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Sony's new DRM (on Salt) crashes DVD players
- noonespecial 16y agoHaving lost not one but 2 dvd players to this nonsense, I've concluded that dvd is a transport medium, not a playback medium. I never play a disc directly. I always pull the VIDEO_TS directory with software that can handle this junk and then play it over the network. It makes the viewing experience so much better anyway. No forced ads, unpause-able areas or stupid little "ghost buster" symbol in an upper corner when I push the root menu button. It makes my remote give orders that are followed, not suggestions in some sort of debate.
- cpswan 16y agoI think part of this DRM scheme is to make the process that you describe fail.
- trafficlight 16y agoAnd yet, you can always get around it.
- noonespecial 16y agoThat was no doubt their goal. But software on computers is much more easily adapted to defeat these silly(1) methods than the DVD player under your TV. The irony is not at all lost on me that in trying prevent piracy, they've made it attractive to me (someone who would not ordinarily pirate) to do something very much like piracy to protect my equipment and have a better consumer experience. Thus I support the ecosystem of tools that they try hardest to eradicate. A classic tale of unintended consequences. (1) What they do is not DRM per-se (the battle for CSS was lost to them long ago), but simply breaking the content structure of the DVD so that software has a hard time following the program chains. If done wrong this can crash the dvd players software, or worse, cause a kind of loop that can quickly damage the physical hardware.
- lurkinggrue 16y agohttp://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html
- astrodust 16y agoI find it a lot better to use the ripped version of a DVD I own because you can't damage it accidentally, you can skip stuff that's otherwise unskippable, and because you can switch movies somewhat easily. It's infuriating how many unskippable ads are injected in movies today. Is there a good jukebox application for playing ripped DVDs?
- cpswan 16y agoThe whole reason I have the DP-600 in the first place is that in addition to playing DVDs it can play media files (such as rips) from a UPNP server on a PC. Of course there are plenty of other streaming media players out there these days.
- drivebyacct2 16y agoWhat do they expect to do with this type of DRM? Prevent pirated copies? I downloaded it in 720p two or three weeks ago. This DRM horse shit is going to be bothering customers who paid for the disc for months or longer.
- tibbon 16y agoIsn't a DVD no longer meeting the standards of being a DVD if it doesn't play on DVD players? I remember with CD's there was the Redbook standard which was pretty exacting about how the CD was pressed. Is there no such thing for DVDs?
- OpieCunningham 16y agoThere is, it's available from the DVD FLLC. A Japanese firm where Sony is one of about 10 shareholders. But beyond perhaps some logo usage rules or guidelines, the existence of the format spec isn't necessarily the word of god, so to speak. Sony has been implementing intentional errors in their DVDs for many years. On the one hand it likely has increased the annoyance factor in ripping those DVDs and therefore somewhat decreased the prevalence of ripping, but on the other hand you have cases like the OP where the standard use case is also hindered to the level of annoyance.
- burgerbrain 16y ago"On the one hand it likely has increased the annoyance factor in ripping those DVDs and therefore somewhat decreased the prevalence of ripping" Hahahaha... oh wait, you were serious. let me laugh harder. hahahahahahahahaha Seriously though, every single movie released in recent years you can possibly imagine has been ripped and uploaded. What exactly has decreased in prevalence?
- OpieCunningham 16y agoYou're not really putting much thought into this are you? Firstly, there's a difference between ripping a DVD and downloading a pirated movie. More importantly, DVD ripping is far, far from a mainstream activity as evidenced by the tens of millions of DVDs that are still sold every quarter. The reason it is not mainstream, like CD ripping is mainstream, is because of DRM. Anti-DRM measures are not built into operating systems or the most prevalent player applications. The studios regularly mount legal challenges, many of which are successful, against application developers that do build in anti-DRM measures. The result of all of this is that the vast majority of users do not have the tools necessary to rip DVDs. For some portion of those users who become inclined to try it, they can find a tool that does - and then they can encounter Sonys ever evolving intentional error DRM strategy whereby the tool the user has no longer functions and either needs to be updated (assuming the often fly-by-night developer is still around) or replaced. Effectively, the annoyance factor is increased enough to dissuade the casual DVD ripping user from continuing with the activity. Hence, intentional errors has increased the annoyance factor in ripping DVDs and therefore somewhat decreased the prevalence of ripping.
- mishmash 16y agoRecently bought my dad a Blu-ray player and some of the disks have a firmware upgrade warning at the start of the disk. WTF is my dad supposed to do when he eventually gets one of these disks?
- trotsky 16y agoHow do you know there isn't a manufacturing error with the disc, or that your dvd player hasn't gone bad? If you're really talking about a DVD and not a bluray I'm surprised there is actually a way to add "new drm" to a disc. Googling salt+drm only finds your blog discussing that movie - are you sure this passes occam's razor?
- OpieCunningham 16y agoIt's common for some of the major studios to implement intentional errors - DVD format spec errors that are designed to make copying disc data difficult while not hindering playback. The efficacy of their plan is pretty questionable, but they've been doing it for years, so at minimum it makes them feel better.
- cpswan 16y agoSince it did play on my other DVD player it would seem that the only errors are intentional. Try Googling Sony+drm - they have form for this type of nonsense.
- trotsky 16y agoIt definitely happens that one dvd player will be better at playing scratched or defective content than another - just like happens with CD players. And I'm certainly aware of the sony "rootkit" computer drm they put on a few audio discs some time ago... But that was on a cd data track and had nothing to do with an audio cd player pushing audio out. I'm not asking if they would be willing to add new DRM to a DVD - obviously the answer to that question is yes. I'm just asking how you know that is what's going on, or if it's even possible to do. Can play in player A but not in player B so it must be new DRM is pretty thin.
- jawee 16y agoI tend to just buy a copy (that I keep unopened usually) and download a copy from torrents if it´s DRM´d. That makes it much simpler for me, but I still know I didn´t just steal it.
- cpswan 16y agoGood luck with the AP2P thugs like ACS Law. When they send you a letter demanding that you pay or be sued I'm sure it's fine to write back and tell them that you bought the disc.
- jawee 16y agoI guess the more important question is if my position can be justified legally, not if claims/threats are going to be made against me.
- OpieCunningham 16y agoIANAL. Though you may have some legal standing in purchasing a legally distributed version of a movie and then downloading the same movie at the same quality/resolution or lower, you probably have a legal issue with sharing that movie at least as long as you are downloading it (as I believe most P2P apps implement).