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Linux DVD One Step Closer
Matthew Pavlovich, head of the new LiViD project, has released source code (from an anonymous source) to
allow CSS unlocking on DVD drives. This means people with DVD drives (only IDE at
the moment, SCSI soon) will be able to copy the raw, encrypted, MPEG off the disc. Once
this software is refined, all that will be necessary to watch DVD movies
under Linux will be a hardware decoder or a special software decoder (which would
have to be non-free).
>Here in the U.S., DVDs typically cost as much or a little bit more than audio CDs
He was talking about drives, not discs. At least in the U.S., a decent IDE DVD-ROM drive, like the slot-loading Pioneer 103, costs a little over $100 most places.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
who did the clean-room implementation. They also picked up a *huge* insurance policy to cover anyone who licensed it from them.
The original compaq licensed IBM's bios.
hm, I guess I'm confusing 'mpeg playback' with decoding. Here is the stb velocity 128 spec sheet.
The windows EULA says you can not reverse engineer. It also says that if you do not agree to the terms of the agreement, you are entitled to a refund. How many people actually got refunds? If microsoft doesn't honor their side of the agreement, legally you don't have to either.
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
The only reason DIVX was never cracked was because half of the encryption system sat within a centralized server that DIVX players dialed into periodically. With DVD all the decoding is done locally, and if the docoding can be done in software (which it often is, under windows, anyway) then that code can be RIPPED and ported to other platforms. Period. The Law? Fuck the law. Someone will do it regardless and post it to USENET and ftp servers in countries where US law is meaningless, and the SW will spread and no one will be able to stop it. The secret nature of DVD decoding is already doomed and has been since day one when software was released to do it. If they really wanted to keep it secret, they'd have had a better chance if they kept all the decoding in hardware. But it's too late now. The genie is out of the bottle. Now, it's only a matter of time. And I think this is what was really intended. Electronics makers want to sell players. And the way to do that is to make players that can play as many discs as possible. The who region encoding thing makes no sense.Why has the industry never made a big deal about import audio CDs? Why should video be treated differently?I think the region thing was just stuck in to appease Hollywood into supporting the format. By the time it's broken, the format will be entrenched and all will be well at that time.
I understand the problem with decoders for reading commercial DVDs, but IIRC, it is also possible to write non-encrypted DVDs. How far off is the Linux community from a mkdvdfs program, so I can shove all those cool Star Wars trailers onto a DVD I can watch at home?
After that, the next big step would be video-capture cards....then a hook-up to TiVO...
Yes, it is true, we have now all needed parts for software decoding of DVDs, but any software doing so will be illegal and/or non-free.
1. CSS
The information about CSS was obtained by reverse engineering some DVD software decoder. Reverse engineering is nearly everytime prohibited by license agreements, and for example european law allows reverse engineering only for software compatibility issues. So the CSS source was not obtained in a legal way, and it is at least a very problematic issue if we may use this source however. Im unsure if CSS is also protected by patents.
However CSS licensing is for free, but this will likely permit a opensource decoder.
2. MPEG-II
MPEG2 decoding software is available (Reference Decodec of the MPEG Simulation Group), but MPEG2 is subject to licensing with MPEG LA (www.mpegla.com). The license fee is $4 per copy.
3. AC3
AC3 decoding software is available, written using public available specs. However AC3 is subject to licensing issues (and probably patented too). The price for the (one-time) licensing is said to be about US$ 20000.
To summarize: We have all needed information for writing a decoder but we may not do so. Im sure that some people ignoring law however will publish such software, like happened with MP3 encoders, but the software will be very likely illegal to use.
Some countries apparently do not allow software patents, which will increase the possibility of a legal decoder, but be aware, that you as a user of such software are also bound to your countries law.
Be careful in what you are doing. If you want to do something reasonable try to convince some company to release a software decoder for linux or write a device driver for their decoding hardware.
Right, I got a riva 128 with my machine a while back that supposedly had hardware mpeg decoder built in to play DVDs. I've never bought a DVD drive for my system so I've never tried this out. We get decent Linux support, and I'll run right out and get a drive!
In reading a lot of the comments, I thought I'd do everyone a favor and clear up some of the misconception.
1. We _do_ have enough to have DVD playback under Linux. The DVD module for the Matrox G200 series cards does hardware decrypting of the video and audio streams.
2. CSS has two (2) parts to it. This only unlocks the disks and allows the encrypted data streams to travel to either a software decryptor or a hardware decoder.
3. The Zoran chipset will decode raw, encrypted DVD and AC3 streams in hardware. Thus the system never has a pipe for the decrypted data.
Any other questions are comments, let me know. Check the site and join the list.
What are the laws regarding reverse engineering, specifically reverse engineering a piece of software that has a specific clause in it's usage license not to reverse engineer or dissasemble the code? Are there any ways around a reverse engineering clause of a software product? Could someone, for instance, dissasemble a DLL or EXE in windows and figure out how it works. Then take their knowledge (not in electronic code form but written english/spanish/swahili(sp)/etc or through speaking) and pass it on to someone else who could then make a software product from that information. Would that constitute breaking the reverse engineering clause?
dvd.da.ru/
download PowerRip, and for windows you can
re-encode DVD movies back intopure free mpeg2 or quicktime or mpeg1 or mpeg4 or AVI or anything or RAW