rich ruminations

Sony had news a few days ago about their upcoming Blu-ray plans. One important tidbit is about copy protection.

Sound And Vision Magazine: Blu-ray to Debut May 23:

In an important aside, Don Eklund, SPHE’s senior vice president for advanced technologies, said that Sony’s initial Blu-ray discs — and all of its Blu-ray titles for the forseeable future — will be free of the “Image Constraint Token” that’s built into the Blu-ray and HD DVD standards. This controversial digital flag instructs the player to down-res the video signal from its analog component-video outputs to a standard-definition image to prevent high-resolution recordings — but at the same time prevents viewing of HDTV images on any TV or device not equipped with a copyright-protected HDMI digital input. That would eliminate any gain in image quality for HDTV early-adopters who bought displays prior to two or three years ago, when DVI and HDMI digital inputs were introduced.

Eklund noted that Sony’s key piracy concern isn’t with analog HDTV signals but with the digital HDTV signal coming off the disc, which both Blu-ray and HD DVD are protecting with the robust Advanced Access Content System (AACS) endorsed by the Hollywood studios. If analog copying does become a problem down the road, the policy could change, he said — but for now, “we have no plan to implement the Image Constraint Token. All of Sony’s titles will come out of the analog output at full definition.” He added that other studios still have the discretion to activate the token for all or individual titles.

Why is this important? My friend Willie blogged about this a few weeks ago:

Gina’s dad moved into a smaller house back in January and so didn’t have room for his 55″ projection HDTV anymore. He bought a nice 30″ flat-panel LCD HDTV and was generous enough to give us the old set. We quickly made room for it and have been enjoying high-definition goodness for weeks now.

On a screen that large, there is a stark difference between standard-definition and high-definition programming. Our DVD collection looks great in widescreen, but the movies aren’t as clear as what we can watch on HBO HD. Consequently, I’ve been keeping up on the development of high-definition DVD players more closely lately. This article on the SciFi Tech blog confirmed something I had feared for several weeks now: people who were excited about high-definition early on are going to be left out in the cold.

Good news for Willie and other early adopters. And everyone really. Kudos to Sony.

All our family has been enjoying the Olympics this year on the new HDTV. While there are some occasional problems with the video and audio, on the whole the high-def broadcasts have been a huge improvement over the old SD we’ve been used to.

One of the many hundreds of engineers NBC has employed to make it all happen has been blogging the experience, and answering questions from the hard-core HDTV geeks on the AVSForum. He provides unique insight into how it all happens.

HD Olympics Blog - start at the bottom to read the entries in chronological order.

This just in:

Turner Network Television (TNT) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with DIRECTV, Inc. to provide customers with the high-definition (HD) feed of TNT. The service will launch on DIRECTV on Friday, Feb. 17 and will be available on DIRECTV channel 75. The 24/7 HD presentation of the TNT East Coast feed will offer DIRECTV’s customers a wide range of dramatic programming in HDTV format, including sports such as live NBA games and NASCAR races; series; movies; and TNT Originals.

Great news!

Next up: getting the National Geographics new high-def channel.

According to the National Geographics Web site,

National Geographic Channel High Definition (NGCHD) is not currently offered by DIRECTV. Please call 877-77NGCHD (877-776-4243) to request that NGCHD be added to your channel line-up!

I just called the number, after listening to a pre-recorded message, they transferred me to DirecTV to make the request. And was then stuck in DirecTV’s automated phone hell.

Here’s an interesting article about preparations for high-definition broadcasting from this year’s Super Bowl.

In addition to just about every camera being high-definition, there is some interesting prototype technology being used.

ABC Sports will field test the Sony advanced prototype HD super slo-mo camera system, according to Robert Willox, director of marketing for content creation at Sony Electronics. He said the world’s first 3x super slo-mo camera captures video at 180 fps in multiple HD formats, from 720p to 1080i, “so the camera will be useful for NBC or CBS the next time they air the Super Bowl.” Several engineers from the Sony design center in Atsugi, Japan, will baby-sit the prototype during game, according to Willox. Sony also is providing its Cinealta HDW-F900 camera, which will shoot HD 1080p at 24 fps for archive material to be created by NFL Films.

Cool stuff. Hopefully we can get the network waivers we’ve requested via DirecTV to allow us access to the west coast high-definition network feeds (we’ve been unsuccessful at getting the local channels over the air). Otherwise, we’ll be stuck watching the game in standard definition.

More news today of additional LCD manufacturing capacity, this time from a joint venture between Panasonic, Hitachi, and Toshiba, and sooner than originally scheduled. Previous announcements of capacity increases in the last few weeks were made by Sharp, Samsung, LG. This added capacity will accelerate the price drops seen over the past few months.

Meanwhile, production of traditional CRT displays continues to be eliminated in the US and Taiwan as demand drops.

The trend makes sense - flat-screen TVs are so much more convenient, and coupled with HDTV quality, why would anyone go with CRT?

We’ll be replacing the 19″ CRT in the bedroom with an LCD HDTV, probably around 27″ - 32″, sometime this year. Also, we’ll probably replace the 27″ CRT (Proton) that Alex is using with the PS2, probably around the time the PS3 comes out.

When I was younger, a favorite TV show was Hogan’s Heroes. Kind of a silly show, but the characters were fun, and the stories entertaining.

HDNet is a high-definition channel available on DirecTV with some original content, as well as a few shows from the past. One is Hogan’s Heroes, which they broadcast in full 1080i high-definition glory. Since it was filmed (like just about any TV show up until the past few years, and many still are), the original source material can be captured in high-definition.

What a joy it is to see the show I remember from my youth, but now in full color, high resolution, and no commercials! Alex really likes it, so we watch it together several times a week - conveniently recorded for us on our high-definition DirecTV Tivo using a Season Pass we’ve setup.

I’m hopeful that more of the old TV shows will be broadcast in high definition in the future - classics like The Dick Van Dyke Show, the various Bob Newhart shows, Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, Seinfeld, Cheers…

Sci Fi Wire has news today that there could be a Serenity sequel.

As background for those unfamiliar with Serenity or Firefly, Firefly is a TV series, science fiction of course, from 2002. IMDB reports there were 15 episodes. Here’s the plot outline:

In the distant future, Captain Malcolm ‘Mal’ Reynolds is a renegade former interstellar officer now turned smuggler/rogue whom is the commander of a small spacecraft with a loyal hand-picked crew making up of first mate Zoe Warren; pilot Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburn; gung-ho grunt Jayne Cobb; engineer Kaylee Frye; rogue scientist Simon Tam and his psychic sister River, where they travel the far reaches of space in search of food, money, and anything to live off on.

My son Alex and I saw Serenity in the theater this fall, and loved it. Here’s the IMDB plot outline of the movie:

River Tam and her brother Simon are hiding out from the totalitarian government that experimented with River’s brain aboard the space-freighter Serenity. Captained by a down on his luck, no faith soldier, the crew of Serenity must take jobs (legal or not) while avoiding the Alliance, and keeping the Tams safe. But when things get out of hand with the true extent of River’s powers, the Alliance sends a new Operative to make sure what River knows doesn’t get out. How will the crew of Serenity deal with this new threat? And what exactly does River know that the Operative is willing to kill for?

Since seeing the movie we’ve been watching Firefly reruns (we’ve got Tivo Season Pass grabbing all broadcast episodes), and we’re both hooked. Great stories, the acting is good, and I like the fresh approach they take to the idea of humans settling the galaxy - much less utopian than say Star Trek.

I’m going to buy the Serenity DVD, once it is available in high definition (I’m not buying any more low-def DVDs). And Alex and I will be hoping that a Serenity sequel will get the green light.

[Update]

This story quotes Firefly/Serenity creator Josh Whedon saying that rather than a Serenity sequel, a return of the Firefly series to TV is more likely.

Either a sequel or return to TV would be fine by me.

There are many announcements and cool new products showing at the CES in Las Vegas. Huge 103″ HDTVs, Blu-Ray and HD DVD players, wannabe iPod killers, gadgets, computers, etc.

Here’s some links to sites with news:

Endgadget has lots of news, and is live-blogging many of the keynotes and presentations.
HD Beat
Popular Mechanics
CES 2006 Web site

We got a 61″ Samsung DLP (the 6168 model, 1080P) for the family Christmas present last month. Wonderful TV, incredible picture… Hi-Def rocks!

The 2006 CES show is underway, and Samsung has announced their next generation HDTVs. Very cool.

I’m happy with our TV though, and glad we got it… these new models won’t be available for several months, and prices won’t start falling until the fall. In the meantime, we’ve got a great TV.