High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection: Copy Protect Your Digital Content

All the developments that aim at making our life easier and better do have one or the other downside. The easy availability of digital data on electronic media all over the world, with rapid advances taking place every day, is also not an exception.

However, there is an upside to this dilemma too. The problems generated by the increased availability of digital data have also motivated their developers to improve upon them so that the demands of the publishers as well as the users can be fulfilled and their concerns met.

One major concern of the publishers on digital media is copy protection of their content. After financing a long period of research, they have finally developed an effective tool to protect their valuable digital data. It is High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP).

What is HDCP?

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is an effective copy protection system. Developed by Intel, it is sold under license from Digital Content Protection LLC. To check copying of digital information, it uses a technology with an authentication as well as key exchange process before releasing the content for the intended purpose.

Most commonly used devices like HDTV equipment or DVD players are compatible with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. It is rapidly gaining acceptance as a standard by the manufacturers of digital equipment. Therefore, before buying any digital equipment, make sure they are HDCP compliant.

Why Should You Purchase HDCP Equipment?

Due to its obvious advantage of copy protection, manufacturers of digital equipment are now phasing out the older, analog based technology and turning to the HDCP technology. If you purchase older technology based equipment, you may soon find that add-ons and accessories are not working with them.

To be sure, some new generation products like Blue-Ray and HD-DVD, still support analog output resolution. However, this type of resolution is limited to 720p, 1080i and 1080p. Higher resolution can only be supported by digital connections (like DVI or HDMI), that use the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection encryption.

HDCP Compatible PC Monitors

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is still not a standard with PC monitors. So, although PC monitors do have HDTV capability, their limitations are exposed when you use them to read HDCP enabled content. So, if you want to use your PC monitor with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection media, you need to get an HDCP enabled monitor.

Basic Key Exchange Process in HDCP

The High-bandwidth Digital Content media and its rendering devices exchange their digital keys. It is a way to ensure that each party exchanging the keys is authorized to manage the digital content. If either of them is not able to issue the requisite digital key, the content is not displayed.

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