I have decided to consolidate my musings into one blog--I am not able to keep current publishing six blogs now that I am working full-time. So, I am posting everything here from now on.
"The broadcast flag rule forces manufacturers to remove useful recording features from television products you can buy today," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen. "The FCC has decided that the way to get Americans to adopt digital TV is to make it cost more and do less."
This means, among many things, that HDTV recorders and other PVRs will be delayed in going to market and it might even prevent such products from ever being sold if they don't obtain approval form the FCC. The biggest shock is that public affairs and news programming are not exempt from the rules. So it also means that public domain programming like CSPAN and PBS will need to be encrypted so they cannot be recorded and viewed at a latter time without expensive new hardware and software. This is nonsense, especially when the Broadcast Flag was designed primarily to protect Hollywood movies.
The only way to avoid this limitation is to purchase equipment before the rules become effective a year from now. I am beginning to research the market and will let you know how I proceed.
For more information check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.
