BD+ Resealed Once Again 460
IamTheRealMike writes "It's been a few months since we last checked in on how the Blu-Ray group was doing in their fight against piracy. In December 2008, a new generation of BD+ programs had stopped both SlySoft AnyDVD HD and the open source effort at Doom9. At the start of January, SlySoft released an update that could handle the new BD+ programs, meaning that Blu-Ray discs could not be decrypted for a period of time about the same length as SlySoft's worst case scenario. The BD+ retaliation was swift, but largely ineffective, consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master. Users had to upload log files to SlySoft for every new movie/region. They would then support that unique variant in their next update, usually released a few days later. Despite that, the open source effort never did manage to progress beyond the Winter 2008 programs and is currently stalled completely; SlySoft is the only group remaining. This situation remained for several months, but starting around the same time as Paramount joined Fox in licensing BD+, a new set of programs came out which have once again made Blu-Ray discs unrippable. There are currently 19 movies that cannot be decrypted. It appears neither side is able to decisively gain the upper hand, but one thing seems clear — only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+."
The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped caring about blu-rays, they became too much hassle (and too expensive) for not enough of a quality boost. Maybe in the future when they really start to overtake DVDs (on price too) I'll reconsider. But at the moment, I highly doubt I'm the only one who has no more than one or two blu-ray movies and rented the rest. The big reason I'd have wanted to rip was to keep a digital copy of my collection. Since I don't even have a collection, that will hold off till I stop caring about DVDs.
Blu-ray may yet die a horrible death..
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)
it may be that people just don't care about blu-ray the same way.. yet. I think if blu-ray ever catches on like DVD did, the story would be different.
You're absolutely right. Furthermore (and perhaps crucially), it would take a significant increase in at-home internet bandwidth / quotas for that to be any different. Can't see many of us throwing 30 gig down on one michael bay movie :-)
(Yes, ripping bluray->smaller formats still could be advantageous but I think it would be fair to say, few can be bothered with such tedium).
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The best use-case for ripping for me is to bring a movie with me on my iPhone. But Blu-Ray discs increasingly contain a full low-res version that can be ripped to the iPhone, fulfilling that need. The next most common need I've heard cited (but am not affected by myself) is the ubiquity of DVD players in car entertainment centers, meeting rooms, etc. Once the licensing, circuits, optics and laser for Blu-Ray are down to trivial cost we'll see that support explode.
All I can say is that on a recent HDTV Bl
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Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:4, Funny)
"... the 1952 version of the Day the Earth Stood Still ... I have no intention of watching."
Fuck you.
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:4, Funny)
Gort? Is that you?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about?
The standard is to encode a blu-ray rip down with x264. 720p in 4.37 GB and 1080p in 7.93 GB (single layer and double layer DVD +/- Rs).
Of course there are people out there who will just encode with a constant bitrate / quality target without caring for final file size (and some people who exceed 8 GB on purpose to make it seem like their release has higher quality, or just to piss people off).
It's a very active scene.
Rips can be had easily.
Encodes in various formats, sizes, resolutions, etc. can be had very easily.
Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a Blu-ray player and HDTV.
I still buy DVDs, even when the Blu-ray disc is available, because Blu-ray isn't enough of a quality upgrade (compared to a DVD player with a good upscaler) to be worth the functionality loss.
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)
DVD Jon and Co. cracked CSS in 1999, long before DVD hit its stride. The reality is that CSS was vastly easier to circumvent, virtually trivial, compared to the protections on HD media. AES encryption is not something that can be broken in a few minutes by a cracking program. We're talking about a fundamentally difficult encryption method.
The main issue here is that the content industry has built Blu-Ray distribution around devices which do not trust their owners. This is the first concrete deployment of "trusted computing" type system, and the reality is that it is working. Despite the best efforts of hackers everywhere, Blu-Ray has not been cracked and most likely never will be.
The content industry has won this round, and will continue to win with ever more secure encryption and a legion of untrusting, internet connected players in peoples living rooms. The genie is back in the bottle. Once DVD dies, or is executed, the age of high quality movie rips will be behind us.
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How do you reconcile that SlySoft can provide high quality rips of all but 19 Blu-Ray disks with the statement "Blu-Ray has not been cracked?"
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, Blu-Ray *was* cracked. The updated BD+ is taking some time, but once they figure out how to emulate the virtual machine better, it will again fall. The downfall of Blu Ray is built in - accurately emulate an official virtual machine, and the disc will decrypt itself for playback.
The studios'll keep breaking the virtual machine emulator, and the emulator will keep improving... until eventually the emulator is good enough that it simply doesn't break. Then I can actually start buying the Blu-ray movies instead of getting ripped copies of them, as they'll work in my media center box. Though I will say that it is amusing watching the movie studios fighting this hard and spending so much capital, all to prevent me from giving them money.
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The studios'll keep breaking the virtual machine emulator, and the emulator will keep improving... until eventually the emulator is good enough that it simply doesn't break.
>
That's a pretty big assumption that so far has not happened in reality. One of the beauties of BD+ is that it can completely eliminate an untrusted arch and even change the encryption stream through mandatory updates. You can choose not to install those updates, but then new titles won't play.
The content industry has shown that they're not afraid to revoke all keys for a particularly weak player.
Then I can actually start buying the Blu-ray movies instead of getting ripped copies of them, as they'll work in my media center box. Though I will say that it is amusing watching the movie studios fighting this hard and spending so much capital, all to prevent me from giving them money.
I think they're pretty satisfied with how things have gone so far on the Blu-Ray front.
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Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Funny)
*Whip cracking noise*
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe at some point we have OLED wall paper with hundreds of point source ultra sound speakers. In that case you could possibly use more channels of audio and higher resolution, but that kind of stuff is still mostly just theoretical at this point. Or maybe we all start augmenting ourselves, and we gain the ability to perceive higher quality. I just don't don't think either is likely in my lifetime. Even if I could affordably make an entire wall into a TV, my wife would never let me.
So, I'd wager that Blu-Ray is the last physical format for home video that we ever see. The world will eventually move to downloads for everything. Eventually the bandwidth will become cheap enough for Blu-Ray quality movies to be delivered digitally, and the majority of consumers will move to that. However, there will always be a small minority of people who want a physical copy and that's probably always going to be Blu-Ray. The disc is small enough (do you really thing a smaller disc would be enough reason for people to switch, because I don't especially with the infrastructure in place for the standard disc size.), cheap enough to manufacture (I think it will always be cheaper to press a disc than to create some sort of flash memory), and we've already covered the quality. About the only argument for a different physical format would be the speed at which the movies load (reading data off a disc has a maximum speed), but each generation of players is faster than the last, so I don't see that as a compelling reason to upgrade. If DVD was good enough for a large chunck or consumers, Blu-Ray is good enough for 99% of them. I just can't envision any other physical format ever surpassing it. It may end up as a niche product when downloads get to that quality, but I don't think it will ever go away.
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This, on the other hand, I seriously doubt. Even if all the holographic storage doesn't pan out, something will be the next big thing. Unless 'always' is defined as 'for the next ten years or so'.
I'm not sure why this would be though. Blu-Ray already has enough space to fit the movies in quality that is good enough. A newer media format really only would improve the amount of stuff you can hold. But the amount of stuff that makes up a movie isn't likely to increase, so why do we need more space? Sure it would be really cool to buy a holographic disc that contains all the Stanley Kubrick films (just to use an example), but the cost of that kind of collection is going to be to great (Hundreds of d
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Most consumers (not nerds) care about convenience, price and quality - in that order. DVD scored massively over VHS on convenience, the price premium was small and the quality improvement was a bonus. So DVD was a massive success.
Blu-ray is less convenient than DVD. Most blu-ray users have only one blu-ray player but several DVD players. If the kids want to watch a blu-ray movie, the parents get relegated to the small screen in the kitchen; result: unhappiness and no more blu-ray sales.
The massive price
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If the kids want to watch a blu-ray movie, the parents get relegated to the small screen in the kitchen...
That sure wasn't the way things worked in my family growing up.
We kids only got control of the main boob-tube when our parents didn't have anything they would prefer to watch.
There was no argument allowed, and our parents certainly wouldn't go for being relegated to anything, unless they wished to be.
Sure, we could lobby, but only until the lobbying became tiresome, or annoying.
If we pushed the lobbying bit too hard, we would be made to sit through some (boring at the time, now, quite interesting) public br
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:4, Informative)
I cannot believe you do not appreciate the quality difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. That is as bizarre to me as people, and there are many of them, that say they cannot tell the difference between a CD and a 192 kbps MP3. I think those people have hearing problems. The loss of quality is like nails on a chalkboard.
In both cases, the difference is striking and the higher quality product is significantly better. I love my Blu-Ray films and I love losslessly compressed audio (FLAC anyone?).
I see Blu-Ray as a significant step forward and as a film lover, I truly appreciate the quality of this format. No satellite, broadcast TV or cable company is giving me the quality of HD signal that the Blu-Ray format does. Blu-Ray is the best in show for the quality category for digital multimedia.
Now, is it more expensive than DVD?
Yes.
More importantly, is it TOO expensive?
I answer firmly, "No. The quality justifies the price."
Prices are less expensive, considering inflation, than DVDs were at this same period in their adoption cycle. Also, as adoption/market-share increases prices will drop as well.
I care about Blu-Ray because I care about film and quality is important to me. May Blu-Ray have a long, happy life.
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)
I cannot believe you do not appreciate the quality difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. That is as bizarre to me as people, and there are many of them, that say they cannot tell the difference between a CD and a 192 kbps MP3. I think those people have hearing problems. The loss of quality is like nails on a chalkboard.
Hell, I can't tell the difference between a CD and a 128 kbps MP3, except maybe if I really, really concentrate. I can't really notice the difference between DVD and VHS either. I guess I'm just thinking about the content, not the quality.
Re:The summary is missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel like there is a huge groupthink happening here. Do we all really dislike Blu-Ray? Is there no one else that finds the quality unbeatable and worth the price?
Not really.
I cannot believe you do not appreciate the quality difference between a DVD and a Blu-Ray. That is as bizarre to me as people, and there are many of them, that say they cannot tell the difference between a CD and a 192 kbps MP3. I think those people have hearing problems. The loss of quality is like nails on a chalkboard.
Yeah, except here the 'loss' of quality simply comes from having less pixels, not from compression artifacts which are what produce the "nails on a chalkboard" effect. It is simply less bothersome for most people.
In both cases, the difference is striking and the higher quality product is significantly better. I love my Blu-Ray films and I love losslessly compressed audio (FLAC anyone?).
And there's where we disagree. You see, DVDs look good, Blu-Rays look great, but the majority of my opinion of the end product is determined by the content itself. Transformers is shit on DVDs, shit on Blu-Ray, and shit on the cinema screen, it is *not* 'significantly better'. And Mozart's Requiem is awesome on 192k MP3s, and only marginally more awesome on lossless FLACs, the MP3s may have some compression artifacts but the *music* itself is still the same. Furthermore, all I pay for FLACs over MP3s is the fraction-of-a-dollar increase in storage space, not so with Blu-Ray.
More importantly, is it TOO expensive?
I answer firmly, "No. The quality justifies the price."
And I answer firmly: FUCK YEAH! Blu-Ray players are 5x the price of a DVD player with similar features, movies are at least twice as much as regular DVDs, and all for what? higher resolution. DVDs had multiple audio tracks and user-selectable subtitles in many different languages, plus "behind the scenes" features and complementary material compared to VHS, but all Blu-Ray offers me is just same old crap in high definition. Gee, no wonder I'm in no rush to buy one of those things.
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If you think the most important attribute in determining the quality of Lawrence of Arabia is the ability to count the hairs in the main character's eyebrows, I agree.
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There are many wonderful films made. Most are not making it to the screen at your local theater, but I assure you they are still being made. For instance, may I recommend "Let the Right One In"? It is a Swedish film made in 2008 and it is available on Blu-Ray. And there are classic films such as "Lawrence of Arabia", which is also available on Blu-Ray.
Are they available in regular DVDs? if so the point is moot.
If you think the DVD and the Blu-Ray of "Lawrence of Arabia" are of the same quality then there is no point in continuing this discussion.
They're not the same, but they're *practically* the same. One's a good movie in 480p, the other's a good movie in 1080p. Either way its still a good movie.
You aren't paying for better beer, you're paying for the same beer in a nicer bottle. The package is shinier, but the content itself is still the same and, since all I care for is the beer itself, I'm going with the cheaper (and easier to find) package.
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I don't mean to be offensive, but a 25 year old movie on Blueray for $10 doesn't mean that Blueray is ready to take DVD's place yet.
LK
Dear Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care about your little IP war. All I know is, the first time I pop a blu-ray disc into my $300 player and it refuses to play because of one of your new little one-upmanship encryption schemes, I'm going to be plenty pissed. And I bet there are any number of ambulance-chasing trial lawyers out there are who going to be looking to make some big money off some nice class action suits everytime one of your new schemes renders all our existing players obsolete too.
P.S. And no, "Well you may be able to get a firmware update from your player's manufacturer" doesn't cut it.
Re:Dear Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who's still using DVDs, I see this from a slightly different angle. In my brain I'm thinking about the future and how difficult it's going to be for device manufacturers to support this format "consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master." I mean, while the fight was HD DVD vs Blu-Ray, I was looking forward to "movie players" in the future being able to play anything under the sun and since the disc is standardized in size you'd be able to have players be backward compatible for multiple technologies ... maybe even leave open possibilities for up-converting old discs.
But after reading this story, I'm sure all this new anti-anti-anti-theft encryption technology requires you buy a license to use the per master programs and that these programs require a ton of chipset/memory on the device to decrypt these things. By the time you've foot the bill for the hardware and IP licenses on the technology, the universal player isn't going to be worth it.
It currently may spell annoyance/lawsuit but I predict the future techies will look back and frown upon what was done when future generations are left to be curators of digital media and wacky encryption schemes.
Re:Dear Sony (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Dear Sony (Score:4, Insightful)
Your vacation cabin in the woods, where you want no internet access, has a blu ray player and an hdtv?
You're doing it wrong.
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Hah, I doubt that such a lawsuit would get very far.
Just look at the rootkit lawsuit.
I win against blue ray every day (Score:5, Insightful)
I win against blue ray every day because I don't own a blu ray player and have never bought a blu ray disc. I recommend you do the same. Don't buy the discs then get pissed and try to sue. Vote with your feet.
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Vote with your feet.
I call bullshit. Only Chuck Norris could possibly pay for goods with roundhouse kicks.
Re:I win against blue ray every day (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I win against blue ray every day (Score:5, Interesting)
It's like the studios invented blu-ray just to piss people off and turn them off to the whole idea of a HD video format.
If so it worked for me! I grew up with crappy VHS tapes that lost tracking, had snow, and generally had poor picture quality. DVD is heaven to me. Why the hell would I pay $1000+ for a HD tv and $300+ for a blu ray player so I can put up with unbreakable encryption, crappy region coding, overpriced discs, unskipable ads and propaganda. For what? A bit more detail in the picture? There truly isn't another advantage to the format that even interests me. They can keep it.
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Why the hell would I pay $1000+ for a HD tv
Well, you are aware that HD content can come from sources other than BluRay, right?
$300+ for a blu ray player
Um, BR players can be had for as little as $75. http://electronics.pricegrabber.com/blu-ray-players/p/2065/st=sort/sortby=priceA [pricegrabber.com]
Re:I win against blue ray every day (Score:4, Informative)
The Toshiba HD-A3 plays HD-DVDs, not BR. The lowest price your link shows is $141.69 for a Samsung BD-P1500. That, combined with the fact that to purchase the same movie in BR format costs more as well.
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Sorry, ~$140. For some reason some HDDVD players are on the list.
Re:I win against blue ray every day (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't mind buying your players and discs from China, there's always CBHD...
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Blu-ray seems more geared to the studios; their trailers, their encryption, etc.; than to the person actually BUYING the disc. It's like the studios invented blu-ray just to piss people off and turn them off to the whole idea of a HD video format.
They invented Blu-Ray to fully monetize the high-def video market, which includes all those things in the first sentence.
Re:I win against blue ray every day (Score:4, Insightful)
Blu-ray seems more geared to the studios; their trailers, their encryption, etc.; than to the person actually BUYING the disc. It's like the studios invented blu-ray just to piss people off and turn them off to the whole idea of a HD video format.
They invented Blu-Ray to fully monetize the high-def video market, which includes all those things in the first sentence.
That is funny. I thought you needed customers to fully monetize something.
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They invented Blu-Ray to fully monetize the high-def video market, which includes all those things in the first sentence.
That is funny. I thought you needed customers to fully monetize something.
Oh, heavens no. That's so 1970s of you. As is trying to be proved every day nowadays, what you need are defendants, not customers. Far more lucrative.
I mean, it has to work, else these fancy MBA-toting executives wouldn't keep doing it, right?
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Of course, I'm not saying that isn't massively unfair, I'm just saying, thinking about it for a moment, early adopters often get the shaft (without legal ramifications). This doesn't appear to generally discourage companies beyond that of souring your retail choice, which of course means noth
Re:Dear Sony (Score:5, Interesting)
All I know is, the first time I pop a blu-ray disc into my $300 player and it refuses to play because of one of your new little one-upmanship encryption schemes, I'm going to be plenty pissed.
Amen brother. I recently bought a $1200 HP Pavillion with blu-ray player and gf9600, 4gb ram yadda yadda. What interested me the most was 500gb HDD, blu-ray player, and hdmi out...
:(
I was pissed off the very first time I played a blu-ray. You see, HDCP shut me down before I even got to the blu-ray menu. I am still very pissed off because nowhere on the box, or in the press kit; was a notification saying that although this computer has a blu-ray player AND HDMI out, that you will not be able to play a single blu-ray disc through that port. The best I get is upscaled DVDs, which I'm not surprised they haven't put BD+ on dvd's now to prevent me from doing even this.
I tried to purchase AnyDVD-HD but my Visa is declined for "109 Euros too high, authorization declined" which my bank has no idea what that means. I refuse to buy a PS3 for many reasons and I refuse to pay out another $200+ for a standalone player. I feel a bit duped by the movie studios into buying a blu-ray player that is only good on the small 17" screen built into my laptop, which does not handle 1080p
Re:Dear Sony (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny that, I've got a new *laptop* that can't play BluRay on the --built-in-- screen. I fire the movie demo disc (from 2005) into my new acer (now running windows 7) and it says "cannot play, unauthorized screen".
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Are you sure your external screen is HDCP compliant?
Have you bothered calling Hp about this? The geforce 9600 is HDCP compatible. According to this its a bug [cnet.com], not an HDCP issue. Who knows maybe they have a fix for this already.
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Re:Dear Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
The power of BD+ [wikipedia.org] is that they can do this without breaking existing players, because they can actually change the encryption [wikipedia.org] on the new disks, while still supporting the existing players.
Everybody laughs that DRM can never succeed - but BD+ has taken DRM to an entirely new level. It is a shame so much brain power was devoted to hustling people - I like to think that if this same amount of intelligence were applied to legitimate problems, we might have a man on Mars, or a fusion power.
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But you know that $5 from the one sale to the guy who couldn't pirate it is worth it all.
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True, lawyers themselves don't start lawsuits (typically)... HOWEVER, I can't even count how many times I've seen a commercial stating "If you've been in an accident, or anything bad has happened to you, call our number, and we will GET YOU MONEY".
Don't count the lawyers out of the equation either... they're also the ones telling people that suing people is a GOOD thing.
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"Lawyers don't sue people. People sue people."
"Lawyers don't sue people; people sue people" (Score:2)
ambulance-chasing trial lawyers
Wow. Why the hostility toward trial lawyers?
I assume that "ambulance-chasing" refers to law firms who promote the idea of suing in general. The term connotes the use of controversial tactics to convince prospective clients that they have a dispute that is best settled in court.
lawyers don't sue people.
NON-lawyers sue each other.
Guns don't kill people; people who promote killing cause people to be killed. Likewise, lawyers don't sue people; law firms who promote suing cause people to be sued.
maybe (Score:5, Funny)
only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+
Maybe open source developers have better things to do than to do legally questionable things in order to circumvent copy protection on an overpriced, obsolete distribution format?
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Re:maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe open source developers have better things to do
Like fixing Pulseaudio?
Ooh, I said it. And I'm fairly pro-Linux around here, too. Ouch.
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Wouldn't that require starting over?
How to send HD video at 5 GB/mo? (Score:2)
Maybe open source developers have better things to do than to do legally questionable things in order to circumvent copy protection on an overpriced, obsolete distribution format?
How is BD so obsolete? In less built-up areas of the United States, the best home Internet access plans are satellite and mobile broadband, which typically run 5000 MB/month for 60 USD per month, and that equals an effective sustained throughput close to 15 kbps. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a UPS truck full of BDs.
For now (Score:2, Interesting)
but one thing seems clear â" only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+.
At the moment.
I highly doubt that there's not a backdoor key in the encryption, no matter how much they try to block people from copying/backing up/ripping. Mainly because if someone buys a $300 player that can't play any current movies and has no internet connection, a law suit is just around the corner.
And nothing of value was lost (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the real question (Score:3, Insightful)
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or 4.3-6gb 720p encode of the 50gb Blu-Ray rip that I can't tell the difference between the 720p encode and the 1080p source on my 43" TV?
Re:Here's the real question (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, HERE's the real question (Score:2)
Unplayable Blu-Ray disc or playable Blu-Ray rip?
Until BD+ is truly defeated, Blu-Ray discs are not a viable consumer choice. I can buy a Blu-Ray drive and a Blu-Ray disc and still not have the capacity to watch the movie. So why would I do that? How do they expect to collect revenue? From one-shot sucker buys, where someone buys a single movie, finds out the fraud, and then never repeats business? I can't believe that's going to work. Fraud is for fly-by-night operations, not entrenched and known indu
don't buy it (Score:2, Insightful)
It's clear that it certainly isn't a straightforward thing to buy a BluRay movie (quite legally) and "just play it" - say, in your Linux PC. It's locked down as tight as they possibly can lock it down.
So, why would anyone buy something designed to be so restrictive to legit owners? I say: don't buy, don't pirate, just ignore the damn thing entirely. The only way the industry is ever going to change their draconian ways is if no one buys their crap.
You might say, "they'll just chalk it up to piracy!" But
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Movies aren't necessary for survival or even a decent quality of life. Just stop buying them.
I expect BD+DVD to coexist longer than DVD+VHS (Score:2)
But what will you do when they stop offering alternative and this turns into "the only game in Town"?
DVD replaced VHS not only because of picture quality but also because of usability: 1. instantaneous rewinding and fast-forwarding, 2. smaller form factor, and 3. players the size of a subnotebook or tablet PC for use by passengers in vehicles. BD's big advantage over DVD is picture quality, and you don't see even that advantage unless you're part of the 1/3 of the population who has an HDTV. DVD players cost about $30 now; with all the patents and copy-protection on BD video, I don't expect that to come do
give it some time... (Score:5, Interesting)
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So we'll do the same thing everyone does with emulators for newer gaming consoles: ship the legal emulator code and let the user torrent a pack of bios images (of course the person who posts the illegal bios images will include the emulator, too, with all the files in place and ready to go)
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troll article is trolling (Score:3, Insightful)
It appears neither side is able to decisively gain the upper hand, but one thing seems clear â" only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+.
That's like saying "only government funded, for profit individuals have any hope of working on the space shuttle". But the space shuttle isn't represented in the majority of homes yet. Come back when enough people have BD+ to make it interesting.
Re:troll article is META-trolling (Score:2)
And Cassius Clay couldn't possibly beat Sonny Liston.
OK, the clock starts...NOW!
I'm guessing there's an interesting story behind "iamtherealmike".
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After extensive (30 seconds) research, I take back what I said about iamtherealmike.
I'm still betting on the "part-time, non-profit amateurs", though. The road is littered with corporations who bet against them.
High Cost? (Score:2, Informative)
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YES! and some nice collections of stuff are now on BD at prices only slightly higher than DVD.
Such as the original 6 Star Trek movies on BD with an "extras" disk. Lists for about $100, but you
can find it for about half that on line.
Also there are some very nice players under $200, I've even seen a $99 player at Wally*World.
Also a nice "universal" player (CD,CDR,CDRW, DVD+/- R/RW (with mp3, ogg, mp4, avi, dvix, etc)
super upconverting of DVD's, discrete 7.1 analog audio out (don't need external surround dec
Any "bricked" players out there? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anybody reading this own an early BD player that no longer will work
due to changes in BD+? Has anybody reading this had to get their BD
player firmware updated to play existing or new discs as a result of
changes in BD+ (firmware updates to get new features such as BD live
don't count)? I know that the design of BD+ makes this possible, but
has it actually happened?
Re: (Score:2)
Software players, like PowerDVD, are the source for most of the VM tricks and keys used to rip these discs, and the reason that these new discs don't work is because PowerDVD can't play them either.
So yeah, it's happening.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that every single Blu-Ray player made up until that point would need its own separate firmware copy/version on the Blu-Ray disc, don't you?
This is a lot different than the Wii, my friend.
Wrong professionals (Score:3, Insightful)
one thing seems clear â" only full-time, for-profit professionals are able to consistently beat BD+.
In this case, the "professionals" (hah!) would be the knuckledraggers at Sony who approved this fiasco. They beat BD+ so thoroughly that I have no desire to go anywhere near it.
Attack angle (Score:2)
Hi,
my best guess is, that the attack angle will shift soon. Instead of decrypting the
content of the disk, there will be software/hardware to break the HDCP-protection.
It would be a lot more difficult close holes there, as thousands of devices are
already out (which cannot be modified but only blacklisted).
CU, Martin
Blu-Ray discs are not unrippable (Score:2)
a new set of programs came out which have once again made Blu-Ray discs unrippable
At best, 19 Blu-Ray discs are unrippable - the rest are even easier to rip than they first were, because the "break old BD+ encryption" method of ripping has been supplemented with the "go online and download an already ripped copy" method. So congratulations to the movie industry; a fraction of a percent of the titles they've released will take a little longer to join the rest being pirated. In exchange, they've had to pay
screw bluray (Score:2)
Piracy Wars and the Halting Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Piracy wars are not solved by solving the halting problem. Piracy wars are solved by making the other poor bastard solve the halting problem..."
This is actually a really clever and somewhat unexpected approach that the BluRay DRM folks have hit on. Rather than doing DRM, have a program and basically force those who are cracking the disks to crack every title differently. Its basically force those who want to develop ripping software to do AV style analysis on every new disk that comes out.
Yes, the DRM on any individual disk will always fall eventually because all the data must be on the disk and recoverable from the disk by the player. But it makes it very VERY annoying for those writing the unauthorized decryption software.
Blu-Ray was dead before it started (Score:5, Insightful)
There are certain reasons people want to switch to a new format (eg. VHS -> DVD or DVD -> Blu-Ray)
1) Convenience - VHS had to be rewound, you had to wait for it to fast forward in order to skip parts. DVD can be repositioned on the fly. Blu-Ray is similar to DVD in that regard, so no win.
2) Quality - VHS degraded over time and DVD had a much better resolution. Blu-Ray is supposedly better only if the original source was better than DVD. A lot of small studios don't have 1080p camera's, a lot of consumers don't have 1080p TV's. 720p or 1080i is the current budget format and unless you're going larger than 42" it's not really noticeable.
3) Price - Maybe that should be on top but DVD in the beginning was just as expensive as Blu-Ray. The only reason it took off fairly fast was because of 1 and 2. DVD only killed VHS when the prices had come down so low that there was no real difference between a VHS or a DVD player and a VHS tape or a DVD disc. By then DVD was cracked by a certain kid named Jon.
4) Features - DVD had features that VHS couldn't give (commentary, different audio tracks, extra's) and Blu-Ray has the same exact features. However the added features of Blu-Ray (internet connectivity etc.) will hardly be used because of the inconvenience of having to put in the disk. DVD's have the capability of similar features like games etc. on some discs but again hardly anyone uses them.
The problem that Blu-Ray has which will leave it dead is that the price can never be on par with DVD if the studios are trying to keep control over the Blu-Ray format. How much does it cost to keep re-encrypting, offering firmware, fine-tuning the DRM? You can put it on a DVD and press it for cheap with or without the encryption. Blu-Ray already costs more to press it but now you're going to have to keep remastering it as well and then you'll have to contact all the vendors and let them update firmware in their current stock, at the customers' side, deal with complaints and keep exchanging units where either flashing went wrong or the customer is too incompetent to do it themselves. This will keep the cost of both players and media high and then the customer will complain to their friends that Blu-Ray players are always having issues.
To paraphrase Tyler Durden... (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, I see in Slashdot the smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation fighting encryption, cracking protection; slaves with DRM collars. Advertising has us chasing movies and music, using formats we hate so we can watch movies we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose of place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a format war; our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised by technology to believe that one day we would have universal formats, backwards compatibility, and ease of use. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
I'm surprised BD+ is not used more than it is (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blu-ray? (Score:4, Insightful)
You managed to buy that disk for only $9 because the format is dead. That's like me saying VHS is better because I can pick up tons of cassettes for pennies at yardsales.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you ever want to watch content created before December 15, 2008. That's the date of the last known HD-DVD release.
Re:Blu-ray? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is 2009.
As long as you can get the data off of the media, and onto a computer the format will never really die.
That's the real problem of "effective" copy protection
methods. There is some risk that works will be lost
because no one can copy them. Works being copied by
people other than the author/publisher are the most
effective means of preserving them.
Far too often the author/publisher doesn't care.
They are content to let works just "rot in the vault".
If I wanted to spend 25G per title in disk space I would
be snarfing up those HD-DVDs myself. I haven't watched a
movie on it's original disk in 2 years and haven't played
audio CD's directly in more than 10.
Nevermind the pirates. Sony needs to worry about it's own back catalog.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Decrypted at some point (Score:5, Interesting)
LVDS isn't encrypted at all, and it's usually how the bare LCD panel is driven - there's usually two (or more, but usually two for logic) PCBs in an LCD display of some kind. One takes inputs (VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc., etc.,) and outputs LVDS. The other takes LVDS and controls the individual pixels.
Not to mention, the LVDS protocols used by LCDs are simpler than TMDS, IIRC - it'd actually be easier to get the content from LVDS instead of DVI/HDMI.
Of course, DisplayPort is pushing for an internal DisplayPort standard, which would give HDCP straight to the controller driving the pixels directly.
Re: (Score:2)
That article counted the PS3 separately, however. In reality, there are significantly more BD players than HD-DVD players, counting the PS3.
Re:It's not a charity (Score:4, Insightful)
Why can't people realise that movie companies aren't running a charity? Companies release films to make money! How many of those people who are complaining about the encryption here even pay for their DVDs these days? I'd love to place a wager on that!
I don't think most people here are arguing against them making money. This is much more about fair use AFTER the physical media has been bought. Given the ability, these companies would charge you for the physical media, the hardware it plays on, AND another fee for each time you watch the movie. Hell, if they could figure out a way to detect how many people were watching it, I'm sure they'd want to charge a "movie watching fee" to each person too (as it is, I'm not even sure you can legally have a "movie night" at a university campus anymore without a license to show it, even though you've already purchased the DVD).
Sure, the companies want to make money, and I don't begrudge them that AS LONG AS they actually continue making something worth buying and don't resort to trying to destroy fair use rights to get people to buy multiple copies of the same movie or multiple movie players just to watch something they already own or trying to charge for use of the media after its already been purchased.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)