Does anyone know
what this means in plain english?
Does the screen itself
check the input source
for copy-protection code
and scramble itself
if a user tries
to display images that
they home recorded?
Hollywood believes that they can tell you what kind of player to use, and what type of monitor you watch it on.
They are probably right, as we have the best congress their money could buy.
It should be called HDCC, for content control, not protection. Because it's all about control
It's part of the copyright cartel's goal to be able to tell you what you can do with video and when. They know the pirates will break whatever encryption they use, so it's basically to keep Joe Schmoe in line.
zeugma told part of it. Basically, it makes a secure path from content to pixels on the screen. If any part is not considered secure (the video card in this case), it will either not display or display with degraded quality, depending on the wishes of the corporation.
If you have all HDCP-certified hardware, you will only be able to do with that video what the copyright cartel has allowed. IOW, kiss Fair Use goodbye. It's been a thorn in the side of the copyright cartel since the VCR, and now they think they've finally found a way to get rid of it.
And we won't have Mr. Rogers to testify for us this time around.