A broadcast flag is a set of status bits (or a "flag") sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content. Possible restrictions include the inability to save an unencrypted digital program to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage, inability to make secondary copies of recorded content (in order to share or archive), forceful reduction of quality when recording (such as reducing high-definition video to the resolution of standard TVs), and inability to skip over commercials.
Read more about Broadcast Flag: Where First Used, The FCC Broadcast Flag Ruling, Current Status
Famous quotes containing the words broadcast and/or flag:
“I’m a lumberjack
And I’m OK,
I sleep all night
And I work all day.”
—Monty Python’s Flying Circus. broadcast Dec. 1969. Monty Python’s Flying Circus (TV series)
“My dream is that as the years go by and the world knows more and more of America, it ... will turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the basis of all freedom ... that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights, and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)