DVD Copyright Protection Is Holding Back The Technology

By Bogdan M. Baudis, Matec Instruments Co. Inc. (From EE Times)

1-May-00

I'm responding to the article ""DVD-Video Content Illegally Copied Off Playstation"" (EE Times, March 27, page 1). One wonders why the electronics, computer and communications industries ever agreed in the first place to let Hollywood dictate the specs for any storage device. While some or even most of those specs emerged in response to the needs of the entertainment industry, the track record of that industry when dealing with new technologies is quite bad (remember DAT?). Copy protection has earned a bad name in the software segment of the information industry, and rightly so; it is widely considered a costly exercise in futility. Some people refuse to use anything with copy protection. DVD technology is in danger of going the way of DAT and Betamax. I do not own a DVD machine; neither do most of my computer-able friends. Those who do usually put CD-ROMs in them. The company I work for (which integrates PCs as parts of shipped systems) has not shipped one, because clients don't ask for these expensive drives. They would be happy to have more capacity, but the state of affairs for writeable and rewriteable DVD is not good enough (again, thanks to Hollywood). I do not see much reason for DVD's replacing CD for recorded music: CD quality is good enough, and the players are cheap and available from many sources. The only complaint is the average price for compact disks. That [pricing] has nothing to do with the technology, and DVD is likely to make it worse. DVD might replace VHS if HDTV becomes popular, if the content quality of the movies themselves becomes good enough to justify the jump to the new technology (that's unlikely) or if cheap DVD recorders become available to replace VHS for use in taping shows to be viewed later (that's also unlikely). The constant whining about piracy is annoying, and DVD is not going to improve things much, since the most damaging piracy activity begins with the stealing of a master copy. Low-tech, low-quality piracy thrives in places where people would not buy legit copies anyway, because they would not be able to afford the titles, so DVD won't help much there. In the meantime a very promising mass-storage technology is getting DATed. Maybe somebody, sometime, will come up with VHS-DVD. It will be inferior, but at least it will be immune to lawyers.