be better and more useful than new equipment. Not only would it work properly, but it wouldn't have been crippled by having to comply with the Compliance and Robustness Rules. This is to say that old equipment would be more functional, not less functional, than new equipment. Alphabet soup "BPDG wants the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to mandate Digital Rights Management (DRM) for ATSC DTB receivers In the body of this article, there are expansions for about 80 of the most common acronyms used in discussions about this issue. (The acronyms expanded include every acronym which appears in the BPDG's Draft Compliance and Robustness Rules, among others.) Of course, this it not enough to appreciate the context behind these acronyms. For example, knowing that PCMCIA stands for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association gives no clue that the Association in question published a standard for tiny removable cards used in laptops. Hearing that 8VSB means "8-level vestigial side band" explains nothing about 8VSB's role in digital television broadcasting (that is DTB for the initiated). The following list contains some of the most important acronyms related to this subject: 4C 4 companies 5C 5 companies 8/VSB 8 level vestigial side band AC3 audio code 3 ADC analog to digital converter, analog to digital conversion AGP accelerated graphics port AHRA audio home recording act ASIC application-specific integrated circuit ATSC advanced television systems committee BF broadcast flag BPDG broadcast protection discussion group BW broadcast watermark CA conditional access CBDTPA consumer broadband and digital television promotion act CE consumer electronics CEA consumer electronics association CIG computer industry group CMI copyright management information CP copy protection, content protection CPRM content protection for recordable media CPTWG copy protection technical working group CRT cathode ray tube CSS content scramble system D-VHS digital VHS DAC digital to analog converter, digital to analog conversion DMCA digital millennium copyright act DRM digital rights management DT digital terrestrial DTB digital terrestrial broadcasting, digital terrestrial broadcast DTCP digital transmission content protection DTLA digital transmission licensing administrator DTV digital television DVD digital versatile disc DVDCCA DVD copy control association DVI digital video interface ECM entitlement control message EEPROM electrically erasable programmable read-only memory EFF electronic frontier foundation EIT event information table EPN encryption plus non-assertion FCC federal communications commission FPGA field-programmable gate array HD high definition HDCP high-bandwidth digital content protection HDTV high-definition television HRRC home recording rights coalition IEC international electrotechnical commission