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HD DVD Player Delays in Japan 86

Posted by Zonk from the waiting-for-the-shiniest-discs dept.
TheSync writes "EE Times is reporting that Toshiba is delaying introduction of HD DVD players in Japan because of the unavailability of Advanced Access Content System (AACS) DRM system licensing. The Register reports that Toshiba is still planning a late Q1 launch of HD DVD in the US." From the EET article: "Toshiba hoped to introduce HD DVD players by the end of 2005, ahead of Blu-ray Disc players, but decided in September to postpone the U.S. introduction until 2006. In July, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Sony Corp., Toshiba, Walt Disney Company and Warner Bro. Studio formed the AACS Licensing Administrator (AACS LA) to develop license AACS technology. AACS LA has completed its version 0.9 of the technology."
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HD DVD Player Delays in Japan More

HD DVD Player Delays in Japan

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  • Lack of DRM? Impossible, this is 2005...

    • Re:HAH (Score:5, Funny)

      by mysqlrocks ( 783488 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:07PM (#14251024) Homepage Journal
      Lack of DRM? Impossible, this is 2005...

      Sure, they could just borrow Sony's DRM technology.
    • If you subtract the acronyms, company names and numbers from that story you aren't left with any real words.

      DRM is good. It fuel piracy. Without DRM geek wouldn't care about ripping disks - there'd be no challenge - they'd all renounce their computers and go outside and make friends, pass through puberty and do all the other things humans do. As it is, thanks to DRM, you can watch Harry Potter 4 the week before it comes out in the cinema.
      • If you subtract the acronyms, company names and numbers from that story you aren't left with any real words.

        How is that different from other stories on slashdot?

      • Wasn't it a Harry Potter DVD release (US & UK) that was notoriously unencumbered by Macrovision?

  • Reasons? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:07PM (#14251018) Homepage Journal
    How much of the delays in either format has to do with the actual demand for the format?

    I've had HiDef for years -- not including just the monitors on my PCs. I've always been happy with upconverted video, and the variety of HD coming over cable is getting better every day. I'm in no rush to repurchase all the DVDs that I have in HD, especially when I'm happy taking an anamorphic DVD, upconverting it, and feeding my projector its native signal.

    I'm likely one of their preferred targets, but I will definitely not be one of the first buyers -- probably the first time with new technology that I'll take a backseat at the release.
    • I have the T2 Extreme Edition DVD set which has a second DVD with a HD WMV version. It's 1440 by whatever (I don't remember the precise ratio) but done at only 7mbps. However it is pretty stunning. I'll actually watch the movie in my room on my workstation to see the HD rather than my nice theatre in the living room.

      I bet it'll be a bit of a slow start since many studios are not going to do a good conversion job. Hell some will just upsample the DVD, they do that for HD movies on TV all the time (you can te
    • You'd think they'd wanna RUSH it to market, because DVDs are simply too easy to duplicate in one's home, and no one's got HD burners yet.
      • So, how do you think they're gonna convince all those people who already own SD DVD players to give them up for a HD unit, considering that most people a) don't have the equipment to display HD content any differently from SD, b) can make and play (and download!) copied SD discs without any real difficulty, and c) already consider SD DVD to be the best quality they're ever likely to see anyway?

        My prediction? HD DVD is fucked.

  • AACS longevity: place your bets here! (Score:5, Funny)

    by kjots ( 64798 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:07PM (#14251019)
    How long will AACS keep HD DVD secure? Two weeks? Three? Place your bets, people! Closest to the mark wins, oh, I don't know, you think of something.

  • Irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eli Gottlieb ( 917758 ) <eligottliebNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:07PM (#14251020) Homepage Journal
    When they delay HD-DVDs because they can't get licensing for their DR-MMMMM! Now that! Is! Irony!

  • Improve Sales? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ruff_ilb ( 769396 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:07PM (#14251025) Homepage
    Wait, I thought DRM was supposed to improve sales and market share by avioding those pesky pirates... If we're releasing whole lines of products much later because they don't support DRM, doesn't that defeat the purpose?
  • With hollywood, this was a good move...

    but then again, would hollywood win if all their movies were DRMed to the point where it breaks people's computers? Hell no. They wont have any customers! Thus, imho, bad move overall.

  • Ridiculous mistake (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timster ( 32400 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:09PM (#14251039)
    Wow, this is a stupid error. They are blowing (or at least, reducing the impact of) one of their biggest advantages over Blu-Ray: that they were ready to go to market. All for one of the most useless features in the spec.

    Come on, is there anybody who believes that DRM of DVDs was successful? What evidence is there that sales were increased due to DRM?
    • Wait - DVD's had DRM?

      News to me.
      • DRM is usually applied to newer technologies, but I don't see why you wouldn't apply it to CSS. Consider FairPlay, for instance -- the method is essentially similar to that used in CSS, and the goal is about the same. Actually FairPlay in some sense is less restrictive than CSS, as it allows a number of copies to be made.

    • Re:Ridiculous mistake (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zed2K ( 313037 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:12PM (#14251072)
      DRM is not about increasing sales, its about getting studios to sign on and release movies in your format. This has nothing to do with the consumer and everything to do with making the studios happy. No studios no movies, no movies no sales.
    • Wow, this is a stupid error. They are blowing (or at least, reducing the impact of) one of their biggest advantages over Blu-Ray: that they were ready to go to market. All for one of the most useless features in the spec.

      Sure they could put the player out. But what major movie distributor is going to release content for it without DRM?
    • Come on, is there anybody who believes that DRM of DVDs was successful?

      CSS was broken because:

      • One of the licencees forgot to encrypt the key in their software.
      • It's only 40-bit encryption anyway and can be brute-forced pretty easily.

      We're probably not going to see either of these mistakes again. I don't have any inside knowledge, but I suspect they've set up a validation process for the software and I'd be really surprised if they used a key less than 2048 bits in length.

      Now, eventually the DRM will

    • Indeed! They were not ready in time for Christmas 2005, or even for the launch of XBOX 360. HD DVD has blown their one and only shot to become the standard in spite of Blu-Ray's higher capacity. They might as well just throw in the towel now.

  • Nice features for AACS... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:12PM (#14251070) Homepage

    Chec out these fantastic "benefits" of the AACS DRM...

    * Support a superior viewing experience delivered by next generation media formats

    * Enable greater flexibility to manage distribute, and play entertainment content on a wider range of devices

    * Enable groundbreaking home entertainment choices and the ability to use content on PCs and a range of CE devices

    * Work across a variety of formats and platforms

    Too bad that having no DRM has more features. What a joke.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

  • So old.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tktk ( 540564 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:13PM (#14251077)
    HD DVD is old news. I'm moving on toward supporting the Next Greatest Format®.

    It'll be due out in 2015 once all the standards, licensing, in-fighting and backstabbing is complete.

    Sorry, typo...I mean 2051.

  • I think that movie companies should make movies free. They'd collect money from showings on HBO/NBC/etc (some people are too non-tech to download movies), the theaters (some would argue that theaters are better than home viewings) and as usual, they'd make lots and lots of money on posters/merchandising/promotions. The more people who see (and like) a movie, the more powerful the merchandising/promotions profitability.

    Don't fight people with DRM, think of how best to get their money!

    • You sir live in lalah land. If they make movies for free they instantly lose the biggest part of their sales. Why would people pay to see something that's free any way?

      Merchandise makes money but the biggest amount of money comes from showing the film it's self and then DVD release. If you ignore both of these then you instantly have a VERY large amount of cash vanishing. More often that not it's the cinema's showing it which makes the money to make the next film (and pay for this one).

      Plus it's a company.
      • I believe the GP did include theatrical showings as one area in which they could still make money off of the movie. After all, they still haven't shown any links between "piracy" and losses (of potential revenue) at the box office, with the possible exception of really poor movies that no one wants to see in theatres anyway once they know how bad the film is. If that's where they make most of their money, and "piracy" doesn't affect it much, then shouldn't they rely more on theatrical showings? They could t

  • see? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by akhomerun ( 893103 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:21PM (#14251157)
    see what DRM is doing? it's beginning to delay technology!

    without DRM we'd probably have the next gen DVD formats by now since a huge chunk of development time toshiba and sony are just trying to get their DRM/encryption as perfect as possible so that it takes 3 weeks to crack it instead of 2.
  • After the Sony debacle, I'd bet they're a little more cautious about any auto-run software on the disks.

  • There goes Christmas... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Art ( 3335 ) on Tuesday December 13, 2005 @05:31PM (#14251259)
    I guess I have to get DVD-Jon something else for Christmas.
  • Wow, with a good number of companies going forward with BlueRay, this delay might be makin them sweat. As for rebuying my already purchased DVDs, that won't happen. But I will start buying HiDef DVDs as long as the player plays my current ones and the price of the disc doesnt' jump in price any.
  • ..Toshiba is delaying introduction of HD DVD players in Japan because of the unavailability of Advanced Access Content System (AACS) DRM system licensing.

    In July, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Sony Corp., Toshiba, Walt Disney Company and Warner Bro. Studio formed the AACS Licensing Administrator (AACS LA) to develop license AACS technology.

    Oh, yeah. I'm sure they'll jump right on it and get those licensing terms worked out. What would the group members h
    • Well I'm sure MS is hoping to establish HD DVD as soon as possible, so an Xbox 360 add-on drive can be their answer to the PS3's BluRay drive possible before it's even released.

      Unless you were talking about Sony and MS being the conflicting parties that are causing the delays rather than the two parties actively seeking to delay the finalization of AACS... in that case nevermind.
      • I seem to remember Microsoft being on the list of backers for BluRay along with all the other major PC manufacturers. I do note it funny Toshiba has such trouble aquiring licenses when they are on the board themselves as well.
      • If Sony are actively delaying AACS, then they're going to have to be pretty careful, since it's as much a part of the Blu-ray spec as it is of the HD-DVD spec. I'd imagine that, given they co-operate with Toshiba in a number of areas, and given HD-DVDs recent setbacks, they probably aren't working too hard to push back the day when AACS gets finalised.
  • The reason DRM even exists is to make the company more money. Now, it MIGHT make them more money, and it might not. But someone's trying to look good for a promotion for saying they tried.

    "Well, I tried. But we just can't stop those darn pirates."

    Translates into,

    "Well, I tried. We annoyed the fuck out of a lot of customers, lost a LARGE amount of money through delays and retooling, made it popular to copy our movies because its really quite easy, AND made them incompatable with many DVD players."

    And tha
  • Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Blu-Ray also supposed to use AACS? My impression was that the formats were identical except for the physical media.
  • 1) That I can watch them anywhere, copy them to any format, and do both of those things based on Open standards, without contrived devices intended to prevent such things.

    2) That they are available in a buyable, watchable format at the same time they are released anywhere else (i.e. DVD and theatrical release occurs at the same time).

    Until both of those conditions are met, I will continue to download movies for free. Number one is mostly available from the current DVD format, and for that I applaud it, but
    • 1) Company introduces a new product and says "Hey you need this"

      2) Consumer blindly complies, and buys it.

      When products come out, there is no mass consumer outcry about the unfair-ity of the "Rules" that you must abide by. For example, I could stay with VHS and say HA! look, I can copy all the movies I want and dont have to be a geek to do it. But the bottom line is some day DVD's and VHS will be stone age.

      No movie company is going to agree to put their material on a system that doesnt support copy protec
      • I was under the impression that the MPAA was fairly aggressive when it came to DeCSS. Other such attempts at DRM will always be broken, because there will always be people willing to spend time trying to crack it. Furthermore, if the player is to be affordable, it has to have a chip slower than what a "modern" (whatever it might be at the time) computer would have. This means that there will always be a faster processor trying to crack the encryption than there will be in the device that is meant to play

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