A month's worth of HD news in digest form.
When will Broadcast go HD?
At CeBIT we were able to catch up with some video engineers and get some fascinating insights into digital signal transmission. As we have suspected for some time, the broadcast industry isn’t prepared to sink the requisite money into upgrading to full HD cameras while there is such a low penetration of HD screens in Australian homes.
Thanks to the analogue transmission cut-off date being moved forward to 2012, they are putting the costly proposition of upgrading their cameras, lenses and supporting equipment on the back burner.
Code for movie cracks creates conflict
The Internet has been in a tizzy this month as the MPAA attempted to suppress the discovery of an AACS (Advances Access Content System) processing key used on current Blu-ray and HD-DVDs by hacker Arnezami. The previous method, put forth by hacker muslix64, relied on a RAM dump to reveal the title key — and could be rendered useless if and when the ACSS Licensing Authority decided to force HD playback software to be updated. Use of the processing key, a universal decryption key for all HD titles, proved more robust -- and the gravitas this carried propelled the MPAA’s decision into the spotlight. For a processing key hack to work, a Volume ID key unique to every title is still required, and currently that process has not been implemented.
As of April 23, all newly pressed HD discs are using a new AACS key which replaces the compromised one. However this too has already been cracked by Slysoft in AnyDVD HD 6.1.5.1.
200GB of densely packed data
In April 2006, TDK was reportedly working on a prototype six layer, single sided Blu-ray disc.
This month Hitachi threw its hat into the ring and stated it has been developing its own 200GB Blu-ray disc using eight layers. The system uses homodyne detection, a method of signal processing, to amplify the comparatively weak signals returned from laser reads of dense layer-stacked discs.
Hitachi is hoping it will hit the market some time in
2009, where it is expected to be used primarily in data storage applications.
George Lucas holds off on HD
Lucasfilm has denied it will be releasing a HD version of the original Star Wars trilogy, following an online web store listing. The statement came in response to Internet rumours that stemmed from an Amazon.com placeholder for the original trilogy in Blu-ray format.
The placeholder sends interested shoppers an email alert when the actual product is released. It is a common practice on the Amazon.com site, however it prompted spokesperson John Singh to respond: “Lucasfilm Ltd. has no plans to release any of the Star Wars movies on Blu-ray or HD DVD. Listings on Amazon.com or any other Web site are purely speculative and erroneous.”
Considering Lucas’ willingness to revise and re-release his most famous work, this news hasn’t dampened our hopes of (eventually) seeing a HD release of the trilogy.