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BD+ Resealed Once Again
IamTheRealMike writes "It's been a few months since we last checked in on how the Blu-Ray group was doing in their fight against piracy. In December 2008, a new generation of BD+ programs had stopped both SlySoft AnyDVD HD and the open source effort at Doom9. At the start of January, SlySoft released an update that could handle the new BD+ programs, meaning that Blu-Ray discs could not be decrypted for a period of time about the same length as SlySoft's worst case scenario. The BD+ retaliation was swift, but largely ineffective, consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master. Users had to upload log files to SlySoft for every new movie/region. They would then support that unique variant in their next update, usually released a few days later. Despite that, the open source effort never did manage to progress beyond the Winter 2008 programs and is currently stalled completely; SlySoft is the only group remaining. This situation remained for several months, but starting around the same time as Paramount joined Fox in licensing BD+, a new set of programs came out which have once again made Blu-Ray discs unrippable. There are currently 19 movies that cannot be decrypted. It appears neither side is able to decisively gain the upper hand, but one thing seems clear — only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+."
Sadly, if you want HD content (and not that overcompressed downloaded crap), blu-ray is the only choice now. It's a shame too. I have an HD-DVD player which loads discs and performs MUCH faster than any blu-ray player I've ever had. And the HD-DVD format had a lot cheaper prices for discs, more lax region coding, didn't make unskippable opening trailers a seeming prerequsite for the format (seriously, every single blu-ray I buy seems to have these annoying things), and was generally WAY more consumer friendly. Blu-ray seems more geared to the studios; their trailers, their encryption, etc.; than to the person actually BUYING the disc. It's like the studios invented blu-ray just to piss people off and turn them off to the whole idea of a HD video format.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All I know is, the first time I pop a blu-ray disc into my $300 player and it refuses to play because of one of your new little one-upmanship encryption schemes, I'm going to be plenty pissed.
Amen brother. I recently bought a $1200 HP Pavillion with blu-ray player and gf9600, 4gb ram yadda yadda. What interested me the most was 500gb HDD, blu-ray player, and hdmi out...
:(
I was pissed off the very first time I played a blu-ray. You see, HDCP shut me down before I even got to the blu-ray menu. I am still very pissed off because nowhere on the box, or in the press kit; was a notification saying that although this computer has a blu-ray player AND HDMI out, that you will not be able to play a single blu-ray disc through that port. The best I get is upscaled DVDs, which I'm not surprised they haven't put BD+ on dvd's now to prevent me from doing even this.
I tried to purchase AnyDVD-HD but my Visa is declined for "109 Euros too high, authorization declined" which my bank has no idea what that means. I refuse to buy a PS3 for many reasons and I refuse to pay out another $200+ for a standalone player. I feel a bit duped by the movie studios into buying a blu-ray player that is only good on the small 17" screen built into my laptop, which does not handle 1080p
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
The arms race with BD+ mirrors exactly what happened with sattv hacking 10 years ago. The encryption starts out simple and uses a minimal implementation of the BD spec. Once that is compromised the ip holders inevitably move to the more complex implementation of the spec. Currently this involves uploading a code package with each new release that performs the decryption, blacklist checking, and ultimately a system integrity check (the latter makes sure that BD+ API has not been patched to allow unconditional decryption which is the method slysoft uses). With every release, the IP holder looks at how the system has been hacked and writes a specific code package to detect those changes. The end result of this game is that the system will become totally compromised as hackers will simply rebuild the entire BD+ VM and API in emulation and allow for patching outside of the VM implementation (e.g. the system will respond as a valid unhacked system to any checks via VM code packages but will still perform unconditional decryption) Once that happens its over for BD+ as the only possible countermeasure is to attack flaws in the emulator implementation and those are easily fixed. Give it a year or so...
It's like the studios invented blu-ray just to piss people off and turn them off to the whole idea of a HD video format.
If so it worked for me! I grew up with crappy VHS tapes that lost tracking, had snow, and generally had poor picture quality. DVD is heaven to me. Why the hell would I pay $1000+ for a HD tv and $300+ for a blu ray player so I can put up with unbreakable encryption, crappy region coding, overpriced discs, unskipable ads and propaganda. For what? A bit more detail in the picture? There truly isn't another advantage to the format that even interests me. They can keep it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Does anybody reading this own an early BD player that no longer will work
due to changes in BD+? Has anybody reading this had to get their BD
player firmware updated to play existing or new discs as a result of
changes in BD+ (firmware updates to get new features such as BD live
don't count)? I know that the design of BD+ makes this possible, but
has it actually happened?
LVDS isn't encrypted at all, and it's usually how the bare LCD panel is driven - there's usually two (or more, but usually two for logic) PCBs in an LCD display of some kind. One takes inputs (VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc., etc.,) and outputs LVDS. The other takes LVDS and controls the individual pixels.
Not to mention, the LVDS protocols used by LCDs are simpler than TMDS, IIRC - it'd actually be easier to get the content from LVDS instead of DVI/HDMI.
Of course, DisplayPort is pushing for an internal DisplayPort standard, which would give HDCP straight to the controller driving the pixels directly.
DVD Jon and Co. cracked CSS in 1999, long before DVD hit its stride. The reality is that CSS was vastly easier to circumvent, virtually trivial, compared to the protections on HD media. AES encryption is not something that can be broken in a few minutes by a cracking program. We're talking about a fundamentally difficult encryption method.
The main issue here is that the content industry has built Blu-Ray distribution around devices which do not trust their owners. This is the first concrete deployment of "trusted computing" type system, and the reality is that it is working. Despite the best efforts of hackers everywhere, Blu-Ray has not been cracked and most likely never will be.
The content industry has won this round, and will continue to win with ever more secure encryption and a legion of untrusting, internet connected players in peoples living rooms. The genie is back in the bottle. Once DVD dies, or is executed, the age of high quality movie rips will be behind us.
May the Maths Be with you!
Agreed. There is that "certain something" missing from Blu-Ray that would make it the next big thing. I was shocked when my wife (who is not terribly tech savvy) flatly stated that there was little point in us buying a Blu-Ray player because we should wait for the "next thing after Blu-Ray". And added that "Blu-Ray feels like laser-disk". I was about to argue that there isn't anything after Blu-Ray but then quickly realized that at the time I bought my ill fated lazer disk player back in the day, DVDs were not out there yet either:) So I took it as simply one of those woman intuition things that I would be wise to heed and decided to leave the Blu-Rays on the shelf.
I cannot believe you do not appreciate the quality difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. That is as bizarre to me as people, and there are many of them, that say they cannot tell the difference between a CD and a 192 kbps MP3. I think those people have hearing problems. The loss of quality is like nails on a chalkboard.
Hell, I can't tell the difference between a CD and a 128 kbps MP3, except maybe if I really, really concentrate. I can't really notice the difference between DVD and VHS either. I guess I'm just thinking about the content, not the quality.
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I feel like there is a huge groupthink happening here. Do we all really dislike Blu-Ray? Is there no one else that finds the quality unbeatable and worth the price?
Not really.
I cannot believe you do not appreciate the quality difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. That is as bizarre to me as people, and there are many of them, that say they cannot tell the difference between a CD and a 192 kbps MP3. I think those people have hearing problems. The loss of quality is like nails on a chalkboard.
Yeah, except here the 'loss' of quality simply comes from having less pixels, not from compression artifacts which are what produce the "nails on a chalkboard" effect. It is simply less bothersome for most people.
In both cases, the difference is striking and the higher quality product is significantly better. I love my Blu-Ray films and I love losslessly compressed audio (FLAC anyone?).
And there's where we disagree. You see, DVDs look good, Blu-Rays look great, but the majority of my opinion of the end product is determined by the content itself. Transformers is shit on DVDs, shit on Blu-Ray, and shit on the cinema screen, it is *not* 'significantly better'. And Mozart's Requiem is awesome on 192k MP3s, and only marginally more awesome on lossless FLACs, the MP3s may have some compression artifacts but the *music* itself is still the same. Furthermore, all I pay for FLACs over MP3s is the fraction-of-a-dollar increase in storage space, not so with Blu-Ray.
More importantly, is it TOO expensive?
I answer firmly, "No. The quality justifies the price."
And I answer firmly: FUCK YEAH! Blu-Ray players are 5x the price of a DVD player with similar features, movies are at least twice as much as regular DVDs, and all for what? higher resolution. DVDs had multiple audio tracks and user-selectable subtitles in many different languages, plus "behind the scenes" features and complementary material compared to VHS, but all Blu-Ray offers me is just same old crap in high definition. Gee, no wonder I'm in no rush to buy one of those things.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.