High quality DVD pictures illegal?

DVD players purposely degrade output signal from MPEG2 to lower quality analog so that copies made from the disks are of inferior to other retail products. A British company, Function Communications, has come up with a way to fix that. It is selling modified DVD players that output SDI, or serial digital interface, a standard professional format. Videophiles describe the picture as "stunning." The maker has received the standard "cease and desist" orders from the DVD industry but has not yet been vigorously pursued because, a spokesman believes, the product does not readily facilitate illegal copying or posting movies to the Internet.

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