According to various sources including the German newsmagazine
Der
Spiegel, some major movie studios and consumer electronics makers have
agreed not to support the Image Constraint Token (ICT) feature in Blu-ray
or HD DVD playback equipment until at least 2010. The ICT causes image
output quality to be downgraded in players that lack HDMI connectors for
protected digital output using the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP)
standard developed by Intel.
Although both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats support the AACS DRM spec (and Blu-ray
includes additional anti-piracy features called BD+), players for both formats
have digital outputs that, if not protected, could be used to capture non-degraded high-definition
video content for unauthorized uses.
The sticking point is that consumer electronics (CE) vendors have been slow
in building HDMI and HDCP support into their playback devices. One reason
for this has been that the HDCP spec was not finalized until a number of HD TV
sets were already out on the market. But another reason is that adding
support for HDMI and HDCP adds to the cost of devices that are already wildly
expensive, especially when compared to today's DVD players.
The latter economic angle effectively puts a crimp in the momentum that
Hollywood studios have built in getting CE vendors to build strong DRM into
new-generation playback devices without subsidies. AACS provides much
stronger protection than the CSS encryption scheme for DVDs, as well as the
flexibility to support a wide range of innovative content business models.
But HDMI and HDCP make the solution more complete.
Because some HD TVs are already in the hands of influential early adopters,
CE vendors have apparently concluded that they have enough leverage against
Hollywood to resist adoption of HDMI, HDCP, and ICT in their devices.
Hollywood wants its creations to look great in HD, so it's playing along -- for
now.
Events
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