"Cinavia"/Verance BluRay audio watermark protection

[SamuriHL]

I can select those titlesets in J River MC18 if I know what they are. Or I can just load up my player...those things aren't ever Cinavia protected anyway.

[Hookahice]

Can anyone with PowerDVD that contains Cinavia test this please?

Disable the following services in Windows:
CLHNServiceForPowerDVD12
CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Media Server Monitor Service
CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Media Server Service

Restart Windows and open up PowerDVD. You will get a warning message that says something about MediaServer not being able to work correctly (who cares), just close it (press the X) and try playing a Cinavia protected movie (i.e. The Campaign or anything with known Cinavia protection). Use an ISO or an actual burnt BD to play it in PowerDVD.

Play it for 20+ minutes without fast forwarding and please let me know if you get your audio muted.

Please report your findings here.

For some reason, "The Campaign" is not triggering Cinavia protection for me. I’m going to test "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" next.

EDIT: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has been tested as well - not getting the message!

:thanks:

[Big Vern]

Any more news on this super-duper cinavia busting software yet?

[Ghitulescu]

Can anyone with PowerDVD that contains Cinavia test this please?

It's good that you found a solution for the SW playback of the cinavied movies. However, as many times said, the only defence is not to upgrade and not to buy those movies, that until the studios will stop.

Cinavia will be implemented in the HW of any new PC, it's just a matter of time.

[rotty]

It's good that you found a solution for the SW playback of the cinavied movies. However, as many times said, the only defence is not to upgrade and not to buy those movies, that until the studios will stop.

Cinavia will be implemented in the HW of any new PC, it's just a matter of time.

Thats so right.

It's a shame, I think that most people who want to copy their disks just want to make a hard drive "BD Juke Box".

It makes selecting and watching very convienient.

Perhaps what is needed is a Physical BD Jukebox, i.e. holds the original disks and selects them just like the old music jukeboxes.

Now I know that means more space but at least you havnt got to take the trouble to make a copy, just add your disk to the machine, you probably wouldnt even have to tell it what the disk is, all that info either already there or via internet connection like itunes.

Just a thought.

[Ghitulescu]

I believe the studios learned something.
I see original BDs (ok, not the brand new ones, but the value of a movie does not reside, my own opinion, in being brand new on the market) sold in Germany for 4.44€. A good Verbatim BDR in jewelbox costs a little bit less, a BDR50 is around 8€. Prices including GEMA (I know one could buy also cheaper than 3€, but since GEMA asks a little bit more than 3€ per BDR25 they are grey imports). Those that "do backups" to "save the originals from kids, dogs or cats" would probably save money buying the originals for the second time.

The problem of cinavia is a philosophical one: studios gave the customers artificially worsened copies (claiming the contrary, of course). Like Rembrandt would have signed his pictures right in the middle with the paint roller.
http://hardwareandpaints.com/images/paint-roller-7.jpg
Sort of
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zfIJn4yYDrU/Tx1l0ik0XOI/AAAAAAAADE4/PVN9-1eGdBI/s1600/mr+bean+whistlers+mother.jpg

[rotty]

I believe the studios learned something.
I see original BDs (ok, not the brand new ones, but the value of a movie does not reside, my own opinion, in being brand new on the market) sold in Germany for 4.44€. A good Verbatim BDR in jewelbox costs a little bit less, a BDR50 is around 8€. Prices including GEMA (I know one could buy also cheaper than 3€, but since GEMA asks a little bit more than 3€ per BDR25 they are grey imports). Those that "do backups" to "save the originals from kids, dogs or cats" would probably save money buying the originals for the second time.

The problem of cinavia is a philosophical one: studios gave the customers artificially worsened copies (claiming the contrary, of course). Like Rembrandt would have signed his pictures right in the middle with the paint roller.
Sort of


Well exactly, what's the point in having so called perfect audio when it is then deliberately degraded and corrupted with an audio watermark.

Crazy logic or what.

[sng]

What program on post pictures #1614?

[sneaker_ger]

Audacity

[setarip_old]

As "rotty" said: Well exactly, what's the point in having so called perfect audio when it is then deliberately degraded and corrupted with an audio watermark? And in addition to effectively downgrading audio by applying Verance/"Cinavia", the studios have, for some time now, been providing specially created lower quality "Rental versions" of Blu-rays that have ALL extras removed and, in many instances, have lower quality primary audiostreams than do the sellthrough versions of the same titles.

BTW - As an incentive to "push" the stripped down versions, the studios sell the rental versions to the rental chains for less than the price of the full versions.

Who knows, perhaps the next step will be lower quality HD video...

[SamuriHL]

Not to get completely off topic so forgive me, but, I would theorize that the lower quality rental versions are designed to increase the consumer acceptance of lower quality streaming options. Those are often much harder to illegally copy than physical discs and are cheaper for studios, as well. Just something to consider and again sorry for the off topic thought.

[setarip_old]

@SamuriHL

Hi! Those are often much harder to illegally copy than physical discsExcuse me, but have you "gone over to the dark side"? I was under the impression that, at least at this forum, it was believed that making backup copies of purchased discs for personal use was NOT illegal...

[Ghitulescu]

Not to get completely off topic so forgive me, but, I would theorize that the lower quality rental versions are designed to increase the consumer acceptance of lower quality streaming options. Those are often much harder to illegally copy than physical discs and are cheaper for studios, as well.
True. Also the Ultraviolet and the personal cloud systems are designed to progressively direct the flock to the ownless (pay-per-view, pay-per-hear) entertainment. The breakthrough of home recording has to be closed again.
As "rotty" said: And in addition to effectively downgrading audio by applying Verance/"Cinavia", the studios have, for some time now, been providing specially created lower quality "Rental versions" of Blu-rays that have ALL extras removed and, in many instances, have lower quality primary audiostreams than do the sellthrough versions of the same titles.
Rentals are differently marketed than retail. One can use only a rental version if he wants to make money out of it (rental shops), never a personal copy (retail). Theoretically, one may not even invite his work team to see a movie (it's for personal use, right? - to this extent not even the wife has the right to :) ).
@SamuriHL
Hi! Excuse me, but have you "gone over to the dark side? I was under the impression that, at least at this forum, it was believed that making backup copies of purchased discs for personal use was NOT illegal...
Oh yes, it is illegal if one has to circumvent the technical means of protection, be they only the CSS or even "Input PIN code"....
Besides, rental discs cannot be sold, thus cannot be purchased by individuals (legally, of course) and thus cannot be legally copied. SamuriHL was talking about rental discs.

[SamuriHL]

@SamuriHL

Hi! Excuse me, but have you "gone over to the dark side? I was under the impression that, at least at this forum, it was believed that making backup copies of purchased discs for personal use was NOT illegal...

Um no. I think you missed my point completely. I was implying that so called digital copies and streaming services offer studios better protection for their content. After all, cinavia is a content protection system designed to thwart illegal copying. It just happens to prevent legal backups, as well. But there can't be a legal backup of a rental disk, correct? And that was my point... That not only is getting consumers to stop renting discs cheaper for studios, but offers better protection. And that may be the motivation behind these lower quality rental discs. I believe they're trying to get consumers to start using streaming rentals more that disc rentals.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk HD

[SamuriHL]

True. Also the Ultraviolet and the personal cloud systems are designed to progressively direct the flock to the ownless (pay-per-view, pay-per-hear) entertainment. The breakthrough of home recording has to be closed again.

Rentals are differently marketed than retail. One can use only a rental version if he wants to make money out of it (rental shops), never a personal copy (retail). Theoretically, one may not even invite his work team to see a movie (it's for personal use, right? - to this extent not even the wife has the right to :) ).

Oh yes, it is illegal if one has to circumvent the technical means of protection, be they only the CSS or even "Input PIN code"....
Besides, rental discs cannot be sold, thus cannot be purchased by individuals (legally, of course) and thus cannot be legally copied. SamuriHL was talking about rental discs.

That's correct. I was definitely referring to rentals, not retail discs. Those so called free ultraviolet digital copies that come with retail discs set the stage. To use it you have to set up the account and the other add the service to all your devices. Consumers start to see how convenient it is to have it available everywhere without hassle. And the quality matches or often beats cable company vod systems. A majority of people out there see 1080p and just assume it's bluray quality. They don't really notice or care that it's a lower bit rate. So after they start using the digital copies and find that the quality loss is acceptable given the convenience, the next time they want to rent a movie maybe they decide to try a streaming rental. Cinavia becomes irrelevant when you don't own a physical copy of a movie. And I think the studios are realizing this more and more and are pushing people in this direction. After all, if given the choice between a half baked rental disc and a good enough streaming service, most will choose the streaming service.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk HD

[hello_hello]

Oh yes, it is illegal if one has to circumvent the technical means of protection, be they only the CSS or even "Input PIN code"....
Besides, rental discs cannot be sold, thus cannot be purchased by individuals (legally, of course) and thus cannot be legally copied. SamuriHL was talking about rental discs.

I don't know how it works where you are, but walk into any video rental store in Australia and you're bound to find a section where they have ex rental DVDs for sale. My local store had a huge clearout late last year. I think half their stock was purchased by individuals, including a couple of DVDs by myself.

[SamuriHL]

I don't know how it works where you are, but walk into any video rental store in Australia and you're bound to find a section where they have ex rental DVDs for sale. My local store had a huge clearout late last year. I think half their stock was purchased by individuals, including a couple of DVDs by myself.

Fair enough but where I live rental stores are a relic of history. They no longer exist here.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk HD

[hello_hello]

Cinavia will be implemented in the HW of any new PC, it's just a matter of time.

A year ago you argued you knew for a fact no Bluray player without Cinavia could be sold after the Feb cut off date, including existing models. Oppo still sells a Cinavia free Bluray player.

You stated Cinavia would be required to be slipped silently into every firmware update (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1541031#post1541031), yet I've read many forum posts where even in the US posters have stated they've updated previous model Sony players this year and remained Cinavia free. So far in Australia, Sony have only issued a firmware update for one of their Bluray players which they advertise as containing Cinavia.

You've stated firmware won't be advertised as containing Cinavia. Sony advertise if it's included in their firmware.

Now you're claiming Cinavia will be implemented in PCs..... again.
According to this article (http://www.anandtech.com/show/5693/cinavia-drm-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-blurays-selfdestruction/4) Bluray manufacturers are required to pay Verance between $10,000 and $300,000 per year (depending on volume) for the privileged of including Cinavia in their players. Which section of the PC industry do you think is going to volunteer to pay that unless they're forced to?

I believe though that it is not enough to assert something, some proofs must be provided, too. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1606554#post1606554)

Good advice, don't you think?

[SamuriHL]

The so called Feb cut off date is WIDELY misunderstood as to what it means. It's *NOT* "any player sold after that date". It means any player *CERTIFIED* after that date. And that is a VERY large distinction. Players certified before Feb 2012 may continue to be sold without it and do no need to be updated unless they have to be re-certified for any reason. That is why Oppo will never add Cinavia to their older models. It's also why TMT and PDVD had to add Cinavia because both had to be recertified last year. (Software players apparently have more rigid certification standards than stand alone hardware players). This information comes from a trusted source, but, I'm not able to reveal who that is because they're not technically allowed to be speaking publicly about it. Anyway, the whole Feb 2012 thing is very misunderstood and people took it to mean any player sold after that date must be updated which isn't true.

[setarip_old]

@Ghitulescu, @SamuriHL

Be advised that similar to the post by "hello_hello" regarding Australia, right here in the good ol' USofA, Blockbuster (and surely other B&M shops) DO, in fact, SELL "previously viewed" (used) lower quality rental discs...

[Ch3vr0n]

That's common practice overhere in belgium too.

[SamuriHL]

@Ghitulescu, @SamuriHL

Be advised that similar to the post by "hello_hello" regarding Australia, right here in the good ol' USofA, Blockbuster (and surely other B&M shops) DO, in fact, SELL "previously viewed" (used) lower quality rental discs...

Sure, if you can find one. Where I live they're all closed and gone. Yea, you can buy a rental disc. That also was NOT the point. The point is this....studios are sick of people illegally doing a "rent rip return" process that I think most people can agree upon is NOT backing up your legally purchased material. So they're trying to create less incentive for people to do that vs buying the title by making rental discs less attractive in the first place. And streaming offers them far more protection for their content than Cinavia on a physical disc. That was my point. Also there's an economic incentive for the studios to push people to streaming rentals vs renting discs. For disc rentals, the movie studios have to manufacture the discs. Then they are sold to a rental company. That's the extent of the movie studio's profit afaik...that initial sale. Whereas streaming, they make WAY more money as they get licensing deals from the rental companies, the rental companies pay for the streaming infrastructure and bandwidth, and as such there's no cost for media. The rental company is also responsible for content protection, so, the studios make out there, as well. You can see why they'd want to make rental discs less attractive when compared to convenient streaming that's instantaneous and cost effective.

Besides, who in their right mind would want to buy a stripped down, used rental disc unless you could get it *REALLY* cheap and didn't care about any extras or better quality? I'd personally rather wait for the retail version to go on sale so I can get all the extras and a brand new disc that hasn't been manhandled by god knows how many people. But that's just me. :)

[setarip_old]

To summarize:

While the studios and their cohorts claim that copying discs is illegal (No matter what the reason for copying, claiming copyright infringement), they and those who self-righteously lobby the US Congress and similar bodies throughout the world see nothing unethical (and possibly illegal) about their methods of peddling lower quality products for rental, without making it clear that such products are inferior to the sellthrough versions - and then have the audacity to advertise during playback, "If you like this (stripped down, inferior, incomplete) rental version for which you just spent a few dollars, perhaps you'd like to spend still more money to see what the real/legitimate version looks and sounds like - and what the missing extras are all about"...

[SamuriHL]

Awesome ain't it? :) But yea, that's pretty much it. And I do think streaming services are going to catch fire this year. They've already started to, but, ultraviolet is releasing their download/play anywhere format this year. That will make the convenience too high for most people to resist. I don't think Cinavia will play a role in any of the online streaming services. I don't think they'll need it. But, they always could add it if they so chose. Disc rental services are a dying breed, and with this "rental only" stripped down stuff they're doing, they're only hastening the demise. Want good quality? Buy it. Otherwise you're better off just streaming it anyway. Just great.

[Chetwood]

Speaking of morals, the studios also are not above releasing DVDs with far lower bitrates than in previous years just to push people to Bluray. All those years I had to use DVD Shrink to make backups to blank discs, cause they wouldn't fit. DVDs over the last 2 years or so always fit right out of the box to a DVD5.

[Guest]

Please take this off-topic discussion to a new thread. Thank you.

[maksa]

Since this thread became so large that it is inpractical, should we open new one for just a technical aspects. I know something about water marking of analog signals, works similar to pulse compression of the radar signals where you mark your transmitter pulse so when you receive echo, it is positively yours. This used to greately improve radar range and jamming robustness. It was a long tiem ago (1985), but still valid.
I have alse read a lot of analog signal watermarking and it will be tough cookie to chew.
I was thinking of some kind of autocorrelation functions that would extract Pseudo Random Sequence from highly correlated audio signal, but that is just a first step.
Neuron, maybe we open new thread that is strictly of thecnical nature, we know different schemes of audio watermarking are out there, Cinavia being just one (somehow made its way to Holliweood).
Regards,
MaksA

[setarip_old]

@maksa

Hi!

If you read the initial posts and many subsequent posts to this thread, you'll find that THIS thread was established for just the purpose you've mentioned.

While the posts to this thread do sometimes stray from the original purpose, moderators such as "neuron2" are around to periodically steer the thread back to its intended purpose ;>}

[Ghitulescu]

Now, about cinavia. Back on topic. Cinavia is one of the many trials the entertainment industry (the studios) excercised in order to stop the copying of the works. It started very long time ago, when they lost against Sony. Since the Betamax trial, the consumer gained the right to timeshifting, which soon was extended (illegally, yes) to home recording, home copying. What I said I believe it represents the truth, it is however difficult to prove to people in a big hurry because the tactic is "to boil the frog". Small steps are added each day, each new technology brings the entertainment industry one step closer to the total copy-interdiction, de jure or de facto. NDA documents foresee such steps, and the vision extends up to 50 years.

I do firmly believe that there is no use in blocking a way while letting other free (as the CD case showed, which led to the quick dead of home CD-recorders), and since the HD audio has to pass throught the system (Vista was, like Me before, just a test to see how DRM is received by the Average Joe) and through the hardware chips, these are the best places to hide the cinavia detection, as nobody can get so deep into. The monolith concept is if I am not mistaken some 25 years old. Trusted computing platform only a few years younger. Remember the Macrovision case - everyone was happy that capture cards were immune to it, as not being part of the deal JVC closed with the studios (the HQ "improvement") - All-in-one (AIW) showed them that they are wong, only the very first version is capable of capturing macrovisioned videos.

And yes, sometimes there are schemes that fail, like the CBS CopyCode (an earlier version of cinavia). But this doesn't stop them.

FInally, there are probably 20000 people in the whole world that know what cinavia is, most of them members of various fora like this one. Comparing with the world population they are nobody. It's even less than the accepted piracy quota of 10%. Some think it is safe to mention cinavia. But I never saw any information about what cinavia does, so that the Average Joe may have second thoughts about upgrading the FW to a cinavied one. All my BDs (and I have I think more than 200) have a flyer thast half-scaring half-ordering suggest the user that he MUST upgrade the FW (I believe I put once a photo of one of these, in German but the meaning was clear). I never updated and I was able to see also 2012 productions.

[maksa]

and it is bourdensome, lot's of pieces here and there. That is why I've suggested new one. Lets try to solve the probem in five step solution:

Identify
Analyze
Formulate possible slutions
Evaluate solutions
Choose optimal one

We've done good work in indentifying the problem. Analysis is something else.
There is 4 different possible watermariking approaches with so many sub-variants that the analysis is of highest priority.

I'll just try to make it simple: We are working with analog signal modification.
Due to the nature of such signal, sucessful 100% de-watermarking is theoretically impossible due to the indefinite numebr of states - like diluting pigment in a bucket of water and trying to removie it atom by atom (putting toothpaste back in tube is a trivial comapred to this).
Unlike decrypting, where we have whole information of the signal, just scrambled, here we have signal and PLUS that we have no idea about. Descrambling, even by brute force is by order of magnitude easier, since we know what to expect for output. Here, we have expected output and a little soemthing.

So we NEED knowledge of the audio signal spectrum and cepstrum (FFT of log(spectrum)). That we have. Second knowledge is about the nature of the watermark (time domain, frequency domain, wavelet domain or sample manipulation). That we don't have as of now, at least not for Cinavia, although we susspect that it is PSR sequence in TD at 8kHz and harmonics with some kind of phase modulation (Iwouldn't be surprised if it is hybrid of many different things).

So even if we know it, we have to detect watermark, extract it and subtract it from watermarked signal to get clean original. That is not an easy task, to say the least. Statistical methods must be used to isloate watermark by destroying and removing audio.

Second venue would be to circumvent the technology, but from engineering stand of point, that is not a solution - something that DVDFab did.

Third venue is to add signal that would disable some of the watermark detection circuits (sync or decision makeing circuit). Most of the schemes out there are robust to such attacks unless you distort audio that it is beyond recognition.

Is there any other suggested methods? Please chip in...

Just for starters.
Cheers,
Maksa

[Ghitulescu]

I'll just try to make it simple: We are working with analog signal modification.
Due to the nature of such signal, sucessful 100% de-watermarking is theoretically impossible due to the indefinite numebr of states - like diluting pigment in a bucket of water and trying to removie it atom by atom (putting toothpaste back in tube is a trivial comapred to this).
Unlike decrypting, where we have whole information of the signal, just scrambled, here we have signal and PLUS that we have no idea about. Descrambling, even by brute force is by order of magnitude easier, since we know what to expect for output. Here, we have expected output and a little soemthing.

So we NEED knowledge of the audio signal spectrum and cepstrum (FFT of log(spectrum)). That we have. Second knowledge is about the nature of the watermark (time domain, frequency domain, wavelet domain or sample manipulation). That we don't have as of now, at least not for Cinavia, although we susspect that it is PSR sequence in TD at 8kHz and harmonics with some kind of phase modulation (Iwouldn't be surprised if it is hybrid of many different things).
We know, we don't need to guess.
I know it is hard to read more than 1700 posts, but the information how cinavia works is there, I put it myself.
So even if we know it, we have to detect watermark, extract it and subtract it from watermarked signal to get clean original. That is not an easy task, to say the least. Statistical methods must be used to isolate watermark by destroying and removing audio.
That was also said.
Second venue would be to circumvent the technology, but from engineering stand of point, that is not a solution - something that DVDFab did.

Third venue is to add signal that would disable some of the watermark detection circuits (sync or decision making circuit). Most of the schemes out there are robust to such attacks unless you distort audio that it is beyond recognition.
Another solution has been also said - boycotting the cinavied products. That is the most efficient tool, yet the most unsuitable as it is very hard to organize it. Last year I was happy that only stupid movies have been identified with cinavia, hoping that this will lead to a consumer stop, yet it seems that exactly these had the most impressive boxoffice revenues. Case lost forever.

[rotty]

I edited my previous post and deleted the first line(s) by mistake.

Ignore my previous post, it should have read:

I think that most susccesful defeats of protections have come from insider information.

I suspect that if Cinavia is defeated, it will be most likely via this method.

Even then, we are still left with having to re encode the audio.

As far as I know, Player compatable domestic options are either LPCM for quality but large file or AC3 (not so good).

[hello_hello]

Now, about cinavia. Back on topic. Cinavia is one of the many trials the entertainment industry (the studios) excercised in order to stop the copying of the works. It started very long time ago, when they lost against Sony. Since the Betamax trial, the consumer gained the right to timeshifting, which soon was extended (illegally, yes) to home recording, home copying. What I said I believe it represents the truth, it is however difficult to prove to people in a big hurry because the tactic is "to boil the frog". Small steps are added each day, each new technology brings the entertainment industry one step closer to the total copy-interdiction, de jure or de facto. NDA documents foresee such steps, and the vision extends up to 50 years.

It's not about proving something to people in a big hurry but about having any proof to support your claims at all.
How would Cinavia stop a PC from ripping a disc even if ultimately it stopped you from using the PC to play it?
And the question as to why the PC industry would agree to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to a third party company for the privilege of including protection for someone else's content still remains unanswered. Is there a consortium of PC manufacturers pushing for the inclusion of Cinavia in PCs similar to the consortium controlling the AACS Licensing Administrator?
And why just the PC? Has the world seen the light and it's now the most popular player used to view video in the home, making it reasonable to ignore the countless other types of media players in use?

As a general rule I don't see DRM being added to a device unless doing so benefits the manufacturer of the device or there's a law mandating it, and given the laws in other countries tend to differ from those in the US in regard to copyright and fair use (I'd still like to know which countries have a law forbidding individuals from purchasing rental DVDs), that poses another obstacle.
CopyCode failed mainly because it was rubbish, but ultimately because attempts to make it compulsory via the Digital Audio Recorder Copycode Act of 1987 failed.

Trusted Computing Platform? Why mention it? Is there an example of it currently effecting the average PC user in a negative way? Part of the TCG specifications say it has to be shipped disabled and deliberately activated by the user. How does it relate to Cinavia at all?

[Guest]

I think that most susccesful defeats of protections have come from insider information. What examples can you cite to support this belief?

[maksa]

if it is been said. I see now and I've read all Ghitulescu's posts.
I just wanted to summarize all we know in a new post, strictly technical, no social engineering, economics etc. This monster post lost it's focus and is extremely hard to follow.

What is the confidence level of how Cinavia works?
How do we extract the PN key?

I know that my standalone BD wasn't detecting it before latest upgrade. It tells us that hardware (if required) was alredy there but no code to detect it, or there is no special hardware, just Dolby decoder and a piece of software + key.
Since we have to upgrade to watch latest rleases (how AACS works), I see no way to NOT have Cinavia enabled. Maybe ripping master BD before we even see it and watching backups all the time.

Rgerads,
Maksa

[SamuriHL]

My solution, WHICH MAY NOT WORK FOR EVERYONE, is to rip to MKV and play with a non-licensed player. Only licensed players that have been certified after Feb 2012 are required to have Cinavia detection. (Notice the terminology I'm using: licensed vs commercial....the software I use is commercially sold but is not licensed by the AACS LA) The solution I use can also play movie only from the discs themselves. This is great for rental discs that I simply want to play. Since I have AnyDVD active at all times, a rental disc that contains Cinavia will be seen as invalid in my case. Therefore I've been moving more and more to non-licensed players. Again, that may not be a viable solution for all, but, it is one solution to avoiding the Cinavia menace.

[rotty]

What examples can you cite to support this belief?

Videocrypt (Sky analogue encryption system)
CSS algorithm leak

I design communications equipment and there are many examples there as well.

Some systems would in fact be almost impossible (if not impossible) to crack without inside knowledge

[maksa]

is maybe required, but also software players have to deliver the key to the decision making circuit. Maybe that could be intercepted and read as in case of BD AACS?

[rotty]

is maybe required, but also software players have to deliver the key to the decision making circuit. Maybe that could be intercepted and read as in case of BD AACS?

Yes, this is true, but no keys in Cinavia, it just has to be detected.

Im NOT saying that it cannot be cracked without inside information, but I wouldnt mind betting that that is how it will be broken.

Like Samuri says, the best way round it is to leave it there and dont worry about it, if the playback system you are using dosent care if the watermark is there then who cares.
Well the audiophiles will.

Who knows, the very foundation that it stands on, i.e. knowing that the media is NON ROM may even be able to be fooled. I dont know, but I suppose in theory, a non physical image with encryption in place may be able to have apperant tracks with key info.

The software that you would use to "Mount" the image (the virtual drive) would have to be written to support this of course in order to fool the player.

[HWK]

I doubt it only relies on Rom Mark, there must be more to it. But Rom Mark would be definitely strong candidate. However you do raise good point fengtao try to make BDMV-REC and that didn't work too long. So it is more than encryption for sure.

Possibly Encryption, ROM mark and physical properties of disk.

[rotty]

I doubt it only relies on Rom Mark, there must be more to it. But Rom Mark would be definitely strong candidate. However you do raise good point fengtao try to make BDMV-REC and that didn't work too long. So it is more than encryption for sure.

Possibly Encryption, ROM mark and physical properties of disk.

Players identify that the disk is a ROM just by the fact that the encryption is in place.

However, you cannot make an encrypted disk because the info needed to decrypt it cannot be stored on a
BD-R or a DVD-R (no physical area)

You can make an encrypted image but you must have anydvd running in order to play it, and then your back to square one, the player still sees it as un-encrypted and therefore not trusted.

The only way to fool the player is to produce an encrypted image and also the info needed (the keys) to decrypt, in virtual tracks in the image, that would only exist normally in a
ROM and cannot exist in a -R.

The software needed to produce this image is not available (at the moment).

You also need special virtual drive software again, specifically written for this and does not exist (at the moment) in order to mount this produced image.

However, if these two pieces of software were written, it should be possible to make an image, straight from a disk, and then mount the image and it would look exactly like a physical disk with all the encryption and key info.


This has nothing to do with ROM mark. If the player also needed that then that would be easy to produce.

[setarip_old]

Similar to SamuriHL's concept of avoiding Cinavia-enabled hardware, although it may sound like a joke to some, using (freeware) multiAVCHD to convert backups to HD-DVD (and playback on carefully preserved HD-DVD standalone players) would be a viable alternative for those who are truly simply desirous of making backups only for safety's sake...

[SamuriHL]

The only issue with that one is that I believe DTS-HD MA support was optional on HD DVD players so that's one potential "gotchya" to that otherwise sound plan.

[rotty]

Similar to SamuriHL's concept of avoiding Cinavia-enabled hardware, although it may sound like a joke to some, using (freeware) multiAVCHD to convert backups to HD-DVD (and playback on carefully preserved HD-DVD standalone players) would be a viable alternative for those who are truly simply desirous of making backups only for safety's sake...

Would there be any advantage compared to using a PC with a non enabled Cinavia s/w player.

Compatability for menus and sound options etc would be better on the PC I would have thought.

[maksa]

Yes, this is true, but no keys in Cinavia, it just has to be detected.

I am not so sure about that, pseudo-random sequence appears as the random process unles you have a key, so it could be interpreted as noise. Using stohastic analysis, distribution for PRS is almost the same as Gauss Normal distribution of audio signal, but just a little different. Blind Detectors of watermarks work like this, using statsitical alghoritms to determine what is watermark and what is signal. Then they apply the key and pull the data from PNS.

[rotty]

I am not so sure about that, pseudo-random sequence appears as the random process unles you have a key, so it could be interpreted as noise. Using stohastic analysis, distribution for PRS is almost the same as Gauss Normal distribution of audio signal, but just a little different. Blind Detectors of watermarks work like this, using statsitical alghoritms to determine what is watermark and what is signal. Then they apply the key and pull the data from PNS.

re keys, you may well be right.

Probably, still best to get round it than trying to remove it. The available patterns for the marking are of course infinate, looking for them could be futile as they could change on a disk release by release basis.

Also, the removal may not be seemless and what about the re encoding.

[HWK]

Players identify that the disk is a ROM just by the fact that the encryption is in place.

However, you cannot make an encrypted disk because the info needed to decrypt it cannot be stored on a
BD-R or a DVD-R (no physical area)

Not true, while you can't create exactly in same manner as commercial stamper do. However you certainly can create BDMV-REC which still has AACS on it.

You can make an encrypted image but you must have anydvd running in order to play it, and then your back to square one, the player still sees it as un-encrypted and therefore not trusted.

The only way to fool the player is to produce an encrypted image and also the info needed (the keys) to decrypt, in virtual tracks in the image, that would only exist normally in a
ROM and cannot exist in a -R.

The software needed to produce this image is not available (at the moment).

You also need special virtual drive software again, specifically written for this and does not exist (at the moment) in order to mount this produced image.

However, if these two pieces of software were written, it should be possible to make an image, straight from a disk, and then mount the image and it would look exactly like a physical disk with all the encryption and key info.


This has nothing to do with ROM mark. If the player also needed that then that would be easy to produce.

[SamuriHL]

Not true, while you can't create exactly in same manner as commercial stamper do. However you certainly can create BDMV-REC which still has AACS on it.

Which is not the same as a BD-ROM. They killed the BD-REC work around by looking at the media type.

[rotty]

Not true, while you can't create exactly in same manner as commercial stamper do. However you certainly can create BDMV-REC which still has AACS on it.

Yes you can, BUT it does NOT look like a BD ROM to the player, and it can only play because, at the discretion of the player, the rules at that time BDMV-REC was deemed "trusted source".

I’m not too sure if that has now changed and BDMV-REC is no longer "Trusted source "

I’m sure I remember seeing that that loophole was plugged. I’m sure someone can put us right on that.

If it is still considered "Trusted source" then that can change at a whim, and anybody that has spent good money on producing BD-R's like this could be in for a big shock in the future.

[SamuriHL]

There is NO bd-rec content that should have the Cinavia signal from a *commercial blu-ray*. Therefore, it does not fit the definition of a trusted source and the detection algorithm was changed to reflect that.