4 ms·

Torrents everywhere screaming with joy

danso 6y ago
Tangential question: how do rippers handle streaming-exclusive content these days? Just run a screen-capture program while streaming the video? I was thinking some fidelity would be lost, at least compared to ripping from the source Blu-Ray. (though obviously better than secret cam footage in the theater, if people still do that these days)
- cammikebrown 6y ago
  Streaming in 4K is definitely lower quality than a 4K Blu-Ray.
  - draugadrotten 6y ago
    It would be unbearable to watch Bad Boys for Life in low quality streaming 4K. You need the fidelity of 4K Blu-Ray to really appreciate the fine nuances of the cinematography and acting.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    That's true. UHD Blu-rays tend to be around 50-75 Mb/s, while 4K streams/VOD from Netflix tend to be around 15-20 Mb/s. In my experience though, the difference is less noticeable (on my pretty good 4K OLED) than I would expect.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  the release groups don't publish much detail on their methods, lest they get patched. I doubt they use screen-capture, as this would involve reencoding an already bandwidth-starved video stream. my best guess is they have exploits for each service to extract and decrypt the stream, then remux into an mkv for distribution.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    I would have guessed that it's more likely that these rips are easily available precisely because there are some old devices out there with a breakable DRM that streaming services can't disable from their end because the devices are too important to their customer base. Like, there's probably some old smart TV or set-top box platform that Netflix has to support because they have half a million subscribers using it, but it won't receive firmware updates and can only support some old DRM that has been broken.
- sbx320 6y ago
  Screen captures aren't too common since they would incur an additional re-encoding step (losing a minor bit of fidelity), so for the more "professional" rippers it isn't a proper option. Instead they use the raw data stream from the streaming platform, strip the DRM and reassemble the video file. Of course the DRM stripping is the hard part with not much public knowledge being available. As you mentioned, the quality of those rips is a bit worse than a blu-ray rip, but if the blu-ray isn't available there's not much you can do. People will just enjoy a slightly worse quality version (just like they did with shaky cam rips).
- wil421 6y ago
  You get certain hdmi splitters off Amazon. They will strip the hdcp off and then you can capture what you want. There are even specialized devices that you plug a dvi/hdmi/vga signal into and it will turn the signal into IP packets over Ethernet. I’m sure you could get away with a number of things in places you shouldn’t be with one of these.

Tangential question: how do rippers handle streaming-exclusive content these days? Just run a screen-capture program while streaming the video? I was thinking some fidelity would be lost, at least compared to ripping from the source Blu-Ray. (though obviously better than secret cam footage in the theater, if people still do that these days)

cammikebrown 6y ago
Streaming in 4K is definitely lower quality than a 4K Blu-Ray.
- draugadrotten 6y ago
  It would be unbearable to watch Bad Boys for Life in low quality streaming 4K. You need the fidelity of 4K Blu-Ray to really appreciate the fine nuances of the cinematography and acting.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  That's true. UHD Blu-rays tend to be around 50-75 Mb/s, while 4K streams/VOD from Netflix tend to be around 15-20 Mb/s. In my experience though, the difference is less noticeable (on my pretty good 4K OLED) than I would expect.
leetcrew 6y ago
the release groups don't publish much detail on their methods, lest they get patched. I doubt they use screen-capture, as this would involve reencoding an already bandwidth-starved video stream. my best guess is they have exploits for each service to extract and decrypt the stream, then remux into an mkv for distribution.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  I would have guessed that it's more likely that these rips are easily available precisely because there are some old devices out there with a breakable DRM that streaming services can't disable from their end because the devices are too important to their customer base. Like, there's probably some old smart TV or set-top box platform that Netflix has to support because they have half a million subscribers using it, but it won't receive firmware updates and can only support some old DRM that has been broken.
sbx320 6y ago
Screen captures aren't too common since they would incur an additional re-encoding step (losing a minor bit of fidelity), so for the more "professional" rippers it isn't a proper option. Instead they use the raw data stream from the streaming platform, strip the DRM and reassemble the video file. Of course the DRM stripping is the hard part with not much public knowledge being available. As you mentioned, the quality of those rips is a bit worse than a blu-ray rip, but if the blu-ray isn't available there's not much you can do. People will just enjoy a slightly worse quality version (just like they did with shaky cam rips).
wil421 6y ago
You get certain hdmi splitters off Amazon. They will strip the hdcp off and then you can capture what you want. There are even specialized devices that you plug a dvi/hdmi/vga signal into and it will turn the signal into IP packets over Ethernet. I’m sure you could get away with a number of things in places you shouldn’t be with one of these.