Slashdot Mirror
DVD for Linux
platinum wrote to us with the news that folks at the Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin are showing a board for Linux that will allow DVD under Linux. Specs for the board are on the site, and the board should be availible towards the end of the year-December, probably.
Actually I think the dxr3 *IS* a Hollywood+. I forget the exact model number though.
-matt
I wrote to them and they replied saying something like, "we would like to support linux but current contracts with prevent us from doing so. we are currently looking into the legal issues, and if possible we will consider writing a driver." IOW, "we're not supporting it now, and probally never will." Sigma has said that their next board will support linux. Their current one can't because the css/decryption is done in software and they are worried us big bad linux haxorz will be able to crack css, oops we already did.
-matt
But that doesn't decrypt the data on the disc, which means you can't reencode it as say a lower-quality CDR image. This is what they don't want broken and what they would be liable $1M for if they were negligent with, not the region coding.
I bought my computer with DVD, and after the first 2 months of playing scifi movies in the corner of my monitor nonstop, I hardly ever use it for movies now. However, one really nice thing about DVD drives is that because of its improved ability to read, it can read off of CDRW's and cheap, low-quality CDR's (the almost transparent kind) that regular CD-ROM drives may have trouble with.
My advice is to get DVD. It's not much more expensive than a CD-ROM, and although you're probably not going to use the extra functionality all the time, it's nice to have it there when you want/need it.
One thing I would like to see is region independance - both the creative card and the DVD deck I have are region free since I ship DVDs in from the States due the the
1. Crap prices in most UK stores (19ukp seems about average)
2. Dreadful release timetable - we seem to get releases way after video and way way after America gets the DVDs.
Out of insterest is there any legal requirement for these boards to support Macrovision - which I believe is only available as a licensed chipset - and if so is that a global requirement or is it per country?
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Quit bitching to us about lack of driver support, and either:
a) complain to the hardware manufacturers for ignoring a large portion of their userbase by not releasing non-windows/mac drivers or making specs available to the Free Software community.
b) open up an editor and start coding some drivers for the parts that we do have specs for.
c) go back to windows or mac
BTW, USB is in the 2.3.x devel tree, which Linus has stated won't take near as long to go to 2.4.x (stable) as 2.1.x took. AFAIR, by the end of the year, if not sooner.
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
Right now you could make a copy of a CSS encrypted DVD. The problem is the cost of the media, IIRC dvd-ram discs go for about $50 a pop. It would simply be cheaper to buy the movie from some place like www.dvdexpress.com for about $20. Now when the encryption is cracked you might see people converting the MPEG2 streams to MPEG1 and creating VCDs off of DVDs.
-matt
I'm wondering if you'll be able to disable macrovision or the region encoding on the board. I really hope you will be able to. Also, does anyone know anything about the on screen performance of this card? Does it produce a high quality image, or is it remnicant of the dxr2's image.
-matt
That's probably unlikely. The company would get in monetary trouble if the decryption was reverse-engineered from their software. This is one of the reasons no one wants to port their software players to Linux--they're afraid that it will be that much easier to figure them out. And after someone RE'd part of a Windows player (for the purpose of getting it working in Linux), they got even more scared. So the people who make the Hollywood+ card are, I believe, implementing decryption in hardware so they can release software drivers that don't contain the taboo information.
The dxr2 has an absolutely awful monitor display. I've seen software mpeg2 decoders that made the s-video tv output look like crap. I've heard the dxr3 looks a lot better.
-matt
Software decoders are problematic. There is prohibitive patenting on a couple of elements of DVD decoding, so you can't have a Free decoder. The people writing non-Free decoders aren't even considering writing for Linux.
If the desktop Video4Linux-compatible hardware decoder sells well, I'm sure a PCMCIA version will follow soon. It costs much more to develop a PCMCIA card, though, so it's kinda understandible that they limited the risk by doing a desktop version first.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
The drivers are going to be GPL'd so you could port it to whatever OS you wanted to. From what I understand the linux drivers will be released soon, sure you can't buy the card yet, but for the first time we might have drivers for linux before the hardware exists.
-matt
Someone from the windows community with microsoft's Driver Developement Kit, which IIRC is VERY expensive.
-matt
The DDK comes with an MSDN subscription, which costs roughly as much as a license for Troll Tech's Qt. This isn't expensive by any stretch. If a company making *hardware* doesn't have the budget to purchase even a DDK, I don't see any hope for them.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
December?! For the love of god, don't they know the world is going to come to an end at the end of this year?!
--
I've heard the dxr3 is MUCH better, but I've never seen it.
-matt
True, not expensive for a company, I meant for a windows hacker who wanted to write his own driver. Basically, if the company doesn't release windows drivers there is little chance of someone writing their own driver unless they already happen to have a copy of the DDK. Not to mention I don't think you can legally port a GPL'd driver to windows because of the DDK.
-matt
You don't actually have to crack CSS to be able to do this. Example: There's a bunch of programs on Windows right now which will let you convert a DVD to a) .AVI + .WAV Format files or b) .VOB (unencrypted Mpeg 2) by wrapping the decoder .DLLs or by unsing singgle frame capture + single frame advance.
PS: if you're interested, have a look at http://windoms.sitek.net/~dvdsoft/dv dsoft.html
you have moved your mouse, please reboot to make this change take effect
Already happened. I forget the URL but someone managed to disassemble the instructions for CSS authentication. From what I understand it has since been converted to C. Now they are working on cracking the encryption on the MPEG stream itself. I think AC3 could pose a serious problem though, as IIRC AC3 is patented while CSS is not (there already is an AC3 library for Linux though). For movies that contain a standard PCM track that wouldn't be a problem, but how many actually do?
-matt
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran