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New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."
Sony DRM pissing customers off. Why does that sound so familiar?
Xine + libdvdcss + elcheapo drive = no problems.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
XXX#######
Just thinking about it, if they're selling them using the DVD label identifying it as a dvd, doesn't it legally have to be playable in dvd compatible players? If it wasn't, wouldn't that be a bait and switch scam? Just saying, they may have just opened up the floodgates to yet another massive lawsuit.
I have a Pioneer DVD player, maybe second generation. The thing is huge, and probably something like 8 years old. Casino Royale works just fine in it. Granted, that sucker will play just about anything you throw in there, from DivX to DVD +/- RW. Best DVD player I ever bought, and one of the reasons why I still only buy Pioneer DVD players. Makes you wonder about what's in some of the other newer DVD players if my old one can play Casino Royale with no problems...?
Now I can't make fun of Microsoft for having HD-DVDs that don't play on the Xbox 360.
...upon a time i believed in a fairy tale. it was called "standardization and customer satisfaction".
thanks, sony, for transporting me to the real world.
Isn't there a saying about someone burning you twice?
If you buy from Sony and don't expect this to happen, who's fault is it really?
-- lol pwned
...it's obviously the universe conspiring to keep people from watching the dreck. Wish I'd got it on this new media.
Just one more nail in Sony's coffin.
When this happens with CD's, didn't Phillips (or whoever owns the CD format) threaten to revoke the license, so this 'not working' CD's couldn't be called CD's anymore? Could the same thing happen with this. The owner of the DVD format would just have to say, "If it doesn't play in "such and such" reference machine then it's illegal for you to call it a DVD?
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
I have a question. Is this allowed under the DVD spec? If so, I think the spec is very loosely defined. If not, maybe we could talk to the outlets about not stocking these discs under the "DVDs" section? IANAL, but wouldn't consumer protection laws prohibit that kinda thing?
Stranger than Fiction that the gf bought did not play in:
:(
Xbox
Macbook
Windows machine (apparently it will work if I upgrade Windows Media player or something)
Needless to say, it was a benefit for me. I did not have to watch that crappy movie. Unfortunately, the gf made me download the movie, and she is going to want to watch it soon
Anyways, I will not buy a Sony dvd again. Their proprietary formats are going to result in them losing a lot of customers.
If I had mod points, then if I had a sense of humor, ... oh, nevermind.
It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony -- specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness -- have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players.
Yeah, that's the copy protection feature. Hollywood finally figured out that if you can view it, you can copy it. If they simply make the content unplayable, nobody can pirate the movie!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Sony embeds unreadable data which is just an unnoticeable blip on most players, but halts copying and some playback apparently.
If you're having trouble playing them on the legit side, why not just rip them? Besides the moral issues, you could burn and watch then destroy the copy.....
2 options: Ripit4me (in conjunction with dvddecrypter) or dvdfab decrypter....
*ahem*verified on Stranger Than Fiction*ahem*
Karnal
if they want to view new disks.
I bought Casino Royale two weeks ago. When I got it home, neither my Toshiba in the living room, or the Pioneer in the bedroom would play it.
So I ripped it and returned it.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
that this new copy protection system will not stop the DVD from being ripped and will only effect people who legally bought the DVD.
It is things like this that make me cautious about buying media from Sony these days. I have no problem with buying DVDs however one of the reasons I buy a DVD is that I know it will work perfectly in any DVD I wish to buy (unlike XviD rips from BitTorrent or Usenet) however apparently this isn't true anymore so DVD is now no better than a rip downloaded from the internet.
It is a shame that the companies are worsening their products with these copy protection systems to help fight piracy when all they end up doing is ruining it for the people who want to buy DVDs.
One thing that I have wondered about for a while is how many DVD rips online originate from retail DVDs? I would have thought the majority (if not all) came from pre-release copies as the DVD rips are normally several weeks (if not months) ahead of a retail DVD release.
The Audioholics forum had a thread late last month about DVDs that wouldn't play properly. There are other problem titles mentioned as well: http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.ph p?t=30819
I suspected something like that was going on. I just tried to make a disk image of Casino Royale on my Powerbook so that I could watch it on the road without bringing the disc along. I kept getting error messages, so I gave up and brought the disc with me.
One more reason I won't buy Sony hardware.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
I don't believe Sony is the holder of the DVD certification. If this new protection is not part of the official DVD certifications, then their DVD's should not be using the certification and should have a disclaimer on them, much like the "CD"'s which didn't work in CD players.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I can't help but chuckle. Good suggestion though.
Just another in a long list of reasons to stop buying media and support piracy, or just not view the media at all. Vote with your money folks, its that easy.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
I was wondering if this was a method to depreciate the value of the DVD and force people to upgrade to the new formats. I myself look at this as another indication that they are not seriously interested in selling content and wish for consumers to find over avenues of acquiring the movies. I mean even why we try follow the rules we still get ripped off.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
And it doesn't play on MSWindows & WinDVD. I don't want to pay to update my copy of winDVD, so I kind of shrugged it off for now.
I figure someone's got a way I can copy it and get rid of the new copy protection so that I can view it on my computer?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
This copy protection prevents most people from renting/borrowing a DVD and making a copy of it. Until people download the latest software for cracking it. This is mostly targetting non-technical people who were given DVD Shrink by a friend.
There will be copies of the DVD available on the Internet, because someone will crack the protection. All it takes is one copy on the Internet to ensure that anyone on a peer to peer network can get a copy.
Sony is risking alienating a large number of people to stop a small number of pirates. Not just a small number of pirates, but the non-technical pirates. They are also annoying Walmart, Blockbuster, BestBuy and any other retailer who sells their DVDs. Who are the consumers going to complain to? The retailers.
Oddly, this could cost them money even if you ignore retail backlash. Companies which rent DVDs to the consumer, purchase DVDs based on rental demand. If someone rents and burns a DVD, the movie company is pissed, but it still increases rental demand. Higher rental demand, increases sales of the DVDs to the companies who rent them. If someone finds they can't rent and burn, they probably will just download the image from BitTorrent rather than buy the DVD. Not to mention the people who can't play the Sony DVDs, they'll want a free version which actually works.
Sony has the right to put any copy protection scheme they want on their DVDs, as long as it maintains compatibility. If you sell someone a product which is designed not to work properly on their DVD player, you better tell them first. Even if the consumer was willing to get firmware updates, do you think the manufacturers want to start sending out discs and supporting consumers through the update?
Bought Pusuit of Happyness at Best Buy. I've got a Philips DVDR 3400 (with the update installed) and the disc would just play the promos and get to the main menu. But when I pushed play, the screen went black and froze. If you went to the scene selector you couldn't select any scene. Just took it back and got a replacement. Haven't gotten a chance to try it, but I expected it would work no better--this was the only time I've had a new disc not play. I plan to take it back to demand a refund.
This is bullcrap that any company puts out discs and then expects players to "fix" their players.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
don't you love it, when you but a DVD, you get all the bonus commercials you HAVE to see before you can start the movie?
you pay, you get added crap. you *cough* and you get the movie without crap.
interesting dilemma.
Privacy is terrorism.
Sony, you lose again.
Should have at least included a firmware update on the DVD itself. Although then they'd still get complaints whenever the update failed and the machine bricked.
Oh well, looks like another class action suit, a tiny slap on the wrist from the authorities, then business as usual.
Sony Electronics was a great company until the bought the movies division.
Now, Sony Electronics tries to deliver great products, and Sony Pictures strongarm the electronics division into delivering defective products.
Just stop buying Sony altogether (Movies and electronics) until they become a customer focussed company again.
In the end the blame goes to the stupid Sony customers that allows Sony to sell them this defective crap, and then comes back for more.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I can't watch Casino Royale on my PC. I tested it under Debian Sid using both Totem and Mplayer. xdvdshrink crapped out as did "dd if=/dev/hdc of=casinoroyale.iso".
My resolution was to fire up Pan and head over to a.b.m.divx. Once again, paying customers get the shaft.
Fair enough, we do not intend to support your arrogance. Welcome to our blacklist.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
and I returned it to BB complaining. They gave me another copy and it worked. I also later rented Stranger Than Fiction and it worked as well. I found this strange considering that I had chalked up the first one not working to copy protection. I also made the boneheaded mistake of putting the non-working Sony disc in my computer. Think before you act.
... have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players.
Windows, for example, has many similar features, although most of us call them "bugs" or "exploits". But sure, if Sony wants to call a complete functional failure a "feature", that's okay by me.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Just return the Sony DVD's to the store and demand a refund for the malfunctioning DVD.
Yes, Phillips did the enforcing on CD encoding standards because of their trademark control. The DVD industry has no internal standards enforcement, so this mihgt be the time to bring in external enforcement, namely the courts. If the box says "DVD" it should play in a DVD player. Sonys product is only DVD-like and as such should not be legal to sell as a DVD. It would be like a gas station selling ethanol but calling it gasoline, sure it still works in some vehicles, but it's not the same product.
We are all just people.
Buy a copy, open, find out the DVD is "broken" take back for exchange. Rinse - Repeat a few times. If everyone does this they'll fix it.
Dallas Real Estate
what about the rest of us, who already have DVD players? we have to buy all new ones, to watch sonys new DVD's?
portfolio
These discs feature Sony's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARccOS_Protection ARCCOS, which doesn't work with some DVD players and cannot be ripped by any program under Linux.
When some congressman or his Aunt Ethel starts having to deal with the same issues we have been fighting with for years I bet something gets done!
Between this and the rootkit fiasco I am starting to think Sony needs to be put on medication or at least on a 48 hour hold for observation because they are obviously suicidal.
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
Why do manufacturers do this? I so would buy more DVDs if they weren't so bizarely priced and if I could rely on feature and quality stability. The movie industry would make tons of money. But no, they have to piss off their customers as much as possible. Would anybody of you give a damn about Bittorrent if each DVD would cost 8 dollars, come with all the extras, no CSS and no Region Code? I wouldn't. Sony and Co. would earn themselves a golden nose in the movie after-market called DVD-sales. But no, they have to chase away customers with crappy copies, a totally bizar publishing policy and DRM schemes that brink on the criminal. People go through all the bittorrent fuss just to get a movie. That should ring a bell with the execs. Then again, as proven before, probably only Steve Jobs is smart enough to see this.
I hope Sony Entertainment chokes and dies on their new DVDs.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I find Sony's tactics deplorable and am offended by their pompous arrogance and complete lack of remorse. They have/are taking advantage of the good faith vendor-consumer relationship and don't deserve my business anymore. Screw em I have other options.
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
Were you trying to rip it as a straight ISO, using Disk Utility or something? Or were you using a specialized DVD ripping program?
I'm really curious as to whether HandBrake works with these broken DVDs, because at least for most Mac users I know, that's their primary ripping tool (and IMO the best all-in-one, free, GPLed, ripper I've worked with).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Every DVD that doesn't play, opened or not, is defective. DVD players are a well-known quantity now. After Sony starts getting returns in the tens and hundreds of thousands back, they might change their mind. And if they refuse to accept even a single one for a full refund, then I expect to see the Mother of All Class Actions Suits launched against them. At some point, Sony just has to go down once and for all. They're a terrible example to every other manufacturer.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...And return them. Wash, rinse, repeat...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Anyone else find the summary a little bit light on the whole "evidence" thing? There's one amazon help thread and a blog with only one post (suspiciously named "Sony Strikes Again"?). Don't you think we should look a bit more into this, you know, before getting all up in arms? This kinda stuff is how FUD gets started.
Ken Kataguri, the more customers will slip through your fingers."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Welcome to Digg 2.0... this appears to just be SONY / Toshiba players having issues playing a disc that works on other players. It's clearly not some new DRM scheme if it works on existing players. =)
If I post a blog saying how stupid slashdot has become with any stupid meme is the OMG truthyness. Why not post about the possible Red Ring of Death from the Guitar Hero II patch too? I love how the internet and blogs are being used to spread a bunch of half-assed rumors like this. At some point you have to take a step back before hitting that 'OMG sumbit story to digg/slash', and see if it's even a valid concern or some asshat marketing firm/fanboy.
I recently (this weekend) picked up God of War 2 for the PS2 - it does not play in my PS2 - even though I own 20 PS2 games (several of which are as new as God of War 2) and they all play without issue. When calling the number for tech support - they say it's due to the laser on the machine getting old (because we all know the lifespan of an LED is less than 2 years right?) - even though I can play any dual layer dvd I through into it as well as any *other* PS2 game. I would say Sony is doing this to many of thier titles...
mod parent up
It is working in all my DVD player and I dont have any problem to rip it and burn it on a 4.7g dvd for my archive.
Late breaking news....
This just in off the Slashdot wire - Hackers and pirates from all over the world seem fixated on DVD's, in particular those from the entertainment giant Sony Entertainment. Sources close to the mafia are adamant that the huge drop in DVD sales over night is a direct result of the attack, there was no comment on the unrelated story regarding billions of DVD players mysteriously ceasing to play their new releases.
"ARccOS had reportedly been discontinued by Sony in February of 2006." So they've obviously realised their folly - or perhaps moved to a worse one?
http://bittorrent.com/
Sarcasm aside, I noticed even with someone else's "legit" copy (I wouldn't call sony a legitimate business any more) on their DVD player that could play it, there was an extremely annoying faint rectangular pattern moving from right to left across the screen almost all the time. Anyone else noticed it?
People could
:)
1. Rip it (I'm sure someone has probably already cracked the new copy protection, or is at least working on it)
2. Remove the copy protection
3. Burn it to a disk.
That's easy isn't it?
So long Sony. Nice knowing ya... When mfgr's take in your face attitudes, people say "fuck 'em" and route around 'em.
Man, these are kinda defective anyways. I am in the market for a nice DVD/HDD recorder with HDMI, but will not consider a Sony. One of my family members has a 2 month old Sony HDMI recorder, and man it is slow! Slow to turn on, start/finish recording, load/eject a disk, switch between DVD and HDD, etc. Slow at everything! The menus are so slow that wrong items are often selected due to the lag. Egad! The only cool thing is that is controls the DV camera nicely with its one touch DV record (rewinds DV tape, records movie, rewinds tape again). I am unsure what is a good alternative brand with decent HDMI upscaling that won't kill my budget.
So, your dvd's don't work? Sony says tough? Ok, here's the fix:
F iction/0/0/100,200,300,400,600/0 /0/% 20Happyness/0/0/0/
Stranger Then Fiction http://thepiratebay.org/search/Stranger%20Than%20
Casino Royale http://thepiratebay.org/search/Casino%20Royale/0/
The Pursuit Of Happiness http://thepiratebay.org/search/The%20Pursuit%20of
Isn't that easier then screwing around with a stupid broken DVD?
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
I can personally say I got the Casino Royale DVD (from Netflix) and it didn't play on either of two set-top boxes (a Tivo and some generic DVD player I got for $30). Pissed as hell, brought it down to my PC, and VLC and Media Player Classic both played it like a charm. I usually watch about 75% of my movies on the PC anyway- and on every occasion that I bother to sit on my couch and try it on "consumer" equipment, I am just apalled by the anti-piracy warnings, threats, forced previews, and other crap they felch on us. It is getting to difficult to event try... now where are those MythTV live CDs?
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
Ive got casino royale and having read this decided to try it on all the dvd players in my house (i live in a student house of computer scientists and engineers) so having tried it on going on for a dozen different players, the only player ive found that wont play it is a... guess which manufacturer (for those who dont want to play, its sony)
Blazing Spiders
Mossberg got Sony right when commenting on the all the crapware they put on their PCs:
"The problem is a lack of respect for the consumer. The manufacturers don't act as if the computer belongs to you."
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20070405.html
Not your computer, not the "CD" you just bought, nor your DVD, nor anything else. They didn't even respect the EULA for the LAME code they used either.
Sony do not respect the public. The public should return the sentiment.
FWIW:
Anyone afflicted with this problem who has a Windows box to toy with can easily make a backup using a recent version of anydvd and DVD Shrink. The free trial of anydvd will suffice, for a week or two anyway, and dvdshrink is free. DVD Shrink will happily produce a directory full of IFOs and VOBs for burning with the utility of your choice, or it can use DVD Decryptor (also free) or Nero to burn automatically.
The backup will be functionally-identical to the original, except for such features as copy protection, CSS encryption, and regional coding, all of which will be gone.
Anyone care to offer a similar workaround for Linux and/or OSX? (BitTorrent doesn't count.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Yes, I too have problems have problems playing Sony with my Toshiba DVD player. I bought Casino Royale and no go. I returned the DVD and the same thing. Then I rented "Happyness." Same problem. After much button pressing, I found that pressing the "Top Menu" button gets me to the menu. I put the DVD in my computer and got a program instead of the DVD player. I hope I don't have a root kit on my machine. Remind me to *never* again buy *any* Sony product.
I see a lot of people saying that encryption is futile because all it takes is one person breaking the encryption for it to be all over the internet. This is certainly true, but I don't think that's the kind of piracy Sony is trying to stop with these particular measures. They're probably just trying to make it a pain in the ass for me to pop a rented DVD into my PowerBook and rip or copy it, for myself or my friends. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't use p2p (either because they don't have the bandwidth, or they're intimidated by the MPAA, or they think it's immoral), but wouldn't hesitate to burn a copy for a friend. After all, even the courts considered that "fair use" for cassettes at some point, didn't they?
So sony is adding dodgy bits to cd's to make them "uncopyable", thereby pissing off regular users while the pirates shrug indifferently and find a fix/workaround in 5 minutes flat? Gee, I've never heard of sony doing something like *that* before.
Oh, wait... dvd you say?
I wonder if it's the zero length cell protection scheme with which the handbrake folks have been fighting.
t =30&t=266
http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?star
-LLM
Annoy a Conservative...
I was just about to the point where I might have bought a Sony item again, but this just renews my resolve. Thanks, Sony.
I solved this very problem. I rented Casino Royale and discovered that the thing just screwed my DVD player when I tried to play it. Since I'd payed for renting, I ripped it with Ripit4me and got into a DVD format that wasn't crippled as hell. It seems that this is Sony's never ending, and fruitless, quest to try and prevent file on the DVD being recognised, faffing about with the chapters (it takes a long time to play, if at all) and filling it with garbage IFOs. It's a very badly mastered DVD basically.
Since I don't want to buy a totally crippled DVD with piss-poor explanations of why, and an easy fix, I'm now not going to buy it. Nice one Sony!
A good chance to perform a consumer service that will help others avoid this problem.
Go to Amazon, and give the movies bad reviews. State clearly that the movies themselves aren't necessarily bad, but the DVDs have a new copy protection scheme that will make them unplayable on many DVD players of different manufacturers.
Also, find other people's reviews like this, and make sure you mark that they were helpful, so they shop up on top. That will get the word out.
True Philips did state that any CD that did not conform to the Red Book specification exactly could not use the CD logo, but the response from the music industry was less then thrilling. They reply was basically "so what?" - the argument was that if it was 12cm wide and shiny people would put in their player anyhow, and they did.
:-
Copy Protection on audio CDs was always a less than satisfactory method anyhow - relying on part Orange Book multi session TOCs with looping or non-existent sessions or degraded EFM, interleave or error correction (of course Red Book players would ignore such things and data players would kill the audio or disc). What has killed audio copy protection is market forces, some labels have already dropped it and others look to be doing the same.
Conventional CD audio player (Red Book) are largely removed from the market, nowadays all CD player also play MP3 - in other words they are data CD players (Orange Book) in order to read the ISO9660 or UDF format and hence read the MP3 files. When this shift happened - we started dropping classic audio systems from the CD players we made in about 2002, and the market took a few years to follow - the industry suddenly found that a *very* large percentage of the hardware could not play their discs so the copy protection was dropped. That and the fact it was massively unpopular.
I remember sitting in lectures from the IPFI when they clearly stated that the CD patents from Philips would expire some day and people did not give a damn about the logo or not. The IPFI certainly did not, and as long as Philips got the license money neither did they. Certainly CD copy protection never made the job of building CE audio equipment any harder - we ignored it largely.
Now we have the same again, as Sony has changed the format of the DVD system slightly for *enhanced* copy protection - there is a slight difference as they also have patents on DVD as well as Philips and others. There are only a few things that can happen here
1. The people who make DVD systems will alter their FW and that takes a while to reach the market - but (trust me on this) the teams involved in most firms have had sample discs with encoding on for quite some time.
2. Market forces will force Sony into a humiliating reverse *if* sufficient publicity and bad press can be generated. What is takes is a very large number of bad tempered people and some media backing. I would be confident that Sony has tested this new system on a wide variety of player to get a feel for the market first.
3. The number of players that refuse to play them will be small enough that the MPAA/Sony/Others will be able to railroad in this change over a year or so (after all some people will assume that their player is fucked and just get another cheap one) - but as the hackers of this world have a formidable reputation for cracking these things in a week or so the status will largely return to normal in due course.
What everyone should do is buy all of these DVD's, open them, then bring them back for a refund. If the store wants to exchange them, that's fine...open those then bring THEM back as well! If Sony gets a few million opened DVD's from a bunch of pissed off retailers...well you get the picture (pun intended). You'd think tha Sony would have learned something from that rootkit fiasco they did last year...but I guess they're TOO stupid to learn ANYTHNG...so let's teach them (again!).
1)Sell a product (DVD player)
2)Sell another product coupled to the utilization of the first product that requires "an upgrade of product 1."
3)Prepare to settle class action lawsuits most of the United States, and probably several countries.
If I were a stock market speculator, I would be looking hard at shorting Sony severely. They've not been doing so great the past few years, and they're looking to go from bad to worse.
Molecular Mechanic
That is why I had so much trouble ripping Casino Royal when I rented it! You just have to use two programs instead of one though. Nice DRM, you can still rip the content if you want it, but people who buy the movie can not watch it, and most will not no how to strip out the DRM to make it playable. As ususal, nice job MPAA!!! If you look at these DVDs you will see the structure is different than a normal one. The video files are broken down into about 99 small encrypted ones (in the case of Casino Royal) instead of having one main .vob, and on the root of the disk it appears that there is a little .exe that allows them all to play.
Sony has not been a top brand in my eyes since their initial DRM issues. I have avoided them since and find their products to lack the quality they had a decade ago. There are quite a few respectable quality product companies out there that it is not worth risking possible headaches on Sony products, even if they are on a pallet at Costco for a low price.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
left hand: make decent hardware...Profit!
right hand: break hardware made by left hand...don't tell left hand about it....Profit?
Java has no friends.
It shouldn't be called a "new type of DVD" nor sold as such.
Maybe I'm wrong, but like some "CDs" in the past that incorporated some copy protection and couldn't carry the CD logo/seal any longer on the cover, wouldn't the same thing apply here? Can Sony legimitately still call this thing a DVD anymore without being sued for fraud?
The movies listed in the article are on Usenet, I didn't search torrent, but logic says they would be there as well, so I am not too sure who this stops really, just turns more people to pirated content to watch a movie they were willing to pay top dollar for.
There is no such thing as a perfect copy protection scheme. Someone really really needs to explain the statistical concepts of type I and type II errors to Sony management.
The worst part about draconian copy protection measures is that they actually force legitimate users to use the hacks. I bought Doom 3, swapped my copy out at the store because the game would install but not play at the suggestion of the Activision rep on the phone, and finally gave up and cracked my legitimate copy of the game because I couldn't get it to play off the disk thanks to "Starforce 3." Now I simply refuse to buy any game with physical copy protection.
I stopped listening to music because of the asinine tactics of the RIAA, Sony's rootkit maneuvers, and the various CD copy-protection schemes out there. I may start listening again thanks to DRM-free EMI music being available, but in the meantime the worst part is they'll just point to my 'lost revenue' as evidence that they need to ratchet up their spending on these measures. One can readily draw parallels between the escalating costs and mis-characterization of innocent people via the DRM/copy-protection war-on-hackers and the war-on-terror, but the hyperbole admittedly seems a bit overblown in that light.
In any event, I won't be buying Sony DVDs for a while.
Fortunately, until the net-neutrality debate is lost, I at least have the internet to keep me entertained.
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
I hadn't heard about this until the story was put up on here. I had borrowed Stranger Than Fiction a few weeks back from a friend, and watched it on my old PS2(2nd gen, not slimline). My sister wanted to watch it so he said I could give it to her. I was talking about this tonight at dinner and she mentioned it wouldn't play on here Sony Vaio at all. She had to try two other players in her house before finding one it would work on. neither of which were Sony.
Complete bullshit - I went and bought Casino Royal, popped it in my computer, didn't run. A stupid flash thing popped up, 'Click to play movie!' and clicking did nothing. Fuck you, Sony.
I grabbed a torrent of Casino Royale a few days ago because it came up in conversation with some friends, and really liked it, liked it enough for me to buy it the next time I was near a video store - I wanted the better picture quality, and the extra features, and to free up the space on my drive. Now that I know it's copyright protected to the point of being unplayable? Sorry Sony; you just lost my twenty bucks. Sucks to be you.
Triv
I have an ancient player, probably 6 years old and Casino Royale and Stranger than Fiction (from Blockbuster) work 100%.
Lets see. Sony loads worms and trojans into PAYING customers machines...who PURCHASED music media. LEGALLY.
:)
Sony makes media / movies PAYING CUSTOMERS purchase, that WON"T work as per the STANDARD. Hmmm. THey bork.
Sony says, sorry, tough - upgrade. Meh.
I say this. Sony, you'll never see my money again. Sorry. Your are tools. When PIRACY is EAISER then purchased media, when pirated content plays EASIER and better then yours...you have a serious issue with seeing the 'big picture'. You have to compete now with that. YUP its true....suck it up and be a bigger man and come back to the market with your BRAINS because your muscle is weaker then ever now...
Consumers are good. You want them. You want them to BUY your shit. TO enjoy it. TO be ABLE to use it. Those last two points, they are key. USE and ENJOY. Get it? Well it seems not.
You are so out of touch of reality it will be your down fall. It is your down fall. You ARE falling. These actions are just that, PROOF how stunned you really are.
Labels wonder why sales are low? Jesus could it be the customer is WRONG, dead last and A THEIF! Lets beat the guys over the head with a lead pipe who DARE, DARE to show up at a check out and purchase our products. How the fuck is this any different? I want to buy it and then GET punished for it? Sorry..i won't buy into that.
Sorry sony. I have not purchased your shit media, or electronics since the ps2 many years ago. NO longer. I vote with my dollar. Get the message? More importantly, do you UNDERSTAND the message?
Nope. Guess not. Not yet
Sure, they got their fingers burned a little over the rootkit debacle - but they aren't sorry about it, nor have they changed their direction. Expect more outrages from this corporation that has already "jumped the shark".
What can us as consumers do? It's simple; just say NO to anything from Sony. If you'd been doing that since the rootkit, you wouldn't be bothered with these defective DVDs or their future mistakes. All they look at is their bottom line, and the only thing they'll pay attention to is when that bottom line suffers; quit buying their crap and they'll pay attention.
"Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."
yeeah, the other companies will make new hardware for your defective product.
how about this one.. "the manufacturers won't update their hardware, and you will eat the brunt of the consumer backlash"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Cheap bastards. We got a replacement from BMG after the Sony label music CDs wouldn't play in our PC drives. The second CDs didn't work right, either.
Any chance of getting Hollywood directors involved or others financing the movies? If they agree to publish with Sony, do they know about this copy-protection schema? Anything that would cause a loss of sales (a return on their investment) would surely not sit over well.
I rented and copied Stranger Than Fiction with my BlockBuster online subscription the weekend it came out. I didn't even know it had any special form of copy protection on it. Good job, Sony.
You need to use dd_rescue instead. This version of dd basically ignores the errors and was initially intended to be used to recover data from failing or failed disks. You can tell dd_rescue to null load the "bad" data areas.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
At least, in my friend's experience.
Keep up the good work, Sony!
Message to Sony, I live in Afghanistan and I can go down to the local market and buy a copy of Casino Royale for $3 US. It is almost indistinguishable from a retail DVD, nice case and everything. All you are doing is screwing the legitimate customers who want to buy your movies. I for one was looking forward to buying a legit copy of Casio Royale but I guess I won't be doing so because how can I guarantee it will work in all 7 of my DVD players (I have one in every room)?
"Sony says its up to the manufacturers to update their hardware". That is absolute BS. Sony has really been going downhill and this is not helping.
And no problems on my part.
They work fine in an older XBox, newer (last 18 months) Toshiba DVD Recorder, on my wife's older iBook, and on my newer (last gen) iBook as well.
I do get a kick out of Sony making their products incompatible with the rest of their product line, though. Especially given the premium they often charge for proprietary components that supposedly have better integration.
I have a spindle of them right here.
My parents rented Casino Royal, and I spent about 2 hours trying to get it to work on my laptop. My options became use a dvd player (which I have at home, but not school) or to download the movie. Needless to say, I don't rent when I'm not at home.
Sony Electronics has gone down the tubes in the past decade or so (it started a while before that -- old school Sony TVs and CRTs had a full metal Faraday cage around the tube, and touches like that went sometime before then). Nowadays, Sony electronics is mostly living off of the reputation it developed up through the 80s or 90s, when it delivered truly exceptional quality products at a high premium. Sony still charges a premium (albeit a smaller one), while delivering mostly sub-par products.
The Sony laptops are light and attractive, but almost universally have mechanical problems (hinges and latches break). The MP3 players are a disaster. A relative bought one, and it wouldn't play MP3s -- he had to convert music into Sony's proprietary atrak format before it worked. He returned it and bought an iRiver. The headphones give reasonable (but not exceptional) audio quality for the price, but generally break after about 3 months of use. Cameras have nice imagers, mechanically filmy (but not horrible), but as with most Sony, try to force you into a proprietary, incompatible, overpriced technology stack with MemoryStick. PS3 was an unqualified disaster. Home audio equipment is okay, but suboptimal on the price/performance curve (e.g. Kenwood generally has better-sounding, better-quality equipment for the same price in my price range).
I also really, really, really hate the attempted "synergy." If you want the PS3, you need to pay for Blu-ray. Everything you buy will use MemoryStick, and where possible, use proprietary cables, plugs, and formats to try to lock you in to buy other Sony products, and not work well with non-Sony products.
People who pirate movies and music through file sharing networks (and copy programs), are the scum of the earth. If you can't stand the price of the movies, or the inconvenience caused by DRM, etc, then bloody STOP SUPPORTING THE FREAKING INDUSTRY BY DOWNLOADING the FEAK'N STUFF! You aren't helping anyone but your freak'n self. I absolutely hate people like you. I'm a boycott'er and you piss me right the xell off! You're like a junkie or a child that keeps yelling gimmie gimmie gimme!
Idiots.
Amusingly, Sony claims the ARccOS copyprotection system is "Fully compatible with available DVD players and drives" (http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go).
Since I can't play this Netflix disc on my player, I'm making a copy that I can play. I'm using libdvdcss and dvdbackup to get the files and growisofs to burn a DVD+R-DL. I guess I'll have a disc of my own when I'm done. If I hadn't had to do this, I might have bought the movie (provided that I like it). I have lots of Bond flicks and even have the original Casino Royale. It's too bad that Sony has turned me into a criminal.
It shouldn't be that hard to undo ARCCOS: just run it through COS!
I'm ripping Casino Royale as I post this. It takes a little longer but it *CAN* be done. You just edit dvdbackup so it ignores read errors from the media. (Did I just violate the DMCA?)
Pissed off share holders, particularly those who might have personally encountered the DVD problem, are a very nasty bunch to deal with. They cause heads to roll when voting for new board members etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Let's say that the average consumer is looking at investing in a movie, but knows there is a 1 out of 10 chance that they're wasting their money. There is now a looming doubt if the thing will play at all. It may be a small doubt, but any transaction cost is real. Let's then say that 1 out of 10 decide not to buy, and instead... well, it really doesn't matter what instead, as Sony has already lost their money.
Let's also say that the average pirate is looking to change their ways, and is now out of college and making enough money to support paying for movies. Their incentive to do so is threat of legal persecution and, more significantly, a moral imperitive to support artists that they care about. Now, suddenly, on the other side of the equation is this looming doubt over whether the thing will work at all. If the scales had tipped one way earlier, this might just be enough to tip them the other way.
So in other words, Sony has succeeded in alienating a section of their customer base, prevented another section from becoming legal customers, and all the while (judging by the wide availability of pirated copies of the movies mentioned) had zero effect on the piracy of their movies.
Brilliant. Is it time to put Sony to bed with SCO yet?
The ______ Agenda
MacTheRipper was able to rip the DVD, although it took it a while and there was more than one complaint about bad sectors.
Good work there, Lou. You've managed to make a DVD that the only way I can watch it is to make a copy.
The product is clearly defective if a Sony DVD will not play in a new Sony DVD player, and it is hard to imagine that this is not Sony's fault. However, let's assume good faith on the part of the customer, retailer and manufacturer, since there is no obvious reason to claim that anyone has been dishonest. The aim is to make it Sony's problem, not the problem of the customer or retailer.
.
Intially, the problem is with the customer, who is not at fault.
The implied "fit for purpose" contract that the customer has is with the retailer, from whom the purchase was made. The retailer, by selling someone else's product, takes on the risk of the product being defective.
The correct customer response is to return the product to the retailer, who is not at fault, but has the responsibility to the customer for the defective product
Now the problem is with the retailer, who is also not at fault.
The ultimate responsibility belongs to the manufacturer, and that is where the problem should reside. The remaining step is for the retailer to take issue with the manufacturer. The tricky bit for the retailer is that the DVD is not faulty in every situation, which makes it difficult to return, since the retailer may not be able to verify the fault. The customer, not being lazy and wishing to maintain a relationship with the retailer, could do the right thing to help the retailer in this regard by providing a written letter of complaint detailing the problem, which makes it much easier for the retailer to go back to the manufacturer. It has the added benefit of making the intial return process reasonably civil.
In most times, most places, by most people, liars are considered contemptible. - Ursula Le Guin
Reviewers did say this one was bigger on crotch sizes than it was historical accuracy. But after wetting myself laughing at Brad Pitt posing and somersaulting on the beaches of Troy, I decided not to take this genre seriously. Seeing this tomorrow, so think I'll pretend it's Faramir fighting Orcs in the deserts south of Mordor. :-)
they still copied just fine.
Sony will say that because of big bad rippers they had to update the security. The ones who will look bad in the media are the rippers. Sony knows damn good and well that this will barely cause a hiccup in illegal copying of DVDs. What it does is give them an opportunity to demonize the copiers. Remember, the media giants who own the news outlets? Well, they care about their digial rights and copyright as well. They WILL NOT come out in favor of the consumer on this. You'll see.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
If I were a stock market speculator, I would be looking hard at shorting Sony severely
As if the stock market and share prices had anything to do with reality... go ahead and short all the stock you want on this "news".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony -- specifically . . . Casino Royale . . . have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players.
...because I downloaded a ripped DVD of Casino Royale off of usenet a month ago.
. . .
A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it.
I wish I had mod points for you, buddy.
Anyone remember this article about bugs and programming?
Committing the "black or white fallacy" is destructive everywhere, both in politics and programming. Saying that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans because they're both politicians is good for one thing:
letting smug, lazy cynics feel somehow that by not doing anything, they're intellectually superior.
All that makes you is a part of the problem.
If it says "Title 1 of 99" - congratulations! (ignore the "Track" info)
Note the most humorous thing about this copyright structure is it's glaring simplicity to avoid, much like the "marker over the encrypted" sector trick - they came out with this idea, and immediately ripper programmers thought "oh well, we'll just skip any unreferenced track." doom9 is littered with with forum info and workarounds that were found immediately.
I don't blame Sony for trying (it is their job to try to protect their material - despite the flames I may get for saying that), but any exec that creates a copyright strategy that can be so easily circumnavigated while alienating customers should be immediately fired.
Netflix + RipIt4Me (or DVDFabPlatinum) and problem solved.
I stupidly bought several Sony Trinitrons, Betamaxs, VCRs, and stereos over the last 25 years, but no more. Never again will I buy Sony.
That'll learn 'em.
J
And I was seriously considering buying a Sony Ericson phone. I thought Sony wised up. Ah well, Nokia it is. THANKS Sony.
... but a lot of the people I know would be stuck at number five.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I ran into the newfangled copy protection on Casino Royale while trying to rip it to my DVD server. Luckily the folks at Ars Technica were able to point me in the right direction. A quick download and install of Ripit4Me and I was able to rip the DVD. Pain in the butt, though, since I bought the freaking disc.
You aren't allowed to put anything on a CD/DVD that prevents free use like that.
Sony will have to deal with the pissed off retailers.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm surprised noone has suggested yet, that sony are breaking compatibility at least in part to put bad publicity on the DVD format...
"Look, blu-ray doesnt have these problems!"
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
you simply can't say that there is no distinction whatsoever between Democrats and Republicans.
Agreed. They both utterly suck shit in completely different ways. :-)
I understand that the MPAA once said that people should purchase back-up DVDs: that is, they'd like you to use the same kind of prerecorded DVD for back-up as you use for your primary.
So, even if torrenting material from a film DVD that you own a non-working copy of is legal, it will likely give the MPAA fits.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
I don't pirate DVDs (or CDs) - I know how to, but to date I have only copied CDs I own to play at work (after some original discs were stolen after hours) and in the car, and the odd DVD I own to play in the laptop when I am away for work (don't want to lug/lose the original). I am not that fussed that other people do, but my basic ethics mean I don't. Here we have a Fair Trading Act that means that product that is not of merchantable quality can be returned. Were I interested in Casino Royale (I am not) I would officially now have no moral qualms about purchasing it, copying it, and returning for a refund.
Sony, you have just changed the rules - you dont respect my rights, I won't respect yours, GAME ON!
You do realize that your argument would also have applied to Sony's rootkitted CDs?
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
So, retailer will go broke if it stocks Sony DVDs because of too many returns.
Retailer will go broke if it doesn't stock Sony DVDs because it will lose sales to everyone who is still stocking (non-working) Sony DVDs.
Catch-22.
I think a sensible retailer, given those choices, should want the one that keeps its customer service intact.
I also believe that no brick&mortar retailer has "a full selection of titles." There are simply too many titles out there for that. Admittedly, having no Sony titles at all would be conspicuous, but I imagine that a creative retailer could fill the empty space with, say, extra anime DVDs and an explanation for the absence of Sony titles.
No sane customer wants to buy DVDs that don't work. If a retailer makes clear that they don't stock Sony DVDs because Sony DVDs don't work, that may make up in goodwill what would've been lost from losing sales of any Sony DVDs that did work.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Have you been following the pet food recall?
If you have not, then know this: pet food of various sorts has been recalled by the FDA because of poisoned wheat gluten. I do mean poisoned--cats and dogs have died from it, of kidney failure. The FDA can't go directly after the manufacturer of the wheat gluten because it is in China. All the companies who used that wheat gluten, however, have to recall all the products that might have it. And any retailer who knowingly left recalled pet food on the shelves after it was recalled is, or will be, in trouble with the FDA.
In short, two layers of middlemen are being punished for this, since the manufacturer is beyond the gov.'s reach. If you blame pet-owners for buying the poisoned food before the recall, we'll be ticked off--we didn't know, and we got no benefit from it--only risk. The retailers at least got money from any sales that didn't get sent back!
This sort of thing would also apply to JERKY INC. and anyone distributing its products. If the government knew how to regulate tech, it would apply to these Sony copy-controlled DVDs and the stores that stock them.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
I was sitting in the car this morning and the thought popped into my head "How long should I carry on boycotting Sony?" (I have just not bought a Sony camera:-). Its nice to have one of life's great questions answered so quickly...
DVD = Digital versatile disc. This does not imply whether the content written on the disc is data, video, audio, or anything other than "just data".
An earlier poster suggested there may be legal implications if Sony had used "DVD-Video" but AFAIK DVD is not a guarantee of any specific type of content.
So, what happens if Sony's DVDs don't play on a Sony DVD player?
This is exactly what is meant by the term "Defective by Design."
I'm no GNU fanboy, and I do even like certain limited contexts of DRM (Steam), but this, right here, is fucking unacceptible. I don't care that it's two parts from two different places, they are selling a product which DOES NOT WORK.
Everyone seems to hate automotive analogies, but I do have to love them sometimes... Suppose you bought a car, and found the key didn't fit in the ignition? Isn't that fraud on their part? Never mind that they "might" give you a new key in a few months.
This is a case where there needs to be a recall. No fucking firmware update, you take their DVD players back, and you give them their money back.
Or yes, sue them. Class-action...
I'm dreaming, I know, but I'm also pissed.
WE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"Sony will say that because of big bad rippers they had to update the security. "
So? Everyone I know trusts me more than some lame ad on TV. If their hardware screws up do they wait for an ad to explain why? Hell no! They call me! (Dammit!)
And I say, "Screw these guys, it's their stupid broken copy protection. Download this and rip it."
End of story. Everyone wins. Except Sony.
Simple really.
The problem is people will end up getting what I liked to call a visual of the movie even if it is playable by the DVD player. I think Sony should just quit beating around the bush. They need to stop these illegal downloaders and rippers where it counts. I propose they quit including the movie with the DVD they buy. Instead, consumers must be forced two watch a 2 hour long RIAA copywrite warning screen. If they can't see the movie they can't rip it, right? Some people will say no one will buy a movie they can't play but who cares? Just so long as the illegal downloading stop.
I think they include this stuff because they must have done the math that says if they can delay people from copying for "X" days, they get "$Y" more. They can't believe this will stop things for more than a week.
a Linux machine downloads full-time. Its completedtorrents directory is shared on the house network using samba. The data is copied over wireless to a powerful (AMD) Windows box. From there, I can:
Watch it on the LCD flatscreen in my bedroom
burn it to a DVD-RW and then watch it in my DIVX-aware Philips player (10 hours of data per disc, no transcoding delay)
Transmit the VGA data by wireless to RCA-OUT on the big tv in the living room.
Copy it to the media directory on my laptop.
etc.
I stopped buying CDs when Sony first starting putting virus code on cds to hack people's PCs (apparently at one point a state attorney general wanted to arrest a Sony executive for hacking, but I guess Sony lobbied its way out of trouble).
I don't care for the MPAA/RIAA -- I think they must be bankrupted so that their replacements will have better manners, and so that they'll be amenable to a mandatory licensing schedule with a share of consumer broadband revenue (say, 10% of the retail a consumer pays for DSL or cable modem, business links exempted)
The point is that legal media is no longer more expensive and less useful than "unofficial" downloads, it is now dangerous to insert a Sony CD or DVD into a machine. I'm sure Sony figured it was being restrained and responsible this time, as it only installed cumbersome DRM rather than trying to infect and take over the consumer's PC, which they did in the past. Yeah, right.
Sony deserves to lose reputation, market share, revenue, and existence.
I couldnt get it to play on my computer or one of my dvd player (it crashed it I think). Sony is really getting out of control when you cant even watch a bad movie on DVD because they just made up a new format.
It's not just Sony that renders its own products incompatible with DRM. My brand new $1000 Phillips HDTV won't play upscaled DVDs from my band new $250 Phillips home theater system thanks to HDCP. The worst part of all of this: I'm an honest Joe. I've never pirated a song or movie in my life ... but I bet if I did it would be more likely to work with my equipment! I don't understand why these corporations insist on punishing their honest paying customers with DRM-related headaches, but I've had enough of it.
- DVD's won't play
- People will get pissed off and return them
- DVD sales figures will drop
- Sony will complain to the lawmakers that piracy is making sales drop
- Sony will get the lawmakers to somehow subsidize their business (e.g., blank media tax)
The end result is that they will be able to produce junk and still get paid (a large number of European "filmmaking" business get subsidy money for producing trash that nobody cares to watch, why shouldn't Sony?...):P
Media is a Data DVD.
Booktype: dvd-rom (version 1), Layers: 2 (opposite)
Size of first Layer: 2084960 sectors (4072 MBytes)
Total size: 4169920 sectors (8144 MBytes)
Video DVD (or CD) label: Stranger Than Fiction
Media is CSS protected!
Video Standard: NTSC
Media is locked to region(s): 1!
RCE protection not found.
DVD structure appears to be correct.
Found & removed structural copy protection (Arccos, Puppetlock)!
Found & removed bogus title set!
Found & removed Autorun from Video DVD!
Found & removed 83 bad sector protections!
Emulating RPC-2 drive with region 1!
I do not even want to hear or see anything sony produces.
Bying media shouldn't be like a craps shoot. I want to be a good person and do things the legal way. I've never downloaded a movie, nor wanted to rip one. However as a good and loyal customer, things like this prevent me from doing it the right way. I'm punished for obeying the law. When I can't do it the right way, I do it the way that works. I break the law. I'm not proud of it, but when I paid for something to do a single thing, it had better damn well do it!
Slashot: Sony!
Sony: Ha! Who calls?
MPAA: Bid every thought be still: peace yet again!
Sony: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music by Celine Dion, cry "Sony!" Speak; Sony is turn'd to hear.
Slashdot: Beware the ides of Ass!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
and they have to refund your money.
if everything goes back to sony as "defective," maybe they'll get the hint.
IMHO they can't call it a "DVD" unless it meets the published specs, including the copywrong protection system.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Sony just has to get the word out that you can't put Blu-ray disks in regular ol' DVD players.
One of my roommates bought Casino Royale. To test it, I just grabbed it and ripped it in DVDFab Decrypter
was Re:Gee. (Score:4, free advert)
davecb5620@gmail.com
Just another reason why I am boycotting anything Sony... They have received their last $$ from me - I even sold my WEGA TV last year and will not buy anything with their label on it (neither electronics nor media) until they make a 180-degree change in their attitude toward their customers in this regard. FU Sony!
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
As many others have said, blocking legitimate users while failing to prevent piracy is incredibly stupid. Also, having to update firmware on a DVD player is incredibly stupid. They're just supposed to work. No updates, no installing software, it's just a magic black box that plays stuff. At the very least they should never have instituted a new anti-piracy program without first testing on a wide range of players, and they should have waited to release these "protected" discs until they had firmware updates for their own players (I don't care if they're different branches of a huge company... if they can't communicate for things like this, they are broken). And the firmware updates should be included on the DVDs that require them, so that they can be installed transparently and without any extra input from the user.
That still doesn't fix the problem for the other manufacturers' players.
When you think about it, though, it does seem very odd that they would invest in a new "anti-piracy" tech so late in the game for DVDs. Especially considering how awful their attempts at CD DRM went. It leads me to believe that maybe their not trying to protect DVD content, but make it seem like to consumers as if there is incompatibility in the DVD world, so we should all update to the new awesome Sony Blu-Ray world, where nothing is ever incompatible, and the sky is always blu, and everything is always perfect. And if that's the case, it's still incredibly stupid.
It's a great program and hats off to the company for offering it for free.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
The most common example is the big screen TV bought in early January, and then the return attempt the Monday after the Super Bowl.
I don't think I've even HEARD of a restock fee on CD/DVDs, but that's purely anecdotal.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
On their support site: esupport.sony.com http://esupport.sony.com/ : I'm sure it is just a coincidence that the 'Home Entertainment' and 'Television' links both return a '404 - Page not found', while the other links work >:-}
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
There is no distinction in that both parties want to control our lives and our money (albeit in different ways). The bottom line is neither party really wants to promote freedom. They only want to promote dependence on the government.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
BluRay and HDDVD support an identical set of codecs.
BluRay is more complicated and generally more risky than HDDVD without any real gain, though.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
That'd only help us break their DRM and possibly make new copies.
I, for one, would prefer a new, working one at this point. Although I wonder where we'll be able to find anyone who can do better, my only consolation is that they'd have to try to do much worse.
Sony is DEAD to me. I will NEVER buy another product with their name on it.
There are just too many other companies out there that "get it".
I hope HD-DVD wins out over BLUE-RAY, cause I won't have anything
to do with BLUE-RAY so long as Sony's name is on it.
Basically the DVD has hundreds of bogus VOB files.
Most DVD players are smart enough to skip over them.. (mine wasn't).
Most DVD decrypting software wasn't smart enough either.
The difference is that those software packages just required a downloadable update. You're screwed if your player doesn't like bogus files.
Even though I have a degree in mathematics, I still parsed COS as the evil cult organization before I realized you meant the trigonometric functions.
Besides, any DVD sent through the COS would probably end up unwatchable, just like Battlefield Earth.
DRM doesn't work at all.
All DRM does is to piss off paying customers and allow MAFIAA execs to tell their shareholders that they are doing everything they can to protect their "valuable IP".
Now, with broadband it's easy for people to pirate content, so naturally you can't charge quite as much for the content as in the olden days, that's just the way it is, "supply 'n demand" and all that.
Responding to piracy by dramatically lowering the value of your content will not magically make people want to pay you money.
The MAFIAA needs to realize that they need to compete with casual copying the same way that they would a competing business, iow, provide a better product at a fair price.
The price doesn't need to be 0 to compete with piracy, a CD or a DVD does come with built in storage, quite nice bandwidth and a license to the content, after all.
For online content you'd really need to get close to 0, perhaps a donation system could be used so content can be distributed just like it is today, but you at least get some money back from the honest users.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
This happened to a friend of mine, which he details here: http://baconandtofu.com/
Movie just locks up after a couple seconds on his Phillips DVD player. Ridiculous.
That's it. They finally did it. Sony's latest has proven to be the proverbial last straw. For many years, my 'DO NOT BUY' list has had only four names on it. Now it has five. I know Sony couldn't care less about my never again purchasing one of their products, but millions of us will make a difference. Hide and watch.
Heard any good sigs lately?
Go figure -- my Toshiba 5+ year old progressive scan DVD player, which plays most movies just fine, hasn't played Stranger Than Fiction NOR Casino Royale. I was about to drop $100 on a new Panasonic up convert model. At least I know it's not bad discs from NetFlix now. Dammit.
IronChefMorimoto
and IMHO, there's NO way to spin Sony "DVD"s that won't play on Sony DVD players.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Thank you. I didn't realize that the "fit for purpose" standard doesn't apply to DRMed work in America. Sorry I was so hard on you...
If the DVD logo is all but meaningless--that's depressing.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
You need to edit the source code. Change the case statement that classifies the type of dvd, this is very easy with gentoo. you can emerge dvdisaster, then use ctrl-c and edit the file and resume the compilation with fg.
this modified version of dvdisaster is an excellent ripping tool and i find it extremely fast.
there is also some program that allows you to merge multiple attempts at ripping to get the union of each attempt.
dvdisaster is excellent, i found dd_help, all the various versions with slightly different names, to be a total pain, and didnt work for me. One of the versions scans backwards towards the error which is a nice idea but is terrible for dvd's cause the speed reading backwards is very slow (on my drive anyway). This wasnt the only problem either, i also found the resuming function didnt work as the log file system had bugs. One of the versions resumed ok but was so slow and had problems that made me give up.
Oh man, you actually believe that?
Hehehehehe
Go on, try it in court! I dare you!
I mean, you're obviously right... but... just... i mean... XP