HD-DVD and Blu-ray copy protection beaten already?

[stdPikachu]

I know that myself and a fair few other people are staying out of the whole HD debacle until a) it's been cracked wide open and b) there's a clear format winner*. Otherwise it's just going to be a long war of attrition with the innocent consumers caught in the crossfire. I've already got a pretty huge DVD catalogue and don't see the point of paying a fortune for a highly marginal quality increase.

Nope, dual format players won't convonce me on this either - but if dual format players do become available, then Blue-ray will be fucked as HD-DVD is much cheaper to produce since it uses most of the same mastering equipment as DVD.

 

[lobster]

A little bit of topic but the issue with drm is kinda similar to AACS in the sense that there both designed to stop sharing, Norway have banned the Itunes store because its becoming a monopoly. There are independent record labels such as magnitude that sell music in mp3 and other formats drm free, some even advocate giving to friends.
There are rumors that amazon are going to sell drm free music.

 

[Jambooboo]

I've already got a pretty huge DVD catalogue and don't see the point of paying a fortune for a highly marginal quality increase.

While it's not the leap as were the case with VHS and DVD, the quality gap between DVD and HD-DVD isn't 'highly marginal' in my experience (more of a difference in quality than say a 1.3gb avi compared to a DVD9). Both the sharpness of the picture and the vibrancy of colours is amazing, whether at 720p/1080i/1080p.

Everything feels so much more plush as well. For example menu functionality is totally seamless with HD-DVD.

 

[cybertect]

this pamphlet doesn't really have a point, we just want to associate piracy with tragic stupidity and death in order to make you sympathetic to our need for a third swimming pool as we petition the government to install pay-per-view digital eyeballs in every new-born baby as it's the only method left to us to stop terrorism, some PLEASE think of thechildren"

If that was the actual wording, I suspect they have a sense of humour, albeit a somewhat black one.

 

[Sunray]

The one hardware player that I expect will be attacked 1st is the one they really don't want broken.

The PS3. They have gone to some lengths to prevent the internal key of this system from being read by hackers.

If they do a determined hack and post this key, Sony will have to revoke the PS3 hardware and release an update.

Some of the standard players for HD-DVD have these things around the chips to prevent people spying.

Only real way to protect the key is to have an all in one Data->Decode to Memory->HDCP Encode all in one chip that has the key hard wired into it. This would then require someone milling off the top of the chip and sticking it under an electron microscope to see the circuit. Its been done in the past, but with the density of chips this is becoming difficult.

 

[stdPikachu]

While it's not the leap as were the case with VHS and DVD, the quality gap between DVD and HD-DVD isn't 'highly marginal' in my experience

Firstly, a great amount of content that I own comes from the pre-HD days, and isn't available on 70mm either, so there's no benefit from jumping to HD. Also, the overwhelming majority of people don't own HD-compatible equipment. Thirdly, and whilst I do acknowledge a quality increase, IMHO it's only "there" if oyu look for it - I don't believe that the majority of consumers out there will go out and re-buy their DVD collections in order to see Renee Zellwhatsit fuck up her lovelife in even more glorious technicolour.

I'm not arguing that there isn't an appreciable quality increase, I'm just saying that the average joe has to jump through a fair few hoops to see it and (especially in the case of the god-awful MPEG2 blue-ray releases) sometimes it's barely noticeable. DVD tech swiftly turned into a drop-in replacement for VHS, but the jump to HD is fraught with many more obstacles. But then my anti-HD/DVD/Blu-ray rants should prolly be saved for another thread </luddite>

If that was the actual wording, I suspect they have a sense of humour, albeit a somewhat black one.

Some liberties may have been taken...

The one hardware player that I expect will be attacked 1st is the one they really don't want broken.

The PS3. They have gone to some lengths to prevent the internal key of this system from being read by hackers.

If they do a determined hack and post this key, Sony will have to revoke the PS3 hardware and release an update.

Whilst I agree that the PS3 will be the prime candidate for hackerthons, I don't think updating firmware will be as much a problem, since a great many PS3's will be online anyway...? Besides, firmware updates for consoles seem to be all the rage these days - heck, I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing firmware updates executing themselves in future BD releases.

Maybe if the recording industries do go completely paranoid we'll be forced to rely on people on the inside releasing the keys, but there's still no way in hell the process can be stopped - it's just has too much of a human element and is too far removed from the core tenets of PKI to succeed for long.

 

[Firky]

What goes onto it is decided by Sony. They are not allowing porn onto it and what ever you may think about porn in general, the idea that Sony is trying to dictate to me what I watch has made me very anti-Sony.

If I had the time I would attempt to hack that standard. It must be fairly easy simply because a player you buy now must be able to play all discs until the end of time. No amount of bit fiddling can stop that, therefore in the player and the discs are the codes to extract the raw data. If there is a software player, it will fall prey to soft ice.

I have seen HD-DVDs running on 1080dp HD TV and it was hardly a giant leap in quality like from vinyl to CD was. It looked better but not so good that I must have it! I'm not exactly a neo-phile as it is (apart from when it comes to Cameras!). Sony needs to really push this for it to sell and the quality is not going to be the selling point. Sony do have an extremely large collection of films that will be released, remastered, repackaged and sold to the same peple who bought the video, then the DVD then the DVD Special Edition. Neophiles - they're what keeps capitalism alive.

What is soft ice?

 

[jæd]

What is soft ice?

If you put ice around a dvd player it will cool down the cpu and let you copy the cd with no data loss.

(Um, no, I think it ws Sunray trying to sound all cool'n'cyberpunk-ish)

 

[fishfinger]

It's a kernel mode debugger.

 

[Sunray]

If you put ice around a dvd player it will cool down the cpu and let you copy the cd with no data loss.

(Um, no, I think it ws Sunray trying to sound all cool'n'cyberpunk-ish)

While it might sound like it, its a debugger that allows total suspension of the windows system at will so you can trace through hardware drivers with ease.

It also allows you to break into the code of running applications. These applications cant detect its presence.

With enough patience and some knowledge working at that level, you can figure out what the application is doing and then figure out when it reveals the its internal key. Not an easy job but with some practice, its not impossible. This one of the tools that hackers use to crack copy protection of games.

 

[Sunray]

I have seen HD-DVDs running on 1080dp HD TV and it was hardly a giant leap in quality like from vinyl to CD was. It looked better but not so good that I must have it! I'm not exactly a neo-phile as it is (apart from when it comes to Cameras!).....?

Adsa are doing DVD players for 9 quid at the moment.

9 quid DVD on any TV, every title you could imagine, all with a respectably decent picture. Bargain bucket DVD's for 2-5 quid for some OK films if you look in the sales.

650 quid Samsung Bluray, great picture on 800 quid TV, probably less than 100 titles all pricey. Of course it will play DVD's but that misses the point doesn't it.

Some way to go.

 

[two sheds]

ok, this time?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/14/aacs_hack/

"A lone hacker has unlocked the master key preventing the copying of high-definition DVDs in a development that is sure to get the entertainment industry's knickers wrapped tighter than a magnet's coil. What's more, the individual was able to defeat the technology with no cracking tools or reverse engineering, despite the millions of dollars and many years engineers put into developing the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) for locking down high-definition video."

PS It's worth following the link for when he had his "Eureka" moment.

 

[Jonti]

Nice. I hope the blithering idiots behind DRM end up flipping burgers. It's a technology that can only work if people are kept in ignorance, and legally restrained from figuring things out.

(the) hack unlocks the encryption used to protect content on every Blu-ray and HD DVD disc released to date.

The earlier crack by muslix64 relied on finding the unique key for a particular title, but arnezami's hack is far more generic. DRM was killed by muslix64. Now arnezami has buried it.

 

[Sunray]

'What one man can make another man can copy'

 

[stdPikachu]

And thus millions of dollars of RnD is burnt up in a vast furnace of inevitable failure. What a great way to spend money!

I'm glad that this DRM is dead, but it's parents also need to be taken out and shot before they can fuck anything else into non-existence.