DRM Group Set To Phase Out "Analog Hole" 417
eldavojohn writes "In yet another bid to make your life a little more annoying, our DRM overlords at the AACS Licensing Authority have released a new AACS Adopter Agreement. The riveting, 188-page PDF will inform you that — in the name of Digital Rights Management — there will be new limitations set on devices that decrypt Blu-Ray discs. HDMI already has the awesome encryption of HDCP between the device and the display unit. But Blu-Ray still has the Achilles heel of analog players that allow someone to merely re-encode the analog signal back to an unencrypted digital format. So if you have an analog HDTV, hang on to those analog decoders and hope they never break; by 2013 you won't be able to buy a new one. Ars points out the inherent stupidity in this charade: 'Particularly puzzling is the fact that plugging the so-called "analog hole" won't stop direct digital ripping, enabled by software such as AnyDVD HD. And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole.' And so the cat and mouse game continues. On that subject, DVD Jon's legit company just brought out a billboard ad for his product doubleTwist next to Apple's San Fransisco store. It reads, 'The Cure for iPhone Envy. Your iTunes library on any device. In seconds.' So while he's busy taunting Apple, I'm certain there are others who might have some free time to look at Blu-Ray and the 'uncrackable' AACS."
DRM Protection on Disks (Score:1, Interesting)
Doesn't it just make the poor little arm that goes back and forth break faster? I mean seriously.
Example:
I just bought William Shakespeare's Hamlet awhile back, the 2 DVD set..
http://www.buy.com/prod/hamlet/q/loc/322/204647810.html [buy.com]
Disk 1 played one time, then froze in the middle, (with lots of noise at the beginning/load) it started chirping, clicking and clacking and got all nicked up.
Disk 2 played perfect.
I never even got to SEE the thing.
I took it back got another.
SAME THING.
This time, I took it to a local gamestop to have them buff the nic's out.
DRM is crap!
Blu-Ray vs. Online Content (Score:4, Interesting)
The content industry has not made a compelling case for me to ditch my DVD collection. My upscaling DVD player makes most of my DVDs look great on my HDTV. Why should I subject myself to DRM and an incomplete spec by upgrading?
What's more, if Apple succeeds in making HD downloads seamless and reasonably fast with their new compression technologies (and/or internet bandwidth improves significantly in North America), then it's game over for Blu-Ray. Why should I invest in Blu-Ray and bother driving to a brick-and-mortar store when I might not have to?
Apple left out Blu-Ray from Macs for a reason.
If they do this, I will have no choice... (Score:3, Interesting)
..but to rip them a new a-hole.
Seriously, how do you stop the analog hole? Stop the laws of physics? The Human sensory organs are analog. At some point, you are going to have an analog signal traversing the gap from the output device to the human.
Re:Blu-Ray vs. Online Content (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would you "ditch your DVD collection"? You realize blu-ray players work just fine as upscaling DVD players, right? This notion that you either do not have a blu-ray player or you do and therefore must throw out your existing collection of movies is common on slashdot, and absurdly stupid. This isn't VHS->DVD, there is perfect backwards compatibility here. If you aren't interested in blu-ray, that's your prerogative. But this and the other common slashdot reason for not adopting (DRM; you know, just like how DVDs have DRM...) are ludicrous.
Additionally; Apple? Seriously? The company that says it is illegal for me to install their operating system on my computer because it's not the right brand is the champion of openness? Allow me to let you in on a secret. Apple doesn't sell computers with blu-ray drives because they want you to buy your high definition video content on iTunes rather than from the local video store, plain and simple.
Re:Ignore them? (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that we will see the same thing with video that we did with music.
The normal consumer when presented with the choice between "quality" and "convenience"
will choose convenience. The ability to have the bulk of your DVD collection in the
palm of you hand where ever you go will probably be considered more desirable than
image quality on a large screen that you many not have or may not percieve or may
not care about.
Give a kid the complete Ben 10 in the palm of his hand and he
won't even realize that there is a much bigger TV in the room.
Re:BluRay? (Score:1, Interesting)
50" Plasma? Most plasma TVs are only capable of 720p, so blu-ray would probably not look noticeably better on them than standard DVDs.
The first batch of blu-ray drives were very slow, yes. They are finally improving.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not-so-awesome encryption (Score:1, Interesting)
What about changing the device's key? Most hardware these days has a way to update the software running on the device. If that is possible then it should be possible to modify the key as well, and replace a revoked key with a known good key.
I don't know very much about Blu-Ray's protection mechanisms, so this may not be a viable option, but it seems like it would work.
DVD's and blu-ray with digital copies (Score:2, Interesting)
I do wonder if they're starting to loosen up "a bit" though. Recently I saw a few films coming out that were advertised as:
"Now available on DVD and blu-ray disc. Digital copy included"
Now overlooking the obvious point that both of the above are already digital formats, does this mean that an AVI or something of the sort is included for those that want to watch on an alternate device. If so, I wonder what restrictions are on those files.
The last movie I seem to remember seeing an ad like this for was "Gran Torino", if anyone has a copy they can check.
Re:BluRay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Good plan. You were lucky. If AACS thinks that stopping an analogue hole is going to help anything at all they are seriously stupid, people are breaking copy protection on blu-rays all the time just to watch their discs:
I recently built a new computer and decided that while I was upgrading hardware I would buy a blu-ray drive and see the latest and greatest. So I went to Target and first was completely shocked at the prices of new blu-ray. That's okay, even since the winter holidays the blu-ray discs have been on sale fairly often (e.g. buy two get the third free) so that at least brings the price down to DVD levels. I bought a few movies I thought would look good in Blu-ray like the newest version of Bladerunner and pop it into my drive and VLC won't run the blu-ray movies because of the DRM. No problem, I boot windows and start up the powerdvd that came with the drive and low and behold, I get a helpful message that my widescreen monitor is not HDCP compliant so I can't watch the movie in high resolution. So I head over to doom9 and download dumpHD, but no dice, my drive has had its firmware updated and that blocked the access key dumpHD was using. Okay, well, I thought, I'll get anyDVD and strip that copy protection right out. So I do that and now the movie plays at full resolution, except that the powerDVD that came with my drive is a crippled copy and won't play surround sound, only stereo. No problem, I go back to vlc which now helpfully plays the un-DRMed m2ts files and play the individual movie files (just not the virtual machine). Only problem is now I have surround sound, except if the disc has DTS, the channels are mixed up so the center channel is the surround and the surround left is the center and the surround right has nothing. What I'm left with is having to boot into windows to run AnyDVD, then run eac3to.exe to strip the DTS sound file to an AC3, then run tsmuxer to remux the sound and video files, and then watch that using VLC (not to mention the amount of hard drive space I need for these movies is huge).
All of this crap just to watch my legally purchased blu-ray movies on my legally purchased blu-ray player on my legally purchased computer. What a load of horse shit, I hope Sony goes completely completely out of business and blu-ray goes extinct.
Re:BluRay? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mine screen is 1080.
Ja!? So ist mine!
Vell be happy! Mien schreen hazen ze dead pixels! Not so wunderbar nau, ja?
Re:BluRay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed while the Samsung LED TVs are not true LED TVs [wikipedia.org], I noticed that they are using free software in them. Page 91 of the fine manual [samsung.com] reads...
GPL software: Linux Kernel, Busybox, Binutils
LGPL software: Glibc, ffmpeg, smpeg, libgphoto, libusb, SDL
Kinda neat, though I wonder what kind of VD they have in mind for their software manager...
-l
What about a Camera Filming a TV? (Score:1, Interesting)
When this is done, the video quality is usually crap, but I believe that in the 1950s/1960s, before VCRs, they had to use TV cameras filming a projector screen in order to get movies/prerecorded footage on TV. If they could *somehow* make it completely impossible to get an analog video signal or an unencrypted digital stream (which I doubt), it doesn't seem like it would be so hard to actually get a small HDTV in front of a pretty good digital camera, properly align them together, tweak the settings and put a "cone" (to block ambient light) around them so that the recorded video would actually be decent. Seems like the kind of DIY project that alot of people could do.
Of course, there is also the fact that LCD screens get some kind of digital signal, and that signal is usually not encrypted all the way. At some point, it has to get to that transistor matrix or whatever else turns pixels on and off... And at that point, someone could snoop the signal and transform it back to a viable format for recording. Again, this doesn't seem out of reach of amateur electronic tinkerers.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
So if they set the DRM so that the limitations are removed when the copyright runs out, you'd be all for it?
It would help, but unfortunately, they're still trying to take away the "rights (such as format shifting) that they're trying to take away from you" (yes, it's a little crass to quote yourself, but either you missed that part, or neglected to comprehend it's significance). DRM gives content provides rights *they should never have had in the first place*. Format shifting, time shifting... these are things I can expect to do with the content I've purchased. Hell, if these guys had their way, the VCR would be illegal.
So, while time limitations on DRM would help (and I think should be mandated by the state, lest, decades from now, we run the risk of losing access to large portions of our culture), it doesn't fully address the issue, IMHO.
Somehow I feel like the "spirit of copyright" is used as a red herring by people who'd rather all this just came free to them.
Not at all. I understand that creating content costs money. I happily pay for music (primary from indie bands), DVDs, or movies in the theatre. But I'm not willing to cede my rights simply because the content creators want to find new ways to further soak me.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
"The fact is, none of these are so much the creator's rights, as their ability to restrict yours. Put in that context, it suddenly becomes very clear whose rights are being violated."
Good point. The more so if you also happen to be the creator of the work, but no longer own the rights to it thanks to some usorious contract.
Permanence (Score:5, Interesting)
And so we move another step towards the future described in Karl Schroeder's novel Permanence, where even the military has to pay microtransaction fees continually to keep their equipment running... even when they're chasing down people who refuse to take part in the "Rights Economy".
So, super duper absolutley unbreakable Player... (Score:3, Interesting)
...to TV DRM comes to BluRay and all players sold in the United States tomorrow.
In two weeks, you'll pay US$50 for a player made in China on the gray market that'll have a backpanel FULL of ports, each one squirting out the unencrypted video and audio, as well as region free.
You'll also be able to get at the same time, the "upgraded" digital to analog TV converter, also equipped with RF, composite, digital, etc, in/out ports for your old analog TV.
With an easily removed label: "Not to be used for avoiding DRM!"
In three weeks, Mac The Ripper, Handbrake, FFMPEG, etc, et al will have upgraded versions.
In a month, TPB, Demonoid, all those NZB sites, etc, et al, will be back to normal with unencrypted rips of all the latest DVDs, ready for downloading.
Re:BluRay? (Score:5, Interesting)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_video [wikipedia.org]
Most major motion pictures are shot on film. Film is a very high resolving medium, with resolution measured by testing its ability to resolve pairs of black and white lines, the unit of measurement is cycles/mm - one "cycle" consists of a pair of lines and is equivalent to two pixels, one black and one white. Film by itself can commonly resolve from 50 c/mm to 400 c/mm (100 pixels/mm to 800 pixels/mm) depending on emulsion stock. However, since the image on film is formed by exposing it through a lens and this lens also has its own resolution limits, the final resolution on the photographed negative is always less than each component's individual resolution.
Depending on the year and format a movie was filmed in, the exposed image can vary greatly in size. Sizes range from as big as 24 mm × 36 mm for VistaVision/Technirama 8 perforation cameras (same as 35 mm still photo film) going down through 18 mm × 24 mm for Silent Films or Full Frame 4 perforations cameras to as small as 9 mm × 21 mm in Academy Sound Aperture cameras modified for the Techniscope 2 perforation format. Movies are also produced using other film gauges, including 70 mm films (22 mm × 48 mm) or the rarely used 55 mm and CINERAMA.
The four major film formats provide pixel resolutions (calculated from pixels per millimeter) roughly as follows:
Academy Sound (Sound movies before 1955): 15 mm × 21 mm (1.375) = 2160 × 2970
Academy camera US Widescreen: 11 mm × 21 mm (1.85) = 1605 × 2970
Current Anamorphic Panavision ("Scope"): 17.5 mm × 21 mm (2.39) = 2485 × 2970
Super-35 for Anamorphic prints: 10 mm × 24 mm (2.39) = 1420 × 3390
In the process of making prints for exhibition, this negative is copied onto other film (negative interpositive internegative print) causing the resolution to be reduced with each emulsion copying step and when the image passes through a lens (for example, on a projector). In many cases, the resolution can be reduced down to 1/6th of the original negative's resolution (or worse). Note that resolution values for 70 mm film are higher than those listed above.
Typical high-definition home video uses the following resolutions:
1280 × 720
1920 × 1080
Usually when studios master movies for home video release they use assets in high resolution and then master them to 1920 × 1080 and/or 1280 × 720. For standard definition applications (e.g., DVD or SDTV), they are also anamorphically compressed and mastered to 720 × 576 (PAL) and 720 × 480 (NTSC).
So yeah. Even those really old movies will look much better in HD since the original films from even 1955 exceed 1920x1080 resolution. Quite a few old movies I see that weren't recorded in digital film are 'grainy'. That is, you can see the grains from the film.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
More importantly, it is less effort (which also is a cost) than the illegal free equivalent. Sure, you can download the show ad-free in 10-30 minutes, but with Hulu (at least for those of us in the US), you can immediately watch the show.
I wonder what the statistics are for the rate of piracy on the selection of shows on Hulu before and after the service became popular.
If these hypothetical stats (rolling 2d10 says it went down 59%) bear me out, then perhaps some Hollywood bigwig should put up a Hulu for movies, have then in 720p, have them streaming, and have them ad-sponsored with no barrier to entry. I'm guessing this would remove some piracy, while keeping the incentive to actually buy DVDs. I'm guessing most people who pirate a film are doing it for a one-off viewing, and not to keep as a permanent copy. (hypothetically this will reduce movie piracy by 2d20=78%)
Music will always be more problematic, since it isn't really made for passive listening. People want to take it with them to a higher degree than TV shows or movies, and also want a higher degree of control over the content. iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic are good starts in making legal solutions somewhat competitive with piracy, but it still isn't as convenient, especially with the need for specialty clients. I can find free pirated tracks in the exact same amount of time as I could find them on a pay site.