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Work Around for New DVD Format Protections 466

Posted by Zonk from the oops dept.
An anonymous reader writes "For the new Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats, Hollywood implemented a complete copy protection scheme; almost everything has to be encrypted and authenticated. Despite the crypto-stuff in Advanced Access Content System and High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, they left the backdoor wide open — they forgot about the PrintScreen button. Using this function you can create exact digital copies of a film picture-by-picture and reassemble them into a stream."
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Work Around for New DVD Format Protections More

Work Around for New DVD Format Protections

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  • hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by paradigmdream ( 915171 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:36AM (#15675237) Homepage
    thats quite a bit of work to copy a movie

    • Re:hrmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Writing a single script is a lot of work to remove the protection from an any number of movies?

      • Re:hrmm (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kimvette ( 919543 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:26AM (#15675719) Homepage Journal
        I don't know about your computer but on mine the printscreen function isn't exactly speedy, neither in Windows nor in Linux. I doubt 24fps or 30fps is doable with such a script. Right now DVDs can be ripped and transcoded faster than realtime.

        The best solution is to crack the new encryption (worst case use brute force harnessing setiathome-style P2P networks to speed up the process), obviously.

        Why would I want to it cracked (I'm not the one to crack it, I'm no cryptographer)?

          - I run Linux. I should not be locked out of media I purchase over the counter? Sure, you'd argue I dual boot my system, so why not reboot to Windows? Well, I have booted Windows MAYBE three times this year, twice to pull files from my telephone and once to run OCR (since gocr and orcad suck).

          - When I buy a DVD, CD, or Foo-DVD, I OWN that copy, and short of commercial redistribution of copies, I can legally do pretty much whatever I want with that media and the content, providing it is within Fair Use guidelines. Viewing on Linux is fair use. Transcoding for viewing on my crappy old iPaq is fair use. Ripping and transcoding to keep a copy on my computer's HDD is fair use. Giving copies away is a grey area and not so clear cut. Commercial distribution of those copies is right out, well outside of the realm of Fair Use.

          - I run CRT monitors since LCDs atill lag behind in resolution, color purity, and contrast ratio. They may be desk estate and power hogs, but (at the high end) they're superior to LCDs in many ways at this time. I should not be forced to view content at standard definition 720x480 or 640x480 because I have a higher-end monitor which lacks DVI and therefore no HDCP. Ditto for the television I'll be buying - the one I want with a sufficiently high contrast ratio, image quality, and a plethora of inputs (and is NOT Sony) lacks HDCP. Why should I be forced to view downsampled content?

        MPAA: If you do lock users out of legally-purchased content, you do so at your own demise. I for one will not purchase DRM media where the DRM cannot be stripped off and recoup my Fair Use rights to PURCHASED content (that's right, it's PURCHASED, not LICENSED, you MPAA asshats). You will be creating a pirate market the likes of which you have never imagined, because when you fuck over your LEGITIMATE paying customers, they compare the two options and see that they are better off engaging in copyright infringement than paying for a crippled product. I'll become one of those pirates the day you kill off DVD. Right now I buy, on average, anywhere from 5 to 15 DVDs a month - my collection in the last few months has quickly grown from under 150 to over 300, to the point where I can't even keep all the rips on my computer any more. I'm the kind of customer you don't want to alienate because I am a PAYING customer and I purchase a lot of movies (I hate rentals). If I download a commercial work, it's to preview it to decide whether or not I want to buy it (e.g., THX-1138, which I wasn't sure would interest me, but ended up liking so I purchased it). You'll be losing me as a customer if you follow through on this in your quest to get perpetual copyrights and eliminate fair use. In other words: Fuck you, MPAA.

        • Re:hrmm (Score:4, Funny)

          by piquadratCH ( 749309 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @12:51PM (#15676546)
          The best solution is to crack the new encryption (worst case use brute force harnessing setiathome-style P2P networks to speed up the process), obviously.

          If they guys who designed the copy protection have just the slightest idea of encryption, I'm afraid brute force is not an option. With key lengths of 256 or 512 bit, we couldn't get through the whole key space in a reasonable timeframe, even with millions of high end machines. And if we did, they would change it and we'd be back at square one.

          OTOH, this is the industry that brought us the disaster that is CSS, so there is hope that they fcked it up again and some russian hacker finds an easily crackable loophole once the system is out in the wild.

        • The best solution is to crack the new encryption (worst case use brute force harnessing setiathome-style P2P networks to speed up the process), obviously.

          The simplest way to get the encryption key is to ask for it. Somewhere in the process will be an encryption key that must remain secret for the whole thing to work. Either take up a collection and bribe the person that knows it or create a shell corporation, license the technology and the key, then violate the contract and dissolve the company.

        • Re:hrmm (Score:5, Informative)

          by nxtw ( 866177 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @01:32PM (#15676983)
          I don't know about your computer but on mine the printscreen function isn't exactly speedy, neither in Windows nor in Linux. I doubt 24fps or 30fps is doable with such a script. Right now DVDs can be ripped and transcoded faster than realtime.

          It takes about 1/10 of a second for me to hit print screen and paste the picture into Paint The screenshot resolution is 2560x1024. The blink in the cursor when the image is being copied is barely noticable. This is with a Intel Core Duo based system.

          That's all irrelevant though; if the image can be accessed so that print screen can put a copy in the clipboard, a program can access that image in memory and feed it into the video encoder directly.

        • Re:hrmm (Score:3, Interesting)

          by westlake ( 615356 )
          I run Linux. I should not be locked out of media I purchase over the counter?

          You are locked out if you are too stubborn to buy a decoder.

          --which will be offered by every Linux distro sold as an OEM systen install. Every Linux distro with the slightest chance for commercial auccess in the North American home market,

    • Re:hrmm (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:44AM (#15675331)
      If you really want to copy a blue-ray movie, there are easier ways, such as decrypting HDCP. [dataloss.nl]

    • Re:hrmm (Score:2, Funny)

      by Yurka ( 468420 )
      No work is big enough for a very small script.

    • Re:hrmm (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 )
      If the "Print Screen" key can do it, so can 3rd party screen grabbers.
      They may be able to block the key, but there is no way to block the 3rd party programs unless they hack the OS. (Not that, i.e., Sony would mind doing that).

    • Re:hrmm (Score:5, Funny)

      by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:52AM (#15675411) Homepage
      Not if you script it.

      Alternatively you can "script" a sufficient number of those little slave hands instead of using them top make "Action Man" figures for Tesco.

      In either case, there are not that many frames in a movie. Even if you use "slaves" it will take less than 500£ to recover all frames in Lord of the Rings this way somewhere in the middle of nowhere in China.
      • Doesn't matter since your sound will be out of synch and the whole thing will look like shit. There are much better ways to skin this cat.
        • While yes, there are better ways to do it than that, why would the sound be out of sync? The frames are displayed at a constant rate. Al you have to do is reassemble them at that rate and then sync the sound to the beginning. Pretty simple, actually.

    • Not so much, really (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:02AM (#15675499)

      It would be a lot of work, if you did it manually. The print screen button is really just a proof of concept idea. Remember that the device is a computer and they excell at repetition.

      For example, it wouldn't be too hard to write a DirectX driver for a virtual display device that simply passes every frame it sees into a filter for recording. Same should work for audio, really. Just take the inbound stream and stash it somehwere. As long as you've got the bandwidth inside the machine to move the data and the space to store it, why not?

      This is why MS is pushing so hard for that "driver verification" thing. User created drivers can bypass the DRM just before the media gets pushed out to the hardware. The Windows box simply isn't built for DRM level trust at all points in a broadcast. Yet, anyways. It's still possible to break the chain somewhere and extract content. I'm guessing that'll always be the case too, at least for a good long while. Only way to get around that with what we have today would be if MS started selling PCs that are welded shut.

      • Only way to get around that with what we have today would be if MS started selling PCs that are welded shut.
        Damn, dude, don't go giving them ideas like that.

      • Re:Not so much, really (Score:5, Interesting)

        by radtea ( 464814 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:34AM (#15675795)
        Yet, anyways. It's still possible to break the chain somewhere and extract content. I'm guessing that'll always be the case too, at least for a good long while. Only way to get around that with what we have today would be if MS started selling PCs that are welded shut.

        And that don't have any output.

        So long as it's possible to get output, it's possible to produce a nearly-perfect digital replica of any content.

        A/D conversion isn't perfect because of noise, but you can play back the movie/audio/whatever as many times as you want and average the noise away, or use fancier statistical algorithms to reclaim the original content, pixel-by-pixel, frame-by-frame. If you're worried about A/D bias, run it through multiple playbacks on different hardware. It just isn't that hard. Anyone who has worked in digital imaging (my own backgroud is in realtime x-ray) knows how easy this is.

        I can see the videophile's system of the future: a video driver card with an external analog output plugged into a video capture card, plus a bit of software to repeat the process of playing the movie and averaging the frames until the desired quality is reached. Instant (ok, maybe 1 day turn-around) DVD/Blur-ray/HDTV-quality non-DRM'd video.

        We've hardly begun to scratch the surface of means for making DRM obsolete. People who invest in DRM Just Don't Get It(tm).

    • Re:hrmm (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fozzy1015 ( 264592 )
      As others have said, if you can hit print screen to save a frame then a program can be made to do it for the entire movie.

      You know, this is just like the equivalant of saying that audio can always be copied because no matter how protected the data on the media is, you can always either hold a microphone up to the speaker or run the speaker output right back into the line-in.

      With video and audio there will always be some stage where the material is in it's raw format and in a memory buffer. At that point it

    • Re:hrmm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      This is kind of a stupid exploit all right. Yes it's possible to capture screen, just as it's possible to do the same with every e-book. The next question is who is going to bother to do it. It seems far easier to just hack the software player, or wait for the inevitable dongle which streams HDCP to any device of your choosing. That's even assuming your average pirate would even be bothered to go to those lengths. I'm sure even a downsampled image on a non-copy protected device is more than adequate for vie

  • form. This "front" is obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:36AM (#15675240) Journal
    problematic for other reasons

    This copy protection quagmire (we need to come up with a withdrawal plan)... it creates problems in other ways on other fronts.

    Consider the long discussed issues in general with DRM and DRM's interference with easy adoption of new (and really potentially very cool) technology for consumers. This has been discussed to death on slashdot as well as other forums -- and remains one of the foremost threats to the success of HD in any

    What may be less obvious is what starts to happen when these tiny holes appear in the digital dike, and the industry discovers they're gaping holes, and the patching begins, to the detriment of other accepted technology.

    In the case of this described "hole", a screen print? This becomes the DRM's worst nightmare? If they succeed in lobbying the PC industry and others and get this hole blocked, all of a sudden a long-accepted practice, i.e., screen printing, becomes suspect and may even be taken away as an option because it is potentially used for pirating.

    Don't discount the possibility this could happen. A few years ago all may have pooh-poohed the idea as preposterous because computers just plain old didn't have the horse power and storage to pull this kind of feat off. Today they do. And if someone does start pirating DVDs this way it would be predictable the MPAA could go after that technique, maybe successfully.

    Unintended consequences. I would find it highly objectionable to see the capabilities of my computers to expand and my ability (or permission) to use those capabilities diminished.

    • Whatever happened to the "I bought the DVD, I should do what the fuck I want with it"?
      • Whatever happened to the "I bought the DVD, I should do what the fuck I want with it"?

        You've still got that right, just as you always have!
        You can use it as a drinks mat, a frisbee, a wall hanging, a-...
        Ohhh... you meant movie contained on the DVD?
        Why do you hate freedom?
    • So you're saying they're going to ban screens?? Or perhaps they'll be sold with a piece of black plastic glued on them?

      Oh and they'll need to do some more work on bitwise copying.

      Perhaps if they stopped making stuff, that would stop people from seeing it ... hmm it just might work !
      • Well bitwise copying can actually be successfully detected because a copy will have random errors that are CRC corrected different that the pressed original. Of course if you can press your copies you are a extreme mass pirate and there is no hope. :)
    • If they take away the print screen button's functionality, I have an equally effective work-around: simply hold a piece of tissue paper up to the monitor screen and trace each frame of the movie.

      Print screen each frame of a movie to copy it -- give me a break!
  • I was trying to view this story but it kept telling me ...

    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

    But I found a work around!

  • Get right. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RedOregon ( 161027 ) <redoregonNO@SPAMsatx.rr.com> on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:37AM (#15675256) Homepage Journal
    Hollywood didn't implement squat.

    They browbeat/bribed the companies that developed the software to implement it.

    Splitting hairs, maybe, but Hollywood would have trouble implementing a flush toilet.

  • Oh No! (Score:5, Funny)

    by JamesP ( 688957 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:38AM (#15675262)

    1 - Shift key - DMCA circumvention
    2 - Print Screen - DMCA circunvention

    Let's hope they don't take our entire keyboard to protect their stuff from the thieves...

  • Printscreen? (Score:4, Funny)

    by dalmiroy2k ( 768278 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:38AM (#15675268)
    Printscreen?
    Give me a break, somebody please send a HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive to DVD Jon so he can start doing his stuff.

  • Never safe... Until (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SirCyn ( 694031 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:39AM (#15675285) Journal
    No consumer content will be safe from copying until they can beam it straight into our heads.
    Both video and audio, you can always plug the output device into an input capture device and copy it that way. And with new digital transmission mediums the quality can be kept very high (compared to those who remember the VCR-to-VCR via RCA cables days).
    Not to mention that any encryption scheme that can be decoded can be broken. It's only a matter of time.

  • In other News (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the MPAA has started legal proceedings against keyboard manufacturers for their "Deliberate and malicious attempt to circumvent our government guaranteed profits."

    Also, Copyright Lawyers all over the planet needed new pants in order to cope with all of the involuntary orgasms.

    More news at 7.

  • Real pirates DUPLICATE (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:44AM (#15675330) Homepage
    To make "other" copies is too troublesome. As always, real pirates will use the means they always have. They will work "off hours" at DVD publishing sites making uncounted copies indistinguishable from the counted copies. They will have the production equipment in their homes to make exact duplicates.

    This is not about stopping piracy because these measures to nothing to address the two primary methods. What it does thrwart is casual consumer copying to better ensure that the consumers will buy multiple copies of the same stuff.

    What I am saying is not new and has been repeated since the creation of the first DVD format.
  • Really, I resent the fact that some DVD players block image capture for the occasional still frame. I would hate to see the software players remove the feature from the high def software players because some clueless weenie had to announce it to the world.

  • An exercise in futility (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:47AM (#15675364)
    This just shows that whatever the content industry (not the content creators, btw) do to protect their distribution monopoly is doomed to fail. After all it requires just one good enough rip and the thing is out there. This specific security hole is extremely stupid, since the attack is one of the most obvious things to try. Even if ripping is harder and the domain of technology enthusiasts, distribution via P2P filesharing is easy and P2P filesharing is by now basically unkillable.

    Still I think there is hope: The stuff Hollywood had been producing in the past few years is now so bad, that soon it will not be worth the bandwidth and disk space to download it, let alone the time to look at it.

  • Those Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frogstar_robot ( 926792 ) <frogstar_robot@yahoo.com> on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:47AM (#15675366)
    Now was not the time to splatter this information all over the world. If they had waited for wider deployment, this hole could have been kept wedged open as closing it on hundreds of thousands of clients wouldn't have been terribly practical.

    Remember would be DVD-Jons, if you find DRM holes in new media tech SHUT YOUR YAP UNTIL EVERYBODY AND HIS DOG HAS BOUGHT SOME. THEN RELEASE THE INFO. When you do release the information, do so complete with "mom friendly" utilities and use warez "spreaders" to be sure everybody and his dog can start using it right away. This also complicates shutting the hole in various social and technical ways.

  • If Print Screen fails, a workaround (Score:3, Funny)

    by Revolver4ever ( 860659 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:47AM (#15675372)
    I'm just throwing out ideas here, but could a pirate with decent art skills redraw every frame of the movie on paper? A few thousand pieces of computer paper would be all that's needed. Staple it all together and BAM, sell on the subway corner for 2 bucks a pop. Piracy will never end!

  • Yeah right (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Britz ( 170620 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:49AM (#15675392)
    So the new copy protection sheme is supposed to keep professinal pirates (the guys that copy the movie and then sell th ecopies in large quantities) from gaining a copy? Gimme a break!

    And it is supposed to be a hurdle to those "release groups" (the guys that compete with each other to be the fastest to release a movie to the p2p networks)? Yeah, right!

    This hole (and there will be others) is another prove that there is no protection against those two groups. They will simply find another way.

    But it puts a major obstacle in the way of paying customers that just want to watch movies. The movie studios don't realize it because there is no pressure from an alternative. That is also called a monopoly. And who is going to break it up? The movie industry and the record industry both seem to need a little "help" to get some competition back into their respective markets.

  • DirectX recorder (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cjb-nc ( 887319 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:50AM (#15675397)
    DirectX recorders exist, primarily used for recording videos in games. I'm pretty sure most DVD player apps use the same directx layer, and so could easily be recorded by such a program. This is just an idea off the top of my head.

    Result: watch for the MPAA to start outlawing your favorite DirectX recorders in the near future. Seems they will always find it easier to prosecute the loopholes than to fix their own stuff.
    • Vista's Protected Video Path will presumably disable all such recorder software. DirectX recording may work on XP, but I suspect the XP-based HD-DVD/Blu-ray players will use "proactive renewal" where you have to install new DRM patches every month to keep up with all the hacks. These patches will probably incorporate PunkBuster-style scans for known "bad processes".
    • with HDCP protected content the framebuffer would be encrypted so your fraps output would just be a bunch of static
      • I'm pretty sure GPUs don't support encrypted framebuffers. HDCP is implemented in the refresh logic or the TDMS transmitter, after the pixels have already been read out of the framebufffer.

  • And just to make things easier... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:51AM (#15675404) Homepage Journal
    You can automate the whole process using the two software below:
    1. AutoIT [autoitscript.com] to create a script.
    2. IrfanView [irfanview.com] to grab the entire screen and/or apply optional transforms to the captured image. This is optional, since AutoIT can probably send the "PrintScreen" command itself, and move the resulting file(s) into a capture directory.


    Just set your DVD software to play frame-by-frame. The rest is taken care of by the automated script. Sure, it may take a couple of attempts, but once you have the formula down, ripping an entire DVD movie should not take more than 4x or 5x the normal duration of the movie. Just let your computer run all night and you can have a brand new DiVX in the morning.

    Now, what I'd like to know is: how do you rip the soundtrack off those uber-protected DVD? Hook the DVD player to an MP3 recorder? Or do you use one of the software that pretends to be a valid sound card?

  • *GASP* - Another hole found! (Score:5, Funny)

    by GogglesPisano ( 199483 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:51AM (#15675405)
    Check this out:

    Using my 733t hax0r sk1llz, I can use my EYES to COPY the movie to my BRAIN, where I can remember it OVER and OVER again -- for FREE!

    Eat THAT, MPAA!

  • Does HDCP solve this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MasterC ( 70492 ) <cmlburnett@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:52AM (#15675416) Homepage
    High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection [wikipedia.org] (HDCP) "protects" DVI & HDMI interfaces but for this to work on a regular PC then the OS has to be in on the deal as well, right? So if a drive and video card support the devil that is HDCP, does this "back door" work if the OS is in on the HDCP? I would venture a "no" on that one.

    Taking print screens is a weak solution, but a solution nonetheless. All it takes is one person to have the patience or scripting skills to automate this for a copy to hit the internet. One. That's the problem with DRM in that it may deter most people but to be totally effective it requires determent of everyone. Feeding millions of individual frames to an encoder is not beyond some people, I'm sure. Especially since hollywood raised the stakes.

    If this is a back door, then it's one of those miniature clown doors. When someone figures out a way to completely strip out AACS (like what was done with CSS) then we can call AACS hacked and laugh again at the never-winable battle that is DRM.

    DRM is unwinable because you have to give the decryption key to the user so that they can use the product. If you don't give them the key then they can't use it. So DRM gives the encrypted data and the decryption key to the user every time.
  • Using this (printscreen) function you can create exact digital copies of a film picture by picture and reassemble them to a stream

    George Lucas found out about this, had a fit, and now will release another set of 'Star Wars' DVDs & HD-DVDs that disables this printscreen copy method in order to in his words, 'restore the monetary balance and order to the market force.'

  • If it can be seen it can be copied (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sxmjmae ( 809464 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:02AM (#15675496)
    Anything that appears on my computer screen I can copy - even streaming video.
    It is not that hard of thing to do, even if you have to write the code yourself.

    • It is not that hard of thing to do, even if you have to write the code yourself.

      But then your locked-down "Trusted [sic]" system will simply refuse to run your unsigned code, and you'll be back at square one (and if your system isn't "Trusted [sic]", the HD player software and/or the drive itself will refuse to decrypt the movie to begin with).

  • "security hole"? (Score:3)

    by pr0nbot ( 313417 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:03AM (#15675504)
    "Toshiba confirmed the security hole found by c't"

    In what way does being able to do a screen grab constitute a threat to my computer's security, or anyone else's?

    Here's to the day when we read:

    "In response to the recently-discovered security flaw -- which could, if uncorrected, allow terrorists to molest your children -- the developers of WinDVD have ensured that only the encrypted data is displayed on-screen."

  • Feature not a bug... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Distan ( 122159 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:05AM (#15675520)
    Neither of these formats is going to go anywhere unless there is a way to make backup copies. This so-called "hole" is actually a feature, not a bug.

    I predict that this format war will end when one of these two formats finally has a robust backup solution. At that moment in time, the other format will be dead.
  • Buy a copy of fraps then i guess, sucking data strait out of the video cards output buffer would be the best way of doing this.

    Would be a small guess but with the user level drivers in vista, couldn't you wrapper a program within another program, and intercept all driver commands, pretending you are not listening but grab that framebuffer at a nice smooth 30fps? Of course doing this in realtime would be nasty, sucking in that big an image at 30fps in full frames AVI would be very very bad, last time i recor
  • Here's a hilarious excerpt from the EULA of a Dreamcatcher game:

    "You will not copy, decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble the Application Software, or otherwise reduce the Application Software to a human perceivable form;"

    This is the only surefire DRM:

    http://www.rockingham.k12.va.us/sound_sorting/ini t ial_blends/bl/images/blindfold.jpg [k12.va.us]

    If a non-interactive medium can be percieved by humans, it can be duplicated. There's no way around it. One of these days copyright law will inevitably st

  • Lazy hackers (Score:5, Funny)

    by CopaceticOpus ( 965603 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:10AM (#15675562)
    Wait, HD DVD and BluRay aren't cracked yet? They've been out for weeks... Come on, you lazy hackers!

  • Not equivalent to a direct copy (Score:4, Informative)

    by vijayiyer ( 728590 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:13AM (#15675587)
    There will be an image quality degradation since it's the decompressed stream that is being copied, and it will have to be recompressed to get it back to a size that will fit on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. Therefore, this isn't equivalent to a direct copy of the compressed data stream.
    • There will be an image quality degradation since it's the decompressed stream that is being copied, and it will have to be recompressed to get it back to a size that will fit on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray. Therefore, this isn't equivalent to a direct copy of the compressed data stream.

      But, on the other hand, it is only one transcoding generation away from completely unrestricted copying. I think even most videophiles would be hard pressed to distinguish between a 1st generation and a good 2nd generation transcode of

  • Just like iTunes "DRM" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nickheart ( 557603 ) <nick@j@hartman.gmail@com> on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:18AM (#15675627)
    **warning, rant**

    I'm sorry, but am i the only one who thinks all these codecs, DRM tools and other garbage are just a waste of time?
    There are already many ways to get a clean WAV file from anything playing on your computer, drivers that hook into the direct sound and just copy what ever is there. Or how about just burning the CD from iTunes, then ripping it with a freeware tool?
    What these XXAA need to do is just understand that if you can watch/listen to it, it can be copied. That's it! Make people want to buy the product for other reasons. I own sooo many different seasons of different television shows because i like to have the boxes sitting on display. Anywho, is this really news? another attempt to create "un-copy-able" media failed?
    thanks for listening

    **end rant**

  • how about analog duplication? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @11:19AM (#15675635) Homepage Journal
    I suppose it will be possible to create a 'camera', a CCD really, that is of the same size as your screen and that goes on top of your screen like a film and captures each pixel's intensity and color in multiple points even, averages out the color of the actual pixel and records this data as a video. Audio can be also copied in analog mode. Of-course it will always be possible to just point your camera at the screen and shoot (they will try to prevent analog copies as well, of-course, but that will be nearly an impossible war.)

  • Multiple Owners of a DVD? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kthejoker ( 931838 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @01:02PM (#15676688)
    This is only vaguely ontopic, but are there limits to how many people can "own" a DVD (or the license to watch the DVD, or whatever)?

    I ask because if my wife and I purchase a DVD with our collective funds, am I the owner? Is she the owner? Or are we both the owner?

    What if 100 people all contributed a nickel and bought a $5 VHS tape of a movie? Can they each make a copy of it? Do you have to own majority share in the VHS to make a copy?

    What if 10 million people each paid $1 and all agreed to purchase a certain bundle of films and music that was valued at $10,000,000? Clearly SOMEONE must own it, but who?

    Are there any laws about this? I can't seem to find any online (I think my searching skills are for crap on this one), but it seems like a very interesting question.

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