Technology to watch out for: DTCP-IP

I’ve been meaning to explain this acronym for a while, and a recent announcement from the DLNA (who create some of the standards that are supposed to make home streaming simpler) is probably as good a reason as any.

Regular readers will recall that I’ve seen various recorders over recent months that have fairly advanced functionality, allowing you to record programmes on the hard disk and then watch it over the home network, and predicted we’ll see more of them.

For example, last year’s Panasonic FreeviewHD recorder could do the trick, and it’s due to come to the Humax FreeviewHD boxes too. But, right now, it’s a little limited, because of content control issues – that’s the rules that say, for instance, that some material broadcast on FreeviewHD can only be copied to disc once.

Now, I know that to some, the very idea of content controls is horrific, but I think for now at least we have to accept that they’re here, and take organisations like the BBC at their word when they say that without them, they probably wouldn’t be able to broadcast some of the material from big Hollywood studios in HD, unencrypted. Whether that’s really the case is an argument for another day; for now, we have to live with this technology.

Streaming content

One of the consequences of content controls is that it can make home streaming fiddly (and, to be frank, DLNA can be quirky at best of times, as it is). With the Panasonic recorder I looked at last summer, for example, I could access both SD and HD content remotely on a 2010 Panasonic TV set, but I couldn’t access anything at all on my 2009 Panasonic; a Sony set with DLNA support could access only the SD material from the recorder.

At a Humax presentation where in-home streaming was discussed, we were told that, initially at least, streaming would be from the Humax recorders to other Humax set top boxes.

Essentially, a bit like the early days of WiFi, if you want a painless experience making it all work together, and all your TV programmes available to watch on any set, you’re best to stick to one brand. Go with a Panasonic recorder, and make sure you have recent Panasonic TVs on which to watch over the network. Or go with a Humax recorder, and put one of their set top boxes underneath each telly.

If you’re starting from scratch, that’s simple enough, but of course many of us aren’t, and we can’t afford to replace everything.

Why does this happen? It’s because of those content controls; if a programme is protected so that it can only be copied to disc once, or perhaps isn’t supposed to be copied at all, sending it over the home network to a random device about which you know nothing is not exactly within the spirit of things, is it? That other device could be a PC with software to record the stream, for instance, or a disc recorder.

Introducing DTCP-IP

And this is where DTCP-IP comes in; it’s a mechanism by which devices on a network can establish a secured connection with each other (a bit like using SSL for a browser) and use that connection to transfer not just the content, but also the information about how it has to be protected, such as whether it can be saved, or sent to an analogue output, and so on.

You might think from the name that it’s something to do with the TCP/IP networking protocol, but that’s not wholly accurate; the DTCP part actually stands for Digital Transmission Content Protection, which is the basic encryption and control system. It can be used over a variety of connections, including FireWire, but what we’re interested in here is DTCP-IP, and in this case the IP stands for Internet Protocol.

In other words, DTCP-IP is the variant of the Digital Transmission Content Protection system that works over the internet and home networks. It’s licensed to manufacturers by a group called the DTLA, and the major backers of the standard including Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba.

In late May, the DLNA issued some new guidelines which included the use of DTCP-IP (and much overuse of the word ‘leverage’, but I digress). This will hopefully mean that more manufacturers will include the technology in their products.

What does that mean?

In theory, if DTCP-IP becomes more widespread in devices that can access your home network, such as TVs and media players, as long as those devices that can share it also step up to the plate, then instead of having to stick with a single vendor to ensure compatibility, you’ll be able to pick and choose your equipment, and know that even if you have a Sony TV in the bedroom and a Panasonic recorder in the living room, you’ll be able to watch recorded shows in bed, without any problems, including those in high definition.

There are almost certainly bound to be teething problems; as many people pointed out when RegHardware looked in more detail at DLNA, if two boxes say ‘DLNA certified’ on them, there’s still no real guarantee that one will play content from the other, and right now a lot of consumers could be forgiven for thinking that DLNA certification is a bit of a mess.

If that can be sorted out, however – which means specifying which file formats players and servers should handle – then DTCP-IP will make it simpler to pick the kit you want for home streaming. And potentially, it’s not just streaming from your home recorder to your TV that’s involved here. It can be used over the wider internet too, and that could make it easier for online movie services to be available on a bigger range of streamers – instead of having to restrict, say, LoveFilm to boxes that have done a deal and had their software tested for security, they could be available to any that support DTCP-IP.

DTCP-IP is also – as far as broadcasters and content owners are concerned – a crucial component of the long mooted move to ‘home gateways,’ where a single multi-tuner receiver somewhere in the house is the only thing connected to the cable, satellite, or internet feed, with all the content available on any screen in the home.

One to watch

So, you might not have heard of it yet – and it’s probably unlikely that you’ll see stickers on boxes proudly proclaiming ‘Supports DTCP-IP’ – but I think this is a technology to watch out for, especially if you want to make the most of your home network, and watch your recorded TV wherever you like.

You can’t borrow that eBook – it’s worn out!

Back in November, I wrote about why, if some publishers have their way, you may have to visit a library in person to borrow an eBook. You may perhaps have thought that the lunacy of traditional publishing when faced with new technology had excelled itself there, but think again.

A new policy from HarperCollins – not exactly a small player in the publishing world – means that libraries will have to replace eBooks regularly, as they’ll be worn out.

A year is the life of an eBook

In more detail, the new policy – reported in the Library Journal – is that new Harper Collins eBooks sold to libraries will have a licence (enforced by the Digital Rights system embedded in the files) that allows a book to be loaned only twenty-six times, before it expires.

After that, if the library wants to carry on lending the book, it will have to buy a new copy. At first glance, you might think “Well, so what? Don’t paper books wear out too?” Well, yes, they do – but if you visit any library, you’ll very likely find plenty of books that have date stamps showing they’ve been circulating for years, especially good quality hardbacks (and let’s not forget that the pricing policies of eBooks often means that they cost similar amounts to hardbacks).

Where does that figure of a year come from? Well, when you borrow a digital book from a library, typically the loan period is two weeks, and just like with real books, a library can only lend to one person at a time. If it’s a popular book that other people are waiting for – just like real ones, you can reserve them too – then that means that, potentially, those twenty six loans will be used up in just one year.

Of course, given the relatively small numbers of people borrowing from libraries now, it may well take a bit longer than that – but I think it would be naïve to imagine that as eBook borrowing becomes more popular, the publishers will make their policies more lenient. Certainly, the history of the eBook business so far would seem to suggest the opposite.

Does this affect the UK?

Despite the story first appearing in Library Journal, this isn’t a policy that’s just restricted to the USA. According to OverDrive, who run the digital systems used by many libraries, including quite a few local authorities in the UK that allow eBook lending:

This new policy affects all HarperCollins eBooks in libraries worldwide, and applies to all distributor/vendors (including OverDrive)

So, libraries that have popular eBooks now potentially face the requirement of having to pay once again for those eBooks every year. Even a book that isn’t borrowed so often may wear out in just a couple of years – and this at a time when library budgets are under particular pressure, both in the UK and elsewhere around the world.

Do publishers really understand libraries?

Magazines like The Bookseller, along with groups of users, are currently campaigning to protect UK libraries. Publishers, too, make all the right noises when you ask them about libraries.

But when a large company like HarperCollins tries something like this – and it won’t be at all surprising if others introduce similar terms – so soon after the industry’s bonkers suggestion that people not be able to download library eBooks in their own homes, you could be forgiven for wondering if they’re really just paying lip service to the idea of libraries in a digital age.

Certainly these sort of actions give the impression that they’re more worried about the potential loss of sales should people be able to borrow books too easily. Perhaps I’m a bit too much of an idealist, but I think – especially in harsh economic times – the publishers would do well to support anything that helps people to carry on reading, and learn to love books, rather than to put obstacles in the way, and make it more expensive for readers and libraries alike.

The price of books themselves is something I’ve talked about before – read this piece on Register Hardware, for example – so I shan’t go over that in detail. What I will say is that this seems like a tremendous failure of imagination on the part of HarperCollins, who have opted for the simplest solution – ask libraries to buy the book all over again – when technology could provide for far more nuanced solutions, like an incremental charge on each loan over a certain amount.

Or, indeed, they could finally wake up and accept that, just as a library owns a book outright when it buys a print version, they ought to be able to do the same with the electronic one.

More on this at BoingBoing and the New York Times.

FreeviewHD Content protection rolled out

According to my sources at the BBC, an update to the FreeviewHD programme guide data is being rolled out at the moment. This update is the implementation of the Huffman-encoded EPG tables, which are part of the Freeview HD content protection system that I’ve written about here and here.

The theory is that as part of the approval for the Freeview HD badge, equipment will already have the ability to decode the EPG built in, and so most people should not notice any change.

The change hasn’t been done in one go, and is apparently rolling out around the country; I don’t have a schedule yet, or details of which transmitters have been changed over, but I do know that the plan is that the switchover will conclude in November if all goes well.

However – there’s always one of those, isn’t there? – there have been some reports on internet forums that the change has caused some problems with equipment, and specifically with the new Humax HDR Fox T2. I’m unable to confirm these at the moment, but I will update this post as soon as I get information back from Humax.

I’ve got a Humax here, and the EPG still works just fine. What has been suggested on some forums is that where the new EPG has been rolled out, the search function no longer works on the Humax. I can certainly confirm that the search doesn’t work on the unit I have , but since I hadn’t tried it until today, I can’t honestly say whether or not anything has changed in that regard, though posts elsewhere on the net, such as AV Forums, suggest that to be the case.

So, content protection is being rolled out as I write; it’s not everywhere yet, but I shall try to get more details as soon as I can. In the meantime, I’d be most interested to hear from anyone who is experiencing problems with the EPG or EPG related functions on Freeview HD equipment, which weren’t evident a little while ago.

Update, 1945, Thurs: I’ve just had work from Humax that the issue some users are having with search does indeed appear to be related to the compressed SI data, and that they will be looking at issuing an update to the HDR Fox T2 in September. I’ll note also, since my review’s not yet been published, that this issue aside, I’ve been quite impressed with the box. So if you can live without the keyword search, don’t let it put you off.

FreeviewHD content control – don’t panic

Some of the most significant complaints about the content control system on FreeviewHD have been from the open source movement, who feel that they’ll be unnecessarily locked out of making equipment.

I must say that I think some of the quotes have been rather over-eggging the pudding, suggesting that there’s an army out there of people who are modifiying existing equipment to provide things like extra services for the deaf, for instance. And I don’t think it’s really terribly helpful to try and conjure up scenarios that many people will instantly think are far-fetched.

As some will know, I run a website for Topfield PVRs. That’s one of the most user-modifiable digital TV recorders on the market at the moment, and looking at the various statistics from the website, I’d hazard a guess that the majority of people don’t even bother tweaking that unit. Of those that do, only a tiny minority ever delve into the programming side of things – which is true of many systems. Much is made of the open source nature of Linux, but it’s a tiny fraction of the community that ever gives anything back.

Now, that’s not an argument for saying that standards shouldn’t be open, or that the open source community should be locked out of things like Freeview HD, but I do think that it’s necessary to keep a reasonable perspective on these things – some of the reports about content control gave the impression that if only it weren’t for this, an army of people would be attacking set top boxes with soldering irons and modifying them. I know that’s not an accurate representation, and you probably do too, but in talking up the consequences too much, I think goodwill can be lost.

Don’t panic

And, in any case, I don’t think that – for the next few years at least – this is a major issue, certainly not on Freeview HD. Firstly, the control mechanism is the same as for Freesat, and open source projects like Myth have successfully managed to work out how to decode the Freesat EPG.

Even if that were impossible on Freeview HD, for technical or commercial reasons – a company might not want to be seen to have reverse engineered the Huffman tables that are being used, for example – it’s not the end of the world.

That’s because of the nature of what’s actually on Freeview HD, and the fact that the EPG data for the standard definition broadcast isn’t changing at all. Right now, Freeview HD offers BBC HD, ITV1HD and Channel 4HD. Later this year, BBC One HD will be joining, and in 2012, there may be a fifth channel. That could be Five HD, or it could be something else, but it’s likely to be something from one of the PSBs, and I suspect it may well be an HD version of an existing channel.

Where does that leave us? Well, in the short to medium term, since I don’t think anyone else will launch HD channels until sometime after 2012, of the four channels on Freeview HD, three will be simulcasts of their SD equivalents. And the EPG data for those will be broadcast in the usual way, complete with series link information, and accurate recording triggers. And since it’s a simultaneous broadcast, wouldn’t it be pretty simple for software to just take the EPG data from the standard def channel, and use it for the HD one? About the only thing you’ll miss out on is the extra information that indicates if a channel is broadcast using surround sound or not.

That leaves the BBC HD channel, and it’s fairly easy to get an EPG feed for that from the internet, especially for an open source project. Of course, you won’t necessarily have the series link information, or accurate recording triggers, which is a pity. Some of that, perhaps, may be possible to recreate where a programme on BBC HD is simulcast with one of the other SD channels. Accurate recording triggers are handy, but with the advent of BBC One HD, I suspect there will be fewer instances where programming on the HD channel is likely to ‘slip’ due to overrunning events like tennis matches.

3View

Incidentally, this EPG issue is also one that’s been vexing people regarding the 3View box, with people worrying about availability of HD channel EPG information, should they not be able to use the official broadcast one. 3View reports that they do have agreement to use it – while boxes with the FreeviewHD logo have to have the Huffman tables in it, the reverse doesn’t apply; you just have to agree to play by the rules to get access to the tables necessary to unpack the EPG. And, even if that weren’t the case, for the reasons I’ve outlined above, I really don’t think this need be a major issue, at least in the next few years.

That may change, of course, if lots of other HD-only channels launch after switchover is complete, and a bit more openness never goes amiss, but right now, I don’t think there’s any  great cause to panic, or to believe that there will be no way that open source projects can display an EPG for Freeview’s HD channels.

Content control on FreeviewHD

Register Hardware has just published a news story I wrote about content control on Freeview HD. What does this mean for the punter?

Well, in real terms, I suspect very little. As you can see from the story, there won’t be any restrictions on your ability to record if you have a Freeview HD PVR. So, you won’t suddenly find that someone has decided you cannot record a film to watch later.

Where there will be restrictions is in making copies of programmes in High Definition, but the guidelines that have been laid down suggest that you will always be able to make at least one copy – and where a programme has already been broadcast in high definition elsewhere in the world, without restrictions, then it shouldn’t be restricted in the UK. That seems to me a tacit admission that, in terms of preventing piracy, if a show’s been broadcast elsewhere then the cat is already out of the bag.

The one area that did cause a lot of concern during the consultation was with regard to open source software, like MythTV. For those who aren’t in the know, that’s a piece of software that runs on standard PC hardware, and is based on Linux. It provides all the features you would expect in a digital TV recorder, and quite a few more. And a major worry was that systems like Myth could be locked out of recording Freeview HD by the licensing requirements for the Freeview EPG.

One of the conditions that’s been laid down by Ofcom is that the necessary information should be available on a royalty free basis, which will certainly help. But there are some within the open source movement who are vehemently opposed to any sort of content control or ‘Digital Rights Management.’ That’s an entirely principled stance, but I hope that some way can be found to accommodate software like MythTV within the new content management system for Freeview HD.

With the decision only announced today, I’ve not had time to contact too many people for responses, but when I hear more I shall post again. And in the meantime, if you are involved in projects like MythTV, feel free to add your comments below.

The full Ofcom statement is here, for those who like reading such things.