Hello Again: Selectable Output Control, You Odd Duck
What’s oldie, newbie and weirdie all in one? Answer: “Selectable Output Controls.”
It’s old, because it dates back eight years, as a side argument to the “plug-and-play” negotiations between cable and consumer electronics.
It’s new, because it resurfaced on May 7, when the Federal Communications Commission agreed to grant a waiver (as it had said it would) for a new business model that interrupted one of the early tenets of that “plug-and-play” agreement. Translation: The waiver gives movie studios the right to try a new distribution window - sometime after theatrical release, but before DVD.
What’s weird is its wording. For starters, as an acronym, “SOC” more predominately means “system on a chip,” a very big deal in the electronics universe. Plus, it’s just hard to get your head around a noun (”output”) positioned as an adjective.
The easiest way to explain it is from the perspective of an actual movie title. Say that’s you. You’re the movie. You’re a great movie! Your creators spent a small fortune on you, partially in the hope that you’d make a killing in theaters, then along the predicable and long-established distribution window of airlines, on-demand, DVDs and Redbox.
Thing is, you want a way into home theaters. Most are tricked out well enough to showcase your beauty. There has to be a chunk of time in which you could make a killing as a premiere, less the gas to get to the theater, the babysitter and the $10 box of Sno-Caps.
Problem is, you don’t want to be stolen on the very night you meet the world.
Mostly, titles like you get stolen because settop boxes still straddle the analog and digital worlds. At issue are those unprotected analog spigots, like component connectors, available on those boxes connected to in-home HD screens. They still produce a pretty good picture for the pirate who is sitting there, catching (and copying) you over an unprotected output.
Your answer: Be gone with those leaky, porous analog spigots! Put a tag in your metadata, which can be captured by the navigation system/guide. Your “SOC” tag tells the box to turn off the vulnerable analog spigots when somebody opts to play you in your fancy new distribution window.
Great idea. Easier said than done. More on that another time.
leslie e commented:
LOL, Donny, I don't usually refer to "great ideas" as "You Odd Duck" (and am kind of surprised that it wasn't edited out!)
The point of the column is to explain how stuff works, to people who have less of a natural interest in technology than engineers.
This particular fight is and has always been between CE and Hollywood, with multichannel video providers caught in the crosshairs.
DB commented:
I am not neccessarily a proponent of SOC, nor do I work for the MPA, but I do understand the perspective of the FCC. "SOC Content" will be part of a new service and will not be available to everyone. Just like you need to upgrade to an HD set to get HD service, you will have to upgrade your HD set to get "SOC Content" if you are not currently capable. No, I don't beleive it will stop pirates, just make it more difficult for the unsophisticated one.
Donny commented:
I hope you do not seriously believe this is a "great idea". What about early adopters of HDTV sets whose only HD jacks are component video? There isn't a single consumer video recorder on the market that has component video inputs, so there is no advantage to blocking component video in consumer households. And do you really believe that doing so will stop pirates? They'll figure out a way to bypass the SOC tag, as they have for every other technological attempt to thwart them. This SOC tag will not be a solution to the problem it's intended to fix, and it will create a problem for many innocent bystanders.