Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
Quote from some web-page or another...
"No single company "owns" DVD. The official specification was developed by a consortium of ten companies: Hitachi, JVC, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, Sony, Thomson, Time Warner, and Toshiba. Representatives from many other companies also contributed in various working groups. In May 1997, the DVD Consortium was replaced by the DVD Forum , which is open to all companies, and as of February 2000 had over 220 members. Time Warner originally trademarked the DVD logo, and has since assigned it to the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation (DVD FLLC)."
Looks like there isn't any kind of single company that can really rule on this and say, those aren't officially formatted DVDs... The fact that Sony was a main developer in the consortium would also probably make it that much harder to revoke any kind of "DVD" stamp from these disks...
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?
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
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
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
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.
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
No, the solution is obviously to upgrade girlfriends.
;-) )
(I realize that around here, unlike the rest of the world, that's more difficult than upgrading to Linux.
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
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."
the gf made me download the movie,
I wonder, honestly, what the legal status of your download is. You paid for a copy of the movie, you now have a copy of the movie, but an unauthorized format was used when the authorized format failed.
We are all just people.
...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..."
You've got a girlfriend?
Stranger than fiction, indeed!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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?
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
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?
Most stores wont do refund for an opened title - most will only exchange for the exact same title. However, you take the new one home, find it defective as well, then go back. If stores have to ship enough opened units back there will be some reaction, maybe. Assuming they dont just re-shrink wrap it and sell it again.
ARccOS discs like Sony's can be played under mplayer by adding "-ss 10" to the mplayer command line. As a bonus, you get to skip the first 10 seconds of logo pollution in the movie.
Since mplayer can rip anything that it can play, it goes without saying that ARccOS is as usual utterly ineffective in stopping piracy while causing no end of grief for legitimate customers.
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.
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?
You would be within your rights to be in possession of that downloaded copy (as long as you maintain ownership of the DVD as long as you keep the copy), but you would still be guilty of distribution of copyrighted material (a crime in the US; a civil liability in most of Europe) by participating in the download process.
In other words, you're still not free and clear, but at the same time, it's unlikely that any court would find in the plaintiff's favor since you did buy the DVD (unless you did the "good" thing and let the download continue to seed for hours/days after completing, in which case you would clearly be distributing content illegally and even a sympathetic court would have no real alternative but to side with the prosecution).
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.
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%.
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.
He would be guilty of copyright infringement if only it was a torrent or some other protocol that requires the recipient to upload parts he recieved. He said generic download. It's not illegal to download anything short of child porn AFAIK.
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"
there was an extremely annoying faint rectangular pattern moving...across the screen almost all the time
I'm pretty sure they call that "a Hollywood movie"...
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.
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.
Amusingly, Sony claims the ARccOS copyprotection system is "Fully compatible with available DVD players and drives" (http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go).
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
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
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.
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!
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.
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
I love how it's necessary now to use tools that only pirates are supposed to use in order to get these dvd to play on a DVD player.
I know that Sony just wants to make sure that people can't pirate their movies, but it's too late for that. It's game over for DVD, at this point the toolchain for ripping dvds is so advanced that it's almost an open format. You might as well avoid all the pain and suffering of trying to encrypt the dvd and just release all DVDs as open format without encryption.
A simple download of a tool and the right DVD drive is all it takes to make a protected DVD into an open one.
I think that it was a smart move on the content producers part that they also used MPEG-2 for HD, when they could have used MPEG-4. MPEG-4 would to have increased the amount of content they could put on a BluRay/HD-DVD since the same movie would take less room on the disc. I think that they wanted the massive amount of data required for MPEG-2 HD content. It only makes it harder for the pirates to rip/burn/transmit a large movie if the source material is huge as well. It makes the pirate re-encode the movie since less people will download a 20+ GB movie. Re-encoding causes the resulting movie to look slightly worse then the original since it is very hard to re-encode a movie in a lossless fashion. It can be done, but usually takes multiple encodes as finding the right bitrate to keep the loss imperceptible is not something the tool does for you (AFIAK).