Avatar Blu-Ray DRM Issues

geekd writes "Once again, DRM only hurts legit content purchasers: 'An unusual glitch has angered some Avatar Blu-ray owners. For these unlucky people, since the disc won't play on their Blu-ray players, their new Avatar DVD serves no real purpose other than to sit idly on the coffee table. ... It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM (digital rights management). ... Even with updated firmware, a lot of Blu-ray players weren't prepared for these security measures. Despite the security problems, bootleggers are having a field day. Pirated copies of Avatar, according to Los Angeles Times, were available as early as January.'" Reader Murpster adds that this problem isn't specific to the Blu-ray version: "Got a regular Avatar DVD and it won't play on either of my DVD players. It will play on one computer DVD drive, if I want to watch it on a 12-inch screen."

Comments

DRM

[girlintraining]

Everytime they shoot themselves in the foot like this, public awareness and knowledge of DRM goes up. Even though the consumers are being hurt by this, it will make them realize that it's not always as easy as "buy, own, use however I want" anymore -- word of mouth is a powerful force in this industry.

And right now, the word is... fail.

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

not too many independents putting up $250M to make one piece of content though... so in the end, the only failure relative to the consumer was to himself. he didn't get the content he wanted.

Re:DRM

[mwvdlee]

DRM is basically "Pay and pray".

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm increasingly convinced that "consumers" do not associate DRM problems with DRM itself -- rather, they view it as one manufacturer's problem, or even just a flaw in the DVD mastering. When the same DVD plays perfectly on another DVD player, that just "validates" that the DVD player was at fault, not the DRM.

As such, wide-scale problems like this aren't viewed as *DRM problems*, just a DVD player problem.

Terms like DRM are thrown around, but I don't see them sticking in the minds of most consumers. It's just another 3-letter-acronym that tech people like to use so much.

Re:DRM

[c-reus]

Does spending a certain amount of money on a movie give you the right to sell a copy of the movie to anyone but only allow a subset of those people to view the movie they have bought?

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

my point was that the business may not be viable enough to ever spend a certain amount of money if subsets of people are sometimes not "allowed"* to view the movie they have bought.

* i'm using your definition of "allowed" which seems to be: utilize a player that does not fully implement the spec required by the media.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a mobile phone. You wouldn't st... DISC ERROR.

Re:DRM

[sjames]

Pay and pray that they do not alter it further?

Re:DRM

[Z00L00K]

Whatever this does - it will essentially make it a PR win for the downloadable non-DRM-infected versions.

But of course - the movie industry will be VERY silent about problems caused by DRM.

It only takes one way to crack an encryption and the content is out of the box - and every player does contain means to decode the encrypted content. As soon as somebody is able to go into it a non-DRM version of a movie will appear, and it will also miss the hated copyright warnings that is pestering us to death.

Re:DRM

[dnahelicase]

I'm increasingly convinced that "consumers" do not associate DRM problems with DRM itself -- rather, they view it as one manufacturer's problem, or even just a flaw in the DVD mastering. When the same DVD plays perfectly on another DVD player, that just "validates" that the DVD player was at fault, not the DRM.

As such, wide-scale problems like this aren't viewed as *DRM problems*, just a DVD player problem.

Terms like DRM are thrown around, but I don't see them sticking in the minds of most consumers. It's just another 3-letter-acronym that tech people like to use so much.

I disagree completely. DRM does stick in the mind of consumers in a case like this, and they do not blame the players, but do blame the disc.

As soon as one disc doesn't work, they stick another disc in to see if it works. When the previously owned disc works just fine, and the new one does not, they blame the new disc. I imagine quite a few get upset, return the disc in exchange for another just like it. Then they get frustrated when two in a row don't work, call their IT Guy/Friend/Teenager and ask why. I/they explain DRM to them, how they must wait for an update to come out to play the disc, and nobody is happy.

Even if they ask "do I need to buy a new player?" The best answer I have is "Who knows? A new one might have a better firmware, might not."

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

EDIT: missing "not"

my point was that the business may not be viable enough to ever spend a certain amount of money if subsets of people are not sometimes not allowed* to view the movie they have bought.

* i'm using your definition of "allowed" which seems to be: utilize a player that does not fully implement the spec required by the media.

Re:DRM

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Everytime they shoot themselves in the foot like this, public awareness and knowledge of DRM goes up.

I tend to think of it as lost revenue. Because of this issue, people could be forced to return the BD+. Then some percentage of them will download it as opposed to wait for the problem to get fixed.

Hell, the people who ripped it and uploaded it may already returned it, claiming to have been affected (people who rip and upload movies not being well-known for honesty concerning disk purchases).

Re:DRM

[ArsonSmith]

Sure all your friends and family have a built in IT guy, but most of the world does not.

Re:DRM

[Pharmboy]

But of course - the movie industry will be VERY silent about problems caused by DRM.

Don't underestimate them. They will likely find a way to blame pirates. "If the movie hadn't been pirated for months before it was released on DVD, then DRM wouldn't be needed and these problems could be avoided" . This is exactly the type of marketing doublespeak that I would expect, with the hope of deflecting the blame from their own incompetent asses.

Didn't anyone actually try playing the master disks in a couple different players before they stamped a million of them out?

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

My copy of Avatar works fine. I bought it in 2001 when it was called Disney's Pocahontas.

Re:DRM

[v1]

I never went to the theaters, I don't need to be a part of that much of a circus. I had an (impressively good quality) screener a few days after it was out and that sold me on getting the bluray when it came out.

I bought it the day it was released, but found that I was unable to feed it to my playstation because the BD+ DRM was too new for my ripper to support. The solution of course was to find the appropriate torrent and download the unprotected MKV file. Ahh 1080p on the 53" is nice. My laptop doesn't have the muscle to decode and scale down 1080p on the fly at that bitrate (the mkv is 19gb) so I transcoded it down to a more reasonable 720p so I can watch it on my computer when I feel like it.

See what's wrong with all this, all you hollywood people? The only reason I am having anywhere near the experience I want with your product is because the pirates are delivering me a better product than you are. Figure it out. I just happen to be one of the people that supports you despite your insulting business methods. You have very little right to complain about the other % of us that just cut you completely out of the picture.

Interestingly enough, I haven't even bothered to put the bluray in the PS3, so I don't even know if it will play properly. It was only out of its case long enough to rip (43gb?) to hard drive in a vane attempt to transcode. Nice touch including the DVD, and the coupon for a discount on a bluray player, interesting angle to get people to get a bluray player.

Re:DRM

[Machtyn]

To further this point. I've talked to "consumers" till I'm blue in the face, but each time I do, I have to repeat what I mean by DRM and Digital Rights Management. My wife finally understands it and usually gives me that "Oh he's going to rant on again to someone else" look when I start on about it. But the rest of my family and friends hardly care, even when they do get burned by it. Half of them are looking at Apple as a viable alternative to Microsoft! (Oh! what wretched state the industry would be in if Macintosh had one the home and business computer war.)

Re:DRM

[paintballer1087]

This deal's getting worse all the time.

Re:DRM

[jedidiah]

If I could magically cad-cam-3d-print-replicate a car I would without a second thought.

So would every bible-thumping person on the planet.

Re:DRM

[CohibaVancouver]

I bought it in 2001 when it was called Disney's Pocahontas

Hey I bought it in 1991 on VHS when it was called "Dances with Wolves."

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they didn't spend $250M to make it, they spent about $0.05 for the media and the time to copy the film to it. They already made more than the movie production costs from theatres alone or about $3B.

So yeah, I have no sympathy for them at all. They made more than their share of money and now they are attempting to defraud legit customers by making purposely faulty discs so that those people will have to buy new players (from companies which the movie company has vested interests in, no doubt) or so those people will have to buy another version, paying for the movie twice.

Re:DRM

[Duradin]

Is she giving you that look now? Does she have a "Oh now he's going to bash Apple for some unrelated reason" look?

Re:DRM

[Protoslo]

That's really not fair. Were you going to watch it for the plot? All it had to offer was technological innovation in film making, something which it certainly did not steal from earlier movies.

Re:DRM

[The End Of Days]

The problem with calling it "doublespeak" is that it's true. If piracy wasn't so rampant, DRM never would have happened. Napster did this to all of us by demonstrating to the content industries that unprotected media was vulnerable. Bam, the race was on. Acting like piracy has no blame at all is disingenuous at best and is in all reality the example of doublespeak in your post.

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

the avatar producers don't sell the players though... even if it is a giant conspiracy... or one of their parent companies does... caveat emptor... the consumer shouldn't have bought a player for an unstable/changing spec.

Re:DRM

[Pharmboy]

he problem with calling it "doublespeak" is that it's true.

No, it is false. DRM doesn't stop pirating, and they know this. If anything, DRM *causes* more piracy than it prevents.

1. DRM doesn't stop people from making bit for bit copies of the disks and selling them.
2. DRM has never prevented any movie from being released to bittorrent.
3. DRM on movies or games seldom slows down the release of pirated versions by more than one hour, or one day.
4. DRM *does* force legitimate buyers to sometimes seek an unencumbered version, to use it the way they want to use it.
5. DRM is about control, not piracy.
6. Profit! If you live in zone 1, you can't buy and use DVDs in less expensive zones. They use DRM to make more money by controlling when and where you buy the copy.

In this case, the only way the people who bought Avatar on DVD and Bluray can watch it, is to download a copy, effectively making them pirates because the manufacturer sold them a defective copy, since it won't play on all players.

Re:DRM

[Volante3192]

If piracy was as bad as they claim though, every movie, music and software company would've been out of business years ago.

I think your key word "rampant" needs to be quantified...

Re:DRM

[Pharmboy]

Hell, the people who ripped it and uploaded it may already returned it,

That's it! Finally a foolproof way to prevent nasty pirates from copying your disks and putting them on bittorrent! All the movie distributors have to do is sell disks that won't play on any device, so they can't be copied! Brilliant! ;)

Re:DRM

[h4rr4r]

Sure they do, they go ask an IT guy at work. We politely tell them what happened and that they can either spend lots of money to replace their player,rip the disc or find it online in the usual places. What they do is up to them.

Re:DRM

[AmberBlackCat]

With the cost of ink, it would cost less to just buy a car.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

This is becoming such a religious thing. First you Plug-and-Pray, then you Pay-and-Pray. Then comes the unnerving Suggest-and-Pray. After some shopping you Cook-and-Pray. Then you Suit up-and-Pray. After some Watch-and-Pray, if your prays are answered, you can once again Plug-and-Pray.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

How many times is the public willing to let DRM screw them over?

Pirated content just works and DRM content (that you paid for) does not. Thats the problem they need to solve to make DRM work. But the very design of DRM makes it more of a hassle than pirated content.

How can anyone think that selling an unreliable product with limited life span is a good idea when the competition is giving away the same content for free and it just works.

Someone needs to make a good set of consumer protection laws to prevent crap like this. If someone is selling you a Blu-Ray movie, it should play in a Blu-Ray player. Anything less is just a scam.

Re:DRM

[Imrik]

Except that the people who ripped it and uploaded it did so in January.

Re:DRM

[amorsen]

DRM prevents regular people from sharing with their friends. This way pirates are faceless people on the Internet, and surely someone who uploads a movie deserves whatever punishment anyone can dream up.

Back in the day people would share their video and music collections with their friends, and some of that sharing was even legal. It's difficult to imagine today, but it was only 20 years ago.

Re:DRM

[ravenshrike]

Damn, I bought mine a year later when it was called Fern Gully.

Re:DRM

[celery stalk]

Wait, erm, um...

I [snip] found that I was unable to feed it to my playstation because the BD+ DRM was too new for my ripper to support.

What?? Sorry, I started responding before I finished reading your comment...

I haven't even bothered to put the bluray in the PS3, so I don't even know if it will play properly.

You're complaining why?? I don't expect AnyDVD HD, DVDFab, or any other DRM cracking software to support new DRM the day the disk is released. As it turns out, http://www.dvdfab.com/en/news/7 DVDFab does. But the fact that your software didn't work? Sounds like the DRM was working just fine, nothing to complain about there. If it didn't work on your PS3? Well, then get your soapbox out.

Re:DRM

[gblackwo]

You couldn't rip it to play through your ps3 over the network, but you didn't actually try playing it by.. you know.. putting the bluray directly in the ps3, which uhm, is probably the most up to date bluray player on the market? I don't understand.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

They surely have stake in the companies that do, however.

Re:DRM

[h4rr4r]

Bullshit, piracy existed in the VHS days and even before that. Those that pirate will continue to do so and those that buy will buy. DRM changes nothing.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

http://imagechan.com/img/7855/Pocahontas%20vs%20Avatar%20Plot/

Re:DRM

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Except that the people who ripped it and uploaded it did so in January.

No they didn't. That part of the summary is misleading. The stuff available back then was either recorded off the screen with a video camera - some pirates use high-def cameras so those recordings can look pretty good - or it was a rip of a DVD released in region 5 where bootlegging has actually forced the studios to release barebones DVDs early and for relatively cheap (a couple of dollars which is still a lot more than the bootlegs but a lot cheaper than what they used to price at).

Either way blurays were not ripped until roughly a day after public release and it is the blurays with the brand new and buggy DRM scheme that the article is talking about.

Re:DRM

[Joce640k]

Just call it "copy protection" when you talk to average Joes.

Re:DRM

[jmorris42]

> ps3, which uhm, is probably the most up to date bluray player on the market?

Maybe he KNEW it wouldn't play there because he runs Linux on his PS3 and was intentionally avoiding the new firmware?

The DRM problem is way out of hand. DVDs shouldn't even be called that anymore because what is on them bears little resemblence to a DVD. Look at the structure of current one, it is a miracle most hardware players even read them. The cat and mouse game on BD is just kicked up a couple of notches while still being the same problem of trying to make water not wet. If Windows can play it, making a copy is a foregone conclusion regardless how much crypto pixie dust they sprinkle on it.

Re:DRM

[shutdown -p now]

My copy of Avatar works fine. I bought it in 2001 when it was called Disney's Pocahontas.

Ohh, it's got cel shading!!!

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wouldn't steal a car, but I'd download one if I could" - a group on Facebook.

Re:DRM

[jd]

No, pay and pray that they don't burn you at the stake anyway. (See: Sony's virus-containing DRM.)

Re:DRM

[jd]

I'm pretty sure they had 3D and silly glasses in 60s movies.

Re:DRM

[Maxo-Texas]

The irony being that Yahoo reported this today and noted that copyright infringers have had DRM free versions for four months.

So the DRM didn't stop copyright infringement. I just angered a lot of customers.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely not everyone they employ is completely incompetent. How about this for a conspiracy:

They want you to pirate it.

Perhaps by pushing more people to pirate their music and video they are hoping to start hitting the red and receive a nice government bailout. This of course is very destructive to the economy, so bring on the tough legislation with government organizations dedicated to stamping out these pirates.

Perhaps silly, but maybe these companies know something that we are missing...

Re:DRM

[adona1]

This. Most people at my work wouldn't know what DRM is, but mention copy protection....they get that. They want to make a copy of a DVD for their niece or of their CD for the car....and can't because of DRM. Call it copy protection and they instantly get what you mean.

Re:DRM

[yotto]

Then why not make it a one-hour 3D visual orgy of awesome? Why spend 90 additional minutes of boredom justifying the pretty?

I would have happily paid $10 to watch a 30-minute proof of concept of the new 3D tech. No way I'd pay the same (or even half) for this piece of shit.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

"1. DRM doesn't stop people from making bit for bit copies of the disks and selling them."

Obviously you've never encountered a Super Audio CD...

Re:DRM

[Zemran]

DRM is the best advert that P2P ever had. I would not want the agravation of this even though I never trust the quality on P2P, I would be likely to think twice.

Re:DRM

[Zemran]

till I'm blue in the face

Did you audition for Avatar?

Re:DRM

[Pharmboy]

This is the next best thing.

Re:DRM

[Chabil Ha']

Which is why I did not invest in the technology until it could be ripped. I was able to rip my Avatar BluRay disc the day it came out. Too bad those who don't resort to breaking the law are the ones left out in the cold. You'd think the jailer would get a clue.

Re:DRM

[Zemran]

Piracy has existed since Elizabethan days and now the Indian Ocean is full of pirates. There are still a lot around Malaysia and Indonesia as well but I do not know what all this has to do with Avatar.

Re:DRM

[The Grim Reefer2]

With the cost of ink, it would cost less to just buy a car.

Depends on the car. I'm guessing a 1931 Bugatti Royale would be cheaper to 3D print since there are only three on the planet. The last time one was sold was in 1987 for $8.7 million.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

VHS wasn't digital, but there was still copy protection. For all the stress and problems I've been caused over the years in perfectly legal setups, I've always held that if I meet someone who works for Macrovision, they're getting a screaming tirade at the very least. %#@^$#$^ Macrovision.

Re:DRM

[Toonol]

So somehow, paradoxically, Avatar turns out to be an exact copy of at least three different movies?

Re:DRM

[metaforest]

War is hell.

People get hurt... and when they get hurt enough they take up torches and pitchforks. It is now just a matter of time.

Re:DRM

[metaforest]

Hmmm...

$CAR --> MRI(ish) --> STL --> metal-colloidal-3d-printing -> ??? ---> PROFIT!

Re:DRM

[ImYourVirus]

Obligatory.

Re:DRM

[slapout]

replicate != steal

Re:DRM

[dougisfunny]

Well, at $3000 per gallon, and 5lbs per gallon, 7000lbs per car, it would be 4.2million per car. Ink varies wildly, between 2.5k to 8k per gallon, so probably between 4 and 11million to print.

Re:DRM

[mallydobb]

I live internationally and I can walk to the local DVD shop and get a copy of almost any recent, as well as a diverse selection of older releases and TV shows, for .66 cents US. Occasionally you'll see people set up a tripod and camera in a theater and record a movie, but there isn't much of a crackdown on movie copying as it does add to the local economy and there are tons of expats...while they can afford a legit copy of a film they want to be able to play their discs on a dvd player, regardless of region coding. All of the bootlegged discs I've encountered are region free, though they are PAL formatted. I've never once had to change the region code on my laptop.

Re:DRM

[wagnerrp]

Napster did this to all of us by demonstrating to the content industries that unprotected media was vulnerable.

Funny that... The DVD spec, complete with DRM in the form of CSS, was finalized in 1995. Napster wasn't released until 1999.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

My copy of Avatar works fine. I bought it in 2001 when it was called Disney's Pocahontas.

Tee hee giggle snort, that's funny. Remember thirty or so years ago when we ripped apart another very popular movie for plagarism?

Re:DRM

[drsmithy]

not too many independents putting up $250M to make one piece of content though...

How much of that $250M is individuals being paid multi-millions, though ?

Re:DRM

[Merls the Sneaky]

The spec is blu-ray. Joe six pack put the blu-ray disc in the blu-ray player and it doesn't work. Joe sixpack doesn't give a fuck about codecs or DRM he just wanted to watch a blu-ray movie on a blu-ray player.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

At least hollywood offers you SOME kind of legitimate way to purchase your movie. Meanwhile, outside DVD Region 1, they think it's funny to make us wait and grovel. Occasionally, the movie is JUST hitting the cinemas here when you've already got DVDs with rich gooey special features bursting from the seams. And when the DVD is officially released here? It's missing at least half or more of the features of the Region 1 disc.

But even though hollywood seems to think of Region 3 as the bastard ginger unworthy stepchild who doesn't deserve to see movies and buy DVDs along with our Region 1 brethren; we're wired to hell and back and have bandwidth to spare ("Up to" 100MB up and down in my flat, and I usually see about 90 of those.).

And they still wonder why "piracy" is so prevalent. Feh... dumb sods. They don't know what piracy is. Over in the Malacca Strait we still occasionally get the real thing.

Re:DRM

[rdnetto]

Yeah, but I'm sure you'd be violating the DMCA in the process. I have a strong suspicion that when such devices are finally economically feasible they will be illegal for civilians to own.

Re:DRM

[Pharmboy]

DRM prevents regular people from sharing with their friends.

This is becoming less and less true today, however, as more people start using bittorrent. It prevents the "Hey, I just bought $x, lemme make you a copy" situation, but now it is becoming "Hey I just downloaded $x, lemme burn you a copy". If they weren't so hard for the average person to copy, perhaps they might originate a few more sales, from people who want "clean" copies.

Re:DRM

[amorsen]

To a lot of people these two situations aren't morally equivalent even if they're about equally difficult:

1) Buying a disc and burning a copy for a friend

2) Downloading a movie and burning a copy for a friend

DRM aims to prevent 1) and the MPAA/RIAA/etc. are hoping that most people will find their witch hunts on people who do 2) necessary and morally right.

Re:DRM

[emanem]

The only way to buy once play forever is to have the un-DRMed version...
Why is the industry run by such morons? Don't they know that the free for all copies are available no matter the DRM?

Cheers,

Re:DRM

[saxoholic]

I guess you beat me. I bought it in 1992 and it was called "Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest"

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

that's what i'm saying though... "blu-ray" as it is today isn't the "blu-ray" that was implemented by the player's manufacturer.

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

why does that matter? the consumer wanted the content... that is what it cost to create.

some individuals are more talented than others.

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

welcome to capitalism.

if i have a sloppy joe stand, and don't provide napkins, i have created a market for napkins. if someone else starts up a napkin stand next to me, i might be compelled to buy them out to have full control over the leveraging.

the only recourse a consumer has is not to make a purchase, or to make a purchase from someone else.

Re:DRM

[pnewhook]

If I could magically cad-cam-3d-print-replicate a car I would without a second thought. So would every bible-thumping person on the planet.

So what you are saying is because software is so easy to copy duplicate and distribute, no one values their work so it's not really worth anything..

Re:DRM

[pnewhook]

And right now, the word is... fail.

Right now the word is ... worst summary ever.

The title is about Bluray but the article keeps referring to problems with the DVD version. Then states these problems are happening even on players that have been updated.

In contrast, the linked article states that this is only problematic for people who have never upgraded their Bluray player, and for all others its fine. It further states that there is no problem with the DRM on the bluray at all. It also never even mentions the DVD version.

DRM doesn't affect me but I haven't really decided whether it is good or bad overall. However when I see incoherent arguments, with half of the 'facts' made up just to support the authors blind hatred of DRM, it really makes you question whether the opposition is valid, or just from a bunch of kiddie criminals upset thye can no longer get free movies or make a few bucks selling pirated versions.

Re:DRM

[toddestan]

Depends on the car. I'm guessing a 1931 Bugatti Royale would be cheaper to 3D print since there are only three on the planet. The last time one was sold was in 1987 for $8.7 million.

Yeah, but once your 3D car printing technology becomes mainstream, how long do you think before there are well more than 3 examples of the 1931 Bugatti Royale?

Re:DRM

[Pharmboy]

DRM aims to prevent 1) and the MPAA/RIAA/etc. are hoping that most people will find their witch hunts on people who do 2) necessary and morally right.

I agree, but it's a stupid method as they end up doing more damage than good. They have contributed toward many more people learning how to use bittorrent than would have otherwise, for instance. And like in this instance, the only people prevented from watching the movie are legitimate customers. As someone said above, in the end, the pirates are offering a better product (no drm, no forced FBI warnings, plays on any computer). Even if the price was the same, the pirated versions are BETTER than the commercial versions. Again, DRM is about control, not piracy.

Re:DRM

[drsmithy]

why does that matter?

Because it's potentially an area of significant savings.

the consumer wanted the content... that is what it cost to create.

That doesn't mean it couldn't have been created for a lot less.

some individuals are more talented than others.

Payscales don't reflect talent, they reflect popularity.

Re:DRM

[DinDaddy]

Indeed. I have filed suit against my son, because his body is currently busy fabricating copies of fully half the characteristics encoded in MY genome, which I am sure all slashdotters would agree, belongs to ME. I have compiled extensive photographic evidence that he looks like me as a child, and won't even get into how he is infringing on my few areas of talent by displaying equal or even more aptitude in them.

My wife is also named in the suit for using her wiles to obtain this genetic information for him, by tricking me into allowing her to download it.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to litigation. If you lie and say you are selling one thing (ie. Blu-Ray) and sell something else, that is bait and switch and I'll happily sue your ass for it.

Clearly they are trying to pawn off Avatar as being on Blu-Ray when it isn't. It's just like when those music companies tried to put "Compact Disc" logos on their non redbook spec audio discs. They got sued, had to remove the logo and forced to place a disclaimer about the incompatibility problems on each disc case until their schemes died out entirely. This is merely history repeating itself because these greedy corporations never learn.

Re:DRM

[jesset77]

So what you are saying is because software is so easy to copy duplicate and distribute, no one values their work so it's not really worth anything..

I don't know if he is saying that or not. But nobody is paying you to read your post. I didn't even have to pay to replicate the entirety of your post by quoting it in this post.

So which is it, is your argument flawed, or "not really worth anything"? I vote C) All of the above. :3

Re:DRM

[Mista2]

BD include coupon for a player?? Umm, wont you have one already if you've bought the disk? Umm, oh well, I suppose the same people thought tyring to DRM cripple the media would reduce the illigitimate copies.

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

and popularity reflects what people want....

how are you not getting this?! if you want a movie that was produced for less money, go buy the smurfs. you don't think the avatar producers tried their best to create the content for as little as possible already?

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

in this case you'll be suing the manufacturer of your PLAYER, not the MEDIA. the media works perfectly as can be seen by putting it in a different player.

consumers learn far less than greedy corporations.

the CD spec never included DRM... the current Blu-Ray spec does.

Re:DRM

[v1]

BD include coupon for a player?? Umm, wont you have one already if you've bought the disk?

I don't recall seeing just a plain DVD available for purchase. I think if you wanted Avatar, you had to buy the box that had the BluRay and the DVD in it. So there probably are quite a few people buying it for the DVD, and once they see the movie, considering how much better it may look on bluray.

I'd call it really smart marketing. Although, the player they were pushing didn't look very special, and most of us by now have been burned at least once by the mail-in-rebate game so hard to tell how many takers they've got. IMHO anyone that buys an actual dedicated bluray player instead of a PS3 isn't thinking things through very well. Not only are you buying from the company that made the standard and is almost guaranteed to be at the top of the curve well into the future, but it's a game station and media server as well, for another $100. I don't even own a PS3 game and I'm quite happy with mine. Wouldn't surprise me if the player they were pushing didn't even have network connectivity. (making the required continuous firmware updates a pain)

Re:DRM

[Michael Kristopeit]

and just to further support that the player's manufacturers are ultimately responsible, from a recent story:

"Samsung has apparently fixed the issues with Avatar playing on their players with a new firmware, users seem to be able to play the movie correctly on the players that ran into problems after the new firmware release."

the problem is with blu-ray profile 2.0 features... if your player does not support "blu-ray profile 2.0", then you can't play media that requires it.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only because they have YOU around to explain it to them. Outside of "geek circles" like Slashdot, the average person does not even recognize the acronym "DRM" nor do they even know what "Digital Rights Management" means. So the OP to your post is right.

Troubles with the plot

[happy_place]

One could argue that DRM actually fixed this movie. :)

Re:Troubles with the plot

[qortra]

It's a shame one can only achieve a maximum score of 5 for a post. That one deserves at least 10. You have made my day.

Re:Troubles with the plot

[impaledsunset]

Like the plot was only thing in a moving picture.

Not to mention that it wasn't the plot that sucked, but the cheesy lines full of clichés, the weak portrayal of groups of characters, and Sam Worthnothington.

When you troll an otherwise good film, at least do it right.

Re:Troubles with the plot

[Anonymous Coward]

One could argue that DRM actually fixed this movie. :)

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

--H.L Mencken

Re:Troubles with the plot

[Chris Mattern]

Whatever can you mean? How could you not love "Dances with Smurfs"?

Re:Troubles with the plot

[Scrameustache]

Whatever can you mean? How could you not love "Dances with Smurfs"?

Stop trash talking Ferngully In Space. Sure, it was Pocahontas with Mechas, but hey! Everyone loves the last alien Samurai.

Re:Troubles with the plot

[Immortal Poet]

One could argue that DRM actually fixed this movie. :)

I would have to agree. The best way to watch this movie is to not watch it at all.

Re:Troubles with the plot

[ravenshrike]

An otherwise good film? The technical aspects of the CGI and Colonel FuckYeah! were the only "good" parts of this film. Eating a shit sandwich on a Krispy Kreme doughnut does not make it any less of a shit sandwich.

Re:Troubles with the plot

[MaskedSlacker]

Eating a shit sandwich on a Krispy Kreme doughnut does not make it any less of a shit sandwich.

No, but it does make it delicious.

Re:Troubles with the plot

[Thing 1]

I'm sorry, Colonel "FuckYeah!" (with his coffee mug on a heli-platform that goes 30 degrees when making a turn, yeah right) was such a caricature it took me out of my suspension of disbelief. Sure, I enjoyed the movie, especially the abrupt ending, but saying that the eye candy and caricatures were the best parts of the movie must be some sort of sarcasm. I really liked that the movie could have ended 1.5 hours in, but had another 1.1 hours to make things right (well, right in some senses; I may be alone in thinking that he (and Grace! -- her memories are now part of Eywa, as his will be when he dies) are traitors to our race).

Don't buy blu-ray.

[FlyingBishop]

It isn't worth the price premium when you can't backup and it won't play without more tools to prevent you from backing up or even watching it.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[Schnoogs]

Price premium = $2 more at Target.

LOL!!!

Nice try though!!! Keep playing!!!

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[tagno25]

Price premium = $2 less at Walmart.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[SanityInAnarchy]

That and the player itself. Not insignificant.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[jonbryce]

Actually the ripping tools work fine on it, and it the only way I could watch my legal shop-bought copy of Avatar was to rip it to disk and watch it from there, so they've failed completely.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[b0bby]

My player was $99 (the same as my first DVD player) and it also does Netflix streaming. Maybe not insignificant, but pretty reasonable. I've found that I use the streaming way more than actual discs. I have had one disc (Ponyo) give me trouble due to firmware issues, which I ended up downloading & watching in Japanese with subtitles instead - good for the kids' reading!

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[cgenman]

This is the thing we need to get through to the content producers.

Once the movie or game has been ripped and put on a torrent site, the ONLY people who encounter DRM are your customers. It's vaguely like having a security checkpoint at a concert with no fences. All of the people who are legitimately standing in line for hours and giving money will be inconvenienced, and all of the people you're trying to keep out will just walk right in. By definition, you're only stopping legitimate customers to verify that they're legitimate customers. Or, in this case, absolutely everyone the DRM is catching and rejecting is by definition a legitimate customer. Otherwise, they wouldn't encounter the DRM, and they wouldn't be rejected.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[impaledsunset]

But backup is not officially supported, and it is in fact officially restricted. Which means that they are pointing the finger at anyone who wants to do so. I wouldn't my money to someone who has done that regardless of whether I can actually rip it or not.

Sadly, the only decent way to acquire HD movies is the illegal one. I can't play a Bluray on Linux, partly because of the draconian DRM, I'm officially restricted from using the tools that allow me to play them, back up them, and my whole experience is crippled in all ways. The illegal sources? I get a single file that plays everywhere, can be backed up to a normal dual-layer DVD, can be transcoded as I wish whenever I wish, can be sampled for parodies or citation, etc. The only thing that's missing are the extras, which I usually don't care about, and which I couldn't play anyway if they were there. Guess who wins?

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Actually, you can get them from cable and satellite off the premium channels. I have literally hundreds of uncut/unedited movies from HBO, SHO, HDNet, etc. in 1080i that I recorded with my Tivo going back long before the titles were available in HD from any other source. And I've been able to siphon most of them off the Tivo without the slightest bit of hacking because Cox wasn't very good about setting the protection flag. Even if I couldn't pull them off for archiving, I'd still have nearly 2tb of space that I could use to hold an HD library.

And Dish's HD DVR lets you use as many USB drives as you want for external storage. You have to copy them back to the DVR for playback and they're tainted with DRM but it's still a way to create your own personal library of HD content without paying $20/title.

Of course, those methods are both limited to your personal use and only the Tivo method would let you play back the content on a PC. And that content would require minor "grooming" if you want to play it back without installing Tivo's software and your access key.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[darkwing_bmf]

All of the people who are legitimately standing in line for hours and giving money will be inconvenienced, and all of the people you're trying to keep out will just walk right in.

Replace hours with years and you've just described our immigration system.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[allaunjsilverfox2]

You could always buy a HDFury device. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDfury

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[Anonymous Coward]

Avatar is an exception, and there seems to be a DVD version included in the price. The BL prices have been often 1.5 to 3 times the DVD version.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be much off-topic. But I'd be darned if you didn't 100% accurately describe U.S. customs and immigration policy as it is currently implemented in your DRM analogy.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[Anonymous Coward]

MakeMKV lets you play *with* extras, without transcoding, without copying to hard disk, in Win/Mac/Linux, from both DVD and Blu-Ray. You can argue about whether or not it's legal given the license you were granted with the disk, but it's certainly *possible*.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[wagnerrp]

This is the thing we need to get through to people like you who think DRM has anything to do with preventing internet downloading.

DRM is not intended to do anything about commercial pirates, the ones who sell copies for profit. They will spend the money to get an unencumbered copy of the movie, one way or another. Law enforcement services are for that. DRM is not to prevent release groups from distributing movies online. Again, someone from the community will get a copy somewhere, somehow, and release it to the internet. Lobbyists who push through legislation giving them control over ISPs are for that. DRM exists only to limit the rights of customers who have lawfully purchased the content. It's all about control, and nothing more. They want you to consume the content only in the manner they approve, and make it difficult for the average consumer (95% of their base) to do otherwise.

Re:Don't buy blu-ray.

[Kalriath]

If you're paying 1.5 to 3x more you're just a sucker.

Or you're in New Zealand. $50 per Blu Ray. And free DVD in the box? Fuck no! That's a DISNEY feature!

That's not a bug, that's a feature

[vm146j2]

Because when only criminals can watch movies, then ... er ... all the children will have guns. Or something.

Re:That's not a bug, that's a feature

[Jeng]

When only criminals can watch movies then everyone will know how to hack their way into watching a movie they bought with their hard earned money.

If DRM needs to be bypassed it will be bypassed.

Re:That's not a bug, that's a feature

[impaledsunset]

DRM will always need to be bypassed as long as it exist.

The people responsible for the DRM are hoping that this need won't apply to the average consumer, who doesn't want to make backups, to utilize their fair use rights on the movie, or to play it on Linux. And while I feel bad for everyone that got fucked up by the DRM now, I'm happy that they failed to make it seemingly unobtrusive. If DRM issues were more widespread, the DRM would slowly die and stop breaking it for us, the minority who are crazy enough to do things that are outside of what the movie makers intended to be done with their work.

Re:That's not a bug, that's a feature

[Barrinmw]

What's crazy is, if the DRM is preventing you from watching a movie on your Blu-Ray player, if you find a way to bypass the DRM to watch the movie you bought...you just broke the law. Therefore, people who want to watch what they pay for are dirty rotten criminals who should be thrown in jail.

Re:That's not a bug, that's a feature

[jd]

When only criminals can watch movies and everyone else has returned theirs, Hollywood need only point to the number of people watching movies as "proof" that as piracy has gone up, sales have gone down.

Fighting the free market.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what happens when you try and fight the free market using technology.

Already cracked.

[brunascle]

The stable release of AnyDVD HD (6.6.3.4) doesnt support Avatar, but the beta version does ( http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=40115 ). It took me longer to update the firmware on my bluray player than it took me to update AnyDVD HD. Though the actual ripping still takes about 4 hours...

Re:Already cracked.

[brunascle]

s/ripping/transcoding/

Re:Already cracked.

[Anachragnome]

According to a post on TPB (The highest seeded version of a Blu-Ray rip), it runs BEST on VLC.

Re:Already cracked.

[Scrameustache]

I wonder if the latest vlc can play it?

I doubt it, VLC can't handle Disney DRM, not since Wall-E (Pixar is the only Disney content I encounter on DVD). I have to load up a different player when I want to watch Up. Annoying.

So this insaner DRM probably hits the same wall.

Re:Already cracked.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Though the actual ripping still takes about 4 hours...

Oh, forget it then. I probably would have bought a copy, but if it's going to be a pain in the ass to rip to my DVR, then forget it. Spinning plastic discs are for shipping and archiving.

Digital Restrictions Management

[Anonymous Coward]

the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM (digital rights management).

What's ironic about that? If you had expanded the acronym correctly, you would probably understand that it's just consequential.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[ShadyG]

Ironic, you know, like rain on your wedding day.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Tetsujin]

Ironic, you know, like rain on your wedding day.

I'm glad we can all keep on making fun of that song, even 16 years later...

It's a little too ironic...

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Tubal-Cain]

And what's ironic about rain on your wedding day?

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Barrinmw]

I have a feeling this one was like 3 when that song came out...

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Scrameustache]

And what's ironic about rain on your wedding day?

It's like a thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[yabba-dabba-do]

I've been asking people that for years. It is ironic if you are a weather forcaster. Otherwise it is just tragic.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And what's ironic about rain on your wedding day?

Its totally ironic if your parents arranged the marriage with a neighboring family in order to get access to their water rights in a drought-stricken land.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[biryokumaru]

Still not ironic.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[WeatherGod]

I've been asking people that for years. It is ironic if you are a weather forcaster.

No, believe me... it wasn't ironic... it was funny as hell!

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[geminidomino]

Well, it would be ironic if you were a weather forecaster and you moved your wedding date because it was supposed to rain on the original day and be bright and sunny on the new day.

Re:Digital Restrictions Management

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the irony comes two sentences later, where it's noted that it's widely available online for bootleggers but people who bought a legit copy can't play it.

No matter

[Pojut]

This was a bare-bones release anyway. I'm waiting for the double-dip release which will inevitably contain a metric assload of extras. I have no desire to watch the movie again (although I did enjoy it strictly from an entertainment point of view)...I do, however, have great interest in watching any making-of featurettes that may be included.

DRM issues or no, I'm steering clear of this release.

Re:No matter

[tlhIngan]

This was a bare-bones release anyway. I'm waiting for the double-dip release which will inevitably contain a metric assload of extras. I have no desire to watch the movie again (although I did enjoy it strictly from an entertainment point of view)...I do, however, have great interest in watching any making-of featurettes that may be included.

Yeah, I got the release and I'll probably buy the double/triple dip version when it comes out. I will admit though, that the mastering is quite good and the bitrate is high (the movie's 46GB). Perhaps my one and only complaint would be the lack of high-bitrate audio (it's just 48kHz/24bit - not 96/192. And no, the reason for the high bitrate is not because you can hear those high frequencies, it's the aliasing - a brick-wall 20kHz filter causes tons of distortion. But let the filter work from 20-odd to 48/96kHz, and it can be really linear).

It is one blu-ray to use to show off your home theatre setup, though. Also, there's less dynamic range compression, so you'll have to crank it up, literally.

Re:No matter

[Blakey Rat]

I do, however, have great interest in watching any making-of featurettes that may be included.

They did it on a computer.

Re:No matter

[Pojut]

LOL, that's pretty much what my fiancee said :-)

"Why would I want to sit there for six hours watching overweight bearded guys talk about where on the screen they clicked with a mouse?"

Re:No matter

[__aasqbs9791]

Did they patent it yet then?

Re:No matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not from the master. This is from an analogue print

WTF?

I watched the movie in 3D at a Digital Imax theatre. Clearly there exists a really beautiful digital copy they could have downsampled. They instead did a transfer from film? Why oh why would they do that?

Are you sure of this? Do you have a reference?

Re:No matter

[vivek7006]

"This is not from the master. This is from an analogue print"

Mods, the parent is bull-shitting. I own an Avatar blu-ray and the audio and video quality is outstanding. In the latimes interview, James Cameron even stated that he wanted to use all the available space in the disk just for the movie to ensure highest possible bit-rate

Re:No matter

[Jerf]

Seriously, though, modern "Making Ofs" are all the same.

Whereas the late 70s and 80s are actually interesting, because they had to do things. The "Making Ofs" for Tron and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, regardless of your opinions on the movies themselves, are actually interesting because they faced challenges that normal people could understand and met them with answers normal people can understand.

In fact, a really technical "making of" of Avatar might be really interesting to us, but because the "making of" will be targeted at people in general, it is unlikely to have more than a few seconds of really interesting technical content, because people in general do not understanding complex computer graphics issues. (Nor should they have to.) All they can say is "They made it with computers. Here, here's some shots of rotating computer models."

Tron 2 and the latest Star Trek movie are, of course, "They made it on a computer."

Re:No matter

[Anonymous Coward]

she's a keeper

Re:No matter

[drinkypoo]

Mods, the parent is bull-shitting. I own an Avatar blu-ray and the audio and video quality is outstanding. In the latimes interview, James Cameron even stated that he wanted to use all the available space in the disk just for the movie to ensure highest possible bit-rate

The reviews agree. Most people seem to think that seeing it in 2D is lame though.

Re:No matter

[Neon Spiral Injector]

He's a troll. People are comparing this Avatar BD to Sony's "Superbit" DVDs. It has no extras, and yet has one of the highest mux-rates of any disc released to date. It's reference material.

Re:No matter

[impaledsunset]

I do, however, have great interest in watching any making-of featurettes that may be included.

You can watch the interesting stuff about the making at many places online already, including official ones. The poster that said that they did it on a computer summarized it pretty well. It was just an animated movie with a human here and there. The technique for facial motion capture is interesting, but it is not new entirely, although I have to say the result from it was stunning. A two-minute video is enough to understand how it was done.

If you want to watch a good making-of, see the one for District 9, it was done under budget constraints, and the director insisted on doing a lot of things "the hard way", so it is much more interesting watch than the making of Avatar, which is a bunch of animators sitting behind a computer.

Re:No matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not from the master. This is from an analogue print

lol yeah, because if there's anything I'd do when preparing my bluray master, is scan a print of the movie and ignore the digital master it came from.

Re:No matter

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not from the master. This is from an analogue print...

I worked on the movie. Parent post is utter bullshit.

Re:No matter

[skine]

There are even "Making Ofs" that are interesting that consist only of "they made it on a computer."

Honestly, the special features on the Pixar Shorts DVD is amazing. It starts with the issue: How, in an animation using only boxes, spheres, cylinders and cones, does one create realistic characters?

Re:No matter

[Jerf]

Sounds like they shot above what a normal person could understand. A good choice on that DVD, you probably own it only if you're a bit of an enthusiast, and if you're watching the special features on this already-special DVD you must really be interested.

Avatar's much more mass market, for better or for worse, and the special features are largely an excuse to see more footage of celebrities. Alas. (Perhaps Avatar specifically has good ones, I don't know, because I'm just speaking in general, where I think I've seen enough "making ofs" to have a relatively firm opinon.)

Re:No matter

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, I got the release and I'll probably buy the double/triple dip version when it comes out.

This is why media companies pull this crap on us and expect us to bend over and take it.

Thanks.

Re:No matter

[Scrameustache]

In the latimes interview, James Cameron even stated that

I'm not arguing the factual merits of your claims, but I'd like to remind you that what showbiz people say in interviews can be pure utter bullshit designed to enhance shareholder value. They'll tell you they're very faithful to the source material, they'll tell you their tech is revolutionary, they'll say ANYTHING to get you to fork over some money. Anything. Grains of salt are mandatory.

Re:No matter

[Scrameustache]

here's some shots of rotating computer models."

I wanna see that mesh! And those texture files. Did they use displacement of normal maps? Both depending on distance from camera? I wanna know!

Re:No matter

[dangitman]

which will inevitably contain a metric assload of extras.

But what if my ass isn't metric?

Re:No matter

[zoney_ie]

Except LOTR making of, where you get to see the crazy amount of work just to make all the ring mail for the Orc extras and see them create a mock Hobbiton. There's also bucketloads of real genuine artwork to go through before one even considers the sets, some of which recreated artistic scenes very convincingly. The parts of the making of regarding computers are rather supplementary to the awesomeness of all the physical work that went on (it's kind of like, "and here's how we polished it off to look almost real").

Mind you, I suppose early 2000s is a while back now.

Re:No matter

[skine]

Yes, I will admit I'm a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to animation, but it's definitely not beyond most people's grasp. They don't really go into the technicals, but instead provide a narrative from them being essentially the marketing department for a hardware company to working with Disney.

Re:No matter

[am 2k]

That reminds me of the Making Of Resident Evil 5. It's a huge AAA console game, and on that video (which came with the special edition of the game) they spend half an hour talking about the cut scenes exclusively. Just from that video, I wouldn't have know that it's a game.

Re:No matter

[Schnapple]

In the latimes interview, James Cameron even stated that

I'm not arguing the factual merits of your claims, but I'd like to remind you that what showbiz people say in interviews can be pure utter bullshit designed to enhance shareholder value. They'll tell you they're very faithful to the source material, they'll tell you their tech is revolutionary, they'll say ANYTHING to get you to fork over some money. Anything. Grains of salt are mandatory.

You're right to be skeptical but apparently the transfer takes up over 46GB of the 47GB of usable space on the dual-layer BR disc. They really did use the entire disc. They even cut out all non-English audio tracks and any trailers (the DVD has some alternate language tracks and one trailer for something).

Which makes me wonder - are they going to put audio commentary on the November release? If so, are they going to split the movie across two discs? Or lower the bit budget? If it's the latter, could this release have better video quality than the one in November?

Re:No matter

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

(although I did enjoy it strictly from an entertainment point of view)

.... okay, I'm a bit lost here. Isn't "for entertainment" the primary reason to watch a movie?

Re:No matter

[Joce640k]

...either that or to ensure the longest download times.

Re:No matter

[dissy]

The "Making Ofs" for Tron and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, regardless of your opinions on the movies themselves, are actually interesting because they faced challenges that normal people could understand and met them with answers normal people can understand.

Ok, as an avid trek fan, and a person whos first dual monitor wallpaper was trons bit in both yes (left) and no (right) forms, I felt ashamed at not knowing such making of videos existed.

This prompted me to find these, and I wanted to share with the others

http://videosift.com/video/1982-Behind-the-Scenes-in-the-making-of-TRON

and

Star Trek the Motion Picture - Vintage Featurette Reel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYPvH6LW_uY

The predictions of CGI in movies of the future towards the end of the tron video are so accurate its almost funny

Thank you good sir!

Re:No matter

[Trogre]

Tron 2 and the latest Star Trek movie are, of course, "They made it on a computer." ... and shone flashlights from off-camera into the dirty lens.

Re:No matter

[Harik]

I'm more interested in the soundstage with the wire-fu of people with circles painted on them dancing around. That looked like an interesting way to do a movie.

Re:No matter

[RichM]

It actually is fairly interesting.
Avatar was made on a huge server farm running Ubuntu.

Re:No matter

[Alsee]

"Why would I want to sit there for six hours watching overweight bearded guys talk about where on the screen they clicked with a mouse?"

I'm going to have to revoke your brainiac geek club card if you didn't have some immediate suitable comeback on that one :) I don't know what your fiancee watches but had to something that was easy pickins. Something such as:

Why would anyone want to sit there watching fat people diet?
Or maybe America's Next Top Anorexic Crackwhore?

-

Download the crack.

[BeansBaxter]

I bought the combo bluray with dvd disk. Which was fine but I don't have a bluray player so a quick google search there is the torrent of the bluray dump available day of release. Stupid. So I downloaded the disk I bought over the next 3 days. I guess I broke the law but the drm was nicely removed. Now if only computers could playback 1080P without choking on their own spit.

Re:Download the crack.

[tagno25]

My Inspiron 1501 running Linux can play 1080P just fine. The HDD and GPU is what caused it to lag for me. I just put the files in a RAM disk and have the CPU process the video and it plays smoothly.

Re:Download the crack.

[Jeng]

Are you joking? Computers have no problem playing back video at far higher resolutions than merely 1080P.

Sounds like a problem on your end, not computers in general.

Since I needed time between my postings here is a relevant xkcd comic. http://xkcd.com/732/

Re:Download the crack.

[marcansoft]

Actually, mediocre decoders (ffmpeg) on mediocre hardware (some Core 2 Duo laptop, for example) will not play high-bitrate/high-complexity scenes properly at all. 1080p H.264 does push today's CPUs quite a bit. This is why you want GPU acceleration. My one-year-old desktop replacement laptop lags through some 1080p streams using just the CPU, but let the GPU do the work through VDPAU and it just breezes through everything. Heck, I have an underpowered HTPC that can play everything without a hitch using one of Nvidia's cheapest cards (a 8400GS).

Re:Download the crack.

[Fallen Kell]

I guess I broke the law but the drm was nicely removed. Now if only computers could playback 1080P without choking on their own spit.

They can, you just need software/hardware which works properly (i.e. x.264 GPU offload engine).

Re:Download the crack.

[BeansBaxter]

This is good to know. I got MPC to attempt to get more GPU usage ( 4850 crossfirex ) and was able to get something watch-able but MPC has a problem keeping the audio in sync. VLC keeps the audio in sync but it drops frames like crazy. Some lags are in the seconds. I only have quad AMD running at 2.8Ghz. Just can't find the perfect combo of software / hardware to get that perfect smooth playback. Maybe I should buy a software player. Any suggestions? I have my cards configured in crossfire and turned on theater mode I don't know if that is causing me any issues. I don't think so because MPC can do smooth video. 30G over 2h 40M is a decent amount of data. The sound doesn't typically freak though so I don't know if HD speed is a problem or not.

Re:Download the crack.

[BeansBaxter]

I have 4850 crossfire and phenom I quad 2.8. The CPU with one thread can't keep up. It isn't the frame size but the h.264 codec.

Re:Download the crack.

[BeansBaxter]

What software do you recomend? I have the hardware ( ati 4850 )

Re:Download the crack.

[Hamsterdan]

On Windows, Media Player Home Cinema supports DXVA. I have no problems decoding HD using an old Athlon X2 (2.2Ghz) with a 3850HD.

For Linux, VPAU seems to get the job dome

Re:Download the crack.

[wagnerrp]

They can, you just need software/hardware which works properly (i.e. x.264 GPU offload engine).

Since when did x264 get GPGPU and decoding capability.

The DVD I bought

[netsavior]

has verbiage on the back that says "This disc is copy protected" Didn't stop a direct show based solution from ripping it (never does), It played fine on the portable DVD player, played fine on the $20 dvd player on the kid's TV, played fine on the computer.

I still haven't bought in to blu-ray though so I can't speak to that.

Also from the op... 12 inch screen... a 23 inch 1080p monitor is like 150 bucks, come on.

Re:The DVD I bought

[rxan]

Yeah, 12 inch screen? Lame.

Re:The DVD I bought

[PitneFor]

WTF LOL 12 INCHES. Hell the 24' monitors have a higher resolution than any hd tv

Re:The DVD I bought

[mrbene]

Yeah, 12 inch screen? Lame.

Definitely lame. Don't you know that 9.7 inches is the size of the week?

Re:The DVD I bought

[godrik]

Yeah, 12 inch screen? Lame.

Mine is larger. Otherwise, blue pill helps.

Re:The DVD I bought

[jeffmeden]

WTF LOL 12 INCHES. Hell the 24' monitors have a higher resolution than any hd tv

I imagine that when the screen size breaches twenty feet you need a lot more resolution to keep the pixel size down.

Re:The DVD I bought

[Jaysyn]

I'd love to be able to afford 24 ft. wide monitor.

Re:The DVD I bought

[Archangel Michael]

Blue Pill? I was only offered the red or green one. Dang, I got ripped off.

Re:The DVD I bought

[Anonymous Coward]

The usual resolution for 24" LCDs is 1920x1200, which (for watching movies) is exactly the same as 1920x1080 in practice, unless you use subtitles (which can go in the resulting black band).

And many 24" LCDs are now 1920x1080, exactly the same as, e.g., my 22" 1080p Vizio -- whose principle purpose is as a TV monitor, since it was the first screen I found less than 23 inches with 1920x1080 or better. These days, if you look for decent ones, 22 to 24 inch LCDs, whether TVs (with VGA input!) or monitors (with HDMI input!) are pretty much the same.

Unless, of course, you meant a 24" CRT, which might be 2048x1536 or so -- my best CRT is 21", 1920x1440

Re:The DVD I bought

[Tetsujin]

Also from the op... 12 inch screen... a 23 inch 1080p monitor is like 150 bucks, come on.

That seemed odd to me, too. I'm guessing it's a laptop.

Re:The DVD I bought

[dnahelicase]

Also from the op... 12 inch screen... a 23 inch 1080p monitor is like 150 bucks, come on.

yeah, but it sucks to have that extension cord stung along just to watch a movie on a larger screen than a laptop normally has. I mean, he could buy a 23 inch laptop, but that wouldn't fit in a backpack like a 12 inch would.

Does anyone have a 12 inch screen on a desktop? Can you buy that?

Re:The DVD I bought

[biryokumaru]

I had an old QXGA (2048×1536) CRT that was 20", got it for about $150-200. It had VGA and a component BNC input, I think it was for medical use.

pirates provide better product

[Dan667]

Too bad you don't have a choice to buy it. The movie company is treating you like a Criminal, making you sit through FBI warnings, and is providing a product that may or may not work compared to the pirate version, which is what most people want.

Re:pirates provide better product

[AnonymousClown]

...making you sit through FBI warnings...

Whenever I see those, I remember the "video pirates" scene in Amazon Women from the Moon. The pirates see the screen and say, "Ooooooo! I'm sooooooo scared!". I say that and then I pull my pants down, moon the FBI warning, and then flip them off.

Of course after that, they then have every frick'in company that had anything to do with the production of the damn thing: the studio, the film company, the distributor, and every one else with their 30 second video graphic or whatever - god forbid if you watch a Spielberg or a Lucas movie! At least with video tape you could fast forward through all that horseshit.

Then you get to the menu. You select something and you have to sit through several seconds of video clip to get to the next screen. And if you have to go 2 or more deep it gets really old fast - Spy Game was like that. Speaking of which, watch out for that DVD. The zipper heads who programmed that screwed up and it won't play on many players.

Now you got me going.

Re:pirates provide better product

[Trogre]

Seen on /. recently, I think this flowchart is appropriate.

Print it out on colour A3 and put it on noriceboards around your school, university, etc.

Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[sweatyboatman]

From TFA:

In reality, the disc works fine; the problem stems from the Blu-ray players themselves. In order to run optimally, the firmware for these fancy Blu-ray machines needs to be updated regularly via a download from the Web. ...
If a Blu-ray player owner doesn't have a home Internet connection, the chances are good the player's firmware will be out of date.

Wow, this is cringe-worthy. I mean, Blu-ray quality is so awesome, it needs a connection to the internet! Did someone from Ubisoft work on the blu-ray spec, or was it the other way around?

Re:Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[AndrewNeo]

Where on Earth (or even Pandora) does it say you need a constant internet connection? They were just implying it has to be downloaded regularly for updates, not constantly.

Re:Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how the Ubisoft comparison is valid. Ubisoft are being willfully malicious; Blu-ray players are just so fucking fragile that they need a firmware bugfix every other major release. I suppose the end user gets fucked in either case, but I think you have to consider the underlying reasons before you can make that comparison.

Also, you can burn firmware updates to CD/DVD so you don't technically need your player connected to the Internet (though it makes it a lot easier and faster).

Re:Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[AK Marc]

Is that actually on the outside of the box? Do Blu-ray drives state they may require being connected to the Internet for every new release? Or do they really expect you to burn a CD for a firmware upgrade with every new release (which I've personally found problematic for DVD player upgrades I've done)?

It's not gotten to the point where the increase in quality is worth the increase in price for me, so I haven't gotten one, so I haven't looked at what they say. If people really knew that's what they'd have to do, then where's the problem? If they hid it to sell more, then the drive makers broke the law.

Re:Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[Idiomatick]

Firmware updates SHOULD be made available through cable. Everyone that has a cable box gets updated automatically online. Doesn't sound too complicated though I suppose it would only work on the kinds where the cable goes through the box.

Another obvious and easier solution is to include the updates ON the discs that need them. Seriously, even if they had to give up a half gig on the disc it would be worth it. No one would ever have firmware issues again. And they can patch as often as they like.

Re:Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[Kalriath]

Do you have ANY idea how many different players there are? You couldn't just include the firmware updates on the disc, to do that you'd end up releasing a $20 USD firmware update and leave the movie out!

Re:Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection

[Idiomatick]

People charging for firmware updates would be its own set of issues. But that doesn't seem to be the case with BR

Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[Bearhouse]

FTA:

In reality, the disc works fine; the problem stems from the Blu-ray players themselves. In order to run optimally, the firmware for these fancy Blu-ray machines needs to be updated regularly via a download from the Web.

Of course they need this, to try and avoid the problems with older DVD encryption that had to store the keys on the disk and the player.
Hence easily broken.
Still, it's a bit of stretch to think that everyone who has a Blueray DVD, (especially a stand-alone one), will be able to keep it updated via the tubes.
As always, DRM punishes the honest customers, and is busted fast by the hackers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[JavaBear]

To make matters worse, the first few generations of Blu-ray players don't have any network connection at all.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[spire3661]

As far as i know, even if they dont have network connection they can still firmware update through other means.. Im pretty surethe Blu-Ray spec demands the ability to upgrade firmware.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[Tetsujin]

As always, DRM punishes the honest customers, and is busted fast by the hackers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy

Well, it's like a lock on a car door: it keeps honest people honest. It doesn't stop the people who want to steal your car radio, GPS, etc., but it stops all the people who might be willing to just reach inside and take something off your car seat.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's like a lock on a car door

No, it's nothing like a lock on a car door.

it keeps honest people honest

No, it keeps honest people from using the product they've paid for.

It doesn't stop the people who want to steal your car radio, GPS, etc., but it stops all the people who might be willing to just reach inside and take something off your car seat.

It also keeps the people who own the fucking car from driving it.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[eulernet]

No problem, you just have to use a floppy disk to update their firmware.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[JavaBear]

I think most do support updating the Firmware via some other means, for instance a disc. However I don't know that the Blu-ray specification prior to 1.2 (?) required that ability.
And if I recall we were promised that a BD 1.0 drive would always be able to play at least the main feature on the discs.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[Bent Mind]

Well, it's like a lock on a car door

No, it's nothing like a lock on a car door.

it keeps honest people honest

No, it keeps honest people from using the product they've paid for.

It doesn't stop the people who want to steal your car radio, GPS, etc., but it stops all the people who might be willing to just reach inside and take something off your car seat.

It also keeps the people who own the fucking car from driving it.

Hmm, so it is like the lock on my car. Battery dies in the key ring and the car is useless until I can get it replaced. Have to spend a few hundred dollars to get a copy of the key, a backup, because there is some radio thing embedded in the key and the local lock smith can't copy it.

Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail

[Mista2]

I also don't want to upgrade my BD player, as then it would stop booting Linux. I hope the current suit against Sony hurts them in some way.
No more Sony products for me. My next screen will be a Samsung or similar. A pity, as I have been a good Sony customer in the past, my DVR and 5.1 sysem is Sony, my TV is Sony, the Head, amp and 10 disk changer in my car is Sony, even my oldest VCR is a Sony - then they broke my PC with a root kit on CD (turned me to linux after that too), then I found the Macrovision setup on the VCR was going to stop me backing up my old tapes before they degraded, Now they are going to cripple my PS3?
Bye Sony, been nice knowing you.

BD+ issues

[tlhIngan]

Yeah, I ran into issues. Played fine on my PS3, but didn't on my blu-ray equipped HTPC.

Turns out it was BD+ - the Arcsoft folks issued a patch the next day and it worked perfectly.

But those with older players also had BD+ issues and many a firmware update is reuqired to fix it.

BD+... now why did we let Blu-Ray win again? HD-DVD had none of this crap... just the leaked AACS key.

Re:BD+ issues

[squiggleslash]

Well, Blu-ray hasn't "won", it's just HD DVD already lost.

I don't think BD can "win", as in become a successful format, while this kind of crap is going on. The studios supporting BD over HD DVD was a stunning set-back for high-definition video, but at the time too few people understood the issues with BD - most of us who pointed out BD's DRM was the height of stupidity were dismissed as only interested in issues ordinary consumers didn't care about (because ordinary consumers don't want a reliable playback system?) - for there to be any resistance.

Blu-ray remains a niche format. With high profile cock-ups like this one, and a complete unwillingness by the BDA to mandate fixes to the flaws, it'll probably always be one, living out its last days as Laserdisc to DVD's VHS until both formats are replaced by something viable, popular, cheap, and great.

Re:BD+ issues

[medv4380]

Was your PS3 with or without the latest Firmware that removes OtherOS?

Re:BD+ issues

[Jeng]

Was the Laser Disk beaten by VHS?

Sometimes failure is just failure.

Re:BD+ issues

[spire3661]

Laserdisc* Show some respect.

Take them back

[bobjr94]

If you want the problem solved, take your copies back to best buy or walmart and exchange them 4 or 5 times. Tell them this wont play, it must be faulty. If that becomes so much of a problem with hundred of returns at each store, they will complain to the distributors about how many returns they are getting and how much it is costing them. If walmart is not happy, things will be changed.

Re:Take them back

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Best Buy is going to take back an open movie.

BWahahahahahaha

Re:Take them back

[Anonymous Coward]

This was my thought exactly. This is what will happen en masse...no one is spending 30 bucks on a blu ray that won't work...they will take it back, and take it back again, and again if needed.

Re:Take them back

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart will not care they will just dump it back on the manufacture. That is the way they work.

Re:Take them back

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem: People (real, actual people, not the theoretical idealist people you seem to think make up a statistically significant portion of the population) have far, far better things to do with their lives than put on a disc-juggling act just to make a point to the movie company (proxied through the distributer (proxied through Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters (proxied through local representatives (proxied through the local store (proxied through a low-level manager (proxied through the unfortunate minimum wage slave who's just trying to get through his/her own life, too)))))). They have, for instance, jobs. And, for other instance, friends who understand "stick-it-to-the-man-itiveness" doesn't work through six layers of information-losing proxies.

They, unlike your theoretical people, would rather spend that time and energy watching a movie that does work, or going out on a Friday night, or talking with friends, or playing video games. Of course, the problem is that there is no large media retailer in the US who will accept full-refund returns on opened media. Replacements, maybe (BIG "maybe" when it comes to Best Buy); sell it back to the store for pennies on the dollar, rarely; return it for full refund, never. And, again, unlike your theoretical people, people who shop at large media retailers are very very statistically significant. That is what has made them large media retailers. Yes, your theoretical people might get their movies from tiny independent shops where they DO have refund policies like that, but for every one of them who do, literally hundreds of real people exist and don't.

So, with that established, whether or not you believe it, the situation is that real people won't ever get their money back from this (and, counting gas and time wasted, would come out at a loss anyway). After the first replacement or so, they'll give up, eat the loss, and go do something productive with their time. And then they'll shake their heads disdainfully at you and your two friends who are making a big stink about this in the customer service line to an unfortunate wage slave stuck in that job due to circumstances and can't get out.

That is to say, real people will see you making a fuss and wonder what's wrong with you. Not the movie industry. You.

Re:Take them back

[themightythor]

Like Best Buy is going to take back an open movie.

No, but they will exchange it for the same thing. Do that a bunch of times. ("This one doesn't work either")

Re:Take them back

[Insightfill]

Like Best Buy is going to take back an open movie.

To be fair, they'll exchange it for a closed version of the same movie. Were it a more reputable shop, this would be useful since the store would have to deal with the return to the manufacturer. As each Best Buy has a shrink wrap machine on-site, they'll just wrap it up and stick it back on the shelf.

Re:Take them back

[Cosgrach]

Ummm... Yes, they do - they will exchange it for a copy of the same movie. I know, I've had to do it.

Re:Take them back

[snowraver1]

They will not return it, but they will exchange it for another copy of the same movie.

Re:Take them back

[david_thornley]

If that doesn't work, if you bought by credit card, dispute the charge on the grounds that the vendor didn't supply you with something that wasn't defective, and refused to either replace with one that wasn't defective or refund your money.

Re:Take them back

[matrim99]

Actually, if it's that big of a problem, everyone affected *will* do just this because they don't know any better. No need for you to be a hero and trek to Wallyworld 5 times just to make a point...

Re:Take them back

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

To be fair, they'll exchange it for a closed version of the same movie. Were it a more reputable shop, this would be useful since the store would have to deal with the return to the manufacturer. As each Best Buy has a shrink wrap machine on-site, they'll just wrap it up and stick it back on the shelf.

Which is illegal. Its OK to re-shrink-wrap merchandise returned because the customer didn't like it and it is in like-new condition, but re-shrink-wrapping merchandise that is returned because it is defective is illegal in all 50 states. Since BBY and most other stores won't accept returns of opened media for any other reason than it being defective, any store shrink-wrapping DVD returns has a massive legal liability.

Re:Take them back

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. Here's how it works at Target; I presume the other big boxes are the same way.

1. Disc is processed as defective during the exchange.
2. Disc is sent upstream within the company (at Target, it goes first to the Distribution Center serving the store in question, then to the company's Central Returns Center).
3. Disc is returned to the publisher for a 100% refund.

Cost to the retailer: effectively none. No loss in terms of product, no loss in labor (the stores are used to this shit day in and day out; to the clerk at the service desk, it's just one more defective in the pile), no loss in transport other than the negligible increase in fuel use from the negligible increase in weight (store-to-DC and DC-to-CRC trips are regularly scheduled to begin with).

Cost to the publisher: Under $3/disc from what Google tells me about Blu-Ray production. They'd care more if their customers (retailers!) cared, but their customers don't lose anything, so they're happy.

The TFA blows it.

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA says "In reality, the disc works fine; the problem stems from the Blu-ray players themselves. In order to run optimally, the firmware for these fancy Blu-ray machines needs to be updated regularly via a download from the Web. "

Uh, no, Mike Ryan, the disc does not work fine. If it did it would play in existing Blue-ray players without requiring a firmware update. Instead, the disc uses newer DRM that was essentially guaranteed to cause this problem, and the blame for the defect is put on consumers for "failing" to keep their Blue-ray player permanently attached to the internet so the Blu-ray DRM overlords could update (and rescind) earlier DRM. And media shills like you repeat the lie.

A disc that works fine would, you know, work fine. And failure to play *at all* isn't an examples of Blue-ray players not behaving "optimally", it is an example of **failure**. DRM fail.

Pirated product is actually better!

[steveha]

When will the studios ever figure out that the DRM isn't stopping piracy at all, and only hurts the honest customers?

It's a bitter irony that the pirates offer a better product: it will play in any player (no DRM), it probably doesn't force you to watch an "FBI warning", it probably doesn't have a commercial about how evil it is to pirate things, and it probably doesn't have endless trailers for other discs.

And it seems like discs get more and more annoying over time. Now it's not just the FBI warning, but also a studio logo, a distributor logo, a warning that "if you listen to the commentary, the views expressed may not represent the official views of the movie studio", and then finally an annoying long intro sequence (that may contain spoilers) before the menu finally appears to allow you to actually play the movie. The trailers are usually skippable but all the rest are not! You have to put up with this stuff anytime you want to watch the movie! Again, I'm pretty sure that the pirates don't do all this stuff, making the pirated product better.

Once anybody, anywhere in the world, has released an illegal copy of your content, it's all over. No amount of DRM that punishes the honest customers can get that content back once it's on the Internet. Why do they even try?

steveha

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[godrik]

As said xkcd before. pirate this comic : http://xkcd.com/488/

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[chmod a x mojo]

Nope, no shit warnings, just beautiful 1080P movie right from launching the H.264 file. kind of funny how the 720 and 1080P versions where out on launch day ( the TS files anyways, @ 50GB ) and people can't play the damn disks in their legit players, way to go movie companies, way to go.

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[spire3661]

I bought the Blu-ray the day it came out, gave the DVD to my in-laws and downloaded a phone version off Pirate Bay. Pay attention big content, this is how we consume media in the 21st century.

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

When will the studios ever figure out that the DRM isn't stopping piracy at all, and only hurts the honest customers?

it's working for the PS3.

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[h4rr4r]

Indeed it worked so well I have not bought one. I do not care about the piracy per say, but hardware that is not hackable is not a good buy, the manufacturer will screw you over given enough time.

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Two years running and I'm still able to play games I bought it for.

The second that stops, I'll break out the pitchforks. Until that day comes...

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[Anonymous Coward]

When will the studios ever CARE that the DRM isn't stopping piracy at all, and only hurts the honest customers?

Fixed that for you

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[h4rr4r]

How is that otherOs feature working out for you?

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[TheLink]

Many of the pirated DVDs we get here in Malaysia have all the antipiracy warnings, unskippable too on normal players. So they're probably copies of the real thing, or even "factory over-productions".

All that DRM and crypto doesn't do anything to stop pirates from making identical copies. Just because something is in a foreign language or encrypted doesn't stop you from making a photocopy of it.

It just makes it harder to decrypt/play with a player that doesn't have the right key or software or setting.

But Sony et all provide the players with the right keys...

FWIW, the cinemas here were still packed with people going to watch Avatar, How To Train Your Dragon, Iron Man, LoTR etc.

So maybe Hollywood should just keep making movies that people want to watch on the "big screen"?

IIRC, Avatar took in a billion worldwide within a month. Of course Hollywood might claim it didn't make any money due to piracy etc, but they always claim their movies don't make money (especially when they're trying to reduce the payouts to people e.g. Peter Jackson, Stan Lee, etc).

Re:Pirated product is actually better!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Never needed it, never used it. Sucks that it's gone, don't think the lawsuit's going to win, hope it does, but, Super SF IV's out and I'll be damned if I buy an Xbox 360. Even lacking the Other OS feature, it's still a better console than the 360.

In case you haven't figured it out.

I don't give a shit. It's a games console. There are way more important things in life than just what I can jimmy Linux into.

let me get this strait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to restrictive policies put in place by the big evil corporation to restrict the power of people who own the material, I can't watch a movie about a big evil corporation who is restricting and stealing from a people who own the material?
Wow. I think I figured out why the natives were blue.

Re:let me get this strait...

[JavaBear]

Oh, please mod parent up, he may be an AC, but he definitely have managed to nail down the irony of the whole farce.

Re:let me get this strait...

[Tetsujin]

I knew there had to be some irony in there somewhere...

Class Action Suit?

[pavera]

Where are the class action law suits for this crap?!? Isn't it fraud to sell something that you know is broken? Essentially the movie industry selling a plastic and aluminum coaster and billing it as a full length feature film. The only way to make these idiots stop putting DRM on everything is to cause them serious financial pain when they do...

If you own one of these discs call an attorney!

Re:Class Action Suit?

[cjmnews]

If you read the article it tells you that the Disc is not broken. It works fine. It's the owners of the players that didn't update their players that caused the problem.

Oh, and if you find the box or instructions for the player it will state that an Internet connection or manual update is required to keep the player up to date. These owners didn't pay attention to that and they are seeing the consequences.

So there is no basis for a lawsuit...

I don't believe BR is good enough to warrant the money for the player, so I am sticking with upconverted DVDs until forced to switch.

Re:Class Action Suit?

[h4rr4r]

And some players do not have an update to make this work. Even better will be when they discontinue an old player and you can't play new films on it. Just wait it will happen.

Re:Class Action Suit?

[Mad Leper]

These playback issues are really just a case of PEBKAC (or perhaps PEBB(u-ray player)AC)

Trying to raise a class action suite against this would be like trying to sue for manufactures failure to set the VCR clock to the proper time instead of flashing "12:00"

So its not the new BD+?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird that it would effect the DVD market as well since the main issue is the new BD+ copy protection, which was just reversed by some crackers. Maybe they can write an update for your bluray player and get it to work.

Re:So its not the new BD+?

[ProdigyPuNk]

Come on now - you know that getting around the protection to a legally purchased product is illegal. Not only illegal - but it encourages terrorists and heroin addicts. Think of the children, please ?

ironically

[cstdenis]

"It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM"

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:ironically

[Harold Halloway]

Quite right. I think the OP thinks that 'ironically' means 'predictably'.

Re:ironically

[Wooky_linuxer]

I guess the irony is due to Avatar being an anti-stablishment movie, where a large corporation that is just worried about its profits try to screw people around. See, life imitates art.

Re:ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

"It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM"

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Someone using the word ironic in an incorrect manner? Inconceivable!

Re:ironically

[whisper_jeff]

The story was submitted by Alanis Morrisette, clearly.

Re:ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the word is perfectly used. The irony here is that DRM is *supposed* to protect legitimate use of the copyrighted content.

Re:ironically

[feepness]

"It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM"

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's ironic because it's a movie about fighting against corporate control.

Re:ironically

[impaledsunset]

But.. but.. the DRM is the thing that allows you to play the movie! Didn't you know that?

The Digital *Rights* Management grants you the right to play it. In which world are you living?

Re:ironically

[smcn]

The Avatar DVD not playing because of DRM is very much like having ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

Re:ironically

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like rain, on your wedding day?

Re:ironically

[biryokumaru]

Um... Bender would think otherwise...

Re:ironically

[biryokumaru]

No, no, no... it's like a black fly in your chardonnay.

Time to stand up

[Anonymous Coward]

With all of the bogus policies such as rental limits, untested security and numerous other problems, the people need to stand together or the all powerful entertainment industry will keep at it.
We need to freeze out these companies make them loose money until they finally catch up to the times, show them they are not untouchable and we are tired of them experimenting on how to squeeze a few dollars out of us. They spend billions on trying to stop illegal us, at the cost of honest users, raising prices and having almost no impact on the illegal users. Honest users need to say enough, get with it or get lost. If the writters can have a walk out and mess up good shows, why can't we? Not like the people in the industry are not already overpaid fatcats that think they own us.

Try this

[Anonymous Coward]

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Re:Try this

[Tetsujin]

What the fuck? Some kind of time portal just opened up...

Thanks for the warning.

[Harold Halloway]

I won't bother buying it then. I'll wait for it to come on TV. Which, extrapolating from the time it took to go from cinema to DVD, will be about three weeks.

Alanis? Is that you?

[coaxial]

It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM

I fail to find the irony in this. DRM always interferes with playback.

DVD

[WindBourne]

Avatar plays on my 1996 (5?) Phillips-Magnavox DVD player. It also plays on our 3 year old Toshiba, 5 year old Sony, and 2 month old phillips, made in china, cheapo. It will be interesting to see why ppl are having issues with the DVD's.

As to Blu-Ray, only total idiots pay the high prices and allow somebody else to kill your movies. The fact that you might upgrade your player and it PURPOSELY kills your encoding MAKES ZERO SENSE WHY ANYBODY WOULD BUY IT. And if you check the license, it is not only legal, but you have ZERO RECOURSE. IOW, you do not own the movie. They own you.

Re:DVD

[tixxit]

It will be interesting to see why ppl are having issues with the DVD's.

Same thing as usual, I suppose. This is a protection scheme that was not intended in the original spec, and so it has to try to work within those limitations (ie. they push the boundaries of the spec). With ARccOS, Sony hedged their bets on how well devices implemented the DVD spec and it backfired on them (many big name players, like Sony, Toshiba, Phillips, etc. crapped out). The presumption is that if the DVD players implemented the spec as written, the movie will play, but there is no such thing as a perfect implementation of spec (all software is flawed).

Re:DVD

[Ill_Omen]

Who buys movies anymore? That's what Netflix is for.

Personally, I bought a blu-ray player because the picture and sound quality are both noticeably better than DVD. It's not like I have dozens of hours invested in producing homemade films that I'm worried I might not be able to play at a later date.

Re:DVD

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

As to Blu-Ray, only total idiots pay the high prices and allow somebody else to kill your movies. The fact that you might upgrade your player and it PURPOSELY kills your encoding MAKES ZERO SENSE WHY ANYBODY WOULD BUY IT. And if you check the license, it is not only legal, but you have ZERO RECOURSE. IOW, you do not own the movie. They own you.

You make an assumption here: that the vast majority of the consuming public knows or cares about these things. If they stick it in the player and it plays, they're happy. If it doesn't play, they will blame the faulty disk or faulty hardware. To them, they have the physical copy, they own it -- and if it fails, it's similar to a VCR that eats tapes.

If you read that little tirade to them - even if you phrased it nicely - they'd look at you with eyes glazing over, unable to comprehend how this connects to their reality.

Re:DVD

[Bent Mind]

Bought the DVD. Tried it on 3 players. On the RJTech, it dies half way into the movie. The home-brew media center plays the movie. However, I can't get scene selection to work. It plays with some minor skipping on the original XBox. I honestly just thought it was a bad encoding until I seen this story.

Re:DVD

[WindBourne]

Well, Netflix is out for me. I rip my movies and watch them from a mythtv set-up. However, I believe in that I am moral about it, by buying the movie and owning the DVD. Yeah, I know, I know: DRM. However, that law is totally bogus.

Re:DVD

[WindBourne]

I totally agree with you. But it does not chnge the fact that ppl buying it are fools. The sad thing is that the more than it is bought by these sheeple, the sooner that DVD will be killed. IOW, I am hoping that ppl will slow that down.

Pfft

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for the 40-year anniversary edition on Gren-Ray. Imagine watching the movie in 6D!

You don't see me buying the Planet of the Ape VHS edition. I just bought the Blu-ray version two years ago!

Avatar is just a rip-off anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

The original, Dances with Smurfs, is much more entertaining.

It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop buying DRM crap.

Streaming HD video

[rennerik]

Conceivably, Internet speeds will only increase in the next decade. I think 60-100 mbps average household connection by 2020 isn't that far-fetched (and it may, in fact, be significantly more). At that point, streaming HD video into homes would not be difficult at all, and I think more and more distribution houses are going to start doing just that.

Case-in-point: DRM on streamed video can be implemented significantly more thoroughly than via physical medium. I wouldn't be surprised if Blu-Ray/DVD releases stopped being the norm and instead people bought streaming rights to a film from a co-op like Hulu, or straight from distributers like Universal/Paramount/etc. They can continue to charge ridiculous fees like $25-$30 per film, with extras, etc. And you get "lifetime" access (lifetime in quotes, of course, because it will never be like that if you never actually own a physical copy) for that price... or they can do things like "rent out" movies (which would put rental houses out of business; precisely what these publishers want, since because of the doctrine of first sale, they don't see any profit from rentals; this would eliminate that completely) for $5 a day or something. They can even sell the extra features separately for a few dollars a piece.

And if they implement the DRM correctly, encrypt the stream itself, and black-box the decryption system (via a TPM-like chip or something along those lines), it's very possible that it will be *extremely difficult* to pirate future content such as movies. They can even somehow embed the user's ID into the stream (via watermark/stegonography; I'm not an expert here so bear with me), so if pirates did manage to grab and release the stream, somehow, they can track down the source and prosecute.

Finally, this system would basically always work. Users wouldn't see the problems they're having right now with DRM, and, on top of that, they won't have a bunch of DVDs/Blu-Rays lying around that they'd have to find room for. Plus they get a searchable catalog and a bunch of other stuff that comes with having a purely digital library.

Not saying it's a good thing, necessarily, just that it's probably inevitable.

Re:Streaming HD video

[kanguro]

They said DVD was unhackable. The said that bluray was "secure". Caution is advised on talking of such matters.

Re:Streaming HD video

[JerryLove]

But how well will it work in the minivan when the kids want to watch it, or on the plane when work is flying me somewhere?

Re:Streaming HD video

[Locke2005]

it's very possible that it will be *extremely difficult* to pirate future content such as movies.

Correction: it may become very difficult to make high quality copies of movies. However, the old "Point a videocamera at the screen and record away" method will always work, at least until they implant DRM decoder chips into our brains.

Re:Streaming HD video

[eddy_crim]

nah, they cant show me the movie without really [i]showing[/i] me the movie so the data is decrypted somewhere and the pixels in my tv are told what colour to go someone is always going to be able to grab the stream and make a good ol' file our of it. once that file is on bittorent all the effort you describe will be for nowt, in fact if bandwidth realy is cheap you wont even have to download it form a BT site you can get it from some kinda pirate 1080p streaming site

Re:Streaming HD video

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, ya'know, you could just get Netflix TODAY, which has normal and HD streaming content TODAY. Now, I do fully understand that these services do not have every bit of content available today, but if we start using them today their the popularity grows, then the movie industries have no choice but to start supporting them better. Remember, you "vote with your dollars", which doesn't work with piracey. My vote is with Netflix 100% of the way.

Re:Streaming HD video

[feepness]

However, the old "Point a videocamera at the screen and record away" method will always work...

Not when we're all watching 3D movies...

Re:Streaming HD video

[Anonymous Coward]

And what happens to the 50% of the country who's still running dial up speeds, because it isn't 'cost effective' for cable or DSL unless you're big city, and 3g / 4g coverage is so spotty you can't hold a connection?

As I said - welcome to the plight of the 50% of the country who doesn't have these wonderful things. Even our local wifi provider can't get more than a couple miles around their site because of the trees and the hills.

I think your idea may be a couple decades ahead of reality.

Re:Streaming HD video

[Locke2005]

True; that would require a 3D camera with the lenses set the same distance apart as human eyes. Then you just cover the lenses with the same glasses that people wear. (Actually, I'm probably oversimplifying; you may also need to genlock the camera to the video source. This was necessary for CRT displays, I'm not sure about LCD/Plasma/OLED displays.)

Re:Streaming HD video

[h4rr4r]

You can always just point a camera at the display, to get rid of watermarks do this on several copies and average them. More likely someone really dedicated would read off the input to the panel and record that into a file. Just doing that kills the whole DRM angle, drm is like trying to make water not wet.

Re:Streaming HD video

[markdavis]

>Or, ya'know, you could just get Netflix TODAY

Yeah, 'cause Netflix works oh so well under my Linux machines.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Linflix/petition.html

Re:Streaming HD video

[luther349]

umm its called netflix.

Re:Streaming HD video

[Anonymous Coward]

Conceivably, Internet speeds will only increase in the next decade. I think 60-100 mbps average household connection by 2020 isn't that far-fetched (and it may, in fact, be significantly more). At that point, streaming HD video into homes would not be difficult at all, and I think more and more distribution houses are going to start doing just that.

You don't even need speeds that fast. Most 720p content looks sharp and crisp at 2-4Mbps with h.264 and you probably only need 3-6Mbps for 1080p.

Re:Streaming HD video

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Conceivably, Internet speeds will only increase in the next decade. I think 60-100 mbps average household connection by 2020 isn't that far-fetched (and it may, in fact, be significantly more).
Not in some rural places.
Some regions in my country still thinks that 256Kbit down on *dsl is FAST. Not to mention they must pay for traffic volume, no unlimited plans esists at all.

Re:Streaming HD video

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix is USA-only, so that's not a solution.

What are the DVD problems?

[Yvan256]

Is it something specific to Windows or to Mac OS X or both, or some weird on-purpose bad titles/tracks numbering? Anyone has more info about the technical side of the problem of the DVD version? And is the problem only on region 1 DVDs?

Re:What are the DVD problems?

[netsavior]

no problem on my region 1 dvd... it played and ripped just fine.

Re:What are the DVD problems?

[Yvan256]

Which OS and ripping program did you use, if you don't mind telling us?

Re:What are the DVD problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem with my region 2 DVD. I haven't backed it up yet, but it opened and analysed just fine in DVD shrink. I've never had a problem with a disk that made it through the initial analysis. Maybe there are duplication issues and a bad batch out there somewhere.

Re:What are the DVD problems?

[UnknownSoldier]

I used Vista 64 & MakeMKV, not sure what the OP used...

* MakeMKV 1.5.5 Beta (Free) - http://www.makemkv.com/download/
* avatar.svq - http://www.makemkv.com/svq/avatar.svq

Took ~ 2 hours to rip on an Intel 2.5 GHz.

Re:What are the DVD problems?

[UnknownSoldier]

Whoops - didn't realize you meant the DVD and not the Bluray version.

Insert Witty Subject Here

[harl]

I feel like I should have a standard "I told you so" post that I paste in for stories like this. Since I don't it's story time.

Yesterday I went to store and tried to buy a copy of the Ironman DVD. They (multinational big box electronics retailer) were all out. WTF? An item with almost zero unit cost and you have none available. I went home.

Based on the standard ~1.3GB of DVD rips it would have taken me less time to download it than to go to the store, 20 minute roundtrip plus browsing time. And I would have ended up with a copy of the movie.

I beg to differ ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They make the geekiest coasters ever! I can't wait for the box set. It's like getting a whole designer set of coasters.

actually, I can back it up

[YesIAmAScript]

I buy Blu-ray because I can rip the movies and transcode them. Including Avatar.

Try that with streaming or other DRM-laden options.

And the price premium is almost 0 for this movie. It was $19.99 at all major stores including Amazon, and you get a copy of the Blu-ray and the DVD for that price!

For the record, I didn't buy this movie. But if I did want it, I wouldn't have hesitated at all.

Re:actually, I can back it up

[wagnerrp]

I buy Blu-ray because I can rip the movies and transcode them. Including Avatar.

Why? It takes a huge amount of power to decode that content, and vastly more to re-encode right back into the same format it came from. When you factor in your time wasted, plus the electricity consumed by the transcode, it's simply not worth the dollar or two of hard drive space you're saving.

Sadly

[Dishevel]

the answer seems to be yes.

Re:Sadly

[jd]

According to them, they aren't selling you a copy, only a copy of the license to watch it. Which you still have, whether you have the product to watch or not. They'll likely fix the issue and give out copies to those who can't view the movie, but they'll make it out to be a kindness. Which, in their eyes, it is. After all, you have a fully-working license, and it's the license you bought. Not their fault the freebie they threw in (the data) wasn't usable, and since it's a free gift, they aren't required to do anything.

I don't recall if anyone successfully sued Sony for selling disks with viruses on them, or any of the manufacturers who have sold disks that have actually killed disk drives. Even in the case of actual provable direct damage, I doubt consumers get so much as the time of day, let alone compensation for material goods and time wasted.

Mind you, as we're talking about Hollywood scripts, here, it's probably as well that "time wasted" isn't given too much weight.

Re:Sadly

[profplump]

But they aren't claiming to have sold you a license separate from the disk -- if they were they would have no problem with you downloading another copy for use on your non-compatible devices, or with selling your disk sans-license and keeping a copy for your personal use while someone else holds physical rights to the plastic that shipped with the license.

Let me know how that MPAA/RIAA raid goes with your ripped-then-sold-without-license CD/DVD/Blu-Ray collection.

DRM is crap, download easy and reliable

[Anonymous Coward]

I am running across this more and more with disc I have been buying....
My solution is first RIP the disk to remove all DRM crap.
Sometimes my software can not copy the disk...
A so next solution is to download THE MOVIE I BOUGHT TO WATCH and copy it to a disk then watch it.

As DRM crap just gets more and more in the way of actually using the products I, and many others, will just skip that buying process and just down it - it is quick and more reliable. It is like buying a car and then the dealer not giving the keys to it.

that secure!

[freaker_TuC]

It's that secure we can't watch our own bought movies anymore! way to go ...

Fed up With Clever DVD / Blue-Ray Gimmicks

[borza]

Watching these new DVD releases, especially Blue-Ray ones has increasingly becoming a world of pain: From having to sit through various nagware messages ("you will be imprisoned for copyright violations", "the views of the actors do not represent the views of the studio", etc.", in English, French, etc. to DVD publishers increasingly trying to force you to go through all of their preview crap. First they disabled the Disk Menu keys, so you can't skip the previews. On "Sherlock Holmes" Blue-Ray disk, even the "Skip Chapter" keys are disabled, so your only recourse is to fast-forward. What's next - Blue-Ray players shuts itself down, because you spent less than 1 minutes watching previews (memo to myself: patent the idea)?

Re:Fed up With Clever DVD / Blue-Ray Gimmicks

[Mad Leper]

Just one response to that, learn to use your remote.

Honestly, just use your damn remote. No such thing as un-skippable previews or other such nonsense. INothing more than an internet meme being passed around by people trying to find yet another weak excuse for pirating..

Re:Fed up With Clever DVD / Blue-Ray Gimmicks

[raynet]

There are some un-skippable nonsense on DVDs. I have two Sony DVD players, but are region freed. The older allows skipping at all times, but the new player just flashes an message 'Not allowed at this time'. It also wont allow fastforwarding etc. The old player was similar before it was modified to be region free. Sadly it seems that almost all el'cheapo DVD players do allow skipping.

I'm waiting for something else

[Locke2005]

By Rule 34 of the internet, shouldn't they have Navi porn out by now? I can't be the only one that dreams of a nice 10' tall blue piece of tail? Am I?

Re:I'm waiting for something else

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, here you go

Re:I'm waiting for something else

[Stormwatch]

Here ya go.

2010 - the year of 12 inch screens!

[majorme]

Man, I believe Slashdot will never cease to amaze me...

your opinion is not a consensus one

[YesIAmAScript]

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2915/avatar.html

'As for its other image quality attributes, this 'Avatar' Blu-ray is, frankly, perfect. I can find nothing at all wrong with it. The digital video picture is razor sharp and has enormous amount of fine object detail that puts the comparable DVD to shame. There is absolutely no grain or noise in any shot. Nor are there any digital processing artifacts such as artificial sharpening, Digital Noise Reduction, or compression flaws. The vibrant, vibrant, vibrant colors are stunningly beautiful. Cameron uses colors in 'Avatar' that you just don't see in other movies. The contrast range has solid blacks and excellent shadow detail. For a 2-D image, the picture has a terrific sense of depth. Really, this is the best-looking demo material yet released on Blu-ray, regardless of which aspect ratio you watch it in. I'd give it 6 stars if I could. '

Re:your opinion is not a consensus one

[PitaBred]

I'm sure it'd look great if I could play it.

Not just Blu-Ray!

[Murpster]

Got a regular Avatar DVD and it won't play on either of my DVD players or one of my PC drives. It will play on one other computer DVD drive - if I want to watch it on a 12 inch screen.

Reminds me of SuperBit

[Animaether]

oblig. wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superbit

I do wish that more DVDs, and now Blu-Rays, were made in this way. The discs themselves are ridiculously cheap, the premium paid for a 2-disc DVD box and getting it packaged etc. is negligible (except when you add up all the millions of discs, but even then it's a small part of the total cost and doesn't affect one of the larger costs: transport and storage).. 1 disc with the feature and a limited selection of languages and the like (german dubs... *sigh*) and 1 disc with any extras, please.

Unfortunately they did charge substantially more for them (at least in NL), so when the average consumer compares the two and sees one with just the movie for, say, $19.99 and another with the movie -and- a bunch of extras for $14,99... well, what did they expect?

Re:Reminds me of SuperBit

[atamido]

x264 has initial support for outputting Blu-Ray compliant bitstreams, so we may see more high bitrate movies in the future. AFAIK, the only issue with cost is paying for an encoder that will produce bitrates that high. Once you have a master, actual production of plastic is the same no matter the used space.

Re:Reminds me of SuperBit

[Animaether]

the marginal increased cost was for the production of a 2nd disc with the extras / pressing a double-sided disc.
( I have exactly 5 double-sided DVDs.. I suspect double-sided blu-rays are equally or even more rare )

Re:Reminds me of SuperBit

[atamido]

AFAIK, most Superbit DVDs weren't double sided, and some regular Blu-rays are coming DVDs now, so I'm not sure how they justify more cost for more bits.

Re:Reminds me of SuperBit

[Animaether]

by providing better quality. The question is how you can justify it technically, but how you can justify it to the board/shareholders/etc. that you want to release a separate higher-quality version that the majority of people won't be buying.

However, and this was my main point, it'd help if they at least didn't price it -higher- than the version with extras - it should be lower, with people paying more for extras at the cost of some image quality.

CGI techniques are interesting!

[mac1235]

I work in the CGI industry you insensitive clod!

In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

DVDFab comes with Avatar Support.

Don't worry.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's okay, at least it stopped the evil pirates from getti... oh, wait. http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5511739/Avatar_2009_1080p_BluRay_X264-AMIABLE

I had the same issue.

[Montezumaa]

I have a Samsung BD-P1500 and a PS3. Even after I updated the Samsung player, it would not play properly(severe screen glitches and then total failure to play). Avatar would play on my PS3, so I watched it and returned it. The movie sucks, so no big loss, but I will not buy another movie that has problems like this again.

Re:Consequence of copy protection

[Tetsujin]

Well, it's like a lock on a car door

No, it's nothing like a lock on a car door.

Dude, just bear with me. It's an analogy... involving a car... I think you'll find that DRM has a number of similarities to a car door:

• People use it to protect their stuff (contents of car, or profit potential of their copyrighted material)
• It's not much of a hurdle for a serious intruder (thief can smash your window or break your lock... copyright infringer can take the time to crack the encryption scheme)
• Its effectiveness lies primarily in the fact that it dissuades casual abuse rather than serious attacks.

I get your point, that DRM has practical problems. To map that back onto my analogy, it is possible to lock oneself out of one's car - but DRM would be more like a sometimes-faulty lock.

But it's not as though that's all DRM does. Even if it's relatively easy to defeat (just as the best lock in the world doesn't help you if you can just break a window) - the fact that there's any security at all dissuades a large number of people who might otherwise walk all over copyright law without giving it a thought.

I agree that the situation sucks - I just thought Bearhouse's statement seemed to indicate that DRM was good for nothing apart from punishing legitimate customers. I don't believe that's true.

Brand new Blu-ray player owner

[Growlor]

I finanlly ogt over being mad at Sony enough to buy something they were involved in again, so a couple of weeks ago I bought a new Samsung Blue Ray player from my local Best Buy. I actually bought it primarily to watch Netflix/Blockbusteronline/regular DVD's. However, I like Netflix online so much I hadn't plyed anything in it (regular or Blue-Ray wise.) I looked around for a movie that was cheap and also would show-off what Blue Ray could do, but hadn't found anything that struck my fancy and when I saw Avatar was coing-out I thought that would be a good test (also I never saw it in theaters, so wanted to just see it too.) So I got the DVD/Blue Ray combo pack and stuck it in the player. And then heard a LOT of seeking and re-seeking and re-seeking. This goes on for a while (maybe 20 seconds) and really gave me pause. At first I thought the disk was bad, but then it proceeded to the menu and when I played it, it was fine (nice picture quality too, I need to get the Blue Ray Version of King King and see if there is a noticable difference between it and my old HD-DVD Toshiba player I replaced with the Blue Ray.) When I played the movie again later, it did the same thing. So now I'm not sure if this is normal for this player or if its a bad player or bad disk or ??? Let me check and try a regular DVD in it.... Nope, works fine with a regular DVD (LOTR the 2 towers-widescreen) So either the Avatar disk is bad or their stinking DRM is driving this thing beserk when it loads (it has the latest firmware too - I updated it the day I bought it.) My consolation is that Netflix is so darn convenient and the picture quality is "good enough" that for all but a real spectacle type movie (like Avatar/LOTR/Star Wars.) I don't think I will be buying ANY more DVD/Blue Ray's (just no need there are TONS of movis I haven't seen that I can watch for $9.99/mo.) So I'm not really sure I need to do any more "disk hoarding." Now if the movie studios or Netflix get greedy and raise the monthly rate, I might change my mind, but for now, I am pretty much done with buying DVD's/BluRay's for the vast majority of movies.

I have just two words

[Anonymous Coward]

Analog loophole

Well, it worked for me.

[Xenomorph.NET]

I went out and bought a PS3 and the Blu-ray version of Avatar. I popped the disc in and watched it in beautiful 1920x1080p on a 55" HDTV with 120Hz Smooth Motion. The picture was amazing, and I enjoyed the movie. I had already seen it twice in theaters, and seeing it at home in such amazing detail was just as entertaining. The DRM issue means nothing to me. One of the deciding factors of getting a PS3 was its Blu-ray capability (something I actually didn't care about in the past). Plus the Blu-Ray package came with a "free" DVD copy of the movie that I can easily copy, rip, convert, and use any way I feel like. What I do notice is the "Avatar sucks" bandwagon. It got great reviews, and people saw it again and again. It was wildly popular even without the 3D going for it. It looked amazing and was very entertaining. 8.4 on IMDB, 82% on RT (and 94% with "Top Critics"), plus the movie is getting close to the 3 BILLION mark. It obviously did not suck. It doesn't make you "cool" to say it sucks, it just makes you a minority.

We're probably stuck with DRM

[JustNiz]

The problem is that the average joe won't find out about the DRM issue until he's paid for the disk.
Only half the people with problems playing it will bother to take the disk back for a refund, the rest will presume its their player thats somehow faulty, or just be too lazy to go get a refund.
Of the returned disks, I bet in many if not most cases the store will just re-shrinkwrap it and put it right back on the shelf.
Consequently the movie industry will still incorrectly blame piracy rather than faulty DRM for the difference between their sales predictions and actual sales, partly because of their own ongoing refusal to accept that the whole DRM concept is retarded, but mostly because they won't actually see that many disk returns.

Worked fine for me.... but

[Shivetya]

a number of Panasonic players need a SD card loaded as well for many blu-ray titles to play properly.

funny fUNNY Funny FUNNY

[axor1337]

The copy the suckers are buying don't work. But the Bootleg I stole off of IPTorrents works flawlessly. I truly am laughing my ASS of

I thought Blu-ray had updates on the discs

[kindbud]

Was the scheme to place DRM updates on the disc scuttled for some reason? Too consumer-friendly?

Even more random in the theater

[Protoslo]

In the theater, instead of DRM gone awry you had hundreds of operators trying to get their chosen brands of 3-D systems to work correctly. There were various levels of success. I watched it on RealD and (mini) iMax--for the sake of science!--and it was out of focus the entire time with iMax (though interestingly one out of the two people I sat next two claimed that it was totally in focus). I wouldn't see any point in viewing it at home without 3-D technology, but by the time home releases support that (and I buy a Sony "shutter glasses" 3D TV) there'll be a movie with CGI as good as Avatar's and a decent plot as well that I can buy to demo it.

If this problem (mentioned in TFS) is really in the DRM, then it is unlikely to affect DVDs, which still use CSS. Key revocation is possible (apparently) with CSS, but the majority of DVD players don't support constant key updates over the internet so it is not used.

The "story" (Yahoo entertainment "journalism") doesn't mention DVDs at all, and instead speculates that the people affected did not download the latest updates to their firmware to get non-revoked keys (the centerpiece of the AACS system!). If you bought a blu-ray player not knowing that...you deserve everything you get.

The guy in TFA claims to have three BD players, two of which are standalone. Even if his standalone players aren't connected (or have never been subject to a device revocation before), surely his computer software will update itself. Perhaps he's putting in it upside-down...

The only information I could find about problems with the DVD was a Y! Answers thread indicating that "layer lag" may occur in scene 18 (with crappy DVD players, presumably).

There is no new news in this article whatsoever; it serves only as an excuse for everyone to bitch about AACS (again).

DIVX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like DIVX all over again (Circuit City style, not the MP4 ripoff)

Why would anyone want it?

[illumnatLA]

It was a pretty cool step for 3d and visual effects, but it's a crappy movie story-wise. Seeing it outside of the theater is pretty pointless. Save the bucks and buy something good that deserves the support... Something like 'Moon' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/

LOL: Dances with Smurfs

[cruff]

Thanks for the great laugh! I think that "Dances with Smurfs" captures the feeling of the movie in three words!

Re:LOL: Dances with Smurfs

[biryokumaru]

Then you may find this interesting...

darn

[WeeBit]

Guess I wont be buying the DVD. Problem solved.

better watch those caps...

[Anonymous Coward]

because at 46 gb there goes a huge chunk of the monthly ration and a likely letter from the isp suggesting that you might be pirating by using so much bandwidth.

Re:better watch those caps...

[cynyr]

just wait until most of youtube is 1080P and netflix makes it's HD the standard, and adds 4kx2k video as the HD option. Not going to be so huge then.

How Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I was going to pick this up, but its looking more likely I will be downloading a 1080p rip.

Why the hell do companies think DRM like this will actulay help sales? I know several people who have simply pirated the movie after buying the damn thing so they can watch it.

Huh.

[momerath2003]

Serves them right for buying such a turd of a movie.

Bought the Blu-Ray and DVD Combo - Both Broken

[gadlaw]

Yup, I happily bought the Combo pack of the Blu-Ray and the DVD. Put the Blu-Ray in and it flat out would not work. It helpfully informed me that if it didn't work it was the fault of my Blu-Ray, which I bought to oh I don't know - PLAY BLU-RAY videos! Three days later, a USB Gigstick and two tedious updates later it finally got to work. A horrible horrible experience I didn't expect to have to go through and I should not have had to go through. Insane to make it harder for me as a customer to use the product. The DVD? Oh it plays alright, but it plays with english subtitles permanently on and there is nothing I can do to turn them off and they cover the bottom third of the screen. Absurd. Thank you for creating a unusable product FOX. Of course, there was no place to complain except at Amazon - I gave a bad review of the Blu-Ray and DVD and I complained to the website of my Blu-Ray player. DRM - Broken by design.

Then don't use a brick-wall filter

[tepples]

And no, the reason for the high bitrate is not because you can hear those high frequencies, it's the aliasing - a brick-wall 20kHz filter causes tons of distortion.

Then don't use a brick wall filter when mastering the audio track. Instead, use a raised-cosine filter that rolls off from 20 kHz to 24 kHz.

You already can

[Latent Heat]

A car is not that hard to make, with the proper cad-cam-3d-print-replicate device called an automobile factory.

Most of what you are paying for when you buy a car is someone elses health insurance.

ripping the DVD version

[Anonymous Coward]

worked just fine for me. Used MacTheRipper, in feature-only mode, got a completely usable TS_folder which I've burned to DVDs that play just fine in my DVD player. Used Handbrake format it for my iPhone. No problems here with the DVD. No BluRay experience, however.

All the talk of pirates providing better product..

[gjyoung]

Is falling on deaf ears. Money talks and pirates aren't paying the bankroll. IMHO movie/media corps will always try to protect their product from theft, period. And they will guarantee that you can play the product sold, so if it doesn't work bring it back, get another copy that will or your money back, that is as far as their liability extends.

Everything else said about pirates bringing better product, DRM being evil, etc.. sounds like Charlie Browns teacher to them.

I realize this adds nothing new to the discussion but it is the reality of the situation.

So what's next?

[dohzer]

Enough of this Blu-ray stuff already. What's the next format? Hopefully they can get it right this time.

Lawyer Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I loved that at the end of the Avatar blu-ray, there is a warning that opinions in commentaries and interviews are those of the people speaking and do not necessarily represent the views of Fox. Of course there weren't any commentaries or interviews on the disk...

Come to comments on not working Avatar DVD...

[Anonymous Coward]

And AdSense offer me Avatar on Blu-Ray and DVD at local store...

Meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

the pirated copies on usenet play totally fine. Or so I hear...

Yep.

[fyngyrz]

Avatar plays fine on my PS3. Looks fabulous. (I blogged about the movie here.) Still not clear why anyone would buy a Bluray player other than a PS3. Horsepower (and therefore loading speed), up-to-date-ness, ability to play games, music, etc... just can't see why you'd want something else. We've got a lot of Bluray titles. They all play flawlessly on the PS3. If I buy a new Bluray tomorrow, I've every reason to think it'll play just fine, too. Sony's been 100% on the ball for us. If my PS3 were to break, I'd complete the purchase of a new one within the hour.

"Works for me."

Re:Yep.

[DinDaddy]

Still not clear why anyone would buy a Bluray player other than a PS3.

Beyond there having been players that were cheaper by $1-200 for a period, the PS3 only puts out the new audio streams over HDMI. A lot of people still have receivers/processors without HDMI, but with analog inputs. PS3 is a no go if they want the audio upgrade and don't want to blow more money on a new receiver.

I have a PS3 though.

Re:Yep.

[sremick]

Still not clear why anyone would buy a Bluray player other than a PS3.

- DVD upscaling: The PS3 is not top of the game when it comes to this. Many of us have huge DVD collections and countless movies will never see a Blu-Ray release. On modern large screens, the better DVD upscaling of better players is quite evident.

- Power usage: the PS3 uses like 4 times the electricity while running than a typical Blu-Ray player.

- Aesthetics: The PS3 is a useless shape that does not stack or fit well in an AV cabinet

- Remote: If you want a normal IR remote like which comes with any other movie player, you have to shell out extra money

- Sony: Sony is a shitty company with horrible business practices. I know I'm not the only one who boycotts them and refuses to have any of their devices in my house. I can get my movie player, amp, TV, speakers... and even my gaming experience... from better companies.

Movie DRMs will always be useless

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can watch a movie, you can capture the video feed and re-record it again without any protection. All protection schemes are useless.

Re:DRM - Download Ripped Movie

[Mista2]

And again the HD torrent was available around the same time the BD version hit our shelves here. However the DVD was cheap, only NZ$20 so I picked that up on Saturday - then ripped it to my media collection and filed the DVD away.
Surprisingly though no extras or anyhting on the DVD apart from the movie. I may as well have torrented a 720p copy and saved myself a trip to the shop.
Oh, well, still a pretty movie, but hey James, Pochohontas wants her story back!

Re:Consequence of copy protection

[ukyoCE]

People use it to protect their stuff

This is the core problem with your auto analogy. DRM isn't something people use to protect their stuff. It's something they use to protect other people's stuff.

I was going to compare it to lojack, but that's still something the owner of the car is still ostensibly in control of. Nor can you compare it to lojack on a rental car because DVDs aren't rentals, you bought and own the content. But you aren't the one with the keys to the lock.

Re:Consequence of copy protection

[Tetsujin]

People use it to protect their stuff

This is the core problem with your auto analogy. DRM isn't something people use to protect their stuff. It's something they use to protect other people's stuff.

I was going to compare it to lojack, but that's still something the owner of the car is still ostensibly in control of. Nor can you compare it to lojack on a rental car because DVDs aren't rentals, you bought and own the content. But you aren't the one with the keys to the lock.

It depends how you define property and possession, naturally.

Whether or not you believe in the idea of intellectual property, it is, in fact, law. If you buy a DVD of the movie "Iron Man", you don't own the movie "Iron Man". The people who own the movie have the right to control, to some extent, what is done with it. And that is the protection which DRM provides.

Re:Consequence of copy protection

[ukyoCE]

Agreed, the intellectual property is still owned by the studio, and they're trying to enforce copyright law (actually, much more restrictive than copyright law) by physical/electronically locking the media.

So I guess it's like if Honda installed a lojack in every Honda vehicle, reserving the right (by brute force) to disable your vehicle any time they feel like it.

I bet there are examples where this is already being done on physical devices? Kind of like Lexmark's printer cartridges, although the DMCA was the only think blocking reverse engineering of that, and I believe they got overturned in that case.