Got HDCP? Think again
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Feb 13th 2006 9:34AM
posted Feb 13th 2006 9:34AM
You know, we hate
Chicken Little as much as the next person, but man the sky might be falling. Everyone here at HDBeat knows you're going
to need HDCP to watch HD on your PC, but now
it appears that alone won't be enough to enjoy the disc you bought for your computer, since every PC will have to pay a
license fee for HDCP. The fee is $15,000 annually with a per device cost of $0.005, which of course seems like nothing
until you consider this means no white boxes. We know that not all of you build your own, but it's still nice to have
the option, and of course this goes for those who hope to upgrade their video card to support the new standard as well.
So it appears with this fee anyone who wants to watch the next generation HD on
their PC will need to buy a new PC from one of the big boys.
Dude, I guess my next PC has to be a Dell. Between HDCP, CableCard 2.0 and DRM looks like going big will be the only way to go.
Great, forcing another oligopoly on americans. Theres no small business allowed in the world anymore. You get to pick from bad or worse, but no good solution. Only bad or worse, thanks for coming in today, please come again!
[tirade]
This is a gawd-awful, unadulterated, indisputable, unacceptable, gigantic, massive, un-be-freakin-lievable pile of pure horse sh*t! F' em all. I will not buy HD-DVD; I will not buy Vista; I will not buy a pile of monkey crap Dell or Sony or (dear God!) HP "media center" PC. They foist DRM on us; they foist software on us; now they foist sub-par, over-priced, offspring-of-customer-hating-manufacturers, one-size-fits-all PC hardware on us, too? It's too much! CONGRESS!!! Where the f' are you?!
It time for a revolution. They are going too far. The consumer must throw off his unelected, big business, political-influence-weilding, quality-of-life-defeating oppressors. They think they got it wrapped up? What will they do without our BILLIONS?
Yeah, right. If only we weren't all panty-whipped, "ooh, ahh -- look how pretty!" digital-coolness punk bitches. This is brinksmanship, and their betting that the HD-craving masses will blink first--or rather, "bitch and moan like an impotent jerk, then bend over and take it up the tail pipe" (Liar, Liar; copyright [insert imperialist oppressor] studios). And I'm betting their right.
[/tirade]
Time to call the lawmakers on this one. No way they can do this legally. They are forcing out a huge market. I for one prefer and only prefer to build my own machine and this isn't right at all.
Can HDBeat and weblogs, inc be the voice of the people and create a voice for the enthusiast. Please for the sake of all the HD loving bloggers and tech period. This is wrong wrong wrong. Incite some change before it goes bad.
Do you think we could find 1,000 people who make their own PC's and would be willing to pay 15 USD to pay for the HDCP license fee?