
“Your monitor is too old to view this content.” - jordigh
https://np.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/55r7i4/your_monitor_is_too_old_to_view_this_content/
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jakobegger
The Reddit thread is pretty funny with regards to shifting the blame.

Someone says it's Apple's fault, someone else says Netflix is to blame, then
someone says it's all because of the studios....

How about blaming each and every one of them? Everyone involved could have
refused to take part in this stupid game, that just drives people to download
movies from inofficial sources.

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laurentdc
Hm, odd. I'm watching Netflix right now on a oldish HP monitor at 1920x1080,
connected via VGA.

So it only cares about protections if it's going through HDMI? Seems useless,
I could just run the VGA into any capture device and rip the whole thing.

~~~
URSpider94
Yes. HDMI is digital, VGA is analog. You could rip the video from VGA, but it
would not be a perfect copy. If you do an HDMI capture, you'll get a bit-
perfect recording.

~~~
manicdee
Or you can just copy the media directly from the stream.

~~~
voltagex_
I've been trying to work out for a while how the Netflix webrips that are
floating around the scene are done. They're not screencaps like the Amazon
webrips are, but I didn't think you could copy the stream directly like that.

~~~
arpa
I bet it's done using something like this

[https://www.amazon.com/HDMI-Cloner-need-Capture-streaming-
vi...](https://www.amazon.com/HDMI-Cloner-need-Capture-streaming-
videos/dp/B00TF9MCXU/ref=pd_zg_rss_ts_e_6795230011_5)

or, in a world where such devices are outlawed, you could take the outputs of
the LCD matrix controller and convert the signals meant for the physical
pixels to a video stream :)

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Theodores
The edge case is HDMI to DVI, everyone wss weaned off VGA painlessly, deluxe
DVI monitors aren't so readily upgraded.

This situation was the big fear of DRM and HDMI, also the 'evil' plan. Seems
the introduction went smoothly, there were no riots, just the odd reddit
thread many years later.

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tristanj
This is ancient news. Apple macbooks have had this form of copy protection
since 2008. There are hundreds of anecdotes like the one submitted all over
the internet.

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2008/11/apple-brings-hdcp-
to-a-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2008/11/apple-brings-hdcp-to-a-new-
aluminum-macbook-near-you/)

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justinlardinois
I wonder how the detection works. I have three different monitors hooked up to
my desktop computer at home, and one of them is exceptionally old and running
on a VGA to DVI-I adapter. When I get home I'll see if Netflix complains if I
drag the window over to that monitor.

~~~
gue5t
It probably happens in the Widevine CDM. Note that Widevine is Google, and
they mislabel it as a "Video Optimizer". DRM is evil and anti-consumer, but
trying to spin it as a codec improvement (what "video optimizer" actually
means) is just fucking slimy, and I'd love if a Google employee reading this
could bring this misrepresentation up with an internal ethics officer if they
get a chance.

~~~
rosege
Could be a risky career move - depending on the point of view as who it flows
through to

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stordoff
Fortunately it's easy to work round (I have a cheap HDMI splitter, and a
HDMI->VGA converter, and both pretty much ignore HDCP), but these sort of
arbitrary restrictions are frustrating.

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dubya
Amazon does the same thing on my iMac. I can't watch 1080p video on it, only
lower resolution. I assumes it was just Amazon and Apple fighting, since I
can't watch HTML video in Safari either.

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tedunangst
^ Not an actual quote.

~~~
vonklaus
It is however the title of the reddit post. So the poster is keeeping with HN
guidelines and being overly pedantic isn't particularly useful here-- the
comment amounts to the same thing. I will give the reddit OP the benefit of
the doubt that they couldn't decide on an appropriate standards body to cite
this paraphrase properly.

~~~
tedunangst
Or maybe I'm just pointing out that the title of the reddit post isn't an
actual quote either?

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jmkni
Never had this issue on Windows, is this a Mac/Linux only issue?

