Xbox 360?

[Silv]

It actually appears that people have made some progress in theorizing about how to break HDCP. God only knows if the alliance will attempt to restrict this information via the DMCA however.

Anywho, this is a short doc on some security flaws in it.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1005

[Vorph]

HDCP isn't the problem, though, unless you happen to own a display which is DVI and not HDMI and you want to connect a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player to it. Even if HDCP is broken it still doesn't allow you to do much--uncompressed HD feeds are too big to be very useful--and the hacked devices are still susceptible to having their keys revoked.

The problem is AACS (Advanced Access Content System) which is the new version of CSS, basically. Until that is cracked, which could very easily never happen, 'fair use' will be limited to whatever the movie studios begrudgingly allow you to do with the movies you paid for--and it will almost certainly be Vista-only and limited to proprietary (read: dumbed-down garbage) software. The primary reason for delays in the release of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has been AACS; the discs have been ready for a long time now but they have spent a lot of extra time "perfecting" (they hope) the encryption.

And of course the real problem is still the DMCA and the equivalents in other countries.

[Malakie Torsade]

Originally Posted by Vorph

I've also seen reports that show around 25% of households that have an HDTV don't actually have HD service of any type hooked up. WTF?

Enlighten someone who doesn't really know... Can you not notice a difference in quality of an HDTV and normal TV on regular DVDs? Or do we have to get a different kind of DVD to notice any significant difference? While I'm not seriously looking to purchase one yet, I'd love to get one in the future, but never watch TV... almost all DVD's.

[Szlia]

That is not first hand info, but my understanding is tthat the significant difference is that you can see how poor a compression a DVD is.

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by Szlia

That is not first hand info, but my understanding is tthat the significant difference is that you can see how poor a compression a DVD is.

The only first hand info I have is from watching Episode 3 on an HD TV. I remember it looking absolutely smashing. I didn't notice a difference (other than pixelation) on other DVDs, however.

The best part of HDTVs is watching normal cable on it. Looks absolutely AWFUL. HD stations look marginally better than normal TV to me. Waste of money.

[Silv]

Originally Posted by RiskyChris

The only first hand info I have is from watching Episode 3 on an HD TV. I remember it looking absolutely smashing. I didn't notice a difference (other than pixelation) on other DVDs, however.

The best part of HDTVs is watching normal cable on it. Looks absolutely AWFUL. HD stations look marginally better than normal TV to me. Waste of money.

HD Stations look absolutely amazing on my HDTV. Although I agree that regular cable looks downright nasty.

I wonder if they deliberately do not do any upscaling or smoothing on stardard outputs in order to get more people to buy the HD stations.

My current DVD's look great with a high quality DVD player. (Or 360 which does a great job of playing DVD's on HDTV's)

[etchazz]

Originally Posted by RiskyChris

The only first hand info I have is from watching Episode 3 on an HD TV. I remember it looking absolutely smashing. I didn't notice a difference (other than pixelation) on other DVDs, however.

The best part of HDTVs is watching normal cable on it. Looks absolutely AWFUL. HD stations look marginally better than normal TV to me. Waste of money.

if you think HD channels only look marginally better than normal channels then your HD-TV is a piece of shit. i have a top of the line panasonic plasma tv with digital cable and i can tell you watching sports in HD is truly fucking amazing (especially baseball and football). it looks completely different than it does on the normal channels. like someone else said, if you aren't getting channels in high def, then there is no difference. however, if you have high def channels, the difference is astounding.

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by etchazz

if you think HD channels only look marginally better than normal channels then your HD-TV is a piece of shit. i have a top of the line panasonic plasma tv with digital cable and i can tell you watching sports in HD is truly fucking amazing (especially baseball and football). it looks completely different than it does on the normal channels. like someone else said, if you aren't getting channels in high def, then there is no difference. however, if you have high def channels, the difference is astounding.

As far as I know, sports broadcasts are some of the only stations to use high quality cameras in recording games. I've watched football in HDTV, it's good, but I don't think I'm ready and willing to spend that much cash on a setup right now. I'll wait until the rest of the networks get up to par.

[Silv]

All the networks main lineups are also in HDTV. Lost, 24, etc. You can even get them for free with an OTA antenna. I also get movie channels in HD, which is nice.

They don't appear to use quite as good cameras as sports broadcasts and Discovery channel shows, but they definitely look way better than standard.