divx drm

[falconator]

Hi, I purchased an unlimited license for a video from a website(yes it's porn) that seems to use encryption for their files. Everytime I want to play the video I have to use the native crappy divx player. Doesn't sound fair to me. I tried burning it on dvd and play it on my dvd which supposedly supports divx to no avail. The only method that works is using fraps.

How come everyone gave MS a bad rap for their DRM, eventually cracking it, but no one seems to care for what divx is doing? Recently I'm coming across more content protected by divx drm as webmasters have realized that the MS method isn't reliable.

[Sirber]

That's why you don't buy porn online ;)

not sure I've seen any info on how to crack divx drm...

[WalterK]

nobody bothers because divx drm is mostly caters to the er adults only spectrum.
If divx drm started showing up on music sites and main stream media , like wm drm or itunes somebody would be working to get some fair use out of it.

[em66]

Hi

I've experienced another case of drm protection on DivX files.
The french TV archives have open its vaults on the web :
http://ina.fr/archivespourtous/
All the shows presented can be bought in drm protevted DivX (for 6€).
I bought one. I can only watch it with DivX player, in which I had to register before I can play the file. DivX player checks my identity on internet each time I play the file.
On any other player (VLC, MPC...), the file plays, the audio is OK but the pixels are all mixed...
I wanted to find a way to convert the file (so I would be able to copy it on DVD, and watch it on my TV : I don't have a standalone DivX certified player).
I've tried some conversion software (VirtualDub...) of course it doens't work.
I've tried to capture the video in analog though the TV out of the graphic card, and record it on another computer via an analog TV card, but it was really not good (my TV out is rather bad).
The best thing I could do is to use a screen capture software, originaly done for games. I've tried a lot of these softwares, only Fraps was able to catch the overlay layer. I got something good, an uncompressed avi file which I could recompress the way I wanted.
But it's not as good as if I had simply converted the file, and it takes longer time, plus it needs lot of Gb on the HD (uncompressed avi !).

I consider I should be able to simply recompress my divx file in MPEG2, to watch it on my DVD player.
If somebody has a solution to un-drm a divx file, or anything that could help...

On the website of the INA, it's also said that there's an invisible Thomson watermark on the picture, used to identify the person who bought the video. Does anyone knows how does it works, where is the watermark hidden ?

Thanks a lot !

[roxfan]

Try Tunebite.

[em66]

Try Tunebite.

Unfortunately Tunebit only deals with wmv or itunes files. DivX files cannot be imported, and the software doesn't intercept the videos read in DivX Player.

Though thanks for your help.

[corten]

Hello em66,

I've got exactly the same problem. I tried the screen capture programme SnagIt, but in the recording the screen part where the divx file played was black, no sound either. No idea how to get rid of the drm. I would just like to be able to view what I have bought on my own equipment. I was so desperate I finally filmed the screen with my mini-dv camera! Of course, the result has an inferior quality: the image flickers. My camera does not have shutter times longer than 1/50, whereas the divx film has 25 frames per second. How did you succeed in using Fraps to create the avi file? I would be glad to have the images without the flickering.

Thanks in advance.

[em66]

How did you succeed in using Fraps to create the avi file? I would be glad to have the images without the flickering.

First of all, Fraps is a shareware, so you cannot capture a long video woth the unregistred version...but Fraps was the only one to catch the overlay, the other software I tried gave a black screen as you said.
I just use the following settings : "Full Size", "25 fps" (depend on the source of course), "Detect best sound input", and set a save folder. Then I play the video in DivX player, display it full screen and press F9.

Good luck.

[telefool]

I just use the following settings : "Full Size", "25 fps" (depend on the source of course), "Detect best sound input", and set a save folder. Then I play the video in DivX player, display it full screen and press F9.
.
Actually, you're missing a timing problem. Your computer display is 60 frames per seconds, and Fraps can't know which DivXplayer chooses to put a new 25fps frame, in a sequence of 2.2.2.2.2.3; so your capture might repeat one frame in six and miss the next. This problem appears clearly on panoramic movements.

If you use a video camera to film an LCD screen, you'll have no flicker, and -- hopefully -- your camera captor will average the display frames.
You will need to set your camera to progressive scan. Even with the best settings, you will loose detail in the dark parts of the picture; and of course, now the artefacts of .divx compression will add to those of DV capture.

I use Linux and log in Windows only to download. As an experiment, I transcoded a 5 mn file to watch under Linux:
1) captured the frames at 30 fps with Fraps
2) booted in Linux.
3) Mplayer neatly extracts the mp3 sound from the .divx file or converts it to .wav, which I did because I wanted to edit.
4) Mplayer (not too easily, you must set up the codecs first) converts the fraps file to stacks of jpg or pnm images (I chose the last, because it is loss less). I put each in a directory.
5) My images are black and white, I used Imagemagick to set the colorspace to gray (in bulk) to gain space.
6) In each stack from a fraps clip, look at first images to know which (for example, 2nd or 5th) of a series of six is repeated. Then I used a small script to remove it the frames and rename them to <clipnumber><framenumber>.
7) put together the clips in a single directory.
8) Remove the overlap of clips.
9) At this point you may check the number of frames, which is in the header strd chunk of the .divx file.
10) mplayer will convert your pictures and sound into a video stream with any codec you specify. You may encode to a lossy format, and the artefacts from the INA encoding add up to your encoding, or choose a lossless format, and your file will be large.

As simple as that ;-)

Now, to make it easier by recording your whole program, you may buy the complete version of fraps for US$39 -- nearly the price of an entry level Divx + DVD player... I have seen one for 39 euros at my local supermarket...

All this because you're annoyed by INA's hostility towards the public
or because the DRM won't let you use the product even to the terms of the licence or because you feel you're paying too dear at 6 euro an hour for a medium quality product 576x432 is only 2/3 of TV resolution, though it is yet better an better encoded that much of what you see on the internet)?

Is it worth the trouble? ^_^

As a professional I have often felt the INA people were hostile to their customers and defiant of them. That must be part of their living habits and traditions. It's no surprise they have an aggressive implementation of an EU law notoriously hostile to the public.

So really, it would be nice to dump the DRM, and peruse the program fully... exerting all the rights granted by the terms of the licence and laws and no more ...

The divx file is a standard RIFF AVI file, with a special header strd chunk and special video LIST::movi::dd chunks to carry the DRM info.
The audio stream is not DRM protected.
There is also an empty metadata chunk which I think has no relation to DRM.
When you ask the DivX player to play your file, it sends to the server an order number and may be some other information about the file to make sure you're not faking. The server sends back a decoding key number to uncrypt a few strategic bytes at the beginning of each movi::dc (compressed video) chunk according to the number stored in movi::dd chunk.
All of this is patent protected and you will find general information on the internet.
You may try to set up a mock server to watch your video when you're travelling with no access to internet (the licence grants you that and the DRM prevents you from doing it). You'll have to record your transactions and make something of it.
Another inroad would be to rebuild the missing bytes at the beginning of video sub-chunks. The encoding is quite a load on INA's servers (the customer pays for that) so they shouldn't be many. That's a hack too great for me.

[corten]

Hi there, em66 and telefool,

Thanks for all the info. I think I'll buy the full version of Fraps. It should allow me to record a 15 minute video (some 5 GB). Fraps starts a new file if it reaches 4 GB, so I would end up with two files without drm, which I would have to compress and merge. Seems feasible? As I said, I am not interested in selling copies or anything, but I just want to be able to use my own regular equipment. A private back-up copy can hardly be illegal?

[setarip_old]

Hi!Fraps starts a new file if it reaches 4 GBAlthough I'm not personally familiar with that program's limitations, the 4Gb cutoff may not have anything to do with "Fraps". It may be due a harddrive having a FAT32 format (maximum individual filesize 4Gb), rather than NTFS format...

[telefool]

As I said, I am not interested in selling copies or anything, but I just want to be able to use my own regular equipment. A private back-up copy can hardly be illegal?
I'd say it's fair use, but EC law is very restrictive, so I wouldn't bet on it.

I wanted to study a piece of INA achive slow motion and frame by frame, so I used Fraps.

Sorry to say the result is less than perfect: Fraps misses frames and duplicates others, either on 25 or 30 fps settings.
., so it .

Probably Fraps does not know when DivxPlayer refreshes the 60fps display. 30 fps capture yields better results. Or else Fraps takes part of the processing power, so DivX lacks time to decode all. I had to capture twice at 30fps ; then I used mplayer to turn the video into stacks of frames, and then imagemagick to combine them with hopefully neither redundant nor missing 25 fps frames, and then mplayer recombines then into a lossless video stream.

I would not do that for a whole program, so I wish someone finds at least a way to play the files on a laptop with no internet connection.

[corten]

In view of the slow-motion problems with Fraps, I will refrain from buying it. I took an LCD screen and simply filmed the sequences, which are of an inferior quality anyway. Good enough, no problems with slow-motion or frame-by-frame viewing!

[DarkZell666]

Why not simply set the screen refresh rate to 75hz for screening 25fps content (and throw away 2 out of 3 frames, aka. decimate by 3) ? Many monitors now support up to 100hz (depending in the resolution, you might need to fallback to 800*600 or so to choose your frequency).

But don't forget that decoding divx and "live" disk-writing is a very intensive process (uncompressed AVI is enormous as you know already), and that the missing/duplicating of some frames could be due to system overload (not just the framerate mismatch).

I personnally can't capture a game of counter-strike @ 640*480 with fraps, since the game falls down to 4fps while capturing (and that the captured avi also reflects the 4fps massacre :p). Try turning post-processing OFF while decoding your video, it'll save you some CPU time (if you haven't done that already ;))

[corten]

Does anyone know whether my 'primitive' solution (recording a divx-drm sequence with a mini-DV camera) also takes care of the 'invisible Thomson watermark' that has been added to the protected divx files? I would imagine that such a watermark is pretty hard to find in a mini-DV recording.

[DarkZell666]

I don't know about miniDV's quality, but applying some filters on the video would make it very difficult to find (spatio-temporal smoother for ex.).

However I don't know what the watermark consists of, so It may simply not work at all.

I was thinking of something subliminal (which would go away with temporal smoothing), since a "physical watermark", such as a barcode, could be cropped off easily enough and would be extremely ugly anyway :)

[telefool]

Why not simply set the screen refresh rate to 75hz for screening 25fps content (and throw away 2 out of 3 frames, aka. decimate by 3) ? Many monitors now support up to 100hz (depending in the resolution, you might need to fallback to 800*600 or so to choose your frequency).
Well, I dont see the good it could do; I do not mind detecting identical frames. In a perfect system, every 6th frame should be a duplicate; but it only takes a pass of the imagemagick compare tool to detect and suppress duplicates, even when they do not show up regularily.

But don't forget that decoding divx and "live" disk-writing is a very intensive process (uncompressed AVI is enormous as you know already), and that the missing/duplicating of some frames could be due to system overload (not just the framerate mismatch).
Quite true, although writing on a different disk than the one that reads should speed up the process.

On the whole, I just meant that fraps does not do the job so well. I look forward for a de-DRM solution so that I can watch the archives while I have no internet connection and no DVD player (like on a train).

[bilbotbw]

Use to have divX 6.2 and was able to erase the recent files list by erasing the divXplayer.rdf file.....with 6.4 I am unable to find the recent files list anywhere---has it been changed to something else??
I would like to get back the 6.2 version--I even bought it with a bundle but can no longer find it ?? Can anyone help?? I am a total newbie but learning...thanks

[olyteddy]

FWIW, you can supress the players urge to use 'overlay mode' by turning off acceleration in the DirectX control applet. Then one of the other screen capture progs will probably see the video fine.