Copy Protection Backfires on Blu-ray 378
An anonymous reader writes "The first two Blu-ray releases to hit the market encrypted with BD+ (an extra layer of protection designed to stave off hackers) are wreaking havoc on innocent consumers. As High-Def Digest reports, this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players, while load times on other players (including the PS3) are delayed by up to two minutes. 'The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastrophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players ... Calls placed to both Samsung and LG customer support revealed that both manufacturers are aware of the issue, and that both are working on firmware updates to correct it. Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"
Well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you fuckers didn't STEAL their shit we would (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If you fuckers didn't STEAL their shit we would (Score:5, Insightful)
[1] This one doesn't go in quotes, because it's surprisingly accurate in the current context.
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Re:If you fuckers didn't STEAL their shit we would (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why has the drive to extend copyrights started long before there was even tcp/ip, not to mention file sharing?
Why has the music/movie industry consistently opposed limited, fair-use sharing "even [though] when it first became easy it was no threat to copyright holders"? Why would they
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Wait, what's THIS then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._v._Universal_City_Studios [wikipedia.org] Here's a little fact that's become blindingly clear; they don't WANT you to have ANY rights when it comes to their "content (if you can even call it that). They want to be able to make you pay for the content as many times as possible. Heck,
Fac
Couldn't a hacker... (Score:2)
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If hackers wanted to be mean, they would release their own firmware versions just for the havoc that would be caused when players get their keys revoked.
Re:Couldn't a hacker... (Score:4, Funny)
hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that's so darkly amusing to me is that if I was interested in viewing these movies, pirating would be zero-hassle. It's only when I try to view them legally that I get dicked over.
Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to be forced to see this message everytime you watch the movie you purchased, then copy this film and edit this out.
Or go to bittorrent - somebody has probably done this for you already. Otherwise, please wait for 30 seconds while we remind you (once again) not to copy this film.
Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to be forced to see this message everytime you watch the movie you purchased, then copy this film and edit this out.
Or go to bittorrent - somebody has probably done this for you already. Otherwise, please wait for 30 seconds while we remind you (once again) not to copy this film.
Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique (Score:5, Funny)
Either that or there was no room left on the disc. ;-)
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Somehow producers of movies, music and games have come up with the idea of making people copy the stuff less by making the copy *SUPERIOR* to the original.
If you use copies you can;
Listen to music on your choice of players. Take a backup of the expensive game you bougth. Burn a new copy of the kid-game after the children messed up one. Watch movies on your laptop -- even if you don't use Microsoft Wind
Re:hollywood's perfect anti-theft technique (Score:5, Funny)
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Thank you for that. As a viewer in the UK, I particularly appreciate how considerate you were to include the FBI warning and DMCA-related advice on every DVD I bought for the past year, and the way you ensured that I, too, couldn't accidentally miss this important and highly relevant information by locking it on my screen for 30 seconds. Your standard of customer care is truly in a class of its own, and you can be confident that I will take that fully into account when deciding about future purchases.
Message to Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me explain this to you by way of a simple 3-party model, since you are too clueless to understand the actual technical details:
Encryption was designed to protect communications between Alice to Bob from the evil Eve. It was not designed to cope with the case where Bob and Eve are the same person. As a clueless DRM proponent, you are trying to give Bob access to an item without giving Bob access to the item
If you don't understand that then I have nothing else to say to you, and any brain cells you may have are entirely superfluous. I recommend eBay as a good place to sell them off.
Kind regards,
Joe Public.
Only the RIAA could match this stupidity (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Only the RIAA could match this stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only the RIAA could match this stupidity (Score:5, Funny)
This just in (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This just in (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This just in (Score:5, Funny)
Intelligent chip! (Score:5, Funny)
This is a problem? (Score:5, Funny)
Why firmware updates? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why firmware updates? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why firmware updates? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, this assumes mightily that the BD+ discs themselves are properly authored and coded....
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When all the other players except 2 work, it seems to point more to a problem with the players than the disks.
Of course, this whole crappy thing could be avoid
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Re:Why firmware updates? (Score:4, Informative)
The thing is, BD+ IS part of the standard (Score:3, Informative)
It's a brave new world, son.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Against any reasonable offer.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Interesting Timing (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the real test (Score:5, Insightful)
What Sony desparately needs to know right now is whether BD+ is going to hold or fold. They are watching those torrents very closely.
BD+ was one of their main selling point to the studios. If it fails it can't be fixed, and they could lose studio support. That would be crippling to their format.
Don't call it until you can see it on your monitor. All else is rhetoric.
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All in favor of calling a moratorium on cracking BD+ say "aye"! If we convince the studios that BD+ is better, we'll end the "format wars" a lot quicker. Once we only have one viable format, we can always end the moratorium.
The First Step... (Score:2, Funny)
Updates? (Score:2)
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Typically you download it and burn a DVD (a regular non-HD one) with a standard filesystem and a magic filename (like FIRMWARE.DAT or whatever) in the root directory, then stick the DVD in the drive. If you don't have a burner, you have them mail the disc to you.
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Either the device downloads it over the Net or the vendor mails you a CD or you download a firmware file and burn it to CD, etc.
Are you required to connect them to the internet just to use a Blu-ray player?
No.
...firmware update? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Some new BlueRay players come with ethernet ports for the sole reason of connecting the player to the network to download firmware because the manufacturers have started to anticip
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Just listening to the conversation would've been worth the money.
And I guess a few more people like my dad do exist. People who want a standalone HDDVD/BluRay player for the simple reason that they don't want to fiddle with firmware updates, drivers or other "computer crap" they don't care about. The
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Very few households have anything other then a computer online.
Millions dn't even have a computer online regularly.
Any device Blender, TV, CD player, should work stand alone.
On the practical side, look at what a nightmare it is to keep windows updated. They want to do that with firmware? God forbid something happen mid-stream.
Just thinking about what they would have to add to the device to be sure failure and interruption can be cleanly recovered from is a nightmare.
Small Consolation (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that will be of great consolation to folks who rented the movies and have four "nights" (which most people refer to as three days) to have the movie back before getting hit with PMITA late charges.
Only a two minute wait? (Score:4, Funny)
this is really turning me away from HD movies (Score:5, Insightful)
So, these media firms have lost a faithful, paying customer. I refuse to buy all of their DRM'd HD crap. Since my HTPC upscaler looks almost as nice as HD, I'll just stick with regular DVDs until, if ever, the DRM crap is done away with. And since you can also record broadcast HD shows, there's no need to shell out another $30 to get the HD-version of a show compared to the regular SD DVD version.
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In addition, while Best Buy charges MSRP for disks, you can get them on Amazon for far cheaper -- most in the $19.99 range, but some in the $27.99 range.
While upconverting is nice, it's really nowhere near as
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Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD have implemented the Image Constraint Token in hardware. No movies have implemented this feature and the studios have "pledged" not to use it at this time (at least not until they think they can get away with it, anyway). HDMI for upconverting SD-DVD is a requirement of t
Re:this is really turning me away from HD movies (Score:5, Insightful)
And by the way, that's just a euphemistic way of saying that you're the product.
Question (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm sure for people who don't have CD-R drives, they will ship them an upgrade CD probably just for the cost of S/H.
Re:Question (Score:5, Funny)
On the one hand... (Score:2)
On the other hand, two decades of DOS and Windows have taught most of the world that crashes, freezes, and data loss are just how computers work--when in reality, a properly-designed system will rarely crash OR lose data--and ha
Smackin Down The Competition...Maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM is just plain bad business... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one of the reasons I don't care about this format war, they both are wrong headed... I want content delivered over the wire (or wireless, you get the idea).
Re:DRM is just plain bad business... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost like going to a store for a new computer and the clerk tells you "well, you could buy it, but only if you steal it you got warranty".
Dear media industry: (Score:2)
That radical business method seemed to work just fine in the days of VHS and DVD (region encoding aside).
Yours truly,
Someone who pirates these days, because at least that WORKS out of the box.
Firmware updates!? To my DVD Player? (Score:5, Interesting)
I should be able to buy some equipment, plug it in and watch my movies. thats it.
That this is a necessity was a given. (Score:3, Interesting)
Say, what happens when a key from a standalone BluRay Player (or, let's play it out a little, the PS3 one) gets revoked? You have a rather expensive brick?
Well, maybe not (Score:2, Insightful)
hello mpaa, riaa (Score:2)
if you make the lives of good decent people miserable, while not doing anything to effectively counteract the effort of pirates, then good decent people will resort to piracy, as the pirates are getting better more functional versions with less limitations of your product than good decent paying customers are getting
wake up morons
I've got a great idea, guys! (Score:2)
That sounds like a great idea! Somebody patent it, quick, and let's make some money!
*tries disc*
*scree scree scree scree*
*waits*
*scratches head*
*tries backup disc*
*scree scree scr
Awful nice of them (Score:5, Interesting)
Punish the paying customer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile a paying customer cannot play the crappy, overpriced movies on his overpriced video player. And my national HD Sat operator's STBs still cannot authenticate via HDMI with my LG LCD. Which is not good, since HDMI/HDCP is a requirement for their VOD HD content...
Screw'em, gotta go and see what's new on trakcers...
Robert
Region locks and now this! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't understand why people are supporting Blu ray......
The other day I was looking at disc prices. The typical price for a BD here in NZ is close to $50. HD DVDs are about $35 and regular DVDs are $30 for comparison. Also, there are no discounts to be had on the PS3 and while the US looks to be getting a new SKU at $399US ($525NZ) we are expected to pay $1200NZ which works out at $910US. Think about that.
BD-J issue (Score:3, Informative)
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Ding.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Many players are upgradeable. For both HD and Blueray, you should make sure yours has an online upgrade capability. We know they're going to mess with the protection continuously - that was a given when the general public accepted HD-DVD and Blueray as viable formats.
The Fantastic Four Silver Surfer Blueray version of the movie played back fine on my PS3, no delays or other evidence of handling problems. It was fine for a comic adaptation. Don't know what everyone is bitching about as far as the movie itself goes - it isn't like the Fantastic Four was either great art or great writing in the first place. This isn't a McFarlane production (i.e., not Spawn, which was a tour de force.)
I remember giving someone a really blank look when they said that "Dumb and Dumber" was a "dumb movie." Same thing kind of applies here. You don't get a Fantastic Four movie in order to broaden your critical faculties.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Interesting)
JSL
--
This space for rent.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, this is one of the reasons that I already gave up on Apple and their DRM laden music. When my wife buys an MP3, which would be joint property in a legal sense, and we can't have it on both our iPods simultaneously, that's just stupid.
Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM, where pirates watch everything with ease while you have to jump through hoop after hoop just to listen to/watch something that you legitimately purchased. Enjoy the show...while your player still works that is.
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If I take a CD and I stick into my computer, it plays. That same CD plays in my truck, on my portable CD player, in my TV's DVD drive, on my various consoles, etc... I don't need an "update", there isn't a menu and I don't have to select a checkbox. It. Just. Plays. This concept has been lost i
Where did you get that? (Score:3, Insightful)
The degraded resolution has to do with the Image Constraint Token [wikipedia.org]. I b
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Blu-Ray players will allow approved code to execute under a specific virtual machine [engadget.com]. The specification for this virtual machine is specifically not known. It is forbidden to be known, actually, to prevent tampering. We have been assured, however that BD+ doesn't affect the state
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It was just used in these 2 releases... way ahead of their promise.
No, these implement BD+, which is also scary, but it's not the same as ICT, and it doesn't downgrade the resolution of the video based on what type of outputs you use. BD+ [wikipedia.org] is basically software on the disc that checks to make sure the player hasn't been hacked or compromised, and updates the player if need be. This may be what I had heard early on could destroy a player if a user tampered with it, but maybe they decided to just fix the tampering to prevent backlashes about $500-$1000 players that just
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Whether any of us agree or not, this is a legitimate argument. He is plainly stating that as a member of "the general public" he is has *NOT* accepted either of the current HD disk formats. He then makes a few more statements. None of those statements is flamebait either.
I hope this was a mistake. I know I've screwed up and hit the wrong selection when modding.
Someone with mod points please override the "Flamebait" moderation.
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2) Install SlySoft AnyDVD to disable content protection and HDCP requirements.
3) Enjoy your HiDef movies
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Informative)
You can authorise as many players as you want on your account, including those already authorised on other accounts. The system supposedly also cross checks not to see if you're playing a copy of the movie at multiple locations, but if it's insterted into multiple players "at the same time" at which point it was supposed to determine the movie was pirated and lock down ALL copies of the movie from playing in any player.
Unfortunately, to do this, every copy of every movie stamped needs an individual serial code, and all the players would be required to be network connected. This was unreasonable to the consumer and extremely expensive for the industry, and as yet is not implemented in any fashion that I am aware of or that I could find a reference to. This was a reccomendation the industry (or some designer) made when the platforms were up for standardization, but I can not find proof that this made it into the final product.
The only restrictions (as of this week) currently in use are: 1) advanced encryption in the disk to prevent copying (which won't last a week) and 2) HDCP which prevents movies in HD from playing through non-HDCP compliant equipment (to prevent stream copying by intermediate devices).
For those of you with PCs with aftermarket blue ray or HD players, keep this in mind: even if you have a DVI or HDMI connected display, if your OS, motherboard, video card, and display (as well as a few chips inbetween) don't support and are certified for HDCP, then any disks that require it (just 2 so far) will not be playable on your system. For those of you with HDTVS, not only must you have a proper player (with a functional BIOS) but your TV must specifically implement HDCP, and so must any swith or stereo amplified inline between the 2 points. As of Christmas last year, less than 50% of TVs being sold supported HDCP. CHECK WITH YOUR VENDOR BEFORE BUYING A PLAYER TO MAKE SURE IT WILL ACTUALLY WORK!!! Many of you already experienced this when hooking up your PS3 to unsuppoprted hardware...
If you're buying a new PC, Stereo, or TV, make SURE it has native HDCP support. This is most important in computers. Only DX10 video cards support this so far, but your motherboard must also be HDCP certifies as well.
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It's a feature... if it's not required or abused (Score:3, Informative)
I guess the point that you're trying to get
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That was the *first* answer to AACS (see sig for the second, there may be a 3rd and 4th by now). Up until now AACS was used by *both* HD-DVD and Blueray. The same keys were used for both.
Now there are disks using BD+, which of course we don't have a key for. Or AFAIK even a working implementation.
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...yet...
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Per your own sentence, it's a playback prevention mechanism. If I were a BD-player owner (and the way things are going I'm not planning on becoming one anytime soon) who couldn't play either disk, I wouldn't feel very "protected".