Much Ado About HDMI
A lot of people unknowingly assume that the future of consumer electronics is a predetermined path that has been laid out for the next several years. After all, there are product roadmaps, development plans, and long term agreements in place. In reality there is not one long term plan, but hundreds that, for the most part, work against each other. This is the nature of business. Such is the case with HDMI this week.
First, a little background. The HDMI interface encrypts the video signal, and is therefore considered safe and trusted by the major Hollywood movie studios. Component video, on the other hand, is unencrypted analog video. It is therefore considered a security risk, or as Hollywood calls it, the ‘analog hole‘. One of the options that has made it’s way into both Blu-Ray disc and HD-DVD is the Image Constraint Token, or ICT. The idea being that if the ICT flag is set on a given disc, the ‘analog hole’ will either output only low resolution video, or shut off completely. This would force the consumer to buy a new HDTV display if the one they have currently does not have an HDMI (or DVI with HDCP) input, just to enjoy a prerecorded HD movie. The other obvious implication is that all attached equipment, from AV receivers, switches, distribution amps, scalers, and so on, would all require full HDMI+HDCP interfaces. Recently Sony Pictures and a few other studios have said they would not use the ICT flag for now, and reports from early HD-DVD users confirms that the ICT flag is not being used.
All of this is supposedly to prevent video piracy. In reality, there is no consumer equipment that can record HDMI or analog component video, encrypted or not, so as Shakespeare put it, this is “Much Ado About Nothing”.
Now to the recent news. First, some news out of the E3 show on the Sony Playstation 3. Both IGN.com and Arstechnica.com are reporting there will be two versions, one with and one without HDMI. This of course means that without an HDMI port on the lower cost model, should the ICT flag be used, potentially millions of PS3s would not be able to play the Blue-Ray discs, or at least in HD. Surely Sony would do everything in it’s power to prevent an outrage with it’s users, especially if they are hoping for the Blu-Ray disc format to be successful.
This move by Sony is not entirely surprising. The Xbox360 does not have an HDMI port either. Since the Xbox360 does not have an internal HD-DVD drive, Microsoft recently announced an external HD-DVD drive, which will attach to the main console through a USB 2.0 cable. That would mean the only available video output is analog component video. Surely Microsoft would not expect you to buy a HD-DVD add on for your console, and leave it up to Hollywood if it will do HD or not.
Second item is less news and more rumor. Arstechnica is now quoting a German publication on an apparent agreement between Hollywood, Sony, Microsoft, and others to not use the ICT flag until 2010 or 2012. Personally I don’t think there is any plan on an exact date that the ICT flag will be used. A more logical plan would be to take a wait and see approach. If consumer devices start showing up that can record HD analog video, then the ICT could be used to thwart those devices. However knowing that the capability is there, why would anyone design a consumer device for that purpose. It’s lifespan would be cut short by Hollywood’s use of the ICT.
So my question is, will the ICT flag ever be used, and will analog component video ever go away?
Now these are only the copy protection implications that would be caused by forcing consumers to digital video. Combine these issues with the technical ones of cable length, and compatibility, and it makes much more business sense to allow component video to stay around for a while, at least for consumer electronics manufacturers. So although Silicon Image would like to see rapid adoption of HDMI and it’s encryption HDCP, and while Hollywood needs wide deployment of HDMI in order to begin using the ICT flag, the manufacturers do not have any great reason to do so, as long as the ICT flag does not come into play. With an HDMI port missing on the PS3, as well as the Xbox360, we may have reached a point of equilibrium, until the next round of game consoles is unveiled, probably around 2010 to 2012.
Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is a story of two lovers that were setup to distrust each other, which was blown out of proportion causing many people to change their entire plan, and one of the lovers to apparently die in anguish. In the end, it was discovered that they were both mislead, and in fact no one had died, After all, it was “nothing”.