Monday, April 5, 2004
Set-top Boxes With Restricted DVD-burners
Posted by Suhit Gupta in "NEWS" @ 05:00 PM
"Rip, Mix, Burn" will apparently not become the mantra of set-top box makers. At a Digital Hollywood panel here on Tuesday (March 30), Morse said cable companies want rewritable DVDs in future set-tops to archive video. However studios are lobbying the network providers to build a security mechanism into the DVD players. The current scheme under discussion is preventing disks made on a set-top burner from being played on any other system by linking the content to the serial number of the set-top using triple DES encryption."
So it appears that there is a push to include DVD recorders with PVRs which is great IMHO because there are a number of people that would love to make custom DVDs with their favorite shows, news, etc. And the plan, understandably so, will have some sort of security system installed that will allow you to play back the DVDs. But this security system will apparently limit you to play your DVDs on the same system. This certainly has the undesired side-effect that you are tethered to your existing cable company, otherwise you might find yourself with a bunch of custom DVDs without a player to play them in :(.
So it appears that there is a push to include DVD recorders with PVRs which is great IMHO because there are a number of people that would love to make custom DVDs with their favorite shows, news, etc. And the plan, understandably so, will have some sort of security system installed that will allow you to play back the DVDs. But this security system will apparently limit you to play your DVDs on the same system. This certainly has the undesired side-effect that you are tethered to your existing cable company, otherwise you might find yourself with a bunch of custom DVDs without a player to play them in :(.
