"Cinavia"/Verance BluRay audio watermark protection

[SamuriHL]

Well, I've said before and it bears repeating....if they screw up my ability to consume the media I purchase the way I like, I will quite frankly purchase less and rent more. At least with renting if a disc gets scratched or otherwise damaged, I can send it back and get a replacement the next day and it doesn't cost me a dime. The only incentive I have to purchase movies is that I can build up my library of MKV's on my HTPC and share them around my network so that I can access my entire library without the need to get up and put the disc into whatever machine I'm using to watch a movie. If they succeed in preventing me from protecting my investment AND allowing me to consume my purchased media, then they only hurt their bottom line.

[rotty]

Well, I've said before and it bears repeating....if they screw up my ability to consume the media I purchase the way I like, I will quite frankly purchase less and rent more. At least with renting if a disc gets scratched or otherwise damaged, I can send it back and get a replacement the next day and it doesn't cost me a dime. The only incentive I have to purchase movies is that I can build up my library of MKV's on my HTPC and share them around my network so that I can access my entire library without the need to get up and put the disc into whatever machine I'm using to watch a movie. If they succeed in preventing me from protecting my investment AND allowing me to consume my purchased media, then they only hurt their bottom line.

Its amaizing that they have produced a good product but have still managed a way to screw it up.

I am absolutley convinced that if you gave them a gun, they would take it in their hand, point it at their foot and pull the trigger.

[SamuriHL]

Its amaizing that they have produced a good product but have still managed a way to screw it up.

I am absolutley convinced that if you gave them a gun, they would take it in their hand, point it at their foot and pull the trigger.

I would be hard pressed to argue differently. :) I get the need to stop pirates. I do. But at the expense of hurting your paying customers? Mmmmmm, not so much. Ask the music industry how well that went for them. I love Blu-ray as a format. The PQ and AQ are the best we get at home bar none. But, this kind of nonsense is going to kill it. It really is.

[rotty]

I would be hard pressed to argue differently. :) I get the need to stop pirates. I do. But at the expense of hurting your paying customers? Mmmmmm, not so much. Ask the music industry how well that went for them. I love Blu-ray as a format. The PQ and AQ are the best we get at home bar none. But, this kind of nonsense is going to kill it. It really is.

I agree.

DVD was a vast improvement vision and sound on VHS and everybody could appreciate it, not only that, the format was robust and long lasting physically.

The move from DVD to Blu Ray is not quite the same.

People are fine with DVD, its good enough and cheap enough for most people, even with their large sets.

It is people like all of us that are Blu Ray's customers, they need the real enthusiasts to make it succeed or fail.

And guess what they are doing to themselves.

By the way, we should also treat with same contempt the manufactures that implement it on the players. Don’t but any of their products, and I do mean ANY, NONE.

And yes I know that some would say manufactures have no choice, untrue and DONT CARE, DONT BUY.

[derbeDeus]

has anyone cut the first 20mins out and remuxed to see if cinavia kicks in straight away? Maybe the first 20 mins doesnt have the watermark and it was only embeded from 20mins onwards?

all of it has the watermark. you can convince yourself of that by skipping back after playing at 1x any 20 minutes of the movie.

to understand better the 20 minues thing imagine a bucket that you fill with water. time is the water in this case. when you play at 1x, the water is poured into the bucket. every time the 20 minutes mark is reached, the water stops and the audio is muted. when you skip, play at faster speed, pause or use another soundtrack (french, spanish, etc), the water leaks out of the bucket and the audio is enabled again. when you change to english, 1x, the water starts pouring again. 20 minutes mark => mute.

[keysersose]

all of it has the watermark. you can convince yourself of that by skipping back after playing at 1x any 20 minutes of the movie.

to understand better the 20 minues thing imagine a bucket that you fill with water. time is the water in this case. when you play at 1x, the water is poured into the bucket. every time the 20 minutes mark is reached, the water stops and the audio is muted. when you skip, play at faster speed, pause or use another soundtrack (french, spanish, etc), the water leaks out of the bucket and the audio is enabled again. when you change to english, 1x, the water starts pouring again. 20 minutes mark => mute.


Assuming this is how it works, why would they go 20 minutes before Cinavia gets triggered ? why not just every 60 seconds?

With DVD-Audio, depending on the player - the trigger typically happened at the 15 or 30 second mark of the 1st song - my current Denon triggers it at the 1:00 mark..

[derbeDeus]

Assuming this is how it works, why would they go 20 minutes before Cinavia gets triggered ? why not just every 60 seconds?

With DVD-Audio, depending on the player - the trigger typically happened at the 15 or 30 second mark of the 1st song - my current Denon triggers it at the 1:00 mark..

The 20 mins may just be a PS3 thing. I haven't access to other Cinavia player.
On their site (http://www.cinavia.com/languages/english/pages/message3.html), they mention 10 minutes to be the grace period for "professionally produced" audio in homemade video.

[SamuriHL]

Or it could be studio dependent. Not knowing fully how it works we don't really know where the time limit comes from. On message 1 titles it's reported that it happens almost immediately. I think they consider the 20 minute thing an extended preview. :D

[keysersose]

guess they want to make sure you watch long enough - hook you into the movie, so that you will go out and buy a legit copy..

Didn't work on the Losers BTW..:)

[setarip_old]

Depending on just how creative the Verance people can be with Cinavia, I'd guess that in addition to the demise of "cams", there will be a lot of studio employees embarrassed (maybe fired) when they are readily identified as distributors of "screeners" that have been seeded with individual identifying watermarks...

[keysersose]

By the way, we should also treat with same contempt the manufactures that implement it on the players. Don’t but any of their products, and I do mean ANY, NONE.

And yes I know that some would say manufactures have no choice, untrue and DONT CARE, DONT BUY.

I agree with you 100% here..as of late I have been a Denon fan, but not a chance in hell I'll buy their player if they add this feature..

I'm telling family and friends NOT to buy a BR player just yet - wait till this sorts itself out - then get a HDMI 1.4 , 3D capable - comfirmed Cinavia free player and they should be good for quite awhile...

I'm building a new home that will have 4 surround sound and video setups and I want to standardize on a suitable BR player that meets the above criteria..

[deets]

its an utter shame how stupid the movie companies are when they pull stunts like this. do they not realise that some of use who buy all our stuff legally and would never pirate a film get utterly peeved with being treated like a criminal.

my DVD collection was quite large, any movie i saw that i liked i would buy. My BR collection? one and that was only to test the player.

If i cant rip the film to play back on any medium i chose, i will not give them my money by purchasing. I rent on an unlimited scheme. If i want to rewatch it i can.

i am curios as if they would ever put this in the PSP as the PS3 is on of the main targets. Im hoping not but you never know.

[Ghitulescu]

The 20 mins may just be a PS3 thing. I haven't access to other Cinavia player.
On their site (http://www.cinavia.com/languages/english/pages/message3.html), they mention 10 minutes to be the grace period for "professionally produced" audio in homemade video.

Or it could be studio dependent. Not knowing fully how it works we don't really know where the time limit comes from. On message 1 titles it's reported that it happens almost immediately. I think they consider the 20 minute thing an extended preview. :D

No, it's the time needed for the watermark to be 100% sure detected (it is repeated but it may be masked either by a similar audio spectrum or by "manipulation" ie reencoding etc.).

Actually they claim that 1 min should be enough, but apparently the 10/20 min. have something to do either with fair right (it's about 10%) or with "enraging" the pirates (considering 3-5 min being the studio logos and some other 5 min the intro - the audio blanking starts when the real action starts). :)

[Ghitulescu]

Its amaizing that they have produced a good product but have still managed a way to screw it up.

I am absolutley convinced that if you gave them a gun, they would take it in their hand, point it at their foot and pull the trigger.

You're wrong both times: as long as people still buy these things, a singular opinion doesn't count. Besides, what would be the alternative? HDTV Programs, full of commercials? Oh please .... Your own family movies (HDTV camcorder)? You still have to pay the "copy tax" for blanks and you'll get bored soon watching them in a loop ....

Example: For about 1 year now ASTRA (the trademark of SES) asked for an additional fee for technical reasons (ha ha ha) of about 5€. Some providers withdrew from ASTRA (eg to HotBird) but most of them are still in place, they simply passed these costs to their subscribers. As usual in the business.

Example 2: ASTRA again. In collaboration with the private companies in Germany (Pro7, SAT1, RTL Group) they started the HD+ initiative soon after the 5€ affair. Now, it's 50€ a year, the first one being free of charge (to lure people into HD+). In addition to regular HDTV, HD+ provides the mechanisms of:

disabling FFWD (that is generally used for commercial skip in REPLAY mode)
prohibiting the possibility of recording (now it's still permitted)
deleting the recordings after a while (not implemented yet, but since these are laid down encrypted and since no decrypting process is available or allowed...)
prohibiting the transfer of recordings (for archival)

Yet, many people were lured by the free year and due to the rapid acceptance from the industry (Humax, Panasonic, Technisat etc.) the sales of HD+ overrode those of HD. We wait to see what will happen next year :)

[derbeDeus]

No, it's the time needed for the watermark to be 100% sure detected (it is repeated but it may be masked either by a similar audio spectrum or by "manipulation" ie reencoding etc.).

Actually they claim that 1 min should be enough, but apparently the 10/20 min. have something to do either with fair right (it's about 10%) or with "enraging" the pirates (considering 3-5 min being the studio logos and some other 5 min the intro - the audio blanking starts when the real action starts). :)

they certainly don't need 20 mins to detect the watermark 100%. read the patent, indeed they say that the confidence can be affected by manipulation, but in the end the 20 min thing is just a policy, same as delayed reporting.

[Nic]

On the PS3, at least, the 20 min part is just the trigger time you are allowed. Once that trigger has been set off, if you try watching any video clip with cinavia audio it will switch the audio off within a few seconds.

So, in short, the cinavia watermark runs throughout all of the audio and can be detected by the PS3 in seconds.

-Nic

[rotty]

On the PS3, at least, the 20 min part is just the trigger time you are allowed. Once that trigger has been set off, if you try watching any video clip with cinavia audio it will switch the audio off within a few seconds.

So, in short, the cinavia watermark runs throughout all of the audio and can be detected by the PS3 in seconds.

-Nic

I would think that the PS3 remebers the disk ID and once Cinavia is triggered it will trigger in seconds again for that disk.

If you think about it, it must remeber otherwise the protection would be useless because all you would have to do is stop the disk at the point it is blocked and then start from that point to get another 20 or whatever mins clear. Or worst case eject and jump to point it failed and continue. That would not exactly be a good protection.

It may not remeber the disk forever, there may be a few hours and it clears.

[Nic]

My tests weren't not only done using disks, but many file based video clips. There was no way for it to "remember" a Disc ID for those clips - it just can almost instantly detect the signature.

However, you are correct, after a short time (10-20mins) the trigger resets again - and you can continue to watch the video for another 20mins before it triggers again.

-Nic

[rotty]

My tests weren't not only done using disks, but many file based video clips. There was no way for it to "remember" a Disc ID for those clips - it just can almost instantly detect the signature.

However, you are correct, after a short time (10-20mins) the trigger resets again - and you can continue to watch the video for another 20mins before it triggers again.

-Nic


Hi Nic

Now that is interesting, cant work out how Cinavia embeded info could be pickup up that fast. It would have to be almost continuous data, the only way to do that without it being intrusive would be sub audio info but that would be totally simple to remove so sure aint that.

Perhaps it does remeber the file by looking and storing the headers for the stream, only guessing.

If Cinavia is able to detect almost instantly I would be totally amazed so something else is causing this I would think.

[Ghitulescu]

Now that is interesting, cant work out how Cinavia embeded info could be pickup up that fast. It would have to be almost continuous data, the only way to do that without it being intrusive would be sub audio info but that would be totally simple to remove so sure aint that.

Perhaps it does remeber the file by looking and storing the headers for the stream, only guessing.

If Cinavia is able to detect almost instantly I would be totally amazed so something else is causing this I would think.

No need to guess. Read the damn patent/s. Cinavia detecting is extremely fast, however, they need a certain time before being 100% certain, as various conditions may change the watermark. Also to avoid false detection.

[rotty]

No need to guess. Read the damn patent/s. Cinavia detecting is extremely fast, however, they need a certain time before being 100% certain, as various conditions may change the watermark. Also to avoid false detection.

If Cinavia needs time to be sure then that means that audio can be sometimes by interpreted as as Cinavia data as well so repetion is needed to be sure.

So I take it youve read the DAMM patents, can you sum up how Cinavia is emabedded to save us all time in wading thru pages and pages.

[setarip_old]

@rotty

As I originally posted here several days ago (posted in Post#192 of this thread): For an interesting read about the apparent underlying (pending) patents regarding "Cinavia", click on the following primary link and then the links in the post by "John Doe":

http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=276015&postcount=857

[happycase]

I still have an HD DVD player that can play back AVCHD and HD DVD backups to DVD 9 so maybe I'll just play my backups on that device.

[SamuriHL]

I just tested my new Panasonic SC-BT230 with the latest (1.50) firmware. No Cinavia. The players and discs that support this thing are far and few between.

[kaid]

Here's a thought: What's to stop them from putting this onto everything, not only blurays but also downloaded content, and DVDs? It may be part of AACS, but who says that the Bluray-Players are not programmed to either simply ignore it on DVDs or check for CSS instead of AACS? DVD players will not care either way..

Right now, as it is, it is rather pointless, since you can just take the perfect-quality AC3/DTS Audio from the DVD release instead, which supposedly does not have the Cinavia shit....

Someone's gotta be working on Audiofilters for this thing for Virtualdub, Audacity, VST, Coreaudio, whatever.... has anyone figured it out yet how to remove it?

[Ajax_Undone]

The removal of it is not as simple as it seems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking
The signal may be audio, pictures or video, for example. If the signal is copied, then the information is also carried in the copy. A signal may carry several different watermarks at the same time.
Any one of these can trigger it. So in order to find out what it is that triggers the response we must begin at the beginning. The firmware will need to be hijacked and analysed in memory when the event occurs. When we see that event then we can patch around it. Until someone is willing to sacrifice a $300 + PS3 or a Blu-ray player with it as part of the firmware we will never be able to identify it directly.

[Ghitulescu]

Remember the Sony case some years ago concerning the Audio-CDs? It took only 1 year and it was off.

If the consumers don't buy the Cinavia-infected movies, they would react*, one way or the other**. For me it's much easier, I haven't seen in 2009 and 2010 more than 3 Hollywood movies that I would consider to be good, and I've seen a lot, proportionally Europe and JP/KR are much better.

*The companies usually have a strategy that is internally called: teaching the customer. From their point of view, it's much economically to lure the customer to fit into their policy than to adapt the same to the customer. Maybe it's time for the customers to "teach the studios".

**I'm expecting the worse, like DVD/BD case showed us.

[asarian]

Remember the Sony case some years ago concerning the Audio-CDs? It took only 1 year and it was off.

If the consumers don't buy the Cinavia-infected movies, they would react*, one way or the other**.


For one, you can't really chose not to buy "Cinavia-infected movies," as you won't know upfront (unless you're willing to wait until someone else bought it and happens to mention it on doom9; which, of course, no regular customer will ever do, and likely a lot of folks on doom9 itself won't either).

The Audio CD case you refer to involved Sony sneaking a root kit onto your system, which was sort of illegal (not that anyone ever saw any jailtime for it, mind you). It's an entirely different situation, though.

[cwl7454]

That is why I am surprised that another company/business hasn't tried it, or maybe they have. Anyways it's just a matter of time as everything now falls under preemptive security banner. Sorry, A little off topic but just couldn't resist.

[Ghitulescu]

For one, you can't really chose not to buy "Cinavia-infected movies," as you won't know upfront (unless you're willing to wait until someone else bought it and happens to mention it on doom9; which, of course, no regular customer will ever do, and likely a lot of folks on doom9 itself won't either).

The Audio CD case you refer to involved Sony sneaking a root kit onto your system, which was sort of illegal (not that anyone ever saw any jailtime for it, mind you). It's an entirely different situation, though.

No, I'm talking about some other protection before that, I don't recall its name now.

In Germany there was an initiative: someone created a public database for "uncds". After someone discovered that a CD didn't work in a car-stereo or the like it was listed and eventually people didn't buy them any longer. And the studios dropped that. And they tried the rootkit instead hoping it would go unobserved.

Yes, it needs that one or two or 100 or 1000 buy that cinavia BD, but when the info goes public, we may choose whether we buy it or not. If NOT then they won't sell 2 millions (and blame the damn pirates as usual) but 1, 2, 100, 1000.

[Ajax_Undone]

I see it a a violation of your freedoms under fair use having such a system that voids audio/video on a legal backup...

[setarip_old]

@Ajax_Undone

Hi! (It's been quite a while ;>})

I see it a a violation of your freedoms under fair use having such a system that voids audio/video on a legal backup...
I'd think no more nor less than any other type of copy protection. Additionally, the definition of "legal backup" is anything but clear throughout the world...

[setarip_old]

@Ghitulescu

Hi! it was listed and eventually people didn't buy them any longer. In the world of new release videos, historically, approximately 85% of sales are made during the first 40 to 45 days on the shelf - which is likely well before the majority of potential "non-tech" customers would become aware (if ever) of the existence of Cinavia protection on the disc - and WELL AFTER the breakeven point for the studio(s). Therefore, the negative impact on the studios bottom line (profitability) would be quite limited.

Additionally, as you can well imagine, the majority of purchasers have no knowledge or thoughts of making backups.

Different than the SONY-specific scenario you speak of, the effective cessation of purchasing (IF Cinavia proved to be successful) all new releases from all major studios would require worldwide consumer cooperation to an extent never before seen.

BTW - If the SONY CD scenario you speak of is the "Track 0" fiasco (Reputedly cost SONY $1,000,000 to develop), it was overcome within one week of release by a 25 cent black marking pen ;>}

[rolypolyman]

Is there any possibility of having the capability to write or re-write ROM marks, through some black market hardware of some kind? That would fix the problem right there.

[Ghitulescu]

It's clear, just different :)
[QUOTE=setarip_old;1447705]...
Right, but it would serve at least one aware people, me, ... ;)
Is there any possibility of having the capability to write or re-write ROM marks, through some black market hardware of some kind? That would fix the problem right there.
One cannot write ROMs ... by definition. The 2 choices are clear:
1. drop cinavia and any other watermarking system
2. find (bzw. rewrite the firmware of) gear that does not observe cibania and the like.

[rolypolyman]

One cannot write ROMs ... by definition.

Well why does Wikipedia say this?
A specially licensed piece of hardware is required to insert the ROM-mark into the media during replication. Through licensing of the special hardware element, the BDA believes that it can eliminate the possibility of mass producing BD-ROMs without authorization

This suggest it's possible. What's to stop one of those Chinese electronics vendors from offering some sort of black market ROM writer? That would defeat Cinavia and probably undo a good chunk of DRM schemes to boot.

[rotty]

Well why does Wikipedia say this?


This suggest it's possible. What's to stop one of those Chinese electronics vendors from offering some sort of black market ROM writer? That would defeat Cinavia and probably undo a good chunk of DRM schemes to boot.

You are assuming that Cinavia watermaked media only needs to be ROM to be classed as valid by the player.

In fact, it could require that the watermarked media needs to be:
(a) ROM
(b) encrypted
(c) still has BD+
(c) has BD live
(d) is full copy (i.e. not movie only)
(d) (and even possibly) sum check as original BD ROM. (although detailed data like this would be harder for the crude Cinavia modulation to embed)

[Peer van Heuen]

You are assuming that Cinavia watermaked media only needs to be ROM to be classed as valid by the player.

In fact, it could require that the watermarked media needs to be:
(a) ROM
(b) encrypted
(c) still has BD+
(c) has BD live
(d) is full copy (i.e. not movie only)
(d) (and even possibly) sum check as original BD ROM. (although detailed data like this would be harder for the crude Cinavia modulation to embed)

I think, what he actually was implying was: being able to replicate the remaining sectors, including the mark, would allow true 100% 1:1 copies.

[rolypolyman]

Actually I did not consider the possibility of Cinavia looking for other pieces of the disc image... that does sound like a real can of worms. I certainly don't want to buy BD50's either. Thanks for educating me on this.

[SamuriHL]

No, I think you misunderstand. They're talking about recreating the *FULL* protection on a backup. This is not possible. They were just discussing the possibility. Cinavia isn't some magic thing. :) It's an embedded signal. The type of signal that's embedded tells the *player* what to check for and what to do about it. So, for the typical retail BD, there's a signal that triggers an error message 3 if the player determines it's not an original disc. What they were discussing is making a backup that is indistinguishable from the original in terms of the protection. Again, that's not possible.

[rotty]

Actually I did not consider the possibility of Cinavia looking for other pieces of the disc image... that does sound like a real can of worms. I certainly don't want to buy BD50's either. Thanks for educating me on this.

Hi rolypolyman

I’m not saying that Cinavia does look at the items I mentioned but could easily do so. If you were in charge of this system wouldn’t you do that, I know I would.

The suggestions re making a 1:1 copy is very dubious in thinking it would be indistinguishable from the original (even if you could fool the player into thinking the disk is a ROM and not a BD-R).
Also expensive and not an avenue to go down re this problem.

[SamuriHL]

Hi rolypolyman

I’m not saying that Cinavia does look at the items I mentioned but could easily do so. If you were in charge of this system wouldn’t you do that, I know I would.


This is what I meant about attributing "magical" properties to "Cinavia". It is nothing more than an embedded signal. It doesn't look at anything. The *PLAYER* does. And yes, this makes a very big difference as it's more than just semantics. The player can already do a lot of checks. This can be combined with checking for the embedded Cinavia signal, yes, but, this is all done at the player level and is not some kind of "cinavia process."


The suggestions re making a 1:1 copy is very dubious in thinking it would be indistinguishable from the original (even if you could fool the player into thinking the disk is a ROM and not a BD-R).
Also expensive and not an avenue to go down re this problem.

That's right. It's not possible to create a 1:1 backup, and even if you could, you'd still have to convince the player it's not a write once or write many media. It's definitely not the way to tackle this problem. (Although it's hardly a problem yet considering there's only 2 discs out that contain the Cinavia signal).

[rotty]

[QUOTE=SamuriHL;1448174]This is what I meant about attributing "magical" properties to "Cinavia". It is nothing more than an embedded signal. It doesn't look at anything. The *PLAYER* does. And yes, this makes a very big difference as it's more than just semantics. The player can already do a lot of checks. This can be combined with checking for the embedded Cinavia signal, yes, but, this is all done at the player level and is not some kind of "cinavia process."

I wasnt suggesting that Cinavia had magical properties, its purly a flag, it says "the media you are playing should be ROM based" and thats it.

But, once the player has been triggered in this manor, the check(s) it does can be anything the firmware has been set for.

Cinavia itself is a very low rate (few bits) modulated signal, existing anywhere in the audio track (except in any silent passage(s)), and repeated several times for confirmation purposes. Nothing magical about it and I certainly wasnt saying it was.

[SamuriHL]

I was merely commenting on your statement that Cinavia could do some kind of checks, that's all. In other threads where Cinavia has been discussed, the speculation bordered on "magic". :) In any case, Cinavia isn't complicated. Any player that is capable, detects the embedded signal in the audio stream, and then checks to make sure the disc is an original. How the player determines that I don't think is actually known. It's been assumed that for retail BD's it checks for the presence of AACS. But afaik, no one really knows how it does those checks or whether that can be "tweaked" with firmware updates. I can imagine some really nasty things a player can do depending on how complex the checks are. But again, that's all player specific once it detects the Cinavia signal. And honestly, none of that is more than speculation.

[rotty]

I was merely commenting on your statement that Cinavia could do some kind of checks, that's all. In other threads where Cinavia has been discussed, the speculation bordered on "magic". :) In any case, Cinavia isn't complicated. Any player that is capable, detects the embedded signal in the audio stream, and then checks to make sure the disc is an original. How the player determines that I don't think is actually known. It's been assumed that for retail BD's it checks for the presence of AACS. But afaik, no one really knows how it does those checks or whether that can be "tweaked" with firmware updates. I can imagine some really nasty things a player can do depending on how complex the checks are. But again, that's all player specific once it detects the Cinavia signal. And honestly, none of that is more than speculation.


Cinavia does NO CHECKS at all, its a flag, its just a trigger and its up to the firmware on the player to do whatever checks the firmware is set for in the event of the flag being received.

These checks could be anything from just checking if the media is ROM to as many checks as you could imagine, up to whats in the updates.

[SamuriHL]

Cinavia does NO CHECKS at all, its a flag, its just a trigger and its up to the firmware on the player to do whatever checks the firmware is set for in the event of the flag being received.


Yes, that's what I'm saying, as well. Cinavia is an embedded signal that the player either detects....or doesn't. On or off.


These checks could be anything from just checking if the media is ROM to as many checks as you could imagine, up to whats in the updates.

That's what I'm speculating on. As to how complex the player can get with the checks after it detect Cinavia. As you said, it acts as a flag...detected or !detected. At a minimum I think the player needs to check for both ROM and AACS as that's required by the blu-ray spec.

[setarip_old]

It's been reported that on the back of the clamshell package, near the bottom, you'll see "Protected by Cinavia" accompanied by a logo.

Has anyone made a backup copy from an original, commercial "Karate Kid" Blu-ray and played it on a known affected firmware-updated PS3 (or one of the two or three other known affected standalone players).

If so, please describe what happened when you played the copy...

[SamuriHL]

On the SlySoft forum it has been confirmed by several users that the message 3 error comes up on backups played on a PS3.

[b66pak]

after 20 minutes...
_

[setarip_old]

@b66pak

Hi! after 20 minutes...

Just to be clear, have you personally backed up a commercial Blu-ray of "Karate Kid"? If so, did you receive the same error message "3" mentioned by SamuriHL? Does the back of the packaging actually have "Protected by Cinavia" accompanied by a logo?

Thank you ;>}