The Dark Side of HDCP - Why is My PS3 Blinking?

FloatsomNJetsom writes "High Definition Content Protection is supposed to make sure you're not playing pirated content, but sometimes your devices screw up the HDCP 'handshake' (over an HDMI cable) and nothing works. This happens with some regularity with the PS3, and Popular Mechanics investigated and found a quick and dirty workaround. From the article: 'We then checked with Leslie Chard, president of HDMI Licensing, which owns the rights to the standard, who told us that HDCP is one component of HDMI that has been plagued with interoperability issues. HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) is designed to prevent the interception of data — specifically copyrighted Hollywood movies — between an output component and a display. As Steve Balough, the president of Digital Content Protection, the licensing company for HDCP explains, the two pieces of hardware must exchange a key, a sort of certificate of authenticity unique to each individual device, to verify a secure connection.' The problem isn't limited to the PS3 — many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem. The fix there? Unplugging the power cable."

why so onerous, technology?

It's a pity -- the articles roll in every day about yet another speedbump in the DRM saga and how DRM and "protection" in general makes consumers' lives miserable. Of course it's no surprise (to me), just a disappointment. Imagine if the energy spent trying to hogtie the general (and 99%+ totally honest and willing to purchase) consumer were instead applied to making the technology even better?

Making the technology even better rather than harder would only improve the landscape for everyone. TV would look better, content would be easier to deliver and use. Bang for the buck would be better. Access to everyone for things like "high-def" (pick your favorite pseudo-standard) would not be limited to just those with $5-10,000 to toss (with no guarantee your picture will be better, or even viewable).

Instead it's just one more betrayal.

Consider the very first CD player I purchased in 1983. I paid, well, I won't say how much I played for player that could only play one CD at at time. But it was heady stuff even back then. The player had a "pitch" slider to change the pitch of the music (though it also correspondingly sped up and slowed down the track to accommodate). It had the ability to program the songs in any order, and even program the starting time offset into a track, and stopping offset into a track.

And!, on the back, a 9-pin DIN out (I think that was the configuration), with the only mention in the user's manual for that output as "reserved for future use"! I couldn't have been more excited. I brought friends over and showed them the exciting new technology... they just drooled at the sight.

And I always saved the "for future use" output as the hook... I described digital output where liner notes, lyrics, all kinds cool things (of course including the de rigeur track information) would be output in some form that could be put up on a display, TV or otherwise. I 'splained how the digital format worked and how much storage there was available for all kinds of "future use" enhancements.

And, it never happened. The promise of excellent technology, never delivered. And (I've posted on this before), the notion of track info associated with CD technology didn't emerge until we, the people, did it ourselves! with CDDB!

Instead, newer generations of technology included increasingly large percentages of "slice" dedicated to controlling our use of the media, not improving the quality of our experience.

I say fork 'em.

Maybe one good thing will come of all of this -- people may get so fed up and annoyed with trying to get their newfangled entertainment setups to work right (or at all), they give up, buy a bicycle, or some hiking shoes, and get outdoors and see a different world... maybe even one with more return on investment.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

I say fork 'em.

I think you misspelled "fuck." If you're going to curse, do it properly!

No, "Fork them". As in, take a fork and repeatedly stab it into a sensitive portion of their anatomy.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

Heh, I like the Informative mods. "Hey, that's a great idea! And I'll get so many fewer STDs that way!"

Re:why so onerous, technology?

No, "Fork them". As in, take a fork and repeatedly stab it into a sensitive portion of their anatomy.

Or as in Fork their process and create a clone?

I'd rather not Fork DRM. :) One process is enough.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

Reminds me of a joke...

It seems that a Frenchman, an Englishman and an American were captured by cannibals. The chief explained that they were going to be killed, skinned, eaten and that a canoe would be made from their tanned hides. BUT they could have one last wish.

So the Frenchman wanted a last cigarette. As soon as he was done with it, they killed him, they skinned him, they cooked him and ate him and they made a canoe from his hide.

The Englishman wanted a last cuppa tea. As soon as he was done with it, they killed him, they skinned him, they cooked him and ate him and they made a canoe from his hide.

Then they camne to the American. "I want a fork," he said.

Incredulous, they asked "A fork? Like you eat with?"

"Yes, a fork," he insisted. So they brought him a fork.

As soon as he received the fork, he started wildly stabbing himself all over his body.

"Canoe?" he shouted, "Here's your fucking canoe!"

Re:why so onerous, technology?

Or maybe he's just one of those people who doesnt like to use profanity in a public forum.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

"Then don't use it. If you mean "fuck" writing "fork" or "f**k" or whatever doesn't change anything - you meant to swear and everyone who reads it knows you meant to swear."

If everyone who reads it knows what was meant, what is the harm?

Don't be a rectal orifice.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

Except many "net nanny" filters block the sites that use the real words. So to be polite and allow people to read the site at work or at the library or wherever they may be that may have filters on - it is normal to use a substitute. But I find it funny that in a discussion about DRM restricting how people use technology you chose to tell an "author" of a comment how or how not he should write his own comments. Maybe just let the net be free and see what comes of it? Probably MySpace - but hey - we can't win them all...

Re:why so onerous, technology?

It seems to me that the minds who work on DRM probably aren't all that brilliant. Most of the truly gifted people realize that there's no good way to implement it, and shy away from it. Judging from the amount of obvious holes, catastrophic bugs, and general suckiness of most DRM solutions to date, I'd guess that most of the people working on them are not brilliant programmers, but rather people we'd rather not have writing our device drivers in the first place.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

people may get so fed up and annoyed with trying to get their newfangled entertainment setups to work right (or at all), they give up, buy a bicycle, or some hiking shoes, and get outdoors and see a different world... maybe even one with more return on investment.

Well, people want to be more immersed in their games, and that's as good an idea as any. The way people drive these days, being outdoors is like being on the sidelines of a Burnout game. And the resolution is much better than 1080p.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

Hmm, the article plus your comment makes me realize that the number of features/functionality is actually going down (despite what is advertised)...the quality of the products has fallen dramatically...and the likelihood of them working is next to nothing.

Isn't the logical and absurd conclusion of that going to be a smallish curvy box (with several hundred listed features that aren't yet enabled) with a single button on it, that when pressed will do nothing...and it might actually fail to do that right? The one greatest achievement however, is that it'll be really tough for pirates to duplicate the remarkable ability for the device to do absolutely nothing. As a real twist, once it is cracked by the pirates, it'll perform better than the consumer version by far...even though it still doesn't do anything.

Hmm, add a couple another button, a video screen, and that somebody will put linux on it someday, and it's a Zune!

Re:why so onerous, technology?

"and that reason isnt to screw some mythical abberant 1% of the population."

No not at all, and perhaps that's a misconception. People aren't concerned about ridiculous copy protection just as a theoretical exercise, it's more practical than that.

Copy Protection (so called DRM) exists to segment the market artificially. If you buy a CD, the record company would strongly prefer that the only thing you do to it is listen to it in a CD player. In their view, putting the music on an iPod, on a home network, etc is against their use rules and they feel you should pay more for it. After all, you're getting more use without them getting more money. DRM is a way to make sure you only use it where they intend.

Same way with DVD's. While people would buy VHS and DVD to watch movies at home, the use is more complex with computers, iPod video players (zunes!), and home networking. Again, to them, this is a way to segment the market and create scarcity where none exists.

There is a multi-billion dollar industry around ringtones! Imagine if you could just rip your CD and put it on your phone! Why...that would be more money the consumer would have and less the record company would have!

To the record companies, the CD was a big blunder. Not only does it have excellent sound (which they are already charging us extra!) but you can repurpose the music to suit your needs from home stereo, to cars, to personal music players to phones, to what else is new next week. And they don't get any more money.

Yes yes, people will make illegal copies, but this loss is peanuts compared to what they see as new markets made possible by stopping you from copying your own music to another medium.

and, I don't have a problem with them trying to get more money for the same music over and over. I do have a problem when we have the government essentially on the take to support this model. It certainly doesn't benefit me as a consumer, and apparently it doesn't benefit the artist either (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-05-1 6-royalties-main_x.htm).

So your argument is superficially convincing, nonetheless, I think it's not the real reason for copy protection and DRM.

Re:why so onerous, technology?

And, it never happened. The promise of excellent technology, never delivered. And (I've posted on this before), the notion of track info associated with CD technology didn't emerge until we, the people, did it ourselves! with CDDB!

Have to correct you here. This technology showed up with CD-Text in 1996. I have a disc that supports it (On the floor at the boutique, Lo Fi Allstars if you're wondering) and it will display track info on certain players (my sony car cd deck from circa 2000 supported it) but the format just never really caught on. According to this unofficial CD-text Faq here http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/cdtext.htm/ [web.ncf.ca] Nearly every Sony CD released since 1997 supports it, but it's not advertised and few CD decks bother supporting the format.

Yup

I have a JVC 5U D-VHS deck with HDMI out the back. This is connected to a Sony HD-20 digital projector via HDMI. While these units use an older HDMI spec, they also show serious handshaking problems - often in the middle of displaying content. Not only does it take seconds to handshake, but right in the middle of a movie the screen might go blank and then I'll have to yank the power plug on the VCR to renegotiate. Fortunately, with the PJ I can just switch to other inputs to clear out whatever cruft is confusing its HDMI interface.

The PJ and deck are about three years old. I assumed these handshake issues had long been dealt with. Apparently not. So... the DRM is more than just a PITA. It's plain broken.

The hilarious part...

All of this wonderful copy protection stuff doesn't actually stop piracy. Wasn't it just a day or two ago that there was a rip of an HD-DVD on BitTorrent? So why incorporate all these complex and onerous technologies when, in the end, all they do is make it so your paying customers have buggy hardware?

 

I refuse to believe this.

No way. DRM is conflicting with fair use of digital content?
*gasp* Who'd have guessed?

You want to have your movies and play them too?!

How unreasonable can you people be? I mean, after all, the companies are *entitled* to your money. You should just be lucky that they give you anything in return. Ungrateful, good-for-nothing consumers. Hmph!

Whats worse, HDCP crypto is a joke...

It was reverse engineered and proved to be the biggest joke around. ROT13 would be a better method. But it doesn't matter, as it is for DMCA anticircumvision reasons, not real security.

dyslexia

Am I the only one who misread this as DHCP?

Re:dyslexia

I hear that's a very sexy learning disability...

news flash: cheap product has problems

The 37W3 is about the cheapest 1080p LCD you can get, so one wonders if westinghouse (or more specifically, whatever chinese company actually built it) just cut corners left and right. You buy cheap stuff, you have to expect some problems.

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

I always wondered who arbitrarily decided that cheap stuff deserves not to work. The way I see it, if I paid my money for something I would expect functionality out of it regardless.

Case in point; I bought a Linksys WRK-54G 8 months ago (VERY cheap), and later discovered that despite paying good money for it the product was totally worthless as a router. Wireless connections dropped every hour or so, the box needed a hard reset every day and it wouldn't cope with any more then about 250 pipes without crashing. Needless to say it got returned a week later.

As consumers why should we accept that cheap automatically means defective? Have our standards dropped so far that we don't even expect our money to go supply functional products without paying a premium?

Re:news flash: cheap product has problems

The problem is, those cheap products shouldn't exist at all. It something is selling for less than it costs to make and test a reilable product, it isn't likely to be one. Consumers understandably look at two boxes and see that one costs half the price of the other for the "same" functionality, and buy the cheaper one. If manufacturers were penalized for shipping defective products, there wouldn't be any overly cheap products, and all would be well in the world. Except that the guy who is broke but wants are wireless router for 1 or 2 computers and doesn't mind reseting it won't be able to buy one. I can't really say whether that is a good or a bad thing.

Part of me dreams that in a world with a minimum standard of full functionality, the prices would not be much higher, but I begin to doubt that.

dickheads

why must these DRM people be such dickheads? they do this which has no purpose other than screwing over the customer - I'll never buy any technology that would stop me from watching or playing something I've paid for. Sure it might not take that long to fix (taking the plug out and putting it back in until it works still could be annoying anyway) but someone above mentioned that content can be blocked out whilst you are watching (and I assume playing would work the same)... that is unforgivable.

So they screw over the customer, but at least it stops piracy so prices should be cheaper... no, that's a lie. But at least it stops "copywrite theft", right? no. They've already put one on torrent.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/18/hd-dvd_cra ck/ [theregister.co.uk]

Westinghouse or HDCP at fault?

So is the TV not up to spec or is the spec not well enough defined? I'm assuming the PS3 is not the culprit since Westinghouse is the one talking firmware upgrades. I'm just curious if this is a real HDCP issue or just a cheap TV maker not following specs (which wouldn't be the first time a 2nd or 3rd tier manufacturer has ignored specs).

WTF?!

Would you like some coffin with your nails?

Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

Since no one cares about protecting digital content picture-wise of a gaming console, why not just use DVI instead (since all HD TVs are plasma/LCD and have those inputs anyway)? If not for the PS3 (since you can watch movies), why at least the not the Xbox360?

It's also nice for folk like me who don't own a TV and use a 20 inch LCD for console gaming (still no SVideo/DVI out for my Wii though....) but I'm the niche market.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

FYI, DVI also uses HDCP. HDMI is basically pin identical to DVI, it just includes support for audio as well, so it's really the DVI spec that supports HDCP. I'm running a HDMI-DVI cable from my cable box to my Samsung DLP. Every so often when I turn on the TV after the cable box I'll catch the HDCP warning message for a brief second before it display the picture.

Re:Why not just use DVI instead of HDMI

Because the PS3 does HDCP on DVI, too, so it won't display to a non-HDCP monitor that way either. (Or through a non-HDCP console switch, etcetera; you get the idea.)

Summary correction

. As Steve Balough, the president of Digital Content Protection, the licensing company for HDCP explains, the two pieces of hardware must exchange a key, a sort of certificate of authenticity unique to each individual device, to verify a secure connection.' The problem isn't limited to the PS3 -- many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem. The fix there? Unplugging the power cable..." The summary was cut off short. The last line should have read: "Unplugging the power cable, and component cables, boxing it up and returning the half working piece of shit to the store."

The Dark Side?

The Dark Side of HDCP? I wasn't aware there was a bright one...

Re:The Dark Side?

"The Dark Side of HDCP? I wasn't aware there was a bright one..."

There is no dark side of the HDCP really, matter of fact, it's all dark....

*thump*thump.....*thump*thump.....*thump*thump.... .*thump*thump.....

--with apologies to Old Pink

NES, or "blinking toaster"

From the article

annoying little technological tic that caused the sound to cut out and the screen to blink on and off when we would launch certain games. Was it the PS3 or the Westinghouse TV?

So Sony has finally caught up to where Nintendo was in 1985, right?

That was copy protection too

The blinking effect from the NES was the copy protection check failing. The copy protection chip would reset the NES after a second if the cartridge didn't respond properly.

Melissa

Same probems happen with Cable STBs

Notably the PACE 551 HD. I had a loaner until the PVR came in, and I'd lose the HDMI connection daily with an error message stating my TV wasn't HDCP compliant (it is). I used to have my doubts about DRM. Not any more. Now I am convinced it is evil, treats consumers like criminals and is defective by design.

I don't think I'm the only one

I'm sure I'm not the only one that sees HDCP as (a) HanDiCaP. I've not used the technology in any way and I'm not trying to comment on its merits, but when I see HDCP and that's the first thing I think of, wouldn't that be some sort of marketing failure?

It is worse than that...

Ok, to start off, I have this problem with my cable box, too. If I leave the cable box on, and simply turn the tv on or off (as most people do, i bet), when I turn on the TV, the cable box tells me it couldn't establish an HDCP connection. To actually get them to handshake, both devices have to be turned on at the same time. What a bunch of BS.

The bigger problem than handshaking issues is that there are apparently multiple versions of HDMI, the latest being 1.3. Now as a consumer, how the hell am I supposed to know which version of HDMI each of my devices have? Has anyone actually seen a version number in the specs for any device? The PS3, for instance uses the 1.3 spec. If my TV uses the 1.2 spec, anything that needs to use the 1.3 spec won't display content. How are they going to explain that to the user? "well, see, the HDMI port here is actually different than the HDMI port here. They look the same, and have nothing to distinguish one from the other, but TRUST ME, there is a difference." I expect that excuse won't fly in any court should a class action case be filed. If I ever get a PS3 (after it is... oh... half the price), and it refuses to play at full resolution because my TV is only 1.2, I will be mighty pissed off. The whole HDMI/HDCP thing is totally pointless and will end up being a royal pain in the ass to everyone except the content makers.

Next Week on "24"

"Jack, you realize what this means!!"

"Yes, the terrorists have a mole in CTU. It can only be ..."

WARNING YOUR HDTV IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH HDCP!!

"... Paris Hilton. Tonight, on NEWS at 11"

How many HDCP devices will be returned?

Early adopters will be tolerant of the hicups of a new technology. They also tend to be more technical astute and will use high quality components. Can you imagine the problems that will occur when HDCP goes mainstream? When a mom buys a low end HDTV, a PS3 and the cheapest HDMI cables that Walmart sells. What's the chance that everything will work together without these issues. When kids are around, doing kid things. So the mom will return the "broken" devices. Because of the number of returns, retailers will not want to stock "defective" merchandise.

If you want something that works, wait until the copy protection schemes are broken and download the pirated copy. It's the reverse situation of the fake Rolex. The illegal copy is better than the original. This entire situation could be fixed by the abandoment of HDCP, but that isn't going to happen. As far as the PS3 goes, I guess it's broken by design.

HDCP with games? WTF??

I thought HDCP applied only with certain movies that demand it. Does this mean that everything going through the HDMI port of a PS3 is encrypted? Including what Linux displays?

If that's the case, my appreciation of DRM just went from "I couldn't like less" to "wait, I think I can". It highlights the problem that technology-enforced legislation is bound to be too greedy if it has any hope of being effective.

Acronyms?

Just a note, but did anyone else notice the discrepancy between the two acronymns? Early in the post, it's "High Definition Content Protection". Later, it's "high-bandwidth digital content protection". I believe the actual acronymn is the latter of the two.

Really, now...

Is there a "light side" of HDCP?

That's it, I'm staying with Y-Pb-Pr

So I've got a decent LCD TV with HDMI, and a satellite box with HDMI, and a DVD player that upconverts to HDMI, and the [prize] PS3 is supposed to be on its way with HDMI....

And they're all going to go through a remote-controlled component video switch I've got on order. (Currently, I'm using a manual switchbox.) I'm "opting out" of this HDCP game, I don't like the rules, and I don't want to play.

Any Blu-Ray disc I try and which doesn't play on component will go back as "defective" or "unfit for sale." The media companies want to pull these stunts on consumers, they need our co-operation for it to work. So don't play along, stay analog.

You know what? Y-Pr-Pb looks pretty damn good. Don't think you can get 1080p on it, but the Viera screen is only 768 vertical, so that doesn't matter (to me) anyways. Flat panel monitor pictures aren't "drawn" like CRTs anyway; the incoming signal is decoded to a framebuffer for driving the display.

And HDMI switches cost too much, are hard to find with digital audio switching, and I don't feel like replacing my (otherwise excellent) AV receiver because Hollywood says so.

For anyone considering a similar solution: Compare the bandwidth of co-axial digital audio and composite video (the orange RCA plug and the yellow RCA plug). They're pretty close, right? Check out the voltage and cable impedance; they're the same. What's that mean? Any AV selector switch with composite video AND component (or S) video can switch co-ax digital audio via the composite video channel. (Well, simpler ones where it doesn't try to convert composite to S or component, or put up on-screen menus or whatever.) That means there are, readily and inexpensively available, switch-boxes that don't _claim_ to have digital audio switching, but which actually work really well. I used a $30 box from Radio Shack that did S-video, composite, and left+right audio to switch S-video, digital audio, and left+right audio. (Not all laserdiscs have digital audio tracks... yeah, that makes me feel old. And the "multiroom" feature on my receiver only works with analog audio. _That_ will get me to upgrade. Hollywood get stuffed.)

Cycle the sources

I haven't had this issue with my PS3 (hooked via HDMI to a Samsung HDTV) but a friend of mine has. However he has been able to resolve it by simply pressing the 'source' button and cycling back around to the PS3 input. You don't need to power down. Re-selecting the video input seems to initiate the handshake again.

In this case the issue isn't the PS3 but rather however your television handles the HDCP handshake. As I said, mine doesn't have an issue, but I do see a brief burst of noise when a game handshakes.

Its too bad, because HDMI is a really nice connection. But HDCP is just ass. I hope Sony can do something with the firmware to alleviate the issue on these sets that 'blink'.

It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmware.

This is a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmware. If you have one of these TVs, contact Westinghouse they'll send a rep out to upgrade your firmware.

Btw, why is a TV firmware bug in the games section? (or even on Slashdot at all?) The summary even mentions that it happens between the Westinghouse TV and cable boxes and other devices.

Re:It's a known bug in the Westinghouse TV firmwar

But why the hell does playing a game require HDCP? If you were playing a movie, then I could understand the paranoia.

"Hey dude, check out this rip of me playing [insert popular game here]."

Why the hell does sony want to stop people copying game footage? It's not like you can clone the game this way.

It's westinghouse's fault.

I had consistent sync / handshake problems with a 37w1. Westinghouse blamed it on the Ps3, despite obvious evidence to the contrary (would sync fine 100% of the time on one port, but with image artifacts; would only sync 10% of the time on the other) Thankfully best buy took the set back. I tested the ps3 on every other brand I could find in store, worked fine.

Big shock, new technology is implemented shoddily by cut-rate companies.

Its not the spec!

What a lot of people don't realize, (and this comes from first hand experience) is that more often than not, failed handshaking isnt necessarily a result of the devices themselves. It tends to be because of crap quality cables.

While HDMI carries a digital signal, and thus, it carries the same visual quality regardless of the cable quality, a poorly made cable, with little or no shielding, and "leaky" connectors is going to be much more susceptible to EM interference.

If you get enough interference (it doesn't take much with a 5 dollar eBay cable), you will have occasional blackouts, etc.

I was able to solve this on 3 separate occasions for family and friends, by replacing their cheap cables with higher quality, shielded cabling.

This is why I'm not getting an HDTV

... until HDCP has been cracked well enough that I can connect any two HD components together with an unencrypted link. (Maybe the prices will be reasonable by then too.)

There's another side to HDCP?

What's the "light side"? As far as I can see it's *all* dark.

ASCII Silly question

hopefuly I wont get a silly ansi...

So does the PS3 need to enable HDCP? Can it not just send a non-protected HD signal?? Like a reg-free DVDs that don't have CSS encryption? Or do all HD devices have to use HDCP, if so does this not inflate the price as I'm sure HDCP isn't free.

Who pirates from the video cable?

In all seriousness, who pirates videos by intercepting the signal from the video cable? Maybe back in the days of analogue tape, people used to do this. But now that we have digital discs which are readable on a computer, who would bother? When I think of the enormous expense of the widespread rollout of HDCP, and think that it has basically stopped no piracy whatsoever, it seems incredibly annoying.

Ah, but the penny just dropped for me (sorry, I'm a bit slow). I guess this allows them to sell more TVs.

Not the power cable

The fix there? Unplugging the power cable."

I know no one RTA or WTV (watch the video) but this is wrong. They didn't unplug the power cable, they unplugged the HDMI cable.

Good news, this is.

The more real technical problems DRM'ed products have, the more consumers will notice. The sooner, the better. Here's to more handshaking problems!

Re:Blah,blah,blah,Zonk,FUD...

Couldn't even be bothered to read the summary could you?

"The problem isn't limited to the PS3 -- many HDTV cable boxes and have the same problem."

> The gaming world has spoken

Sounds more like one AC pissing in the wind to me.