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Universal Follows Sony’s Lead and Will Not Downscale HD Content on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

By David Walker | March 28th, 2006 - 4,642 Views


blu-ray hd-dvd logoEarly adopters can breathe another sigh of relief, for now at least, as Universal is following the lead set by Sony by choosing not to utilize ICT (Image Constraint Token) to downsize HD-DVD and Blu-Ray titles to 540p when not using HDCP HDMI connectors, according to ArsTechnica. ICT, a “feature” of AACS content protection, allows individual studios the ability to have their content down-scaled to 960×540 (from 720p or 1080i) when a non-secure connection is being used, such as older HDMI connections and component cables. The only major studio left that has expressed their intent to use ICT is Warner Brothers.

The ICT implementation has been criticized from day one, as consumer advocates have argued that the technology only punishes honest people from being able to fully enjoy their HD quality movies, rahter than stopping pirates. Since most early adopter HDTVs did not have HDCP support, bypassing ICT use is seen as necessary to encourage consumers to buy into the next generation. However, don’t count ICT out just yet. Once HDCP support becomes widespread and HD sets with the technology start selling through, you can expect that ICT will be flipped on for most of the studios at that point.

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  • Warner is not expected to use ICT on all titles. And on most current film titles, video would have been down-scaled from 1080p24.
  • Genius74
    None of this would matter if they just decided to only put digital connections and not analog on the players. Of course this wouldn't resolve the issue of the people with DVI (non-HDCP) and HDMI (1.x-2.x?!?), but hey, too bad for them..




    I would be one of them btw.. so I could really careless at this point.
  • The concept behind this is that consumer need analog connections due to the fact that digital connections were not implemented at the pace they should have been. If ICT isn't enabled, that will allow consumers with displays not support HDCP to get 1080i output instead of 540p. Of course, the best experience will still be with digital, as you will really want it to get 1080p.
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