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More Incompatible DVDs and CDs Coming Your Way

wwwssabbsdotcom writes " More DRM is coming to DVD and CD shelves in the future. Looks like more incompatible discs for players around the world. Rip-proof and self-destructing seems to be the latest DRM craze."

7 of 905 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"incompatible" by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Why does the submitter make such a big deal out of these discs being "incompatible"?"

    Because you can't take the DVD back once you open the package? We're not talking about improvements to the DVD spec here. We're talking about intentionally making it not work. That's the difference.

    Progress means things get better, not worse.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  2. Re:Yeah. by molarmass192 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Careful there, backing up to magnetic media is nowhere near as safe as non-magnetic media like a CD or DVD. Tapes and drives lose their charges over a relatively short time. Burn it to a DVD, stick it in a safe-deposit box, and you're good for at least 50 years. A WORM drive (do they still sell those?) would work too. I realize backing up 4G at a time is a pain compared to 160G at a time but you don't do it every day either.

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  3. How to Circumvent Copy Controlled CDs by robinw · · Score: 3, Informative

    I was dissapointed to discover that my copies of Radiohead's "Hail to the Theif" and Blur's "Think Tank" were copy controlled. Fortunately, I discovered that you can circumvent it easily enough with the proper software.

    That link has the entire story, and my response to Copy Control mechanisms. I too have an objection with them calling them CDs, seeing as they are not "Compact Discs" within the RedBook IEC 908 Specification.

    -RW

  4. Re:Yeah. by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 5, Informative

    This removes one of the two main reasons people hated it. They're hoping to overcome the other with marketing, I'm sure.

    I think you forgot the whole 'throwing plastic discs into the landfills at an alarming rate' part that pissed so many people off.

    Also, the simple reality is that some DVD players aren't going to play self-destructing discs. There've been 3 revisions to the DVD standard and there are already problems with old DVD players not being able to play some discs that have no deviation from the standard (just that they hit the 3rd revision standard rather than the original standard).

    As an added bonus, the number of DVD and CD players (set-top/stereo component boxes) that are using computer-style CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives has been increasing over the last couple of years (especially the case with DVD players where MP3, MPEG, and other formats are often supported), and in many cases these discs are being made not to run in those types of drives.

    As for the DVD Audio format, whether or not it's supported by your DVD player simply depends on what DVD player you own. The older it is, the more likely it is that it's not supported. In those cases where it's not supported you're just as well off buying a player for the new CD format as for the DVD Audio format, and at least the CD format is playable in the majority of CD and DVD players, and the CD-quality tracks on the disc can be ripped to MP3.

    --
    -PainKilleR-[CE]
  5. Re:They keep on trying by SuperDuG · · Score: 3, Informative
    I completely disagree with the stance you've taken here. What is more friendly than popping a disc into a player pushing play and getting a perfect digital picture and sound? The hassle is not going to be for the players themselves (IE: even WinDVD broadcasts out MacroVision to TV-OUT) but for those who try to infact "rip and burn".

    With software programs like:

    DVD Decrypter - DVD Decrypter is a CSS decryption tool that has most, if not all, of the features of current ripper/ripper GUIs like CladDVD, Smart-Ripper or VOBDec GUI, including CSS authentication/detection, multi-angle processing, Macrovision and Region removal. Also includes option to use either VOBDec or DeCSS Plus to decrypt the DVD.
    NanDUB DiVX 3.11 ;-) encoder.
    VirtualDubMod - VirtualDubMod is based on the famous video editing software VirtualDub by Avery Lee. Used for DiVX 5.x and XViD encoding
    DVD2AVI - Takes a DVD and turns it into an AVI or AVI FrameServer for other programs like NanDub and VirtualDuB to encode with.
    BeSweet - an audio transcoding tool. it lets you convert audio files from one format to another. supported formats : MP3,AC3,WAV,MP2,AVI,Aiff,VOB,Ogg Vorbis.
    TMpegEnc - video encoding software. mainly used for the creation of MPEG's encoded for either VCD or SVCD
    DVD2SVCD - Software Suite for converting a DVD into an SVCD (MPEG-2 encoded Video CD).
    Gordian Knot - Gordian Knot started out as a simple bitrate calculator for DivX encoding but has evolved to become an integrated package or tool for the entire process of DivX encoding. It now has the ability to calculate the bitrates for XViD

    And sites like

    Doom9 - The definitive resource for DVD backup
    DVDR Help - This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs that can be played on your standalone DVD Player from video sources like DVD, Video, TV, Cam or downloaded movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM, WMV and ASF
    DiVX Digest - a DiVX news and reviews site.

    And many more like the ones above make it easy for encryption and DRM schemes to be broken or bypassed, but the process is far from trivial. These programs aren't exactly user friendly. The formats that come out of these programs while not very noticable do make a degredated (?sp) copy that is compressed more than the original. The files may look rather nice, but they are definantelly not as perfect as a standard DVD player.

    People want to be able to plug their DVD's into their DVD players. I don't really know how many people rely on their computer solely for DVD playback, but I'm assuming not many.

    Here's the kicker I know that I use my computer to watch videos that I own, but if I'm going to be traveling I will rip that DVD into a one disc XViD. So if I break it, who cares I'll just burn another one. And well someone isn't as apt to steal a blank CD-Rom as they would be for say, a DVD with a case and title on the disc.

    It's plain to see just from visiting the links I posted above though that you are correct in saying that there will always be a time that someone comes around and completely bypasses or disables DRM. I know for a fact that my APEX DVD player has MacroVision and other BS taken off of it and it is also RCE (regionless) which means I can put any DVD I like into the player and it will play.

    It's these sorts of things that make me wonder why all the effort for DRM is made, someone will truly crack it eventually. I still remember when DVD's were said to be uncrackable, and had some s

    --
    Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
  6. Re:it bites by JebusIsLord · · Score: 4, Informative

    The non-US version is DRM protected and labeled as such on the back. Your's probably isn't. C1 errors affect everyone, even stand-alone players. Faulty error correction information means that the disc will never be able to recover from scratches. They do this to make CDROMs think it's data not audio. This is easy to circumvent but man did they fuck up the disc.

    --
    Jeremy
  7. Re:Just a speedbump.... by Jmstuckman · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a such thing as this "pseudo sound output device" that you're talking about -- in fact, your sound card probably supports it. Go into the sound recording properties and look for a device called "wave" or "what-you-hear." Then, by opening your sound recorder, you can make a perfect digital copy of the sound output.

    However, you are right about Paladium - in fact, this is already happening too!! When Media Player is playing protected content, output to any "unsigned" driver is ALREADY DISABLED! The only sound drivers that will work when the DRM features are activated are the ones written by Microsoft -- and these drivers disable any way of making a digital copy. So, even if there was a 3rd party driver that wrote to disk, it wouldn't work because of the DRM!