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The First HD DVD Movie Hits BitTorrent

Ars Technica reports that the first HD DVD movie has made its way onto BitTorrent, showing that current DRM efforts to prevent illegal sharing of copyrighted content are still futile and fighting an uphill battle. From the article: "The pirates of the world have fired another salvo in their ongoing war with copy protection schemes with the first release of the first full-resolution rip of an HD DVD movie on BitTorrent. The movie, Serenity, was made available as a .EVO file and is playable on most DVD playback software packages such as PowerDVD. The file was encoded in MPEG-4 VC-1 and the resulting file size was a hefty 19.6 GB."

20 of 537 comments (clear)

  1. Sky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Burn the land and boil the sea
    You can't take the sky from me

    1. Re:Sky by charlieo88 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The top post should have been, "Can't stop the signal"

    2. Re:Sky by Andrew+Nagy · · Score: 5, Funny

      January 16, 2007 Headline: The First HD DVD Movie Hits BitTorrent

      April 22, 2029 Headline: The First HD DVD Movie Finishes Downloading from BitTorrent

      --
      Yes, you can dance to Radiohead.
  2. Link? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No direct link to the torrent? What kind of submission is that?

  3. The size will be the limiting factor not DRM. by Boap · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At 20GB this alone will limit pirates as having even 100 of these movies will take up about 2TB of space.

    1. Re:The size will be the limiting factor not DRM. by solevita · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not really - Hard drive space is still cheaper per GB than HD-DVD is. If you want to store big movies, it's cheaper to do so by downloading them than it is to buy them on disk.

      In other words, if you can't afford to keep 100 HD-DVD movies on your computer, you really can't afford to keep then on HD-DVD.

    2. Re:The size will be the limiting factor not DRM. by jonnythan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you buy 100 HD DVDs you will have spent upwards of $2000.

      With 500GB of storage costing $150 or less, 2TB of storage space will set you back $600.

    3. Re:The size will be the limiting factor not DRM. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is this news?

      Absolutely. If pirates are willing to rip off a HD version of "Serenity", then there should be enough demand to make another movie.

    4. Re:The size will be the limiting factor not DRM. by Total_Wimp · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'm sure it'll fit onto a 700meg cd just like all the others - it'll look much the same on a 15inch laptop display. Like mp3s, it's more important to have a fair few to choose from, rather than filling your 300 gig hard drive with 15 highly polished turds.

      This is not meant to be rude. I don't feel I have any right to dictate taste or quality. That said, it's guys like you that keep me off of file sharing networks.

      If you want to compress a perfectly good HD rip down to CD size and watch it, go for it, it's your business. But when I see that stuff being offered to me as if it's some kind of precious gift, I'm flabbergasted. Why would someone give me Budweiser under the label "Chimay" and claim "it's just as good"? Why would I seek such things out?

      Besides the bad music that's rampant on file sharing networks, there have traditionally been quite a lot of bad rips. Often, there's no way to tell except to download and listen, then wonder whether the artist really wasn't as good as you thought, or whether someone didn't know how to work their ripper. Have you ever seen someone download a 128KBPS file from iTunes, then make a CD, import it at 192KBPS and tell you, with sincerity, and even honesty, that they "ripped it at 192KBPS"? Those are the files you're downloading.

      I know Budweiser has it's place. I've been known to down more than a little bit. Sometimes that's all you want or need. I'm more than happy to watch a certain amount of TV or movies on the ol' 13" TV upstairs. But when I'm looking for high quality, why would I want to download something labeled "HD-DVD" that's less than DVD quality? It's idiotic.

      I have some advice for you. If you want to make low-quality, overly-compressed movies for the "I don't care" viewer, save some money and buy it on DVD instead of HD-DVD. Then when you rip it, clearly label the source, source compression if relevant, output format and output compression for everything you rip. That way I'll know to avoid your work.

      Thanks,

      TW
    5. Re:The size will be the limiting factor not DRM. by monsted · · Score: 5, Funny

      If your usage drops below 20 GB a day on a swedish internet connection, i think they come knocking on the door to check if you're still alive...

  4. Best copy protection? just don't sell anything by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a great idea. Just don't sell the product, or release it for distribution of any kind. I guarantee there won't be any piracy, but you'll have a hard time making money!

    Everyone complained about piracy when tape decks came out, but everyone knows in retrospect that the bootleg tapes, even the good quality ones (which could easily be as good as the one you bought) were actually helping bands get noticed. This is all about just controlling the supply line so that only studio-backed projects can get money. They want the ability to sh*t can a movie by not distributing it, and vice versa, to make money from only the ones they are investing in.

    --
    stuff |
  5. 3...2...1... by Jordan+Catalano · · Score: 5, Funny

    alt.binaries.hddvd?

  6. Moo by Chacham · · Score: 5, Funny

    The First HD DVD Movie Hits BitTorrent

    News at 11:00.
    On Bit Torrent at 11:05.

  7. Serenity in high-def for FREE??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll be in my bunk...

  8. Yo. by neimon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not cool. Joss needs the money so he can make more cool stuff. Go buy the DVD.

    'nuff said.

    1. Re:Yo. by Xerotope · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mail him a check for $5. I'm sure that's more than he gets from the studios for an HD-DVD sale.

  9. Apparently... by F.Prefect · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...you really can't stop the signal. :-)

    --
    --Ford Prefect
  10. For now. Maybe. by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Think back about 5, or even 10, years. Could you have imagined downloading 3-4 Gigs just for a movie? Or a game?

    When the CD came into existance, it was not thought that copy protection could ever be necessary, people did hardly have the space on their HD to store those 650 Megs on. Today, a CD is not even a deterrent to downloading it, storing is even less a problem.

    Give it a year, and you will probably not even think twice about transfering 20 Gigs just to check out the movie (and deleting it immediately afterwards when you notice that it is indeed copyrighted material, of course).

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  11. Re:We win [not] by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Case closed. Give it up, MPAA, your days are numbered. Just like Windows, soon you won't be needed anymore.

    Ah, because "Serenity" (since that's the movie in quesiton) would have been just as good if made collaboratively by a bunch of volunteers with little or no budget and no expectation of making enough money to pay back good acting, writing, animation, and other talent? Who do you think the MPAA is, anyway? It's a trade association populated by the companies that moviemakers, actors, writers, tech people and all the rest choose to work for. People compete to work for these companies, and to make projects that will be well received and which will reward the risks taken.

    You may have no use for the trade association these creative people support, but you'd better also have no use for films as good as Serenity. No money, no Serenity. You don't "win" anything by ripping off the very people that you're hoping will scrape together the money, talent, and time to make another movie you'll like.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  12. Re:All discussion of pirating aside by TheoMurpse · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, fair use is not Constitutionally guaranteed. It comes from the common law, and the first codification of it was in the Copyright Act of 1976. Additionally, it's an affirmative defense, not a right. I only point this out because, if Slashdotters want it to be a right instead of a defense against criminal or civil penalties, they should lobby for it instead of assuming it is already a right.

    I'd really like to see you get modded down because you're spreading falsehoods, not being insightful.