Play DVDs On Linux 226
mojo-raisin writes: "After more than a year of development, the first release of OMS has been made on www.linuxvideo.org. For those of you running Debian see this message for an easy installation to your system." Looks like you need a cutting-edge libc6, among other things.
Re:In A.D. 2001. War was beginning (Score:1)
What You Say?!?
All Your Rights Are Belong to Us
You have no chance to compile, make your time!
Xine rules (Score:1)
I tried the oms but had a hard time getting it to work properly. For now xine works great for me. Xine also has a great plugin architecture. You can view mpeg videos with it and other stuff too. It can also use the windows video codecs for decoding video files that are not otherwise supported on Linux.
And anyways competition is always good right?
You can get xine at
http://xine.sourceforge.net/xine_frame.php?page
Debian packages are also available (Go Xine!!!)
The css plugin is available at
http://gape.ist.utl.pt/ment00/linuxdvd.html
cheers
YAH00
Re:He's not a lawyer (Score:1)
What's the "Lan" in "VideoLan?" (Score:2)
I have a DVD in my server box, a little Pentium 200 - the DVD is there because there's no room in my workstation for another drive.
Does the "Lan" part of "VideoLan" allow me to run the decoder on my workstation, while the DVD is in a drive on my server?
AFAIK you need direct access to the device to negotiate keys - i.e. you can't decrypt an NFS mounted DVD - can you?
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Re:What's the "Lan" in "VideoLan?" (Score:1)
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Re:DVD Decryption (Score:2)
Re:You criminals sicken me. (Score:1)
Re:Lovely DVD (Score:1)
Re:link to the official announcement (Score:1)
Hey! I've been playing DVDs for months! (Score:3)
I use xine [sourceforge.net] since the early 0.3.x releases and it works really well! I can get a perfect fullscreen playback at 1280x960 (thanks xv!) with a NVidia GeForce 2 MX on a P3 550. The latest version now supports subtitles and changing audio tracks on the fly (earlier versions started supporting IFO parsing, very useful too)... everything I need!
There's even an "unofficial" input plugin to play encrypted DVDs which works perfectly.
I really love this piece of software, it's wonderful
BTW, RedHat 7 users can get a clean custom packaged version from http://redhat.aldil.org/ [aldil.org] and play all their DVDs in no time!
Re:He's not a lawyer (Score:1)
The crux is that if money has changed hands an exchange must occur. Just like you can't have fire without oxygen along with heat and hydrogen, you can't have an exchange without the right to use that content in ways that it is readily accepted that the item purchased is made valuable.
Barring destruction of the purchased item, I have rights to use it as one would expect the point of purchase to be.
Re:Why do Linux users assume... (Score:1)
But it does not even remotely resemble watching DVD with an unapproved player.
Shooting in the backyard is clearly different from using your gun wisely. It might injure somebody.
Watching DVD with an unapproved player is indistinguishable from watching it with an approved player. It causes zero harm.
The only different thing is the label on the DVD players. One says "approved" and the other one does not say so.
You have paid for the disc. You should be able to watch it however you want. Copyright only protects COPYING. Watching is USING and is trivially different. Use your brain sucka.
So my analogy stands. Now can I have some of what you're smoking?
Re:What's the "Lan" in "VideoLan?" (Score:2)
You can still send commands to the drive.. which involves 'writing'.
Re:Jews run the RIAA (Score:1)
Pardon my French!
Re:Perhaps (Score:1)
Re:what about picture quality? (Score:1)
Re:Try an ATI card under Win2k (Score:1)
I've got an ATI 128 Rage mobility pro on my laptop, running Win2k and I can watch DVD's fine -- the picture quality is astounding and fullscreen you don't notice the scaling at all.
Unfortunately, I've been extremely, extremely frustrated trying to get XFree86 working correctly on my Debian side. I've tried so many things, don't even bother suggesting anything else to me...I'm ready to just drop it and concentrate on actually using the damn thing.
What about AC3 ? (Score:1)
I have a SBLive! Platinum and a DTS2500 Speaker System that includes a Dolby Digital Decoder, and under Windows it really rocks, under Linux with Xmovie I just get Stereo sound.
Anybody knows of a project to bring AC3 to Linux? ALSA [alsa-project.org] is planning to include it after the release of version 0.6 but what about OSS drivers?
- german
Re:what about picture quality? (Score:2)
And the only reason the G4 is faster decoding is that the ATI card has DVD decoding hardware. And the Athlon is borderline for software decoding. It'll work 98%, but you'll get skips in complex scenes. Both my p3-800 (600 OCed) and my GF's Thunderbird 900 do fine, but if I clock the 800 to 600 or lower (I was testing some software I wrote and forgot to return it) the jerkiness is terrible.
But what I wanna know is... (Score:1)
Re:WHERE is it illegal ? (Score:2)
Perhaps (Score:4)
But let the cops come to take me away for playing a DVD I purchased on a DVD-ROM drive that I purchased. Let the judge throw me in jail with a straight face.
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Re:I dont mind encrypted DVD's (Score:1)
The price of an object is based on its value to the customer as much as (or more so) the cost to produce. CDs are cheaper to make than tapes, but they charge less for tapes because it's lower quality and less convenient.
Don't make the same mistake marx did and assume price is a function of production cost. Do a web search for "marginal value theory" for an informative lesson in economics, one which I wish I'd learned 15 years before I did.
Re:Perhaps (Score:1)
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Re:Lovely DVD (Score:5)
the V between them.
Re:How can a disc detect anything about the player (Score:2)
I'd personally love to sue the studios over this, if you buy a disk and find out it won't play because they crippled it. Just find an unmodded player that is hit by that bug, buy it, and sue the studios for false advertising. "They said it was a movie, it's a DVD of a black screen, and they did it intentionally!"
Re:LinuxVideo? No. VideoLan, Yes! (Score:2)
People are begging for 200fps average frame rate so that it never gets below 60.
On film, however, 24/25 fps is the standard because that's what is available for projection and cameras. It's very easy to see the limitation on motion scenes.
Re:What's the "Lan" in "VideoLan?" (Score:1)
There's something in the kernel setup I've seen, but never enabled - Network Block Device.
It looks like it's intended to do exactly that - share a block device over the network.
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Re:First Jew (Score:1)
Re:First Jew (Score:1)
I still don't see why it's illegal (Score:1)
It's like buying some wheels and gasoline and not being allowed to use them on my car (which i assembled from parts i got for free).
Please don't give me that piracy shit! I don't want to copy it (even though i don't see why i'm not allowed to copy it for personal use, since i bought it) and i don't want to sell it or show it to an lager audience....
Re:OMS? what about XINE? (Score:1)
What to buy? (Score:1)
:)
Re:what about picture quality? (Score:2)
In a way, yes: decryption, demuxing, audio decoding, subitiling is done by software. Some high-level MPEG video stuff is done by the software but the bulk of the effort (that is, motion compensation, inverse DCT and scaling/smoothing) is done by the video card (so playing a DVD at 1600x1200 is just as fast as 800x600). This is why this "software decoder" only works with Rage 128/Radeon (and now, GeForce2 MX). Actually it is about the same thing as what you get bundled with said cards in their retail PC version.
BTW, the hardware support in ATI chips is first-rate, quality-wise. The image is better than most hardware decoders (we checked a Hollywood-whatever and an ATI card on the same PC. The ATI's image is much cleaner)
I still like VideoLan (Score:5)
Try an ATI card under Win2k (Score:2)
LinuxVideo? No. VideoLan, Yes! (Score:4)
Dummy, you bought the wrong card. (Score:4)
Next time read the fine print. To view Matrix, buy a Matrix card. Damn.
Re:Perhaps (Score:2)
No, this is the first step to getting DVD's playing on Linux. Maybe you misunderstood the purpose of the program Mr. Valentini.
Many options for DVD on Linux (Score:5)
First to organize, last to release (Score:2)
DVD Player Compatibility (Score:2)
How will this Linux player fare?
Wasn't that the whole point of DVD in the first place- a rock solid standard?
my brain hurts. [ridiculopathy.com]
Netstream 2000 works, too (Score:2)
Of course, since the NS2K costs a couple hundred dollars, it's not exactly an optimal solution for most people . . .
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Re:yeah, but can I pirate videos with this. (Score:3)
Re:LinuxVideo? No. VideoLan, Yes! (Score:2)
You criminals sicken me. (Score:5)
You are the reason why our great nation is facing difficult economic times right now. The way you flout the DVD Consortium and the Hollywood studios angers me to no end, and you are an embarassment to the millions of honest, hardworking American citizens who view DVDs using LEGAL hardware or software.
And it only took you guys about four or five years after DVDs first came out.
Why go to these lengths simply to break the law?
I will never understand you people.
Thank you, and God bless America.
--
George W. Bush
President, United States of America
--
George W. Bush
Re:What to buy? (Score:4)
I've owned several, and the ones I have been most happy with are Pioneer's models and the Ricoh CDRW/DVD combo drives.
Go here [firmware.com.bi] to make sure that a modified version of the firmware for you drive is availble so you can easily play discs from more than one region. The Ricoh drives are especially nice because they are not region free, but region switchable, with the propper firmware modification. Region switchable is preferred to region free because some recent discs can detect if your DVD drive is region free and will refuse to play if it is. Region switchable drives avoid that problem. There are other drives that are region switchable, the Ricoh ones just happen to be the ones I am familiar with.
Re:DVD Player Compatibility (Score:3)
Oh, and the DVD-R cd's got the CSS ring (the place where the CSS authentication data is stored) blocked, and the DVD-R storage is smaller then the normal DVD media itself - so no DVD's media copying... (hmm, they probably didn't hear that DivX with small compression ratio can give some excellent results.. oh well - maybe they'll get it some day)
It is anticompetitive (Score:3)
Now imagine that the World Company that have almost 80% of the video publishing companies as well as several DVD Player manufacturer wants to make it's main competitor (ACME DVD, a DVD player manufacturer) bites the dust. In this case the World Company only have to remove the ACME DVD CSS key from their DVD disc, so that WC DVD cannot be played on ACME DVD.
Don't you find this unfair ?
On the other side, CSS does not prevent raw copy of DVD, hence it does not offer a good copy protection scheme.
And I don't find decrypting a DVD to play it when we have purchased it legally is violating author's right. After all buying the DVD gives us the right to watch it as much as we want, when we want, where we want (unless it is public broadcasting or other condition prohibited by law).
Re:Why do Linux users assume... (Score:2)
Just thought I'd point that out. I agree with your sentiments, and that we should own things that we have purchased, but I'm sure the movie company would disagree with you.
Re:He's not a lawyer (Score:2)
Re:Of course... (Score:2)
In fact, copyright law's basis is that it should protect the creators of a works rights only to the extent that it encourages the creation and dissemination of works to the public. In this case the movie industry is trying to restrict even paying customers from fair use of the works they've bought, and that violates the very principles copyright law is built on.
If breaking CSS for fair use purposes violates any laws, it's the laws that shouldn't be as they are, and I'd break them whenever I please.
Luckily I don't live in a country that have sillyness like the DMCA (not that the UK doesn't have more than enough other crappy legislation to make up for it)
Wow. (Score:3)
We (the people) are allowed to 'view' our purchased DVDs based the the fair use law! No ands, ifs, or buts.
Now to quote you, "No it's illegal like stealing cable is illegal".
If you are paying for Cable-TV, you are ALLOWED BY LAW to be able to DESCRABLE IT. Just so long as you dont descramble the channels you are NOT paying for. Look it up, and make more informed posts next time.
To give you a little history... There one was a time when Telephone companies tried to charge you for each phone you had installed on the SAME line. You had to also purchase the telephone directly from the phone company. The courts thought otherwise. This same case was used towards the cable companies as well. Now, you are ALLOWED to purchase your own telephone just like you can purchase your own cable descambler independent from the phone/cable companies. Just as long you were PAYING for service.
Re:Never mind... (Score:2)
But this is slashdot. We can't let ethics get in the way.
Re:Perhaps (Score:3)
OMS Features (Score:3)
Re:yeah, but can I pirate videos with this. (Score:2)
Well, congratulations for blanketing everyone who reads
As i look over to my left, i see about 10 dvd's (I started late, ok) that are practically useless coasters in my dvd drive under *ANY* os other than a windows based os.
Choice, it's all about choice, nothing more, nothing less. Can I pirate dvd's easier w/ this, yes. Will I, NO!!! Just because I can doesn't mean I WILL.
It's like saying that because I know how to build a atomic-bomb, I will, and I will launch it at you all in your sleep. C'mon, use the white tissue between your shoulders, I WANT TO WATCH MY MOVIES, period, end-of story.
Re:Why do Linux users assume... (Score:2)
A better analogy with guns: (the situation is completely fictional)
Suppose you have an H&K gun and H&K demands you to use H&K-approved bullets. Suppose Steyr makes bullets that you can use in an H&K too. Now you've got your H&K gun, but the Steyr bullets are a LOT cheaper. What would you do?
The gun is yours. There are legal uses of a gun. The conclusion? Provided that your use of the gun is legal, you can choose whatever bullet. Then, the H&K license is legally invalid.
It's a logically trivial conclusion. I wish it is so to you as well.
what about picture quality? (Score:5)
We played the Matrix on both, first the G4 (Apple DVD Player). Oh my God, I had to change my shorts and take a long shower. This was the best picture I have ever seen. I would swear watching full screen (1600x1200) from the G4 was comparable to being in the theatre as far as picture quality and lack of artifacts goes. We also watched a 320x240 quicktime of Battle Angel Alita, blown up to full screen. The ATI card apearently has a video scaling chip in it, the lack of artifacts (there were still some, heh it was 320x240), and the color quality was exellent.
We tested the Matrix on my box under Win2K and the WinDVD 2.3 software DVD player. Less clarity, colors were a little washed out comparitively (yes we tweaked contrast and brightness on monitor and in DVD player), and the video jittered every now and then (the G4 was as smooth as ).
I'm pretty sure that my hardware has the horsepower to hold it's own against the Apple solution, but they really put a lot of quality into they're software when it comes to multimedia applications.
I just hope that the resources being thrown at Linux DVD don't slow down at 'ok we did it'. IMNSHO, Apple's platform has set a high standard, which is why my graphics developer uses Adobe products on MacOS rather than GIMP and friends on Linux (He does a lot of high end print and 3D work, not just web design).
Besides I'm really tired of running over and having him check out the latest and greatest achievements from the Open Source community, just to have him yawn and produce a list of lacking features and quality. It's making me look bad dammit!!!
But in seriousness, this is great, just as I applaud every release of GIMP, GNOME, KDE and many of the other awesome projects that make using UNIX systems easier, I really must produce a sober reminder that we still aren't the best, or even in running for the top spot, when it comes to quality and richness of features in multimedia stuff.
These are the same reasons that Windows never won over the graphics market (surprise, it wasn't just fanaticism), so we really can't feel bad, the bar is that high.
I hope that one day soon my graphics developer will thank me when I put Yellow Dog or LinuxPPC on his G4. I've already got it on my 1999 PowerBook (did I mention Apple makes great hardware)
So thanks for everyones hard work, it's looking like a great start.
Re:Baps (Score:2)
Re:what about picture quality? (Score:2)
I have a P2-300 machine with both an ATI All-In-Wonder Rage 128 and a Sigma Designs / RealMagic Hollywood card. Under Windows 2000, the RealMagic card puts out a noticably better picture than the ATI does. The Sigma Designs Netstream 2000 should be even better.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
They work so hard (Score:2)
Re:I dont mind encrypted DVD's (Score:2)
Think about it. The average user cannot copy the disk because the "blank" disks have an area burnt into them that contains data necessary for the playing of the disk. (real money-making pirates have no trouble getting "real" blank disks, so this does nothing to them). There is no reason for the contents of this area to be secret, you would be unable to play the copied disk anyway because the necessary data is missing. Other schemes that would work are "intelligent" DVD burners that would refuse to write anything recognized as a DVD, thus destroying the data so bad that it is useless. (Of course SlashDot would hate this stuff as well, but I am just pointing out that the "encryption" has nothing to do with piracy prevention).
The encryption's job is to make it impossible to get the data off the disk into viewable form without using a program under the manufacturers control, thus linking you to other "features" of this program that are not in your interest.
It is true that one of the "features" is that you cannot send the decoded output to storage. This does interfere with piracy. But not much, as still nothing is preventing the contents of the DVD from being copied to another storage, and I doubt there is much technical obstacles stopping the DVD player from being fooled into reading from this storage instead.
Re:But what I wanna know is... (Score:2)
Re:What's the "Lan" in "VideoLan?" (Score:2)
Re:OMS? what about XINE? (Score:2)
Bah (Score:2)
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Re:What to buy? (Score:2)
LiViD Performance (Score:3)
After reading a post here, I decided to give xine a try. It's much better. Video is smooth, sound syncs better, and I can watch the end of my dvd's!
One less reason to reboot into windows...
ck
Re:What's the "Lan" in "VideoLan?" (Score:2)
treke
Conclusion (Score:2)
They have you fooled into thinking they own you. the same people that are fooled into thinking Microsoft is the only way. You call us communists? You call us criminals? fucking shit, dd if=/dev/cdrom of=dvdimage.iso is perfect for trading DVDs, this shit isnt gonna make people wanna pirate movies. Youll are crazy to say 'Look you communists, you need an authorized player, thats the way. THIS IS ILLEGAL' It really pisses me off, your morons if this is your thinking. You bought the damn thing, you bought the DVD player, what does it matter? CSS doesnt stop me from ripping the disc. It just is a form of control. This is just common sense. Picture this you Windows lovers: Microsoft decides to make it to where you have to have an authorized copy of Windows media player that you have to pay for to look at your little windows media files. What would you do? Thats right, youd get the little shareware version. Of course you wouldnt code it yourselves, you dont have the knowledge. Is that why you flame us? Because
we have the SKILL to do stuff ourselves? Its really starting to piss me off.
I cant wait for the day when corporations dont have people literally brainwashed. thats what youll are... ill be glad when Mozilla is the browser of choice, where noone uses Windows. It will happen. Why? Because we can make things perfect. We have freedom. I know that you posters dont know what freedom is, but its not having to 'have an authorized player to play the DVD youve purchased'
This is just my rant, i hope someone reads it, please reply if you agree, and if you disagree, your too brainwashed, in love with Mircosoft, and have an intimate relationshit with your reset button, feel free to reply too (then just walk in front of a bus)
Posted anonymously since i know some will disagree, but really, the post tries not to be a flame/troll, but my anger is in there, so im sure it may seem like it....
link to the official announcement (Score:4)
Re:A big deal (Score:2)
Re:DVD Decryption (Score:2)
But that's the whole point: if you move the CSS decryption upstream (to either the device driver or the DVD filesystem), then players wouldn't have to deal with the CSS issue anymore.
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A better player...XINE! (Score:2)
Unfortunately they aren't brave enough to bundle the CSS plug-in with it. In fact they've gone to great length to make it very unvisible and must be found here. [nbci.com]
Have fun!
Derek
Re:You criminals sicken me. (Score:2)
- - - - -
Re:LinuxVideo? No. VideoLan, Yes! (Score:2)
Tried the unstalbe release and today's CVS.
Starting program:
VideoLAN Client - version 0.2.60 Urumov - (c)1996-2000 VideoLAN
Cannot access memory at address 0x231
(gdb) bt
#0 _dl_debug_state () at dl-debug.c:56
#1 0x4000ac3b in _dl_catch_error (errstring=0xbffff770,
operate=0x40130990 , args=0xbffff774) at dl-error.c:141
#2 0x40130d3d in _dl_open (
file=0x80b2e58 "/usr/local/lib/videolan/vlc/idctclassic.so", mode=2,
caller=0xbffff770) at dl-open.c:232
#3 0x400323d3 in dlopen_doit (a=0xbffff884) at dlopen.c:41
#4 0x4000ac3b in _dl_catch_error (errstring=0x80a67d8,
operate=0x400323a8 , args=0xbffff884) at dl-error.c:141
#5 0x400328b9 in _dlerror_run (operate=0x400323a8 ,
args=0xbffff884) at dlerror.c:125
#6 0x40032393 in __dlopen_check (
file=0x80b2e58 "/usr/local/lib/videolan/vlc/idctclassic.so", mode=2)
at dlopen.c:53
#7 0x8094ec7 in AllocateDynModule ()
#8 0x0 in ?? ()
(gdb)
- - - - -
Re:Perhaps (Score:2)
Ah, this is an important point of disagreement. Most folks who read Slashdot (myself included) think it's unfair for the movie-making companies to also control the means of distribution/playback. It's mostly a matter of opinion, I guess. But, just pointing out that it's currently illegal to circumvent controls on digital media means nothing to me, because I think that law should be changed. Don't get me wrong - I don't advocate piracy of DVDs, just more freedom to use the ones you've purchased.
I'm trying to come up with some legalish reasons to back up my view, but I can't think of any. I still think it's unfair. It's also a darn shame that technology is being crippled in the way it is. Do you really think it's wrong for someone who has legally purchased a DVD and DVD-ROM drive to watch it using his free OS rather than buying another OS he doesn't want or a "approved" standalone DVD player he doesn't need? If nothing else, it's just wasteful - and there's no need.
Why is the Linux player not "approved" by the MPAA anyway? Sure, the hardware companies might be upset at the loss of a DVD player sale, but the MPAA makes its money.
And piracy? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the piracy can easily be done in Windows already, right?
I could keep going, but the sun will be up soon, and I don't want to be awake to greet it.
Summary (Score:3)
It seems we have gone from none to too many movie solutions for the free unices. I am amazed at the sheer amount of duplication, but I guess that is the way we do things in the free software world.
GPL Movie systems listed from most mature to least, imo:
Yeah, butt (Score:2)
A. NOBODY.
So, therefore, Napster steals from artists who DON'T want their art disseminated FOR FREE by rich college students.
Die, Theftster, Die.
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Re:Of course... (Score:2)
Nuff said.
//rdj
Lovely DVD (Score:2)
Re:WHERE is it illegal ? (Score:2)
This is an insult.
Oh.. because (Score:2)
Re:What to buy? (Score:2)
Re:But what I wanna know is... (Score:2)
Re:Your problem is in using WInDVD. (Score:2)
Re:LinuxVideo? No. VideoLan, Yes! (Score:2)
Some do, particularly TV shows, and almost all anime in the US. The set top DVD players available can play 24/25fps film at 30fps (on NTSC) sometimes by manipulating extra information encoded in the stream and also interpolating it by taking advantage of the interlace frame scanning.
Re:Why do Linux users assume... (Score:5)
Once you buy a DVD, you own it and, and of course you have the right to view it. Of course, all rights must be balanced against other rights (e.g. freedom of assembly can be regulated to ensure public safety). It's absurd to compare playing a DVD you've purchased to shooting your own children.
The issues you raise about "script kiddies threatening the format" are off-base. DVD's can be copied without decrypting them, simply by duplicating them, and in fact well before CSS was cracked DVD's were widely pirated outside of the US because it's so easy (and DVD's are relatively overpriced compared to manufacturing costs). The only thing that encrypting DVD's does is make it difficult to produce a DVD player that doesn't enforce the region coding and licensing fees, and create all sorts of hassles for consumers of the sort that killed off the DAT format (where you often couldn't even copy your own personal recordings).
Keep in mind that many other media formats have succeeded without any encryption: radio, TV, newspapers, books, CD's, LP's, cassette tapes, VHS, laserdisk
Your problem is in using WInDVD. (Score:2)
Otherwise....those Mitsubishi monitors are nice aren't they? I picked up one of those Diamond Pro 200's myself about nine months ago...I love it
-Julius X
Re:I dont mind encrypted DVD's (Score:3)
What bugs me is this whole reginon code nonsense. There is really no reason for it to exist other than to create artificial trade barriers. I do not mind paying for DVD movies but I will continue to approve of efforts like OMS while idiotic schemes like Region codes continue to come out of messed up brains of Hollywood beancounters.
For better or for worse, Da Rabbit has spoken!!
Re:Of course... (Score:2)
Nevertheless, they do NOT have a license from the DVD CCA, so therefore, it's illegal.
DVD CCA doesn't have a right to license it in the first place -- neither algorithm, nor keys are protected under any law, they are merely trade secrets, so as long as they were not published by people who had access to them, everyone is free to discover what they are and do with them whatever they want.
DVD CCA can license their software that implements the encryption/decryption algorithms, however no one needs it now anyway, as long as algorithm was reverse-engineered, so DVD CCA can stuff everything they can license into their collective ass.
Re:Perhaps -- but not really (Score:2)
Support for dxr3 (Hollywood+)! (Score:3)
Re:What about xine? (Score:2)
Machine: Athlon 800, Redhat 7, Matrox G400 Dual Head
Re:You criminals sicken me. (Score:3)
What ? Our Great Nation - Rhubarbhia - is doing just fine... Or are you a FOREIGNER ?
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In A.D. 2001. War was beginning (Score:2)
Re:DVD Player Compatibility (Score:2)
On my Powerbook G3 500, the only disc so far that I have had any trouble with is Creature Comforts, which plays really choppy, and I suspect the problem is they pegged the bit rate as close to 10Mbits as possible when mastering the disc. I have some region 2 discs which are pegged to the max bit rate, but I haven't had time to try them yet.
Re:I dont mind encrypted DVD's (Score:2)
You can stop the pirates just as well (ie poorly) with a completely open system, provided you make it illegal to sell blank disks without an unwritable track burned into them. It does not matter whether the contents of this track are secret or not, as in either case somebody could outwit this with hardware or software that provides the data on this track. That cannot be prevented, but if all commercial devices cannot do this it would make the bulk pirates job a lot harder!
Since the existing scheme does nothing to stop the bulk pirates, it is apparent it's goal is something else. Like many here, I believe it is to control the players, so that users cannot fast forward through ads, and so that a pay-per-view system can be gradually implemented in the future.
Rogue players? (was Re:Perhaps) (Score:2)
Didn't you hear? "Rogue players" have been changed to "players of concern."
-schussat