When the next gen of movie media comes out (either Blu-ray or HD-DVD)
Will their encryption be at 40 bits like the current Css or will it be a little "bit" higher or the same. Cause from what I can remember, I've read that any think over 56bit encryption can't be exported out of the US.

What is your view on this ...

Actually you can export higher encryption software for several years now since the US finally realized that other countries are smart enough to come up with their own strong encryption software. And the new protection scheme is called AACS and has 128 bit.

Also the encryption on the next generation discs will not be "static" like CSS. That means that if someone manages to break it, the studios can change it by putting updates on newer discs. One of the ideas they have is that if someone manages to break the encryption for say Batman Begins or whatever, and uses Memorex HD or BluRay media, they can put out an update on the next disc that gets released that invalidates that media for all the drives. Hence, anything you have on Memorex, for example, will no longer play. As you can see, the next generation discs will go WELL beyond simple encryption for protection of content. If they wanted to, they could invalidate your original movie that you bought and paid for, as well. I for one will not embrace that technology as I believe it has far too many restrictions and possibilities for future restrictions. There's nothing stopping them from switching to a pay for play model down the road.

> One of the ideas they have is that if someone manages to break
> the encryption for say Batman Begins or whatever, and uses Memorex
> HD or BluRay media, they can put out an update on the next disc
> that gets released that invalidates that media for all the drives.
> Hence, anything you have on Memorex, for example, will no longer play.

What are you talking about ? What would prevent people from buying
another brand of blank discs ? And how do you think your update would
prevent old discs to play ? What is revoked in AACS are the devices,
not the media. For instance, if encryption is broken on a particular
player, it will be revoked and will refuse to play all future movies
(but will still play old ones).

No, because the updated blacklist from the newer movie will be stored in the player's nonvolatile memory, so older discs won't play in hd, if the player was "infected" with a newer blacklist.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12153

Please read. I was referring to this digital imprimatur crap they have planned. I suspect BluRay will adopt something similar but I have yet to see anything about it. I'm talking about needing this stupid thing on BLANK MEDIA WE BUY in order to play back content WE OWN. Give me a break. I for one will not buy into such a restricted technology. According to that article, they CAN eliminate entire brands of blank media if they so desire. That'd piss off a LOT of people I'd imagine.

Correct. That is exactly how they intend it to work. I can see the possibility of some ingenious hacker group releasing a "whitelist" hd dvd image that you burn to a disc, stick in your player, and unblacklist all your movies, but, this would result in a very ugly cat and mouse game at best. And since BluRay requires internet access for playback(idiots), I suspect they'll simply overwrite the list every time you attempt to play anything. It's ridiculous.

You say it. I am really sad, because I really wanted to have hd content for my home cinema. But the "fear, that someone will make a copy" is really getting ridiculous. Copy protecting the digital Video signal? Give me a break... What damage could a consumer do with the signals from a DVI port?
And I am very afraid, that PAL HD media will suffer from the PAL speedup problem as DVDs already do. I do not want to listen to movies in "Mickey Mouse" mode....

Well, I never really noticed that 4% speedup.

Considering new protection schemes: I guess it'll be worse than we currently imagine. I just hope some hackers target a major brand like Sony to make their players become blacklisted. Will be fun to watch all the owners return their players...

I hope both formats fail miserably!!!!

What the hell were they thinking in producing a format which requires an internet connection in order to play!!!!!

and what happens to people not having a one!!!!!

I'll stick to good old dvd's, thank you very much!!!!

Obviously most people don't, otherwise the industry won't be able to sell any DVDs in PAL countries.
Most people are "used to it", as they don't know better. A simple test: Try the same movie as NTSC and PAL versions. Most likely you will notice the difference. (and the PAL version will be 5 minutes shorter).
I find it amusing, that a lot of people have very expensive home theater systems with expensive loudspeakers and they don't care, that every DVD they watch has a wrong pitch. 4% should be quite a lot for a "High End" freak.

Indeed! That's why blacklisted players will always play normal TV resolution. I bet, that most people won't even notice, if HD playback has been disabled on their player...

I'm not familiar with the PAL issues. I'm on NTSC and any PAL stuff I get I generally convert right away. That rather blows though. And yes, the fear out there is ridiculous at best. The problem that's *NEVER* addressed by these morons is professional piracy. The legitimate user that wants to make a backup of what he PAID FOR gets screwed every time. And it's only getting worse.

You and me both. While I have an internet connection, what happens if I'm on my laptop on a plane somewhere that doesn't offer in flight broadband(or I refuse to pay for it as it's ridiculously priced)? Oh, they're sorry I can't watch the movie I paid for? How nice. I don't think so. DVD provides decent quality video and sound with a lot less restrictions. If the industry thinks I'm buying all my movies over again on the new formats, um, they're nuts. This isn't VHS vs DVD we're talking about here. Yes, there is a difference in quality between DVD and HD or BluRay, but, not enough to make me spend tons of money rebuying the movies I already own. I used my 20's building up a big DVD library...I'm not spending my 30's doing the same thing over again...especially on a restricted format. Idiots. They don't see the handwriting on the wall on this one. Those formats will not do nearly as well as DVD did. Probably more like laserdisc. And they deserve it.

Let's be clear and not mix your guesses with the AACS requirements.
In the AACS spec device revocation comes only from the media, not
from any storage in the device (contrary to content revocation).
What manufacturers will decide to do is up to them, we'll see
when all the players are out.

Not your fault, but Sean's extrapolation was wrong. A content
revocation list consists of content certificate IDs, which themselves
depend on the content. This means that with this feature you can
revoke pre-recorded (aka ROM) discs, but not blank discs.

That would be nice. It made NO sense to me at ALL that blank discs could be revoked. When I read that article my blood boiled as you can tell. Even so, the fact that they can revoke original media that I paid for STILL irritates me. Once I pay for a piece of media, I should be able to do what I want with it short of giving it to others. If I want to put it on my network video machine, a portable device, or whatever, I should be able to do so. I should also be able to play it without having to have an internet connection, as well. I realize M$ is trying to get that to happen with HD DVD...one of their requirements is the ability to copy it to a PC's hard drive. That's kuel. But, they also require you to go purchase a new copy protection enabled monitor in order to play it back in HD, so, that's kind of an issue IMO.

All that being said, I'm also cautious of speculation. We haven't actually seen any implementations yet, and until we do we can only go by press releases. We know how accurate those tend to be...cough cough. Nonetheless, based on the information I've seen, so far I'm not impressed.

The thing is, you would need a authoring/burn software which can generate that damn AACS. Then you can include your own policies.

I wonder what's next from the industry?

I think everyone's a little too frustrated. I doubt anyone's DVD player they have is actually locked to a single region.

Looking back.. just look at DVD players now, most of them can be made region free and some are even sold as region free (look at cheap players from Argos).

I see it as being a new exciting technology to play with, and one that will be very interesting and be challenging for people to remove those restrictions, of course, not for condoning piracy, but to allow for legally making working personal backups. There will always be insider's or ex employees who will leak out info. Just take a look at satellite & digital cable, their encryptions are RSA 512 bits and even so, the keys were leaked, and the decryption algo was emulated just from limited info.

Sorry to say, but IMO, when prices fall I think everyone will be using it, regardless of whether you want it or not.