This is strange.

My girlfriend got a new TV, and its built-in speakers sound awful. I'm thinking of getting her an HDMI "soundbar" with good sound. The reason for getting that kind of a device specifically is because her TV supports the HDMI CEC ARC (audio return channel) spec, thus (supposedly) allowing her to control the volume of the sound bar via the volume up/down on the television's remote, for the ultimate in simplicity. If everything works as the instruction manuals say they will, it should be the simplest setup ever, without needing to buy and program a universal remote or to worry about changing inputs on a full-blown stereo system.

There are many products in this relatively new product category. I'm thinking of getting her a Sony HT-CT370 because they have them at Best Buy right now and it looks like it has the feature set and the sound that we want.

But she's looking at the manual for the thing ( http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4488970213.pdf ) and there's a deeply confusing statement in the manual. The statement reads:



It was a particularly nice catch on her part, I wouldn't have expected to look for something like that. It makes me wonder... what the heck is UP with that? Why on earth would they design a product which deliberately nerfs the very content you want to play through it?

Can anyone think of a reason why it would be designed that way?

Or is that a typo, or some kind of translation error, when actually what they mean is "if you try to play pirated content it won't make sound"?

Any ideas there?

It also makes me wonder about every other product on the market in that category. If one company supports HDCP in that way, what do the other soundbar companies do?