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The Blu-Ray video format is pretty cancerous in terms of DRM; there's not really any salvaging it. One of the most nauseating restrictions of all is that repli
by hlandau 8y ago
The Blu-Ray video format is pretty cancerous in terms of DRM; there's not really any salvaging it.
One of the most nauseating restrictions of all is that replication plants aren't even allowed to fabricate Blu-Ray video discs which don't have AACS. This means that if you want to get some Blu-Ray video disc fabricated which contains Creative Commons content and you disagree with DRM, for example, you're out of luck: AACS is mandatory. Archive Team had issues with this - as I recall, the best compromise they were able to find was to just put video files on a normal Blu-Ray data disc and get that fabbed. I suspect this is enforced using conditions in the patent licences Sony hands out to fabs or DRM in the software used by fabrication plants, or both.
You start to realise why this is the case when you research how the production process works. When you send a Blu-Ray video disc to a fab for mass production, you don't apply the encryption; the fab does, and you have no control over the process. Moreover, this process involves sending a request for encryption keys to AACS LA, who then issue newly-minted encryption keys for the disc. Yes, this means that all Blu-Ray video discs must be centrally approved by a single organisation in realtime, as an integral part of the AACS application process. Which explains why AACS is mandatory; it lets them catch attempts by commercial pirates to get discs replicated in mass.
So I don't think Blu-Ray can ever become a non-helldamned format. The fact that the specifications are all secret is just the icing on the cake (this is actually the case for DVD too, open source implementations all had to reverse engineer it). I always found it deeply ironic that by comparison, the AACS specification, which specifies a DRM scheme, a type of thing fundamentally dependent on security by obscurity, is freely available.
- pathartl 8y agoI find this deeply amusing. I see how this could have worked in the DVD era, but these days with all of the options we have it's no surprise why most people don't have bluray players. It is kinda sad though because as much as streaming gives us options, the quality is always terrible.
- superflyguy 8y agoYouTube and Netflix stream for me just fine. Are you on 4g/fibre?
- Jaruzel 8y agoTheoretically, UHD (4k) blu-rays can go from 80 mb/s to 120 mb/s depending on the authoring of the disc, compared to Netflix's maximum of 25 mb/s that's a massive difference. However... unless you have a UHD projector, or VERY large TV (60"+) then you are unlikely to see the difference under normal viewing. Where I feel streaming typically fails, is in the audio. They may 'say' it's a 5.1 surround sound mix, but if so, why does it sound _so_ flat compared to the same film on blu-ray ? All I can think is that the audio is compression is also 4x as compressed which to our ears is quite significant.
- yathern 8y agoActually even at 1080p, Netflix streams are visibly worse quality than blu-ray. Particularly in the compression of dark colors. I'll occasionally see color-banding, which you never see in Blu-ray.
- Jaruzel 8y agoOh don't get me wrong, I'm 100% in the Blu-ray camp; Netflix is for casual viewing, but proper viewing such as big hitter movies are on blu-ray always (I'm yet to get a 4k projector).
- pathartl 8y agoIt's not the size of the TV, but the quality of the TV. I run a 65" OLED so it's top of the line, but I can clearly see color banding from Netflix on pretty much any TV and it looks terrible. Overall it's just a lower bitrate and compression artifacts on both audio and video make the experience suffer.
- fireattack 8y agoYouTube's stream bitrate is pretty low compared to Blu-ray. It's very obvious (to me at least) at any dynamic scenes.
- illwrks 8y agoMost people I know have bluray players and streaming services, but almost always stream now. I prefer Blu-ray for quality reasons, and also I find some comfort in owning a physical disc
- rsync 8y ago"Most people I know have bluray players and streaming services, but almost always stream now. I prefer Blu-ray for quality reasons, and also I find some comfort in owning a physical disc" Many years ago it was accepted wisdom that the very best blu-ray player you could buy was actually the PS3. I am mildy interested in a blu-ray player and I wonder if, in 2018, the PS4 is the best option - in the same way that the PS3 was at that earlier time ?
- jordanthoms 8y agoThe PS4/PS4 Pro isn't quite as good a bluray player as the PS3 AFAIK, but it's fine. The main issue is that it doesn't play 4k bluray. The Xbox One S & Xbox One X do, though, and the S is one of the most affordable 4k bluray players.
- jacksproit 8y agoI don’t understand how a 4K Blu-ray movie with 4x the pixel data can fit on a disc that’s only 2x a 1080 Blu-ray. They must compromise the bitrate? HDR must add overhead also?
- jordanthoms 8y agoThe codec moved from h.264 to h.265, which is a big boost in efficiency, plus the extra pixels don't require as much information to describe as the original ones. 128mbit seems pretty good given that
- swsieber 8y agoWow. Mind blown. I never thought of the extra pixel density as carrying less marginal data.
- aidenn0 8y agoA compromise might be to author with AACS but silk-screen the disc key onto it? The DRM is how the disc key is protected, once you have the key it's simple decryption.
- hlandau 8y agoI actually thought of this. You could put the key on the disc, or publish it, or include it as a file on the disc in a standard location. But no dice: it turns out the encryption is managed entirely by the replication plant. The plant makes the encrypted golden image from the unencrypted image you give them and even you, the disc author, never get to see the keys.
- compsciphd 8y agoits easy enough to get the VUK after the fact. It really depends who/when the silkscreen printing is done.
- wmf 8y agoNah, I'm sure that would be breaking all the contracts.
- shmerl 8y agoThis shows how sick ideas like DRM slow down progress. Amusingly, they keep obsolete technology undead for years too, because of this mandatory requirement.
- dylan604 8y agoI started programming DVDs back in the mid-to-late 90s. I got out of shiny round discs right about the time the HD-DVD/Blu-ray war was still raging recognizing that streaming was the future. I wasn't that entrenched into the HD disc formats, but I remember reading the master key for AACS was leaked making it easy to circumvent. It wasn't as easy as DVD's CSS to crack, but once the master key was in the wild it was game over. Just another example in the wild of why backdoors/master-key encryption concepts are bad.
- ctdonath 8y agoI don't think Blu-Ray can ever become a non-helldamned format. "Blu-ray is a bucket of hurt." - Steve Jobs, on why Apple never supported it.
- eveningcoffee 8y agoThis happens when the format is dictated by a company owning a movie studio. I think that there should be a law against this.
- userbinator 8y agoI thought AACS was completely broken ever since the "09 F9" key was leaked? I wonder if our friends in China could lend a hand with generating the key themselves and getting otherwise "unauthorised" discs made...