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Why develop your own streaming software when VideoLan is already out there and working great? I regularly use it for any media viewing, and I've had great sucess with the streaming features.

It's worth mentioning that Johansen is a member of the open source VideoLAN project, which develops the libdvdcss library and VLC multimedia player.

He reverse engineered FairPlay and added FairPlay support to VLC.

Together with the fact that all his recent software has been licensed under the GPL this indicates that he no longer has anything to do with any "cracking" groups.

It's worth mentioning that Johansen is a member of the open source VideoLAN project, which develops the libdvdcss library and VLC multimedia player.

He reverse engineered FairPlay and added FairPlay support to VLC.

Together with the fact that all his recent software has been licensed under the GPL this indicates that he no longer has anything to do with any "cracking" groups.

Try VLC. It's not xine or mplayer but it supports plenty of codes including dvd play and it has a server program set up to display movies to remote hosts.

I think he is referring to the legal issues with libdvdcss. libdvdcss is needed to decrypt and view dvd movies. The problem is it is not legal for distributors of Linux to package it by default with a Linux distribution. so it is up to the end user to download it so they can view movies. You can read more about libdvdcss. http://developers.videolan.org/libdvdcss/

Some Portland kids called Feel(This)Films followed me around a bit and are hoping to release a short under a Creative Commons license; feel free to contact them if you have anything from the con to contribute.

And lucky for Real, all that groundwork was already done for them.

Apple asked the hymn people to stop developing it, and they told Apple to fuck off. Much easier that way, really.

Apple does not own FairPlay. They own the FairPlay trademark and they own the copyright on their own implementation of FairPlay.

However, they do not own VideoLAN's implementation of FairPlay.

and hymn ripped it off from VideoLAN.

> maybe it was simply a matter of fooling the ipod into thinking Helix DRM was PlayFair DRM

maybe opening up rar files with gzip is simply a matter of fooling gzip into thinking that rar files are gzip files. uhh, not.

my money is on real having read DVD-Jon's code to find out how to write FairPlay files.

Use a real media player

A CD will necessarily have to have a static encryption model. As far as I know, Fairplay doesn't do that.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon this page which explains how to record and play back HDTV signals using free tools and a cable box.

Regarding playback, VLC can *just* manage to play back HD 1080i recordings on my 1GHz TiBook (using the OpenGL playback option), so it sounds like it does not require the gargantuan system specs stated in the above article.

Now if only we could recieve HDTV in the UK. :/

I disagree. The best DVD player for Windows (and Linux) is VLC

It supports menus, surround sound (even DTS) and AFAIK all the other things PowerDVD does. But on top of that it is region free and allows you to skip the commercials and copyright warnings that PowerDVD forces you to watch :)

It's also free as in beer and speech.

Ogle
VCL

Both of which support menus surround sound and all the usual bells and whistles, but are also region free and allow unrestricted skipping of commercials and copyright warnings :)

Well, libdvdcss is developed by VideoLAN. DVD-Jon is a VideoLAN developer and is even listed in the libdvdcss AUTHORS file. So how "independently" is up for debate. It certainly wasn't developed in a vacuum.

From a legal perspective it doesn't matter. DeCSS has been ruled legal in Norway. If DeCSS is illegal in a non-free country like the US, then libdvdcss most likely is illegal in the US too.

1. Download Fahrenheit.911.CAM-POT(1).torrent from here on your desktop.

2. Open it with your favorite BitTorrent client.

3. Start the download and wait X hours for it to finish. My DSL line downloaded the 1.03GB file in around two hours plus.

4. Unpack the file "pot.911a.rar" in the CD1 directory as well as the "pot.911b.rar" in the CD2 directory with your favorite RAR extraction program. Opening the RAR file will automatically identify all the segments and put them together. This will create "pot.911a" and "pot.911b" directories which each contain a .bin and a .cue file.

7. Download the VideoLAN Client media player found here and install it.

8. Use VLC to open "CD1.cue" from the "pot.911a" file.

9. When that part of the movie finishes, open the "CD2.cue" file in the other directory.

The quality is quite good for a camcorder effort. Only some of the subtitles are cut off at the bottom of the screen.

I can get the theora files to play under the latest version of VideoLAN client.

There are instructions for setting up Real Player to view Theora files. Although some people are saying that the latest version of Real Player is not so bad I still don't want to install it. I must have a grudge :-) and Real Alternative using Media Player Classic (MPC) works fine.

Is there anyway to get Theora files to play with MPC? I thought that if I installed the Directshow Filters it may work but no such luck. This would be really handy because I use MPC for just about everything else.

Oddly, the GUADEC streaming site suggests Windows users install the universally loathed RealPlayer and a patch for it, when the free, open-source VideoLAN Client specialises in streaming and includes native support for Ogg Theora. While the live streams don't seem to be working in my case (not sure if this is the fault of the client or server), the Theora streams on the archive page work fine.

However, this is also Helix's strength. The fact Helix is playing strictly by the book means it will gain a lot of commercial support. Distros will be able to bundle Helix without being worried about legal issues, unlike XFree86. (Ooer, little bit of Open Source politics there, little bit of politics)

So expect the rise of Helix and survival of the others. Of course, I prefer VLC to either Xine or MPlayer for playing DVDs... ;-)

The format needs to be opened, and it needs to happen soon.

DVD Jon on VLC and Apple's iTunes singles
Jon "DVD Jon" Johansen writes, in reference to VLC's support for iTunes's M4P DRM format:

In case you didn't know, I'm a VideoLAN developer. I reverse engineered FairPlay and wrote VLC's FairPlay support. It's been available in VideoLAN CVS since January, but the first release to include FairPlay support is VLC 0.7.1 (released March 2.).

Just wanted to let you know that once you have generated the user key file(s), you can copy them to as many computers you want and play your M4P files there using VLC.

Put up a VideoLAN Server (VLS) and stream away. I have a box set up here at home to stream a mulicast feed so that I can watch TV in every room (with a computer). Works like a charm.

See http://www.videolan.org/streaming/ for more info.

Tools like Videolan can then allow you to do all manner of cool stuff - such as multicast it on your LAN.

I have an ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800SE, and I'm not really all that happy with it on the tv tuner front.

In my experience, the ATI drivers are somewhat buggy and temperamental on Windows, and worse on linux. Also, I'd love to use Videolan, but it's never worked fully with the AIW. The most recent release is actually able to use my AIW, but only the antenna signal, not the composite, so it can't capture anything from satellite or cable boxes plugged into it. Obviously, that's more of an issue with Videolan, and hopefully it'll work some day soon, but if you wanted to use Videolan with a tv tuner card, it's something you might want to consider.

That's not to say the AIW is bad, and for the price I paid I'm generally happy with it. It does do the job. Usually. But if I had more money, I would definitely have gone for a seperate tv tuner. If nothing else, it's more flexible - you can upgrade the graphics card without worrying about the tv tuner card at the same time.

I would suggest VideoLAN VLC. It is a low footprint video player that can use the common codecs when they are installed (ie you have to install the Divx for Linux and a third party DVD Decoder). It's open source and has been ported to multiple distributions of Linux.

You can get it at http://videolan.org

It also runs on Windows.

I don't see other popular media players using the standard windows UI. Do you?

The above is a moot point, anyway. Keeping the UI of an application consistent with the UI of all the other apps on a particular OS is very important if you want to increase the rate of adoption. Media players are an exception because just about every media player fux up the UI to a confusing level.

Take the look and feel of another popular open source media player as an example. When my mac buddies look for a video player capable of playing mpeg-2 (or whatever file-type it is they're having problems with that day) if I point them to VLC, they love it! It looks and feels exactly like any other mac application they use, from the metal UI, to the menu at the top of the screen, to the double-clickable .app bundle and high-res icon. They end up accepting it alot more easily than an application that didn't fit the Mac look and feel. Similarly, when you run VLC in Windows, it LOOKS and FEELS like a windows app, and on linux, it LOOKS and FEELS like a linux app. Hell, on BeOS, it looks and feels like a beos app.

I think it would be a step backwards for FireFox to consolidate on a single theme across all platforms.

Tne video is in divx format. I played it using VLC media player. It is a sweet little opensource media player that will play divx out of the box.

VLC can play WMA and WMV1/2 encoded files. However, it cannot decode videos which use the newer WMV3 codec - since it's a closed format and no one in the open-source community has successfully reverse-engineered it [yet].

For a full feature list, check out the VLC Feature List. And might I add that VLC is far and away the best media player in existence. And it's multi-format!

Windows Media Player has only the most basic features. This and the fact than in XP it sends home the titles of the films, makes it useless for me. Keeping Zoom Player and VLC.

In terms of features it is well possible to innovate over the previous versions of WMP.

Yup, WMP9 has been out for Macs for ages.

There is a non-redundant part of this post, though. For those who don't want WMP anywhere near their mac, MPlayer is an excellent open source alternative that handles all kinds of video formats, and is overall a great player. Its WMV support is kind of shaky, but most files still play.

And because I'm on the subject, I might as well point out VLC, which in my opinion is the best all-around player for the Mac. It doesn't handle WMV files, though =-\.

Use Linux for a cheap hand held device. Use VideoLAN to play media files. Hack the interface to work on a B&W 640x480 LCD screen, with optional S-Video output jack to play on a TV set or other media device. Use buttons to control the interface, but provide USB ports to plug in mice, keyboards, etc. Use Firewire or Ethernet to communicate with a PC to transfer files. Find cheap PIM software to use it like a PDA as well. Perhaps it can be priced under the cost of an iPod?

> I find it ironic (though perhaps humorous!) that this hack is most simply implemented on a Windows platform. Note that on Mac et al., you have to have an iPod, and have it plugged in, because that's where the decrypted keys come from.

Have you even bothered to look at the code?

The keys are stored ENCRYPTED on the iPod, just like they're stored encrypted under Windows as well as MacOS X.

> Windows is more easily hacked.

Do you have a problem understanding the difference between Windows and iTunes?

iTunes for Windows is not Windows, it's iTunes.

13 steps to play your songs?

I prefer this 3 step procedure instead:

1. Install VLC.
2. Open your M4P file in VLC.
3. Click play.

That's it!

Yeah, I had the same question with Playfair 0.5.0. I assume hymm works the same way. All you need to do is download VLC, a media player, install it in windows alongside your iTunes installation, and play a single protected (.m4p) file. VLC will place your key in $MYDOCUMENTS/Application Data/drm or something similar (just dig around in there). Make a ".drms" directory in your homedir (assuming you're running linux), and copy the file you found there, and you should be good to go.

Install

OpenOffice.Org

Mozilla

VideoLAN

7-Zip

WinGimp

Open AntiVirus

Then see if the users can use them and get used to them. Then maybe when you do switch to Linux, they will be using the same apps, but under Linux. With maybe the exception of 7-Zip, no Linux port yet?

implying that it's illegal to use DeCSS based solutions to do so.

Or worse yet, implying that DeCSS is the only way to play DVD's in Linux. I don't even think it's the preferred method. libdvdcss works quite nicely, and doesn't rely on a warez'd CSS key to do the job.

Instead of Trillian, I install GAIM for win32 (GPL).

Instead of WinRAR, I install 7-Zip (LGPL).

Instead of WinAMP, I install foobar2000 (BSD).

Instead of SmartFTP, I install FileZilla (GPL).

Instead of PowerDVD, I install VLC Media Player (GPL).

I really need to switch to GNU/Linux.

Here's my top 10 list.

1. Sleipnir - Greatest tab browser, made by a Japanese guy, there's an English translation, if you haven't tried it and been using other IE based tab browser, you should give it a try. It's IE engine only. (For those who'll have trouble navigating Japanese web page, here's the download link to English version)

2. PuTTY - Just like others

3. Exact Audio Copy - Very good audio ripper for CCCD.

4. Adobe Reader - Though getting like a bloated software with Printme ad, I encounter PDF just about everyday...

5. GIMP - I thank GIMP team for such a great freeware tool.

6. VideoLAN (VLC) - Great media player + rich network functions, can play DVD (with libdvdcss, check your own law) without any commercial licensed softwares.

7. EmEditor - This is the best text editor I've found to date (tried, textpad, editplus, ultraedit what have you...but I'm not a emacs/vim guy). For what's better, it's free for academic use! It's got regular expression search/find, keyboard mapping, document tabs and all the feature you'd expect on a good text editor. I used to use EditPlus(registered) before this, but I switched.

8. ffdshow - Codecs for DivX, Xvid. No more need for official ad-full DivX codec installation.

From here, I don't have them installed, but these are worth mentioning.

9. burnatonce - A great tool for writing CD/DVD media. It's actually a Windows frontend for cdrecord and ProDVD, small and efficient.

10. DVD Shrink - To extract DVD data and back it up, no writing function, but good for storing it on HDD.

I could go on...but I've reached ten =)

-H

I install these programs first on new Windows machines.

• firefox
• cygwin (including emacs, ncftp, wget, openssh, grep, sed, and other favorites)
• putty
• ntfilemon/ntregmon
• Java2 SDK
• winamp
• VideoLAN Client
• wget
• WinPT/gpg
• Filzip

VNC, Emacs for Windows, VMWare, CDEx, Vorbis Tools, DaemonTools follow. I like Photoshop but as long as it's crippled (currency watermarks) and activated I'll never buy another license for it.

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot SS - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot SS - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

nobody asked, but that won't stop me from answering :)

For AIM: Adium
For a tweaked OS: Cocktail and TinkerTool
For a better OS: my collection of haxies for Unsanity's Application Enhancer (ClearDock, FruitMenu, Metallifizer, Mighty Mouse, ShapeShifter, SharedMenus, Silk, WindowShade X)
For privacy/security: NetBarrier, PeerVanguard (not because I trade P2P, but because I wear a tinfoil hat), Little Snitch
Helpful apps: Butler, QuickSilver, DragThing
For everything else: VLC, SBook5, Transmit, Path Finder, Apple Dev Tools

it's more than 10, but those are all put almost instantly on every fresh OS X install I touch.

Getting the keys is easy using the VideoLAN Client.

Compiling:

* With MonoDevelop [1]: Open DeDRMS.cmbx and click F8.
* With mcs [2]: mcs -out:DeDRMS.exe *.cs
* With csc [3]: csc /out:DeDRMS.exe *.cs

[1] http://www.monodevelop.org
[2] http://www.go-mono.com
[3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyi nfo/howtoget/

Usage:

* DeDRMS.exe file.m4p

Notes:

DeDRMS requires that you already have the user key file(s) for
your files. The user key file(s) can be generated by playing
your files with the VideoLAN Client [1][2].

DeDRMS does not remove the UserID, name and email address.
The purpose of DeDRMS is to enable Fair Use, not facilitate
copyright infringement.

[1] http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
[2] http://wiki.videolan.org/tiki-read_article.php?art icleId=5

Compiling:

* With MonoDevelop [1]: Open DeDRMS.cmbx and click F8.
* With mcs [2]: mcs -out:DeDRMS.exe *.cs
* With csc [3]: csc /out:DeDRMS.exe *.cs

[1] http://www.monodevelop.org
[2] http://www.go-mono.com
[3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/technologyi nfo/howtoget/

Usage:

* DeDRMS.exe file.m4p

Notes:

DeDRMS requires that you already have the user key file(s) for
your files. The user key file(s) can be generated by playing
your files with the VideoLAN Client [1][2].

DeDRMS does not remove the UserID, name and email address.
The purpose of DeDRMS is to enable Fair Use, not facilitate
copyright infringement.

[1] http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
[2] http://wiki.videolan.org/tiki-read_article.php?art icleId=5

Don't use MPlayerOSX; it's not optimized well for PowerPC and is a major CPU hog.

Try VLC; it's MUCH faster. Whereas decoding a 640x480 DivX pegs my CPU on my Powerbook G4 with MPlayer, it only sucks down around 20% using VLC, with no noticeable loss in quality.

-Z

True true true, i too have Quicktime/Real/Windoze Mediocre Player on my mac (rarely use any of them...) but lets not forget my favorite media player VLC!! http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ honestly, it plays vcds/dvds/cue#bin/asf/avi/mpg just about every movie format there is! and i find it very clean at keeping the audio in sync and things, unlike quicktime which on my system (g4 800mhz 384ram) never gets the audio/video in sync.