Nickname: Stratocaster

Review: Another media conglomerate cure in search of a disease. The equipment makers will have to wise up to the fact that the content providers are their worst enemy and enforce backward-compatible standards on them. Does that mean that it is now illegal to time-shift or TiVo if I don't happen to be home when their super-valuable protected content gets pushed in my direction? John Prine got it right when he wrote the anthem, "Blow Up Your TV".

Date reviewed: Apr 8, 2006 1:41 AM

Nickname: Blonde

Review: Since my son has moved out, I no longer have tech support. If having HI-DEF TV is this complicated, speaking for the female gender, I'll keep my money and do without all the gadgets required to view. Translates into you being correct in your observation. The market will never reach its potential. Moms of the world will read romance novels instead. Publishers will love you.

Date reviewed: Apr 7, 2006 6:45 PM

Nickname: Chuck

Review: I didn't know the content coming out of my cable box was valuable! Frankly, I think the content creation folks are doing this more out of charging yet more money for content than out of desire to prevent piracy. They are killing their own market before it has a chance to bloom.

Date reviewed: Apr 7, 2006 3:19 PM

Nickname: FedUp

Review: The anti piracy measures are hurting the adoption of HDTV. More worried about getting blood out of a turnip than offering consumers something worth while for their money and calling them all thieves in the process. Until everything goes 100% digital, HDCP should be the last thing tossed on consumers to fight with. It is no wonder so many think they are watching HDTV on their new wide screen just because it is a wide screen it must be HD... Many have run into the problem you mention. Just read AVSFORUM for yourself. Motorola box -> Yamaha RX-V2600 -> TV comes to mind. Lets not forget the ridiculous price those HDMI->HDMI cables cost while a good set of 9' component cables cost under $20. And yes you can run digital over cheap cables so there is no justification for the price. Just look at Cat5e cables used for networking.

Date reviewed: Apr 7, 2006 2:59 PM

Nickname: zimzam

Review: Thank you for succinct explanation of a rapidly growing problem. I too understand the tech, but please figure out how to focus more eyes on this issue.

Date reviewed: Apr 7, 2006 2:35 PM

Nickname: Maarten

Review: It seems that the content industry keeps making the same mistakes, Sony and their CD protection. But not only that, since the beginning of consumer software there have been pirates stealing those programs and made them available, first on floppies, CDs and eventually over the internet it is a breeze to download what you want. These hardware protection schemes will not protect content Hollywood provides, the past 30-40 years the trend of piracy has not subsided. I would think the music and tv/movie industry was smarter than this. Apparently I am wrong as they think they can still battle piracy this way, and your article describes; normal law abiding citizens who spend loads of cash on their equipment are the victims. The industry should stop spending millions if not billions into these kinds of protection schemes, and instead start selling their content in a smarter fashion. This will stop the need for piracy on the scale it is in at this moment.

Date reviewed: Apr 7, 2006 12:11 PM