We live in an era where there is a convergence of new technology in digital formats. Old video and audio cassettes and vinyl discs have largely been replaced by DVDs, CDs and MP3s. Now it’s the turn for high definition content to make its mark in this world.

With HDTV sets and HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc technology hitting the market, consumers will have to spend a lot of money on new electronics to stay in touch with the new HD world. Although there is much hype about high definition content now, HD has been around for quite some time. The TV industry was forced to start broadcasting digital and HD content, but the movie industry has only been subject to market forces, rather than pressure from governments, and has been slower to go the HD route.

The way in which the studios are protecting their new-generation high-def movies on HD DVD and Blu-ray is HDCP or High Definition Content (Copy) Protection. This is designed to stop you making a perfect copy of HD movies, something that's potentially possible because they're in digital form.

When it was announced that HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players would require HDCP-compliance between themselves and the monitor, there was an uproar in the USA - especially from consumers that had bought equipment early in the development of HDTV.

The need for HDCP compliance meant that their expensive equipment would be incompatible with the new DVD standards and would have to be replace if they wanted to enjoy HD movies on disc. There was some relief when a number of the major firms in the movie industry announced that their initial media would not require HDCP - allowing full 1080p resolution to be viewable through component, DVI and HDMI inputs - but this is only temporary.

Understandably, the movie industry wanted to ensure greater protection for its content than the CSS DVD encryption system turned out to offer. This was broken by John Lech Johansen - a young Norwegian hacker - when he developed the deCSS cracking software.

However, the signs are that HDCP may also fall victim. According to ign.com, Ed Felten, a mathematics professor from Princeton, stated recently that the flaws in HDCP that have been known about since 2001 mean that it will inevitably be cracked - and Johansen himself has vowed to fight HDCP and the other new copy protection system, AACS.

We await developments with interesting, wondering when the movie studios will finally cotton on to the fact that lower pricing, rather than copy-protection, is the only sensible way to fight piracy in the digital age. Let us hear your thoughts in the HEXUS.community.

Content supplied by UKHDTV.net