THOMSON READIES POSITION ON DTV CONTENT PROTECTION
After “polarizing experience” for CE industry from Broadcast Protection Discussion Group report (CED June 6 p1) on content protection for DTV, Thomson said it planned to discuss issues and present its positions at news briefing planned for late Wed., after our deadline. Spokesman told us company supported “broadcast flag” but would express its concerns about content controls that flag might trigger in CE equipment, as well as its concern that single digital interface favored by some parties was not to advantage of consumers or industry.
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Thomson earlier had said its interests straddled contentious DTV arena because it’s major CE supplier and also provides services to broadcast and content industries. Spokesman told us company would repeat that assertion Wed., as well as its belief that secure digital interfaces were needed to acquire compelling programming from content owners, and thereby get ball rolling on DTV transition.
Primary digital interfaces under consideration for DTV ecosystem are High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP), and at briefing Thomson was expected to outline comparative advantages of each, and how and why they would be implemented. Spokesman said Thomson was concerned that selection -- or imposition -- of single interface would be mistake and it believed both were needed for home networking and display. “There’s a lot to be said for DVI [Digital Visual Interface, on which HDMI is based] and we'll add it to all our sets, but we'll also do some 1394 [DTCP] with the integrated DTVs,” spokesman told us, saying that HDMI would be backward compatible with DVI connection.
HDMI preliminary specification was set late last month (CED July 1 p1) for system designed to protect DTV content from unauthorized copying and redistribution, such as over Internet. Work on system, which incorporates JVC’s High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) encryption, was announced April 16 by HDMI Founders group of Hitachi, Matsushita, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson, Toshiba (www.hdmi.org).
Draft spec arrived with extraordinary swiftness, in part driven by legislative jaw-boning to get content and CE industries moving on digital rights management (DRM) impasse and get DTV transition on course. HDMI initiative has broad support from Hollywood studios such as Fox and Universal, satellite companies DirecTV and EchoStar as well as cable operators.
Functionally, HDMI combines high-definition video and multichannel audio in single digital interface connector with bandwidth of up to 5 Gbps. It transports uncompressed digital signal that would be difficult to place on Internet -- Thomson engineers estimate it would take 24 hours to upload 30-min. HDTV signal even using broadband connection. Nonetheless, content owners are wary of future improvements in broadband speed and compression technology, so HDCP encryption was added. In essence, HDMI denies signal devices with PC-type Ethernet connections. It builds on DVI technology used in PC realm, but adds CE functions while maintaining backward compatibility with DVI. HDMI has been proposed as connector for all future CE devices and as replacement for legacy analog connection. Industry observers have noted that HDMI also could clear way for multichannel digital output from DVD-Audio players, so far limited to 6-channel analog connection to home theater surround sound systems because of lack of digital copy protection as well as bandwidth limitations of 2-channel digital coaxial and optical connectors.
DTCP, provisionally endorsed by some Hollywood studios, was developed by 5-Company (5C) group of Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba. It uses fiber IEEE-1394 digital connector, also called FireWire and iLink, and can act on content providers’ commands embedded in programs to permit no copying (Copy Never), allow one digital copy (Copy Once) or to Copy Freely. It’s envisioned that Copy Never command would be applied to making recordings on removable media, such as tapes or discs, of time- sensitive pay-per-view or video-on-demand programming. But hard disc digital video recorders (DVRs) such as ReplayTV or TiVo would be permitted to record -- within limits.
As explained by 5C, content owners would allow DVR to capture program and pause it during viewing for “rolling windows” of at least 90 min. after each increment was received. For example, if 2-hour movie was paused 15 min. into viewing, increment of program beginning at 15th min. would be accessible for at least next 90 min. Same 90-min. viewing window would apply to all subsequent pauses. Content owners are free to offer less restrictive windows, but 90 min. is minimum viewing period. After increments are viewed, they no longer are accessible from DVR.
Details of which systems will be used and under what conditions are to be worked out by industries in coming months under watchful legislative eye. Thomson spokesman said content protection debate had moved beyond terrestrial TV and had become harder to resolve as “more and more ornaments are placed on the Christmas tree.” He said content interests saw upcoming discussions as “the only opportunity to get everything they want, but this makes it harder to get consensus” and jump-start terrestrial DTV: “This has been a polarizing experience for the CE business. Some companies won’t even comment on the issues. We're hoping to clarify some of those for the media and the public and thus contribute to some forward movement.”