DVD protect

Yes, it seems like a losing game. You can buy pirated stamped region-free DVDs of every kind (even the newest) for a dollar or two in some places. It takes them no time to do it. And when copy protection has been attempted it causes problems with legitimate buyers (anyone else have problems with _The Matrix_? And those huge piles of blank DVD-R and DVD+R at computer stores, grocery stores, Sam's Club etc? Nice to see people are backing up their data, or perhaps there is a certain level of DVD piracy going on all around us.. I'm told "one button" programs exist (and can even be downloaded) to do the copy and compression if required. Maybe the new generation of HD DVDs will have more secure protection. Or maybe that will kill acceptance if enough people have become used to pirated copies.

A guy selling video game cartridges and writers in HK (for Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP) offered to throw in two DVDs packed with 2,000+ ROM cartridge zip files to sweeten the deal. The original cartridges sell for $50 US or so each. . The only game company that I know of that's been able to contain the pirates is Nintendo with their Gamecube- they did this by using special mini-DVD hardware AND software. After a couple of years, the only thing the pirates have been able to come up with is to do a $75 US modification on the machine, after which it will be able to read downloaded and burned mini-DVDs. I think the engineers who came up with the protection scheme deserve a big bonus.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I doubt copy protectoin will go away any time soon...

As it is now, it's trivial to pirate DVDs. Even without a 'digitally perfect' copy, so long as DVD players produce an analog signal output, it'll be easy for the 'professionals' to just make one unprotected copy by re-digitizing the analog output, and they're set. Hence the push for secure (encrypted) digital links all the way into the TV set or monitor itself... I don't expect that'll happen any time too soon, though -- as far as I can tell, one of the biggest sellers at Radio Shack these days is an RF modulator to take the composite video output of a DVD player and use it with their pre-historic TVs!

---Joel

When I bought our first DVD player we had to get a new TV (I think because of some copy protection BS, but I could be wrong). It would go blue-screen under some conditions. The old Sony didn't owe us anything, but it was a bit of a PITA to add the cost of a new TV to the $300+ that the early DVD players cost. An RF modulator would have gotten around it, but with unacceptable loss of quality.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 10:10:15 -0300, Fernando wrote in Msg.

I don't know how to do that, but neither does anybody else. Any DVD is easily copied.

--Daniel

This has nothing to do with electronics, look for Macrovision on the web. But don't dream, every protection, especially on DVDs, can be cracked. In the end, one could even hijack the signal coming out of the dvd reader...

As They Should be:

DRM as-we-know-it is simply a ploy to get consumers to pay several times for instances of the same product and for market segmentation; The real Pirates, having ample ressources and means of mass production and distribution, will rip the stuff regardless! If it takes a week more for them, no matter!!

I.M.O. The only real effect of DRM is to piss the paying customer off over that he/she cannot f.ex. wach a legally-purchased DVD on the Laptop while travelling or copy a few legally purchased tracks onto the MP3 player (and actually *must* get the stuff off BitTorrent to be able to do so).

Put it into a bank safe, and certainly don't give it to anyone.

Rene

Secure digital links all the way into a TV set may be a prerequisite for HD broadcast of many movies. I believe that the current battle over the 'broadcast flag' is aimed at this very goal.

If the tuner cannot establish an end-to-end encrypted link with a trusted display, it must down-convert to standard resolution. This will keep perfect digital copies of the HD program from being made off an insecure link.

Guess what? Today's DVDs are 'standard resolution' already. Until new DVD technology is brought to market, one needs to down convert a HD source to burn a DVD anyway. So this helps pirates, not hinders them. Furthermore, from current experience with pirated media, those willing to purchase it aren't too picky about quality anyway. Many pirated DVDs' original source is a handheld camera slipped into a theater.

Worse yet, recording from an analog signal will strip any digital watermarks from the original data stream. A re-digitized source transmitted over the internet can't be automatically identified by sniffing for the watermark at ISPs or routers. If the studios were to allow unencrypted streams between equipment, most pirates probably wouldn't go through the trouble to try to detect and strip embedded identification and, as a result, automated anti-piracy methods would be feasible.

Absolutely, and despite the marketing push to start selling people HDTVs, it's still very uncommon to walk into a store and actually see a TV set that isn't running with its contrast cranked so far up (often the factory default) that it destroys a lot of the resolution potential the display could have had with high quality input material. (On the other hand, perhaps one could view this as a means to sell more LCDs and plasma displays... fewer opportunities to screw up the picture...)

In fact, you need a direct, encrypted, digital link directly into the viewer's brain. That, and an "erase memory" button

Regards,

Iwo