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MPAA Investigates Apex DVD Player 239

Posted by timothy from the opposite-day-for-legitimate-authority dept.
RiscTaker writes: "Wired reports that the MPAA is investigating the Apex DVD player because of its ability to avoid region coding, Macrovision and CSS. " I bought my Apex 600A last week at the former home of the $99 iOpener, and found that the secret-menu hack described at nerd-out worked flawlessly. Perhaps the MPAA would like to invest in a time machine to revisit the days of mercantilism, or to stuff the encryption cat back into the bag it's long since vacated.
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MPAA Investigates Apex DVD Player More

MPAA Investigates Apex DVD Player

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  • Re:Lets take this to the store.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The wired article said that it was a development feature that was supposed to be disabled...

    That's the excuse they use. But I think the developers of these things hate region codes as much as anyone else around here, and do this on purpose. After all, how does disabling Macrovision help in testing?

    This page [reviewer.co.uk] has information on disabling region codes. How could so many players have these "accidental" features, all with different button sequences to enable them, and why are they mostly region 2 players? The demand for imported movies is probably highest in region 2 (Europe often gets movies after the US), so the manufacturers add multi-region features to help sell players. How well would a single-region player sell when all the competition is multi-region?

  • Apex was news cuz it's a recent player. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    *All* of the players I've seen that had ways to de-region/de-macrovision the player from the remote control or front panel controls were ALL 1st generation players. These were expensive as hell because they were still new tech back then, so there aren't many around now. The Apex is still on shelves and is dirt cheap too. name one other player still being sold at a major chain outlet today that is hackable without having to resolder SMD ROM chips (not a task for the meek)?

  • Re:Alternative to slashdotting nerd-out... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nice try, but Google doesn't cache the pictures!

  • /. effect in full force. Here's the trick! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Press SETUP with no disc in the player. Arrow down so 'PREFERENCES' is highlighted. Now press STEP, |<<, >>|. You are now at the secret menu. Set the region to 'bypass' and macrovision to 'off'. Not sure what turning css off does, or those wierd magic codes stuff. Note the cute phrase at the bottom of the menu: "YOU SHOULD NOT BBE HERE". Someone has a sense of humor!
  • Let's also go arrest everyone with an old TV set that can tune the upper end of the UHF band, where cell phones can sometimes be heard. ;) After all, it's an illegal radio reception device, right? Damn, America is stupid. I'm about to make a major purchase over at unamerican.com and start turning some heads..

  • Re:??? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Besides, I've noticed that a lot of this stuff is comming from overseas in Sweden and the likes. DeCSS, cp4hack, I think both originated in Sweden?

    DeCSS => Norway
    cp4hack => Sweden
    Linus T => Finland

    Check them out once [virtualtourist.com], they are different countries after all.

    Do the US's laws apply over there? I don't think so.

    Neither do I. And that's a Good Thing (tm).

    -AC Suomesta

  • Have they stopped selling 'em?

  • DVDs can only do 25 or 29.97 fps. Not 24.

    OG.
  • Because that is a slippery slope.

    My social security number is just a number. So is this post. So is a computerized representation of my genetic code. According to your interpretation, no electronic media is copyrightable provided it is represented as a number (which it is, a long binary one). Or at least the *number* isn't copyrightable....

    Jeez, this stuff makes my head hurt. I liked it back when I thought I was buying an actual program, and not just a license to use it. Oh, and I'd never copy it, I just hit upon the right (unpatentable) combination of bits to produce a disk that's surprisingly similar! ;)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • The apex doesn't even have a registration card.
  • If you disable Macrovision, you'll have a pure video signal that you can better test to make sure the player is putting out a decent signal.
  • Just for all the people wanting to run out and buy one....

    This player has some serious issues with Dolby Digital output and dvd's that support seamless branching.

    Take a look at the Forums on nerd-out.com first!

    If you can stand it's many flaws/quirks, it is a kick-ass player.

    Plus it's fun to say screw you to the MPAA :)
  • (owned by xtian fundamentalists, according to some horror stories about working there)

    I don't think that really accounts for much, if they were 'Christian Fundementalists', they wouldn't even buy and rent out the 'edited' versions either. I'd say that there's more pressure on the customer side than originating within the chain itself.

    Personally, I don't see a point in not releasing a director's cut. Once Blade Runner's director's cut was released, how many people bought the other version? I'm not even sure if they are available at all in any format anymore.

    In my area, there's ostensibly a Family Video rental store, where you can find some dumb sex video next to Star Trek. That's wholesome family entertainment there!
  • > no, but taking it to court could stop the sale of it.

    Wouldn't this count as restraint of trade? Banned under WTO rules?
  • Hehe. It's soooo funny. I did Circuit City's first website when I worked for AnswerCity, their old defunked telephone tech support dept. We called it AnswerWeb. I had to actually go to meeting with senior PHB's (Rick Sharp and so on), and try to convince them the web was the way to go, especially for customer support. Eventually of course they dicked me over royally. *JEEZ* the stories I could tell.

    They didn't get it then, and I doubt they get it now.

    At any rate, I thought ya'll might like to know that the apex players are available from their website for express pickup if your local store has any in stock. I'm picking mine up this morning.
  • Circuit City is all out. Who else sells them?
  • Are you the guy who wrote my mainboard manual?
    --
  • Also note that if you go to the manufacturer's web page [vddv.com] the player is listed as "Code free (automaticly)".

    Gone is the thrill of the secret and forbidden!

  • What I know about HTML could fill a thimble with plenty of room left over for the seamstress's finger, but as an experiment, here is the text in question with one difference--
    Watch your wording - what you said is technically wrong on a few counts. CSS is a trade secret, not a copyright, and as such is suubject to different laws. Because of that, they could go ahead and sell an unlicensed player as long as they can prove that the CSS decryption information is in the open and therefore no longer qualifies as a trade secret.
    --The only thing I changed was to use capital b's and i's instead of lowercase, and if this looks the same when seen here as it does in preview, you'll see that that has made all the difference.
  • APEX 600A review on epinions HERE [epinions.com].

  • Nice! (Score:1)

    by Byteme ( 6617 )
    I am so pleased with the performance of this unit. I would recommend this unit to anyone. At the retail price it beats just about all sub-$500 players on features. This news makes it all the better...
  • This what they are feared that they will lose control of their regioning of DVDs. Well I guess it doesn't take a long for it to start slipping away without the use of DeCSS. The Saga continues.

    http://theotherside.com/dvd/ [theotherside.com]
  • I've tried them out at a couple of Circuit City stores, and all the ones I've seen have the menu. BTW, all the stores I went to said they don't normally display the Apex (even though they've been running newspaper ads nationally for at least a month) and that you have to ask to see one or buy one.

    this wasn't in new jersey was it? i tried to by one over the weekend and they only had the display model left and they told me that according to state law - if they sell something - they have to display it. luckily - i found another circuit city that had them - when i called for quantity they had 5 - and hour later when i got there - there were 3 left and they were all bought before i left (me, my roommate and some other guy)
  • Hollywood video - "We only stock wholesome movies" - worded in legalese, of course.

    Blockbuster - look at the drama section... lots of child-unfriendly content.

    I just use Netflix which happens to have no such inhibitions (http://www.netflix.com).
    --
    Leonid S. Knyshov
    Network Administrator
  • Looks like my Sampo 560 is also one such device. Readily available at Fry's.

    There is one problem... it apparently got misaligned with a region 2 disc from blockbuster (?!?!?!) featuring Jackie Chan.. The whole thing just vibrated to hell.. I am thinking of calling up Sampo for repairs. :(

    Oh, and it plays CD-Rs and MP3s.
    --
    Leonid S. Knyshov
    Network Administrator
  • Oops... I forgot that one. And to do it anonymously, coward that I ought-a-be. ;-)
  • Nah, not pulled, It's a broken link.

    The correct URL is here: http://www.nerd-out.com/a pex/Secret_Menu/secret_menu.html [nerd-out.com]

    - Ed.
  • Region 0 is "any", so yeah, players play their own region plus zero. IIRC, the region encoding is a single byte of data, with a bit for each region (1 to 8, so zero would be no bits). In theory it's possible to encode a disc to more than one region by setting multiple bits.

    DVD video playback is controlled by a kind of virtual machine (this is what allows for branching, multiple angles, etc), and certain player settings are readable as registers in this VM. Its possible to put code on the DVD disc to read the region setting and refuse to play if not set correctly. Apparently there are a couple of discs out there that will refuse to play in the Apex (or other hacked players) if the region code is set to "bypass", but will play if the region code is set to what the disc wants.

    (My guess is that VM implementation bugs are what causes some problems with some combinations of DVD movies and players, for those discs that really exercise the VM.)

  • Jeez - the story hasn't even been up for that long, and the Nerd-Out Secret Menu page seems to be taking for days to load!

    *sigh*

    All this bandwidth at school and nothing to burn it on right now... Think I'll go download some more Q3 Patches ^_^

    Kagenin
  • The thing I love about Sony is that not only does it make the players that play the movies we love, but it also makes the movies! Weeeooo hoo!

    --Bernie

  • Well the situation where I live (Iceland) is a bit different than in other non-english speaking countries. Movies are not dubbed here (with the exception of animated films). Subtitle creation is no a credible reason, I think. Sometimes premiers are close to US premiers, sometimes Europe. But DVD-wise we are region 2.

    My point however was that player cracking and between-region purchasing make the region system moot.

    -haffi
  • I'd guess that it's so that the MPAA members can release movies in different regions at different times, charging more in one region than the other. This was they can charge those high first-week prices when they release it and they won't have to worry that people have already bought the movie from the neighboring region at the lower fourth-week prices.

    Oh, and of course it keeps those nasty foreign movies from infiltrating the US market and ruining America's morals (or Hollywood's profits).
  • Also dig the cool menus and the nice, nice sound quality.

  • One point:

    Which are you more likely to do? spend the time to try and copy 12+ Gigs of movie, or spend about $20 for the original?

    I can understand the probs the industry had with people copying VHS movies that cost about $50 to $75, but when the medium (DVD) is retailed for barely more than the effort to copy it, whats the point in copying it?

    As for the region bullshit, what was that intended for? Some kind of wierd censorship idea?

    May the RIAA and MPAA suffer the legal equivelant of terminal gonorrhea

  • I called CC today about my order for 2 IOpeners,
    for my sisters... ;)
    They got kind of huffy when I asked if the orders had been cancelled, 'We honor Our prices...'
    They also said they had 66 backorders at their store, and over 100 at the other store in town.
    But then this is Austin, home of NetPliance...

    We may get them in... October, but they will be $99... snicker...
  • http://www.vddv.com/prod01.htm

    This describes the companies own info on the player. One of key features is "Region free", and NTSC/PAL compat. (very important for chinese viewers as most have either PAL or NTSC discs and TV's) Plus you can get bulk shipments of 4!
  • All the US needs to do to put the screws to Taiwan is to do nothing. Just tell China "Hey we don't care. Do what you will, we're staying out of it."
  • My paranoya realy got to my when i noticed that I
    couldnt get a hold of a dvd-rom. I live in Stockholm, which is suposed to be the hotest it-region in europe and there isnt a singel DVD drive available in _any_ store in town. I can realy feel the MPAA breathing down my neck.

    Id better go put some tape to form an X
    on my window.......

    Das Ix

  • It's not like some company couldn't go make a DVD player without a CSS license now; it's just that companies are afraid of the DVD CCA's high-paid attorneys.

    Are any of the manufacturing companies based in Taiwan? If so then the MPAA had better give up and get a life NOW.
    The US would coma out far worst than Taiwan from any trade sanctions and any form of military threat would be seen as threatening mainland China.
  • "Local Police and MPAA Officials Confiscate Illegal DVD Players!" Yeah, great publicity for the MPAA. Confiscate those DVD players!

    Except that this just wouldn't work. Whilst with DeCSS the item in question is a piece of software and special laws appear to be appled to software. A DVD player is clearly an applience.
    The MPAA wouldn't last 5 minutes as the defendants in a criminal case, which is what they'd get by this kind of behaviour.
    Or maybe theft (and getting cops to act as robbers) is legal in the US...
  • C'mon, no one's going to do anything to China.

    Cos they might say "What motion picture industry? BTW sorry about the missile, we used some data from your CIA in targeting it... (Also the Excel spreadsheat for our inventory mangled dummy warheads with nukes)"
  • And just how legal is this "region-coding" crap, anyhow?

    Depends where you are. In the US large companies have lobbied hard for special legislation for software. (Legislation which will take literally years to be properly examined, even that which explicitally violates the US constitution.) In other places, e.g. New Zealand the government have declared the whole thing "illegal under international law". Thus making it difficult to sell a player which accepts the region coding.
  • That's the excuse they use. But I think the developers of these things hate region codes as much as anyone else around here, and do this on purpose. After all, how does disabling Macrovision help in testing?

    Many Home Entertainment devices (e.g. TV's and VCR's) have extra features accessible from the handset. Typically test/diagnostic and fully documented in the service manual. (Are any of these "hacks" in service manuals, BTW?) As for the Macrovision this can case problems where a VCR is used as a modulator for a TV which does not have SCART/SVHS/Composite Video/etc inputs.
  • Can you buy this player in the UK? If not is there another one that can play mp3? There is a very similar player available in Germany badged as a Yamakawa.

    In which case it is avaliable to anyone in the EU, which interstingly is more people than the US... The only complication for the UK is having to convert pounds to DM (or Euros).
  • 7 is reserved. 8 is airlines. (I think I got those the right way round)

    There is also region 0, play on any DVD. At one time airlines deliberatly used Betamax, for the specific reason on preventing cabin crew "borrowing" the tapes.
  • When you buy any player here in the Netherlands, you can pay an extra NLG100-200, and they'll "de-regionlise" it for you. Still covered by warranty too!
  • I picked one up in Austin recently and the guy at Circuit City told me they sell 20-30 of the Apex's PER DAY--and this is only one store. At this rate, we'll keep the MPAA's lawyers busy for YEARS!

    I had not intended to buy a DVD player because of all the deCSS flap, but with the Apex, I can screw the MPAA and the RIAA in one swoop--SCORE!

  • Apex 600 (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have an Apex, and it is some what useful, I mostly bought it to play mp3's easily (like at a friends house) without a computer. It costs about as much at component mp3 player so why not get the DVD also. The macrovision turn-off will allow you to record DVD to tape, but these devices have been available for years. (some at very low cost) The region override is basically available in most any DVD-ROM player, so nothing new there. The CSS option seems not to work or to do nothing or I do not understand how it works. None the less, there is nothing really new in this box, it basically is a good combination of things in one box at a reasonable cost. You should definitely visit nerd-out web site for the full details. They have a very complete discussion group.
  • but Exon was a Republican, NOT a Democrat,

    You have no freaking idea what you're talking about, do you? Exon was a Democrat. Period.

    New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

    /bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.

  • It was Clinton that signed the CDA Tipper Gore who headed the effort to censor music in the 80s, and I would remind you that Sen. Exon, a Democrat from Nebraska, introduced the CDA.

    And if you look into region coding a bit more, you will see that it is the content providers indeed who want to enforce that regime.

    New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

    /bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.

  • Not officially, but they're sold out all over the country, and some people have reported that their orders were abruptly cancelled. My guess is that when they become available again, you will have to commit to an ISP contract to buy one.
  • I'd buy one, but Circuit City's out of stock again. I have them set to e-mail me when they get them in, though; should I tell Slashdot when they're in?

    I'd buy it even without the secret menu, though; it's the least expensive world-friendly DVD player I can find (always a plus for us College Anime Fans On a Tight Budget ^_^ ). Granted, you have to do a bit of a hack to get the world-friendly aspect going, but it's still a great thing.

    As for why it's there, MPAA is going to have a hard time proving that it was put in there to promote piracy. Isn't it obvious? It was a debugging feature. That's why it was hidden in the first place, not unlike most video game codes; consumers were never meant to know about it. But it was a necessary feature to put in so that the player could be tested, and it made the player easier to service by facilitating diagnostics. The menu was meant to be kept secret forever, but some Big Bad Hacker Guy found it and spilled the beans.

    It's just security through obscurity, folks. But this time there's a real benefit, and we also benefit from it by being able to thwart the unethical practices of the motion-picture industry (namely, regional encoding as a means of artificially raising prices in certain regions) without doing anything illegal.
  • One thing that gets my goat is that a lot of the 'news for nerds' on slashdot is absolutely USA specific.

    Now, if you want to complain about the actions of U.S. comapnies in Australia, I sympathize. There's a reason why I watch Canadian television more than U.S. TV.

    But stop whining about a site owned by a U.S. company with its server located in the U.S. written by citizens of the U.S. being U.S. specific. It's not like /. is being forced down your throat against your will. You can get the Slash code, you can get Linux, you can get Apache, you can get mod_perl, you can get MySQL, you can get a computer, and you can sign your own contract for a high-bandwith connection to the 'Net. So go build your own "News for Nerds" site if this one isn't international enough for you.

    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • DVD manufacturers aren't stupid - they know very well that customers prefer multi-region players. However, they have to keep the MPAA happy to keep their DVD coding.

    Therefore, my guess is that the information necessary to enable multi-region is coming from the manufacturers themselves as part of a deliberate strategy.

  • Check this link [reviewer.co.uk] for multi-region hacks for loads of different DVD players.

    Enjoy :-)

  • If I recall, all the keys have been compromised. It sounds like the next generation of DVD players is going to have to include a new feature: support for all the keys. If one key doesn't work, just use a different one.


    ---


  • from the article:


    "Twenty-four manufacturers use the same menu chip as in ours, so they all have
    the same capability," said Colton Manley, a spokesman for Apex, in Ontario,
    California. Certainly our intention is not to sell anything that will cause any problems."


    So what chip is that?


    If everyone starts asking for it by name and the manufacturers start realizing that this "mis"-feature sells boxes, maybe there will be more "unintentional" slip-ups like this. :)

  • Replying to my own message. :)

    Doesn't look like nerdout's web server is too happy about it, though. I've got a quick and dirty mirror (hey, it works) setup here:

    http://members.xoom.c om/areal ms0/Secret_Menu/secret_menu.html [xoom.com]
  • The player also has the ability to remove the DVD Content Scrambling System (CSS).

    No $#!+? Whereas most other DVD players play the movie whilst it's still encrypted, and let you watch the white noise, I suppose?


  • The Samsung 709 and 909 are "crackable" via
    a special remote code. I would also suspect the Thomson 3600 which looks like a repackaged samsung 909.

    What this shows (along with the PSX2) is that members of the DVD consortium aren't taking the (ridiculous) region code rules seriously.

    Since anybody in the world can order Region 1 disks from amazon.com and others, and since nearly every player is modifiable (via menus, special remote codes or straight hardware fixes) this region code stuff is never going to be effective. I say just forget about it and start releasing films in theaters at the same time all over the world.

    -haffi
  • Well, I'm sure APEX has signed many NDAs and agreements to be licensed as long as they sell DVD players, and such, so while the secret may no longer be a secret, they would still be breaking contract if they made a unlicensed player.

  • You can get the Shinco Multi-Region player from Grenfell Hi-Fi in Adelaide for $599. It plays MP3s, too, I believe. I think they'll ship.

    Or you can get the Toshiba which you can re-chip to play Multi-Region, and comes with free DVDs for $699 from Myer.

  • I posted this on kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] yesterday, on a similar story (about the Playstation2 bypass thing):

    I bought a DVD Player (a non-PC one) a couple of weeks back - yeah, I know I'm no longer politically correct.

    Anyway, I live in Australia, which is in the Region 4 encoding area, so we can't play US release DVDs, unless you get a Multi-Region player.

    In a lot of the shops, they have on the list of features "Multi-Region" as one of the selling points (usually on the non-major brands).

    I ended up buying a Toshiba, which isn't Multi-region from a major department store. I asked the assistant "Is this multi-region?", and she didn't even blink. She told me "No, but it only costs $50 to chip it, and most of the Sony Players cost $150+ to chip". She even told me a place where I could get it done.

    The multi-region thing is pretty much ignored as far as I can tell. The discs are still encoded, but stores here sell both US and Region 1 discs, and the main selling point seems to be availability (US disks come out sooner) vs extra features (Region 4 disks sometime have more extra-scenes and sometime the sound is better).

    Anyway, I didn't realize that some had hidden menus & stuff - that's pretty cool.

    Has anyone got one of the Multi-Region Shinco players that play MP3 CDs? How well does the MP3 playback work?

  • MPAA: Malignant, Pompus, Archaic Assholes.
  • Besides, if someone is activly re-reading these posts in late 2055, expecting something of value, then they deserve to be disappointed.

    and they'll wonder how we could have possibly eaten all those hot grits.

    --
  • First of all - IANAL, but all this DVD stuff does has me considering law as a career.

    Watch your wording - what you said is technically wrong on a few counts. CSS is a <b>trade secret</b>, <i>not</i> a copyright, and as such is suubject to different laws. Because of that, they could go ahead and sell an unlicensed player as long as they can prove that the CSS decryption information is in the open and therefore no longer qualifies as a trade secret.

    It's not like some company couldn't go make a DVD player without a CSS license now; it's just that companies are afraid of the DVD CCA's high-paid attorneys. It may seem easy to show that CSS no longer qualifies as a trade secret, but why would any intelligent company take that kind of a risk when they can just pay a small licensing fee?

    And just to clarify, the reason that Apex could get in serious trouble for selling unlicensed players is not really the act of doing so, but the act of doing so after having signed an agreement to get this information - despite the fact that it's now in the public domain. If some new company created an unlicensed player, they couldn't really be subject to a fair trade secret infringement suit, as the mere fact that they were able to gain knowledge of the secret shows that it is no longer such (not that anyone would try and go against DVD CCA lawyers to prove that anyway).

    So although most companies could probably put out their own, unlicensed DVD players without breaking the law (which would be the case were CSS patented and not a trade secret), the scare tactics keep them from doing so.
  • You hit someone with a stick enough times, they eventually realize that the consumers are the ones with power, not the retailers, and not the manufactuers.
  • Thanks for spotting that broken link - I've fixed it now. :)

    mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

    timothy
  • So what is the significance of the numbers 80 101 110 116 105 117 109 to Intel??
  • Exon was a Republican, NOT a Democrat

    ***BZZZZTTTT!!*** I'm sorry; that answer is not correct [aclu.org]. Don't forget to pick up your lovely consolation prize....

    Also, with an 84-16 vote, if Clinton hadn't signed it, his veto would have been easily over-ridden

    Irrelevant. He had a free choice to side with or against the United States Constitution; he chose the latter.
    /.

  • Congress doesn't have a friend in the Executive branch of government for their censorship agenda

    What are you talking about? Clinton signed the CDA (a far greater crime, being a direct violation of his oath of office, than those for which he was impeached).
    /.

  • More importantly, they could revoke Apex's CSS player key. All future DVDs would be mastered without an Apex key, so they could not be played on an Apex player.

    That's the way it was supposed to work, anyway. Given all the developments since then (particularly the CSS crack,) I doubt the MPAA would follow through on the "DVD player death penalty."
  • As the proud owner of an Apex 600A (the DVD player in question), I have taken a firm stand on the MPAA's issue with my ability to play disks from anywhere in the world.

    BBBBBLLLLLPPPPPHHHHH!!!!!

    If they should be so audacious as to try any legal actions against the current owners of these units, I will proudly give them an American reply: You can take my player when you can shove it up your ass and carry it away!


    That may not be such a good idea ... the MPAA is full of huge assholes.

  • Well, it's obvious that in the presence of players where region encoding can be disabled easily (without even opening the player, thus voiding the guarantee) other players stand no chance. It's what people want. The true problem here is with the MPAA which is thinking they can sell a product to the consumers with inbuilt features working against the consumers interests. It didn't work with copyprotected VHS players and it didn't work with DAT Tapes.

    Either the product flops or someone comes up with a product where these features are disabled (Yeah, "developer feature", there is really a need to make it accessible via the remote control. And the message "You shouldn't be here" is a really good joke, since it implies that the enduser can read it (or was it meant for the developers?)). So we can assume that, since DVD players without region encoding sell better there'll always be someone to make em, if not in the US then somewhere else. Probably their marketing department even leaks the information to some magazines to ensure a good rating.

    It'll be fun watching the MPAA trying to put this genie back into the bottle, since now it's their claimed megadollars of negative income versus that of the DVD player makers who don't want their players sit on the shelves until DVD is an obsolete format. The MPAA really is in a no win situation here, they can't annoy the player manufacturers too much since they might get the idea to come up with a format of their own (this they should hve done from the start, it would have been far less trouble) and less sold players = less sold DVDs, an equation that even the MPAA should understand. So the only thing they can do is looking foolish, but they've practised that well.

    This also sheds new light on the DeCSS debate, since the MPAA can't sue the DeCSS folks but leave others who basically do the same thing (remove the copy protection) alone.

  • Nope, but they could destroy Apex and make other companies who might *wink* mistakenly leave such a devel feature in their product very frightened. I personally don't believe it was a mistake. Rather the ability was an easter-egg. A free prize for those swift/lucky enough to find it.

    I personally would like to see more pseudo-illegal/contraversial addons in consumer products. It would be wonderful if my TV would delete my electric bill when I choose channel '999' repeatedly or my toaster gave me the porn channel when I cooked rye bread.

  • Please let me take this opportunity to apologize for the above. I have made my account available for the use of several people around here. I am trying to promote /. reading (not posting) by a group of people who we should really want to read what's being said here(that was a hopeless bit of english). They don't want their own accounts (long story) and I want them to be able to browse at 2 automatically (if they see one grits or natalie portman post the jig is up). A particularly excitable invidividual decided to respond to the post without checking her facts (honestly though, when he was in office, most of us had a hard time telling Exon from a Republican)
    I dislike factual errors on /., and frankly wish someone had moderated it down as it deserved - far too many inaccurate statements are 2 and above here - though the original post qualifies as well - it gives the impression that the CDA was BC's idea. Regardless - I will endevour to see that this doesn't happen again.
  • You can't copyright numbers. 586 isn't copyrightable, why should 0xc0 0x00 0x05 0x55.. be??
  • I'm not. 586 wasn't an Intel reference, I just hit some number keys with my right hand. I was trying to point out that numbers themselves cannot be afforded copyright protection. If the numbers signified the chars in this post, they can be, but the CSS keys are numbers and numbers only. I cannot copyright Pi, no matter how much creative effort went into calculating it out to the 1000^1000000'th digit, I can't copyright it. I can copyright a book on how I did it, or patent the novel time-slice solution I uncovered, but no protection is afforded the number.
  • Slash doesn't like much of anything these days, em being a notable example. Especially in extrans mode, which is what the author of the parent used.

    Besides, if someone is activly re-reading these posts in late 2055, expecting something of value, then they deserve to be disappointed.
  • Personally, I think they'll be far more interested in the secret society of flap-jack eating nocturnal Ninja frequenting the place. Grits pose no historical mystery; Pouring a warm, grits-like substance down one's clothing has been popular since ancient Greece, where they used warmed mud.

    Let's just hope they don't get to see our Karma. Sig 11 may be worshipped as the Oracle of Slash if that happens.. I just hope I end up as one of the demigods..
  • Nope, it's still there. The link in the story was wrong, it's really http://www.nerd-out.com/a pex/Secret_Menu/secret_menu.html [nerd-out.com]. Try there.
  • I have started to get really annoyed these past few weeks about a lot of crap that these big companies are trying to pull lately. The MPAA, Mattel, etc. I know they are trying to protect there investments into their products and services but there is a line where they have to draw the line.

    Take what Mattel did with the Cyber Patrol program. MPAA and the DeCSS program, and now this.

    This sort of stuff is going to happen. The big problem is that the (crappy) laws that we have now days overlap each other. Each side trying to show that there side is the correct side. The Digital Millenium Copy Right Act is a really good example. It prevents people from doing what they have traditionaly been entitled to do by law.

    Besides, I've noticed that a lot of this stuff is comming from overseas in Sweden and the likes. DeCSS, cp4hack, I think both originated in Sweden? Do the US's laws apply over there? I don't think so.

    Since I really don't know anything about laws, and it probably shows, go ahead and take it how you will. But I think that most people will agree with me in saying that these big corps to take things, for the most part, a little to far. They think they can throw a little money at the problem and fix what they screwed up.

    In the long run new tech will eventually come out that will allow us to copy a DVD just like you can copy a VHS. It's going to happen and there is nothing they can do to stop it. (I personally never understood the region codes, maybe someone could explain it to me. But, if I buy a DVD should I not be able to play it where ever I want?)

  • They can send a notice to all regestered owners informing them that they have 'defective' merchandise that may be returned for free exchange. Those regestered owners that do not return them for exchange may find the police and MPAA represenatives knocking on the door. I can just see the headlines,

    "Local Police and MPAA Officials Confiscate Illegal DVD Players!"

    Yeah, great publicity for the MPAA. Confiscate those DVD players! Just think of all the good will the MPAA will create doing a house-to-house search for those that didn't register the players. Let's see the MPAA call unknowing consumers Pirates, and take them to court! Of course, that will never happen :-)

  • What can they do? (Score:3)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @06:58PM (#1185082) Homepage Journal
    Arrest everyone who bought one?

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • What's the point? (Score:3)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:04PM (#1185083)
    There are *so* many holes in the DVD players, formats, etc., etc. that it won't be a problem for anyone to get around these "features" the MPAA wants.

    And just how legal is this "region-coding" crap, anyhow? I remember they tried the same thing with consoles and audio and failed. (anyone ever played Golden Axe 3 in America? Anyone set the 'copyright bit' on your mp3's?)

    A business isn't going to sell a product that have added features that make consumers not buy it. Well, unless they have a monopoly or something. Otherwise, a competing standard without these features will win out. The MPAA will find this out, hopefully the hard way.


    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Region Coding and U.S. Censorship (Score:3)

    by Spirald ( 9569 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @10:33PM (#1185084)
    I have been wondering for a while just how censored the movies I rent at the video store are.
    I've seen a couple of director's cuts of movies, and have then looked at the released version and found that much was lacking.

    From many of the comments I have read, I now understand that Region Coding is an attempt by the movie industry to balance the need to sell movies and the need to maintain political capital in the U.S. specifically. That is, explicit content in movies released in the U.S. would rally the puritan special interest groups and their congressional representatives against the movie industry. I suppose that there is some incentive to tailor content to foreign countries as well, in order that the distribution channels maintain political capital in their respective regions. I suppose that this is an issue with movie studios in other countries as well, but the U.S. certainly has political issues regarding sex and nudity.

    I would certainly love to see an uncensored version of Eyes Wide Shut. I'm disappointed that in a country like the U.S. that was built on freedom of speech, I cannot obtain uncensored versions of popular movies at my local video store. Perhaps I was naive, but now I'm truly disgusted. I feel like I'm getting ripped off- like I only got a 'lite' version of something, or a half-cup of coffee, or watered down liquor.

    Perhaps it is not the threat of unauthorized duplication, or even of there being alternatives to licensed players, but the threat of political confrontation which drives the movie industry to pursue DeCSS, since the open source nature of the product would allow region codes to be easily defeatable without threat of license revocation. God forbid some conservative senator's kid runs Linux and plays an uncensored version of some movie his foreign exchange student brought over from Japan. Unfortunately for the movie industry, 'Region Code Bypassing' doesn't carry the same emotional and PR weight as 'Piracy'.

    Perhaps the true purpose of the DMCA and its access control provisions is to introduce a firmer basis for controlling access to pornography and other 'undesirable' content, by giving the content production industry a legal tool that gives them no excuse NOT to control access, and then holding them accountable if they don't control access effectively enough.

    This may be a stretch, but since Congress doesn't have a friend in the Executive branch of government for their censorship agenda, they are using a cash rich music and movie industry as a surrogate Executive branch in order to establish a judical bulwark of precedents for their legislation.

    I just don't buy the argument that Region Coding is just to prevent people from seeing stuff before it comes out locally. Censorship concerns are the real issue, and the only entity who wants to pursue censorship and has influence is Congress.

    The question is, can and would Congress legislate against the movie industry if the movie industry stopped wholeheartedly 'enforcing' censorship through region coding and other means?

    Mike

  • Alternative to slashdotting nerd-out... (Score:3)

    by TrentC ( 11023 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:41PM (#1185085) Homepage
    ... is to check Google [google.com] for a cached copy.

    In this case...

    Google's cached copy of the "hack" [google.com]

    Jay (=

  • Re:This appears to be a pretty decent player. (Score:3)

    by ElrondHubbard ( 13672 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:53PM (#1185086)
    After watching DVDs on my computer for most of a year, I nabbed an Apex AD-600A at the Circuit City in Dearborn, MI about a month ago (I live in Windsor, Ontario). It runs hot and it's obviously a cheap little econobox, but it runs every DVD I've thrown at it, in addition to PAL VCDs on my NTSC television -- including an Episode of a certain movie series which is not scheduled for DVD release for five more years. :-) It played the MP3s I tried, but I think it can only read Mode2 discs; at least one disc caused it to lock up, which I suspect was Mode1. I should also note that the player has locked up a couple of times during regular DVD playback, including one occasion when I was using the Zoom feature. In other words, use at your own risk. What with region hacks, the known Macrovision cheat for Cinemaster 1.028 and so forth, the Apex doesn't give you anything you can't get on the Internet. But for the price it's a honey of a machine, and it freed my from the necessity of watching movies at my computer.

  • The List (Score:3)

    by Pope Slackman ( 13727 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:34PM (#1185087) Homepage Journal
    Here's one of the lists I mentioned:
    http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/
    (This covers only software (menu) hacks.)

    --Kevin

    =-=-=-=-=-=
    "Just take another hit 'cause you don't give a f*ck-
    You're a junkie and you're proud!"

  • Re:All I know is... (Score:3)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @08:17PM (#1185088)
    So Circuit City, the company that tried to completely control a medium with DiVX, is now selling out of a DVD player that is easily hacked to allow people to circumvent the MPAA's heavy handed region tactics and attempted control of a medium?

    Ironic, isn't it?

  • Re:What can they do? (Score:3)

    by delmoi ( 26744 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @09:33PM (#1185089) Homepage
    So what is the significance of the numbers 80 101 110 116 105 117 109 to Intel?? 80='P' 101='e' 110='n' 116='t' 105='i' 117='u' 109='m'

    "Pentium"
    and you call yourself a geek, pff...

  • the MPAA would never show any bias... (Score:3)

    by kapow ( 160290 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:44PM (#1185090)
    The playstation II has been out for so little time in Japan, and I have already seen instructions out there to bypass region codes. Why doesn't the MPAA attack Sony?

    There are larger brand names out there than Apex who are making a laughing stock of the region coding system -- some of these companies are still too big for the MPAA to handle. My guess is that the MPAA is going up against this manufacturer simply because it figures it can throw enough legal red tape in the right places to stop it.

    Would the MPAA try to push around Sony? how about Panasonic? ...I sincerely hope that Apex brings this bias up in court, and proves that the MPAA is behaving like a corporate hypocrite.

  • Over $300.00 on eBay (Score:4)

    by jms ( 11418 ) on Wednesday March 22, 2000 @12:21PM (#1185091)
    Wow ... they're selling for between $250 and $300.00 on eBay! No wonder you can't find them in the stores ... These decks are so valuable that people are actually making money speculating on them!

    Gee ... it might have something to do with the MPAA "investigating" Apex, and the implicit threat that these decks will be withdrawn from the market. Better get yours while you can!

    Nothing like a little artificial shortage to create a huge market for an otherwise-obscure product. A month ago, your average novice DVD deck purchaser probably had no idea what a "region code" or "macrovision" was, and could have cared less if his deck couldn't play European DVDs. After all, what is the market for PAL capable VCRs in the US?

    With all of this publicity, "defeatable region/macrovision coding" has suddenly become the hottest selling point you can put on a DVD player these days. Apparently, in this case, it adds $100.00 in value to a $180.00 player.

    Expect a similar frenzy at the end of April, when it becomes illegal to sell a VCR that allows you to copy a macrovision tape. Thousands of people who would have never even thought of copying a commercial tape will run out and get their macrovision-free recorder, just because the government is about to make them illegal.

    The MPAA is it's own worst enemy.

    By lobbying for copyright laws, and interpretations of copyright laws that are unenforcable, wildly out of touch with reality, and invasive to the end user, the MPAA and RIAA are eroding public respect and support for copyright law. They are creating an unprecidented level of public contempt for their entire industry.

    What the hell do they think they are doing?

  • Just the Apex? (Score:4)

    by Pope Slackman ( 13727 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:09PM (#1185092) Homepage Journal
    The 'secret menu' is hardly unique to the Apex,
    I've seen a list of instructions for 'hacking' prolly 30 different brands of player,
    including some of the big names.

    The Apex just happens to be the most well
    publicised because of it's MP3 capability and
    the nerds that feature attracts. :)

    --Kevin
    (Happy Apex owner)

    =-=-=-=-=-=
    "Just take another hit 'cause you don't give a f*ck-
    You're a junkie and you're proud!"
  • Self, things to do today...
    1. Buy CCA licensed Apex player
    2. Record byte stream coming from decoder
    3. Perform hack
    4. Record byte stream again.
    5. Compare differences for purposes of studying encryption methods.
    6. Publish results on cryptography web site.
    7. Explain how code works in detail, with plenty of source code examples, but don't include a zip file for distribution.
    8. Let others know about it so that they can develop a player for Linux.
    9. Get sued anyway by the MPAA under the DCMA for WTHNWF (who the hell knows what for)...

  • Re:Just the Apex? (Score:4)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Wednesday March 22, 2000 @12:37AM (#1185094)
    > The 'secret menu' is hardly unique to the Apex,

    You can bet that every DVD player has some kind of a hack. Otherwise, think of the pickle the manufacturers will be in when courts start ruling the region code scam illegal and thousands/millions of consumers start wanting money back, free upgrades, etc. With secret menus they can at least avoid the recalls.

    The interesting question is, are people finding the hacks just by fiddling around (security by obscurity doesn't work, you know), or are employees leaking the instructions out, or are the manufacturers themselves "leaking" them deliberately in hopes of improving sales?

    --
  • I bought one of the last Apex players left in the Bay Area on a trip to San Jose a couple of weeks ago. It is one of the few region-free players that can play a PAL DVD on an NTSC set, although I haven't had a chance to verify PAL playback quality in person.

    As far as normal NTSC playback goes, a quick video-quality comparison using S-Video output shows no major differences between the SD-600A and my old Toshiba SD-2006 (a $500 first-generation player with 10-bit video DAC). No playback problems were observed watching The Matrix, a common source of trouble for cheaper players such as this one.

    I just ordered a Region 3 (Asian) copy of Eyes Wide Shut from Hong Kong. We'll see how the Apex handles the disc when it arrives, but I don't expect any problems. (Kubrick fans in the US should note that this is an uncensored, unrated NTSC release, which should be compatible with all region-free players in the States. In that sense, it should be preferable to the Europe/UK PAL releases that are starting to show up.)

    It seems that the MPAA forgot to ask me, the consumer, if I wanted to participate in their DVD region-coding plan. Not that they're interested in my answer, but for the record, it's "No, thanks." Studios like Warner Brothers are giving DVD fans every reason in the world to look for workarounds.

  • Correct URL for hack is... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:09PM (#1185096)
    really here [nerd-out.com].

    Even with the link broken, enough people seem to have figured out the correct link to bring the site to its knees. The text of the description is:

    -------
    Press POWER. Turn on the unit with NO DISC in the drive, make sure that the drive is closed.

    Wait for "NO DISC" to display

    Press SETUP. You will get the setup screen.

    Press DOWN until PREFERENCES is highlighted.

    Press STEP.

    Press track BACK.|>| The "Loopholes" menu is displayed.

    Here in the loopholes menu you can change things like Region ID, CSS Encryption, Macrovision, and all those good things. Note, of course, that "you should not be here."
    ----

    The last item refers to a screen shot of the menu, with the very words "YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE" at the bottom of the screen!

    I hope they countersue and win. I am, quite literally, a coward when it comes to the MPAA - hence the AC post.

  • It's a misnomer to call it a "menu chip" the chip in question is an ESS 4308 Videodrive chip. This is a 32bit risc (MipsX) + 64bit SIMD microcoded core. The code that presents the menu in question is risc code and an OSD ciruit in the device that overlays a region of the sdram onto the main display buffer. I would never advise it of course but an inspection of the firmware shows a string -- LOOPHOLES -- in the rom. Interestingly, the feature many like (the 3/2 pulldown PALNTSC) is done totally in microcode. There are many things that chip can do in software that were not contemplated when it was designed (i.e. MP3). Cool part and really well programmed by the ESS engineers.

  • And every other player anyone buys.... (Score:5)

    by tinla ( 120858 ) on Tuesday March 21, 2000 @07:12PM (#1185098) Homepage Journal
    Are they you seriously trying to claim this DVD player is unusual?

    A "very large" number of the top selling DVD players in the UK have simple handset hacks to play DVDs from other regions. The hardware reviews in some home cinema magazines actually report the hacks and their ease of use affects the player's rating. Sony players from most of the Far East regions play anything when they arrive at the shop, at least the ones I've used do.

    One of the UK's biggest supermarket chains (Tesco) recently went on record, in the national press, as saying the "all regions" capability of the cheap and cheerfull player they sell is the main reason they're selling out.

    I've never found a dvd my player won't play. And thats an official UK pioneer model.

    Damm those Japanese. Curse the Euro-swines. No respect for US law.... does anyone?

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