Starting this month next year, an FCC regulation's Broadcast Flag comes into effect. Not only does it impose recording restrictions on digital TV devices that support it, but it will also outlaw the manufacturing and importing of digital TV equipment that does not support the flag. All supported digital TV recording equipment such as TiVo and PCI DVB cards must also both enforce the flag and resist any user attempt to disable or bypass it.
To ensure backwards compatibility with existing digital TV equipment, digital TV equipment that does not support the flag will still work with Flag controlled broadcasts, however the flag's restrictions have no effect in this case. As a result, the EFF has now lunched the Digital Television Liberation project to show users how to setup their own digital TV equipment, PVR's including on a PC as well as how to get non 'Broadcast Flag' capable devices before it is too late.
The Broadcast Flag, which places copy controls on DTV signals, attempts to stop people from making digitally-perfect copies of television shows and redistributing them. It also stops people from making perfectly legitimate personal copies of broadcasts. More disturbing, the Broadcast Flag will outlaw the import and manufacture of a whole host of personal video recorders (PVRs), TiVo-like devices that send DTV signals into a computer for backup, editing and playback. After the Broadcast Flag regulations go into effect, all PVR technologies must be Flag-compliant and "robust" against user modification '“ and that means, once again, that the entertainment industry is trying to tell you what you can do with your own machines. It's not too late for consumers to get their hands on Broadcast Flag-resistant PVRs. For the next year, DTV tuners can still be manufactured that make digitally-perfect recordings of broadcasts; these tuners will continue to work even after the FCC's regulation takes effect. To help people get these endangered devices before it's too late, EFF today launched the Digital Television Liberation Project. The Project aims to create a "cookbook" that teaches technically-minded (and not-so-technically-minded) people how they can whip up their own fully-capable DTV devices. "We want to open the high-definition revolution to everyone, preserving the abilities to time-shift and manipulate media that we've come to expect," said Wendy Seltzer, EFF Staff Attorney and a leader of the DTV Liberation Project. The DTV Liberation Project will use these PC-based PVRs as benchmarks, comparing the capabilities of the general-purpose computer to the limited subset of viewing options Broadcast Flag-compliant devices can offer. "When people see how many more features today's PVR has than next year's, we think they'll be as puzzled as we are by the FCC's choices to 'advance the DTV transition'," Seltzer said. The Project, which is currently seeking donations of hardware, money, and volunteers to help develop the cookbook, has already built an HD-PVR around the free software MythTV package. Seltzer will be demonstrating that machine at DefCon in late July. |
With new broadcast flag controlled equipment, it looks like it will be the end to archiving certain shows. In my opinion, it looks like this broadcast flag is designed to make more profit for the content providers. For example, a special showing (episode in a soap, comedy, etc.) could be broadcast with a flag to prohibit permanent recording in order to force consumers to purchase the showing in order to keep it.
Also, as legacy DTV equipment would still be able to record Flagged content, it would not stop the main pirates from purchasing 2nd hand digital TV recording equipment in order to circumvent the broadcast flag's restrictions. Just another example that the Broadcast Flag's main intention is to control the consumer's recording habits and not just reduce piracy.
Feel free to discuss about digital TV as well as HDTV on our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and HD-DVD Forum .
Source: Music Industry News Network
