LDTV - The Wave of the future.
I was just looking through the glut of hardware that makes up my handheld media system. My IPod Video, PocketPC computer, Neuros 442 video player, Treo video phone, and Playstation Portable. It occured to me that they all play video, but none of them are HDTV.

I started wondering why we care so much about HDTV.

The US government has decreed that we will move all TV signals to HDTV by 2006. The media conglomerates have tried twice to ram legislation through congress that will make it impossible to record HDTV, and half of the people who have HDTV systems think they are watching it, without actually having the systems hooked up properly.

That means half the people who have HDTV only think they're watching HDTV, while they are, in fact, only watching normal TV.

In fact, Hollywood doesn't even want HDTV. Turns out, when you see a movie star in the Megapixels view, you can see their skin imperfections. They look more human, presumably. This, of course, scares the hell out of Hollywood.

So why are we in such a hurry to get HDTV? Every time I've seen it, I've said, "Okay. The picture is clearer than normal. Of course, it doesn't make the movie any better."

Every one of the media viewers I own has the capability to play video at 320x240. And believe me, at 30 frames per second, 320x240 is plenty for a handheld device.

What's more, the compression savings are a godsend. I can get the typical 1.5 hour movie into 450megs at 320x240. That means I can store just about 9 movies (or 13.5 hours) of video on one DVD. 13.5 hours is enough space to store all the Lord of the Rings movies and still have room for the Rankin-Bass versions! (whoa, really showed my geek stripes there)

So that's what I'm doing. I'm letting the whole HDTV movement pass me by. I'm not going to be one of the early adopters who buys a $3,000 TV just so I can get smaller pixels. Instead, I'm going to convert all my DVDs to low res, cut my DVD collection to 1/10th it's size, and carry my videos with me wherever I go.

I think I'd enjoy being the world's first Low-Def Television Missionary.
- posted by BrandG @ 12:37 AM 0 comments

 
Sony's rootkit 'Hot Coffee'
Tags:Sony rootkit GTA Grand Theft Auto Hot Coffee ITunes


Sony is probably one of the biggest backers for Take Two, and GTA in particular. Every GTA game that has come out so far, debuted on a Sony System. So it could be said that Sony has a pretty close relationship with those guys.

It could also be said that Rockstar made a big mistake when it left critically dangerous code (now called 'Hot Coffee') in its game. When they put the Hot Coffee minigame in there, they took out the reference to it, thus removing it in practice without removing it in fact.

Now, in an odd moment of serendipity, it looks like Sony has done the same thing with their DRM software.

It turns out that the (now infamous) Sony rootkit employs code which came from DVD Jon, and was used to circumvent Apple's DRM software. The code from DVD Jon was released under the GPL, which means that in this case, Sony would have to publish the fact that they used this code.

Now, I'm not going to go after them because they broke copyright with their rootkit. That ground has already been covered. What I find funny is the news today about what they're doing with it.

It turns out that Sony had code that would allow ITunes to play their music, but only on the one computer. Of course, that meant hacking the Apple DRM in order to do it.

So, the story of the day would have been "Sony breaks copyrights twice in order to protect their copyrights". But that isn't the story at all. Because Sony took that function out.

Possibly at the last minute, Sony removed the call to their "ITunes enabling" code, thus leaving the functionality out, but not actually removing that code.

So, much like the way Rockstar accidentally leaked a "Hot Coffee" game, now Sony is accidentally leaking a "Hack ITunes" game.

Honestly, what Sony is doing behind our backs really makes the whole "Hot Coffee" scandal seem timid, sad, and tame.

Now, surely Hillary Clinton and all the anti-videogame people will come screaming for blood from people who actually do harm to peoples computers, data, privacy, and content. I'm just waiting to hear them start investigations of Sony.

Any minute now. . .
- posted by BrandG @ 9:06 PM 0 comments