Really? How many people really care if their content has HDCP encryption or not? Most people aren't even watching movies on their VGA monitors anymore. Most people watch via their idevices or their AppleTV's anymore and those who are "advanced enough" to use an HTPC wouldn't connect via VGA since they would want the best image possible (i.e. DVI/HDMI). You are very much in the minority anymore. The more time progresses, the less analog connections are going to be used making this issue less and less of a problem. In the end, no one will care....
And you may think Apple has the pull to tell the studies to go "f@#$ themselves" and not cave to HDCP, they don't. iTunes is such a small amount of part of their overall revenue stream they wouldn't care. What would they lose 1%, 5%? So they make once less crappy $200 million dollar movie a year, that's how much Apple means to them...
It's my personal laptop, not an HTPC. I'm sorry I don't have every adapter and a matching 25' cable for my MBP. The VGA works well with anybody's laptop, and the analog audio allows us to split it and screw around with it as we like. I also have VGA adapters since that's what my school uses on all the screens around campus, so on the occasion I need to hook up to one, I'm all set. I can hook up to anything from my own 22" screen to a 46" one in the library, to a 20-30 foot one in some of the lecture halls.
Then Apple should have told the studios what to do, and if they refused, make it a public feud and tell everyone that the movie studios had a hissy fit, and wouldn't let them rent HD movies. It's not like Apple hasn't picked fights before.
It is the proper implementation of HDCP and its
designed to prevent exactly what you want to do. It has nothing to do with the quality of content once it reaches your monitor, it is supposed to protect the content from Source to Display - in this case, from stored on your hard drive to the monitor.
The fact that you have an analog display doesn't mean that you are excluded from the HDCP requirement to play the content. It is part of their system requirements to play HD content from iTunes.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3209 . iTunes should have blocked you from purchasing the content on that machine, so unless you downloaded on another device (or had a HDCP monitor connected at the time) you should ask them for a refund.
Note you rented the same movie via Amazon in SD. You could have watched the SD version via iTunes also. You are upset with Apple, when you should be 'furious' with the content provider requiring this level of copy protection on the HD version. Do you really think Apple or anyone else can go back to the studio and say 'well, I think you should drop HDCP because someone could torrent the movie
illegally for free'?
As another poster pointed out, most blu-ray players will not display full HD from their analog outputs. On Cable, DirecTV, Tivo, etc boxes you are right, they won't be pulling all their boxes that have component outputs, but they could be required to push a firmware update to prevent HD on outputs other than the HDMI. Don't think its not possible, several years ago this was done to prevent you from using analog and HDMI outputs at the same time.
I did ask for a refund, and I got it. It probably didn't block it because it probably would have worked on the laptop's own screen, or the Dell 23" monitor that was plugged in two minutes before over DP. I didn't try them because I didn't want to watch it on those screens. HOWEVER, that doesn't change the fact that HDCP is only supposed to apply to DIGITAL connections, not analog ones, i.e. Comcast.
They should go to the label and talk some sense into them. If we had more time, I would have downloaded the 1080p mkv off of other sources. That would have given us a
better experience than legally renting the movie. That's pretty ****ed up.
No one can force Comcast to do anything. Or DirecTV. Maybe a tiny little cable company can be bullied around, but the big guys aren't going to do that, as they don't want to deal with the support calls. It's cheaper for them to just let it be.
TL;DR for this thread:
>>Guys my TV sucks
>>its apple's fault
I can't seem to get HDCP content to play on my Watchman FD210; both SONY and Apple suck for contracting with content providers.
My TV doesn't suck. It has HDMI-HDCP. I have an XBOX 360 hooked up to HDMI (although that wouldn't be HDCP since it's games). I don't however own every single adapter and cable set for my MBP. There's no reason to own HDMI adapters when VGA does what I want it to do, and does it better than HDMI. I switched my main monitor over to DP because I was having issues with it on VGA (which turned out to be a bad VGA adapter). If I hadn't had that bad adapter, I would still be using VGA there too. Unless you go above 1900x1200, there's no reason to use a digital connection. I only use digital when there's a specific reason to, i.e. a second monitor off of a graphics card that has DVI and VGA ports.
For now. That is likely to end in the near future. Comcast is implementing HDCP encryption on a per program basis. HBO can transmit an HDCP flag from their end and block a program on analog.
Pay Per View will also behave similarly.
They would be morons to do so, as they would potentially lose a LOT of customers. There are a lot of boxes out there connected with component. I can't believe Comcast is allowing HDCP to block analog over their network, as it is going to increase their support calls, since people will wonder why Comcast broke their TV that worked fine before. Comcast is big enough to tell HBO or anyone else what to do. It's in Comcast's best interest to keep analog on as long as they can. I wouldn't subscribe to HBO anyways, but if we started getting programs blocked by them, that would be a quick end to that subscription.
Wow, it's like I clicked on a link and would up in 2005. Way to keep up, OP.
I'm sorry I don't buy new cables for all my stuff so that I can support some draconian DRM scheme that is not applied properly.
Lesson learned. Next time I should plan better and get the pirated mkv ahead of time, as the movie studios don't want me and my "antiquated" VGA-driven TV as a legitimate customer, and they have made that clear. I'm a tech nut, but I'm not that much of an elitist snob.
