Slashdot Mirror

Except for the recently accounced deals to allow users to share Universal, Sony BMG, and CBS Content...
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8004.cfm

Um ... the whole point is that the people who are downloading music without paying for it are _not_ the RIAA's customer base - the ones who buy the records are their customer base and the RIAA is not suing people for legally buying records.

I think you'll find that downloading increases sales. People who use P2P and download music buy more albums. Therefore, the people they are suing are, in fact, their customer base.

I couldn't find active links for one or two of them myself, but here's an updated list -- in some cases these aren't the original sites, which have disappeared, so obviously it's worth being extra careful with antivirus software... apologies for the mess of links; the filter doesn't like short lines...

1by1 (play MP3s), AriskKey (recover passwords), AutoRuns (enumerate startup tasks), BurnCDCC (burn ISO images), CD (basic CD player), CDex (rip CDs + convert MP3/WAV), Copier [0X Copy Machine] (scan + print), CWShredder (clean spyware), DComBob (tame DCOM), DirLister (make quick file lists), Discover (force windows onscreen), DupeLocater (find and clean), FileRecovery [PC Inspector] (undelete), Folder2ISO (use with BurnCDCC), FoxitReader (read PDFs), GUIPDFTK (split/join PDFs), HijackThis (find spyware), HJSplit (split/join files), Identify_Boards (identify hardware), KatMouse installer (due to MS drivers), LCISOCreator (make ISO image from CD), Leaktest (test firewall), Microsoft keygen (people lose things), MultiRes (change res + force refresh), Multi Timer (stopwatch), NoteTab Light (text editor), NTest (test monitor setup), OnTop (pin windows to foreground), Process Explorer (task manager), ProduKey (recover passwords), Registry Commander (virus cleanup), ResHacker (examine executables), Rootkit Revealer (just in case) ShootTheMessenger (turn service off), Shred by AnalogX (simple filer shredder), TedNPad (unicode text editor), TFT (dead pixel locator), UNPnP (tame SSDP), UPX (compress executables), UnitConverter (what it says), utorrent (basic torrent app), VCdControlTool (mount ISO images),

Well, if Sony says they are on track to have 4 million PS3's in stores by year's end, it must be true.

We have absolutely no reason to doubt them.

Simple, free, one-click solution: DivxtoDVD. Fast and easy, quite good results.

If you want to get into it more, you need Avisynth (to load the AVI, scale it, apply filters); a video encoder (I like HCenc), an audio encoder (like BeSweet), an authoring app (like GUifor DVDAuthor, finally a burning app (use Nero or whatever came with your burner).

These are all free Windows software, you can do it all in Linux, but it's not so user-friendly. Most Mac users tend to use commercial software.

Simple, free, one-click solution: DivxtoDVD. Fast and easy, quite good results.

If you want to get into it more, you need Avisynth (to load the AVI, scale it, apply filters); a video encoder (I like HCenc), an audio encoder (like BeSweet), an authoring app (like GUifor DVDAuthor, finally a burning app (use Nero or whatever came with your burner).

These are all free Windows software, you can do it all in Linux, but it's not so user-friendly. Most Mac users tend to use commercial software.

An Action Reply + Splinter Cell was the method I used. It was really really simple, and since I already had Splinter Cell it only cost me a little over $30, which is less then I'd spend on a modchip. This was the tutorial I used, and it made it extremely easy. Too bad you've already had a bad experience with softmodding, but I hope this info helps someone else before they try the method you used.

This tax is one step further *away* from loosing your right to copy audio files. A step away from legally protected DRM.

... or not. Finland has had this tax for quite some time, and just at the start of this year, we got fucked with a new copyright law.

An example of this effects us can be found here.

First HD DVD players on sale in Japan

31 March 2006 12:53 by Dela
[picture]Toshiba began selling its first player for the HD DVD format today in Japan, beating the rival Sony-made Blu-Ray Disc format to the starting line. The HD-XA1, priced at about 110,000 yen ($936), is the world's first commercially available HD DVD player. In April, this product will be available in the United States for around $799. It was planned to be launched this month, but unavoidable delays pushed the date back a few weeks. Movies on the HD DVD format will arrive in Japan in April also, but will be even more limited than the U.S. launch line-up.

Blu-ray Disc players are still months away from arrival, with Panasonic (Matsushita) and Samsung planning to get their players in quickly for prices of $1000 and more. Blu-ray enthusiasts were upset by the delay of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console launch, which will now be in November. Despite the staggering number of PlayStation fans wanting to buy the console to asses its next-gen gaming abilities, it is also viewed as a "cheap Blu-ray player" as it includes a Blu-ray drive.

Supporters of Blu-ray are also not shy to cite the gaming console's ability to play Blu-ray movies as being a major part of the format's push for dominance. Microsoft, which backs the HD DVD format, has announced plans to provide an external HD DVD drive to provide a similar "cheap high definition player" to gamers who already own an Xbox 360 console. This clear tie between the next generation console war and next generation format war has been frowned upon occasionally, with one such critic being Warner Home Video president, Warren Lieberfarb.

The HD-XA1, launched today in Japan, has backward compatibility so owners can still enjoy their DVD and CD collections. DVDs can also be upconverted to output resolution of 720p or 1080i which is useful if you own a good HDTV. It supports the video compression standards of MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1, as well as MPEG2, it utilizes a new video decoder chip developed by Broadcom. The mandatory audio formats for HD DVD include both lossy and lossless formats from Dolby Labs and DTS. It features built-in multi-channel decoders for Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD (2 channel), DTS and DTS-HD.

Source:
ABC

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7430.cfm

if nothing else, you could do what i did, just do a hotswap that automatically installs the exploit, there are a few different ones out there but the one i used was shademand's readymad xbox softmod...it worked great and was pretty easy once i figured it out

K3b

Burn At Once

Ardour

Out of luck there.

audacity

Audacity is written with wxWidgets and runs on Linux, *BSD, Mac, and Windows.

TerminatorX

Out of luck.

K9copy

DVDFab Decryptor + DVD Shrink . This solution works under Wine, too, and unlike my many experiences with K9copy, does more than segfault.

Avidemux

VirtualDub. It's GPL'd and works quite well under Wine. Unlike my experiences with Avidemux, the audio and video actually sync (wtf is it with that? transcode and DVDRip do it to, forcing me to use windows apps under wine).

Diva

Is that 3ivx? Just use XVID (gpl'd for Linux and Windows). It's activley maintained and very high quality.

So even with their inflated accounting, they come up with a loss of about 15% of the global revenue of the US movie industry? Give me a break.

By the way, other estimated of worldwide movie industry revenues go up to $450bln when one includes mechandise and other sales. Of course, that also counts Bollywood and other non-US producers.

Well, yes and no. It's not completely dead yet. We still have the "Good Doggie!"-countries like Finland that are urging the ratification of said constitution, without letting the voters decide. Whereas some countries, like Germany, have come with a wise proposition to only include the most essential rights in the constitution, the government of Finland wants to hear none of it.

I love this country, we follow every EU directive, even the more draconian ones, to the letter, only more so, but when it comes to state monopolies, which are not very popular in the EU, we fight to the death for our rights to uphold them. The reason? We (our government) always need to take the course which is least popular among the Finnish population.

You might also need to look into getting "vobblanker" if you're planning on doing a lot of ripping and re-authoring. Newer DVDs like Chicken Little and Madagascar have new copy protection schemes that you might need "vobblanker" to get rid of. check out http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/d vd_tools/index6.cfm for a link. There are also a lot of other video/audio tools and guides on how to use them at after dawn.

According to testimony at the guilty plea hearing on February 20, 2003 , Tolleson and several employees of JT Technology LLC manufactured and sold various devices designed or intended to assist others in the unauthorized decryption of satellite television programming without payment of subscription fees or pay-per-view fees to DirecTV.

According to testimony at the guilty plea hearing on February 20, 2008 , Joe Hacker manufactured various devices designed or intended to assist others in the unauthorized decryption of music without payment of subscription fees.

* DVD Decrypter Recently bought out by Macrovision to shut down it's decryptey goodness, DVD Decrypter is really a no-nonsense, no-fuss DVD ripper and burner. Want to rip a movie from a DVD so you can watch it later? One button. Want to rip it back to a DVD? Another button.

If DVD Decrypter can no longer rip/decrypt DVDs (since it's not being updated anymore), the next highest-rated (by videohelp.com users) freeware ripper (that's still being updated) is DVDFab Decrypter.

Two nice sites for information about video tools with guides:

• VideoHelp.com
• afterdawn.com

Here, I found a story link: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6649.cfm

What you're looking for is Universal Disk Format or UDF.

It is an open standard supported by all of the major OSes and manufacturers and is the filesystem of choise for Ultra Density Optical WORM and rewritable disks.

There a drivers for Linux, Windows and all of the major UNIXes. Here is the obligatory Wikipedia entry.

Hard disk filesystems like XFS, JFS, Reiser, ZFS etc. are all wonderful at what they do but they are unsuitable for WORM disks.

Actually, Mini DVD's are CD-sized media that are formatted to hold video. It wouldn't be appropriate for a handheld device. You're probably thinking about cDVD's, sometimes called 3-inch DVD's. They hold somewhat less than a UMD (1.4GB vs. 1.8GB) but might have been considered, if piracy weren't an issue.

I guess it depends on who you ask, but yes, I was thinking of the 3" verion that holds 1.4GB.

1.4GB would have been fine as far as size is concerned, but, then again, SD cards would have been fine as far as flash memory is concerned. Sony like to go it's own way with this stuff. And just many large Memory Sticks and pre-recorded videos would have been sold if everyone could have inexpensively burned their on-the-go music and video's to inexpensive 3" DVDs?

Piracy was probably an issue, but a small one. Making money reselling 512MB Memory Sticks and HellBoy were probably more important. After all, wouldn't you still have piracy on an MS?

Slot loaders: you're probably right. I'd like to add though that the potential to get gunk in your drive is also pretty high when a full third of the back of your device pops open to insert a UMD.

TW

• Guide to using ABC
• Guide to using Azureus
• Guide to using BitComet
• Guide to using BitTornado
• Guide to using G3 Torrent

• Guide to using ABC
• Guide to using Azureus
• Guide to using BitComet
• Guide to using BitTornado
• Guide to using G3 Torrent

• Guide to using ABC
• Guide to using Azureus
• Guide to using BitComet
• Guide to using BitTornado
• Guide to using G3 Torrent

• Guide to using ABC
• Guide to using Azureus
• Guide to using BitComet
• Guide to using BitTornado
• Guide to using G3 Torrent

• Guide to using ABC
• Guide to using Azureus
• Guide to using BitComet
• Guide to using BitTornado
• Guide to using G3 Torrent

• Guide to using ABC
• Guide to using Azureus
• Guide to using BitComet
• Guide to using BitTornado
• Guide to using G3 Torrent

For any more complex matters (grandma doesn't know how to download), the companies will probably not care.

Jobs needs to abandon proprietary hardware once and for all...Until he does that, he can expect to remain on the fringe irrespective of anything else he might do.

Fringe? Did you really say "... he can expect to remain on the fringe ..."

• HTTP inventor endorses Safari browser
• Tim Berners Lee invents first web apps and server on a NeXT computer
• Apple stock trading at $74 and change as of writing this
• More than 10 million iPods sold
• Half way through 2005 500 million songs sold via iTunes

All of which is really consistent with your point "...Apple are still going to remain largely irrelevant."

If you call those achievemens 'largely irrelevant' and 'fringe' I'd love to see your resume!

Use CloneDVD to rip your current movies and this should remove the region encoding and encryption. Then burn them to a DVD-R or +R, as long as your DVD player will play these type discs you should be good to go. If you go this route you don't ever have to buy another DVD, just buy or rent. Another thing, you don't have to use CloneDVD, there are alot of free programs that will copy your DVD's (DVD Shrink & DVD Decryptor). See http://www.afterdawn.com/ for more information, it's a great site for information on copying DVDs. Todd H.

The German wikipedia already does this (http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7145.cfm) and there are plans for the same for the English one, however the stumbling block appears to be that they want a higher standard for the first DVD version of the English wikipedia - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales/Push ing_To_1.0.

Really? Reeks of bullshit? That's funny...
 
...because your statement reeks of ignorance. FYI, what's 2 years old is DVD *burners* capable of writing to Dual-Layer discs. Your ancient DVD player does, in fact, read dual-layer mass-produced DVD videos. IOW, you are wrong. Why is it that people on Slashdot feel the need to declaim endlessly on subjects they don't understand, and then jump all over the people who do?

This ought to enlighten you a bit, and hopefully you'll learn to shut up (and do a quick Google) when those more knowledgeable than yourself attempt to educate you. You might wait on using the word "bullshit" until you've checked your facts.

You brought up a good point. Are all these blogs blogs that the chinese government moniter? Because I doubt a lot of those chinese offical will have a vast aptitude in english, nor will they *forum* tread (and this is a forum, not a blog) a techie news site that's beyond their control and most common people don't know about.

On the subject western perspective of Chinese freedoms.
The chairman of Apex Digital arrested in China
I assume from your aptitude of the language, that you know something about the western culture. But freedom because the ruling party is *letting* you do something isn't real freedom, it's just turning a blind eye until they decide they don't like you. Which is why I posted that article. I listen to the BBC almost nightly here in the US and just about every other night there some report about the new things that are going on in China (almost to a point to where I'm sick of it). From the water cut off due to a polluting plant explosion, to the newest fads in china, and their views of video games, and their views about western cultures, and their cultural change from the 1970's, elder people's view on things like credit cards, social changes and attitudes about jobs. Maybe people china doesn't hear about these cultural and social reports because *gasp* they were censored/filtered in China?
It's hard for a blind person to blame the sun for not being bright enough. ^^;

You miss the point - these screener DVDS are *very* limited in number - they are DVDs sent off to the people who vote in the Oscars. Each of these is then watermarked with the name of the person who recieves the DVD for reviewing. Then if copies do surface then Disney can analyse the footage, say - it is you who has copied it! and maybe sue the dude to whom the DVD was provided to and at least not give them anymore.

Disney have now gone a step further by saying it will only play on one range of DVD players. This is probably because the last time they caught someone for bottlegging stuff, the actor Carmine Caridi had 'lent' the DVDs to a friend who he thought was just a film buff.

Looking it up on the web the whole story has a tragic end for the pirate involved.

So, yeah they can be copied and distributed. But it makes it too traceable, too much hassle and a recipient has too much to loose, to make the whole thing worthwhile.

Granted, it is not as easy as ripping a CD, but if anyone can streamline this into a single-step process(to the end-user anyway), it would be Apple.

This is like the needles-for-drug-users question: Does giving out needles encourage non-users to start? I really doubt it. The drug users are drug users whether or not there are free needles.
So, what I'm saying is that there are versions on the 'net now, and HBO is not putting them there. So they can either jump in, and add legitimate versions to the 'net for those that simply want a choice of medium, or they can continue (as the recording industry is doing) to deny reality, and try to put the genie back in the bottle.

As for DRM, while you are probably correct, and that there are a lot of companies waiting for the magician to come and solve their problems, the reality is that there is no way to stop illegal versions. Since at the end of the day, the images needs to be visible, and the sounds need to be audible, the unencrypted streams must exist, and so someone will find a way to capture and save this stream. I believe Jon (aka DVD-Jon) Johansen's iTunes 'hack' is in fact a stream-read, and in no way decryptes the file.

Yeah, it's really too bad that a general purpose PC can only be used as a DVR. Imagine if you could use it to play all different kinds of video files (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) that some people get from teh Interwebs (http://thepirate-useyourimagination-.org/brwsearc h.php?b=1&d=200). When I think of all that CPU sitting there unused, I just wish there was a way I could use it to deinterlace and scale the video better than the projector (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/about.htm). It's a real shame that there's no way to filter and soften artifacts, make gamma correction or do other post-processing (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow). I mean wow, what if you had something that could do that to even make DVDs look cleaner and more accurate (http://www.theatertek.com/forums/showthread.php?s =6486412abf926166ef4d7dc0be10c450&t=4392). If you could do that, you may even put some of them on your hard drive if that wasn't impossible (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/ dvd_rippers/dvd_decrypter.cfm). Even if there were a way to keep movies on a hard drive, you still wouldn't have a way to remove the ads, trailers, french soundtracks and other crap (http://www.dvdshrink.org/why.html). Gosh, I keep thinking too that with a projector in the home theater room and everything, it's too bad there's no way to play video games on it (http://www.mame.net/).

Here are some better articles.

Personally, I'm glad Apple hasn't shared their FairPlay DRM scheme with the rest of the industry. It shows the RIAA what's like to be on the wrong side of a closed system. Now they know how we feel when we can't rip our songs to MP3s.

MPAA?

(Of course, that's not a long tie, that's a very short leash indeed. That may be the only one... which could well be an improvement. He's also probably harder to bribe than most....)

There's always http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/v ideo_players/real_alternative.cfm.

Or is this going to be deemed illegal as well?

yes it seems swedish law is going through some change at the moment im not sure that its to popular though im quite sure foreign/US influence is involved wit hthe pushing of new laws there. heres a lil article about the new laws from the 2nd of july 05 http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6595.cfm

From the article:

Just last week, analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers projected the worldwide game industry revenue (revenues from hardware, software, and peripherals) to increase from $25.4 billion in 2004 to $54.6 billion in 2009

According to This site the movie industry pulled in $44.8 billion worldwide for 2004. I don't see the motion picture industry growing as much as the video game industry, so it's quite possible that we could see video games overtake movies before the decade is out.

Good luck.

You might also consider doing an ed2k search for "star wars new hope original", which picks up things like Star Wars Episode 4 - A New Hope (1977) Definitive Original Edition.avi, which I can't vouch for, but hey, it might just be what it says it is.

--grendel drago

it does??? weird. try this then:
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/d vd_rippers/dvd_decrypter.cfm

Try this:
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/dawnload.cfm?mir ror=0&software_id=298
Worked fine for me.

*shrugs/

We'll have to wait to see who picks up that domain name. ( Looks /.ed as I type!)

..to anyone whose country doesn't have DMCA laws. Check afterdawn.com, and do a search for it. They ask you where you live.

One problem: Don't you think the RIAA might check the contents of the file before they sue?

Evidently not.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6357.cfm

The ruling allows companies to withhold information, but does not force them to do so. Some, like Vidéotron, already gave the info to the CRIA, and seemed happy to do it.

Mod parent up.

I mean, really. I guess they're aiming for the 12 year old uber leet haxors with a prize like that.

If you want to attract serious attackers, give a worthy incentive.

Another high-quality app is DVD Rebuilder (but you need to purchase CinemaCraft Encoder). Here are some guides for it.