I’m a big fan of my AppleTV, and I was super supportive of the recently-announced AppleTV Take 2, which allows all 12 of us who have one to purchase music and movies from the iTunes store directly from the TV, with no computer required. I finally got around to installing the software a week or so ago, and rented Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (yes, seriously) without incident.

But apparently, I’m one of the lucky ones––or, maybe it’s just that I have a newish (although kind of a shitty) TV which I connect to the AppleTV via RCA cables masquerading as component cables. BoingBoing passes along a report that iTunes movie rentals won’t play on some TVs, because of a DRM called High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, or HBDCP. HBDCP apparently blocks rentals from being played on monitors that talk to the AppleTV via a DVI or HDMI connection––basically, anyone using a video projector or computer monitor, and pretty much anyone using a flat-screen TV purchased before 2005.

So, essentially, Apple’s DRM is so constrictive that anyone who hasn’t bought a new TV in the last three years will be forced to do so in order to rent iTunes movies. As BoingBoing’s Cory Doctrow points out, this punishes consumers to the point where it becomes hard to see why anyone would go the legal way when DRM-free films are easier to get.

If you, like me, are both a Mac user and a Netflix user, then the fact that the latter’s Watch Instantly movie streaming service is incompatible with the former’s devices is probably one of the banes of your existence (unless you have a life beyond movies, and your computer, and watching movies on your computer. Must be nice.) I’ve always just assumed that Netflix was responsible for the so-1999 decision to ignore the growing market of Mac users and keep the platform PC-only.

I was, apparently, wrong.

Hacking Netflix has linked to a CES interview with Netflix’s Steve Swasey, in which he responds to the “why can’t a playa watch a movie on a Mac, y’all?” question rather defensively:
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• “As a student and fan of special effects and new media,” writes Bob Rehak at Graphic Engine, “I’m struck by the completeness with which the top 10 [grossing films of 2007] encapsulate an evolving mode of high-tech production in serial media.” Those films, of course, include titles like 300, Ratatouille and the latest Harry Potter flick, all of which enjoyed “enormous profitability … in striking contrast to their devalued cultural status.”
• Earlier this morning, I came up with a few reasons why New Line might have bumped Be Kind Rewind by a month. Chris Thilk offers another: it could be because Cloverfield is expected to “march through the box-office like a monster rising from the depths of the sea.”
• At LIBERTAS, Dirty Harry predicts that in calling Knocked Up sexist, Katherine Heigl has irreparably damaged her appeal. “Heigl might’ve thought the quote would help her with the feminist crowd which obviously means so much to her, but the American male who made her a star will only see arrogance, and that’s a turn-off.”
• “Dear Studios,” writes Hacking Netflix. “Stop treating your paying customers like thieves.”

• Stripper-turned-blogger-turned-Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody has “revised” the script for a new musical called Burlesque. Concieved by Pussycat Dolls co-creator Steven Antin, the musical will incorporate “established songs” into the story of “a young woman who tries to escape a hollow past and finds it performing in a neo-burlesque club in Los Angeles.” So it’s like Flashdance meets Moulin Rouge, with Cody undoubtedly supplying references to Thundercats and “porkswords.”
• In what The Hollywood Reporter is calling “an industry first”, the upcoming special edition DVD of Live Free or Die Hard will include an extra version of the film specifically for use on computers and mobile devices. The file, which will carry no DRM, will be compatible with all “Windows-based computers or portable video players equipped with Microsoft Windows’ PlaysForSure feature, available from such manufacturers as Archos, Toshiba, Samsung, RCA, Dell and Creative Labs.” So those of us with iPods can suck it.
• Drew Carey has launched a new web project in cahoots with think tank the Reason Foundation. The newly-minted game show host will host a series of short documentaries for the site, tackling a variety of social issues. Says Carey: “We need Reason to help fight the stupid drug laws, the stupid immigration laws and stupid big government in general.” I swear, that’s the actual quote.
• In a shocking victory over the competition (um…The Nanny Diaries?), Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series has been selected to receive the Variety–sponsored Blockbuster Book to Film Award later this month at the Quills.
• Despite an “effusive” keynote speech from guest speaker Harvey Weinstein, critical mass has yet to be achieved at the Middle East Film Festival in Abu Dhabi, where “screenings unspooled with half-empty auditoriums at the main fest venue” on Monday.