some people assume that such converters would be illegal. This would require significant action on the part of your state legislature or Congress, and I think the worriers assume too much. Even if external converters were made illegal, there's no problem. Think of what the legislation would look like. TV's with DVI inputs that will come out anytime in the foreseeable future just have an internal "converter" that then sends the analog signal on to your TV's processor and ultimately the CRT's. If (and a very big if) DVI catches on and if (another very big if) external converters somehow became illegal, some small percentage of people would pay $200 to have a technician apply a legal "internal" converter while the rest would pay $100 or less for an illegal external converter. Could you ever imagine a prosecuter going after a non-pirating regular consumer for viewing programming at the resolution at which they purchased that programming (through buying a HD PPV film or purchashing a HD-DVD)?

I am not trying to talk you out of waiting. Unfortunately though, too many people are ill-informed. To current and prospective HDTV owners, DVI is very unlikely to materialize into a problem. And if it does, that problem is very easily solved. Wait if you want to, but don't threaten the HDTV transition by making people think that the sets they buy today will somehow be made obsolete by DVI.

Joe

Anton

joe, thanks for the input...

I'm one of those who recently bought his first HDTV and got extremely worried with the $$ spent when I read about DVI/HDCP...
I asked the salesperson at BestBuy about DVI but he lied and told me if would not affect this set... I was naive enough to trust him and not do enough research on the subject. And when I did find out and tried returning it, it was past 30 days and they would not take it back (it was actually 40 days after I bought it)...
BestBuy lost a very good potential customer as I will be buying a home theater and other stuff and will now only shop at Circuit City...

just one question: will the quality of the image remain the same after sending the signal through a box??

thanks
Anton

JoeInBH

I'm not sure I follow what you're asking. What kind of box are you talking about?

As a general matter, any time you convert from analog to digital or vice versa, there's a risk that some picture quality could be lost. Longer cables, more connections, etc. all possibly degrade your picture quality.

If you're talking about downrezzing HD material as per the HDCP licencing agreement, well that's the problem that I envision future upgrade boxes solving, but that's all dependant on HDCP encoding becoming prevalent, which is fairly speculative.

Joe

Anton

joe,
I actually meant the converter boxes that would be developed to decode the encryted HDCP signal to the component input on my TV set...

what is the difference, if any, between the signal from these boxes to my TV and the signal from compatible DVI/HDCP sets??

Thanks
Anton

JoeInBH

Well, you're asking me to comment on a hypothetical, and likely grey market, product. It's pure speculation, as nothing is yet encrypted with HDCP, but I'm willing to speculate - just don't take my speculation for anything more than that.

If you had an external box that accepted a DVI input and output via a component connection, you would be sending an analog signal to your TV. If you had a DVI equipped set, then you'd be sending a digital signal to your TV. The difference in picture quality would be, in order of magnitude, along the lines of using monster cables vs. using other cables. A possible difference in picture quality - maybe; but not something that would make much difference to most people. By the way, such jacks are already pretty common, but they don't address HDCP (which I suspect is your main concern)

Since I originally posted some of my messages in this thread, my thinking has changed somewhat. If HDCP encoding becomes a problem before the end of the useful life of your TV (something I still very much doubt), then I think the most likely "fix" for people with pre-DVI sets would be an internal "converter" - fully licenced, installed by a certified professional, and as secure (with respect to unauthorized copying of digital material) as any set originally designed for DVI.

Content providers have increasingly shown a willingness to hunt down and bring to justice (to quote our President) copyright infringers. And if the HDCP licencing group would licence an external converter, it would mean that HDCP had already failed and there would be no reason for anything to be encrypted using HDCP. Could there be a grey market for external converters - sure. But I now think the more likely fix is internal and hard-wired. With either of these "fixes" any degradation of picture quality would be negligable.

Joe

Tesla

Re: So I called Sony to ask about DVI and their new TVs...

> After 5 or 10 years, without too much
> disappointment, I'll gladly shell out the
> $100-$200 for a box to convert the full-
> res DVI signal coming off my future HD-DVD
> or STB into a full-res component signal to
> feed my TV. -- JoeInBH

Suppose I produce and start selling boxes to convert the full-res DVI signal coming off STBs into a full-res component video signal for people's HDTV monitors.

There'll be a huge market for these puppies, because they'll totally defeat Hollywood's digital rights management plan, giving everybody the dreaded high-definition component video signal they can use to make pristine copies of the latest blockbuster movies! And sell them over the Internet.

That's exactly the thing your STB has a DVI interface to prevent! That's what DVI is all about, my friend. Digital rights management.

So what do you think will happen next?

Answer: The first Hollywood mogul that gets wind of this brilliant caper will call his lawyers. They'll file a civil complaint. A few days later, a sheriff with a warrant will padlock my factory and my home, then sieze my brokerage accounts, my bank accounts, and my cars. From there, things really spin out of control.

A bad idea.

> With millions of HDTVs sold with only
> component analog inputs, there would be a
> decent market for such converters. If the
> day ever comes when such a converter would
> be useful and a major manufacturer is not
> marketting the converters at my local
> BestBuy, I'll rush in an try to patent the
> idea myself. Apparently some people assume
> that such converters would be illegal. This
> would require significant action on the part
> of your state legislature or Congress, and I
> think the worriers assume too much. Even if
> external converters were made illegal,
> there's no problem. Think of what the
> legislation would look like. --JoeInBH

Consider the Betamax Case.

In the U.S. Federal District Court of Los Angeles in November 1976, Universal City Studios and Disney Productions filed suit against Sony Corporation. They asserted that home taping of over-the-air broadcasts for viewing later — "timeshifting" — was unlawful, and that Sony was liable for the copyright infringement allegedly committed by Betamax owners.

Both sides spent many millions of dollars on lawyers' fees year after year, from November 1976 until January 1984 when the Supreme Court put the matter to bed. Joe, do you have the money it will take to handle a thing like that?

If you do, isn't there something else you'd rather do with your fortune, and with the next 87 months of your life?

Notice that we're talking about a civil matter. A tort.

What would the legislation look like? The case was not decided by the legislature, but by the court.

If you have some slack time, and you're determined to see what the law "would look like", you could read up on "the law of torts" right here on the Internet.

-- Tesla

JoeInBH

Or perhaps I could use my slack time to review my torts notes from my first year at Harvard Law School? Sorry to be flippant, but that suggestion came across as a little condecending.

If you read my later posts, you would see that my actual pick for a DVI/HCPC fix, if necessary, is a fully-licensed and secure hardwired upgrade. A win-win solution as (i) consumers could upgrade their sets to keep up with evolving technology and allay fears of obsolescence, (ii) manufacturers could make a few bucks selling, or at least licensing, upgrades, and (iii) content providers would have no (additional) concerns about the security of their IP.

As for external converters, if a consumer buys a HD-DVD, or buys HBO content from a cable company, I still don't see how the consumer harms the content provider (in a common law tortous manner) by using a device to view the content at the full resolution which the consumer purchased. If fair use means anything, it has got to protect the right to view content you've purchased. Arguably, the Digital Millenium Act outlaws such external converters. Because the law is so broadly and poorly drafted however, the DoJ has been extremely reluctant to enforce it. Is it really breaking the law if the law is not enforced as a matter of government policy (e.g. Amsterdam's "coffee" houses that are illegal by national law but remain open under an Amsterdam city police internal policy)? Interesting philosophical question, but that is why I refer to external converters as "grey market."

This assumes that the whole HDCP scheme doesn't collapse immediately. Although I've long since matured out of it and now purchase content, in junior high school I was an active participant in the software piracy community. If external, unlicenced converters are not a mass-market solution, I guarantee that they will nevertheless exist and that a certain class of hackers will proudly race to bring decrypted, full-resolution content to the internet. So my hunch is that HDCP will never get off the ground and content providers will have to come up with another model for profiting from their content. If it does get off the ground, I think the external converters you focused on are a possible fix, but that the much more likely mass market solution will be hardwired, licensed, and indisputably legal upgrades.

Joe

Tesla

Re: So I called Sony to ask about DVI and their new TVs...

> If fair use means anything, it has got to
> protect the right to view content you've
> purchased. Because the law is so broadly
> and poorly drafted however, the DoJ has been
> extremely reluctant to enforce it. Is it
> really breaking the law if the law is not
> being enforced as a matter of government
> policy? -- JoeInBH

Not being enforced? On the contrary, there is a mountain of litigation to enforce the DCMA. And endless intimidation. Much of it is by huge corporations (Sony, for one) whose intent is to widen their monopolistic power, create geographic barriers to commerce, smother potential competitors, and deny consumers the right to view content they've already purchased.

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) tried to force its authors to indemnify the IEEE if a technical paper prompted DCMA litigation or the threat of such (they've since backpedaled).

The DoJ is prosecuting Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and his Russian employer ElcomSoft, a widely publicized case which prompted some foreign governments to publish official warnings about travel to the United States.

Now dozens of organizations hold their technical meetings outside the United States. Some individuals* have been warned by their attorneys to stay away.

Every time I learn more about the DCMA, I find it's even worse than I realized. Scary!

If I were to sell "fully-licensed" and secure DVI/HCPC hardwired upgrades such as you propose, one should not be surprised to later find there is some huge corporation, somewhere, that will assert that it should have been consulted, that I need a license from them too, and that now it's payback time. They don't have to be right. Just bigger.

Suggested reading:

US prosecution of Russian Programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, and his Russian employer ElcomSoft, under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elc...omsoft_faq.html

Unintended Consequences Three Years under the DMCA — EFF Whitepaper
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503...nsequences.html

EFF "Intellectual Property - Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)" Archive
http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/DMCA

EFF "Intellectual Property - Video - HDTV/BPDG/Digital Television/ Digital Cable" Archive
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/

*Niels Ferguson
http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/cia.html


-- Tesla

JoeInBH

Tesla - You obviously keep much more current on the DCMA than myself and I'll backtrack on my statement that it is not enforced as a matter of policy. That was the opinion I formed after reading the DCMA and a couple of articles some time ago.

However, my post made 3 points. First, I think a licensed upgrade is the most likely solution. Second, unlicensed external converters are a possible alternative, with their legality being at least debatable. Third, HDCP will likely collapse from the start, making either of the above unnecessary.

I could do some research and intelligently respond to your attack (I mean that in the best sense - forums like this exist to attack/correct inaccurate ideas) of my second point. But I really don't put too many eggs in that basket anyway.



I don't quite understand your attack on my first point. I have always assumed that these upgrades would be designed and sold by the manufacturers themselves. They have the best knowledge of the engineering of their sets and where the most secure connections could be made, and would have a competitive advantage in selling upgrades, versus you or I trying to design upgrades for specific models of TVs. I'm not an IP lawyer, but I assume that a non-manufacturer would run into trouble if they even tried to do so. Don't think of manufacturers as the bad guys - if demand exists, and they can make some money selling upgrades, they'll do it. A Sony (pick your manufacturer) authorized technician will come to the house, do some saudering, and charge a couple hundred bucks for the upgrade and labor. When I speak of "licensed" upgrades, I was referring to being licensed by Digital Content Protection, LLC to use the HDCP standard, including the authorized use of proprietary encyption keys. See http://www.digital-cp.com. The upgrade kits that the manufacturers are going to send out to their authorized technicans will need to licensed, but because the upgrades are secure, this doesn't present a problem.

Regarding my third point, it is supported by the Ferguson article you cite. He writes "HDCP is fatally flawed. My results show that an experienced IT person can recover the HDCP master key in about 2 weeks using four computers and 50 HDCP displays." Although Ferguson fears the DCMA, all it takes is one anonymous hacker group that does not, and the whole HDCP system will come crashing down. Once out the bag, it cannot be fixed - HDCP will be totally ineffective. I think this is the likely outcome.

Joe