And HDCP is all about how to force more $$$$ out of consumers.
Not so much... it's really just the end result of the "Ready! Fire! Aim!" introduction of HDTV. I mean, they spent how long grousing about the specs, finally creating the Grand Alliance and ATSC, but didn't think about digital links or security? Or more likely, just blew it off.
Right from the same quality HDMI cables that sell for $49.95 at B/B or $39.95 at Wal-Mart being available for only $11.95 at Monoprice to eventually having to pay for each and every viewing of HD program and probably archiving fees to keep them on external HDDs.
Well, HDMI is a quality issue... it's not usually the HD-preservation issue it was supposed to be.. most media don't set the down-rez flag. But there's no reason to expect clear digital bitstreams in any modern system. For example, this is strictly forbidden in the DVB spec upon which Dish's SD stuff is based.
As for the cables... did you really find an HDMI cable at Best Buy for only $50? They usually run in excess of $100 or more. This is one of those things they sell to pad their bottom line on HDTV sales.. they have to be more or less competitive on HDTV price (I paid a bit more for my 71" Samsung at Best Buy than I would have at B&H Photo/Video, but the shipping would have made B&H ultimately more), but rape you on accessories... what does Joe Average Consumer know about HDMI? And if you buy the $15-$20 cables at Monoprice, they're actually better than the $100+ cables at B/B.
Trust me, you'll eventually even loose some of the DVR features we've come to enjoy with HD programming.
It's not in Dish's best interest... if it happens, it's political... in other words, we're doing it to ourselves, or perhaps, doing nothing while the Copyright Extension Nazis like Disney do Bahas all over the notion of Fair Use. Thing is, it's has NEVER been in their long term rational self-interest to get medieval about Fair Use... if Hollywood had had its way, VCRs would have been rendered useless, and they'd have ultimately lost their best long-term revenue stream.
PVRs are generally of the nature of time-shifters, and given that I have no desire to permanently steal media (if I want a TV series or film to keep, I'll buy the BD), I have zero problem with making these things relatively temporary. Shut that down, and there will simply be less things viewed, and maybe I'll cut out some of my Premium channels... there are only so many of value in realtime. This would ultimately be bad for Dish and bad for Hollywood. And if you really need to steal the content for a permanent home-made collection, you're better off ripping the BD.
This didn't happen overnight but people haven't really cared about it much because they've been so distracted by all the new HD available, cheaper hardware and recently the ability to create personal HD libraries on ext HDDs.
All that's a good thing, but Fair Use in its best representation (and we don't have that in the USA today... there is no consumer media bill of rights) was never intended to allow you make permanent collections of other folks works for free. That's the sort of attitude that's going to have Hollywood, Inc. and their billions getting Congress to overreact and shut it all down.
That's already starting to change as some HD sources already disallow archiving and it's only a matter of time before others follow suit. Once the ability to (legally) create your own library is gone, you can trust that the price of purchased media will go up (or at least no longer keep coming down). Don't forget, there's no longer an alternate source to compete.
The ability to create a permanent archive of high quality video for free or nearly free has been around since DVD John cracked CSS... your Dish Network HDD archives are such a tiny factor, no one's really considering them yet in any political moves. Most of the pushes by big media really had nothing to actually do with piracy, since even with the internet it's been relatively small, particularly in video... and the largest pirates are pressing glass mastered DVD copies in the Far East, they're not any of us. Big media would really like to resell you the same video in each new digital format -- that was the big reason to push for copy protection. And they may even be seeing the flaw in that (eg, practically no one will pay twice for the same film, and if they do, only for some marked improvement... the reason you get "Film Release", then "Two Disc Director's Cut with Bonus Features" three or four months later.
And unlike the music industry, Hollywood, Inc. really has found that their best defense against piracy has been reasonable prices. Your time has to be all but worthless today to download and burn a craptastic downrezzed DiVX or whatever to DVD, rather than just buy the original for $10-15 at Wal-Mart. There are only about 14 million Dish subscribers, and a tiny fraction of us have HD DVRs with external HDD capability, and only a small fraction of those paid the $40 to be able to use it, and only a small fraction of those folks are using external HDDs for "permanent" archival rather than simple time shifting. So this is simply below the noise floor in the various battles going on. They may well set copy protect tokens at some point, but that doesn't automatically prevent recording (external or internal), and it has no significant effect on media sales.
We could be heading right back to the days when new release VHS movies sold for over $100 the first year they were out.
No, it'll never happen. It can't.
For one, the original $100 prices were set because Hollywood, Inc. didn't think you were going to buy tapes for home use, they thought fairly early on that rentals would dominate, and so they set prices accordingly. Tapes dropped significantly once it because clear that individuals would buy tapes (well, those without any concern for aesthetic quality... I waited for DVD), and it's been carried through with DVD and now Blu-Ray.
The other issues they have are the same ones that have actually been killing the music industry (or, more correctly, the Big Four "Record" companies... at least, in as much as they haven't been killing themselves, which, well, they have)... there are dozens of choices for your media dollar today. You can buy a DVD movie or Blu-Ray, or rent it, or download from iTunes or Amazon, or rent on-line, etc. Or buy a Video Game... the reason the video game industry has been making more profit than the film industry is simple: an experienced player gets 20-50+ hours of play time out of a $40-$60 video game, versus 2-3 hours of entertainment from a $10-$20 video disc.
Oh eventually, maybe when they're broadcast on network channels with commercials your "fair use" rights will allow you to make a 480i copy for your own use.
"Fair Use" never even remotely was intended or should apply to making a permanent archival copy of something that's broadcast. That isn't fair use, period.. that's no different than ripping you buddy's DVD or Blu-Ray and burning your own copy. And part of the problem with protecting consumers' Fair Use rights is that many people on either side don't have a basic understanding of the word "Fair"... you want to build a permanent media library for free, and they want as much payment for as little content as possible. The problem is, Hollywood Inc. billions to spend, and the average consumer, not so much. So the laws are currently skewed in Hollywood's favor, even if the ability to clone is strongly skewed our way at the moment. However, if enough people think Fair Use means unlimited access to any and all content for free, Hollywood is perfectly capable of screwing us all in ways even I (as an involved party since the 80s) can't imagine. And in their usual haste, it'll screw us both.
-Dave
