How does one rip a DTheather tape to a PC (without output capturing)?

[sebastiang]

I don't own any DTheater tapes nor a player, but I'm interested in how does one backup their tapes. I've seen some rips online, but I couldn't find any information how they did it. Thank you for help.

[Stereodude]

The players have Firewire, but I can't imagine why anyone would bother.

[sebastiang]

Aren't they copy protected? According to Wikipedia:
Most tapes have built-in copy protection mechanism (DTCP, also known as "5c") (copy never) that disables copying via FireWire.
Yet online you can find 1080i rips (for example K-Pax).

[jerrycan]

I believe there was some settop box that could decrypt the tapes. It was supposed to do encrypted media passthrough via FW and decrypted output via analog cables. However, due to a bug in the implementation, the box would decrypt the tape and pass the decrypted stream out via FW. So, all you had to do was hook up the box to your PC and run some sort of stream capture software. I'm probably wrong on some of the details but that's my basic recollection.

[Dandu]

Actually, you can capture directly the analog output via HDMI or YUV, too (i think many rip use this old fashion way)

And for Wikipedia, especially with obscure format like that, there is error.

They said "There has never been a D-Theater video release in region 2 or 3". But i have a Region 1/2/3 DVHS (and i can read it on a D-VHS japanese deck).

[jerrycan]

I believe there was some settop box that could decrypt the tapes. It was supposed to do encrypted media passthrough via FW and decrypted output via analog cables. However, due to a bug in the implementation, the box would decrypt the tape and pass the decrypted stream out via FW. So, all you had to do was hook up the box to your PC and run some sort of stream capture software. I'm probably wrong on some of the details but that's my basic recollection.

Okay, I found the link (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129102). Basically, you need the right hardware if you want to copy/dump D-Theater tapes without using the analog hole. I get why people use the analog hole. I just prefer to stick to the original data whenever possible. :)