"Cinavia"/Verance BluRay audio watermark protection [Archive] - Page 12

kurkosdr

16th January 2011, 23:24

Um, who's making new models of DVD players??? I can understand BD players that play DVD's being affected
Even in that case, if Cinavia starts appearing in more DVD releases, and bluray players start to block backup DVDs and Divx avi's, then we wouldn't be able to make backup DVDs anymore that play everywhere. Oh, and cinavia can be added on AC-3 tracks too. It surprises of they haven't done it already.

By the way, has anyone tried to make a DVD Shrink backup of The Takers R1 DVD and play it with the DTS enabled on the PS3? We may be in for a surprise. Or make a divx avi DVD rip, with the sound taken from the DTS track, and play it on the PS3? We might be in for a surprise too.

Same for other cinavia infected players...

SamuriHL

16th January 2011, 23:34

Ok, well, so far it's not even an issue for the majority of people with blu-rays. The PS3 being the biggest device that has Cinavia. I'm only aware of 2 or 3 other players that have Cinavia at all. Yes, this list will increase. But so far, Cinavia hasn't been a huge problem except for PS3 owners. It WILL increase in the future. I don't think the DVD releases are going to be the big issue. But, the fact remains, I want someone to test just how "Cinavia protected" they are.

setarip_old

17th January 2011, 01:13

@kurkosdr If next week cinavia detection becomes a requirement for CSS, then all manufacturers will have to comply, and new dvd players sold since then will be affected.Unless something has changed , DVD licensing requirements are governed by "DVDFLLC" (out of Japan) and not "AACS-LA".

If this is still the case, "AACS-LA" cannot legally compel licensees to do anything specifically applicable to standard DVD players or media (What can be accomplished by armtwisting of companies that are licensees of both organizations could be a very different story...)

BTW - You say:bluray players start to block backup DVDs and Divx avi's...DivX - playback capability is itself a LEGALLY LICENSED product, for which the hardware manufacturers have paid good money, because it helps sell units. There'd likely be a raft of suits and countersuits should one licensing entity (AACS-LA) try to convince its licensees to eliminate DivX playback capability.

And,at any point in the future, when the day is done, it will still be the same question - Who's ahead today, in the "Cinavia" game - is it Verance and AACS-LA or is it the community? ;>}

setarip_old

17th January 2011, 01:56

@SamuriHL But, the fact remains, I want someone to test just how "Cinavia protected" they are.Those of us (including me) without "Cinavia-infected" hardware will have to stand on the sidelines again, frustrated, while you (as you did with "The Losers") or others with affected players do the testing and report the results for the benefit of all...

SamuriHL

17th January 2011, 01:59

@SamuriHL Those of us (including me) without "Cinavia-infected" hardware will have to stand on the sidelines again, frustrated, while you (as you did with "The Losers") or others with affected players do the testing and report the results for the benefit of all...

Agreed. I have no interest in buying or renting a DVD, however. And I don't know enough about this particular movie to know if I want to buy it or not. So, like you, I'll have to sit on the sidelines until it comes out and people with a PS3 or other Cinavia infected hardware can report what they find. I just hope that if someone reports on it that they document their full methodology, as I'm sure you'll agree. What programs were used to make the backup, etc.

Ghitulescu

17th January 2011, 09:42

@kurkosdr Unless something has changed , DVD licensing requirements are governed by "DVDFLLC" (out of Japan) and not "AACS-LA".

Which companies belong to each licensing body? :p :rolleyes: :p

xenex

17th January 2011, 10:58

If I can be forgiven for some possible speculation, based on what I have seen in the past, I'd bet that cheap new $99 Chinese-made BD players will (likely) appear within the year.

These will probably flood the market and be brand-named by companies that no one has ever heard of before, with names like "GoWell," "Hotwell," "Desay," "Hualu," "VTREK," and etc...

And I speculate that they will "ostensibly" support Cinavia, but someone will soon find them to have a "hidden" menu command, like "press EJECT,1,2,3,4" and Cinavia will be disabled.

Not intentionally, of course, it was just something the Chinese manufacturers implemented for testing purposes, but "accidentally" forgot to remove.

So, while the people who spend large amounts of money buying "famous-name" "world-brand" gear from SONY, Panasonic, etc., are wondering why their equipment is telling them "Sorry, Dave, I can't do that" the thrifty smart people who buy cheap Chinese gear play whatever they want, wherever they want.

mike20021969

17th January 2011, 11:31

After reading some of the latest posts on here, it seems many people are still assuming Cinavia will never be able to be removed from back-ups.

Ghitulescu

17th January 2011, 11:37

.... it seems many people are still assuming Cinavia will never be able to be removed from back-ups.

Yes, removing a stain from a T-shirt which washes away the original colour is not considered to be a removal.

The best method still remains the prevention of the triggering or its inefficiency (the player would keep playing even after the trigger)

Peer van Heuen

17th January 2011, 12:22

Yes, removing a stain from a T-shirt which washes away the original colour is not considered to be a removal.

So, you're somehow, based on a gut feeling (?), insisting on the impossibility of removing that watermark without destroying or "staining" the actual content.

I don't know how much thought you have really spent on that matter or how qualified you are to give an expertise.
Just this much: it is very plausible, that you can apply a mechanism, that renders the watermark useless, at least without percievably further worstening the quality of the signal.
It is even likely that - depending on the level of sophistication - removal would re-improve the quality, more closely resembling the original.

A watermark consists of either subtraction or modification of existing information or of addition or a combination thereof in a specific way.
Anyone can imagine, that - once you know how a watermark has been applied, you can, to a certain level, work yourself backward again.

It's not quite as simple as reversing
f(x) -> f'(x)
as the watermarking is not neccessarily or even likely a bijective projection and also in many situations certain parts of the original signal already coincidentally resembled parts of the watermark, but if you apply some additional signal processing for statistical prediction, you will very likely be ending up repairing more of the original signal than you will be messing it up.

I'd also like to point out: it has been done before with another audio watermarking scheme. The results were excellent.

The only difference in case of Cinavia is that it may be more difficult to make the removal remain effective for all detection devices.

xenex

17th January 2011, 12:45

I'd also like to point out: it has been done before with another audio watermarking scheme. The results were excellent.

Can you clarify if the "previous work" to which you refer was the Felten (et.al) work on the SDMI watermark challenge in 2000?

http://www.usenix.org/events/sec01/craver.pdf
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/sip/sdmi/faq.html

Ghitulescu

17th January 2011, 12:52

So, you're somehow, based on a gut feeling (?), insisting on the impossibility of removing that watermark without destroying or "staining" the actual content.

I don't know how much thought you have really spent on that matter or how qualified you are to give an expertise.
Just this much: it is very plausible, that you can apply a mechanism, that renders the watermark useless, at least without percievably further worstening the quality of the signal.
It is even likely that - depending on the level of sophistication - removal would re-improve the quality, more closely resembling the original.

A watermark consists of either subtraction or modification of existing information or of addition or a combination thereof in a specific way.
Anyone can imagine, that - once you know how a watermark has been applied, you can, to a certain level, work yourself backward again.

It's not quite as simple as reversing
f(x) -> f'(x)
as the watermarking is not neccessarily or even likely a bijective projection and also in many situations certain parts of the original signal already coincidentally resembled parts of the watermark, but if you apply some additional signal processing for statistical prediction, you will very likely be ending up repairing more of the original signal than you will be messing it up.

I'd also like to point out: it has been done before with another audio watermarking scheme. The results were excellent.

The only difference in case of Cinavia is that it may be more difficult to make the removal remain effective for all detection devices.

You confirmed my assertions: see the red passages.
I spent no minute in decompiling cinavia - I studied their patents instead, and the watermarking they do is not reversible, not in the 1:1 form anyway, even if one knows the functions.

I am also a bit familiar with various audio filters and methods used in music.

Instead of a "decinavied" HD audio I would prefer an "honest" DD/DTS 5.1. Otherwise we would be in the same situation as few years ago, when SCMS and CSS protections were "circumvented (:p)" via analog loophole (cdplayer -> chinch cables -> cdrecorder/soundcard; dvdplayer -> chinch cables -> dvdrecorder/tvcard) and macrovision was defeated via external boxes, which at that time more damaged the signal than removed the distortions. I don't think this is THE solution. The best solution is NOT to have it, originally. The second best one is to render the player immune.

It's the 1:1 digital copy the studios want to fight, and this is for now rendered moot.

Besides, adding cinavia to a "pure" sound is counterproductive on the long term, as shown by other watermarking systems (like the CBS Copycode) and the fact that DVD-audio never left its blockstarts. Pure sound is aimed at audiophiles, people that have already thousands of $/£/€ on their equipment, only to hear the cinavia artefacts. It doesn't affect regular people with normal setups. And it's a PITA for all that use backups to save their originals.

GodofaGap

17th January 2011, 13:02

Pure sound is aimed at audiophiles, people that have already thousands of $/£/€ on their equipment, only to hear the cinavia artefacts.
People don't hear Cinavia artifacts. If Cinavia was that easy to detect it could also be that easily scrambled.

Ghitulescu

17th January 2011, 13:39

One can easily spot a stain on a T-shirt, its removal seems to be more difficult, right? :p

Secondly, the better (and more expensive) a device is, the easier is to spot defects in the source. The cheap toys "level" the quality.

I had some time ago a controversy about the quality of the video output of a certain player. Everyone was outraged and I simply could not see the error. I know how to recognise the defects, I simply couldn't find that "outrageous" one. My fault was that I looked for an outrageous effect, while it was a simple line doubling, twice on the screen (like the trinitron issue). Two extra lines out of 1080 made those people cry out so loud. These lines could be spotted only using test patterns (or oversharped LCD-TVs, especially those HDready which amplify it by upscaling). However, once discovered, I saw them the lines every time.

Once cinavia will be more aggressive, it cannot be tolerated anymore, especially by those that have paid premium prices for gear and for media, and thus they expect premium quality too.

If I don't care about the quality I paid for, I see no problem in removing cinavia the "hard way". But I do care, and I see a problem in having it already.

Peer van Heuen

17th January 2011, 13:52

The second best one is to render the player immune.

...and that is the part, I'm strongly objecting to.
It's what I was trying to explain, I'll put some numbers to it to simplify:

If the quality of the original is 100% and the quality after applying Cinavia is 99%, my personal "gut feeling" is that you CAN remove Cinavia in a way that you'll end up somewhere between 99% and 100%.

So in no way do I believe, that leaving Cinavia intact will result in better quality than removing that stink (not that I believe anyone would be able to tell the difference either way).

But even if you drop down to 98% by removing Cinavia, I would absolutely, definitely, no doubt prefer it to any method that retains the junk in the material but just suppresses the detection.
Because that material (that I've paid for) still comes with a flaw that might strike me later on when I decide to transfer it to my you-name-the-device I want to enjoy it on.

xenex

17th January 2011, 13:59

GodofaGap

17th January 2011, 14:19

One can easily spot a stain on a T-shirt, its removal seems to be more difficult, right? :p
I'm not talking about removal, I'm talking about scrambling. And yes, it's not too difficult to paint a blue spot red. :p

Of course your whole analogy fals apart since I haven't read anything reliable about *hearing* Cinavia so far. Also not from those with "high quality" gear.

rotty

17th January 2011, 14:30

I'm not talking about removal, I'm talking about scrambling. And yes, it's not too difficult to paint a blue spot red. :p

Of course your whole analogy fals apart since I haven't read anything reliable about *hearing* Cinavia so far. Also not from those with "high quality" gear.

Hi GodofaGap

Its sort of like this, if is say a sentence "I'm off to the park" and someone alters it and you hear "I'm going to the park" you dont see anything wrong with it at all, its fine, UNTIL you hear what was actually said, then you see the difference.

Cinavia is sort of like that, if you took say a 5 second clip of audio that had the watermark and played it, it would most likely sound ok, if you heard the same clip without the watermark and played them one after the other you probably would hear a difference, probably not massive but a difference.

Its the fact that the audio has been bastardised that is wrong and we shouldnt have to have that on so called true hi-fi audio.

Ghitulescu

17th January 2011, 14:42

Since Cinavia has now been blocking "Camcorder-Recordings" in cinemas for at LEAST a year now, it has obviously been present in the Cinema audio for at least that long, and no one has noticed, or complained about the audio quality. Hmm....
Do I need to comment on this? :p:p:p:p:p:p:p
I was talking about subtle differences, not about butchered quality.

I'm not talking about removal, I'm talking about scrambling. And yes, it's not too difficult to paint a blue spot red. :p
But you have to know first that it was RED! And this info is missing. Your brain can deduct some things using various patterns and some past experiences, but not a software. Not today.
Of course your whole analogy fals apart since I haven't read anything reliable about *hearing* Cinavia so far. Also not from those with "high quality" gear.

There are 5 movies so far, so the impact of cinavia is extremely low (keep it this way please :)). Some of them do have a presence around 15kHz which should be detectable by most people, provided the gear has the required bandwidth.

My example should demonstrate that once one knows what to look for s/he would always recognise it.

Again I am talking about 100% recovery of the original signal. It is not possible. However, Peer is right saying that removal algorithms could be developed in order to reach an excellent result.

Once again, to avoid any confusions and misinterpretations:

if one defines quality by employing terms like camcorder-recordings, we are definitely not talking about the same thing.

I am talking about the 100% accurate obtention of the original recording. The failure to do so means [at least] for me the useless of the HD audio, the purpose of HD audio, as defined and marketed by the content producers, is therefore defeated. With or wothout cinavia I will always end, be it original or copy, with something that may sound brilliant, but it's not what I've paid for - I've paid for unaltered studio quality, as advertised.

But in the end, I think this should be path to be followed -> http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1455339&postcount=281.

mike20021969

17th January 2011, 15:01

I've paid for unaltered studio qualityYou might think you have. as advertisedWhere?

GodofaGap

17th January 2011, 15:21

Its sort of like this, if is say a sentence "I'm off to the park" and someone alters it and you hear "I'm going to the park" you dont see anything wrong with it at all, its fine, UNTIL you hear what was actually said, then you see the difference.
There is a well known auditory effect that is called masking.

But you have to know first that it was RED!
Perhaps there is a language barrier here. Scrambling is not restoring the original signal. It is randomizing a signal so that it becomes unrecognizable to pick up for something that it is not aware of the scrambling process. Cinavia in the end is nothing more than a coherent signal that can be picked up, and therefor it can also be scrambled.

This scrambling may result in audible loss, but we can't know now.

There are 5 movies so far, so the impact of cinavia is extremely low (keep it this way please :)). Some of them do have a presence around 15kHz which should be detectable by most people, provided the gear has the required bandwidth.

My example should demonstrate that once one knows what to look for s/he would always recognise it.
This is nonsense. Just because something is in the audible frequency range, it does not mean that it is audible even with the best gear available. There is more than one component to making something audible.

Also, the Cinavia must be present in much lower frequencies than that, otherwise eliminating it would be rather trivial with a low-pass.

I am talking about the 100% accurate obtention of the original recording. The failure to do so means [at least] for me the useless of the HD audio, the purpose of HD audio, as defined and marketed by the content producers, is therefore defeated. With or wothout cinavia I will always end, be it original or copy, with something that may sound brilliant, but it's not what I've paid for - I've paid for unaltered studio quality, as advertised.
That does not exist. At best you are listening to the interpretation of an audio engineer/mixer obfuscated by the particular acoustics of your room.

Ghitulescu

17th January 2011, 16:37

That does not exist. At best you are listening to the interpretation of an audio engineer/mixer obfuscated by the particular acoustics of your room.

Yes, there's a language barrier. I get what you say on non-cinavied recordings. What I meant happens afterwards. After "cinaviation" I get even less.

Concerning advertising, I really don't think you're so blind that do not see all the fuzz around HDTV & stuff. The BD must have something to stand out against the DVD.

jdobbs

17th January 2011, 17:31

...and that is the part, I'm strongly objecting to.
It's what I was trying to explain, I'll put some numbers to it to simplify:

If the quality of the original is 100% and the quality after applying Cinavia is 99%, my personal "gut feeling" is that you CAN remove Cinavia in a way that you'll end up somewhere between 99% and 100%.

So in no way do I believe, that leaving Cinavia intact will result in better quality than removing that stink (not that I believe anyone would be able to tell the difference either way).

But even if you drop down to 98% by removing Cinavia, I would absolutely, definitely, no doubt prefer it to any method that retains the junk in the material but just suppresses the detection.
Because that material (that I've paid for) still comes with a flaw that might strike me later on when I decide to transfer it to my you-name-the-device I want to enjoy it on. I completely agree with that. Firmware fixes or alternate disc formatting are at best a temporary workaround -- never a solution.

mike20021969

17th January 2011, 18:38

The BD must have something to stand out against the DVD.Picture quality, apparently.

setarip_old

17th January 2011, 20:02

@Peer van Heuen But even if you drop down to 98% by removing Cinavia, I would absolutely, definitely, no doubt prefer it to any method that retains the junk in the material but just suppresses the detection.
Because that material (that I've paid for) still comes with a flaw that might strike me later on when I decide to transfer it to my you-name-the-device I want to enjoy it on.
I'd suggest that there are/should be two different objectives regarding overcoming the effects of Cinavia:

1) Long-term - As you propose, to devise a method that will REMOVE the watermarking from any and all Cinavia "infected" discs.

2) Short-term, the sooner the better - To devise a method that will prevent Cinavia from being activated when any and all Cinavia "infected" discs are played.

This short term solution would address the needs of the masses, in that no one making a legitimate backup copy would be confronted with a Cinavia-crippled disc. Such quick responses should also make it apparent to AACS-LA members and Verance that the Blu-ray business model's profit margin is actually being eroded by the cost of the application of Cinavia.

At the same time then, some of those truly knowledgable community members could remain focussed on the long-term goal of purging the watermarks from any and all discs.

rotty

17th January 2011, 21:41

The point that Setarip metions, "profits being eroded" for the cost to studios employing Cinavia to their releases.

This you would think would be the most powerfull point of.

It is sound logic.

The studios dont seem to have any logic at all, they are still paying high costs to have BD+ / AACS on their disks EVEN when they know full well there is no point. Especially with versions that are well and truly useless.

Would any of you pay a Company for the protection on your disk when you know it NOT doing that at all. I think theres a legal phrase for that eh.

I mean, with Slysoft we have an "on the fly" removal, we dont even have to strip it first.

I dont think I will ever understand the basic economics of this.

jdobbs

17th January 2011, 21:41

JMHO, but I think the effort should be concentrated on the long-term solution. Right now the number of discs that use Cinavia aren't enough to really care -- so why make a temporary solution for such a small base. I'd rather wait for the true solution. In the meantime, just backup your discs with it -- and when the solution comes along, you can just strip the Cinavia and rewrite them.

rotty

17th January 2011, 21:50

SamuriHL

17th January 2011, 22:59

Yup. I agree with jdobbs. The short term is pointless other than for academic reasons. If we were talking a majority of discs then it might make sense, but, for what, 5 so far? And really only one big player that supports it? Focus on getting rid of the darn thing from the tracks. What worries me is that that probably means re-encoding. That to me is a bigger issue than leaving it there and using a non-Cinavia player, but, that is very much a personal choice. The reason I say that though is that there is no way to leave it in the format it started in. If you have to decode the audio in order to remove the Cinavia crap, there's no way to re-encode it so even if there was some theoretical process that allowed perfect decoding, stripping, and re-encoding (there's not), there's no OSS DTS-HD MA DECODER much less ENCODER. I know TrueHD can be decoded but not sure about encoding on that one. So you're left with LPCM assuming you can decode it in full HD in the first place. So there are more hurdles to be solved than just the cough cough "basics" of removing Cinavia from the audio track. That's why the focus should be on the bigger problem of removing it completely rather than "hackarounds" that can be closed off with updates to the Cinavia detection or implementation. Again, just an opinion, but, I'd rather see a SOLUTION than workarounds. At least until there's a critical mass of titles and players that support it.

setarip_old

17th January 2011, 23:31

@jdobbs Right now the number of discs that use Cinavia aren't enough to really care -- so why make a temporary solution for such a small base.The short term solution serves a dual purpose - only one of which has to do with the present small user and product bases affected by Cinavia.

The far more important second purpose is to make it clear to Verance and AACS-LA that Cinavia, will be successfully challenged every step of the way, with every new iteration, so that extending its application to more disc releases and more hardware will have no negative impact on legitimate users - right up until the date the long term solution is at hand.

(With regard to how many or few users are affected by Cinavia - There's nothing to prevent the studios from having Cinavia applied to a whole slew of releases in a very short timespan, thereby immediately upping the ante, especially regarding PS3 owners with [unfortunately] updated firmware)

As a side note, to this very day, (to the best of my knowledge) BD+ has only appeared on Fox Blu-ray releases - and not ALL such releases at that. Yet it was addressed (rightfully) immediately - and continues to be addressed on a release-by-release basis...

In the meantime, just backup your discs with it -- and when the solution comes along, you can just strip the Cinavia and rewrite them.
So that for an indefinite period of time, you'd HAVE to play your originals, thus totally losing the purpose and benefit of making a legitimate backup.

SamuriHL

17th January 2011, 23:47

The far more important second purpose is to make it clear to Verance and AACS-LA that Cinavia, will be successfully challenged every step of the way, with every new iteration, so that extending its application to more disc releases and more hardware will have no negative impact on legitimate users - right up until the date the long term solution is at hand.

While this is true, the issue is that if the people who can defeat this crap permenantly spend all their time on short term solutions, it could take time away from them coming up with the permanent solution. That I think is the valid concern.

As a side note, to this very day, (to the best of my knowledge) BD+ has only appeared on Fox Blu-ray releases - and not ALL such releases at that. Yet it was addressed (rightfully) immediately - and continues to be addressed on a release-by-release basis...

BD+ was supported by *ALL* blu-ray players, however, not just a couple. That's the difference...it affected far more people. And you'll note that it took a huge effort for the first BD+ titles to get defeated. And the solution wasn't a workaround or short term solution. It was a solution that removed it permanently. So the analogy only serves to prove the point of a long term solution, not a short term one. ;)

rotty

18th January 2011, 00:09

As a side note, to this very day, (to the best of my knowledge) BD+ has only appeared on Fox Blu-ray releases - and not ALL such releases at that. Yet it was addressed (rightfully) immediately - and continues to be addressed on a release-by-release basis...

With BD+ release by release basis was fine, a new version of BD+ did NOT affect BD-R disks we had already created and burned from previous versions and stripped of BD+.

If we deal with Cinavia in that way then we may have deliberate inert (sleeping) watermark(s) we didn’t know were there on BD-R disk we have already burned, i.e. sleeping because players with current f/w are not enabled to take notice of them.

Then with the next release (or even a few releases down the line) of Cinavia f/w, players are enabled to detect the inert watermarks we didn’t even know were there, the previous burned BD-R's will now fail to play with the new release of f/w.

We have to have, as far as possible a complete solution before anyone can safely start burning optical media.

Not the same as with BD+ or AACS.

Watermarking is completely different to encryption.

setarip_old

18th January 2011, 00:19

@SamuriHLAnd the solution wasn't a workaround or short term solution. It was a solution that removed it permanently.

Huh? No - There continue to be needed updates to deal with ongoing NEW BD+ iterations...

SamuriHL

18th January 2011, 00:46

@SamuriHL

Huh? No - There continue to be needed updates to deal with ongoing NEW BD+ iterations...

I guess you misunderstood. When BD+ is removed from a backup, it's *GONE*. It's not some "work around". There is NO MORE BD+ on the backup at all. That's what I meant. That is far different than a Cinavia backup that's done using some AACS recording hack or messing with the audio settings of a device to break the Cinavia implementation, etc. Even a workaround that involves disabling the detection routines isn't guaranteed to work in the future if they adjust the Cinavia detection routine. On the contrary, the current BD+ removal is a permanent solution that no matter what they do to future implementations of BD+, once it's removed from a backup, it's simply gone. Does that make sense and help explain the difference of what I meant?

18th January 2011, 00:52

1) buy bluray disk
2) rent alternative bluray disk w/ same title (or better you can rent it before you buy)
dump audio tracks to wavs, use AND bitwise operation (to make wav which only have identical bits of both tracks)
if it will be unsucessfull , try other methods of combining audio tracks
in the end you will have new uniq combined audio track
just in case of potentials problems in future you can also backup both original audio tracks (f/w updates)

Elias

18th January 2011, 07:44

am i being overly paranoid, could they put this in the PSP as well?Why wouldn't they? It's only a matter of time. They'll probably do it on the PSP2 as the PSP didn't do so well with the UMD market (and that was all Sony's fault for overpricing the UMD movies).

Watermarking is completely different to encryption.Well, both have the same purpose, don't they?

rotty

18th January 2011, 11:09

Well, both have the same purpose, don't they?

But they are quite different:
One stops you (or tries to stop you) copying.
One wants you to copy it.

The only way that they are the same is that they are systems for copyright protection, but they are completely different approaches and very very different beasts.

derbeDeus

18th January 2011, 11:51

That is far different than a Cinavia backup that's done using some AACS recording hack or messing with the audio settings of a device to break the Cinavia implementation, etc.

It is not an AACS recording hack. Fact. It is an official recording mode, that is well documented. Please read the docs from aacsla site.
Therefore I would not be so sure that is going to be excluded in the next firmware update. It will be like: "well, we don't really trust all the AACS discs"; then what's the point having AACS with all its modes created in the first place? Not to mention that AACS protected backups are created only from original discs. So basically this does what the studios should have done for the users a while ago. (They included the writing mode in the specs, they spec'ed the managed copy too; except they "forgot" to make the implementations, so no one could benefit from them).

I'm surprised that some ppl would rather have no solution at all than something that simply works for the time being! There's no question about the common golden goal of removing the watermark. But since you have no timeframe for that from anyone, I think this is the best fill for the gap, so far. (ie. applies to all the ppl affected, ps3 owners). And the only worrying thing that the backup made today may not work in the future has a very simple solution. Make up your mind first: do you need to backup your disc now? If you're gonna watch/use it in the near future, have a backup - it pays off. If you're gonna keep it on the shelf for now or money is a big issue, then wait till you need it or have something better.

Otoh, there are pros and cons for either solution: while with a protected backup you preserve the original disc as much as possible including lossless tracks (99% quality as Peer put it) and you make a backup in the time of reading one disc and writing another (some OTF recording would be even faster), with the removal solution to the above time you add the overhead due to decoding/re-encoding of audio plus the removal routine + the uncertainty of the removal method. As it was discussed here, they may leave certain watermarks (for which there is no stego key in the wild) in the stream that can be activated later, making those backups useless too... so what will you have then? Also, as you pointed out earlier, there may be a dtshd decoder at some point (open source or using an installed player filter) but will there be a dtshd/truehd encoder, so lossless is bye-byee (LPCM may be to big to fit in some cases, see Salt). So you're looking probably at a 2-4 hours to make a backup, depending on your gear.

Peer van Heuen

18th January 2011, 13:00

It is not an AACS recording hack. Fact. It is an official recording mode, that is well documented.

That is correct, of course, and I don't think SamuriHL meant it that way.

Therefore I would not be so sure that is going to be excluded in the next firmware update.

I'm no so sure about not being so sure about that.
The Cinavia watermark contains to some detail the information on what type of media the protected material is meant to be presented from. I don't know if that actually goes as deep as "not from recordable media" - it is well possible, though.

derbeDeus

18th January 2011, 13:45

The Cinavia watermark contains to some detail the information on what type of media the protected material is meant to be presented from. I don't know if that actually goes as deep as "not from recordable media" - it is well possible, though.

The payload says TRUSTED_SOURCE. That's all. So far TRUSTED_SOURCE means AACS or CSS.

SamuriHL

18th January 2011, 15:45

That is correct, of course, and I don't think SamuriHL meant it that way.

I'm no so sure about not being so sure about that.
The Cinavia watermark contains to some detail the information on what type of media the protected material is meant to be presented from. I don't know if that actually goes as deep as "not from recordable media" - it is well possible, though.

That is EXACTLY why I called it an AACS hack, because I had a feeling that the Cinavia detection routine could be modified to see if it's a recordable disc. If it contains Cinavia, has AACS, and is on a recordable disc, trigger Cinavia. That's not impossible at all. I know AACS recording is part of the spec. As you said, that's not what I meant at all. I call it a hack rather than a "solution" because Cinavia can be tweaked.

As for a TEMPORARY solution, here's one for you guys. For less than the price of all 5 movies that contain it, you can go buy a Cinavia free BD player as your temp solution. It's just as valid a "method" as messing with the audio settings or writing AACS discs that may or may not work in the future.

Personally, and I think I mentioned this before, I back up my stuff to MKV and use MPC-HC/ffdshow/haali/madVR to watch them. Problem solved until Cinavia removal becomes a reality.

SamuriHL

18th January 2011, 15:48

The payload says TRUSTED_SOURCE. That's all. So far TRUSTED_SOURCE means AACS or CSS.

But there is no reason they can't expand on that in a future update. And that's the point. It's not a permanent solution. It's a hack/work around. Which is valid. I'm not saying that shouldn't be done by those who want it. The point I, and others like jdobbs were making, is that those working on a permanent solution shouldn't waste time with work arounds. If a work around is found, great, that's awesome. I'm not discounting that. I'm saying, however, that the main EFFORT should be focusing on a permanent, "get rid of it", solution. That's all.

derbeDeus

18th January 2011, 17:15

As for a TEMPORARY solution, here's one for you guys. For less than the price of all 5 movies that contain it, you can go buy a Cinavia free BD player as your temp solution. It's just as valid a "method" as messing with the audio settings or writing AACS discs that may or may not work in the future.

So 5 blanks would be wasted, but buying another BD Player is cheaper...
The backups would be useless when Cinavia is updated, but the BD player without Cinavia won't be updated at some point to include Cinavia detector...

WHAT?

SamuriHL

18th January 2011, 17:40

So 5 blanks would be wasted, but buying another BD Player is cheaper...
The backups would be useless when Cinavia is updated, but the BD player without Cinavia won't be updated at some point to include Cinavia detector...

WHAT?

SIGH. My post was tongue in cheek. Sort of. If you bought a Cinavia free BD player, you could always play backups so long as you don't update the player. It's not a lot different than making AACS recorded discs. Except there's going to be a lot more discs released which means that eventually the cost of buying a cheap player to play your backups on will end up being cheaper unless a permanent solution is found. Again, I wasn't really suggesting everyone go out and buy a player. Just that it's no more or less valid for defeating Cinavia than the temp solutions out there already. I'm not against temp solutions. I just don't think companies like SlySoft or others should be attempting to come up with short time solutions and instead should focus their time on permenantly removing it. That was my only point.

rotty

18th January 2011, 17:59

Temporary or permanent fix, well one is right now, one is in the future. Whichever you are ok with is right for you.

Obviously there is another incentive for these Companies to come up with a permanent solution and that is to prevent loss of confidence.

If you use their s/w to produce disks and they fail with update then they are not going to enjoy your confidence, not to mention anger from you and the rest of their customers.

setarip_old

18th January 2011, 20:55

you can go buy a Cinavia free BD player as your temp solution.

As I said earlier, the far more important second ("temporary") purpose in responding to each and every revision of Cinavia is to make it clear to Verance and AACS-LA that Cinavia, will be successfully challenged every step of the way, with every new iteration, so that extending its application to more disc releases and more hardware will have no negative impact on legitimate users - right up until the date the long term solution is at hand.

SamuriHL

18th January 2011, 20:59

As I said earlier, the far more important second ("temporary") purpose in responding to each and every revision of Cinavia is to make it clear to Verance and AACS-LA that Cinavia, will be successfully challenged every step of the way, with every new iteration, so that extending its application to more disc releases and more hardware will have no negative impact on legitimate users - right up until the date the long term solution is at hand.

And I have no problem with that as long as the people doing the temp solutions aren't the ones who should be working on a more permanent "let's kill this thing once and for all" soution. That's all we were saying. Temp solutions and workarounds are definitely fine for now. Yes, it will show the AACSLA that their protection attempts are futile and force them to plug the holes. So, I guess the "keep em busy" strategy isn't a bad one. Just so long as the right people are working on the right solutions. :)