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AnyDVD Supports UHD Blu-Ray Ripping, While Devices Patch Security Holes (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the movie-rippers dept.

The controversial ripping tool AnyDVD has released a new beta version that allows users to decrypt and copy UHD Blu-Ray discs. The software makes use of the leaked keys that came out recently and appears to work well. Meanwhile, disc drive manufacturers are patching security holes. TorrentFreak reports: This year there have been some major developments on this front. First, full copies of UHD discs started to leak online, later followed by dozens of AACS 2.0 keys. Technically speaking AACS 2.0 is not confirmed to be defeated yet, but many discs can now be ripped. This week a popular name jumped onto the UHD Blu-Ray bandwagon. In its latest beta release, AnyDVD now supports the format, relying on the leaked keys. "New (UHD Blu-ray): Fetch AACS keys from external file for use with 'UHD-friendly' drives," the release notes read. The involvement of AnyDVD is significant because it previously came under legal pressure from decryption licensing outfit AACS LA. This caused former parent company Slysoft to shut down last year, but the software later reappeared under new management. Based on reports from several AnyDVD users, the UHD ripping works well for most people. Some even claim that it's faster than the free alternative, MakeMKV.

68 comments

  1. Dead to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sorry, but AnyDVD is dead to me. I paid for a lifetime license and now they don't honor it. I honestly don't buy into the whole "oh, that OTHER company shut down, and we're an entirely different company, but oh we have their code and their forums and everything, so pay us again" BS.

    1. Re:Dead to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Same thing happened to me. I've still got it installed, but it's stuck at version 7.6.9.5.

      You'd think the least they could do is release a local copy of the online database to paid users that covers titles up to point where support ended. Instead, it's simply inaccessible, making BD+ titles that required the database un-decryptable, even though they previously worked.

      I'm not too pissed off, because I got a lot of use out of the software over the years, but I will probably never buy the new version because the same thing could easily happen again, maybe even a week after purchase, who knows.

      I simply don't buy movies any more. I'll watch the occasional one on TV or Netflix, but for the shit they've been putting out over the past decade and the crap that industry is full of, to hell with them. I'll watch old movies or find something else to do. There's still a ton of Bogart and Eastwood movies I still haven't seen that I got for free years ago.

    2. Re:Dead to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm personally pissed because I paid for a lifetime license and got less than a year of updates. And the deal they offered to pay them again was atrocious.

      I know some people who paid for lifetime updates got years out of it, but there's no way in hell that I'm giving them another dime after they failed so miserably in handling it.

      Personally, I don't buy the notion that they're a separate company when they're mostly the same employees and they have the source code. The minor discount they offered was a pretty big insult to those of us that had recently paid them for licenses.

    3. Re:Dead to me by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sorry, but AnyDVD is dead to me. I paid for a lifetime license and now they don't honor it. I honestly don't buy into the whole "oh, that OTHER company shut down, and we're an entirely different company, but oh we have their code and their forums and everything, so pay us again" BS.

      SlySoft is DEAD. The company founder was jailed and the company was forced to shut down. (Slysoft was either a company based in Antigua). The company wiped all the front-end servers during the shut down, including customer databases. That company is dead. USTR and AACS LA forced them to close and they folded.

      Now, RedFox is composed of the developers of the company - they discovered when SlySoft shut down, and the servers wiped, the source code servers and build machines were very much alive. So they basically stole it all - source code and everything, shut down the old Slysoft servers because the company is legally dead.

      For a time, they hosted Slysoft data - at their expense. Remember, the financial assets of Slysoft were seized during the shutdown.

      So RedFox guys got together and incorporated in Belize, again, with their own money (they didn't even do a Kickstarter, which is the trendy thing these days). As a goodwill measure, they offered recent licensees a whopping 50% discount off new licenses (including lifetime). This was on top of the 20% discount they were offering to get seed money started, and you can get another 10% if you pay in bitcoin.

      They didn't have to do any of it - because legally speaking, Slysoft's assets are no more. They are two completely independent companies. In fact, AnyDVD's source code is technically stolen from Slysoft, but I'm sure SlySoft will not be suing them for the theft.

      I'm sure the US Government might try to seize the source code back, but I'm sure that would lead to thornier issues since the wrong move might make it available to all as part of a FOIA.Or who knows what else - treat it wrongly and it might end up through some legislative loopholes to be a US government supported piece of software.

    4. Re:Dead to me by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      When someone sells you something for "lifetime", it means "for as long as I live". Not you.

      Never buy anything "for lifetime" where you're dependent on someone to continue his business. It's usually a good indicator that he won't be doing it for much longer.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re: Dead to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's happened 100s of times in the past and will happen billions more times for all eternity.

      And that makes it okay? Fucking idiots everywhere.

    6. Re:Dead to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They stole the source and they benefited from those of us that had paid licensing fees. Making this out to be somehow them being generous is disingenuous. They saved a ton of money by stealing the code, that 50% discount is an insult when all the work necessary had already been done to provide the updates.

      And it wasn't even very well publicized that they were doing the discount. Those that had more recently bought lifetime updates should have been given something meaningful.

    7. Re:Dead to me by Guyle · · Score: 1

      When someone sells you something for "lifetime", it means "for as long as I live". Not you.

      In an ideal world, sure. In the real world, shit happens, and you get what you get. Yeah, I didn't like having to buy AnyDVD HD again from RedFox after having a lifetime license from SlySoft. But you know, I respect the guys who resurrected it and brought it back to life, so they deserved getting my money again. Hell, the one thing I wanted was UHD support, and it's finally coming around. They wouldn't have had money for that kind of development if they just let everyone who had old SlySoft lifetime licenses keep use of the software. Might be the same software, but seriously, the fact that it really is two different companies - and the unique circumstances surrounding how this went down - makes this scenario very different from others.

      If you're good at something, never do it for free.

      The Joker had it right.

    8. Re: Dead to me by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      I just switched to the competitor. All is good. Plus I no longer need to run an OS not of my choosing.

      AnyDVD was never "fast". So "speed" is not something that would get me to switch back.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    9. Re:Dead to me by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      Right there with you, I was a lifetime user and supporter of many years myself. Got others on the bandwagon and used their software to great success. Now suddenly it's Chinese software in posession of the full IP of the other company but they cannot honor my license? I should accept this? No thanks, I've moved on and there are other options.

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    10. Re:Dead to me by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      Jailed? No he was fined $30K or had to spend 6months in jail. Sorry, don't make this out like the guy didn't do just fine out of this.

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    11. Re:Dead to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All warranties and service/update policies are good for as long as stated, or until the company no longer supports them, whichever occurs first. Construction contractors, for instance, are notorious for going out of business every few years, then coming back with a different name. Sometimes, they even go bankrupt every few years, coming back with a different name. That eliminates any service commitments they might have made, among other things. Furniture stores ... have you ever seen one that' not permanently going out of business? Lifetime warranties fall into the same category: they're for the lifetime of: 1) the business; 2) the expected useful life of the product (which may not be stated, but is seldom more than 10 years or so); or 3) yours -- WHICHEVER IS LEAST.

      There are rare exceptions (Lands End, LL Bean, etc.), but "lifetime" in the software game is unlikely to be more than 5 years (past Windows policies notwithstanding - they don't apply to Windows 10), and certainly won't apply in the case of the company going out of business and its product transferring to somebody else.

      You may have a "perpetual" license, but that only allows you to retain and use a copy of the software. It doesn't entitle you to updates or anything else unless that's specified separately.

    12. Re:Dead to me by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      All the more reason not to support them it seems?

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
  2. Whatever by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 0

    DVD rips looks good enough on my 23" widescreen LCD monitor. DVI and HDMI inputs, no fucking built-in tuner that could become outdated, no smart TV crap that would change how the monitor works without my approval, no smart TV crap that can get infected with spyware.

    Sure, Blu-ray would look better, but that would require investing in buying movies to be worth it and I'm doing as little as possible to help the old media cartels.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Whatever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one will ever need more than 640x480 pixels.

    2. Re:Whatever by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      > No one will ever need more than 640x480 pixels.

      It all depends on screen size and viewing distance.

      Also a very good SD stream beats a crappy HD one.

      For a lot of content, the extra video bandwidth is just a waste of resources even if you are viewing it on a screen large enough and a distance close enough for the extra resolution to matter.

      Some people you just don't want to see too clearly.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  3. MakeMKV is free by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What do I care if it's somewhat slower than AnyDVD? I hardly buy any movies at all, anyway, since most of the time if I've seen it once I have no interest in seeing it again. And it's not like I'm hanging around while I rip a Blu-Ray or DVD.

    Plus MakeMKV is available for Mac.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re: MakeMKV is free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      MakeMKV doesn't support UHD Blu Ray unless you use a tool like AnyDVD or DeUHD.

    2. Re:MakeMKV is free by antdude · · Score: 1

      Ditto. I used to buy discs a lot, but I rarely watched them. I will just borrow/rent/stream/record if I am going to rewatch, but usually in higher formats like VHS -> DVD -> HD -> 4K for kicks. I just don't have a lot of fret times like I used to. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    3. Re: MakeMKV is free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I just backed up my UHD Blu-Ray of Ghostbusters (1984) using only MakeMKV and the leaked key list. I have neither AnyDVD nor DeUHD installed.

    4. Re: MakeMKV is free by LoonyLonesome · · Score: 1

      So how big are these UHD's anyway ? I believe a Bluray movie is typically 25-30gb, are the UHD's ~55-60gb ?

    5. Re: MakeMKV is free by Kjella · · Score: 2

      So how big are these UHD's anyway ? I believe a Bluray movie is typically 25-30gb, are the UHD's ~55-60gb ?

      Officially the discs come in three sizes of 50, 66 and 100GB but in practice most are of the 66GB variety and raw rips 50-60GB. Remuxes with just the primary audio and no extras are usually 10GB less. But they have started to make encodes which are typically around 20GB that give you all the UHD benefits (resolution, color space, 10 bit color, HDR, HEVC compression) in less space than a Bluray. It looks better if you have a setup that can handle it, HDR throughput or HDR -> SDR mapping can be difficult to get right and if you don't the picture will look terrible because the tone mapping is wrong. It's getting better but auto-detecting and using HDR capabilities is very much a work in progress.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    6. Re: MakeMKV is free by omnichad · · Score: 1

      To keep the same visual quality, the rip should end up about twice the size after re-encoding as an equivalent 1080p title. Four times the resolution, but the codec (HEVC/H.265) uses half the bits. Disc capacity is up to doubled too.

      Once re-encoded, my rips end up at about 12-15GB for standard Blu-Ray and the quality difference is nearly imperceptible to the original.

    7. Re: MakeMKV is free by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      What hardware player are you using? I might like to pick one up for future use :)

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    8. Re: MakeMKV is free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nVidia Shield running SPMC.

    9. Re: MakeMKV is free by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      Kodi I've got covered with multiple NUC, I'm interested in the drive you're using to rip the UHD BR :) I run Kodi at home (since the XBOX days), source compiled on one and one of their precompiled distro on another, and Plex on the road. I'm just wondering if there's a particular drive that's best for ripping this new media, I don't think my normal BD drive will do it right?

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    10. Re: MakeMKV is free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LG WH16NS40 with v1.02 firmware. Other supported drives are listed here.

  4. Uh, OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I'm glad *somebody* uses this to give me content, I don't really give two shits as long as the torrent shows up. The fact that this thing is available changes nothing whatsoever for me... or most people for that matter.

    The day you force me to pay for content is the day I stop caring about your content. It already matters so little to me, it's not a small step. Good luck with your government sponsored 1% bullshit to get me to pay for things I don't care about. Fuck you

    1. Re:Uh, OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I'm glad *somebody* uses this to give me content, I don't really give two shits as long as the torrent shows up. The fact that this thing is available changes nothing whatsoever for me... or most people for that matter.

      The day you force me to pay for content is the day I stop caring about your content.

      True. Not only would I not *pay* for a physical disc, I'm too lazy to even fucking rip it if I have it in my possession. It's so much easier to just download shit that I wouldn't even want to take the time to rip/encode if it were free.

    2. Re:Uh, OK... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I already went over that edge. What good is screens with more and more pixels to display actors with less and less talent, scripts with less and less content and stories with more and more pandering to special interest groups than content?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Uh, OK... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      That describes most of Marvel's movies and almost all DC's. But even more so than declining actors or scripts are directors like Michael Bay or George Lucas who again IMNSHO shouldn't be allowed near a camera or editing room.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  5. I would support more DRM free DVD/Bluray media. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But after finding out the one Bluray I decided to get as a cheap test when buying a bluray burner I got for backing up system files/personal data to BD-R media turned out to be one of the few dozen that DIDN'T have their keys cracked, I said 'fuck this' and nobody in my immediate family has bought Blurays since. We have a DVD player hooked up to a conventional TV and an RPi (only a few good stations left. Besides the pirate sites that got cracked down on, the 1st party media sites are all getting pulled as they choose to release their shows via on-demand services instead of as 'next week' episodes on their respective websites.)

    There is plenty on the web to keep me occupied without television/movies, and thanks to the actions of the media companies I am now spending far more of my time immersed in them.

  6. "The controversial ripping tool" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The day a piece of software that gives peopke back control over their physical purchases is "controversial" is the day this place is run by cryprofascist supporters.. oh wait.. IT IS!

    Go back to whoring some more bitcoin crap you WHORES.

  7. Why I rip my media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sick of paying for Blu-Ray player software that refuses to play media after about 1 year and requires a paid upgrade to continue playing media I've owned for years. This is just one of the myriad reasons why Blu-ray media has never achieved the level of market acceptance that DVDs enjoyed.

    1. Re:Why I rip my media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Say the guy who encourage blu-ray disc sales.

    2. Re:Why I rip my media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "...Blu-ray media has never achieved the level of market acceptance that DVDs enjoyed..."

        Think I own one BlueRay disc, someone gave me. Buying discs is not worth it, BlueRay even less so.
      I used to rip DVDs, but never watched them. They are collecting dust.
      Hollywood is so afraid people are going to copy their lame ass media, making it increasingly hard to copy.
      No problem, Hollywood, I will not send you a single penny for your shit.
      I too would rather watch whatever I can get on Netflix and Amazon. I don't fucking care for the "latest " movies from Hollywood, they can cram it. Buh bye assholes.

    3. Re:Why I rip my media by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Same here. I have a legit blu-ray (Avatar) and I can only play it using a old version of AnyDVD (No, I will NOT buy a expensive dedicated blu-ray player, my PC is more than enougth for the job).

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    4. Re:Why I rip my media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When they pay to do the Bluray right, the results can be stunning. The Bluray edition of the Prisoner is probably the high water mark for that. It looks absolutely stunning because they did the work rather than Ghostbusters that looks like ass because they half-assed it. I saw the rerelease in the theaters and the noise was super annoying. It was also out of focus for most of the movie.

    5. Re:Why I rip my media by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Pretty much the only approach that makes sense is to just rip the original disk and forget about it. Back up the ripped copy if you are worried about needing the original again.

      I've watched a BluRay disk just ONCE with a real player.

      That was one time too many in my opinion.

      Hollywood is it's own worst enemy.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    6. Re:Why I rip my media by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      Ditto! I rip and store the originals - too much forced crap on disks these days. Here's an FBI warning, here's a preview, here's who knows WTF I don't want to see. I also buy my disks used as often as possible for as little as possible. Some movies that I really appreciate I'll pay for brand new but it's sure not too many with the cost of them.

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    7. Re:Why I rip my media by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

      I think it is mostly because bandwidth and compression technologies became viable for "good enough" streaming.
      Personally, I do own about 120 blu-rays of stuff that I want to look/sound as good as I can get, but that's nowhere near my peak ~700 dvd collection.

      --
      ...
    8. Re:Why I rip my media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > No, I will NOT buy a expensive dedicated blu-ray player

      That's what my Xbox One S is for. Bonus, it can read UHD discs as well. I got mine at roughly the same price as a standalone UHD player.

  8. Hypocrites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MakeMKV and Redfox refuse to release disc keys so they can be used in real free(dom) software like VLC. But when another source releases keys they are immediately changing their programs to use those keys. And people just continue to support these hypocrites instead of demanding the public release of keys

  9. This is the reason... by coofercat · · Score: 1

    This is the reason I haven't bought a single bluray yet. Once it's as broken as DVDs are, then I'm in - otherwise not so much. If I can't rip it to my Nas, then I can't watch it - I have no intention of running off to the garage to put a different bit of bit of plastic in the player each time I want to watch a film. This isn't the 1990s any more.

    In my case at least, DRM didn't stop 'piracy' because I wasn't swashbuckling on the high seas to start with. It did stop consumption though.

    1. Re:This is the reason... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      You need to check out what's available. All DRM is as broken as DVD DRM.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    2. Re:This is the reason... by jason777 · · Score: 1

      I've ripped my entire collection via MakeMkv. What are you waiting for?

    3. Re:This is the reason... by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      I spent weeks changing discs and copying my DVD collection to my media server at one point this is after I had already re-purchased most of my VHS collection on DVD. If I can't purchase new movies in a format that I can place on my media server then I'll just watch what's on netflix or hulu and they go suck it.
         

    4. Re:This is the reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet you don't 'surf' the 'web' either, you just read parsed versions of HTML documents available on the Internet.

    5. Re:This is the reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not remotely.

      CSS: not only are all the keys known, but there's a well-known method to quickly brute-force an encrypted disc without even having the key. You can decrypt any DVD, using any DVD drive, using free software, and it's fair to assume this will continue to work forever, as long as DVDs and DVD drives continue to be manufactured.

      AACS: keys are known only for the first few generations of discs; newer keys are jealously guarded by those who have them. The only discs you can decrypt using free software are, by now, very old ones, and you can only do so using a drive that has never had a newer disc inserted into it, or else is one of the small handful of very old drives that have been hacked to ignore key revocation.

      There are proprietary tools that you can use to decrypt current BDs. Just like the free software tools, all such tools will eventually, inevitably, stop working when newer discs and newer drives are released.

      There's also a community database of known BD volume keys, theoretically enabling you to play discs that somebody else has already decrypted. Obtaining those keys can nowadays only be done using proprietary software, and in my experience, the database rarely includes the discs I'm interested in playing.

      (It's possible some of my information is out of date; I haven't looked at the situation in detail for a year or two. But that's the point: where DVD DRM is dead as a doornail, BD DRM is constantly evolving.)

    6. Re:This is the reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I have no intention of running off to the garage to put a different bit of bit of plastic in the player each time I want to watch a film

      First house, huh? Congratulations, and welcome to adulthood.

      The garage is for the car, not your movie collection.

    7. Re:This is the reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (It's possible some of my information is out of date; I haven't looked at the situation in detail for a year or two. But that's the point: where DVD DRM is dead as a doornail, BD DRM is constantly evolving.)

      Your data is way out of date. There's at least 3 different BD ripping programs with with 2 usable for free. At this point, the BD DRM is only evolving in minor bits and pieces because they've run out of rope for keeping the older players working. There's only so much they can manipulate within the spec, and apparently they're at the the limit. Even 4K with AACS v2 has already been broken, I believe, although I don't know. BD DRM is done. 4K DRM may also be done.

    8. Re:This is the reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "For free" != "free software". Name one program capable of decrypting an MKBv57 disc, that is not either (a) distributed solely as an obfuscated x86 binary, (b) reliant on a cloud service or a database of disc-specific keys, or both.

  10. Re: Rip Trump a new device hole by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 0

    Trump isn't investigating. I don't know where you got that idea.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  11. Hollywood needs to destroy AACS LA. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Hollywood thinks this RedFox company is going to save the movie industry, they're nuts. They haven't addressed the forces that killed SlySoft! It could all just happen again.

    The Hollywood studios should put their money into destroying AACS LA if they want people to switch from piracy to buying the discs. As long as AACS LA exists and there are laws that make it so that they can stop people from watching the discs they buy, then the discs will be a risky thing to spend money on.

    If Hollywood does not have the legal and financial resources to defeat AACS LA (either in court, or buy purchasing a repeal of DMCA from Congress), then Hollywood simply doesn't have a business model, because piracy will remain the only option for people who want to watch movies.

    They should have anticipated this kind of thing before they lept into the movie sales business. Movie sales cannot work until they're legal, period. You can't run a mainstream business that requires 100% of your customers to break the law by illegally playing the movies they buy.

  12. If I can't rip it by JohnFen · · Score: 1

    If I can't rip the DVD or Blu-ray, I can't watch it. It's as simple as that.

    1. Re:If I can't rip it by BLKMGK · · Score: 1

      An ironic statement made in a posting about software that allows you to do EXACTLY that. RedFox aka SLySoft and MakeMKV as well as others allow you to rip the media just fine.

      --
      Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
    2. Re:If I can't rip it by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      It was a supporting statement, not an ironic one.

  13. Free software would have liberated you by jbn-o · · Score: 1

    That's another reason you're better off investing in free software, software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify at any time for any reason. It's not the program that costs no money, it's the users that are free to make the program suit their needs. If the software were free software you could run it, hire people to improve it, learn programming (if you're not a programmer) to make improvements yourself, and share copies to help your community. I invest in free software and I recommend others do so too. We can liberate ourselves from so many abusive practices with software freedom.

    --
    Digital Citizen