MacBook buyers bite Apple over copy protection cock-up
DisplayPort-only direction yields iTunes playback woes
Analysis Apple's decision to adopt the DisplayPort digital monitor connector is pissing off punters, all thanks to the technology's incorporation of a copyright protection mechanism.
DisplayPort, like HDMI, mandates copy prevention technology. DisplayPort's system is called DisplayPort Content Protection (DPCP), but it's essentially the same as the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) mechanism used by HDMI.
Both systems were designed to ensure that digital video streams are not tapped and duplicated once they've been decoded and transmitted to a screen.
HDCP requires the video source to verify the status of the display, and if the screen's not up to snuff - from a copyright protection perspective - the source shouldn't send across the HD content. The display has to be able to signal to the source its ability to decipher the encrypted video stream the source wants to send.
That's what the latest Macs are doing. MacBook owners are hooking up old displays, none of which support HDCP, and the computers are flashing up a message warning users that they can't play HDCP-protected content without a suitable screen.
Now, this was initially detected by punters who'd tried to show illegal rips from Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs, but it has now emerged that content legitimately acquired through - of all places - Apple's own iTunes store won't play either.
Plug in an old display that uses VGA or DVI, and the latest, DisplayPort-equipped Macs will refuse to show protected content on it because the connected screen doesn't respond to requests for HDCP status.
It's Apple's cock-up for not anticipating the huge number of folk out there with legal iTunes content, big screens and brand new MacBooks. The company can legitimately plead that these people can still play their purchases on their computers' built-in screens - and they can - but while that's correct to the letter of the law, it's not in its spirit.
Had Apple's engineers and designers thought about this, they'd do what other notebook makers do and include a VGA or DVI port on the new MacBooks. Pretty much every graphics chip and integrated chipset out there currently includes HDCP technology. What stops it bothering owners of other vendors' computers is that those machines have multiple monitor ports.
So, plug in an HDMI TV or a DisplayPort monitor, you've got a verified HDCP connection and your content plays. Plug in an old monitor or TV, and while you don't have a verified HDCP connection, your content still plays because it's being routed over a link that's doesn't care about HDCP anyway.
It will only be a problem if you connect a DisplayPort connector via an adaptor to a VGA or DVI monitor. Right now, no one's doing this but Mac users because, firstly, hardly anyone has a DisplayPort monitor and, secondly, with the other connectors available, no one needs to use an adaptor.
The only people who do are folk who own a new MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. Apple's one-port strategy for monitors has come to bite it on the bum, big time.
What can it do? It can't disable HDCP, not least because its DisplayPort licence undoubtedly mandates the use of the copy prevention system. It could always hand out free DisplayPort monitors to affected customers, we suppose.
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COMMENTS
Would one solution be...
a USB->VGA adapter; at least until you've got a decent display, capable of showing your HD content?
Steve
Paris, as she's good with sockets
This affects punters, not pirates
What I dislike intensely about these anti-piracy measures is that they affect the people who constitute the market for pirate content, and do no further attempt to curtail piracy itself.
So, the pirates have won - we will always have recourse to creating duplicates of copryright material, but the means of sharing that material with a projector or widescreen telly are what is being stopped dead here. How pointless, and cruel.
For example, do I give a fuck if my Mac's digital display port has DRM built in? Much as it's a little costly and ugly, I can get a USB video DAC that gives me a VGA analogue signal just fine, and my little projector will happily shine Captain Jack Sparrow and his merry cockney lingo (translated with Korean subtitles) onto my bedroom wall.
People like me who work in video professionally cannot understand what the fuss is about, we share what we work on and don't get any royalties anyway - we lose no pay from piracy. I know about a hundred musicians and only about five of them pay for every track they listen to.
Why does Apple think that corporate responsibility schemes such as in-built hardware DRM are their duty? They are superseding a role as hardware supplier and are mandating the terms of use of their machines, which is obviously wrong. Much as I regret not getting a MacBook, that Apple logo spooks me like a swastika.
Kenny Millar. Oh, do grow up.
This attitude that Mac is right no matter what idiotic thing they do coming from rabid Mac supporters is tripe. When the iMac came out there was no real way to transfer files off the d*** thing. One had to go out and purchase an external floppy. It came with a CD player. NOT a decent CD burner, but a CD player. It was as if the "design decision" included a home network to transfer all files created off the desktop, or the purchase of a (then expensive) external CD burner. Apple made these decision because it saves money not having to support multiple standards. It is all about being cheap.
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