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What Happened To Intervideo's Linux DVD Player?
A singular node from the Anonymous Coward Collective asks: "Several months ago when the storm first blew up about the cracked DVD code enabling Linux users to view DVDs on their chosen platform, Intervideo rode a wave of publicity drawing geeks worldwide to their site by announcing their upcoming 'legal' DVD player for Linux to be available in the second quarter 2000. June came and went and I contacted their sales people who informed me that it would be available at the end of July. It wasn't. I contacted their PR people and was told that it would be available at the end of August. No show. In the meantime, thousands of geeks have gone to their site to be entertained by the wonderful awards they have won for their Windows software. No mention of Linux. The press release has disappeared from their home page as well. Did this software really exist, or was it all just a pathetic publicity stunt? Does anyone out there know the answer?" I'd think quite a few uf us would like to know the answer to this one. What happened, Intervideo?
Yes, really, some promised software projects never materialize, they're called vaporware.
If thery were trying to forestall competition, like a certain company in Seattle, it would be called FUD.
Or maybe they decided all the geeks who wantd to watch DVD;s on the Linux boxes had DecSS, in which we would be to blame.
It doesn't matter anyhow, I'd rather watch a DVD on my TV, with a beer and a bong in my hand, usign a $129 DVD player, rather than mucking about in front of my 15 inch monitor.
That a question which only Intervideo can answer is being posted as a "Ask Slashdot"?
Ask Slashdot, if we don't know, we'll make something up.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
I know that prior to the DeCSS case, part of the MPAA's attempt to spin everything their way was to claim that a Linux DVD player already existed, or was in the works, or something like that. Were they referring to Intervideo, another company, or was it a bald-faced lie?
So if it is a stunt, which seems likely with the vanishing press release, what can we do about this. Here we have a company trying to make $$$ off open source and Linux without giving anything back. This is going to sound vindictive, but is there anything LEGAL we can do to hurt Intervideo, teach them a little lesson maybe?
Of course, maybe they just didn't have the skills to make the player, and are too embarrassed to admit it.
IANAL but Im pretty sure there is nothing we can do about it. They weren't advertising. They were simply announcing their intention to write a player. They changed their mind. The legal have done nothing wrong. There is no tort, no fraud, and no breach of contract.
Or ask for an interview! Get one of the high-ranking officials on the horn, and field some questions! If you call them up, and they say "A representative from Slashdot is on the phone", I doubt they'll blow you off. If they do, that adds fuel to our side of the argument. "They keep delaying the release, they pulled information from their pages, and they refused an interview." That would say a lot right there.
On the other hand, if they ACCEPT the interview, we'd get some answers as to what's going on.
I'm sorry, but posting this as an "Ask Slashdot" piece seems like a lazy way out. We'd get no answers to the question that can be held as proof - merely speculation as to what "Might have happened." (Unless an Interview Employee replies, but that's not very interactive/informative.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
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Please, consider calling such code "unlicensed" instead. The distinction is that all other DVD player software has a CSS license from DVD-CCA.
--
314-15-9265
Ok, I just went to the Intervideo site and checked their press releases. The LinDVD anouncement is still there. I guess this makes me look like a bit of a prick. Still, it makes the entire article rather irrelevant. all we have here is late software.
My guess it that by 'second quarter of 2000', they meant the millenium... i.e., sometime between 2250 and 2500. (+- a year to take into account nitpicking on when the millenium actually starts)
Until then, I'm more than happy with a dual-boot machine at home, with windows for games & stuff, and linux for development.
-Space for rent
I had no trouble finding the Linux DVD player software press release, here's the url:
http://www.intervideo.c om/news/28/InterVideoLinDVDFinal.htm
Yup, we've seen it. We were interested in co-developing the hardware decoding for our laptops... however, they are not interested in bringing in any outside developers.
:-)
The version we saw running on a Dell Inspiron 5000 was nearly fully functional. It was feature complete, and they had just added the ability to use the mouse cursor to control the on-screen DVD extra cool things.
We should be getting a beta version soon to test with our laptops. In the meantime, the rest of you will just have to wait.
Aparrently, it will be a software only player. However, they are investigating a plugin type API to allow third parties to write drivers for hardware decoders.
Anyway... just wanted to say that it is DEFINITELY not vapourware... though I still want an open source player to come to fruit.
Look at how many OS/2 developers are really willing to create OS/2 games?
Maybe SOME day we will have a commercial product.
Signatures are supposed to be funny?
CyberLink have also announced a Linux version of their DVD player.
There is no details about when it will be released or even if it has been completed. Only a few lines where they ask for developers to contact them for more information.
- Tiersten
My wife is pregnant and due very shortly. Naturally, we're both geeks and are always looking for ways to help the Open Source community. What would happen if we were to name our child using selected parts of the DeCSS source code? Admitedly, weddings and funerals might be a problem, but other than that, I'm sure we'd manage (After all, these should both be many years off). Would the local hospital records department end up getting sued?
after i emailed a question on Intervideo's support page in the last week or so, i rec'd a reply stating to the effect that "LinDVD has been sent to OEMs for evaluation, and I can't tell you much more than that."
so at least i got a reply, but that's not helping me with playing DVDs under Linux...
anyone have a simple, step-by-step procedure with software that works under 2.2.15, 2.2.16, or 2.2.17?
When this last came up it was said that it had been released to OEMs, but nobody had found an oem to comment.
Looks like that's still the case.
hounds^H^H^H^H^H^H Script Kiddies!!!!!!!!
This opinion property of Vapor Ware Inc. All Rights Reserved for nothing.
Sig it.
I have seen other discussion sites do this so it is not original. I think slashdot needs an option to mail the replies to a posted comment to your email address. I know I'm not the only person that sometimes forgets to recheck answers to questions asked ect. This should be so simple to implement and there could be a limit of email alerts/day or whatever. Well?...
DVD-ROM drives made before Jan 1st were not required to do hardware enforcement of the region codes. Which drives had or didn't have region code enforcement can be found at places like www.dvdutils.com. At that time, the only region enforcement was in software, and of course patches have been written for every software player under the sun to disable this
New (RPC-2) DVD-ROM drives have "hardware" region code support (meaning the drive does it-- not just the software). Some of these drives can be "patched" with a modified firmware upgrade. Some can't.
Sigma Designs (makers of the Hollywood+ DVD decoder cards) has released a driver for their NetStream 2000 card for Linux here. These drivers apparently include source code according to their FAQ. Of course, this is not a big deal because the "interesting" parts of a DVD player are implemented in hardware. Someone is also working on a DVD player application built around this driver, though it is not clear how far along that project is.
Obviously they've seen the fate of other commercial Linux products so they've decided to make an annoucement for a product they intend to release "sometime real soon " and meanwhille get some upfront money out of banner ads.
So everybody rush and click through their pages....oh yeah and post the link to their web page more often on Slashdot.!
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. Alan Saporta
The problem with DVD player software is:
a) There is a fairly small market of people who want to watch a DVD sitting at their computer.
b) Even fewer of these people use Linux
c) Even fewer of THESE people are unwilling to dual boot.
d) Even fewer of THESE people are willing to pay for software to replace the software that runs under Windows that came with their comptuer and/or DVD drive.
e) Set top DVD players are very cheap these days.
Besides E, this is the same problem most Linux software faces. The sad truth is most Win32 software works perfectly fine for 99% of the people who use it. It's hard to justify wasting the time and money to cater to a *very* small market.
Many software DVD players (PowerDVD, WinDVD)initially set the region code based on the first disk you insert. They also have a configuration option to let you manually change the player's region code a finite number of times (5 or so) which is a limitation actually coded into the physical DVD drives by the manufacturers.
Thank you for seeing the real issue, Eric.
;-)
It still boggles my mind that writing one's own instructions for a device (DVD player) and sharing them with the world can be called "illegal" in the first place.
There was no instance of "trade secrets" being compromised, if there were and insider of one of the licensed vendors or the consortium would have been on trial instead of Eric aka Emmanuel and 2600 magazine.
There was no instance of copyright infringement, DeCSS is origonal work not a copy.
Calling DeCSS "illegal" is nonsense, just as saying that a "licensed" program is "legal".
If the MPAA can find a pirated and cracked copy of it's own software then they have a point, but until then they are just blowing crap (along with that Amish* judge that they rented).
*no offense to any Amish folk reading or hearing about this post
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The irony is there isn't a sigmadesigns.com and InterVideo is still trying to roll out their LICENSED, LEGAL Linux-based DVD player, meanwhile anyone with the mind to can use DeCSS to do it now. One would think the MPAA would have a vested interest in speeding the production of a Linux based DVD player just to quell this argument.
Listen, Sigmund, we'll discuss it in the morning.
When's the last time we actually had a /. interview, anyway?
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Wouldn't it be interesting if both houses creating 'legal Linux DVD players' were strong-armed by the DVD CCA to claim a Linux project for a prop of the DMCA case vs. 2600.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
The MPAA is a non-profit organization, actually. They've covered their asses really well with that one. It seems like the companies within the MPAA are into some form of collusion or another, however.
But if they're a non-profit organization, why are they raising such a big stink over "licensed" players (i.e. ones that they have received extra $$$ for)?
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
DeCSS is a LEGAL DVD player for Linux and UNIX. Why bother with a commercial version?
DeCSS has been out for months, it works, it does not use any origonal code so it is not a copyright violation. No insider contributed to it's development so there is no trade secret issue.
The judge and MPAA can say a dog has 5 legs all they want, but the dog still has only 4, DeCSS is not a violation of any law.
If you buy into the "license" making it legal then perhaps automobile companies can start licensing maps for use with their vehicles. If someone is caught in an Explorer with an "unlicensed" instruction device (the origonal work map) then Ford can bring criminal charges against the map maker. Sound pretty? Not to me and that is EXACTLY what the MPAA was arguing in federal court.
If that is the world you want, then by all means, wait for these bozo's to finish their vaporware. However, NOBODY is going to dictate to me what instructions to send to my own property.
It is amazing that a cursor functionality is holding them up for months, sounds like BS to me.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Check it out: http://intervideo.com/news/ 28/InterVideoLinDVDFinal.htm
Geez, check these things out for yourselves. (it is only 2 clicks off the front page!)
DeCSS "plays" dvds? I don't think so. Lets see I fire it up and wait about 15 minutes. Wow it dumped a 4 gig file on my drive. Thats one hell of a player.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
So just because the words "deCSS", DVD, Linux & Commercial appear together in an article, the conspiracy theorists start frothing at the mouth.
Perhaps they are just ironing the bugs out before they release it? One of the criticisms levelled commercial software is that it is all too often rushed to market without proper testing. Maybe these people aren't like that.
After all, this is the reason Linux 2.4 is still awaiting full release, even though it was promised for April. I don't hear Linus Torvalds being accused of having hidden agendas (not that I'm doing that, I just think people are being a bit unfair here.)
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Maybe it's a strategic relationship, in which "Ask Intervideo" moves to Slashdot, and "Ask Slashdot" moves to Intervideo. Think Synergy! Alliances! Coopetition for the New Millennium!
sulli
RTFJ.
OKAY, DeCSS is not a full player, it is just a critical piece that you need to make a functional player.
Here is the full HOWTO for Linux:
http://helo.org/dvd/howto/DVD-Playing-HOWTO
and for FreeBSD:
http://www.opendvd.org/fbsddvd.php3
Thank you all for correcting my memory loss during my fit of babbling.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
What I want to know is whether it will by PCFriendly (i.e. the InterActual Player 2.0)? Or, will I still have to boot into Windows or find another DVD player to participate in their online events?
So since lots of people have the DeCSS source code, why not start a project to create a patch to it much the same way as LAME did with the Fraunhaufer MP3 encoder?
I'm not into the type of programming required for this but the way LAME morphed from being a patch to being a full fledged independent program was pretty interesting to say the least.
Perhaps this would be a way to develop and open source DVD player for Linux - while legal battles are happening, people still code. When it all blows over you'll either still have the patch that lets you play DVDs, or (hopefully) be able to turn the patch into an independent program.
Guys were harrassed, guys got scared and project was sent to the bin.
But there are legal DVD players for Linux now...
Maybe the process of getting threatened happened in an early stage, if it did, it never stopped.
Bizar technology?
Well, there IS an alternative that also gives onea viceral pleasure by tweaking the nose of the MPAA...download and keep using DeCSS/dvd-munitions.
They are STILL widely and easily available.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Intervideo had a tiny stand at CEBIT in Hannover this year. They had a computer running linux, with the player shown to be working.
At that time it was very flaky, and I guessed it didn't have any CSS decoding built-in - the disc they were demoing was a promo-disc of some sort that I assumed didn't have any encryption.
I tried to play with it a little, but the sales guy shooed me away, saying something like "very new software! Pre-alpha quality!".
Not that it means much, but the press release *is* still on their web site. If you go to:
http://www.intervideo.c om/news/28/InterVideoLinDVDFinal.htm
And it is accessible form the 'Press Releases' link on their front page. Please make sure of these things before posting...
-- bearclaw
Guess it's easier to write press releases then to write software.
I can even tolerate restricting otherwise free speech and allowed behavior when there is clear and present danger (yelling "Fire", stalking somebody, publishing hit lists and telling people to go murder people on the list).
But DeCSS is as harmless as it gets. There is absolutely 0 threat that a bunch of letters and numbers on somebody's hard drive is going to harm anybody in any way.
Actually it's sort of scary when you step back and think about information itself (without regard to the process by which it was obtained) being branded legal or illegal. "This is information that you are allowed to have. This is information that you are not allowed to have."
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Please, consider calling such code "unlicensed" instead. The distinction is that all other DVD player software has a CSS license from DVD-CCA.
Better yet, call it "competitive". That brings one of OUR issues - violation of antitrust law - back to people's attention.
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Even accounting for the fact that I run it on Win98, I've never come across a DVD title using it that functions properly. Not only does it blindly assume and require that your desktop be 640x480, it crashes/hangs/bluescreens frequently. I can never get more than 3 or 4 questions into the quiz from the Matrix, and a lot of people I know can't get the software to load at all or detect their DVD-ROM drive.
Someone should reverse-engineer that and come up with a working alternative - that would have a market.
I'd prefer to watch a DVD on my TV with surround (still stuck with prologic, but it's better than nothing), but when waiting for a delayed plane, or stuck on call late some weekend waiting for a long process to complete, it's nice to be able to fire up my laptop and watch a movie. After all, it's much more portable than my TV/stereo/DVD player at home.
I was going to make a joke about a company that had never heard of Slashdot (till they were sorry they did) but I can't remember the name of it... what was that "Linux" company that was going to go public but they didn't really have a distro of their own, then they put one up and it was totally ripped off and bogus... I can't remember their name. And what ever happened to them?
It is possible to run a closed-source program on Linux!
This is certainly what any commercial offering expected will be: closed.
Even the RIAA might not mind open-sourced drivers for the types of sealed hardware they are interested in selling in the future, I hope this has taught them that even closed-source software drivers provide almost no protection whatsoever.
If the software is just like a remote control, and the image is decoded by hardware and goes straight from the player to the display card (not through system memory) then open-source gives them many advantages: a kool-looking ui with no work on their part, new navigation ideas, and quite possibly people will tell them about holes in their hardware security and suggest ways to fix them.
Linux has an open source kernel which makes protecting CSS decryption impossible. How can you protect CSS and DVD data if anyone can hack the kernel and snoop at what the DVD player is doing. Sure, you could write a DVD player in such a way to make it difficult but there is no way to sufficiently protect CSS and the DVD data. This is why you will never see a legal DVD player for Linux unless CSS is done in hardware (as with Sigma Designs DVD player) or it is being used in a closed box system (i.e. settop box) where upgrading the kernel is impossible (or CSS is opened up).
>>It is possible to run a closed-source program on Linux!
Of course, but it does not help you if the whole infrastructure is open. To make a DVD player safe in the MPAA sense it may not be enough to provide only a closed-source DVD player but also closed-source video drivers that turn on Macrovision on the graphic card's TV-out and will not allow the user to turn it off while a DVD is played. And if the graphic card does not support macrovision, the DVD player must refuse the play the DVD. Or the X Windows system allows to capture the video output. It may be neccessary to turn this off to play a DVD "safely".
Presumably, the "illegal" DeCSS code has a clear interface. I.e.: well- defined API. Entry points & return values. Whatever. (I haven't looked at it.)
Now let's suppose that open source writers started cranking out friendly, GUI-based DVD apps, complete except for the DeCSS code--expecting "users" to link the "GUI code" with DeCSS modules/libraries the "users" are assumed to have obtained elsewhere. Say, for example, from Usenet? (Where it's now posted all over hell and back :-).)
Would the "GUI-based app" writers be liable for anything?
I suspect not. But IANAL. Nor a judge.
*no offense to any Amish folk reading or hearing about this post ;-)
I am stunned as I sit here reading slashdot in the warm glow of my kerosene powered laptop deep in the fertile Pennsylvania farmlands cultivated by my ancestors. If you didn't mean it to be offensive, why add the 'Amish' modifier? What would have been wrong with, "along with that judge that they rented"?
No shoo-fly pie for thee.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Anyway... just wanted to say that it is DEFINITELY not vapourware
Does it allow for fair use of DVD content?
Does it ignore region coding?
Does it allow you to skip trailers and ads
If the answer to any of these is no, this isn't the DVD player that we want.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Its just not in English. http://www.intervideo.com.tw/.
My email is real.
I'm kinda surprised we don't already hear more about this technology .... perhaps it's vapourware as well, but it seems to me that if and when it finally gets out the door that it will quite possibly put an end to DVDs in general.
As I don't know much about the subject that's all I really have to say, but anyone who wants to take a look at this technology and possibly make a better call as to its validity, the company is Constellation 3D.
Cheers!
RFC2119
-- Ghandi
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government
-- US Declaration of Independance.
If he is still saying "not enough," it is because he does not feel that he should be expected to be grateful for the halting, and inadequate attempts of his society to catch up with the basic rights he ought to have inherited automatically ... by virtue of his membership in the human family and his American birthright.
-- Martin Luther King
Those who are unwilling to fight for their freedom don't deserve it.
-- Malcom X
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
LinuxOne. I would suppose they quietly shut their doors and laid off their two employees after getting a mountain of negative press.
If you can read the drive, you can make a copy. You don't even need to be able to read the filesystem on the disk. You can read the disk as raw data and make an image.
Commercial pressed DVD discs store CSS keys in an area that is already burned with zeroes in DVD-ROM media. You may be able to copy the files, but you won't be able to copy the key.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you don't like the way that the rules are being written and enforced, get involved in politics. That's where the rules are set. Don't think that registering a vote every few years is the limit of acceptable participation. (well, actually, I'd consider it the lower limit of acceptable participation).
Nothing would scare politicians like 10K angry geeks getting involved in the upcoming election. With DECSS, Napster, Microsoft et. al. all on the cusp, I'd say it's about time.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
But DeCSS is as harmless as it gets. There is absolutely 0 threat that a bunch of letters and numbers on somebody's hard drive is going to harm anybody in any way.
Or so a logical being would conclude. But CSS was created as method of content control... a phrase which has a far great reach than mere copyright infringement. Part of CSS is determining who can watch what movie and where. Helps keep prices high in some regions, while affordable enough to be proitable in others. Also, (and this is where the MPAA has a beef with DeCSS) in order to manufacture a DVD player or develop one, you need to purchase a license and the CSS algorithm. This allows certain electronics manufacturers to arrange a kind of consortium. If a company wants to develop and manufacture a DVD player with the consumer in mind, they simply aren't sold a license or has it revoked. I'm sure there are certain clauses in the contract that say things like "you may not make a DVD player that can play movies for other regions or output the decoded information in any other format than copy-protected analog, etc, etc"
You can see for yourself that DeCSS and the precedent that it would have set without being fought would have been quite harmful, from a corporate persepective at least.
As always, much of this is pure speculation, and I enjoy being proven wrong if truth accompanies the counterargument. Have a good day.
I know we're just preaching to the converted...
But there is one thing, even beyond First Amendment rights and fair use that scares me. I'm not a legal historian or anything, but it always seemed to me that laws were about restricting *behavior*. If I sign an NDA, and then disclose some secret info, it is not the *information* that is illegal, it is the *act* of disclosing it. Or if somebody tells me a password and they weren't allowed to, it is *their* *action* that will get them in trouble. Now with the DeCSS judgement, I can imagine a trend in which the *information* itself is branded legal or illegal. This is something entirely new. As far as I know, *information* has never been given a legal state unto itself - it was always some action that was made illegal. It's scary to think that simply holding some information in your head would make you a criminal, but on worse days I can imagine that possibly happening.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This world is looking more and more like Fahrenheit 451. With the exception that self-education itself is not illegal, but being able to watch a movie for free is punishable by house-burning.
If they think closed-source drivers means they are safe they are completely wrong. They must design hardware so that they are not afraid of people knowing the entire interface in detail. The trick is that the interface does not allow anybody to do what they don't want you to do.
First, the MacroVision can be tied on the DVD decoding card to the decoding. It can be impossible to turn it off if the card is decoding a DVD.
Second, I expect the video picture to go direct from the card to a plug on graphics card. The X11 driver (open source) will be unable to give the card any directions other than "put the video here". Attempts to grab that area off the screen will result in garbage, as the video image will not reside in the graphics memory.
The biggest way to combat piracy is to allow people to grab images. The DVD card can also put still frames on the bus, but will have a timeout so that no more than a few per minute will work. The ability to grab a still or a very short clip will get rid of the desire to hack this cable to the video card.