I just saw a short (and rather vague) news story about the FCC and movie studios. The FCC has given the go-ahead to studios to use anti-piracy technology in TV sets to prevent duplication of first run movies. I have the impression this applies to pay per view movies on cable/satellite services. However, I wonder if this applies to Blu-ray as well.
A lot of HDTV owners have been dreading the day if or when the Image Constraint Token would be used on Blu-ray discs to limit component video output to only 480p or even block it completely. IMHO, applying the ICT feature would be a really big mistake and only serve to penalize honest customers with older HDTV sets who bought the disc. I don't know how many Blu-ray disc movies have been successfully cracked and put onto the Internet, but the idea that any have been cracked and uploaded would seem to make "plugging the analog hole" (limiting or eliminating component output) a pointless and possibly sales killing act.
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