DVD-Movie-PROTECT by X-PROTECT: Manipulated TOC and dummy files

[LigH]

Several video DVDs, especially some being released in Germany, have a rather aggressive new "copy protection", based on similar techniques as some aggressively protected audio CDs: Invalid tables of content, reporting the existence of a huge amount of files, and a virtual capacity far beyond the physical capacity of a double-layer DVD (like 15.2 GB).

Real consumer DVD players shall not be harmed because their firmware uses the information in the IFO files to access the valid VOB file parts. PC operating systems instead will try to interpret the file systems, and rely on the invalid entries. On top, the size of some IFO is faked to 0 bytes for PC OSs (I assume because they prefer the ISO over the UDF file system).

http://www.x-protect.com/8.html

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/89306 (german)

The so called "99% compatibility" with player and PC drives is indeed optimistic -- according to several reports, especially Sony DVD Players and several DVD Player software for PCs does not play the content; so it is again merely a "playback protection" rather than a copy protection...

[setarip_old]

Hi!

See:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125199

as well as earlier threads discussing "Das Parfum" and other German DVD releases...

[blutach]

@LigH

Of course, a consumer should be able to play his DVD where he wants to - on his PC or standalone. Having said that, I wonder if a properly designed software player shouldn't also follow the same methodology as a standalone does - i.e. read VIDEO_TS.IFO (under the micro UDF 1.02 filesystem) and follow the sector pointers from there, totally ignoring all other files in the filesystem?

As an experiment, I made a home DVD with only VIDEO_TS.IFO in the filesystem (I had both UDF and ISO9660). It played on all my standalone players, including the SONYs. Can't recall which software players "burped", but there were a couple, that's for sure.

Regards

[SamuriHL]

Thank God for Slysoft products. :D If we start to see this ridiculous "protection" in other regions, I'll not have any problems playing them on my HTPC thanks to AnyDVD. People who use other backup solutions, however, will have to rip them first. It's a sad day when you have to rip an original DVD just to be able to watch it on your high end HTPC...

[LigH]

@ setarip_old:

So someone tell me why I did not find any related thread using the board search function... :rolleyes:

Maybe due to very slight differences, like a missing dash.

[HyperHacker]

Of course, a consumer should be able to play his DVD where he wants to - on his PC or standalone.Thus, I would suggest you return the disc to the store if possible, or to the manufacturer if not, since it's defective.

[SamuriHL]

Thus, I would suggest you return the disc to the store if possible, or to the manufacturer if not, since it's defective.

Has this protection been seen in other regions yet? I thought it was just on a few German releases so far. I've not seen any discs with this on it...only read about them. I consider any protection that doesn't allow me to play it on my HTPC to be defective by design and I would agree with you that it should be returned. Fortunately, like I said, we've not seen it in my region so far. At least, not that I know of.

[Orion17]

If it starts showing up in the US, everyone should just not purchase any movie with that protection on it and see how fast they stop using it to protect DVD's. Money talks...

[SamuriHL]

And if I got to choose the movies we buy in my house, I would do so. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't care what protection it has...if she wants a movie, she wants it regardless and it's up to me to make sure it plays. Hence why I'm a huge fan of AnyDVD...even this stupid protection is defeated by it and the original can then be played on my HTPC. So, if they do put that crap in my region, I hope people have massive problems with it and return them all to the stores. Not to inconvenience the consumers, but, to send a message to the studios that we won't tolerate that nonsense. But, try to convince my wife of that...sigh. :)

[blutach]

Thus, I would suggest you return the disc to the store if possible, or to the manufacturer if not, since it's defective.
It's defective if a player which respects the DVD specs doesn't play it. All I was positing was that perhaps some software players are not all that rigourous.

Please refer to my comments on my home made DVD with only VIDEO_TS.IFO in its filesystem.

Regards

[setarip_old]

@LigH@ setarip_old:
So someone tell me why I did not find any related thread using the board search function...Maybe due to very slight differences, like a missing dash.Just enter Das Parfum

[Mug Funky]

typically, software players are not really supported by DVD authouring or replication houses. they're just so variable that even with similar systems and identical software, different results will occur. thats probably why AACS includes different keys for software players - so it would be easier to manage them.

however, if a disc doesn't play in a brand name standalone (paging dr sony), then there is a problem and the disc is defective. especially if it's repeatable with different units of the same model.

i really don't understand the attitude of some companies risking an expensive recall, or more expensive damage to their reputations by encumbering an easily rippable disc with stuff to make it more difficult to play.

[HyperHacker]

If it doesn't work because the software players don't do things right, it's their problem. If it's designed to exploit these differences to be unplayable by software players (e.g. corrupt filesystems), then I'd consider it defective.

[blutach]

You'd think these software players made by large companies such as cyberlink, Ner0, etc could mimic what a $25 standalone could do, wouldn't you?

Yes, the protection scheme is insidious, but if it is not "off spec", our complaints get weaker.

Personally, I think studios need to recognise that lotsa people wanna play their DVDs on their PCs and shouldn't make it harder for them to do so.

Regards

[marsoupilami]

Hi there!

I think there are not only wrong entries inside the TOC
Looking at a reconstructed IFO of "Das kleine A..loch 2" I found an entry which obviously crashes DVDD
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/4811/ifoedwe7.th.jpg (http://img523.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ifoedwe7.jpg)

Last Sector of VTSI should be 31 in this case I guess
(Start Sector of VTSM_VOBS -1/ or VTSTT_VOBS -1 whichever is less)

[kurkosdr]

Just a question:
Do any of these "X-protected" disc bears the DVD-Video (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/18/Dvd-video-logo.svg)logo?

If any of them does, we may have a lawsuit in our hands. The DVD-Video standard clearly specifies the presense of a correct UDF filesystem.

So, if you go and implement your own "X-protect" file system, which has a TOC that shows 14,5GB files, files that do not exist on the disc and other nonsense a legit UDF filesystem would never show, you are falling out of the DVD-Video standard.

All consumer DVD players clearly state in the manual that only DVDs bearing the DVD-Video logo should be inserted on the machine, and that you should avoid feeding the machine with non-compatible discs.

Unfortunately at the present time there is no way to ram this information into the skull of Average Joe ("if it looks like a DVD-Video, it's a DVD-Video"), who will assume the disc is scratched and blame it on the guy who previously rented the movie.

[kurkosdr]

Yes, the protection scheme is insidious, but if it is not "off spec", our complaints get weaker
If it uses any other filesystem than UDF, it is off spec. Period. Copy protections like Xprotect are off spec. Case closed!

The DVD-Video spec clearly specifies the presense of a proper UDF filesystem, and uncorrupted VOB and IFO files.

If a disc has some kind of custom "X-protect filesystem" that shows wrong filesizes and non existent files, this filesystem falls out of the UDF specs, and so it's not a UDF filesystem, and so the disc it's not a DVD-Video disc.

As regards the thing that a player should only parse the IFOs and not the filesystem, the DVD spec doesn't mandate what a DVD player shouldn't do. For example, my sony *standalone* recorder does parse the filesystem before it plays the disc (and can show me a full list of all the titles in it).

The last time I came across such a movie was with Quantum of Solace (not xprotect, but some other nonsense for sure). It didn't have the DVD-Video logo, just a huge "copy protected" logo on it. Needless to say, I run it through DVD Fab, and then created a DVD-Video compliant version of it, and put it that on my machine. Not the original.

[setarip_old]

@kurkosdr

Hi!

You're beating a dead horse by trying to ressurect a thread that was (before you) last posted to more than 2 1/2 years ago.

BTW - Once again, if you'd perform a search here, you'd find that I made a similar suggestion (including addresses for those responsible for monitoring use of the "DVD Video" logo) in 2007, when this was a fresh topic...