Readers Respond: Share Your Opinion - HDCP

What do you think? Have you come into contact with HDCP in a good or bad way? Are you a content thief? Does HDCP detour you?

Good way?

How could anyone come in contact with HDCP in a good way? This is just a way to keep Chinese manufacturers paying US corporations for "Intellectual Property." It's a manufacturing tax, charged worldwide.

—Guest Guest

I see it now

Planned obsolescence yup...after everthing is 3D capable (which could have been done long ago) what next? Plug into the neck ala The Matrix? I think this crazy sometimes unneccessary development is going to flatline pretty soon. I can't wait

—Guest dave

HDCP

Most of these comments are spot on...all I would add is that in addition to honest people being screwed and becoming irate, this kind of crap also induces some of them (us!) to become less honest in an attempt to get around this fiasco. It's hard to fathom any part of the entertainment industry expecting us to feel sorry for their economic woes when prices keep going up, exhorbitant anti-piracy lawsuits keep being filed, and an obvious lack of concern and respect for the consumers continue to be displayed.

—Guest PO'd

HDCP - why?

Why? It's all about control and money. Same with Microsoft. In the end, it's the average Joe who get gets screwed by corporations that buy the government. Either through legislation, corrupt politicians or lobbyists. Sorry about the rant, but this is "technology" is just a way a power game.

—Guest frank

blue ray?

is blue ray even an issue with steaming today? unless you want to store all that media why even use disks?

—Guest gw

HDCP ...A Consumer Nightmare

I can't believe what I'm reading about this nightmare scenario ...HDCP. Here it is 1/2010 and I'm looking at New LCD TV's and yet many dont even have it! WTF! If its needed to watch HD why are TV's being sold without it. It makes No Sense. Imagine someone spending hundreds of dollars on a New to Date LCD TV after being told it has everything you'll ever need, take it home and connect your new tv to your new BR player with an hdmi cable, only to find out that the movie wont play. So you go out and buy a new cable with lesser ability now to find out that your HD movie wont play at Full HD quality. Crazy! HD soon enough will be the norm., and if this keeps up, ppl will not be able to record anything. No HBO, No 24, Nothing. If I cant record shows from HBO from my Dish HD rec. in HD to PC for my own viewing, I'm gonna be pissed. We the People keep getting screwed. Fight Back the best way, -Don't Buy It! Honest Ppl always are paying the price for the few bad apples, well enough already.

—Guest T

HDCP under ANTI piracy is BS

Encryption all the way to the monitor from an output is utter BS. It has only caused devices to not work. There is NO ACTUAL KNOWN CASE OF PIRACY VIA CAPTURING A DATA STREAM VIA AN HDMI PORT!!! All the piracy takes place via taking it straight off the disc. [main encryption, AACS for blu-ray, CSS for DVD, and they are not the same as HDCP] There are NO hd disc recorders with an HDMI in. Besides, a pirate if he could, wouldn't go thru the trouble of capturing off an HDMI output, then recompressing it in real time. Said logic makes no sense. HDCP has never stopped a pirate, as data is copied another way. All HDCP has in mind is the old school tech like patching two digital vcrs together. [Something that doesn't exist-yet at least for blu-ray] and has been the cause of the greatest number of headaches in the PC industry and TV industry as well. This is precisely why AACS encryption on blu-ray got broken into so quickly, there was a greater demand because of this HDCP thingy.

—Guest lovablemale7

dtv with big antenna

I use a large 160 inch dual band uhf-vhf antenna and a 30db signal amplifier up on my roof to pick up 10 channels about 90 miles away. At this distance it is touchy to tune it in to get it perfect, but I did it. I love the crystal clear digital picture I get. It is far better than cable has ever been. I have an old TV and a DTV converter and get a better picture that is better than a new TV with a cable analog signal. I learned that by visiting someone at Christmas and was amazed how crappy their picture was.

—Guest n3zcj

WTF? It worked yesterday!

My DVD player worked fine with my HDTV just yesterday. Now today I put in the same movie and I get this error. WTF happened between then and now? So Now I have to cable my hi def DVD player to my Hi def TV... wow I'm getting great picture and sound now. If I wanted to cable the thing I wouldnt have bought a HDMI DVD player. Any suggestions as to why it's not working when it has for about 6 months until today?

—Guest Joe

HDCP

BTW, I LOVE HDMI! The audio quality is remarkable to me, a hearing impaired person!

—Guest Wolfy

Vote with your $

And do not buy "blu-ray" or any other drm'ed material where you can avoid it. That hurts the "corpse" in the bottom line. When enough of us "just people" do it, it'll get attention.

—Guest Wolfy

HDCP 200USD Work Around

Isn't amazing what the industry does to make your life difficult! And at the end, those that really want to cheat find a work around. The rest of us, who are willing to pay for what we watch, just have tons of trouble. Anyhow, I found a way to get my projector without HDCP to work. Got myself a HDMI 1 to 2 splitter and connected both my TV and projector. TV sends the "HDCP reply" and one is enought. The projector works as well :-) If you dont already have a TV to connect, you can by a cheep Dell monitor with DVI HDPC input, or a cheacp 19" inch TV with HDMI HDCP and like that you end up with a cool dual screen setup at less than 200 USD. You can also use your setup to copy a few movies to a DVD recorder at least until you have made up the 200USD :-) Have fun!

—Guest Karsten

HDCP

This is the biggest ripoff ever... This is a blatant way to fleece the consumer.

—Guest BS

New technology, New expense

It's becoming too expensive and time- consuming, keeping stride with the rapidly changing technology being forced on consumers. Reasonable backward compatibility with existing equipment could make any manufacturer a best seller.

—Guest Enough

Another Move From Corporate America....

I have beaten them at their other attempts...I'll defeat this one too...And when I do I'll put it out on the web for all to see.....

—Guest JACK