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Harry Potter, Macrovision and Economics
markthebrewer writes "Apparantly Warner Home Video have released Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone without any of the usual Macrovision copy-protection systems.
Looks like its just a trial, but someone's done the maths and decided it may be cheaper not to copy-protect videos after all.
Find the full article in the
New Scientist." There is certainly something desperate about macrovisions response to this development. Does anyone see macrovision as a real barrier to copying anymore? What a bunch of snake oil salesmen these people are. In related news, I'm marketing my own personal copy protection device.
I thought Macrovision was mandatory? Does Time Warner get an out because it's a member of the consortium? That certainly doesn't sound fair.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I have defeated Macrovision on both VHS and DVD, only for legal purposes, by simply using what amounts to a video amplifier, which I picked up at Worst Buy some years back for about $50.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The reason is simple. The first wave of Harry Potter video buyers are going to be parents driven crazy by their children to get the thing. Middle America usually just goes to Wal-Mart or some store and picks it up. For $20 they get the best babysitter in the world. It's cheaper to make non-cp videos so that makes profit margins go even higher up for the video.
No parents is going to let their kid keep screaming while they go call people they know and see if they can't make a copy for it. They'll go to the store and get it and quiet the kid.
Adding Macrovision to video doesn't prevent the pirates from duplicating videos, so the biggest effect of Macrovision is to reduce the quality of the video. I applaud Time Warner for having some sense. (Now if they'd only let people log onto AOL without using their stupid software...)
If they price something reasonably people will buy it instead of stealing it.
I know I prefer to have the real product rather than a copy (not that it's especially hard to circumvent Macrovision anyway).
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
On some DVD players, you can disable Macrovision by means of uploading a new ROM into the player by burning it onto an ISO 9660 CD-R, or by hitting a secret key combination on the remote. It's mostly APEXes and Daewoos that let you do this; ironic that they are the cheapest yet most hackable DVD players. I have a cute little APEX I scored for $70 at Circuit City... that sucker plays DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, CD-Rs, MP3s (!), and they kitchen sink. Most DVD players have a "Factory setting" menu that you can get to, but you need to know the secret code.
Of course you'd never get goodies like this from the big boys (aka Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic).
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
Video == DVD I mean. I just get into that habit of calling any sort of movie at home a video.
this is a valid point! mod parent up!
Macrovision a little scared by this? From the article:
Says CEO Bill Krepick: "Effective immediately, Macrovision's licensing policy (requires that) 100% of the title must be copy protected in a geographic territory or, if less than 100% of the title is copy-protected, then a Macrovision copy protection logo must be included in the exterior packaging of those units that are copy protected."
I say this is excellent news. Now I can make sure I only buy DVDs *without* Macrovision protection. Not because I want to pirate them (I own almost 300 DVDs now), but because Macrovision deteriorates the video signal. Don't "protect" your product by lowering the quality.
Frog
Getting past the protection is only the first step. The next problem is the distribution. Homemade servers have lots of file space because the pirate put his own hard drive in, but bandwidth is low, because his connection is cable (or worse). Free internet hosting has a great deal of bandwidth at your disposal, but the pirate is generally limited by the amount of space in which he can put files. This causes him to make multiple accounts under pseudonyms to store all the files. IRC channels and Usenet are often posted with links to the locations of the files, as are the pirates websites. Distribution is sometimes active, sometimes passive, depending upon the pirate's personality and motives.
On the note of motives, back to the idea that for some it is prestige. One of the goals with pirating, in the underground, is to get a pirated copy on the internet and widely available on the first day that the movie is released. Hence, a 0-Day movie is a pirated copy that was released the same day as the legal copy.
The internet is without question the largest mode for wide scale piracy. But one often overlooked area of piracy is that of person-to-person piracy. Most don't consider this as piracy, because the person is generally a friend, and as such we see it as a favor, rather than as stealing. It skips our mind that it takes away revenue from the software producers. In such a form of piracy, we lend our Installation CD to a friend to either copy or install from, and then we get it back (or perhaps we get a copy from a friend). Person-to-person copying often goes on to result in commercial copying (copying for profit). This mode is often difficult for bearded linux hippies, as they are often without friends.
I must say that despite piracy being a bane to the movie companies, there is honor among thieves. I've noted that many sites actually encourage those who download to purchase the movie if it is good. They say to support the companies, which indicates that they at least know the repercussions of their actions. Another one of the major repercussions of piracy is the spread of viruses. A little while back, CIH (Chernobyl virus) was spread rather widely through inclusion in pirated software, as it infected a few of the major underground software centers.
All in all, I do not condone wanton piracy. However, I must take the stance that it must exist. Not only from the stance that order cannot exist without anarchy (sounds cheesy), but from another stance. One's muscle does not develop without resistance. So also does the evolution of software protection not occur without resistance to it.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
We are now getting down to the nuts and bolts i.e. cost-benefit analysis of copy protection. There will always be an element that will not pay for a product and the large studios know that. However, where 10 years ago people would hook up two VCRs and record the movie they rented, your now casual copier goes out to Kaaza before a movie is even released in theaters and downloads a copy. With the ease of use, proliferation of broadband, and movement of copying forces to another medium no wonder Warner decided to put up a test balloon and ship a product without Macrovision. Besides that five cents maybe spent better elsewhere especially if that five cents doesn't buy you anymore protection against copying then you already have. Be afraid Macrovision...its not the fact that you don't do your job because you do for the most part; its the fact that you have become obsolete in a day of P2P and broadband.
HT
I think the MPAA is (slightly) smarter than the RIAA as the retail/cost ratio of DVDs is not as insane as CDs. Many DVDs can be found for under $10. For most folks, it's just easier to buy a DVD than to deal with copying it.
-- Buzz
Looks like a major media company is finally willing to experiment with an unrestricted/locked down product.
What will happen? Well, people will make copies of the movie. They'll give them to their friends, some of whom have never seen Harry Potter. If their friend likes the movie, they might simply purchase it on DVD. In this case, it can actually encourage sales.
Obviously, there is a lot of resistance from Macrovision Corporation. And why not--they have a vested interest in keeping all DVDs "protected" using their system.
And the professional pirates operating out of Asia? They won't be affected at all. Macrovision really doesn't matter to pirates who simply make bit-for-bit copies or VCDs.
and money to get Macrovision not only supported, but legaly required (DMCA), they finaly figure out that it is simply less expensive to not use it after all.
You know the only thing Macrovision does is prevent you from hooking up your DVD player through your VCR - which is sometimes desirable if you have an old TV.
As for copying - filtering out the signal is easy, you can download programs that will do that for you for free. But then Macrovision won't prevent you from lending the DVD to a friend - who most likely will be happy just to see the movie and not copy it.
I personally really don't think they lose any income from people copying a DVD to VHS as opposed to lending the DVD to a friend. H@ll - it might even be that the friend likes the movie so much he goes out to buy his own copy on DVD!
You know I *hate* Harry Potter. Not sure why, but nevertheless I plan to purchase a copy of this just to support the idea.
Having little kids around makes copies necessary. VHS tapes are cheap and durable as far as kids are concerned. Make a copy and let them use the old VCR as often as they want. (Not that I always do this, but sometimes I want to.)
Making a personal copy is ok and should remain so. Maybe someone there gets it. Maybe not, it is likely about the money.
Still, can't help but wonder where this is leading.
Blogging because I can...
Finally, a movie that I can actually watch! That damn Macrovision gives me a fucking migraine every time I watch a DVD. I should slap those bloodthirsty exploitative bastards with a nice class-action lawsuit, just like that woman who sued Macdonalds about the coffee spill.
I really don't believe that Macrovision is necessary, and this Harry Potter example is a perfect one. If your a fan of the movie, you want to own the original. That pretty much sums up the whole Video and Music pirating industry. I guarantee there are thousands of Slashdotters out there that own the bootlegged DVD screener rip of Lord of the Rings, and I bet that almost everyone of you will buy at least one if not both of the DVDs when they become available later this year - just to have it. You like to display it in its packaging on a nice shelf next to your home theatre system, you enjoy the special features that one time you look at them (except for the Kevin Smith movies - the extra stuff on those are golden). Its just a strange little need to have the original - you feel like your contributing to something you enjoy. I'll download any movie I'm a fan of, but rest assured that as soon as its available on DVD, I'll pick it up.
Sound waves should be free!
the secret menu on your 600a Apex player and turn it off. I jumped to circut city when I saw the remote control trick posted on slashdot a while back...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
To think that anyone would even desire to copy this movie.
Hey kids, look! FUD!
7 free hours, with dial up tcp access, :)
just find another free cd / identity when your done
If this "test" is successful, how long before the RIAA sues Warner for not following lock-step with the rest of the entertainment-industry against pirates?
It's also kinda cool that the DVD was also not protected, not just the video.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
beautiful
(btw thanks crapflooder filter, you saved me from accidently posting on my karma-whore acct ^.^)
No direct digital copying there.
Complete with puzzled script kiddes who couldn't figure out how to hack it. no bits and bytes.
;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I've sent back about a thousand dollars worth of software because of this.
My solution is rather simpler, really. I merely avoid depositing "copy making materials" anytime I'm not amenable to the outside possibility of an unanticipated new copy.
Macrovision puts up that splash on some dvd's that sez:
Macrovision Quality Protection
If the studio doesn't pay... the "quality" won't be in there.
If they did, they can kiss their job goodbye!
...to reproduce the ending of a television show via electronic means before it even airs across the country? Maybe Duct Tape would be the best copy-prevention device for chrisd.
;-)
I'm sorry, cheap shot.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
How does macrovision affect the "normal" use of a tape or CD? I bought a DVD player which allows you to disable macrovision because I figured that disabling macrovision might improve picture quality. I guess my eye is not trained well enough to tell the difference. Supposedly macrovision only trashes the AGC in a VCR, but shouldn't it also have some affect on the AGC in a normal TV? If I buy a DVD, it is because of its high quality picture, otherwise I'd watch HBO or rent a tape. Since I can disable macrovision in my DVD player, at least psychologically I feel better. But I'd still like to have an authoratative opinion on the affect of macrovision and normal viewing (not copying).
Sneaky... very sneaky...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Then we need to buy this DVD. If sales are strong - then it will be a very good argument against MAcrovision and copyright protection! Let's shop!
The DVD is on-sale at CompUSA for $10. If out-of-stock, grab the printed add and pricematch at
BestBuy or any other soterwith pricematch policy.
Kubus
(I say this in terms of DVD not VHS)
When I want to see a movie, I want to see the whole effect: the sound, the quality, everything. I have never watched a pirated DVD movie before, so I will be the first to admit that I don't know how good of a quality the rip may be. Perhaps very good, I just don't know.
In terms of actually _watching_ the movie it doesn't matter. Anyone can hook up on the web and grab pretty much whatever movie they want to watch. From what I've seen, movies found online are substandard quality. Yes, some are top-notch; however, then you must watch them on you computer system (which for some people a 21 inch monitor suffices).
Personally, I would prefer to watch movies with my wife in my living room on my TV with surround sound and DVD component quality. Perhaps this is old fashioned; yet I believe the atmosphere of a movie is just as important as the movie itself. I know quite a few people who had rips of AToC who refused to watch them until they had seen it in the theatres for the _full_ effect. Those same people will buy the DVD when it comes out regardless of their opinions of the movies itself (after all its Star Wars, though this has been debated already a million times already). This isn't always the case, obviously. However, I think the majority of people (ie computer-illterate) would much rather prefer to shell out a few bucks for the actual DVD than watch some ripped version on a computer screen (or burned to a DVD, which again I have not yet seen and maybe it IS as good as the original). I myself have taken to buying pre-viewed DVDs from blockbuster, they usually cost around $15.00 and in most cases are in perfect condition.
In terms of Harry Potter, Blockbuster actually has a deal where if you rent the movie, you can can come in later and buy a previewed DVD for only $10.00. Not to sound like an ad for BB, but 10.00 for a DVD is not a bad deal (although you have to add in the 4.00 you spent to rent it in the first place).
YEAH RED WINGS!!!!!!
...the retail/cost ratio of DVDs is not as insane as CDs.
Not to mention that it costs a lot more to make a movie (100's of millions of dollars) than to make a CD.
Did anyone besides me get a kick out of the screen shots which accompany these instructions ? The "loophole" menu, which lets you change the region and disable Macrovision, displays a message on the bottom of the screen. It says "You should not be here".
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
From what I have heard, there has recently been a proliferation of cobination VHS / DVD players in retail at prices that are affordable to the average consumer. Macrovision copy protection doesn't work when going from DVD->VHS. The Macrovision solution is meant to play in this, the consumer space (not sophisticated AV pirates). The Macrovision product does not offer a total solution because it doesn't cover DVD->VHS, and may not elicit media company expendatures in the future. A Good Offering And Total Solution Elicits Corporate Xpendatures.
I've had an Apex dvd player that is macrovision free... have i ever bothered to test it? No. I think that the amount of people who would go about bootlegging dvds for their friends would be a very small group. I would much rather simply lend the disc to someone than spend time recording to VHS. Maybe macrovision mattered when VHS was king of home video but not anymore. People who REALLY want to bootleg videos have ways around it in any case.
This has been a long time coming. I have over 400VHS movies and can be considered a bit of a videophile. The thing that has irked me for years is the stiffling use of copy-protected VHS movies by these media companies.
,a coniving example of how current corporations are allowed to run away with the cheque book of the end users.
When I buy a VHS movie I should be able to recopy it as many times as I want, as long as I use it for my own use. One of my favorite movies, Ishtar, which I watch almost once a week, I have been forced to buy 13 times!! VHS degrades serverly after 50,000 views. If I had been able to copy my own tapes, then I would never of had to waste all that precious money buying the same tape over and over.
This is once again an example of how copy-protection, in anyform, degrades the rights of the paying user; and is simply, as my case proves
5 cents per disk? At $20 a copy you need 1 lost sale for every 400.
And pirate copies aren't always lost sales. They may have copied the disk, but wouldn't have bought it anyway.
I knew a Playstation freak (I expect DVDs will follow a similar gameplan). He had a hundred games copied from rentals. Only played half dozen, or so. Oddly, perhaps, he actually went out and bought all his favorites.
Over all, I'd bet this guy ended up buying more disks. And he was happier for the experience.
First, he rarely felt cheated by the industry. If he was forced to buy 10 disks, and was unlucky, he may have decided all games sucked and walked away from the whole thing. Indeed, he ranted that a number of his copies weren't even worth the rental fee.
Second, his purchases reflect his true market feedback. He likes things he buys and if someone were to make more of that, he'd probably buy them too. Unlike hype driven purchases, of blind media, where any 10 "bets" on 10 games does nothing in the way of market feedback.
He bought a game that detected his mod chip once. Came to find out the game sucked. He was pissed off so badly about that $30 he talked about it for months. Swore to never blindly buy another game again. Avoided that vendor forever more. If they ever do have a good game, he'll probably never know it, and never buy it.
So, I'd bet 1 lost sale in 400 is an gross over assesment of real world losses.
Pardon my ignorance, but is it what makes the image on DVDs appear to fade in and out when connected to our old TV via the VCR? (It was the only way we could connect it and keep DirecTV as well.)
We returned our DVD player because of this.
Anyone know of a list of players that don't have it/can be defeated?
Cheers,
-b
Do Americans not know that sorcerers and philosophers are not the same thing? What the hell is going on here? Why are there two different titles for the same movie? This seems ridiculous and arbitrary.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
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For someone whose business is to prevent the spread of information, that seems a bit ironic that they're using GPL'd software.
Not that I blame them, hell, its a whole lot cheaper than the alternatives...but still....
I work in the set-top-box industry, and on several occasions I've worked with folks from Macrovision, Inc. I always found them to be quite intelligent and aware of the limitations and problems concerning their technology. Granted, these were engineers and not marketoids, but they seemed to be a genuinely cool group of people. I certainly didn't get any of the Copying=Communism bullshit we hear from so many in the Hollywood sphere of influence.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't judge a company on their press releases alone. Obviously Macrovision has an interest in seeing their copy protection scheme applied to DVDs, but that's what their company does.
And as far as the question of whether anyone sees Macrovision as an obstacle to copying, the answer is definitely YES. I would liken it to the security on your house - you lock the door, right? Well, will that keep out a determined burglar? No, but it will keep the honest people honest.
Please, feel free to flame away. This is just my opinion, based on the people I've dealt with at Macrovision.
Yes.
Macrovision changes the brightness
of the image, line by line. So you
could get a flashing screen, or
horizontal stripes, or a dark band
that moves up and down, etc.
Macrovision "copy-protection" is just as effective as the subject above: words, which can be used to sue you. It would actually be less profitful for them to actually make copying impossible, just get the de-facto standard on compensation for violation, and you get much more bang per pirate.
I don't know much about this macrovision stuff, But I hook my PS2 up to the tv through my VCR all the time and haven't had any proublems. I would think if this was usual many people would be mentioning the ps2 but no one has. Is this right or do I have a special one? Now that I know this, any one want a VHS copy of Harry Potter? (Kidding)
-Ben
---PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE---
"Now, where's the damn 'any' key?"
Macrovision works by constantly varying certain aspects of the signal intensity of the video signal, so the receiving device (your TV) has to constantly readjust. The point is that TVs have tuners that are capable of readjusting to this, while VCRs are required (by the VHS patent holder, under agreement with Macrovision) to have tuners which are not quite able to adjust to the extremes Macrovision uses.
I talked to a couple of video technicians about this, and they tell me that in addition to preventing you from videotaping the signal, it also may make your television tuner wear out slightly faster.
People are putting way too much faith in Warners here. I would not be surprised to find out that this was just a manufacturing glitch, not intentional, and that Macrovision was indeed paid their per-copy fee as usual.
In Russian some people call Macrovision "Mracovision", what can be approximately translated as "see the darkness". I find it a very funny and appropriate name for that bullshit.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
It is called "marketing." Sorcerer exudes mystery and magic, both hot sellers. Phliosopher reeks of academia, which doesn't sell at all.
The first book in the series was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , published in the UK in 1997. When the book was released in the US, the title was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone .
There were other changes as well.
The movie release had the same title change.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
... Don't forget that by the time you by a DVD, you've had a pretty good chance to find out if you want to own it. You can watch the movie in the theater, and then buy the DVD with bonus material. The RIAA only does this in a half-assed way. They don't play entire albums on the radio.
"Derp de derp."
Where did my comment go?
WTF?
I have been pwned because my
I noticed that Macrovision will require that for videos in which less than 100% of the production run uses Macrovision technology, those that do will have to be labeled with the Macrovision logo.
I wonder if this is something Macrovision has been waiting for an excuse to do. I notice they have actually been advertising themselves on videos, and they phrase their description so that it sounds like some sort of "protection" technology, so an uninformed consumer might think that it's a good thing that somehow prevents their video from wearing out rather than a nasty thing that restricts their fair use ability.
I'm basically wondering if Macrovision is trying to confuse, obscure, and obfuscate what they really are in a weird attempt to try to get consumers to actually look for or ask for their logo on stuff. If that's the case, I wonder why they're so desperate since they seem to have basically 100% market share already.
I particularly enjoy the insanity of this when the soundtrack of a movie costs more than the movie.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
VCD Helper has had a list of DVD Player hacks available for quite a while. From everything to modifying your brightness to reconfiguring country codes through methods put in by the manufacturer for testing. It's really interesting to see the hidden features of your otherwise normal DVD player :)
If the MPAA is worried about me downloading a movie w/o paying for it, the best defense they have is to have a good rapport with me. If I respect you, I'm not going to let harm come to you. Unfortunately, they have treated us all like they need to throw us all in jail. At least that is what I envisioned when I heard about the SSSCA.
Let's face it, the tools are out there. They'll always be out there. Whether we use them in a damaging way or not is dependent on two things: 1.) Incentive not to, i.e. extras on the DVD and so on... 2.) Whether or not we care.
Frankly, when I first heard about the SSSCA and it's over-reaching implications, I was out for blood! I still am, really. If I do something the MPAA wouldn't like, I feel good about it. Film88.com? I probably would have been all over that had it not gone down, half because I knew the MPAA would have a shitfit. This sentiment is far more damaging than DeCSS or any other circumvention tool around.
What the MPAA needs to do, instead of trying to invent new technology to thwart copying they don't want, is to make us friendly towards them. Show that they're out to have fun instead of out to squeeze money out of our wallets. When that happens, I'm happy to give them my money for stuff like DVD's.
Make it socially unacceptable to download copies of movies w/o paying for them and you'll get far more done than using encryption that somebody's going to break.
"Derp de derp."
At least the one I bought for the kids had Macrovision enabled. Well, I pressed the magic buttons to conjure Macrovision away and copied the movie on VHS. Mind you, that was completely legal, since the video was for personal use (kids went to see their DVD-less grandparents for a couple of weeks and the only way to prevent the kids from driving poor gramps and granny nuts was to supplement them with the movie). Anyway, I find the whole Macrovision scheme laughable and completely disingenious, other than from the point of Macrovision the Co. who has successfully sold hi-tech snake oil for some time now.
Existence usually comes as a surprise (Idem)
Not exactly relevant but interesting none the less.
There was a number overflow error in a counter variable somewhere in the guts of w95 that makes the machine go boom at some exact moment of uptime, 47.something days, down to the second precision. So... technically "months" but that's unlikely if anyone's actually using the machine for anything...
The clock overflow at 47 days locks [Windows 95] up solid.
The service pack fixed that.
These are terribly rough numbers as I'm not sure how many copies were really sold, only gross dollars sales figures from here.
.05c a copy.
The linked article noted that HP sales totaled about $200 million (US) the first week of video release. I took a wild guess at each copy selling for $16 (about what I bought mine for), arriving then at a figure of $625k that they would have had to pay Macrovision at
And that's just the first week! I had never thought before about how much companies had to pay to have Macrovision - given how much it costs (or that it costs ANYTHING) I can't believe video companies use this technology at all! And I thought the lottery was the biggest stupidity tax going.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
what's the point of VHS if you've got DVD quality
For one thing, some TVs don't properly blank the VBlank portion of the signal. For another, mothers want to make durable copies of Dreamworks animated movies so that the originals don't get scratched up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The great majority of Miramax titles are published without Macrovision protection. I don't see Slashdot clamoring about that fact.
Sigged!
I would much rather simply lend the disc to someone
Who will scratch it up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I suspect this is a troll, but anyway...
It's not marketing. The publishers changed the name because they figured American children were too stupid to know what a Philosopher was. Even though the "Philosopher's Stone" is a "real" idea from history....
They've been doing this for years. Note that I am not saying that American children are stupid! But that's what book publishers think...
This has been incredibly well documented - but I'll leave the google search to the interested reader.
sorcerer Pronunciation Key (sôrsr-r)
n.
One who practices sorcery; a wizard.
philosopher Pronunciation Key (f-ls-fr)
n.
A student of or specialist in philosophy.
A person who lives and thinks according to a particular philosophy.
A person who is calm and rational under any circumstances.
not quite the same.
When I was studing philosophy, I never heard anybody refer to a philosophy studen as a sorcerer, or one who practices sorcery
I drop from becoming a philosopher when I learned the number 1 question asked by philosophers:
"You wan't fries with that?"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
released in the US, the title was changed
"What's a Philosopher's Stone?"
"I dunno, sounds like something to do with thinking."
"Thinking? YUCK!"
I don't know weather to be more offened at the idiots who decided to change the title, or the fact that they were probably right. Sigh.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
From the article:
...
Analysts suspect that Warner left the release unprotected, to investigate whether this would have a significant impact on sales.
Let's increase the sales figures for the non-protected DVD by buying it. Then we can convince the company that Macrovision actually hurts sales
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
You can just restart the explorer program (by using the alt+ctl+delete popup) rather then the whole OS.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
sounds like you actualy have a legit reason to get one...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Despite decades of social change, the general perception remains that technical workers, scientists, and engineers are unusually intelligent white men who are socially inept, absent-minded nerds."
As an interesting side effect, if you want a Region 1 DVD of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , get a Canadian version.
-misao
Sweet, when you rip this one make sure you visit http://www.xix.cx/ for more information about how to *really* enjoy this great flick.
Make sure you visit the "black" section.'
Peace!
TVs don't have AGCs like a VCR has. That's why when you watch a macrovision-encoded tape in your VCR it looks fine on the TV.
The stone not only turned things into gold, but it enabled the bearer to live forever. These two things are of vital interest to philosophers. If you could live forever, and had infinite wealth, you could spend a long time thinking about the meaning of life and the universe.
My other first post is car post.
You're talking about piracy over the net, in which case someone is making a DVD rip. The DVD itself does NOT have Macrovision encoded on it. It's the DVD players that add the Macrovision signal overlay. (This is why so many players have an option to turn it off; it's a no-brainer, requiring very little code.) A computer DVD player has no way of inserting a Macrovision signal to the mix, so the whole idea of using Macrovision to protect against online piracy is useless.
I put the Harry Potter Widescreen version in my DVD ROM drive, and it asked me what region I wanted to set my DVD ROM to, and that I had only 5 more times I could change it. Maybe I've just been playing all-region discs since my reformat a few weeks back, but I remember the 5 number from when I set it up over a year ago, as well.
off topic: Also, it has this buggy "InterActual" software fluff it tries to install on my system... I let it install, but it never sees a DVD in my DVD drive if there's a CD in my CD drive, and there's no easy way for me to hardcode what drive it should be looking at.
back on topic: My guess is they know that people have figured out how to suck the VOBs and convert them if they really want to be mean evil people, and have decided not to waste the money right now. I'm sure this doesn't mean they have given up on protection altogether; they'll just make the next DVD-replacement format a bit wackier, I'm sure. Frankly, I'm all for them releasing their best formatted stuff with protection, as long as it doesn't interfere with the playback quality. While there may be some grey area in the concept of viewing a screener version of a movie to decide if you want to pay to see it, there is NO grey area when it comes to directly trading ripped DVDs (or CDs, for that matter).
Get off my launchpad!
I always thought it was designed to simulate tape stretch or a dirty playback head.
I can't help but notice that even after a film has been broadcast on TV many times, video and DVD copies continue to be available in the shops often at very low prices. These must still be profitable which tends to indicate that all new video and DVD prices are artificially high at the moment.
people will figure out pretty quick that it's something to avoid. let 'em!
And btw... They're quite cheap too.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Macrovision is not copy protection, it is copy prevention.
It is an additionnal technical measure complicating the work of the copier of an already legally protected work.
It doesn't protect copy. It is not copy protection.
the current uptime on my dual 500 g4 is:
% uptime
3:16AM up 56 days, 17:18, 4 users, load averages: 0.18, 0.25, 0.30
dontcha just love this OS? btw, this machine runs aim, irc, email server and client, apache, photoshop, freeway, flash, itunes, games, etc on a daily basis. it isnt a server with no one at the keyboard.
Ok, you may now continue with threads that are on-topic
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
It didn't look like it had Macrovision. (And yes, it IS noticable...like some kind of edge-enhancement filter or something, applied lightly, at least on VHS) But then, I've seen tapes 15 years old that are clearer than that tape was.
Closing the Analog Hole by only releasing incredibly crappy analog. Heh.
Macrovision have conned numerous studios into buying their worthless garbage; of course everyone was worried about giving it up, but it only takes one success to get the ball rolling and chances are Harry Potter is going to sell really well.
Hopefully this means goodbye to the Macrovision blight.
I use an old Ferguson 3V24 portable video recorder. It was intended for use with a large video camera, from the days before cute wee Sony Handycams. The whole thing comes as two boxes, each about the size of a small PC case - one is the tuner, one is the VCR itself. The goodie is that in order to deal with a potentially marginal signal from the camera (think long video leads here) it has signal correction stuff on the video inputs. Which splats Macrovision. W00t.
Wasn't it the elixir of life that gave you immortality?
Both philosiphers stone, and elixir of life were (unsucessfully) searched for by alchemists
Sounds like your suggesting that the video should be given an X/R rating, if it's having that kind of impact on children and parents. surly theres somthing criminal going on here, good job you spoted it coes it sure looks like no-one else did.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I have an old TV in my living room, it has no scart or composite inputs, all it has is the aerial (RF) input. In order to use my PS2 as a DVD player (its the only DVD player i own) i need to plug it into my VCRs auxiliary input so I can watch it on TV. While this works fine for games, i get the stupid macrovision effect when i try to watch DVDs. The only thing i can do, is get the plans and build a macrovision stripper, or buy a separate modulator. Macrovision serves no purpose what so ever, i can use the PS2 on my TV-card, and capture DVDs. They just assume that I am some pirate who wants to copy DVDs onto video, when in fact i am some pirate who would rather rip them to DivX and can :).
My respect for the film and DVD industry died years ago. I have absolutely no moral problems with renting a DVD to rip it.
Macrovision is certainly top of the Dumb Ideas Hall of Fame (coming soon)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well if the do this AND drop the price of the things they'll cut back priracy. Why would I pay a few pounds down the market for a dodgy pirate copy when I can have the same thing from the original source with guaranteed quality for the same price??
Same applies to CD's. I'd buy more IF they were alot cheaper. The cost to maufacture is the same, but they'd make more profit by selling more....
Just a thought..
I would not be surprised if the studio did the math and discovered that they make more money off the licensing for Harry Potter Action Figures sold to the families who've only seen it on pirated video than they would from selling a legit video to those same families.
A new kind of meat designed to appeal to vegetarians.
I own a pair of Chris's wirecutters ( pictured in his catalog as 'r93381.jpg' ). You won't find a happier customer anywhere! They cut through wire like hot bu.. er, well like wirecutters! The adjustable 'wire stripper' setting is second to none. And the rubber handle is confortable as can be! I was able to snip 4 times in a row before resting!
I highly recommend this American Made product to anyone with a few VCRs to disable. Thank you Chris!
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
I think the MPAA is (slightly) smarter than the RIAA as the retail/cost ratio of DVDs is not as insane as CDs. Many DVDs can be found for under $10.
Over here in the UK, most new releases are around £20 - £25. If you are very lucky and buy from a place like Amazon you might beable to get a new release for £18. Older DVDs have started to come down to around £10 - £16 though, and when I say old.. I'm meaning films such as 'Batman'. Although HMV recently did a 'buy one get one free on selected titles' which was excellent.
I'd still like to beable to buy new releases for £10, but I'm just a cheapskate I guess! What is the retail/cost ratio of a DVD btw?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I've read teh B00KS over and over about TW1CE now and I just can't tell.
Does HARRY have a D0NK3Y?
That's sales lost - the number of copies to originals might actually be higher, but I bet most of the people watching a pirate VHS copy of a DVD would never have bought the original anyway.
Personally though I wonder how many extra DVDs they'd sell if they sold them for a fair price. A DVD costs cents to manufacture, costs less to transport than a VHS, takes up less shelf space, but sells for 150-200% of a VHS! I bet the profit margins for DVDs are double even if you add the cost of mastering and filling the disk with extras such as those crappy featurettes that they make anyway to send out in press kits and so on.
Copy protection, at least in my eyes, seems to be just another obstacle for pirating media. The fact is that regardless of what copy protection innovations occur a way around it is found. I am an avid movie collector and I normally purchase all sorts of DVD titles without complaining about the full retail price. Similarly, we have seen the statics on CD sales, DVD sales, and the like have not been impacted as much as was expected with the innovations of mp3 compression and larger hard drives. I think this is more of an ethical dilema. The bottom line is if there is an individual who wants to pirate media bad enough they will find a way to break to copy protection. I think that money would be spent better making better media and marketing to ensure successful sales and revenue due to the media that is being published. Just my $0.02.
kha0z
Master of ImportChaos.com
You spend millions to come up with a new technology to thwart people who can bust it in about two days for free. Meanwhile, you find your largely untested scheme causes Macs to freak and die. Then you end up in court in a class action suit.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Missed some, just about all Phillips DVD players can be hacked by using a universal remote.
Most DVD player brands have hacks available for their more common players, and even some of the less common, higher end players.
You can get playback from the off-brand DVD players, but my experience is that it's better to get a bigger name-brand player than to cheap out. I'd rather go for quality, so I went for a Panasonic RP-56 and chipped it. Its hack consists of a simple chip and a firmware upgrade.
a floral arangement? Picture second right from the bottom.....That's pretty flaming if you ask me!
I believe this was in the software context, back in the days of ProLock floppies and the like.
/. post in favor of the clipper!
They compared the software delivery market to early transatlantic shipping. In those days (not sure exactly when, but I suspect we're talking 1600s-1800s) there were two competing shipping models - the galleon and the clipper. The galleon said you send your goods to/from the new world in a heavily armed and escorted ship so it can defend itself from pirates. The clipper model said you send you goods to/from the new world in a ship so fast it could a: outrun most pirates, since they were heavily armed, and b: didn't spend as much time at sea, where they might get attacked.
In the end, of course the steamship won. But in the sailing technology race the clipper won, because it was simply more efficient at getting cargo from point A to point B. All of the armament of a galleon was a distraction from the primary task - shipping.
Unless of course the people running the galleons have an in with the legislature, and craft laws effectively outlawing clippers.
How's that, a
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If companies produce compelling content, people will fork over money to own a piece of it. God knows I've bought jackie chan VHS and DVD because I either wore out the VHS or wanted a DVD copy. There are plenty of movies that I collect because I love it. I might watch a crapy copy or a pirated version, but I will also buy a copy or two. In fact, I give movies as presents to friends who are movie buffs.
Having copy protection doesn't stop me from lending it to a friend. But not having copy protection does remove the one negative thing about buying DVD's and VHS.
This story is much more like memepool than most /. stories!
Amazing magic tricks
As long as there are wires carrying signals to speakers and TVs, the signal can be recorded. Even if the TV must do some decoding, at some point a signal gets sent to a CRT or projector, so just record it there.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
I've tried to download movies off kazaa - my broadband connection can get up to 500k/sec (that's k, not kb) when downloading linux isos off fast providers.
I've never gotten a fat pipe out of any of the kazaa sharers. And plus, nobody in their right mind would wait that long for a real movie (15 hours?) if they could afford the real thing. Lastly, who wants to watch the movie on a PC?
These ominous rumblings of geeks really don't matter much in the Real World. "eToys will revolutionize buying, and retail stores are doomed." Yeah, right. "Broadband means that people will steal movies instead of buy them." Yeah, right. Get off the horse and smell some reality. How many DVDs to -you- own?
Macrovision does increase the chances that you can't copy your DVD to a videotape so it can be played on the videotape player in the car. It's good to know that I can get a DVD of Harry Potter which the kids can enjoy on a long trip.
I just picked up Harry Potter (for the GF) and Black Hawk Down (mine) for $16 each at Best Buy. I am more than willing to pay this amount for a new release. Very few DVDs at Best Buy are over $20 and some of the titles that are shouldn't be. I doubt that that is BB's fault but the studio's.
BB also has a very large $9.99 and under section.
20 GBP is about $35 US? That's expensive.
regarding the copy-protected cds...
As an Electronics technician, I can assure you that the felt-tip marker approach will NOT damage your hardware.
the statement they make is grossly inaccurate.
here is what they say:
"It should be noted that using ink of any sort on the playing surface of the CD can cause loss of the entire contents of the CD. Introducing ink or foreign materials on the playing surface of a CD can also damage the CD player reading device. Consumers should be aware that any damaged media or corrupted media files caused by this hack may void any warranties for such media, the content contained thereon, or the playback or recording device. "
this is wrong, since the CD surface never comes in contact with the optical pick-up assembly.
What bold-faced liars!
I felt this needed to be addressed.
why Macrovision isnt used on TV broadcasts? Would it work?
The flip side is that the CD didn't get played in an ampitheater first and garner millions to hundreds of millions of dollars before being released.
Of course, anyone will tell you that the CD makes jack for most artists. They make their money off concerts (which is about the best analogy to a movie theater release possible here), while buying the CD just lets you listen to the music when you want and pays (mostly) the record label. I don't support piracy, but I've also pretty much stopped buying music too (I listen to it much less as well - changing lifestyle).
The previous responder made some very good comments on DVD too.
People started releasing patches for the game that ripped out the macrovision copy protection on the game and noticed it ran 30% faster. Needless to say, the programmers started telling people to download and install it if it's running slow on their systems as a fix! Get outta here! I'm serious! You can buy that for a buck!
I'm not surprised that the studio is trying a DVD release without MacroVision. Before DVD's came out, I owned a number of laserdiscs. I also rented a bunch when they started to become rare. I would video tape the ones I rented, even though they had MacroVision protection. My stereo head unit has an option to "enhance video" that basically eliminates MacroVision. I never had a problem taping these discs.
Now I've been bitten by the DVD bug- my wife and I have over 200 DVD's, and there's no end in sight. While I haven't tried copying any of them yet, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have any problem doing so. As for DVD piracy, what's the point? On average, we've paid something like $12.00 per movie (including tax & shipping). Where's the cost savings in piracy? With the original, I have the original case, all the special features, etc., at a price I'm willing to pay. In fact, we hardly go out to theaters anymore, since it's much cheaper to just buy the movie on DVD a few months later.
The dry fish swims alone.
I bought my Laser Disc player (you know those 12" video discs?) when the studios were pushing the technology by offering the software for half the price of vhs tape. (remember when new releases on vhs sold for $50-$70 each!). Then K-mart started discounting movies on vhs. Today whenever a new movie comes out you can find it discounted SOMEWHERE. Harry Potter was on discount for $9.99 ON DVD two weekends in a row by CompUsa! Makes you wonder what the markup on DVD's are.
The point is price matters. If the software is priced right it will sell. Why bother making a pirate copy (or buying one) when you can have the real thing cheaply.
Does anybody know if/when the "patent" for Macrovision's so called "technology" actually expires?....just wondering since this is about all the company really has to offer...
"Personally, I've been furious with them since CDs came out costing twice as much as cassette tapes, despite the fact that they are many times cheaper to produce. I understand the theory that says I'm paying for the superior quality of CDs (yes, I agree that "quality" is a factor in price), but when the other major factor in "price" (that is: "cost to produce") is less than a thenth the cost to produce the other product, why am I paying two to three times as much?"
Don't you people know anything? How do you think prices of a product is set? Do you really think it's something like fixed_cost + variable_costs * 1.2? No, it's something like "To break even, we need to sell each sprocket @ $2, but the optinum price is $20, much higher and the sales will start to decline...". So as long as we buy their overpriced DVD's, the price is not going down. However, the Internet could change that.
Yeah...had one of those for a few weeks. While the region/macrovision stuff was cool, when it couldn't play DVD's worth a shit, I took it back. It had lip sync issues, branching issues, and heaven knows what else.
I've heard they've fixed that in the newer releases, but the menu oddly disappeared.
It's too bad the Apex player has terrible picture quality and in general is a sub-par player. You get what you pay for and for $70, you don't get much.
According to the article, it costs 5c per disk to add Macrovision.
If Warner decided that the protection afforded by Macrovision costs more to implement than the expect losses to piracy... we know that Warner anticipates to lose the equivilant of less than 5c per disk in lost sales due to piracy.
Looks like they realised that:
a) the piracy market is not that big, after all and
b) folks who pirate wouldn't buy the product at full price anyway, even if there was no other option.
Looks like harsh economics wins out over foolish MPAA hyperbole.
-EvilMagnus
However, Warner execs probably aren't too worried about casual piracy because most DVD-owning Americans have already been told that you can't copy from DVD to VHS. Period. This is what I tell people when I hook up their DVD players for 'em. Sure, you can get a video stabilizer, or just buy a pirated version off eBay, but most people just know you can't tape DVD to VHS (or even route the DVD through the VHS).
So what are the chances that John Q. Public is going to re-route his AV wires so that the DVD now goes through the VHS right before he watches Harry Potter? Slim. People are going to keep their setup the same, and just assume that the mysterious device on the DVD that doesn't allow copying is still there...
This whole article is about Macrovision! Someone who asks about it isn't offtopic, merely ignorant!
I'm not sure if this really has to do with this, but I got that DVD at my local supermarket for about $10 (I honestly forget the exact number, but I brought the DVD and 12 cans of soda and the whole order totalled $15).
This is definitely the cheapest I've ever seen a DVD movie sell for, especially when it's a new release, a 2-disk set, and is a major movie actually worth seeing (sure, UHF was great, but I don't think it was a major movie, nor is it new)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
If we want to support Macrovision-free DVD's shouldn't we go out to buy Harry Potter and then write a letter to TW telling them why? ;)
DVDs do store the data at 720x480, not 640x480, despite the fact that this is not a "square-pixel resolution" on a 4:3 screen. TVs don't have a fixed horizontal resolution-- they have a number of vertical scanlines, and the horizontal resolution varies with the quality of the source. It seems a bit odd for those of us who have grown up with fixed-pixel-width computer screens, but that's the way it works. Here's a decent link: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/vidres.htm
Anamorphic movies use the same 720x480 resolution, they just squeeze the widescreen image into the wrong shape, and then your DVD player scales the output to a "letterboxed" image if your TV is not widescreen.
..the retail/cost ratio of DVDs is not as insane as CDs
;) ). The success percentage of a music CD is much lower than that of a movie, although the production cost is much lower.
Ol' Buzz, you aren't thinking. Most of the revenue from a movie comes from the release to theatre and broadcast, where the whole product is (generally) played. DVD/VHS retail is simply a bonus.
Most of the CD revenue comes from retail... and not many radio stations play a complete CD (even Led Zep Kashmir is too long for most!
About all that commentary you added at the end. You're not that insightful, and it's not that interesting to read. Just shut up and post the damned story next time.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I think this is a great decision, because the simple fact is that even if a company copy-protects their content, some people are still going to circumvent it. If a company creates good content and sells it at a reasonable price, preople will buy it. Yes, there will always be those trying to make money in the pirate business, but most people like owning "the real thing." Personally, I have paid for dozens of DVDs to own because they are inexpensive and full of great content. Those that aren't, I don't buy.
Besides, all this is doing is creating a greater demand for new movies.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
One of their most popular recent movies. No copy protection. Headline in 3 months:
Pirated copies of Harry Potter rampant on the net
Silicon Valley (AP) Senator Hollings has begun pushing the need for even stronger copy protection and monitoring software built into every device, citing the recent explosion in pirated movie trading......
*Ahem*
As a guy who has personal videotapes going back to the 80's, and as a guy who has seen the quality of these tapes drop by orders of magnitude over time, and as a guy who would like to record them onto a digital media to prevent further degradation, and as a guy who relies on signal processing to clean said tapes up to make them worth watching again, I think I speak for everyone in similar circumstances when I say: Fuck you and the whores you rode in on, you New Scientist media bitch.
Signal cleaners have a useful purpose. They clean degraded signals. Entropy can, in this case, be compensated for by these useful little devices. And thank goodness for it, especially when an old tape is the *only* record of an event that may happen to be dear to somebody.
I mean, fuck, what am I supposed to do, ask my sister to get married again so I can record it on a DRM-compliant videocamera this time? Geez o'Pete!
Whose fault is it that the copy protection mechanism of choice relies on DESTROYING AN INTACT SIGNAL????
Barry Fox can be also bought by proponents of the copy protection racket, often disguised by job titles such as 'reporter' to keep within the realm of legitimacy.
GMFTatsujin
Reminds me of the bad old days when CDs came in enormous boxes that were the heights of records so they'd fit on the newly repurposed shelves. Somewhere along the way they switched over to just the jewel cases, because the boxes were wasteful (i.e. environmentally unfriendly). Now I see VHS height (actually larger) boxes for DVDs and can't help wondering why they don't switch to ordinary jewel boxes, except to slap more graphics on the front.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
make disk images of those disks and mount them with tools like daemon tools(with safedisc emulation).
This argument for raw bandwidth between the host and device is just dumb. Unless you have a massive RAID array sitting at the end of your SCSI or IDE bus you aren't even going to come close to saturating the bandwidth. When the data rate from the HDD doesn't exceed 20M/sec, anyone touting the merits of U320 SCSI over ATA-133 is just in a pissing contest over things that really don't matter.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Wasn't it the elixir of life that gave you immortality?
:)
Yes, it was. I recently took a course on the history of chemistry, and, apparently, some alchemists discovered what they presumed to be the elixir of life: the product resulting from several distillations of wine.
So, keep that in mind the next time you have second thoughts about drinking 80 proof vodka.
My dingo ate your honor student.
Reading press releases from Warner is like watching professional tennis. They seem to jump over the dividing line in consumer rights debates several times a minute.
Boing! Buy Netscape, happy open sourcy browser!
Boing! Build new AOL service around evil
monopolistic browser!
Boing! Buy winamp, make it free!
Boing! All digital devices must have approved copy protection! arrr!
Boing! Rebuild AOL around Mozilla!
Boing! Skipping commercials is theft!
Boing! Macrovision is evil!
Does anyone else get the idea that the merger left these guys with permanant split-brain syndrome?
What we call scientists used be considered "natural philosophers." Alchemists may have considered themselves to be students of the natural philosophy, which is how I presume the philosopher's stone came to have that name. Some people may have considered the alchemists work to be wizardry, as well. They were fond of using little tricks to amaze and baffle an audience of nobles (all for a price, mind you :).
It's disappointing that people didn't think Americans could handle the word philosopher, but sorcerer isn't a completely blasphemous substitute.
My dingo ate your honor student.
Internet-pirated movies come in several
forms. Two of the most popular are Video CD,
and its higher-resoultion variation, Super
Video CD. Either of these can be burned to
an ordinary CD-R and played in many DVD
players. A good Super Video CD rip of a DVD
is visually almost indistinguishable from
DVD, and is far superior to VHS. The only
disadvantage is that the average feature
film will need two or more discs.
Now if only video game companies would realize the same truth. In almost any game I have played recently, the boards are filled with people who bought the game but can't play it because the copy protection failes on their computers. Meanwhile, there is ALWAYS a crack available in under a week for ANY game...
What is the point?
Time/Warner isn't the first major studio to release a DVD without macrovision encoding.
I discovered, while playing DVDs through my TV Out to the TVCR and using the RealMagic Decoder for my Netstream 2000 card in Linux, that none of the MGM DVDs I tried playing--several James Bond Special Editions, This Is Spinal Tap--had macrovision. This may have been to avoid cost, it may have been to satisfy the high-end cinephile folks who find Macrovision degrades their viewing experience, I don't know. But I do know they were the only DVDs I could watch using that version of the Netstream drivers. Because those DVDs weren't exactly the current mega-hits that Harry Potter is, I guess they passed below the press's radar.
Time/Warner is the first to do it on such a popular movie, though. I wonder if it will lead to anything?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Locks don't make people honest. This is one of the most infuriating arguments I hear repeated over and over.
Macrovision made hooking up a DVD player to my existing satellite/TV/VCR/stereo that much more complicated. When I finally upgrade the rest of my home entertainment system, things will be easier, but right now it is irritating.
Macrovision also prevents me from recording my kids' movies to tape, which would be a great thing since I obviously don't want them handling the DVD's themselves...
Now if Macrovision wasn't there, I'd have more convenience and flexibility, but I wouldn't be running off hundreds of VHS copies of my DVDs and selling them either.
I hope this experiment goes well for Warner.
On a Macrovision protected VHS tape, the entire video signal on the tape is "encoded" with Macrovision. On a DVD player, hardware inside the DVD player encodes it on the outgoing video signal. There is a flag on the DVD disc that says to turn it on. Since its not encoded on the DVD itself, its much easier to disable. There are a lot of players that don't even have macrovision hardware. Anyone with a DVD-ROM on their PC can get around it too.
This happended on CP/M with dongles, then with 8" diskettes, on CP/M and PCs with 5 1/4" diskettes and again on later PCs with 3 1/2" diskettes.
Each time software companies tried the copy-protection vendors' products, found their sales did not increase, but their support costs had skyrocketed. Instead of one support call for 50 sales, they were seeing calls on every other sale, plus the cost of sending out replacement diskettes at a frightening rate, approaching several hundred percent of sales. The protection, you see, made the disks required for every single use, instead of only once for installation. Net result? the disks failed. A lot.
This also made the customers mad, so once they noticed that there was no advantage and huge costs disadvantages, software companies stopped using copy protection and the protection vendors went out of business.
Until, of course, a new sucker came along and announced copy protection for the next new diskette format. And started the whole suicidal cycle over again. In this case, with CDs which are unreliable and require re-purchase, something which tends to make customers grumpy.
davecb@spamcop.net
This, whether intentional or unintentional, will probably make them lots of money in the long run. They are coming out with the rest of the Harry Potter series movies, and this could get into the hands of some people who would not pay to see the original. It's a good enough movie (and series of books) that it may stir interest in actually paying to see the other movies and buy the books!
UTTER CRAP!
Good point. I know a few people that have asked me if I wanted a SVCD copy of Spiderman or SW:EP2. Uh, nope. I can wait till the movie comes out on dvd. I mean c'mon, it takes 4 cd's to watch the movie and it's at good quality. I'd rather pay the money and have one dvd at great quality.
I always thought music cd's were overpriced, but when you compare them to a dvd. It's insane!
One of my hobbies consists of producing independent film and video. Having got into the business, I am now a video and audio quality snob. If we do a production that doesn't live up to DVD distribution, we call that production a failure.
Nobody on my crew can stand to watch VHS any more. All of us now have a shelf full of DVDs, whereas before we wouldn't buy VHS. Those are real sales. Are you listening, movie studios?
...it's Harry Potter. All eyes will be on this release as opposed to your typical Mirimax offering.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
I have a question - My PC has a DVD drive and a GeForce3 card with an S-video output. If I play a DVD and watch it through the S-Video output, is the signal Macrovisionized?
:) No, seriously, I'm just curious. Since PC's with such capability are becoming more common, this could mean that many more people have the theoretical ability to defeat Macrovision, without buying or modding anything extra.
I only ask because I want to set up a videotape piracy lab in my home.
"I am a cipher, a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce" -Jimmy James
Yeah, and I intend to purchase a copy of Red Hat just because they give me so much. Right. You're just another spigot pumping out what every geek says, even though we never put up the money 'cuz we're all cheap.
You're such a fake.
Isn't it a violation of the DCMA for macrovision to post information on how to break copy protection?n de x.php3?pr=a67937e0716aeb9e4c72d748611fda66
checkout
http://www.macrovision.com/news/pressreleases/i
for macrovision's instructions on how to break Sony's Key2Audio
I rented a movie once that had a big macrovision splash screen at the start. It said "Macrovision quality protection" What a joke.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Their brand new (as of late 2000) copy-protection software was "guaranteed" to be unbreakable or some such. I don't know the exact nature of their claim, but the techs all laughed at what our producers told us, and with good reason. About two days before the game hit the shelves, there were cracked versions available for download on the net.
Effectively we paid a few million dollars to keep the casual user from just copying the disk on their own without going online to d/l a crack. We could have done the same thing ourselves for about one tenth of 1% of the cost or less.
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> Yes, it was. I recently took a course on the
> history of chemistry, and, apparently, some
> alchemists discovered what they presumed to be
> the elixir of life: the product resulting from
> several distillations of wine.
Yes, that seemed popular. Whiskey was originally called 'the water of life'; in fact, the word 'whiskey' is a mangled version of an ancient word for that.
They are not losing the full retail price on each unauthorized copy. They are only losing their marginal profit, and not even that, since most people wouldn't have bought a full price copy anyway. Since DVDs can be purchased for $9.99 or less, and it probably costs about $2 to manufacture and package the DVD, their marginal profit is closer to $8 per disk. So if Macrovision does not prevent 1 in 160 people from making an unauthorized copy rather than buying a new DVD, then Macrovision is losing them money That, combined with the fact that nearly everybody would rather have the DVD, means that Macrovision is a big money loser for the MPAA. I suspect that before too long all the studios will just give the finger to Macrovision. Better sell short now while you still have a chance.
Knowing this I will now buy Harry Potter. Not that I plan on dupping copies for friends (hell I've got none) but for the plain fact that I think WarnerBrothers is realizing that a few people making copies isn't hurting it's business but boosting it. How many future sales will they see of a pirated copy? Lets say I do make a copy and give it to a friend who's got kids (also imagine they haven't seen the movie & don't know much about it). His kids then want to go out and get all the Harry Potter junkets that have been liecensed by WarnerBrothers, visit the official harry potter website and sign up for their newsletter which the WB will then use to market more WB/HP chotchkies. They then want to be the first in line on November 15th to see the 2nd movie and so on and so on. So by saving the inital 5 cents per copy they loose $20 on a single sale of a video but in return gain an untold amount from future sales. And while I'm at it... most people rent video's for $5 anyway and I don't know many people who copy them.
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
I think the region 4 copies come with macrovision :(
We attempted to tape a copy from DVD to VHS today so the kids can watch Harry Potter when the laptop disappears back to work (havent burnt pesos on a general DVD player yet, when there is one built right into the iBook)
Didnt work.
Havent tried recording on this video in quite some time, so its possible that it just doesnt work properly anymore, but... I dont think so - I think the DVD includes Macrovision.
nb. the recorder dates from 87-88 - anyone know when macrovision started appearing on video machines, anyway?
Articles in New Scientist aside, WB hasn't used any serious protection on VHS for years. As far back as the Matrix (and probably before, but I have no data) WB has abandoned the use of copy protecting on VHS tapes. Or, at least, they've been using cp that is either before the commercials or only relevant to low end VCRs.
Several other companies also seem to be abandoning cp, though Dreamworks and Disney still use it, and I believe Universal does as well.
"Omnia quia sunt, umbra sunt."
I've never used the 3d-features of my board to any extreme level... There should be enough tests on the net for a /.er to find out :)
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