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VideoNOW PVD Reverse Engineering
Zoc_All_Alone writes "In mid-July, Hasbro released the VideoNOW, a portable media player for kids. The disks are specially encoded ~3 inch audio CDs. We have started a project to reverse engineer the format, and have made considerable progress. More information about the player can be found at the Hasbro website."
But where are the people reverse engineering the EARLY kids' consoles, like the Socrates? I'm sure there are a few left in your collective attics...
By buying units, and making certain the manufacturer knows we're buying them as a result of the project, thereby preventing a DMCA lawsuit that would only result in massive boycotting on our part.
On the other hand, it's easier to just sit and type about how much the DMCA sucks and how cool reverse engineering is.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It is freakin grayscale for christsakes. Most people gave up on Black and White video somewhere around the Nixon Administration in the U.S.
Its cute and all, but go buy a portable DVD and go find a project where you are not going to run the risk of being sued into oblivion by the borg of Hasbro.
I don't think that the goal is to copy their content -- 'tis to create new content, or to be able to use the player for my own content. If I have a recorded television show (time-shifted, if you will), why shouldn't I be able to put it on the appropriate media and watch it on the bus with this little thingamajig? Why should I respect a lock on hardware that I have purchased?
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16 shade greyscale on an 80x80 pixel 4"x6" LCD? For fuck's sake, that's like watching video on a TI-8X calculator! (which, incidentally, you can do) Sure, it sounds like a fun project and all, but I don't think geeks will be rushing to encode their movies to this format so they can be played on this dinky little player. On the other hand, the player looks VERY portable and runs on 2 AA batteries. So I guess there is some potential for a low cost low resolution video/picture/text? viewer. It is interesting, at least.
It sounds to me like this little gadget is the modern implementation of a narrowband television. There are still guys who dink around with this stuff (indeed, I've started to assemble the parts for one myself), for fun you could try the Narrow Band Television Association website.
That being said, it seems like the format can't possibly be that difficult to determine. If the authors posted .wav files of some of the audio tracks, I suspect that an afternoon's worth of work by someone familiar with NBTV would crack the modulation wide open. After all, the box itself is obviously very cheap, it probably has very little CPU power, it can't be that
complicated.
It's a pity they don't use the normal mini-CDs, if they did I might buy one just for the novelty of being able to make my own CDs. I think they missed a bit of a hacker market by deliberately disabling this possibility.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
This seems to be a very dumb device, just displaying 15 pixmaps a second. The DMCA's anti-circumvention applies to encrypted or other anti-copying measures. If you have a data stream that's this blatantly out in the open, I would imagine that the DMCA need not apply.
mewyn
Maybe B&W was chosen because it decreased the memory requirements of the video...
Unless they increase the memory capacity of those discs (which would drive up the cost) or decrease the duration of each video, they probably can't do color.
Shame on Google.
I was really grumpy this morning, and a bit sick of the town where I live in. I thought I'd look into working elsewhere for a while. Perhaps in Europe outside of Sweden, where I live now, or perhaps in the USA. I got to work, and as every hard working employee I begin the day by reading Slashdot. I read this article about this silly little case-modding material using some "proprietary" technology that is not even encoded, and thus easy to reverse-engineer. I realsied that the DMCA would probably apply and the project would essentially be lawyer-bait if any part of the project was ran in the USA. Suddenly I am overcome with a feeling that I am pretty happy right where I am - A land where blind laws like the DMCA, terrorist act etc would never happen. We have a social democrat government that imitates the Bush government, but the ideas get somewhat diluted and toned down in the democratic process), so we might get a kinda-DMCA, a kind of terrorist act, but nothing at all like the USA. I am happy with the freedom of religion, as well as freedom FROM religion. I hope some positive court outcomes and cases thrown out from court will make the adverse effects of the laws and acts more realistic. Not because I want more ways to download w4r3z or pr0n, but because I want US engineers and hackers to get the freedom to research and develop without getting sued and jailed as terrorists or criminals for "crimes" that would not affect anyone to any greater extent. A sense of fear in the engineering community can have really bad long term effects. Back to the article... if anything, I would think hasbro would benefit from a reverse-engineering of their CDs, so case modders will buy their VideoNOW device, because I certainly would not, if I was a kid.
this isn't intended to be flaimbait.
Either it IS flame bait, or you are an idiot.
And yes they are hurting Hasbro's ability to make money.
I doubt that, but for the sake of argument lets assume that is true. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Every time i go to the library I am hurting someone's ability to make money. Every time I loan something to a friend I am hurting someone's ability to make money. Every time I open a store and sell something I am competing with someone else and hurting their ability to make money. Every time I take a broken item, open it up and fix it my self, I am hurting someone else's ability to make money.
Anyone who bought a car has every right to lift the hood, look at it, and try to understand it. Anyone who bought a VideoNOW PVD every right to lift the hood, look at it, and try to understand it. They have every right to use teh player however they like. They can create their own content for it or even use it as a flowerpot. If they buy disks for it they have every right to read those disks in their computer or to use them as frisbies.
They wouldn't have made the CD format difficult to udnerstand and use if it wasn't part of their marketing plan.
I bought a product for my own reasons and I'll do whatever I like with it. I don't give a damn what THEIR PLAN was. Once I bought it I own it. If Gillette Razors gives away 5 cent razors with the business plan of selling disposable blades I am perfectly free to take the razor and either clean and re-use the disposable blades, or even to make my OWN blades to put in it. Or I can use them as paperweights. Once they have SOLD the product their plan is irrelevant.
Just because I have a business plan / marketing plan to sell SnoCones at the South Pole does not mean I have any right to make a profit doing so. There is no 'right to make a profit'. Hasbro's rights are not being infringed in any way whatsoever. It is YOU who wants to infringe the rights of the buyer.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The specs sound really poor. I don't see what the fuss is about! 80x80 pixels 'quality picture' ...
I've made some 160x160 pixel movies (in color, using TealMovie) for my antique palm IIIc, and even that resolution, with four times as many pixels as the VideoNOW toy, was worthless for video.)
Fifty bucks for the basic VideoNOW unit seems pretty steep considering how little you actually get and how much they're gouging the kids for the content discs - 'collect them all!'
Judging from photographs of this unit, it's just a very basic (non-backlit) LCD screen with crappy contrast and slow refresh. Throw in awful resolution, 15fps and 8-bit sound technology from the 90s, there's just nothing in this worth much effort - the novelty value won't last long, and the actual content enjoyment will be nearly nil.
You might compare this with the antique PixelVision thing from Fisher-Price, which is pretty cool and has a sustained cult following even to this day, but I think mostly because it's a capture system with a unique 'lens' (plastic bubble with nil-to-infinite fixed 'focus' range) and very very strange image processing. Even that thing, 15 year old mostly analog toy, has much better resolution than the VideoNOW.
I dunno, maybe I'm just getting old, but this stuff doesn't seem very exciting to me. I can't imagine my 5-year-old nephew would be very impressed either, since he has one of those GBAs with bright backlit color screens.
At least it doesn't seem too heavily infected by DRM.