Slashdot Mirror
New Copy Protection to Make Playing DVDs on a PC Difficult
The Cowardly Pirate writes "ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog is reporting that new copy-protection software for DVD publishers from a company called ProtectDisc not only makes it difficult to rip movies that you've purchased but also prevents discs from playing in a Windows PC at all. From the article: 'Protect DVD-Video is the brainchild of a company called ProtectDisc. Part of the copy-protection mechanism is a non-standard UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system which results in the IFO file on the DVD (this is the file responsible for storing information on chapters, subtitles and audio tracks) appearing to the PC as being zero bytes long.'"
Countdown to DVD Jon hack 3..2..1..
Just the other night we had more DVDs to watch than TVs and players. Our daughter wanted to watch her Smallville (purchased), and we were watching one of our circulating Blockbuster "mailer" DVDs.
She was delighted when I showed her how to watch her DVD on the upstairs computer -- she hadn't known that was possible. Problem solved, everybody happy.
But, now this? What the hey? So now potentially what she presumably knows about watching on an alternative device could not work, and she wouldn't know why -- yes, the article mentions the latest new "tool" that "effortlessly" bypasses the security, but again, What the Hey? She isn't going to know about that tool, or how to use it, and I'm about as sick and tired as I can be of setting up the workarounds for restrictions that shouldn't even exist.
Interestingly, the article mentions (emphasis mine):
I only almost agree with that -- "they" in this case seem to be blurring the line between use-use and piracy. Each day I toss a coin to decide who annoys me more -- media "providers" or spammers. It's a close call.
I used to wonder whether the DVD industry would totally shoot itself in the foot with the HD vs. BluRay DVD wars coupled with intrusive DRM, sending potential customers away in droves. If this new protection technology is for existing DVDs (it's not clear from the article), they could send existing DVD customers away in droves. I no longer about the sanity of the industry -- I worry about the sanity of artists allowing contracts for their "art" to be wrapped in technology like this, I wonder why they allow it.
(Interesting (and I think important) aside: I recently updated the firmware on my Creative Vision:M mp3 player, a player I've absolutely loved for its features, ergonomics, screen quality, you name it, there was hardly a thing about it I could find fault with. As the new firmware was installing I browsed the release notes... looking for the standard blah blah blah on what's fixed, what's new. The very last line of the notes said (paraphrasing), This firmware upgrade will disable your FM recording capability(!). WTF? It was too late for me to stop the upgrade -- sure enough, I now have a Creative Vision:M sans FM recording capability, (a feature which I was quite fond of)! Creative doesn't say whether it's RIAA induced, I have no idea why they did this... but if it IS more DRM crap, what a crock!)
(Other aside: I love that the ad for the slashdot page for the "read more" for me was an HD-DVD ad...)
I love reading stuff like this. I hope that they lock DVDs down so tight that no one can even play them on their regular players. Then, when the next blockbuster movie sell a grand total of four DVDs, maybe the movie and television studios will finally realize how much money this is costing them.
And seriously, can I see a quick show of hands of everyone who thinks that this will keep people from copying DVDs?...
Yeah, that's what I thought, and neither do I.
Movies are actually meant to be watched? I thought they were collectibles!
yes I know, it will eventually get to macs
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes (1637)
So assuming you don't have Sony batteries and that you're allowed to take your laptop on a plane, you won't be able to watch a movie on it.
[Insert pithy quote here]
As long as there are video output ports, there will always be a way to pirate movies. All this move will do is annoy the heck out of normal consumers.
Touting MyEclipse AJAX Tools
...mechanism is a non-standard UDF A non-standard anything on a DVD makes it not a true DVD. We've seen this tried before on CDs and the response was that they'd have to stop using the "Compact Disc" trademark because that's only for people who follow the standard.
before someone cracks this and has a utility to have windows recognize the table of contents flawlessly?
I don't own a TV or a DVD player. I do, however, occasionally rent or buy DVDs and watch them on my laptop.
If the DVDs won't play on my laptop, I'd have no reason to shell out the $$ for them.
Customers--
Next step: The MPAA will insist an agent to be present in your home every time you want to watch a (legally purchased) movie!
What makes me angry about this isn't that I won't be able to find movies online; hell, it's usually possible to get them before they're even available from Blockbuster. What's irritating is that I'm an honest customer of the MPAA. I have a huge shelf of DVDs. I'm a DVD collector. The first time I buy a DVD that has been engineered in such a way to not play, I'm going to return it and never buy a DVD again.
Note: This doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching movies. Do the fucking math, MPAA.
As I recall, the XBox operating system was based off some version of Windows (although HEAVILY modified). Also, as many (most in the /. crowd, I'd wager) know, the XBox is pretty much just a small form factor computer. I don't own a normal DVD player, I just use my XBox for this purpose. Would this mean that I would be unable to watch movies using this tech with my existing setup?
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Maybe they want you to start buying BluRay and HD-DVD versions instead, because CSS, now like 9 years old has been cracked to bejeezus and back for years.
Nobody can stop me and my DVDShrink!
new copy-protection software for DVD publishers from a company called ProtectDisc not only makes it difficult to rip movies that you've purchased but also prevents discs from playing in a Windows PC at all.
I don't know about you, but the only DVDs I watch on my computer are in DIVX format and come from sweden. GG MPAA.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
How quickly before someone writes a driver for it, I mean really... If you can get an OS on a toaster you can read a disc...
Yet another technology that will frustrate the paying customer and will only be a stumbling block for the pirate.
New Slashdot Article next week: "So and So Cracks ProtectDisc Copy Protection" Seriously now, why do people even bother. The truth is that if the disc can fit into a dvd drive, someone can make something to rip it. Or maybe this company's business model is a sort of partnership with PowerDVD so PowerDVD can relase a new "ProtectDisc" version of their software. Maybe the copy protection isn't supposed to work at all and is only there to allow other companies to make software to work with it?
It looks like this only effects the IFO on the disc. VLC (along with many other players) can play the VOB files without using an IFO.
Yeah, people who want to copy dvds professionally are smart. Legitimate users are not really. Everyone in between is better off using a pirated copy, because it is just better.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Consider I watch most of my DVDs on a computer or device which employs an embeded one. If these DVDs don't work, people will return them and the market behviour will be self corrected.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Part of the copy-protection mechanism is a non-standard UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system...
Not very universal if it's non-standard, now, is it?
Of course the encryption is already broken. From the article:
Nice try. I'll give you a cookie.When are these companies going to learn...every "protected" piece of crap they put out there gets broken. It is inevitable, Mr Anderson. When you figure out how much money the world has put into copy protection, vs how much they have actually lost to piracy...what are they really gaining?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
IANAL, but if Creative, in any way, induced you to upgrade the firmware (i.e., it fixed an existing bug), then they have just handed the class action vultures a nice gift. Can't sell a product based on features, and then take them away.
If you want to see Creative punished (you won't benefit, class action suits never actually benefit the consumer), take a screen grab of anything on their site that still shows this capability, and then email it to the proper vultures.
jh
It looks like this only effects the IFO on the disc. VLC (along with many other players) can play the VOB files without using an IFO. (oops forgot to login before posting)
If it's a non-standard format, then it isn't a DVD....
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I'll short thier stock immediately
If America were a sane country, a class action lawsuit would start against these things the day they went on sale.
This will lock out people that use their PCs as Media Center PCs to play DVDs, watch TV, etc., and they usually spend quite a bit of money on tvs, dvds, sound systems, so this may not play out too well.
Not a problem for me, i download the stuff i want and get it with every comfort i want (e.g. pre-cracked, accepting every serial, playable everywhere, ...). If i like the game/movie then i'll buy it but there is no way i'm going to accept treatment like this if i pay. It's not like computers are so easy and uncomplicated that it really doesn't matter if you add another problem or two ...
On 10 October 2006, SlySoft released a press release: AnyDVD beats new copy protection "Protect DVD-Video"
With the latest release of AnyDVD, version 6.0.8.0, SlySoft has again confirmed its position as the market leader in providing video DVD decryption software. With this version it is now possible to bypass the new "Protect DVD-Video" copy protection which first appeared on the DVD "Silent Hill" (german rental version).
Among other mechanisms, Protect DVD-Video comes up with a messed-up UDF file system, in which an IFO file appears with a zero-byte length on a regular PC. The unsurprising result is that these DVDs will refuse to run on a Windows PC with Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center Edition or all software players that are based on DirectShow (e.g. the very popular ZoomPlayer).
"With this copy protection the film industry clearly overshot the mark", says Giancarlo Bettini, CEO at SlySoft. "The premium customer who spent a lot of money on his multimedia home cinema and who, for quality reasons, would never even consider watching anything else but an original DVD, is being slapped in the face. These customers with their shelves stuffed with rightfully aquired DVDs, can't watch their videos."
This is incredible nonsense! Any Media Center freak will have no choice but to install AnyDVD on his PC in order to watch his original DVD." "The film industry should actually thank us for taking care of their premium customers so well. Maybe one day I'll be nominated for an Oscar", Bettini adds with a grin.
Background info: The company ProtectDisc is being run by Volkmar Breitfeld, also managing director of ACE (FluxDVD copy protection). Remarkably enough, Volkmar Breitfeld was previously known for creating copy protection circumventing products like InstantCopy or InstantCD/DVD, before he changed fronts to selling copy protection mechanisms.
Gone!
I guess there are Windows tools to deal with these new protections, but I'm not going there. So unless Linux/FreeBSD open source options are created, I just won't play ball anymore.
Sorry, MPAA -- you're pissing off (and loosing) legit customers. Not like you care about us, anyway.
Method of processing duck feet
consumers don't like them. And do they really think I'm going to shell out money for an over-priced DVD that I can't even play on my PC?
I could add oh so much more... but I'll leave it at that.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
After all, it only took the branching features of The Matrix to make several popular brands of DVD player come to a screeching halt until they were updated (which itself required sending the player back to the manufacturers)
And seriously, can I see a quick show of hands of everyone who thinks that this will keep people from copying DVDs?...
Yeah, that's what I thought, and neither do I.
D00d, we'll have that shit figured out and cracked in the first five minutes of looking at it. UDF obfusaction? Bah! Easy enough to get around... When will these idiots learn that their investments in copy protection technology are a waste of money? I have yet to see a single copy protection method come out that has not either already been cracked or will be soon...
ATTENTION MUSIC AND MOVIE INDUSTRY: Stop wasting your time / money on copy protection. The h4x0r5 will always win and in the process all you do is loose profits to useless tech research and piss off legit customers (like with a DVD I actualy paid for and PowerDVD won't let me play it through my TV out. WTF?!? RIP! Now I can! hehe). The music industry thinks it's acceptable to lower the already low quality of CD audio by intentionaly producing errors in the data stream that regular CD players will ignore but will trip up a PC CD-ROM. WTF is wrong with them? Punish all the legit customers by giving them even worse audio quality and limiting their ability to play something the paid for? It's no wonder people turn to piracy! When legit customers have to turn to pir8 technology so they can crack the content they paid for and get their fair use rights, somethings wrong! Media corporations of the world, YOUR ON NOTICE!!
Is this the same as when the DVD has all of the video located in "extras" files, and the main movie is only a few megs.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
In 2002, it was estimated that 140 million DVD-ROM drives are distributed worldwide, 75 million of which were sold in the United States alone (approx 54%) [AllOfMp3.com] Centralizing in the United States, this is more than the amount of DVD players shipped that year!
If that's the case, wouldn't this be a "very bad thing" to do? I know at least in my college, most DVD watching is done on computer...
Then, when the next blockbuster movie sell a grand total of four DVDs, maybe the movie and television studios will finally realize how much money this is costing them.
More likely they'll blame piracy.
...of HDCP.
This lunacy is coming at us from every angle.
Any and all copy protection on DVDs will be completely useless against the people that are involved in video piracy. At the very most it will be a minor speedbump along their path.
All it's doing is inconveniencing and out right pissing off the people that are BUYING them.
Customers expect to be able to use the things they buy. I wonder when media producers will realize this.
Safedisc. Or Discguard. Or Safecast. Or SecuROM. Or...
Oh hell. Here's the list of those who have gone before.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
As soon as contract negotiations over royalty payments and distribution expenses come into play, I feel they lose their "artist" status and are "entertainers."
Artists to me are people that attempt to share a unique, creative and inspired vision through sound and vision (or the combination of the two.)
(Yes I realize 'art' is subjective, but I'm talkin strictly to the movie/music type here.)
When it comes to the **AA's and their international counterparts, all we get is rehashed, same old same old in order to service a businesses bottom line.
No sig for you!!
Yeah right - so they do all this stuff - and then nobody can work out how to ignore the bogus information being given out by these dvds, correct it and rewrite the files?
....
...
I think NOT
If they are playable - they are copyable.
Anyway who gives a flying f*** about copying the complete and utter sh*t that MSM puts out - why the f*** should I give up MY bandwidth to distribute crappy hollywood films for FREE
That's like doing mainstream media's job for them - for FREE.
You did know that you were a distribution arm of The Hollywood Machine everytime you stick some POS mainstream movie in your torrent tracker didn't you?
You do understand that while you think you are giving them the finger - they are laughing at you because you are doing exactly what they want you to do.
Hollywood Movies - if you don't like the movies - don't bother watching them, talking about them, downloading them - just don't come to me whining about "I download because they cost too much"
You do have a choice - just stop watching their mind-numbing drivel
Who won the coin toss today?
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
When DVD-ROM drives first came out, one could purchase the drive with a card for handling things like encryption for the multi-channel soundtracks, copyright protections and various picture formatting. Having the hardware handle that made it fairly simple to access anything on the disk, even if it was "protected". Granted, that is fairly old technology in today's computer world but the beauty of hardware is that for input, there is output. If you want to see what is going on, there are ways to access the hardware at a basic, sub-system/sub-software level that would allow you to circumvent any measures like this silly stuff to be put in place. The hardware needs commands to run and to build those commands, you need input. At some point, you can extract that input from the hardware, encrypted or not, especially if the hardware is what is handling the encryption.
I suppose new laws could be written to cover such technology and tighten the noose on it for new purchases but the old hardware is out there and there are no current restrictions on it. A creative coder could find ways around it if the incentive was there. I think this just notched that incentive mark up a few notches.
The reason for a standard format is so that anyone can make a player, or perform an encoding that they KNOW will work. Companies rarely want to create multiple copies of their video to different specifications, because they want to be able to reach as wide an audience as possible. Creating a modified format that can only be reached by a subset of your audience is a really good way to fail.
Plus, according to the article, since the DVD still has the chapter info (for the non-PC players), it's not that hard to write a program to obtain that data. Which means you've deviated from the standard for little reason, as pirates will bypass it, and even non-pirate software will probably eventually bypass it, since the information is still encoded on the disc. Which means that suckers who pay them for their 'system' are just throwing cash away.
Come to think of it, I wish I could come up with a buisness plan to get people to give me money for a product that cannot work.
On anther rant, Linux machines won't be affected by this. Even if I bought one of these disks it would only stop me from using it on my work computer, not my laptop, not any of my homebrew computers or my Mac Mini.
So why does anyone care?
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
I give them 3 weeks before their crippling scheme is broken. Anyone wanna bet?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"Nobody woke up this morning wanting to do less with their DVDs!"
How dumb is this idea?
Your average Joe-computer-user will try it in his Windows PC using WMP and it won't work. So he returns it to Best Buy and (maybe) notes to himself to never to buy a DVD with the 'ProtectDisc' logo. Mark that as one lost and pissed customer.
Your average haxxor-d00d/bright-linux-guy/anyone-with-a-clue plays on on some other player that has been hacked up to deal with the non-standard UDF. It works fine.
Then his buddy, Joe, asks him for a copy since he had to return his 'defective' DVD. And while he's at it, he posts a torrent of it in case anyone else had the same problem.
So the studios end up pissing off and alienating their current customers who are unlikely to be pirating or copying the movie, while anyone who is already inclined to pirate/copy it still has the means and knowledge to do so (and now also has the motivation!). Really dumb.
There goes any final, lingering reason I had to purchase DVDs. F--- you, Hollywood.
Why don't they just go ahead and make it impossible to play anything on any device ever. Then the movie industry would be happy.
Ad Astra Per Asper
Is that there are people out there that think this is a good idea. It could be the greed or just misguided ideals. But the fact that there are people out there that think this is both a good idea and worth of working on is just sad.
People rent movies because it beats watching paint dry. All this DRM stuff is doing is making wall paint more and more interesting...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
"Part of the copy-protection mechanism is a non-standard UDF...file system which results in the IFO file on the DVD...appearing to the PC as being zero bytes long."
Then how does a dedicated DVD player read the data?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19944 9&cid=16394591
While we may be one step behind, we are allways running 1 step from even with MPAA. No matter how fast they run.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
What is their reasoning for this? Are they saying that the hundreds of millions of computers in the world with optical drives sporting their offical trademarked DVD logo aren't really DVD players anymore? Just who are they trying to stop with this anyway? Does anyone think mplayer/mencoder (available for Windows btw) will be stopped by this for more than a point release? What is their motive for trying to stop licensed players? Microsoft Media Player is a LICENSED user of the CSS system!
Democrat delenda est
bingo, hit the nail on the head. This is what they are doing now anyway, sony says "hm, why aren't people buying our music... PIRACY! release the RIAA lawyers!"... they never seem to see the "our products are shit, you can't use them how everyone would think you should be able to and we rootkit your computer"
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
It will keep ordinary users from copying. That is its purpose.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I would love to see this technology used. First, consumers would start returning the DVD to retailers with complaints about it not working properly on their PCs. Second, retailers would complain to the distributors and returning "defective" units. Distributors would complain to the studios. Someone in Congress gets ahold of this. FTC gets involved. Millions of DVDs recalled to get "DOES NOT WORK ON PC/Mac" stickers which makes them, basically, worthless. The whole industry, from top to bottom, takes a huge hit. And, as the final insult, it gets hacked 24 hours after the first DVD is released anyway. Go for it! Who wants to be the first studio exec with their name on this? You could be famous!
A dedicated DVD player is essentially a limited-function computer, and they are already designed to play what they expect to play. A PC can better adapt to new copy protections than any DVD player, so the RIAA is essentially doomed in trying to do something with current generation DVDs. And of course, as already pointed out the RIAA is also doomed if they restrict their player support to avoid PCs.
Instructions to downgrade the firmware are here:
_ viewtopic.php?46417
http://www.epizenter.net/e107_plugins/forum/forum
I would send a nasty letter to Creative when you're done downgrading too, but that's just me. I know I sent one to Apple when they castrated iTunes' ability to share over the internet, a feature that I had used all the time to listen to my music while studying or working in another building.
Companies need to know that we won't just bend over and let them fuck us with little "upgrades" like that, at least not without noticing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Okay... it will also not stop the pirates who, btw, nowdays download movies, not play or rip them on a DVD.
Anyhow... if youre using windows you deserve being treated like the bitch you are.
NO SIG
Oh well... I guess people won't be buying these much as anyone with a Windows XP PC expects to play DVDs. Especially Windows XP Media Center Edition which is pretty much the standard at all the big box shops these days. I challenege anyone to go to Best Buy and NOT get a name brand PC with Windows XP MCE on it.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
What guarantees do you have that a disc which doesn't adhere to the UDF format is going to play on a "regular" DVD player? None. It doesn't match the standard.
Why don't DVD manufacturers just get this over with right at the plant; just paint the aluminum layer with black paint so it won't reflect a laser, or scratch it up before coating the disc in plastic. This way the disc will be unreadable on almost all DVD players, and no users will ever have the chance to steal precious content with their DVD drives, or even with their eyeballs.
and uh, I'm not saying I think this way or anything, but once you have two copies of the movie, why keep them both? Why not sell the one you're not using? Just because of the legality involved? Well I have news for you, fair use law supposedly protects my right to format-shift. If they're going to ruin the law, then why shouldn't I feel free to break it? I display every bit as much respect for the law as the media companies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Does this open up AnyDVD to a possible DMCA lawsuit for breaking encryption stuff?
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
The biggest software publishers back in the 80s used to copy-protect their disks and you actually had to have the copy-protected disk in the drive to even load the software. Needless to say, everyone got REALLY tired of that crap and was encouraged to try software from companies that did NOT do that stuff and made it easy to use THEIR software...like Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft got to where they are today, at least in part, by providing easy-to-install, non-protected disks of DOS, Windows 3.1, Excel, Word, etc. Yes, copying was rampant...but so was useage...which made Microsoft a ton of money that built Bill Gates big house. The formerly-leading companies with that really good copy protection evenutally dropped it, but it was too late for them. Of course, Microsoft began copy-protecting their own stuff and now has the really super-duper product activation so that NO ONE will be able to illegally install their software. When was the last time you bumped into anyone who was actually using Office 2003? Microsoft's share of the 'new office' market is shrinking faster than an iceberg in July.
Now, we have some companies offering DVDs with the really, really good copy protection that is so good that the disk will not even play on a pc. Their survival time can be measured in months, not years.
So this is already a moot issue, at least for anyone interested in pirating movies. For anyone interested in legitimately watching movies on their PC, however, this is a real obstacle.
What I'd like to know is, there's already this article out about the technology, AnyDVD has already set up their workaround, so are there titles out there on the shelves using this?
Everyone in between is better off using a pirated copy, because it is just better.
Agreed. I hardly even watch movies straight from DVD anymore. Even if I'm just going to watch it once, I just run them through HandBrake first. That way I don't have to deal with crappily designed menus, FBI warnings, and mandatory-view advertisements. (Because yes, Virginia, a "preview" is just an advertisement for another movie.)
I've told more than one other person about HandBrake and now they do the same thing. I wouldn't call it quite "Grandma friendly" yet (although the stripped-down iPod version is) but it's pretty close. If the person you're instructing knows the difference between a Phillips screw and a Torx, they can probably deal with HandBrake.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Does this mean they're just screwing with the chapter/track information and leaving the filesystem intact? I could always just find the VOB files on the DVD and open them in mplayer to play movies. That skipped any chapter information.
...encouraging a barage of anti-MS discussions.
Slashdot's on a roll today!
news for nerds. stuff against microsoft.
I can see it now...
"I tap my 'Ghostbusters' and my 'Stripes' to power my Bill Murray's Sarcastic Comment Attack..."
"Well, I counter with my Renee Zellweger's Pinchy Faced Squint Attack, so let's see, my Zellweger is destroyed, but your Murray takes six points of damage, and I tap my 'Showgirls' to power a Flashbulb of the Paparazzi and finish him off."
"Damn! Your turn..."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I don't have a TV. My only way to play a DVD is on my laptop. This will certainly save me money buying commercial DVDs.
While there are a lot of people who don't care about playing DVDs on their PCs, I'm sure people who bought Media Center PCs for this purpose are going to be peeved.
Wal-Mart should be as angry about this as the studios putting movies up for download on iTunes in the first place -- it puts the retailers at a competitive disadvantage.
What exactly stops the players from reading that file as 0 bytes long, exactly?
In the past 7 years I have bought about 1500 DVDs. And I exclusively watch them on my computer, since my TV sucks but my monitor is fabugorgeous.
I know, I can circumvent a copy-protection scheme, just like I circumvent region-encoding. But is it really worth the hassle? If I have to go through hoops to watch the stuff I buy, I rather buy the same stuff where I don't need to go through hoops. I.e., pirated DVDs. Easy to get, easy to play, exactly what I want, and a helluva lot cheaper. To be honest, in this case I would prefer pirated DVDs even if they were the same price as the legal DVDs, or slightly more expensive...
Macs read the data in the same way PCs do. If the contents are messed up, the DVD won't play in a Mac either. it's not a Mac/PC thing it's a smart/dumb thing. Stand alone DVD players are normally "dumb" meaning they know very little about the disc they are playing. PCs/Macs are "smarter" and rely on that information to figure out what to do and where to read things.
This is mainly a little DVD-Video tidbit to explain how technically this works.
For the DVD-Video spec, the actual file system being used is irrelevant and is mainly used to "boot" the disc and discover where the very first data sector is located at on the DVD disc. From then on, at least in theory, all of the navigation to the rest of the DVD media is handled internally within the DVD-Video files themselves, including the MPEG data, as the navigation within the video data is handled with the use of special navigation packets.
So for a set-top box on your home television, the data scanners ignore the UTF file format and just march through the data according to the DVD-Video specs, not even aware that there might be a problem. Besides, these set-top boxes have just enough of a file system BIOS just to get to the "root" sector and not much more. Sometimes the "higher-end" ones will try to scan for MP3s or other kinds of media files, but that is a bonus and not required for playing the video data itself.
As for PCs, the operating systems are obviously designed to trust in the file system to believe that what the file system is telling you is also correct. Obviously you can mess with the order of the files and make something playable only on PCs and not set-top boxes, but usually you are more worried about the set-top ones rather than some hobbiest with some DVD playback software. The PC-based DVD-Video playback software is usually designed to trust in the file system and does the file requests through normal OS-related file requests rather than doing low-level sector navigation. This is a sign of good programming, not the lack thereof.
What is being done here is a very cheap hack that took the brains of a half-competent software engineering intern who knows just enough about the specs to get him/herself into some serious trouble and doesn't know the basics of trying to stick with known standards. Or to understand the need for redundant systems to try and protect data through multiple means of accessing the information. As has been pointed out, by doing this the file system is essentially corrupted, so normal OS file system requests will not be able to retrieve the data, unless you are accessing information on the DVD drive via individual sector requests instead (that would be the "hack" to break this "encryption" system). BTW, the "file size" of the IFO files is also recorded in the IFO file format itself as well, so "recreating" the IFO files is trivial in this situation if you can access the individual sectors.
I certainly hope that this idiot who designed this system didn't get a patent on the subject. I will go down right now as somebody to contact if you want to break the patent to testify that this is not a patentable idea in the first place. And as has been pointed out by others, this is clearly in violation of the DVD-Video standards and as such you can't claim compatability to DVD-Video by using this system. This is not a copy protection scheme but rather a corruption of the file system, as has been pointed out, and taking on a percieved weakness in the organization of the DVD-Video format.
Well, let's face it...they're going to keep doing this until we hit 'em where it hurts. Class-action suit, anyone?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
I live in the Netherlands, but I know the situation is the same in many other EU countries:
Since the implementation of the EUCD, it is now against the law to bypass "effective technical measures" that restrict what can be done with a copyrighted work, even if these restrictions involves rights you would normally have under copyright law.
At the same time, downloading copyrighted material off the 'net is explicitly allowed. The copyright holders are paid from a levy that is imposed on blank media.
As a result of this, for me as a Linux user, it is illegal for me to watch movies from "copy-protected" DVDs that I bought and paid for, but it is legal to watch the same movies if I download them off the 'net for free.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
PC: Hi, I'm Pc MAC: And I'm Mac Mac: I play DVDs PC: I play DVD's too but you cant see them
Who wants a Windows PC anyway...
.ogg copy. At last I could listen to that damn music !
I once had a "CopyProtect"-ed audio CD that could barely be played on my hifi device : the music had parasite sounds, some laggy behaviour, and so on. Put it in my Linux PC, fired up Grip, and make a clear, useable
People that can't listen to their legally-bought CDs will stop buying them. They'll download them. So what/who are DRM good for ?
If all you want to do is rip the audio and video off of the DVD, you don't need the IFO file. All you need are the VOB files. This will only hurt the people that want to legitimately watch the disc on their PCs. Pirates will have no problem getting around this.
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
I thought a lot of people watched DVD movies on their home entertainment systems - a lot of which are based on PCs (Windows Media Center/Linux). Or what about people with just big monitor?
So now i cannot watch this new Hollywood-DVD that I'd buy on my home entertainment system?
there is no issue with my network
What about people who watch DVD's on the plane?
whoops, I for got that
I |>0|\|+ |D!R8 N3M{}R3
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
1.) Stop making DVDs. Distribute the crap by download only.
2.) Put Adam Sandler in every film.
"1" is already happening, although Mal-Wart and the rest of the retailers are not happy about it.
"2" would be a crime against humanity.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
When are the content producers going to stop shooting themselves in their own foot with this kind of stuff? Actually, what REALLY blows my mind is how these companies can be so fricken stupid... I mean they have literally created out of thin air an industry consisting of companies whose sole line of business is inventing ways to take their money without delivering a product that actually works. Every single one of these "copy protection" schemes has been snake oil with NO exceptions. None. Not a single one of them works effectively. The fact that the content owners keep buying them is frankly a pretty harsh indictment on their intellect. Maybe they should start trying to hire executives whose IQ exceeds their shoe size. Or just get a clue as to WHY people want what they want and figure out a business plan that lets them give it to them.
- sigs are stupid
DVD software players. PowerDVD 3.5 can play these DVDs. Of course, these programs only work well on systems with Win2K and Win98SE, but what is that to stop the piraters?
That or just do 16bit binary copy. Sure it make 3hours, but at least you get an image file, load up thru Daemon tools and burn onto DVD!.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
If any of these companies were smart about DRM when they're designing these systems, they could simply invoke some sort of hardware DRM. Like spinning the discs the other way so that they can't be read by computers. Data clockwise, Movies/music anti-clockwise.
I don't see how they can think that they can keep static information locked up easily if it can be read by every somputer.
It will keep ordinary users from copying. That is its purpose.
What, they want to drive ordinary users to torrents?
KFG
Come on. I understand they are "losing money" because of pirating, but jeez. First windows is not allowing old formatted music on the players due to there own weak DRM's. Then they are putting all the WGA crap, and now we can't even watch DVD's on our computers? That screams of robbery. I mean soon we will only be able to do 1 function with our computer, On and off... :P... But I have to wonder, what about linux?
N. A. Stuart
Finally, another oppressive copy protection company to hate.
I (and we) will always have the cooler toys.
... and the stuff that we geeks ought to be doing in the absence of DRM, we'll never do at all.
We always would have had the cooler toys. People who are interested in learning about computers, will always be able to do more with them; this doesn't change whether the computer is a drum-memory beast or the latest bazillion-transistor Intel powerhouse.
What DRM means is that the stuff that we geeks will be doing on our computers, is the stuff that the masses should be able to do
When I think of all the time that really brilliant people like DVD Jon have spent breaking DRM, it doesn't seem like some great technical achievement -- it's just a lot of effort and time that could have gone to actual development of new features, but which had to instead be spent just making something simple work the way it should have.
DRM is like the ultimate broken-window fallacy. In fixing it you feel like you're accomplishing something, but really you're just treading water.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Holy crap! Don't these fools realize that the reason a lot of people download movies is because they don't want the greedy companies telling them how and where they can watch their movie. I've started only watching DVDs on my computer because I have a better monitor and speakers than my TV. So these fuckheads want to take that away from me? I actually don't download movies (I'd rather buy them on DVD or watch them in the theater), but if this happens widespead I'm going alpha-pirate on the MPAA.
Support Liberty, Support Ron Paul
It used to be, back in the 80's, that you had to be careful about putting disks from people you didn't know into your computer because you might get a virus...now in the 21st century, pirates and anonymous downloads on the internet are more reliable and less risky than sticking a CD or DVD from a well known company into your computer...
I have seen what I believe to be a similar if not identical copy protection scheme in the wild. Many times I have seem DVDs that seem to have been made with DVD recorder appliances or some really crappy software or something. The filesystem looks as if not just the .NFO files are 0-length, but ALL files appear to be 0-length. So attempting to grab anything file-by-file simply fails. But I can still play such videos using Xine. (Never bothered to try MPlayer...)
Furthermore, I was able to "copy" these same DVDs using "dd" to create an ISO. Some programs didn't want to burn it because it wasn't a correctly formatted ISO, but some would burn anyway. The net result was a good copy that worked.
I'm unafraid of these measures for now...
Hey, let's break the format to stop pirates!!
Why not give each disk a good going over with some sandpaper?
There's not a lot of difference.
The point is that similar "anti-piracy" tactics have been overcome with very simple, low-tech solutions like magic markers and the shift key. Not that those exact solutions are for this problem, but that something similar could apply to this situation.
It just surprises me how entire companies build themselves up on a "protection" scheme that is pathetically easily defeated by someone who knows how. They're just spinning their wheels, while a few customers buy the crappy products and get frustrated by not being able to use them, then the company has to go back to the drawing board and come up with some new standards-noncompliant disc format that starts the whole cycle over again.
There's some kind of rule regarding security policy which states that if security is so tight as to be an obstacle to normal work, legitimate users will attempt to circumvent the security measures just so they can do their work at a reasonable level of efficiency (ie. without undue irritation). I think that rule applies to media security as well. Right now, media security measures are still largely invisible and legitimate use does "just work" for the most part. But what will happen if that changes? If the security measures become so draconian as to impede legitimate use, it's extremely likely that legitimate users who had never considered pirating will begin to look for ways to circumvent the system just to continue using the product in a convenient manner. Basically, I think it's quite likely that if media security measures get much tighter then the media companies will effectively create a consumer base of "pirates" as a simple reaction to the inconvenience the new security measures present. And once a person becomes used to the convenience presented by circumvention, it will be difficult to convince them to play by the rules again, even if future security measures are relaxed.
I'm just wondering if they are putting the data in a resource fork ala- .dfont files. If that's the case, I can't see it being a problem for rippers, just a complete screw around to watch it. Are they trying to get people to have to rip a movie just to watch it!?
Personal computer software players can be updated to be compatible with your nonstandard format. (It's a good chance that the exact kind of people MPAA worries about, happen to have Internet access.) Embedded players in consumer electronics cannot be updated, or at least not easily.
This has no chance of working as copy protection (restricting access on equipment that can actually do something with the bits other than play them) but certain chance of being unplayable in some dumb devices that aren't capable of copying.
This can only piss off customers, without making a dent in piracy. Why did they do this? This wasn't done for profit, or at least not the MPAA-members' profit. I hate when companies do nonprofitable things; it makes them so mysterious. I'm just glad I don't own any of their stock.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And they will probably be correct to some extent, in that the pirated versions of the DVD that come without any elaborate restrictions will be "stealing" all their sales. Of course were there no such pirate version they wouldn't sell any more DVDs, but that wouldn't stop them accounting it as a "loss".
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
The more I see stuff like this, along with the recent issues brick and mortar retailers are having over the pricing difference from online movie distribution, the more I think the movie industry wants the standard DVD format to die. Without having a phyical product being placed in the hands of consumers, and forcing movie downloads to be tied specifically to a single computer/user, it makes the process of transferring the content to third parties (either by illegal file sharing or through legal after-market resale) nearly impossible for the average person.
Just think, that $14 movie you "conveniently" downloaded from iTunes today won't be nearly as "convenient" to resell to someone else later on, as a physical DVD would be. To resell that one single movie, you'll need to literally hand your entire computer and iTunes account over to the buyer. Otherwise, your only remaining option is to delete the file and eat the loss... and all because you didn't buy a physical copy when you had the chance.
The industry *wants* you to buy downloaded movies instead of DVDs, despite their seeming lack of support for it. As soon as the "trusted computing initiative" is in full effect, it be game over for the consumer.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Yeah. I wonder what Microsoft/Sony and the other companies who are planning on capitalizing on the whole concept of a "home theater PC" think of this. It's going to really take the wind out of their sails (and sales) if people can't play movies that they bought at BestBuy on their big expensive HTPC system.
I wonder if HTPC software manufacturers will start building a DRM workaround in, just to prevent it from appearing like their software is broke? Seems like that might be legit under the interoperability portions of the DMCA, and really if these things become widespread, they can hardly afford not to.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The best way to stop this shit, is to one way or another overthrow/replace the apes and their cronies who come up with shit like this. Not saying it will be easyt at all, but one way or another it should be done.
Stop consuming their products.
Vote with your money, and stop buying their products.
What it will do is to keep ordinary users from PLAYING the discs on their PCs/Laptops/etc. And at the same time, it probably won't slow down anyone who's seriously copying DVDs at all.
This will get broken just like every other measure, and the break will get incorporated into the same software people are already using to copy DVDs, and within a couple of months you won't even know there's any protection on the disc when you go to copy it.
Another thing it will do is to force people who otherwise would not copy their DVDs to do so, so that the copies will then be playable on their PCs. I already know people who have done this when they unknowingly bought out-of-region DVDs from eBay or while on vacation. They're not pirates, they just want to watch what they bought.
Actually, I have run into several DVDs (mostly Disney) that won't play on my set-top DVD player (says either "bad disk" or "wrong disk type"), but play fine on my computer.
They will, however, play on my set-top after I "process" them on my computer.
Is this what the movie industry wants?
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
This is just corruption, based on the assumption that "real" DVD players behave one way, and software DVD players behave another way.
I'm really curious to see if this affects me at all. I have a strong suspicion that libdvdread won't care, or could be patched to deal with this. And it STILL doesn't solve the problem of simply ripping the DVD bit for bit.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
With innovations like this the RIAA and MPAA's days are numbered.
I applaud them for shooting themselves in the foot again.
They call it Protect DVD-Video.. I call it Protect My-Wallet.
Guess what happens if I know I can't use something that is for sale in the market?
I WON'T BUY IT. I won't buy a DVD or CD I can't play any more than I would buy rotten fruit.
There will always be someone annoyed enough to crack this type of technology and even if there isn't, what stops a guy from taking video out from a device that will play it and plugging it into an mpeg recorder to record it that way. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Buy these new DVDs, making sure there is a return policy, and then returning them as "defective" when you can't read them with a standard device. If they label them as "for use with X player only" then don't buy at all.
So a Media PC like Microsoft envisions with Media Center acting as your "entertainment hub" and enforcing DRM with an iron fist will be locked out of accessing content to begin with. The irony is delicious.
Personally, I don't even own a regular DVD player. Everything my roommate and I play DVDs with is a PC of some sort. I have a large DVD collection (eliciting a chuckle from my roomie when I was unpacking it as he said "You're such a pirate. I can see why you hate DRM."), I have a tremendously large game collection that's completely legal. All totalled I own between $10k-$15k of PC Games, Dreamcast games, and DVDs. I play the DVDs only in PC based devices.
However, I'm assumed to be a criminal and treated as one for the simple crime of using technology in the amazingly flexible manner it was designed for. This is the PC's strength: flexibility to do anything digital packaged in to one device that you just pop more pieces on to. Yet I'm a criminal for using such an wonderfully designed system which in many ways I consider to be an amazing example human technology and ingenuity. There's only one word for it: Horseshit.
Every studio that uses this will lose all future purchases I make. Yes I know how to circumvent it, but giving them money is just as bad as having to circumvent it. I already have to circumvent CSS to play media under a non-license player, and I shouldn't have to do that. Now I have to circumvent yet another layer if I want to play it in Windows at all?
To any studio that uses this tripe: I'm not a criminal. I'm a customer. If you can't tell the difference, then I don't want your product anymore.
Again, the pirated copy has more functionality and actually will play on any sufficiently powerful computer, while the legitimately purchased copy is hobbled. They're actually driving people to piracy who originally didn't plan to go that route.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
...but once you have two copies of the movie, why keep them both?...
It's nice to have a backup copy around?
Yeah, I know... just make a backup copy of the first copy, then turn around and sell the original/master. Some of us prefer being honest, though. Helps us sleep at night. And on the off chance that there's a big guy with a big list of our mistakes/sins waiting for us in the afterlife, it might help.
Does anyone think it'll be before a little Windows 'patch' is written that shows the file. Honestly - I watch most DVD's on my PC because it has a wide aspect screen on it. The minute they start pulling this shit I'll not be buying DVD's. But then, they'll start screaming that piracy is cutting into sales again.
Make it wider than 5 1/4"...
I posted something similar to this on a thread about games. If pirates are going to put out a superior product, why is hollywood scratching their arses wondering why their losing their buisness? If I can cram on about 6 movies to a single disk, not have to worry about devices I can copy it too, play it on almost anything, and ontop of it all have the ability to skip anywhere in the movie (if it's an avi file etc) plus no unskipable advertising...why the hell would I bother paying them again for a movie after I see it in theatres and already damn near paid the same price as buying the dvd? They either need to lower their prices to make it worthwhile for all the hassle it takes with these disks, or make them more user friendly for the prices we're paying. Currently I'm not very interested in shelling out money for a crippled inferior product that I have already paid an exhorbitant price for, I don't think anyone really is if they know better.
I'll just download a ripped copy and send them cash by mail.
"Oh, you didn't recieve the money you were expecting? I guess someone must have stolen it. Release the hounds!"
oooooooooooooo0o0o0o0oooooooooooooo ...: H4x0R - - - - - - Release Date ....: 11-10-2006 .....: ©_© - - - - - - - Genre/Type ......: DVD play protection .....: 8===D - - - - - - Release Size ....: 2kb ....: obscure stuff - - Method ..........: exe .....: ProtectDISC - - - Rating ..........: 10/10h tml
The Media Entertainment Industry Fuckers
oooooooooooooo0o0o0o0oooooooooooooo
The Media Entertainment Industry Fuckers proudly present:
Protect DVD-ROM Crack
Supplied By
Packed By
Tested By
Protection
Developer
oooooooooooooo0o0o0o0oooooooooooooo
Release Notes:
It was damn easy. Game over.
A recommendation for the Industry:
Next time scrach the DVDs before selling them; We can't crack that protection... (wait!, you never know...)
http://www.protectdisc.com/With_FL/HTML/products.
oooooooooooooo0o0o0o0oooooooooooooo
***Game Over***Insert Coin***
This is a great idea. It's coming just as more and more video is appearing online. If you make it a pain in the ass to watch it legally, people will just say screw it and watch it illegally. No buying the DVD, no renting the DVD. They'll get it straight from the net.
BTW, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm saying it's reality.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Da Vinci wasn't an artist? If you want to keep it in the music realm ... Mozart wasn't an artist? Repeat ad nauseum.
Just because someone wants to get paid and negotiates (usually frequently) payment amounts for their work instead of just "sharing" it does not make them a non-artist.
Then you better hope that the movie studios don't get a hold of AWESOME-O.
Yes - now you are a criminal and can be processed as such.
And that would be (Royal) Philips.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
The reason is simple, i download my movies from fine sites like thepiratebay.org, no DRM here.
As usual, only legit consumers are affected.
I have only one thing to say to them, GG!
- "There is nothing quite like an ineffective solution to an nonexistant problem"
Coming next: DVD files encrypted with a single-use 1024-bit key that is immediately thrown away after use.
Spokesman says: "Sure, the DVDs are completely worthless - nobody on earth can actually use them. But this is the only way to keep them safe from pirates. And by pirates, we mean users."
Anything which borks the hardware is going to make practically all of the exsiting SO players useless. Also, since most of the inexpensive players rely on standard DVD drives to keep cost down, it would make the new players far more expensive (being custom and incopmpatible with PC DVDs). Next, we'd need a PC compatible anti-DVD drive so that we could write home movies and content to SO playable dvds, and the whole charade starts over again.
I don't see how that can avoid being read by a computer with the proper drivers and software and yet stay compatible with the vast installed base of DVD players. Note: I have had a DVD-R, burned by a FOAF which would not play in any PC DVD player I owned, and I tried at least 7 different drives. It would play find in all three SO dvd players I tried. It reportedly was readable in the drive that burned it, but that PC was out of commission (don't know the problem). I don't know what was screwed up, but I hope the studios don't ever get thier hands on it*.
*I suspect it was just some odd bit errors or bad tracks that messed with the FS - maybe not unlike the topic system. I did not try to read it with Linux, as I did not have a machine that had it loaded at the time.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Couldn't any DVD that carries this protection claiming to be a full length feature film fall under bait and switch since it magnificently turns itself into a shiny 20$ paperweight? I mean they claim to give you a useable, watchable feature film but it ends up being unplayable in your DVD player...?
Development notes at http://devscribbles.blogspot.com
Well, luckily for me this will have zero impact. I use a Mac.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
I normally take the side of DRM in these discussions, I sell games online for my own 1 man company, so I have a vested interest (and urgent rent-paying need) to combat piracy and make sure that the content provider gets paid for his/her hard work.
But this is a step WAY too far for DRM.
I often watch DVDs on my laptop, its a great feature, and its totally insane to prevent me as a consumer from doing this, with DVDs I have BOUGHT.
We now are in a situation where:
95% of content providers treat their customers ok
5% of content providers act like jackasses, install rootkits and starforce, sue dead people and schoolkids,add unskippable bits to DVDs,and pull stunts like this.
95% of consumers act perfectly reasonably, pay a fair price for a legal product, and dont download pirated content
5% of consumers act like jackasses, pirating everything on principle, uploading hacked copies, and seeding torrents of movies that they enjoy, without a penny going to the providers of that content. Some even start a political party to try and legitmise such activities.
The extremists at both ends are really fucking up the whole digital entertainment industry for the rest of us. This sucks big time. And anyone 'involved' in the issue enough to lobby about it, is firmly in one of those 5% groups. The chances of reasonable compromsie gets further away each day.
I've decided that the best thing I can do is to try and reign in both sides before we end up with something really bad happening.
message to hardcore pirates : "You are acting like idiots. grow up"
message to sony, MPAA,RIAA et al : "You are acting like idiots, grow up"
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Perhaps this will be enough for 'joe consumer' to finally decide hes had enough of this garbage.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ohhh... A Windows pc... Nothing to see here. *continues working on his FreeBSD laptop*
home
1. wanna bet that people will download the stuff, then make DVD's of them and then pirate them.
2. I don't think just Adam Sandler constitutes a crime against humanity.
You need at least Kevin Costner, Madonna and whoever wrote "bridges of Madison county" as well to qualify as a a crime against humanity.
- "There is nothing quite like an ineffective solution to an nonexistant problem"
So some DVDs won't be playable on PCs using some operating system...
Will it be effective ? Absolutely not...
The fact that files will be tagged as 0-byte in length may cause DVD players to refuse to play it, but that doesn't prevent anyone to make a raw copy of it...
Like:
# dd if=/dev/hdc of=dvd.iso
# cdrecord-prodvd dvd.iso
# rm dvd.iso
Two computers, a DVD player, and a PS2.
:p
I have discs that play in one or two, but the only thing that will play *any* disc is the PS2
Go figure.
A big black lady with a beard in white robes looks at you and says...
SOOOOOOO
YOU INFRINGED COPYRIGHT IN 2006!
YOU ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL!
(trap door opens.. flames shoot out).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Yeah, I mean products compete on price and convienience. The pirates have the legit companies beat on price, but traditionally it was a lot quicker and less hassle and much more safe to buy a legit copy than a pirated copy. The media companies certainly won on convienience!
Nowadays, buying things legit is actually just as much of a hassle, and just as dangerous with root-kits and such, as pirate stuff. The media companies are spending billions to ruin their market advantage.
I'm already NOT buying DVDs because the b@stards don't let me watch them. It's time to let stores know that I will not shop at stores that sell DVDs.
Andy Out!
Out of Digital Versatile Disc...
[UID-HeinzIntel]
I hope that they lock DVDs down so tight that no one can even play them on their regular players. Then, when the next blockbuster movie sell a grand total of four DVDs, maybe the movie and television studios will finally realize how much money this is costing them.
I don't know about you, but reading about this stuff makes me more and more warry of buying any new media. So they don't even need to lock DVDs down tight to feel the hurt. Just the *idea* that they *might* lock them down, or that media is being locked down right now and people can't always tell which ones are locked down and which ones aren't, should have an effect on their "bottom line." If only a fraction of them get this level of protection, but the consumer has to put extra effort into their consuming to make sure they don't get media with that protection, it's going to become (or already has become!) too much trouble to buy anything at all.
There are side-effects to these content "protection" schemes. Here's one, for your pleasure:
I bought a MacBook Pro recently. It's a great machine except for one thing: The DVD drive isn't region free. What nonsense, my $3000 machine is less functional than any $30 DVD player.
My solution is: I don't buy DVDs anymore. The absolute best movies I'll watch in the cinema, for the rest there's BitTorrent. I'm thinking about putting my DVD collection up on eBay.
So where, I wonder, is the gain for the movie industry? I fail to see any, unless their goal is not getting their movies watched anymore (which I just think might be true, given the crap they produce).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Disney is notorious with inserting tons of advertisements of their other new dvd products on dvds.
My friends with kids often drop their newly bought disney dvds to me for reauthoring, simply because the discs contain too much commercials instead real content. One of the worst cases I've seen had 8 episodes of the actual show and 12 commercials, one between each show, 3 at the beginning and 2 at the end.
Burning a remastered ad-free backup for daily use isn't such bad idea since the kids will probably get their hands on the disc, so the original is safe in another cupboard out of reach.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Seriously, when the companies make people think like that, aren't they doing something wrong?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
And yes, I am sure Microsoft, pushing their home media center pc's is really going to let this technology fly.....if they are dumb enough it should be nice to know that linux will have the ability to just play the disks while M$ needs special tools and authorizations and your cc number and your first born.
XviD, that's what the scene uses nowadays. Not DivX.
Please, someone tell me! I don't want to be left out.
All this does is make me even LESS inclined to purchase DVDs. I don't have a DVD player connected to my TV, so whenever I want to watch a movie that I've rented or bought, I watch it on my PC. If I won't be able to do this in future, then it's even more reason to download movies that have been ripped into a different video format. How could this technology possibly be used to encourage sales and prevent pirating? All it takes is one person to crack the protection system, and then every new movie spreads throughout the internet as fast as an unprotected disc does today. They're really giving me no CHOICE but to download it.
Companies who product copy protection are a waste of programming talent.
It involves a steel brush. Guaranteed to make it impossible for anyone to copy the data.
Copy protection is quite ridiculous. I'm a college student. I also happen to have a bit of an anime habit (and I buy lots of DVDs legally). I watch all of my DVDs on my computer, because my computer has a nice monitor, a good sound system, and I don't have a standalone DVD player anyway. Yet Windows Media Player absolutely refuses to play any of my DVDs because it thinks they are copied, which they aren't. So I end up having to use VLC. Now I won't even be able to play DVDs on my computer at all?! What the hell? Not everyone who watches DVDs has a DVD player, you know. I suspect that a lot of college students end up watching stuff on their computers because they are so cramped for space that they get gadgets that do lots of things at once, like computers ...
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
The entertainment industry needs to realise it's the entertainment industry. I don't need to have anything to do with it, and if it makes life unpleasant, I won't.
have to buy a dvd player?
.torrent
I have never owned one, nor do I want one.
Ohh well, thank goodness for
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
IDE driver that will allow their own Windows Player to handle DVDs.
There might be other benefits (to them) with such a device handler...
Oh well. I guess I'll have to keep getting my movies from Torrent sites.
I hope the people who make the DVD player software, and the video card makers, and the people who market their PCs as home-theatre devices, all gang up and put the smack down on distributors who use this format.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
And in helping your friends out, you've committed a FELONY.
Insane? Why, yes.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The only problem with going download-only is that there are a massive number of people who either have no computer/no Internet, or only dialup-Internet, but they *do* own a DVD player.
Im glad you mentioned this because I thought it was just me. But Ive also noticed in the last 6 odd months that this has happened also. Ive had about a half dozen discs that did the same thing on my old DVD player(and my games console player as well) but played just fine on my laptop.
Your time must be worthless to you.
I rented "Flight plan" last weekend. The copyprotection caused the DVD player to hand during some chapter changes! When I return the movie I'm going to ask for my money back and explain that I can't watch it and I am not going to replace my perfectly good DVD player.
I have long ago stopped going to the movie theater on a regular basis. Not because of price, but because I was rather upset the first time I paid to see a movie and got a comercial. One of the things I paid for was to have an uniterupted movie experience. If you want to show me trailers before the movie starts, go ahead, but don't give me a standard commercial. That first commercial was for Nestle Quick. I remember the commercial, but not the movie. If I am in the store, I will now try to pick another brand, just on principle.
Since then, I have become a collector of DVDs. I can sit at home and watch it on my own terms. If the beging has too much stuff other than trailers, I will rip it into a format that I can enjoy. Commercials and piracy notices are not part of your "creative work." That is not what I paid for, that is not what I want, and it is not what I am going to buy. If you wish to send me the DVD for free with the commercials, then like TV, I might or might not watch it if I have the time.
If you are going to take the ability for me to watch a movie that I have paid to watch without commericals, then I will go back to books, then I can tear out or paint anything that I find offensive.
You are trying to do business in a capitolistic society. The intent of that economic system is that people or companies that provided the products that people want at a resonable price are allowed to stay in business. Please quit trying to stretch our legal system to get around that simple fact, and please quit trying to force DRM onto people that do not want it. Provide the general people with what they want, and you will continue to have a thriving business.
The way to cure this is easy.
;p
Everyone get one of these nice new DVD's
Go buy a MEdia center PC.
Return Media Center PC..or just WIN MCE cause it doesn't play media.
A big box store won't have a clue on these weird DVD probably, you could even prove the computer is 'broke'
Complain to MS their MCE doesn't do what it says
Let MS do all the hard work of getting rid of these guys
I have a hard time believing MS will let these guys cripple the zillion copies of MCE they have sold anyway.
Ah AnyDVD. Some of the best money I've ever spent. Period.
Is it just me or does any one else think that just maybe the plan is to lock in media with a specific manufacturer. Sony DVDs will only play on Sony DVD players that will only connect to Sony TVs.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
And the movie studios wonder...
why DVD sales are declining.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
windows supports udf disks already doesnt it? as long as its not a iso/udf hybrid disk, then it just reads the iso side, but it wouldnt be hard to make it default to udf.
portfolio
Tell that to TiVo.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And that overly long FBI Warning.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They will eventually make DRM that will make it impossible to play their shit anywhere.
And those 4 sales will be to the 4 pirates who will put it on BitTorrent for the rest of us. Of course, they won't be hard to find afterwards.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
To the MPAA - when you make it harder for me to use your product, I'll just bypass you and go to somewhere that is cheaper and works better.
That looks like something an updated device driver could deal with..? But if it causes trouble for playback on PC's, I'll most certainly prefer a ripped copy.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
The music industry tried something similar with CDs...why do they think this will be different? http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/papers/drm20 02.pdf
Yes, because it is crass and unseemly when hardworking artists try and look out for their own interests, pay for a decent roof over their family's head, food on the table, have medical and dental costs, perhaps, gasp, a bit of money put aside for when they're older or incapacitated or just want to take some time off from the daly grind.
No, it's all the tired 'n trite MTV bullshit of "we're only in it for the music" crap when any artist will tell you that while they do it for the love of their art they have lives and bills and obligations and aspirations beyond a life flogging their wares every night.
Furthermore there is more to art & performance then a guitar and drum kit and a whiny skinny 20-something pretending to be world weary. There is orchestra and dance and theater and film and sculpture, and those involve specialized venues and contracts and grants and workshops and all the rest, they're not just "Hey let's get the scooby gang in the van and do a 12 city roadtrip! We'll pay for it out of T-shirt sales, screw the recording rights!".
No, some art is not going to be out on the road every night, some art is ephemerial or specialized. But hey, if you think that pulling the revenue from recordings out from under artists is ok then go right ahead. Of course it means that it'll be that much more difficult to mount stage productions, bring in performers from other cultures, pay the lighting bill at the local venue but then apparently the penultimate art form is the indie rocker, right?
Oh, and lastly, being entertaining is not demeaning. Yes, it not every artist's goal, but many an artist does want to reach their audience through entertainment and to disdain such as merely populist and somehow lesser is nothing more then a profoundly ignorant (pathetic, really) attempt at snobbishness. Obscurity doesn't define a great artist, nor does notoriety, nor does public adulation, great art is the only criteria. And that includes great entertainment.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
"Then, when the next blockbuster movie sell a grand total of four DVDs, maybe the movie and television studios will finally realize how much money this is costing them."
Actually, they'll probably just blame piracy and introduce even more DRM. : /
Oh, they get it just fine. They will sing from the top of their lungs that their sales are down due to piracy, while lobbying for laws outlawing all fair use. The content industry won't rest until they've implemented a legal stranglehold on distribution of their product, and to heck with users' rights.
They aren't dumb, they're just sociopathic.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
Scissors ;-)
I haven't bought a music cd in roughly a year due to the way things are going. I don't let CD's auto load content and generally if I stick them in a computer at all it will be my mac. I'd rather not have to wonder if I'm about to get stabbed in the face from some anti-piracy treatment from something I just purchased > Looks like I'll stop buying DVD's... might be time to read more books. I've yet to encounter a book that has any form of DRM and frankly most movie conversions of books are crapo in comparison anyway. Hell I don't even go to the cinemas very often anymore due to the ever increasing cost,. Having to sit through countless adverts of crap and all for the slim price of aus$45 (yes I crave popcorn and frozen coke) when I take my g/f.
"working under the banner of a giant ... with a contract that says "You must produce x amount of work over y period of time.""
In those days it was called "patronage" http://www.mos.org/leonardo/bio.html and *LOTS* of people widely considered to be great "artists" took that route.
Did it mean that not every single work they produced was a "great work of art"? Sure, but nobody hits it out of the part every time they swing unless they're a dilletante who only takes one or two swings.
Now if future DVD players will be PCs in the living room, this seems like a bad copy-protect scheme to go with. Seems to me that the computer industry should stand against this if for no other reason than potential future sales loss on (specifically branded) Windows Media Center PCs.
These computers use all kinds of industry certified parts like Dolby certified sound cards and the like. If a user who doesn't know about this pops in such a protected DVD, then they won't be able to play said movie.
I don't know what the sales figures are on these computers but for now they probably don't amount to much compared to DVD players. In a few years though, I'm sure it will be a lot more esp as hardware prices fall and the "need" to go HD picks-up (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives aint cheap and a Media Center PC isn't much more depending on quality of parts inside).
Unfortunately, all Macs using slot-loading optical drives use Matshita DVD drives, which are incapable of accessing DVDs from other regions, even with VLC. The only solution is to get an external DVD drive from a decent manufacturer like Pioneer, which doesn't cripple multi-region disc accessing. There's even hacked region-free firmware available for most Pioneer models, with Mac installers available for all but the latest DVR-111.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
They aren't trying to invent some technical masterpiece, but rather to make money off of the idiots at the studios who think this will actually protect their content. They are laughing all the way to the bank either way.
It seems that they finally figured out that the only way to keep you from copying a DVD is to keep you playing it!
what sig?
Yeah... welcome to my nightmares. Fairly sure that if the RIAA could get copyright infringement officialy declared a sin, they'd have already done it, so I think I'm ok ;o).
I believe the way it works is as follows. The DVD-Video format actually specifies the iso9660 filesystem format. One interesting note of the iso9660 file format is that the maximum file size is either 1 or 2 Gb (can't remember which). This is one of the main reasons why dvd's have multiple .vob files. The iso9660 standard is also limited by maximum filename lengths. I think it was microsoft that created the UDF filesystem standard so that it could handle longer filesnames amoung other things. The thing is though, UDF is actually a mirror filesystem on top of iso9660. It contains all the information that is in iso9660, but is stored in a seperate location. Have a look at Nero Burning Rom, which allows you to create just a iso9660 format or it can add in the UDF filesystem.
Therefore the way this copy protection stratagy works is by storing the correct information in the iso9660 filesystem - which DVD players read, and incorrect information in the UDF filesystem making the files appear as 0 byte length files. So all that needs to be done is to read the DVD as a iso9660 format disk and not as a UDF format.
I am not sure how you would do this on windows, but I think it would be fairly easy on linux using the mount command, specifying the filesystem type as iso9660 (I think).
I watch movies at my computer all the time, and will boycott any studio that uses this DRM scheme. I stopped buying CDs the first time I got one that wouldn't work in my computer. The only way we can make the entertainment industries treat us like paying customers again and not suckers is to vote with our wallets.
How ya like dat?
Yes, because it is crass and unseemly when hardworking artists try and look out for their own interests, pay for a decent roof over their family's head, food on the table, have medical and dental costs, perhaps, gasp, a bit of money put aside for when they're older or incapacitated or just want to take some time off from the daly grind.
You see, my friend, most "hardworking artists" get bent over and fucked, sans lube, by their labels. Day in. Day out. Even some indies do it too. I know, my husband was in a band that got the royal screw job from an indie that suddenly discovered "creative accounting practices" after their main distributor went belly up thanks to one of the many laws that people like Congressman Howard Berman passed for the RIAA. Remember when you could go to a record store and get higher quality vinyl and CD releases from Japan and Europe than what you could get produced for domestic consumption? You probably don't. You can't now, thanks to the Parallel Importation Act.
But I digress. Anyway, there is a very infinitesimal percentage of well known musical acts who make a living from their music. The rest work day jobs. It's like pro sports. How many people who played high school varsity sports get scouted by colleges and get put on athletic scholarships? And how many of THOSE people make it into the Big Show? And how many of THOSE people survive and make the phat bucks and earn their stack before their bodies give out?
The sports game is tilted in favor of the owners of pro teams. The motion picture game is tilted in favor of the conglomerates that own the studios. The "big leagues" in the music industry is similarly tilted. Twas ever thus. From Edison on down the big recording labels have always screwed the artists. You have to be a Madonna or a Metallica and have Big Fucking Lawyers to not get screwed. Hell, even The Beatles got the royal screw job. Who owns the Beatles' publishing catalogue? Well, maybe when Michael Jackson's money runs out McCartney will be able to buy them back. Until then, the catalog belongs to MJJ Enterprises. Not McCartney. Not Ringo. Neither of the widows either. But Michael Freakin' Jackson. Wacko Jacko. It's probably one of the few things that keeps him in cabana boys in Bahrain or Qatar or wherever he is.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The really funny thing is that in the past 4 years or so since I added a DVD player to replace my Laserdisk, I've only bought a handful of DVDs knowing HDDVD was in the making.
I've now got a Viera 50" HDTV, and am waiting for HDDVDs to reach Australia. Prices of HDDVD players however are mind boggling. I want 1080p output as the Viera is 1080p processing (1366x768 native res, but higher source signal always helps its sampling magic thing), and the players seem to be well north of A$1000.
So I'm waiting until early next year and my current plan is to set up a Core Duo HTPC with a HDMI PCI Express card to do HDDVD playback but also HDDVD recording (also costs an arm and a leg) and to function as a media centre for my downloaded television shows. I'm thinking MythTv would be good if HDDVD is supported, otherwise I'll bite the Vista bullet.
With that dealt with, to get to the point, I fully intend to _purchase_ all the HDDVDs that I want to keep and am not renting. However should PC playback be denied me, I will return every single one of those HDDVDs for a full refund - and then look for the pirated version instead. I'm thinking of a blacklist system, where I will only buy DVDs from those distributors who have not restricted my viewing possibilities. I will blatantly pirate any movie that I'd otherwise buy but that option has been denied me due to the stupidity of the distributor.
I don't care too much about backup, I take great care with not putting as much as a finger mark on my DVDs - which sadly puts me in a very small minority. However it would certainly be nice if I had the option.
ISO certified == THX certified
After all the BS of recent years it is an absolute delight to watch media companies nailing their coffins shut from the inside.
I wonder how much coke they had to do before this sounded like a good idea...
"Hey Bob, Y'know how people are downloading songs and music so they can play them on their computers"
"Yeah?"
"Let's get back at them by selling them DVDs that don't work!"
"Didn't Sony try something like that?"
"Are you high?"
"No"
"Ah, that explains it..."
Damned right. Duplication and piracy are the price the **AA pays for the various end-runs around the better half of copyright law.
What am I on about? Fair use and release into the public domain are key concepts in copyright. The **AA have been fucking with these for a while now. Copyright ends in 95 years? A fucking joke. I may be breaking the law when I store my movies as AVI files, but Disney broke (as in damaged irreparably) copyright law when they pushed the length of copyright past its original 14 years.
Yeah. Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and pay close attention to the political views of Bernardo De La Paz. Then you'll know what happens to laws that become too onerous to follow.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Apparently reading for comprehension isn't some folks strong point, so I'll spell it out: "the band" does not define all art.
Wow. Take a moment. Absorb that.
That pop/rock/rap music artists (and yes, that includes your favorite soi disant "indie artist") are getting a raw deal does not justify screwing over all musical artists.
Big big big clue stick: There are other forms of art then "the band".
Even musical art.
Most towns of any size are home to a number of non-rock-act artists. We call them classical musicians, jazz musicians, studio musicians, folk musicians, choral singers, barbershop quartets, harpists, pianists, chanteuses, etc. And those are just in music, there are legions more in other performing arts, including ones with audio recordings (ever hear of a showtune? An opera? A bell performance?)
Some of these folks, and the organizations that they work through, depend on recording royalties. For some no recording royalties would likely mean shutting down.
For a concrete example that was the subject at dinner tonight let's take the world famous Boston Pops. They're made up of Boston-area musicians, including some from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, performing when the BSO isn't in season. They perform for hire, they perform in ticketed performances, they also perform free concerts. Much of their funding comes from, you guessed it, a large recording catalogue. Yes, all of those copies of "The Boston Pops Sing Your Holiday Favorites, Yet Again" add up, and give them a reliable revenue stream to build from.
Guess what? Some of us like their music. The Boston Pops do try lots of interesting things. Sometimes it is gimmicky, sometimes it is inspired. The same is true for classic and popular classical groups in many, many cities & towns. They are contributing mightily to the musical culture and just because they're not performing in grotty clubs to an audience terrified their musical heros-du-jure have somehow 'sold out', become less 'real', less 'street' (or whatever today's legitimacy criteria are) doesn't make them any less worthy of support.
(Oh hey, my house sytem just popped up the Boston Gay Men's Chorus performing Howard Arlen - great voices, great performance, fantastic material! Gonna argue that is any less art then Nirvana?)
This is true for many acts. They can't tour all the time, indeed their touring may be impossible or economically improbable but they can make great recordings and get them out there, use those funds to stage further performances, and continue the cycle.
For these folks the cliche pop/rock/rap-act-narcissistic answer of "tour" doesn't work. All it says is that the advocate for such has a tragically limited understanding of art and music and is unable, or unwilling, to see beyond their justifications.
So next time, before parroting again how musical artists et al are getting a raw deal, stop for a moment and consider that the artists you are referring to don't necessarily represent the entirety of musical arts. And so when actively or tacitly supporting minor acts of "fighting the man" consider that you may well be also hurting other musical artists, ones who have worked just as hard and just as long in their fields, and with their own families and rents and medical bills to pay.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Good call. This bullshit about "DRM is there to prevent the normal user from pirating" is the most moronic thing I've ever heard. It's a rationalization that content companies come up with to convince their shareholders that they haven't just wasted billions of dollars.
The normal user doesn't pirate. It's the clever user that breaks copy protection and learns to properly transcode. DRM just slows this guy down. Not much either.
KFG, I know you know how DRM works, but some people here don't, so here's a quick primer:
DRM is encryption. Encryption is a simple concept; A wants to send something to B, but doesn't want C (the attacker) to read it. B gives A a key with which to encrypt, having a personal decryption key. The attacker can't decode it because he doesn't have B's decryption key.
In DRM, B and C are the same guy - the attacker has the key. Sure DRM technologies try to obfuscate this key, but ultimately, the key must exist somewhere that is accessible to B - and as such, C.
As a result, there only needs to be one clever guy in the 6.5 Billion people in the world. Everyone else just downloads the program they wrote to do the magic. Result: piracy isn't even slowed by these technologies; they end up being an inconvenience to normal users and a tremendous waste of money in the anti-piracy game.
A better solution: Steganography. Embed the purchaser's customer ID in his purchase. There are some good algorithms that can do this reliably even through a transcode (especially if it's only 16 bytes of ID; the larger the difference between message text and embedded text bandwidths, the more resistant the embedded text can be to lossy compression).
Even for DVDs purchased at a store, add a unique ID to each DVD sold. The buyer's and DVD's info is taken at point of purchase and associated with one another.
Casual piracy would end quickly - the purchaser would be held accountable for leaking stuff into the wild. Professional piracy would move into the realm of credit fraud investigation (as that would be the only way to shift accountability away from oneself), and would thus carry a heavy penalty.
Of course, there'd still be the 'mom-and-pop' hole, but it would quickly get filled; a couple hundred thousand to give mom and pops a cheap little reader is a hell of a lot cheaper than this DRM arms race.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
This new copy protection doesn't sound like a big deal.
Like some people hame mentioned, it sounds like you
still will be able to amke direct copies. And if that
doesn't work, you can still decrypt/decode audio and
video streams from the vob files and join them to
create the complete movie.
Still, they're not 'artists'. They're entertainers.
Artists do it for the love. The second they start doing it for the money, it's a job. Once it's a job, they're no longer artists; they're entertainers (ie: they get paid to entertain you).
So artists can't get paid to do what they love?
Lucille Ball wasn't an artist because she had a weekly show?
Maria Calias wasn't an artist because she had an opera schedule?
Frank Sinatra wasn't an artist because he deigned to sing at The Sands?
Leonard Bernstein wasn't an artist because he collaborated with others?
Matisse wasn't an artist because he did shows in galleries, booked months in advance?
No, your definitions of "artist" & "entertainer" aren't about "art". They may be anti-populist, anti-success, even possibly elitist, but not about the art.
It's about the art.
The rest is your own shit.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Actually I just didn't upgrade. I stayed with the older version of iTunes (it's possible, or was possible anyway, to have two versions of iTunes on the same system).
... something basically like what iTunes could have been, if Apple hadn't had to get in bed with the music companies in order to sell iPods, and wasn't restricted by pesky things like the threat of litigation. But I digress.
Eventually I stopped needing that feature and looked around for alternatives to iTunes and found them lacking, so I went with a newer version plus daapd and some other stuff, but I think there is a vacuum in the market right now for a music management system that's superior to it. I've written about this elsewhere but suffice it to say that I think iTunes jumped the shark back around that point, and it's basically been down-hill from there. If someone wanted to, I think there's a big market for a heavily integrated (monolithic) library manager, audio streamer, portable-device manager (with true bidirectional sync!), bittorrent downloader, ripping/burning tool
So right now I have a replacement that uses daapd and some other stuff. I don't like it as much as I liked the simplicity of iTunes' sharing, but it works. And it's an amount of effort that I now consider to be "built in" to the cost of iTunes, versus some theoretical 'other option.' As in, all things being equal, it's a black mark against iTunes.
Since I didn't pay for iTunes, a letter explaining why I'm not enthused with their changes is about the only thing I can do; I can't exactly send them back their program that I didn't pay for.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
What it will do is to keep ordinary users from PLAYING the discs on their PCs/Laptops/etc. And at the same time, it probably won't slow down anyone who's seriously copying DVDs at all.
It won't stop me as I can already think of ways to copy a DVD (with existing tools) in spite of this protection, and I haven't even seen it yet! Missing IFOs aren't going to be a problem as they're easily recreated from scratch (with something like IFOEdit, for instance) using information stored in the VOBs. At most, the menus are lost and/or the subtitle coloring (colors can be added manually without too much difficulty), but that's about it. I hate menus anyway and never keep them. How ironic, I'm not even an expert on the DVD format so imagine how trivial it'll be for someone who is?
I have yet to encounter a copy protection I couldn't get around (includes those silly structure protections redundant/damaged cells etc). I first thought the non-standard UDF format would be a problem but how can it be - If a standard DVD player won't be able to play it then it'll be dead on arrival, simply because the DVD format is far too well established and can no longer be changed without a MAJOR loss in sales.
The harder they make it to access their content, the less I watch. I can live without DVD movies. It's not something I need to stay alive.
-R
You'd have to be a complete moron to use Windows to play DVDs anyway.
Not be able to play DVD's on a computer? And what are you supposed to do when you do not have a DVD player? And what about watching a DVD on your laptop when you are traveling?
I cannot believe that they will really do this. There are so many people watching DVD's on a computer. This is one of the good things about DVD's you can watch them everywhere on your laptop.
Regards, Johan Louwers.
...it reads like a friggin' Onion article!
... prevents discs from playing in a Windows PC..."
"...is reporting that new copy-protection software for DVD publishers from a company called ProtectDisc
The reason I consider this either great satire or horrible reality is that the only DVD players I own are only computer-based. However, some bright cookie is sure to find a workable hack to remove that protection. Why me worry?
My dad bought a fancy Denon integrated DVD player and surround amplifier to get rid of all the different boxes under his TV (yeah I know. I thought it was a silly idea, too).
It absolutely refuses to play copy-"protected" CDs. If he puts one in it will refuse to function in any way until the disk is removed again, due to function locking while the disk is loading. The kicker is that if he copies the disk on his computer (which will luckily read the "protected" CDs just fine), the Denon player accepts the copy right away, every single time.
So the only way for him to play copy-"protected" CDs is by copying the damn things! How's that for ironic?
I would not be surprised at all if it acted the same way with these new "protected" DVDs.
Eat the rich.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from where I sit, the major things a record label can get you that you can't get yourself are: (1) radio play, (2) on (M)TV, and (3) other exclusive and expensive advertising. None of which strike me as really major for The Boston Pops.
Recording a symphony orchestra or other large ensemble is for sure more complicated and expensive than recording a garage band, but I find it hard to believe it's so complicated that they couldn't independently produce their own records. And make more profit.
Of course, God only knows what kind of contract they already have been locked into.
New lock on my wallet to make buying said DVDs impossible.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The movie industry can say what they want and try what they want. There are only two possible ways you can make this happen without prior secret knowledge, namely you can watch it or you cannot watch it. The secret information is all that's keeping you from it. Now, you can't really embed secret information in a DVD (since it'd be public by definition). You can't embed it in the DVD player anymore, since you'd lose all compatibility.
There is no way you can post-delivery secure a system.
HD-DVD is going a nice cryptograpically somewhat sensible way of using secret keys for encrypting, but they're fundamentally flawed as well. As people have pointed out (in more reputable journals than I usually publish in - I usually publish here) it's a linear combination of 20 values out of a set of 40 values. Given 40 of such sets with selection keys that are linearly independant, you can determine a key set belonging to a given selection key.
The net result is that - probably - either 40 of such keys get stolen, hijacked, taken from some product that was designed by an idiot or something similar. In the worst case, you can buy yourself a set of keys (costs a lot but hey - if we all act together it'll be like 10p for 10000 keys) and just connect using them.
You either want me to see it or you don't. If it's the first, stop messing with copy protections and stuff that can't possibly work. If the second, just f*** off.
This topic is almost done to death already but oh well. Just forget about how the MPAA or whatever the fuck company is coming up with shitty new ideas about copyright is trying to do to the consumers, forget about how easy it is to bypass this new protection thingy and the rest, Can someone please explain to me one thing:
The purpose of the new scheme is to disable playing dvds on computers (which supposedly will make it harder for people to make copies of the dvds). Now most of the players can directly play vob files without needing any third-party plugins or anything like that (I almost always watch movies by playing the vob files directly on my PC) WHAT exactly does this new thing accomplish ? I mean its not even stopping casual users from watching movies on PC which is all it is trying to do. I just don't get it. They are breaking away from Standard Formats for doing something which is not working in the end for even an average joe? Even the person least interested in bypassing the protection per se can watch the movie (and skip the commercials while he is at it). Am I missing something vital here?
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
...this is the Howard Stern show and we're playing guess the fake story with Mike Walker from the National Enquirer. Well, this is obviously the fake story. Especially since there's no mention of MS intervening and giving these folks the beat down.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
Slow down there cowpoke. Your fingers can't keep up with your noggin it seems. I think you meant to say , "yadda yadda...is to keep you FROM playing it."
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
Well, if you do like I do and go and check out the latest stage play. You can find entertainment for a whole lot better than the movies. Go check your local high schools and see what their drama departments have lined up. Then check your community theater. From there hit your local stage group.
Sure movies have all the big bangs and fireworks but honestly, is it worth the hassel the media industry is hitting us with. Of course if you do this they will do what the RIAA does and blame their lost money on pirates instead of where people are actually spending their money.
How unbelievably simplistic it is to "hide" the ISO9660 filesystem behind a broken-on-purpose UDF layer... how long is it going to take the AnyDVD / DVDShrink folks to write in the 'bypass UDF' option ya think?
This seems like the latest step in the DVD/movie industry backklash against the "media center" type computer. In lieu of buying a bunch of different components, I just have my cable and computer hooked up to a nice LCD tv. No need to buy expensive audio/video recievers (plenty of inputs on the TV/using the computer to multichannel the audio), no need to buy a DVD player, DVR, or soundsystem besides the solid 5.1 setup I invested in 4 years ago. These companies are forcing DRM to make you buy their new sparkly DVD player, or invest in their overpriced TV/DVD combo. They certainly don't want you use and all-in-one.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
What is the best program for windows to play DVDs from any region?
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
received from Netflix on their computer 35 minutes later. "Popping" vob files is the ONLY way I will watch a movie, period.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I have found DVD playing very hard as it is. Have here a music DVD that plays fine. But without sound..