Slashdot Mirror
Nvidia Drivers Enforce Macrovision's Rules
Ant writes "According to 'Nvidia Macrovision DVD-TV rules forced on consumers', Nvidia drivers 41.09 and onwards include 'stringent checks' to comply with Macrovision requirements. That could mean if you have a TV encoder that does not support Macrovision, you may well get an error message depending on what DVD software player you are using, the company has said."
Unfortunately it seems there are no free drivers that support 3D acceleration for anything but the lowest end and older graphics cards. The "nv" driver for nvidia cards only supports 2d, and the "radeon" driver (from DRI) only supports 3d acceleration in the Radeon 9200 and below - not 9500/9600/9700/9800.
What this means is if you want to play 3D games in Linux, you have to use non-free drivers. I *wish* there was some hardware out there that was mid-range and had free drivers!
Having said all that, I believe the article is about Windows, rather than Linux, though the restrictions might also exist on the Linux binary-only nvidia drivers.
>The "nv" driver for nvidia cards only supports >2d, and the "radeon" driver (from DRI) only >supports 3d acceleration in the Radeon 9200 and >below - not 9500/9600/9700/9800. This is true. The nv dirver is currently *very* limited. I know that the 9200 will run UT2004 fine though - what more do you need on a Linux box? Much as I wish it were otherwise, the only thing on the scene that may stretch this is Doom 3, and if you want that I would reccomend waiting till launch date to buy as I have heard rumours that specs may eventually come out of ATI for the higher end chipsets.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Copied from here:
I was just reading about the DVD player included with the ATI Radeon All In Wonder series. It says that screen captures and other things I might want to do will not function if the DVD is copy protected. Here is the quote from the ATI document -
Recording from a Source Encoded with Analog Copy Protection
The ATI ALL-IN-WONDER? products detect analog copy protection on the input source and will refuse to capture video from such sources. The record button automatically becomes disabled. Further, TV-ON-DEMAND is not possible with an analog copy protected source.
Since for all practical purposes there are only two video-card manufacturers and both of them enforce Macrovision DRM, I have no other choice than avoid buying DVDs, at least the legit ones. So it's DivX or DVD-R from P2P or a pirated DVD.
P.S. I wish there was a digital freedom fighters group with a PayPal account.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
for fear of reprisal towards them/him, but TVTool works just fine for disabling Macrovision with NVIDIA cards. At least with the GF3 in my HTPC machine I get no complaints from any DVD player software with TVTool's Macrovision disable option turned on. And I've been updating its drivers with every official release up until 53.03, just got lazy with the post-53.03 releases cuz everything works.
I tend to use a lot of odd/eclectic combinations of hardware. Once, I had an old Apple II RGB monitor (with an RCA-style plug in the back) which I used to display DVD video output from an old Creative Labs DxR2 decoder. Until I disabled Macrovision, I could not watch the movies I legally paid for (<sarcasm>from Wal-Mart, like a Good American(TM)</sarcasm>). So I had to break the law to watch what I legally paid for. (For the record, I was also using a Linux box to play the DVD, so <sarcasm>obviously I'm some sort of evil hacker criminal</sarcasm>).
,<sarcasm>'Consumers' have no right to open up products they paid for</sarcasm>) and rebuilt it into a generalized RCA-to-coax adaptor suitable for use on the DVD player, I couldn't play my (again legally paid for at a Good American Retail Outlet(TM)) DVDs.
At another point, I had a set-top DVD player, and was trying to use it with an old TV player which had only a coaxial RF input. So at first I passed the signal through a VCR, which of course made Macrovision wreck the signal (image fading in and out, just like in the previous example). Until I scrapped an old Nintendo RF adaptor (which is probably DMCA-illegal for some convoluted reason also-- I mean, hell
So, let's review. Macrovision has made it more difficult for me to play legally-owned DVDs. And it's pissed me off even more at the MPAA for getting in bed with those fucktards. So... what, again, does Macrovision do to decrease piracy? I can testify that it makes me more interested in disobeying the MPAA cartel's stupid rules, since all it seems to do is annoy people and force them to buy (or build) more equipment...
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
...and for the people using open-source drivers
Let's see how the "nvidia are great, we trust their binary drivers" fanboys react to this one...
This makes me wonder how much NVidia got bribed to enforce this stuff.
I mean, why would a company like NV bother with this unless there was a financial incentive?
It seems rather silly, overall. Why would anyone want to copy a DVD to a VHS tape? It pretty much kills the picture quality and destroys any special features the DVD might have had. Especially when you can just copy the raw MPEG stream from the disc!
On the PC connected exclusively to a TV for DVD watching, I can't watch DVDs... because a TV is connected.
My first reaction is, "why the hell do I even buy DVDs in the first place when I can download this shit from usenet or IRC and view it with all of the quality and none of the hassle?", not "gee where's my standard DVD player to watch this?".
As a gullible idiot who legitimately buys software and entertainment media I envy the warez doodz more and more every day. With every "insert original CD to play" and "playback disabled" message I question my purchases. Every time I am forced to apply a crack to achieve the same level of playability pirates have, my sympathy expands.
This makes me wonder how much NVidia got bribed to enforce this stuff.
The real question is if it was a bribe, or a threat? Certainly, Macrovision and the DVD-forum wouldn't be too happy about a product not supporting Macrovision, so how likely would it be that they could/would attack Nvidia over their cards not supporting Macrovision? There's certainly a decent case for claiming that non-compliant cards are copyright removal device, setting Nvidia up for a DMCA suit.