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About LinkBacksRead more.The telco regulator gives the Beeb the green light to restrict access to HD content from all terrestrial broadcasters.
Read more.The telco regulator gives the Beeb the green light to restrict access to HD content from all terrestrial broadcasters.
It seems everybody's conspiring to make Freeview HD a failure.
Great work, Ofcom.
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Who gets a feeling this is going to affect how long you can keep things on your PVR and what you can do with it.
They don't want to lose sales of there blu-ray box sets, before you could watch it/record it but if you wanted a HD copy you had to by the blu-ray...
As always its all about the money.
It's all about screwing over legit users, it's easy enough for pirates or whatever to go and download a DRM-free HD movie! What a load of absolute crap, I thought Ofcom had more sense than that and TBH I thought that's what they're for, to stop crap like this happening!
Looks like it will be completely pointless to have DVB-T2 cards.
Oh well, I'll just go Freesat instead.
This.Originally Posted by Steve
Amazing, really. Ofcom are usually so effective and worthwhile.. oh, wait...
Where's the pointless petition then?
e-Pen at the ready.
There's one at the open rights group - http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwo...ts/bbc-drm-sub
No mention of receivers for PCs. Does this mean, then, that we simply won't get PC DVB-T2 tuners or software that can decode the SI. In fact, is this one of the reasons why DVB-T2 PC tuners have yet to materialise?
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Well, the report does say that there is a commitment to recognise both existing "fair use" rights, and to recognise any future implementation of changes to those, such as those suggested by the Gowers review, so that should not be an issue.
Even though it was mentioned in the article, people in this thread don't seem to have noticed. It's only the EPG data that is encrypted, you can still view the video/audio stream with no problems, and get EPG data from else where. All you miss out on is some features such as series-link and accurate recording.
It's the same technology currently used in Freesat, and while it might be an inconvenience to some people, it's not going to render DVB-T2 tuners useless or cause any real issues. That said, it's also not going to have any effect in stopping piracy either. So just to be clear I am not advocating the decision, it's a bad one, it's just not that much of a big deal.
For a more detailed (and balanced) article have a look at the registers version.
I don't mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious, but I am so that's the way it comes out.
Are we absolutely sure about this though? The service information tables contain more than just EIT (which is what the EPG is enumerated from, unless DVB-T2 works differently to DVB-T), and without some of these elements you're left guessing as to how to demux the stream.
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It's also very clear that though there will be DRM on the EPG data, licences to use that datastream must be provided royalty-free. From what I can make out (and I only skimmed though much of that 38-page OfCom statement, while it is acknowledged that there is a balance to strike, the perception is that not implementing this will cause problems with some rights holders, particularly those with premium film and drama content.
The intent seems to be not so much preventing people timeshifting, etc, but preventing access to retransmission (especially online) of the digital data stream. And if the licenses are available to box manufacturers, free of charge, I wonder how much of an impediment to manufacturers that will actually be?
It seems that the objective is not to curtail users, but online piracy.
But the argument they've made for curtailing piracy is pointless, as such a system is not also implemented in, say, the US, and they don't seem to have any issues transmitting HD features.
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Well, not sure on the technical details myself, in the articles I've read it seems that the video stream would be unaffected, but don't know enough to be sure.
Part of getting that 'free' licence to decrypt the DRM is agreeing to put limits on the distribution of copied media (only allowed a single copy, not to be burnt to disk etc). It seems to me that what they're actually gaining from this is are that those controls are forced onto every peice of software able to receive broadcasts.
Also:
"The DTLA has laid down ground rules for the restrictions [...] they also say that the ‘copy once’ restriction can’t be applied to material that has already been transmitted in HD in major markets without content protection."
Not sure how they're going to manage that though, and of course the encrypted EPG data will still apply to all programs.
I don't mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious, but I am so that's the way it comes out.
I accept that the video stream itself is unencrypted, but if you can't easily work out how to demux it because the data that enables you do to that is encrypted, it is in the very least obfuscated.
Still, as a result of all this I expect it'll be easy for lots of us to break the law and circumvent this enforcement method. Brilliant.
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