Sony uses MPEG-2 on BluRay

[yidaki]

[_ _ _]
Unless your GFX card and monitor support HDCP, you're not going to get any HD picture. So, you're either stuck with downscaled content and could just stick with DVD, or you replace the entire GFX path, and since the latest generation of GFX cards support HD content playback acceleration, the CPU is no longer much of an issue.
[_ _ _]Downscaling ey, hmm, do they have a reason for doing that or is it just a side effect of a 'feature'?
How can they do that though, have they tampered with the mpeg2 specs?
If the stream is already past the BRD-player, even past decoding, it should display like any other mpeg2 movie. :-/

[Randall]

Downscaling ey, hmm, do they have a reason for doing that or is it just a side effect of a 'feature'?
How can they do that though, have they tampered with the mpeg2 specs?
If the stream is already past the BRD-player, even past decoding, it should display like any other mpeg2 movie. :-/

There's already been a patch released that gets around the DRM HD downscaling issue. It's available here (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/).

[Doom9]

or is it just a side effect of a 'feature'?It's another mandatory feature imposed by the MPAA. Unprotected content, no matter in what form, is the pure evil to them. Downscaling is done by the player, it has nothing to do with MPEG-2 or any other codec spec, it's a player feature, just like adding the Macrovision corruption signal to the analogue output of any DVD player today if the Macrovision flag is set in the video.

There's already been a patch released that gets around the DRM HD downscaling issue. It's available here.I'm sure you're going to tell us how exactly you plan to play HD DVDs or Blu-ray discs on Linux. It took DeCSS to make this happen for DVDs, it will take DeAACS (and more for Blu-ray depending on the final specs) to make this happen for the upcoming HD discs. And AACS is quite a bit more sophisticated than CSS, and it can even cope with compromised keys (that's what the original DeCSS came from).

[Randall]

It's another mandatory feature imposed by the MPAA. Unprotected content, no matter in what form, is the pure evil to them. Downscaling is done by the player, it has nothing to do with MPEG-2 or any other codec spec, it's a player feature, just like adding the Macrovision corruption signal to the analogue output of any DVD player today if the Macrovision flag is set in the video.

I'm sure you're going to tell us how exactly you plan to play HD DVDs or Blu-ray discs on Linux. It took DeCSS to make this happen for DVDs, it will take DeAACS (and more for Blu-ray depending on the final specs) to make this happen for the upcoming HD discs. And AACS is quite a bit more sophisticated than CSS, and it can even cope with compromised keys (that's what the original DeCSS came from). Well you're right about that. But, a major advantage to Linux is that there will be hundreds of people reverse engineering the AACS and any other encryption scheme Blu-ray has, and releasing it via open source for all other projects to pick up. People won't want to use Linux if it can't play their HD content on it. This will be done, it has to be.

[CruNcher]

Ok my bett is the russians will workarround it first (nope not DVD John this time, to hard for even him ;) )

[Randall]

Could be wrong, but I believe that DVD Jon has a job in the United States working on some private company project, so needless to say he's not going to be the one cracking the Blu-ray DRM. Not if he ever wants to set foot in this country again.

[charleski]

Ok, if you want some speculation about how cracking AACS (and BD+) will happen, here goes: The main strength of this scheme is the limitless set of subtree device keys that it specifies. Furthermore, these keys are stronger than the ones used in DeCSS and will not allow the generation of other keys from a sufficiently large sample (or so they claim, at least). The device keys are plugged into the Media Key Block to generate the key used to decrypt the actual content.

If I've read the history of DeCSS right, it relied on poor security of the keys in an Xing software DVD player app. With these keys it was possible to generate an ever increasing set of valid keys given a bit of processor power. The strength of AACS lies in the ability to revoke cracked keys and prevent the generation of further valid keys as they can take out an entire key subtree. BD+ may be similar to SPDC (http://www.cryptography.com/technology/spdc/), but I remain to be convinced that it offers any real qualitative difference to AACS.

So, if someone manages to crack a set of device keys, there will be good reasons not to let anyone know what keys you have actually cracked (so they can't revoke them). My speculation is this means that cracks of AACS will be commercial efforts (based in Antigua perhaps :), you know who I mean) whereby the client program sends the MKB to a remote server which applies the crack and then replies with the content key. I doubt we'll see openSource cracks of AACS, but I'd love to be wrong.

[lexor]

guys calm down, and read the sources, not what TheInquirer spins, there should be a bot that would delete threads that quote TheInquirer, btw.

The mpeg2 decision is purely made by Sony Pictures, the arm of Sony releasing the movies under their label, this has nothing to do with what everyone else will be doing, this is not a general statement about which video format all other Blue-ray movies will come out on.

/edit:
also don't forget that Sony has 140 patents relating to mpeg2 under it's belt, so it is in their interest to keep companies using Mpeg2 (pay sony royalties, when they buy soft/hardware to encode) and Sony has advantage of larger disk size to swallow the overhead of size compared to avc and vc1.

besides this will go nicely (for sony) with managed copy if they get that in for real, you can't make 1-1 backups to normal DVD if they gonna stick 25GB (half the BD) worth of video.

[thegeby]

guys calm down, and read the sources, not what TheInquirer spins, there should be a bot that would delete threads that quote TheInquirer, btw.

/edit:
also don't forget that Sony has 140 patents relating to mpeg2 under it's belt, so it is in their interest to keep companies using Mpeg2 (pay sony royalties, when they buy soft/hardware to encode) and Sony has advantage of larger disk size to swallow the overhead of size compared to avc and vc1.

Except that most patents on MPEG-2 are expiring in just a few years. I seem to remember that MPEG-LA has already lowered the royalties on the package deal in anticipation.

[cacepi]

Except that most patents on MPEG-2 are expiring in just a few years. I seem to remember that MPEG-LA has already lowered the royalties on the package deal in anticipation.Perhaps the reason Sony Pictures has decided on MPEG-2 is they're trying to save a few bucks in the mastering stage by simply recycling the video intended for HDTV broadcast. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the H.264/MPEG-4 segment of ISDB only used for mobile phones?

They're probably saving all they cash they can to settle the class action guillotine that the XCP silliness put over their heads.

cacepi

[thegeby]

Perhaps the reason Sony Pictures has decided on MPEG-2 is they're trying to save a few bucks in the mastering stage by simply recycling the video intended for HDTV broadcast. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the H.264/MPEG-4 segment of ISDB only used for mobile phones?

They're probably saving all they cash they can to settle the class action guillotine that the XCP silliness put over their heads.

cacepi

I cannot pronounce on the Japanese HD system, but DVB has adopted a mpeg-4/mpeg-2 combo for HD, while EBU has indicated a preference for 720p