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1) Import video from camera to Dell in DVD formatted MPEG-2

Yes, Apple makes good products -- I just bought an iBook as my new laptop and would buy one again. It's a good machine. The hardware is well designed if expensive, the software good, if not the best of breed. But Apple is a bunch cut-throat-DMCA-loving-money-grabbing capitalists like Microsoft, just without the monopoly, and Steve Jobs eats his chocolate one bite at a time, just like everyone else.

Good software? Yes. Great software? No. Mac OS X doesn't play well with others, it drops those pissy little .DS_Store files in every single folder of a network it can find. iMovie can't deal with letterbox DV (like even Kino can). Mail doesn't know TLS (which even the Beta of Mozilla Thunderbird can do). iTunes can't natively play Ogg Vorbis. Listing the ways that DVD Player is inferior to VLC would take pages, and don't get me started on all the hacks that have been installed to cripple the iBook to make the PowerBook look better (starting with the stupid Spanning Block that is supposed to make sure that only what you see on the screen can be sent to a second monitor or TV). Good, yes. Great, no.

Dear astroturfers, on the long run you'll help Apple more by giving a balanced, fair view of what is offered instead of this mindless drooling cheerleading. These machines are, so to speak, merely human, not gods, and even at 10.3, OS X has lots of room for improvement.

Not sure if anybody has said it, but the downloaded previews are playable with the VLC media player ( i.e. videolan's media player, which is open source, btw )
Link
The player will also play just about any media file since it seems to rely on its own internal codecs insted of those installed on your system.

The other important part required for a full iTunes client is an implementation of FairPlay. FairPlay was reverse engineered back in January by DVD-Jon, and an Open Source implementation is available in VideoLAN CVS.

It's the same code which is being used by the m4p2mp4 and playfair decryption tools.

A possibility is VideoLAN which, while not able to send raw data across the network, can stream mpeg-1, -2, and -4, as well as other formats/codecs. For direct data streaming, netcat is a possibility. However, like stated in a brother post, the traffic on the network is an important aspect to consider.

These are "poor-man" methods, so the choice is up to you if you want to use these or a more professional method of streaming.

A possibility is VideoLAN which, while not able to send raw data across the network, can stream mpeg-1, -2, and -4, as well as other formats/codecs. For direct data streaming, netcat is a possibility. However, like stated in a brother post, the traffic on the network is an important aspect to consider.

These are "poor-man" methods, so the choice is up to you if you want to use these or a more professional method of streaming.

Considering that FairPlay is just AES and MD5 (public standards not owned by anyone), does Real's request really make sense?

Open Source implementation of FairPlay.

VideoLan actually does this; if you want to use VideoLan in Linux to play your iTunes files, you first have to generate the client/user keys by playing back your M4P's on the Windows version of VideoLan. This generates a folder on your hard drive that contains all the user keys (I believe it's \Documents and Settings\Application Data\drms\) -- You then map/copy that folder to your Linux OS, and point VideoLan towards them. It can then decode/play back M4P's without writing new unencrypted files.

There is a whole walkthrough for doing this on the VideoLan website. See here and here.

I had written a program to batch-call VLC through the command line and demux and strip out the iTunes DRM (M4P-> M4A), but now I have playfair working correctly so I don't need it anymore.

VideoLan actually does this; if you want to use VideoLan in Linux to play your iTunes files, you first have to generate the client/user keys by playing back your M4P's on the Windows version of VideoLan. This generates a folder on your hard drive that contains all the user keys (I believe it's \Documents and Settings\Application Data\drms\) -- You then map/copy that folder to your Linux OS, and point VideoLan towards them. It can then decode/play back M4P's without writing new unencrypted files.

There is a whole walkthrough for doing this on the VideoLan website. See here and here.

I had written a program to batch-call VLC through the command line and demux and strip out the iTunes DRM (M4P-> M4A), but now I have playfair working correctly so I don't need it anymore.

It really does work. The crashing is caused by it not acquiring the key and decrypting it incorrectly with no error checking. This is what you have to do(the only way I know how, because I don't know how to compile it on windows).

Download it on *nix and do ./configure, make, make install(if you're root).

On windows, download VLC. Run it and open your encrypted m4p file.

Now, in c:\documents and settings\username(whatever you're logged in as)\application data\drms, you have the key file. Copy that key file to your ~/.drms dir(create it) on the *nix box.

Then on the *nix box run ./playfair whatever.m4p new.m4p.

WHAM! It now works. It grabs the key from your ~/.drms and decrypts it to new.m4p. It works! I've tried it. This is great. Now I can actually buy music(Until apple "fixes" this).

If someone could compile this on windows it would cut down this process to 2 steps: 1. Run VLC with the file. 2. Run playfair.exe in.mp4 out.m4p

Thanks,
Chris Benard

VideoLAN Player is good for DVDs.

Exactly. The actual crypto code in this utility comes from the VideoLAN Client (a multimedia player).

Or use VideoLan and never have to put up with Macrovision / regional encoding shit ever again.

Yes.

You, Sir, are watching way too many TV ads...

Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package.

I just bought my first iBook (I'm a Linux native), and I agree that there is no good office package for Apple. AppleWorks is a joke, AbiWord doesn't do enough, and OpenOffice.org has to be fed through Apple's rather klutzy X implementation.

But make no mistake: This is Apple's problem, not OpenOffice.org's. There is no serious office package for Mac OS X except for MS Office -- but there is no way I am going to pay that much money, and I'm one of those old-fashioned people who things stealing is wrong. Given that OS X's Mail is too primitive (no TLS, so im using Mozilla Thunderbird), Safari doesn't work with online banking (so I'm using Mozilla FireFox), DVD Player is anal about region codes (so I'm using VLC, which has better quality anyway), I don't see much point in Mac OS X over Linux KDE 3.2 -- living without virtual desktops is simply hell, Expose or not. As soon as YDL gets sleep to work on the iBook, Linux it is again.

Apple is making a big mistake by not dumping AppleWorks and putting its programers to work on porting OpenOffice.org to OS X. They are not going to build a good office suite on their own, any more than they are going to make a good OS on their own. OpenOffice.org is there to help them, just as BSD was there to help them with the OS. Financing Microsoft through Office doesn't seem like a clever move.

On a more general note: One of the interesting things about native Mac users is that they are so in love with OS X they don't realize how Linux & Co are breathing down their necks, too. There seems to be a belief that Linux can only replace Windows, not OS X -- a form of "can't happen here" that is just fascinating. Apple is going to have to pedal really hard to stay ahead of KDE and Gnome, especially now since Novell, Sun, and (maybe) IBM are getting serious about the desktop: Mac OS X 10.3 is okay and flashy, but there is little there that won't be in KDE in a year, too.

Or, you could just remove the FairPlay DRM from your iTunes purchases.

VLC, courtesy of the already-infamous "DVD-Jon", can already do this.

Really surprses me that with 400 posts, no one has mentioned this yet. Enjoy.

Apple zealots sure are uptodate.

QTFairUse intercepts the decrypted, but not decoded, audio stream. That's not the same as Audio Hijack (which saves the decoded audio stream).

The code in the VideoLAN Client is not the same as QTFairUse. The code in VLC is decryption code.

There is an Open Source implementation of FairPlay in VideoLAN CVS.

Indeed. There's an open source implementation of FairPlay in VideoLAN CVS.

Can FairPlay be broken?

It was cracked. Months Ago. By DVD-Jon, originally.

A guide to unencumbering your iTMS purchases can be found here.

Parent: "Can FairPlay be broken?"

Have Apple zealots been brainwashed or what?

FairPlay was reverse engineered months ago. There's an open source implementation in VideoLAN CVS.

it is compiled in the great multiplatform media player VLC.

VLC is what I used..

http://www.videolan.org/

VideoLAN Client is a player which uses ffmpeg.

Available for *NIX, MacOS X and Windows.

The DVD drive is not a problem -- it picks up the first regional code you use (I haven't checked about getting rid of the RC altogether yet, though; Apple still enforces it in hard- and (!) software, I'm told, which would be dumb thing to do).

Check out VLC. Works like a charm on OS X, and is region-free. I didn't have to set the region code on my iBook at all; VLC doesn't care, and I haven't used the Apple DVD viewing software.

I'm guessing you've never heard of the cross platform player VLC. It has an excellent interface for Mac OS X (admittedly the one for Windows is ugly) but the main point is that it just plays any videos out of the box. No need to download DivX, XviD, etc. I certainly prefer using it as my main movie player.

IMO, the competition just isn't quite as good. I've never found a way to view video clips full screen in Quicktime, Real Player can't be trusted and all the decent OSS players are written for Linux. Media Player 9 is a very good player, although it damn well should be when you consider the millions of development dollars thrown at it.

Full screen in quicktime is a feature of quicktime pro (10 Reasons to go pro shown here), which costs $29.99 (eek). But what about VLC?

But at any rate, I just don't like the huge GUI for WMP... It's not like they have even done anything useful with it!

I don't see why Apple would care. They haven't taken any action about the numerous song extracting tools like PodWorks, which might have caused problems. Adding songs to and iPod seems pretty useful for Apple.

As for FairPlay, well this looks pretty good - although this stands a much higher chance of catching the lawyers' attention. VLC has an interesting module which implements FairPlay. (You might recognise one of the authors ;-) If you have an iPod you should be able to play FairPlay protected files on Linux - assuming the iPod is able to play the files, that is. Briefly: the m4p file contains an encrypted audio stream. The key is stored on the iPod, encrypted with a key specific to the iPod (a function of the iPod device id, it seems). They've also worked out the system information for windows that functions as the system key, incidently.

Word. What's wrong with Video Lan Server or something? Must be NDH syndrome.

VLC is available for Linux, OS X, and (I think) Windows and plays WMV files. And MOV. Pretty much everything really.

As for spending money, an older Mac (which is all they need probably) can be found for less than $400, easy.

OSS does not imply good quality software. The OSS process gives a few key advantages in generating good quality software, but doesn't guarantee it. So you comment on one failed one. Care to try a successful one? A great player, that works and LOOKS the same on both windows and linux, oh my!

In support of this suggestion, you can get the mplayer binaries, and a GUI player, from here.

You could also use Audio Hijack, which is (very nicce) shareware, or Wiretap, which is free(beer)ware.

I find mplayer is very nice to have around and will often chip in and help where Quicktime fails. Same can be said of VLC.

Linux support for Apple DRM:
http://www.videolan.org

Why do people act like VLC does not exist in discussions about Apple DRM?

Have Apple zealots been told by God Jobs to not talk about it so the RIAA doesn't find out?

Fair Use and DRM are mutually exclusive.

Linux support for Apple DRM:
http://www.videolan.org

Why do people act like VLC does not exist in discussions about Apple DRM?

Have Apple zealots been told by God Jobs to not talk about it so the RIAA doesn't find out?

Fair Use and DRM are mutually exclusive.

But don't blame Mr. Cone or Creative Commons, blame Xiph for not getting Ogg Theora finished yet.

If you rip your collection as VIDEO_TS folders, then you can add them to the Video Lan Client playlist and then you have your complete system, with find as you type search support. Just double click the title of the DVD you want to watch and you get your DVD menu and in the last version of VLC there's beta support for DTS audio (it works quite well for me).
You can run VLC on Linux, Windows or MacOS X.

giandrea

iTunes DRM code

Last weekend, i received a leaflet from VideoLAN at FOSDEM, Brussels.
It reads:"Lastly, VLC has a really flexible stream output feature, which lets it redirect its video and audio output to the network OR TO A FILE. VLC can thus also be used to stream DVDs, VCDs or files on your harddisk."

I don't find this feature back on their homepage with that many words, but I guess it is hidden in the tables that describe its features. At least, VLC should do the trick.

The VideoLan Server can stream video-on-demand from DVD image files. No loss of quality, no re-compression. You just need a nice 5 Terabyte RAID array to store the 1000 DVDs. With a fast enough drive array and GigE you could simultaneously stream 70+ live streams at 9 Mb/s each.

videolan supports playing the raw vob files from a HD and the client runs on many many platforms. If you had a storage array big enough to hold all of these movies*, they could be streamed over a network to whatever you want. At this point mythtv and a DVI connection to a plasma screen with spdif audio would make the viewing a dream. Even if you do compress the VOBs, vls (video lan server) will play them on demand and in multicast.

* my current dream disk array:
- (3) lacie 1TB external hard drive
- dualie opteron with 64bit pci firewire 800
- linux two-point-six and a gig-e-switch

... and it's open-source. Bonus!

Regards,

John

There's a list here which includes some Hollywood movies (but it's no longer being updated).

As for your personal uses of Windows, I say fair enough... While I decided to switch to Linux, I'm actually an OS agnostic. (Not entirely true... WinXP makes me cringe, but prior versions are still pretty cool.) But I encourage you to try VLC media player (for your distro of course),and you'll have excellent DVD support in spite of your video card's lack of support. (YMMV)

Multimedia is the way to go.
Shiny Videos and colourful booting Computers are great - not just seeing files flying around...
What about mass-streaming a video of your company (or a nice scenery of a movie, everybody can enjoy - like monster inc) with Video LAN Client ?
Or one huge conference with high-end webcams ?

Not to mention that the files are usually shrunk down to a very poor resolution and may be copied from VHS tapes that have their own problems.

Quick Tip: If you are downloading a large porno file, always make sure to play a piece of what your've already downloaded to make sure you don't end up with some gay scene (unless you are gay, in which case, enjoy). If you use Windows, don't bother with Windows Media Player since that doesn't seem to play partial viles. VLC Media Player is able to play most video files and partial files.

Still, you've got the right idea. What's needed is software that was never proprietary at any level. And voila: VideoLAN! Which is not only top quality software, it started out as somebody's class project. What could be geekier?

As has been pointed out before, VideoLAN Client (CVS builds at least) can play iTMS DRM files. It's a DMCA violation, of course, but then again, so is anything worth doing...

As has been pointed out before, VideoLAN Client (CVS builds at least) can play iTMS DRM files. It's a DMCA violation, of course, but then again, so is anything worth doing...

Umm, libfaad does AAC on Linux, though it apparently sucks. I wouldn't know, since I use OS X and AAC is, of course, rock solid on OS X.

Also, the latest version of VideoLAN Client does AAC on Linux.

Try Video Lan Client (VLC) for Mac OS. It seems able to play just about everything out there, and can do so full screen. It has served me well. Cheers.