Suburban Senshi IRC Chat #845: “Your Pixels are Illegal”
#845: “Your Pixels are Illegal”


[00:12] *** Sat Jul 23 2005 - LOGGING START ***
[00:12] *** Now talking in #suburbansenshi
[00:12] *** Topic is -= Big Media Sucks =-

[00:13] <FireFly_9> I curse whoever made that fuku disintegrate in the wind.
[00:13] <GERMATOID> BUT THAT WAS ONE OF THE HOTTEST PICTURES ON 4CHAN....
[00:13] <FireFly_9> I am your *daughter*.
[00:14] <@S.X. Aino> Any~ways... I was thinking of buying pop a new LCD monitor as a gift when he gets back for his art.
[00:14] <FireFly_9> Oh wonderful </sarcasm> Like we need more pictures of sempai..
[00:14] <GERMATOID> DON'T BUY ONE, SAKURA-KUN
[00:14] <@S.X. Aino> Why not?
[00:15] * GERMATOID WILL LET HOTARU-CHAN PASTE IT BECAUSE READING IT IN ALL CAPS WOULD BE PAINFUL
[00:15] <FireFly_9> But I have to read it in all caps when you PM me T_T
[00:16] <GERMATOID> MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
[00:16] * FireFly_9 reads
[00:16] <FireFly_9> Good grief.
[00:16] <@S.X. Aino> Spill, Hotaru-P!
[00:17] <FireFly_9> Sure, monitors can get a bit dated (think dirty beige 14-inch CRT), but when have you had to upgrade your monitor to avoid functional problems in the new OS?
[00:17] <FireFly_9> That all changes with Longhorn.
[00:17] <GERMATOID> LONGHORN = MICROSOFT VISTA == THE NEXT WINDOWS OS
[00:17] * @S.X. Aino knows
[00:18] <FireFly_9> With Longhorn, Microsoft will begin pushing opium. Well, technically it’s OPM. However, opium might be a good option for those livid that the video content being sent to their pristine 24-inch Dell LCD monitors is purposefully being “fuzzied”
[00:18] <FireFly_9> OPM performs two main functions. First, it detects the capabilities of the display devices attached to the computer. For instance, does the DVI LCD monitor that you’re using have HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)? Second, it manages what, if anything, gets sent to those devices.
[00:19] <@S.X. Aino> Soo...?
[00:20] <FireFly_9> Whether you’re plunking down money for one of the new ultra-fast LCD displays with 4ms response times or you’re becoming the envy of neighborhood with Dell’s UltraSharp 2405FPW widescreen display, you’re buying a monitor [without HDCP] that won’t play nice with premium content in Longhorn.
[00:21] <FireFly_9> So what will happen when you try to play premium content on your incompatible monitor? If you’re “lucky”, the content will go through a resolution constrictor. The purpose of this constrictor is to down-sample high-resolution content to below a certain number of pixels. The newly down-sampled content is then blown back up to match the resolution of your monitor. This is much like when you shrink a JPEG and then zoom into it. Much of the clarity is lost. The result is a picture far fuzzier than it need be.
[00:21] <@S.X. Aino> Well that's just uncromulent...
[00:22] <FireFly_9> Apparently it gets worse. They don't have to let the screen be fuzzy. They can just black screen it utterly with a message that says the content is not authorized.
[00:22] <FireFly_9> “But I use VGA with my monitor,” you say. Too bad. Unless you upgrade your monitor, you too will be hoping your content provider opted for the blurry-but-visible protection mechanism.
[00:23] <FireFly_9> To be fair – it’s not just Microsoft. The next generation of digital content will, by and large, be protected to the display. Recently Toshiba released their HD-DVD specifications and have dictated HDMI/HDCP as a display requirement for playing back high-definition content. Most expect Blu-ray to have similar restrictions.
[00:24] <@S.X. Aino> Ergh, I guess I'll hold off then, until this HDMI thing comes in or DVD-Jon pulls another miracle out of his debugger.
[00:25] <@S.X. Aino> Or just tell pop not to upgrade to Longhorn, Vista whatevers
[00:26] <FireFly_9> Isn't it wonderful that even our hardware betrays us?
[00:26] <GERMATOID> ACTUALLY ATI CARDS HAVE HARDWARE ENFORCED MACROVISION FOR AGES
[00:29] <// J_Daito //> see people
[00:29] <// J_Daito //> this is why my 386 owns you all
[00:30] <GERMATOID> SO LIKE WHAT WAS THE LAST VIDEO YOU WATCHED ON YOUR COMPUTER
[00:30] <// J_Daito //> pac-man
[00:31] <@S.X. Aino> ROFL
[00:31] <// J_Daito //> Quiey sneaky future girl
[00:31] <// J_Daito //> ^quiet
[00:35] *** @S.X. Aino [user-999who@TARDIS6787.panopticon7.gallifrey.sen] has quit IRC ("I know not with what monitors the videos of 2000 will be watched, but the videos of 2050 will be seen on etch-a-sketches" -- Sakura Xadium Aino, just now)
[00:36] <GERMATOID> BIG MEDIA SAYS YOUR EYES ARE AN UNACCEPTABLE ANALOG HOLE, ALL BABIES WILL HAVE DIGITAL EYES IMPLANTED AT BIRTH
[00:36] *** Disconnected
[00:36] *** Sat Jul 23 2005 - LOGGING END ***


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