Analog Hole about to get more difficult to work with

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I haven't upgraded to Blu-ray yet, but I guess I'd better do it soon if next year's players are going to lack component outputs.

Can't the Blu-Ray tell the player to block analog output or downsize it somehow? My understanding is that flag hasn't been used yet, but maybe that'll change with this...

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

No, those people are supposed to buy multiple BluRay players, and multiple copies of the same movie to view in each room of the house.

Heh, funny. At least now I can buy music without DRM. I don't remember why--maybe it was Musicmatch shutting down and/or there was some issue I had with buy.com. Anyway, I had to repurchase a number of tracks from Amazon--with no DRM this time--because some of my files wouldn't play anymore. At least music is fairly cheap, but still, I already paid for it once!

This whole DRM stuff is silly. Those who want to pirate will, (how long did it take Slysoft et al to "break" AACS?) Those who play by the rules get screwed...

[Fuzzy]

True, and eventually it WILL die out just like Music DRM did. BUT, it will take people talking with their wallets to do it, just like they did with music. When iTunes started losing sales, and people were buying DRM free music from elsewhere, and putting that music on their ipods, apple started relaxing a lot of the DRM. The same will happen eventually with video, but it's going to take people NOT paying for solutions that don't work for them, instead of continuing to pay and just grumbling about it (which is where most people are currently at with cable co's). If the lack of component is truly a big enough problem for that many people, then those players won't sell, and the money will talk. Unfortunately, i don't think that's the case. By the time these component-less BD Players start hitting shelves, the pre-HDCP sets will be getting pretty long in the tooth, and the owners are likely to just replace them with something HDCP compliant.

As for special situations like your whole-house component distribution, that can still be done with a PC based BD Player, and would be transparent to your setup (could still be controlled in exactly the same way as an existing DVD player, via IR, if needed).

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

As for special situations like your whole-house component distribution, that can still be done with a PC based BD Player, and would be transparent to your setup (could still be controlled in exactly the same way as an existing DVD player, via IR, if needed).

Except that I'd have to walk back to the AV closet to stick a disc in the rackmount Sage server.

[Fuzzy]

I've got a drive in my living room (2 actually) connected to the server via USB. works great.. Allow me to play OR rip from the couch.