[opendtv] Re: HDCP 2.2

  • From: Mike Tsinberg <Mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 15:31:27 +0000

From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Craig Birkmaier
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 8:20 AM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: HDCP 2.2

On Sep 22, 2014, at 10:44 PM, Mike Tsinberg 
<Mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Craig wrote:

From the content owners perspective, distributing 4K is akin to sending out 
your masters. Clearly, they want this stuff well protected, and do not expect 
people to buy 4k content to view on an HD display.

I think this is a key. Protecting 4K is fine but not making HDCP 2.2 backward 
compatible is totally different. That means quite expesnive 4K displays bought 
in 2013 will not work with UHD content generated in 2015. Moreover out of five 
AV receivers companies only one support HDCP 2.2. AV receivers have a longer 
live span in consumer home then display. I presume HDCP 2.2 AV receivers will 
only arrive next year. That means Home theaters installed in 2014 will only be 
able to view 4K HDCP 2.2 content when they switch the AV receiver 3 or 4 years 
later – 2017? This issue also adds to lack of bandwidth for most of the 
streaming channels to send 4K. So lack of bandwidth plus backward 
incompatibility creating consumer resistance is quite a high bar for content 
providers to jump in order to create and broadcast 4K content.

Two things.
First, if there is no significant consumer market, does it really matter?
[Mike] CE are pushing 4K very hard and they want to create that new market. But 
similarly to 3D it seems content creators and distributors are not so 
interested.

Second, the same thing happened with HD content protection. The standards 
changed several times before finally settling on HDMI with HDCP.

So a small videophile audience for 4k could emerge in the consumer space.

I am not sure who fill fin ace that audience. It almost seems Hollywood 
insistence on backwards incompatible HDCP for “native” 4K content is an attempt 
to delay emergence of that format for as log as possible.

Perhaps. Remember, disruptive forces killed BluRay as a successor to DVD. Now 
discs don't have much of a future.

The focus should be on the proper selection of emission resolution and encoding 
to assure that the samples that reach the decoder are of the highest quality. 
In bandwidth constrained distribution channels this means LOWERING resolution 
to maintain image quality. Strange but true...bigger is not always better in 
our digital world.

Regards
Craig

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