Blu-Ray is coming

From Darkhorizons, "Get ready for a whole lot of hardware importing into the US sometime soon. A few months back you may remember this article I wrote about the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) coming in on the next generation of DVD players. This meant that if you have bought a digital television that doesn't have an HDMI input, which equates to practically all sets pre-2005 and many still on the market, a security measure forces the signal you see on your screen to be 'automatically downgraded' to be practically no better than current DVD rather than the higher resolution output of the new HD-DVD & Blu-ray formats.

Well if your one of those millions who think the studios are screwing you over, now comes a loophole for you to exploit and probably the most sane development in this whole argument. DVD File reports that in the March 2006 Issue of Nikkei Electronics Asia, an article indicates that the AACS standards are being implemented in Japan somewhat differently than in North America. HD-DVD discs sold in Japan and a few other unnamed countries will not impose the 'image constraint' security measure over analog component video connections until 2011.

This gives the owners of the installed base of HD-ready displays that are not equipped with HDMI inputs around five years to retire their sets and replace them with suitable displays. For Japan, equipment manufactured after 2010 will no longer be capable of outputting full resolution video in analog form; that's when image constraint will be implemented. And after 2013, analog video outputs will be eliminated completely in Japan.

The most bizarre implication of this news from Japan is that if you don't 'close the analog hole' on a worldwide basis, you haven't closed the analog hole at all - and piracy is reported to be most prevalent in Asia. So while full resolution analog video is made available to the most piracy-prone part of the world, North American early adopters may continue to be punished, forced to discard billions of dollars worth of fine HD-ready displays simply because they only have analog video inputs."