Apple TV / HDCP / ??

[Italianblend]

I work in a school and we are investigating the possibility of getting an ipad and an apple TV to stream music, apps, and whatever is on the screen to a projector in our auditorium.

But my colleague tells me that is illegal because of HDCP? What in the world would an apple TV be good for if you aren't able to stream content? Isn't that what the Apple TV does?

The guy in this video mentions it but I still don't understand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XFaf1BhplA

Is this setup not going to work for our school?

 

[slothrob]

HDCP, to the best of my understanding, is just a copy-protection scheme, and doesn't have much to do with your case, unless you tried to use a projector with the aTV that didn't support HDCP and thus prevented the two from connecting (the dreaded "HDCP Handshake").

What would make this potentially illegal is that you might be considering showing things that you do not have the rights to publicly display, like music or films. You might be covered by the face to face teaching exemption, but I don't know much about these legalities.

 

[faroZ06]

Is this setup not going to work for our school?

I don't think this is going to be a problem. You'll get a deadly HDCP error message if you try to watch movies on a non-HDCP-compliant projector. It's total BS because HDCP is meant to prevent copying, but there are workarounds anyway, so it usually ends up killing innocent users' TV setups and not preventing piracy. I don't think HDCP applies to AirPlay-streamed stuff, but it surely does for the movies rented/bought on the ATV. I don't think it would affect you.

I had this problem with movies, so I bought a box that strips the HDCP from here: http://amzn.com/dp/B0033039BG/ref=a...iveASIN=B0033039BG&adid=1QBJYRCJYH4JWM88WZPA&
It may be pulled from the market soon, but I got it in time.