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From: jjszucs@cbmvax.commodore.com (John J. Szucs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: CDTV News
Message-ID: <22587@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 19 Jun 91 18:09:19 GMT
References: <1991Jun18.132410.29459@news.iastate.edu> <1991Jun18.191519.26912@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun18.195643.949@ncsu.edu> <1991Jun19.040714.2581@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991Jun19.054406.27121@ncsu.edu>
Reply-To: jjszucs@cbmvax.commodore.com (John J. Szucs)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 55

In article <1991Jun19.054406.27121@ncsu.edu> kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) writes:

[discussion of CDTV copy protection deleted]

>In addition, it seems that CBM is considering jigging things so that
>"non-CDTV" discs can't be used on their player (like what discs? got me!
>oh wait.  perhaps ones they didn't master themselves?).  The reason
>behind this is simple enough:  CBM gets a minor royalty off each disc.
>Non-CBM discs = less royalties.

Before booting from a CD-ROM, the CDTV system software verifies that a
"trademark file" is present on the disc.

This "trademark file" is licensed to the developers for a small fee and
may be placed on the disc by ANY CD-ROM mastering company (not just
Commodore).  It does not prevent booting from discs not mastered by
Commodore -- it only prevents booting from discs that do not contain the
trademark file.

There are justified legal reasons for doing this, although I'm not
completely aware of the details since I'm more involved with the
technical side of things.

With CDTV, you can read any disc that complies with the ISO 9660
standard for CD-ROM. This includes most CD-ROMs available for the IBM PC
and Apple Macintosh families.

You cannot boot from non-CDTV discs and you cannot run the programs on
those discs if they are for a different platform (such as the PC or the
Macintosh). Of course, you cannot run software for other platforms on
the Amiga either without emulation hardware and/or software.

However, if you have software that can handle the format of the data on
the discs, you can use the data.

For example, NASA (in conjunction with the University of Colorado (I
believe)), publishes a set of CD-ROMs containing images from the Voyager
missions and other space probes. The CD-ROM itself only contains data.
When you order the package, you can choose viewer software for either
the IBM PC or the Apple Macintosh, which is provided on floppy disk. If
viewer software were written for the Amiga (or for CDTV specificially),
you could read and view the images from those non-CDTV CD-ROMs using a
CDTV.

>Both ideas make a little sense, but perhaps public reaction can make
>a difference in that regard :-).  best - kevin <kdarling@catt.ncsu.edu>
-- 
==============================================================================
|| John J. Szucs                  || The opinions expressed are my own and  ||
|| Amiga Systems Section          || in no way represent the opinions or    ||
|| Product Assurance Department   || policies of my employer or any         ||
|| Commodore Int'l Services Co.   || associated entity.                     ||
==============================================================================
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