HD-DVD / Blueray / AACS

[niknik]

This whole thing just makes me want to shout.
While it seemed HD-DVD was going on just fine - it is easier and cheaper to manufacture, and uses a more advanced MPEG4 encoding - we now watch as everything seems to crumble down in favour of Blueray.
I have nothing against Blueray personally, except that it comes from the same company that has put rootkits on thousands of people computer's with those absurd EULA!

But, what is realy going on? I am not a "conspiracy theory nut" but consider this:
The cause for the delay is AACS... well, Blueray also uses AACS. So, how can we possibly have Blueray discs before HD-DVDS? At least, they'll come out at the same time.

It's also sad to see that this delay is being caused by the same old issue of copy protection... something that WILL be cracked as soon as it gets on the street. When will they learn that there will always be people that will pirate things, but what they SHOULD care about is the people that actually BUY the original stuff... and I would certainly BUY even more if they saved those millions wasted on copy protection and instead had cheaper prices on DVDs.
Should the legal paying customers have to endure all the absurd and annoying protection schemes while "pirating customers" still get what they want without all the hassle?

Anyway, I think MS really made a bad call by not putting a HD-DVD drive on the Xbox, now PS3 will certainly tip the balance in favour of Blueray quite a lot - I just hope it costs SONY a LOT of money, though they'll probably get it back in the long run.

I guess next year we'll start seeing dual HD-DVD/Blueray disks, and in a few months when all is cracked and companies start seeing High Definition DIVX movies freely moving around the net without any of the "constraints" - they'll start working on the next generation format with even more advanced Protections schemes.

Will they ever learn that we want free content, and that it's by having decent prices that piracy can be fought?

I don't mind paying $10 or $20 for some DVDs I really want, and there are a lot more I wouldn't mind buying if it was for $5 or $6.
Time to market is another issue... I confess I have downloaded some episodes as they aired (I'm in Europe and we don't get all the series people see in USA), but I also buy the same Series Seasons in DVD when they come out.
(And it's actually a "bad" deal, because I get a standard definition DVD while the "Illegal" downloaded episodes are now mostly in HDTV 1280x720 divx's).

Companies should exist to provide people what they want: we want affordable discs with high quality content! Not to be bugged with authentication schemes so complex that someday we'll not be able to watch our own paid-for movies if some authenticantion server out there is down. That is completely crazy.

I have bought some PC games, and never took them off its case, playing a "cracked version" instead - without all the nuisance for "insert the original disc please" or "connect to the internet to authenticate". Most people out there wouldn't even have bought it. (But I do send mails to the developers and let them now about how I feel about it)
I guess I'll be condemned to do the same with the coming HD discs... <sigh>

[communist]

HD-DVD (...) uses a more advanced MPEG4 encoding.
No it doesnt. Sony's (Movie Studios) decision to encode their content only in MPEG2 has nothing to do what BluRay / HD DVD players would have to handle anyway, namely MPEG2, AVC and VC-1 because they're mandatory.

Anyway, I think MS really made a bad call by not putting a HD-DVD drive on the Xbox, now PS3 will certainly tip the balance in favour of Blueray quite a lot - I just hope it costs SONY a LOT of money, though they'll probably get it back in the long run.
Then again why should Microsoft release the X360 with a HD DVD drive that only reads HD DVD data discs but wont read HD DVD movie discs (since AACS isnt ready)?
Sony is already making money with BluRay in other areas (XDCAM anyone?).

[niknik]

Then again why should Microsoft release the X360 with a HD DVD drive that only reads HD DVD data discs but wont read HD DVD movie discs (since AACS isnt ready)?
Well, I'm not sure if that could be achieved later via a firmware update to the drive - at least it doesn't sound that far fetched to me (but it also doesn't mean that it would be possible).

Of course, it's all about more and more space... but let's face it, you could have HD quality *today* on a standard DVD9 disc (even on 4.5Gb) just by moving to a more recent codec. (Like the WMV HD dvds Microsoft has - I actually bought one of those, if it was for "US only" and when I tried to view it, it had to connect to the internet and told me "your country is not supported" - and it took me 5 min to find a way around it to be able to actually watch it). I mean, what if you're american and come to Europe and would like to watch that movie!?! That pisses me off...

But again, more than serving the paying customers, companies prefer to invent ways to continue to own something they have sold and you paid for.

[peter100m]

something that WILL be cracked as soon as it gets on the street
I'm not so sure about that. AACS is much stronger and more competent than CSS.
The studios learned a lot from the CSS failure...

[SirCanealot]

I'm not so sure about that. AACS is much stronger and more competent than CSS.
The studios learned a lot from the CSS failure...

I'm not sure either. But there's going to be a hell of a lot more people who're going to be wanting to crack that copy protection than on DVD-A, etc. I think it'll be cracked within a few months, but I wouldn't bet on it. However, as I said: a lot of people will probably try and sink their teeth into this protection. I mean, if it can be built, it can be unbuilt...

[niknik]

The Microsoft WMV HD DVDs required internet and server authentication, and people quickly found a way around it.
It might be harder, but, it will eventually be "cracked", I have no doubt about it. As long as there is "demand", there will always be someone "supplying" it.

I just wished they stopped with this "paranoid-escalade" and got back to the real issues: Getting people the content they want, when they want it, at a reasonable price. That way there would be no "demand" for pirated copies (or at least, it would be greatly reduced).

[kis2005]

IMO HD DVD and Blu Ray aren't going to be marketable to the average joe until it is affordable. Lets face it, Dual Layer blabk media is still about $3 a peice. I bought a Dual layer DVD +/-RW when they first came out, and I have used maybe 2 Dual Layer discs. Lets face it VHS palyers and tapes are still around and in use. Most people other than the ones on this forum (and similar) know anything about DVD encryption / protection ro what goes into DVD / video editing. By the time HD DVD or Blu ray disc and players are affordable, the AACS will be broken, and the people who just want to back up, convert, or do what they want with their own movies, will be able to. My favorite place to buy movies in the US is Wal-Marts $5 dollar bin. 'Sell to the masses and live with the elite. Sell to the elite and live with the masses." That is a saying that the media industry needs to remember.

[Doobie]

It's also sad to see that this delay is being caused by the same old issue of copy protection... something that WILL be cracked as soon as it gets on the street.

No, it won't be cracked as soon as it gets on the street. In fact, it may be many, many years before it's cracked to the degree that you'd be as free with a blu-ray disk as a regular DVD disk. I'm sure the players will have a low-definition output which will be easy to analogue record (accept for that macrovision which will trip up most people attempting their own backups), but the quality won't be as good as a ripped DVD.

When will they learn that there will always be people that will pirate things, but what they SHOULD care about is the people that actually BUY the original stuff...

This is the great problem copy protection, it punishes legitimate buyers, but usually not the pirates. The practical result is that copy protection usually promotes piracy.

Anyway, I think MS really made a bad call by not putting a HD-DVD drive on the Xbox,

Microsoft is serious about manking money on the Xbox 360, after being taken to the cleaners on the original X-box. HD-DVD wouldn't really add value to the games and Micrsoft doesn't care enough about who wins the format war to raise their costs on making the Xbox 360 to help out HD-DVD.

now PS3 will certainly tip the balance in favour of Blueray quite a lot - I just hope it costs SONY a LOT of money, though they'll probably get it back in the long run.

Yes, the PS3 is a heavy point in favor of blu-ray. The movie industry also has favors blu-ray because it's more heavily protected. There are only two ways for HD-DVD to win. They could make themselves much more consumer friendly, which they won't do. Or, they could dump their product on the market, cheap.

Companies should exist to provide people what they want: we want affordable discs with high quality content!

They created bargin bins in the store for old, 2nd-rate movies for people who aren't willing to spend so much. And, for those even less willing to spend money, they created movie rentals.

[Anonymouses]

I'm not so sure about that. AACS is much stronger and more competent than CSS.
The studios learned a lot from the CSS failure...

Well when you have a whole community of expert coders/hackers who use *nix/BSD systems that aren't going to be able to play their legitimately bought Blu-Ray discs on their computers I'm pretty sure at some point in the future we will see another DVD Jon breaking the AACS encyption. It may take longer than CSS but I have no doubts that it will get broken or someone will find a way to bypass the protection to copy the media to a hard drive. If nothing else the big piracy groups will find ways around the protection whether or not the make their methods public.

[niknik]

we will see another DVD Jon breaking the AACS

My thoughts exactly... I thinks it's inevitable.
Until someday, they realizr they should give us free content and trust we'll do the "right thing" - that's what 99% of the people out there do anyway, why should we "stand" all the annoyances of copy protection and quality degradation schemes because of the lousy 1% that pirate stuff?

[Alwayscamp]

Article:
* http://nanocrew.net/2006/01/08/deaacscom/



DeAACS.com

http://www.aacsla.com, like http://www.dvdcca.org, will be a success. Not at preventing piracy. That’s not the primary objective of any DRM system. Anyone who has read the CSS license agreement knows that the primary objective is to control the market for players. Don’t you just love when your DVD player tells you “This operation is prohibited” when you try to skip the intro?
6 years ago I didn’t think of registering decss.com. Not intending to make the same mistake twice, a while ago I registered http://deaacs.com
Now if only http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=15204 would come to market…

[Soulhunter]

Well, wouldnt supposable pirates simply use something like this (http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4244/unbenannt15ez.jpg)? :D


Bye

[Shinigami-Sama]

hell, even I could strip down an hdcp tv to build that, and I"m not even 20 LOL

and isn't there one of those anyways, some german site that bond linked to down in the hardware players about 4 months ago?

[arch_angel16]

Something to note: as the movie studios become aware of displays that are "insecure" enough to make the drawing you linked to above become possible, they will include updates to the media to not allow full-res playback on those displays. A measure like that is not enough to completely stop people like you, but enough to "persuade" the hardware vendors to use construction that doesn't easily allow hacks like that picture.

I think the studios' strategy goes like this: start ramping HD and Bluray while releasing simultaneously with DVD releases. Curb copying of full-res movies by nerfing output resolution to DVD level for insecure output paths (to dissuade interest in ripping, since you can get the same from a DVD) and gradually wind down production of DVD media. The decline of DVD availability plus the market's lack of support for HD media might cause a box office comeback, and finally, phase out DVDs entirely, leaving the market to more "secure" media, and the box office.

[niknik]

Something to note: as the movie studios become aware of displays that are "insecure" enough to make the drawing you linked to above become possible, they will include updates to the media to not allow full-res playback on those displays.

This is not a case of "unsecure players". Whatever the players, with the strictest HDCP/AACS/whatever, it will have to output data to drive the 1920x1080 lcd/plasma/etc display. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A WAY TO GET THE DATA, if you want it bad enough - be it via hardware or software.

What saddens me is that after all these years, they are still struggling to impose ever more "barriers" for you to watch what you PAID for!

And what makes me really mad, is that people who pirate stuff, and buy pirated stuff - because the prices are high (in part due to all the wasted millions gone into copy protection schemes); due to the movies people want today only being released "in the future"; etc - and they get all the ease of use that PAYING customers should get.

It think this is all inverted, and I hope someday companies will realize that.
I've bought movied on VHS, I've bought the same movies on DVD - and I'll probably even buy them again in HiDef, *but only* if they are at a reasonable price, and don't make my player have to connect to some security server in order to "authenticate" my viewing... The way I see it, they're just forcing more and more people to "hack" it.

Luckily my TV set has HDCP, but if I had a $3000+ set which now could only be used to play "restricted resolution" HD movies, I'd surely would look into how to downloading "pirated" HD movies and playing them in their full glory.

[arch_angel16]

the HDCP signal from the player to the display is encrypted. The display itself has to connect to the player so that the player can identify it as secure. If it's possible to open up the display and tap into a signal to get the unencrypted *digital* video stream, the studios will hear about it quickly and remove the display from their authorized list, meaning newer discs will include instructions to the player to not output full-res to that type of display.

The only likely place you'll get an unencrypted signal is at the final LCD output, after the display has converted the signal to voltage levels to send to the pixels. And as far as successfully capturing that with a very, very good A/D converter then RE-encoding that analog source, well, "good luck". You'll probably come out with something looking worse than DVD.

Anyway, I'd love to see the work start on capturing from monitor. I wonder if anyone can hook themselves up with an HDMI-equipped display and some encrypted source material...ok AACS isn't finalized yet so that'll probably be a problem...

[niknik]

...ok AACS isn't finalized yet so that'll probably be a problem...

They just finalized it (yesterday or so), Blueray has set it's specs to "stone" - and at last HD-DVD can get out on the streets too.
Let's see how long it will take till it's all cracked open... and once again, free copies will flow around the internet (there already are HD movies avaliable in the P2P, so... what will be different?:devil: ), and movie studios will once again blame piracy for the low sales and start working in a new "unbrakeable" copy protection for their future media...

[Soulhunter]

The only likely place you'll get an unencrypted signal is at the final LCD output, after the display has converted the signal to voltage levels to send to the pixels. And as far as successfully capturing that with a very, very good A/D converter then RE-encoding that analog source, well, "good luck". You'll probably come out with something looking worse than DVD.
Yes, that was my idea, intercept the signal after its decrypted and gets send to the panel. But why should the quality be worse than a DVD? You still have the full resolution (1 signal per pixel) no? And transforming voltage to a digital signal shouldnt be that lossy, no? In fact I thought the difference should be like between DVI and VGA (well, plus a YV12 -> RGB -> YV12 conversation). But then again, I dont know much about A/D conversations, so my estimations could be completely wrong... ^^;


Bye

[Doobie]

the HDCP signal from the player to the display is encrypted. The display itself has to connect to the player so that the player can identify it as secure. If it's possible to open up the display and tap into a signal to get the unencrypted *digital* video stream, the studios will hear about it quickly and remove the display from their authorized list, meaning newer discs will include instructions to the player to not output full-res to that type of display.

Can you imagine what the public outcry would be like when an entire model is crippled because someone figured out how to get around the copy protection on that model? Congress won't stand for it.

[mg262]

Skim this, guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

... it's relatively short and very relevant.

[arch_angel16]

Congress WILL stand for it, since there's so much money behind it. And it's not like the movie won't play in "compromised" screens, it's just that it won't play at full res. Also, any company with those screens is likely to recall them if the model gets compromised.

Oh and soulhunter, what you suggest is requires a non-trivial amount of engineering work. G'luck to you, should you want to try. I'd suggest an undergrad degree in electrical engineering before you even consider it.

Something to muse on: so now that it's official that non-HDCP displays aren't going to have "full" support of Bluray and HD-DVD, when HD-DVD and Bluray start to hit primetime, the price of these sets will absolutely plummet since no one will want a TV that can't even play the movie at full res...which could be a real boon for us ;)

[bond]

also hdcp becomes pretty irrelevant once hddvds/blurays can be watched on a pc

[Soulhunter]

Oh and soulhunter, what you suggest is requires a non-trivial amount of engineering work. G'luck to you, should you want to try. I'd suggest an undergrad degree in electrical engineering before you even consider it.
Nah, I have neither the knowledge nor the money to buy all the needed hardware. It was just a example what "ppl that do it for a living" (so ppl that are willing to invest a lot of time and money into it) probably gonna use to bypass all this new copy protection mechanisms.

also hdcp becomes pretty irrelevant once hddvds/blurays can be watched on a pc
Following this MS paper, HD-DVD/BluRay playback is restricted to PCs with HDCP compatible Software (Windows Vista) + HDCP compatible GFX + HDCP compatible Display iirc... :\


Bye

[bond]

Following this MS paper, HD-DVDs/BluRays playback s restricted to PCs with HDCP compatible Software (Windows Vista) + HDCP compatible GFX + HDCP compatible Display iirc... :\whats hdcp compatible software? i thought hdcp is a hardware thingie? :confused:

[arch_angel16]

Software's necessary - if the operating system doesn't support memory protection, and also lock out rootkits and unsigned drivers access to system-level operations, yeah.

With WinXP you could potentially create a driver that receives or intercepts a copy of the played back DVD. However with Vista, any driver that wants system level access has to be signed & verified by Microsoft.

[Doobie]

Congress WILL stand for it, since there's so much money behind it.

If I buy a HDTV and a Blu-ray player and then a month later discover that I can only get low-definition video from it because my model has been blacklisted, there will be Hell to pay.

Also, any company with those screens is likely to recall them if the model gets compromised.

They're going to trade my hardware for new hardware and then further compensate me for the hassle? No less than that would be expected, and expect class action lawsuits to follow. It is not acceptable to break products that legitimate customers own.

Oh and soulhunter, what you suggest is requires a non-trivial amount of engineering work. G'luck to you, should you want to try. I'd suggest an undergrad degree in electrical engineering before you even consider it.

Yes, most people will not be able to do this. They won't be able to backup their own disks. But, pirates will probably bypass the protection in short order. So, as usual, the DRM will only harm the legitimate consumer. Incidently, P2P users will most likely be satisified with trading 480p resolution movies. They already stick to mostly sub-DVD resolution just for the sake of bandwidth efficiency.

Something to muse on: so now that it's official that non-HDCP displays aren't going to have "full" support of Bluray and HD-DVD, when HD-DVD and Bluray start to hit primetime, the price of these sets will absolutely plummet since no one will want a TV that can't even play the movie at full res...which could be a real boon for us ;)

Don't count on it. These non-HDCP displays will be sold to suckers for only a few dollars less than the newer models with HDCP support will be sold for.

[arch_angel16]

No, count on it. Newer displays will have a cute little "Bluray / HD-DVD ready!" sticker on them, I'd wager.

[niknik]

So, as usual, the DRM will only harm the legitimate consumer. Incidently, P2P users will most likely be satisified with trading 480p resolution movies. They already stick to mostly sub-DVD resolution just for the sake of bandwidth efficiency.

Well, ther's users and there's "users".
Right now the only way to get HD movies is via illegal downloading.
And yes, there are places where "recoding" a original transport stream to fit "just" 8Gb receives complaints about the loss in quality.

With the speeds now available, downloading a 4, 8 or even 16Gb file to get your favorites movies/series in HDTV is not that farfetched... :D