DRM Is The Devil

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail recently with a link to an article about Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats in the context of DRM and Windows Vista. Being that I harbor strong opinions about DRM, reading that article reminded me how loath I am to move to an OS that has DRM so core to its being. It also reminded me about high-definition in general, and why I’m taking the slow road.

My brother-in-law, a retired former CEO, has a massive house full of HD toys. While I truly envy the picture quality and size of his various HD systems, I don’t envy how inflexible his system is (at least when it comes to content portability). I have a relatively pedestrian A/V system at home. My living room hosts a 37″ Panasonic Plasma EDTV. That’s right, it’s only enhanced definition. Why? Well, because I still don’t have any HD sources. Why don’t I have any HD sources? Well, that’s a complicated question, with an equally complicated answer.

I rarely watch any live TV. But yet I watch a tremendous amount of TV (obscene amounts, truth be told). You see, I have three PVRs in my home. Two ReplayTV DVRs, plus an HP Media Center PC. They are hooked into my non-HD Comcast Digital Cable system. I have absolute freedom with these systems. Freedom to download recorded content to my PC and portable media player. Freedom to basically do what I want. It’s called Fair Use.

From what I’ve read about the various content protection schemes (both proposed and in-use), I want to scream. It would remove any and all of the freedoms I currently enjoy with my current system. And it seems that’s it’s less about preventing piracy than driving consumers to purchase the same content over and over.

So as much of a tech-head as I am, I am taking the slow road when it comes to HD-anything. If I didn’t do anything but watch live TV and play DVDs, I might be more inclined to dive in. But I like to record and watch things… not just on my TV and DVR, but on my laptop and Creative Zen Vision media player. That would all go away if I went high-def. Or at least make it so much of a struggle, that I would throw in the towel.

[tags]DRM, EFF, HD, DVD, Blu-ray[/tags]