26 ms·

Why can’t I play Ultra HD Blu-ray movies on my new Intel CPU platform?

618 points by freemint 5y ago

Nextgrid 5y ago
As usual, legitimate customers get shafted while piracy thrives.
- theplumber 5y ago
  I believe it's a good thing considering that "ligitimate customers" means customes supporting DRM.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Most customers don't know what DRM is, how it works and how/when it fails. It's reasonable for a non-technical person to agree with a solution that claims to prevent piracy because they have no idea how these things work and their trade-offs. They don't mind it because they don't see themselves as pirates given that they just bought the media and are unaware of how the DRM scheme can backfire on them despite not being a pirate. Very few people would agree to DRM if the DRM scheme explicitly had a disclaimer "we can, for any reason, prevent you from playing this in the future even on the same hardware that successfully plays it today".
    - theplumber 5y ago
      As can be seen in this case ignorace does not help much. It's a lesseon that all of us have to learn from time to time.
- deepstack 5y ago
  The currently model for digital media (film, music, etc) just doesn't work. Instead of preventing piracy, figure out a new way of making money for artists (not the organisations and administrators). Artists ought to be rewarded not the organisation and admin.
  - rocqua 5y ago
    Thing is the organizations and administrators around artists are huge. In the current world, they are no longer needed, and they know it. But they still have power. So they are doing everything they can to keep up their revenue streams. If they admit to progress, if they try and make a working ecosystems, they are working on something which, at best, requires massive downsizing for them. So instead they are flailing about looking to construct ecosystems that still have a place for them.
- henryackerman 5y ago
  "Piracy will continue as scheduled."
- gedy 5y ago
  I think they don't want people buying movies at all anymore, just to subscribe forever
  - ttyprintk 5y ago
    To prove you wrong, one would have to take the position that those industries are making more and better content.
- sersi 5y ago
  I honestly don't get it, everyone knows that this will not stop piracy, there's no benefit whatsoever to it yet it has significant disadvantages for paying customers.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    The benefit is that pirates won't buy the content either way, but legit uses locked out of the content they bought might buy it the second time.
  - iSnow 5y ago
    It doesn't outright stop piracy, but making it more uncomfortable to play back on PC means people would either switch to streaming or buy set-top players. Big tech long ago decided that the PC is a problem to them and they want to move to locked-down gadgets.
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    That's because piracy is the excuse, not the reason. DRM is very successful at what it should do: Protect the content middleman from the device makers (not the end users). They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. If the content middleman screams piracy, react as if a politician screams child porn. They want something else, but cant' get it without invoking the bogeyman. Hordes of (starving artists/concerned parents) will provide the necessary rope to hang themselves on command.
    - bambax 5y ago
      > They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. Ok, but don't they risk discouraging people from buying disks? Who buys disks nowadays anyway?
      - Nextgrid 5y ago
- amelius 5y ago
  As streaming becomes more common, the number of seeders seems to be steadily dropping.
  - bserge 5y ago
    And as streaming becomes more fragmented, it steadily goes up :D
LeoPanthera 5y ago
MakeMKV (US$60 for Windows, Mac, or Linux) can rip UHD Blu-Ray discs with the appropriate drive, removing the encryption in the process: https://www.makemkv.com/buy/ https://www.makemkv.com/buy/ Some drives need to have their firmware flashed in order to enable ripping of UHD discs: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19113 https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19113 I'm not affiliated with the product other than having used it to rip my entire disc library. It can also rip DVDs and regular blu-rays. Once ripped, they can be played back with VLC, mpv, or derivatives. (On Macs, IINA is very good.)
- shelbyKiraM 5y ago
  *clap* thanks for the pointer on IINA. I'm a long-time user of MPV (that's prob what I'll stick with on Windows…) it's good to have all these super useful interface improvements~
- henryackerman 5y ago
  The stupid thing is that this might be illegal in some jurisdictions. With any DRM scheme you'll end up having to break the law at some point in time to consume the content you legally purchased.
  - sys_64738 5y ago
    What happens if you rip out side the USA and bring those rips to the USA. Did you circumvent under DMCA?
    - Mindwipe 5y ago
      No, because the prohibition is on acquisition of the software. Though if you brought the software to do so with you you'd be in breach. But it's worth noting that virtually every country in the world has a prohibition on acquiring software to bypass DRM. In the UK for example it's a criminal offense with potential jail time attached to import it (i.e. download it from a foreign server) or sell it.
user_7832 5y ago
> For users who use an older compatible platform and want to keep the Ultra HD Blu-ray playback compatibility on the PC and with PowerDVD, we suggest you continue using the 7th - 10th generation Core i series of Intel CPUs and motherboards that support the Intel SGX feature. You should also consider not updating the OS (e.g., upgrading to Windows 11) and related Intel drivers to the latest versions in order to keep the Intel SGX feature from being removed from your PC. You should also ensure your platform meets all the other playback requirements of Ultra HD Blu-ray as the playback solution: https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=19144 https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=19144 Wow, the official solution is to use old hardware and software. I'm sure that's a great idea :) Sarcasm aside, I wonder when corporations will realize that until they offer proper easy and affordable solutions, people have little incentives to actually jump through the official loops and simply not pirate content. I hope to see this realization sometime in my life, but maybe I'm too optimistic.
- LeoNatan25 5y ago
  As long as people reward these ridiculous solutions by paying for them, the corporations will continue deploying them.
  - Cort3z 5y ago
    Isn't this move by Intel almost a counter attack on this drm situation. Essentially bricking all drm software.
    - colonwqbang 5y ago
      If they had wanted to show to everyone how futile the whole idea of DRM is, this would have been a great way to do it. However, I don't think Intel management is quite so self-aware.
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    I think the big problem is that there are so many different forms of DRM, content media/formats, and playback devices that even a fairly educated and highly technically literate user can't be sure when they buy something about exactly when or how the DRM will rear its ugly head and bite them.
hlandau 5y ago
Good. The desire to support the unreasonable demands of the film industry here has led to the perversion of the x86 architecture to add all sorts of peculiar DRM functionalities, and has precluded firmware components from being made open source; as I have previously written about here [1], which links to forum posts by an AMD engineer: I'm sure I don't have to explain to you that the essense of DRM requirements in the OEM PC market is that the owner must NOT have full control of the machine if that includes being able to tamper with or disable any of the DRM mechanisms. At the end of the day if Intel was going to support this kind of thing AMD also was pretty much going to be required to make such a deal with the devil, or have a product that can't compete with Intel. If Intel is losing interest in supporting video DRM, perhaps due to shifts away from physical media, it's likely to have a positive effect on both Intel's platform as well as other platforms which feel the need to support the same DRM platforms. [1] https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bserge 5y ago
- elzbardico 5y ago
  Film Industry => in about half the time, Sony Entertainment, by far the most aggressive company when it comes to copyrights.
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    I wonder what can be done to reduce their negative influence on the tech world? Ideally I'd like to see reform of copyright law to favour corporate giants a bit less, but given how much of a hand those same giants seem to have in the laws that get written I'm not hopeful of that any time soon. I think a more realistic scenario is rather than a top-down change in the law, a bottom-up approach with a culture change in the general public towards favouring independent content creators who don't employ DRM and other harmful measures and don't stifle creativity with overzealous IP lawsuits is encouraged. I'm still a believer at heart that the internet can be a great democratiser of content, that it can bring down the barriers and middlemen between artists and their audience. Art on the internet should be a participatory thing too in my opinion, not the mindless content consumption that the media companies of yesteryear see it as.
mrweasel 5y ago
Can someone explain why PowerDVD needs the SGX feature? Intel clearly doesn't see it as being useful, or did they replace it with something better and Cyberlink just doesn't want to upgrade? I mean it's reasonable that Cyberlink shaw the SGX as a way of implementing DRM, but I don't believe it's the only way they could possibly do so.
- bubblethink 5y ago
  Cyberlink doesn't control anything in this. Studios, Microsoft, Intel, etc. decided all this. Cyberlink was just providing a service atop all this nonsense.
- hlandau 5y ago
  When Blu-ray came out, it came with all sorts of DRM madness (AACS, BD+, etc.) which persists to this day. However playback on PCs still ultimately involved some kind of proprietary player software which contains keys to decrypt the content. Obviously, these keys could be extracted from the player software to decrypt DVDs. In other words, it's the flaw with all DRM schemes. For UHD/4K Blu-rays, the DRM scheme was renewed (AACSv2). As far as I can tell, studios seemed to decide that the above model was too insecure and to require something more for PC playback of UHD Blu-rays. The requirement seems to basically be that some kind of platform-integrated hardware DRM is involved so that the CPU never sees the decrypted video (or equivalent; presumably SGX is used to lock the decrypted content inside an enclave which is remotely attested and then securely transported to the GPU somehow. GPUs also have had this kind of hardware DRM functionality added to support this use case but I don't have the details to hand as they're not to my knowledge public.)
- zuminator 5y ago
  beemeup5 at ghacks.net wrote [0]: Slight clarification. This is primarily a limitation specifically for software like Cyberlink’s PowerDVD because Cyberlink is one of the very few officially authorized software vendors for encrypted UHD disc playback. Intel SGX is not a requirement for playback in the UHD Blu-ray spec. PowerDVD just happens to make use of Intel SGX for their decryption implementation / HDCP handshake enforcement. Other software players that don’t make use of Intel SGX can play UHD discs just fine, so AMD CPU owners need not worry. Just use MPC-HC or JRiver Media Center, etc. Of course, you may need to use “alternate” decryption options like AnyDVD or DVDFab, and naturally you also need a UHD capable disc drive with compatible firmware. like the Asus BC- 12D2HT. Many sellers will flash the stock firmware with UHD-capable firmware for drives sold as “UHD ready”. [0]https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/14/intels-dropping-of-sgx-prevents-ultra-hd-blu-ray-playback-on-pcs/#:~:text=Slight%20clarification.%20This,last%20decade%20XD https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/14/intels-dropping-of-sgx-pre....
Havoc 5y ago
DRM - broken by design
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Defective by Design sounds even better.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
jankal 5y ago
It's the same problem I was facing trying to play Netflix Ultra HD on my AMD CPU. Fortunately Netflix now also works without Intel SGX so I can watch my stuff on my PCs now. On the other hand: It is still not possible to play Amazon Prime Ultra HD on AMD CPUs and probably also on the new Intel 12th gen as of now. The one thing I hate about these limitations is the amount of detailed knowledge that is required to know what is happening. As an average consumer I would have never thought of such bullshit. I only read about the problem wehn I had already bought my CPU...
- sneak 5y ago
  If you torrent the content directly, it plays on all hardware and can be used offline or easily shared to friends via USB/AirDrop/etc. You also get a wide choice of players. Everything good on the streaming sites is quickly available via torrent, and VPNs are like $5. Don't continue paying the media cartels for abuse.
  - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    > Everything good on the streaming sites is quickly available via torrent This isn’t as true as it used to be. The torrent scene seems a fraction of what it used to be. Presumably it’s still fine in private sites but I wouldn’t know.
    - gruez 5y ago
      I don't have any trouble finding 4K remixes of movies, even ones from a decade ago. This is on public trackers.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    WebTorrent + RarBg is where things are at now. Hopefully we will see more and more descentralized or anonymous search databases with Tor, Freenet, IPFS or similar technology to finally end the "Piracy Wars".
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  You can play Netflix in HD on a computer? I’m watching animated gif video quality on safari, and how do I change it?
bubblethink 5y ago
Didn't realize that cyberlink was still around. Their market share must be minuscule these days. No laptops ship with optical drives and it would be rare to add one to a desktop build these days too.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Bought one with M-Disc for backup last year or the year before. Feels nice to be able to watch old movies that I bought back in the day that aren't available on streaming - at least around here :-/
- jccalhoun 5y ago
  It looks like they also have a video editing program that they sell. I would think that not only is the market for playing discs on a computer small but the market for playing 4k discs on a computer is even smaller.
knaik94 5y ago
I am curious about the current state of playback of Dolby vision files. I know that the Nvidia shield tv can playback videos and there is the movies and tv windows app that can tone map to SDR if you download the Dolby experience app. But has there been meaningful progress for vlc mpv potplayer or direct playback from pc to tv? It seems like Dolby Vision has won over HDR10+ in the HDR video format war.
- Strom 5y ago
  There’s good recent progress in that Matroska (mkv) can now contain Dolby Vision metadata. There’s also progress with public tools that can process some of this metadata and convert between Dolby Vision profiles, say from profile 5 (hardcoded bitstream) to profile 8 (enhancement bitstream) so that you can have HDR10 fallback for scenarios where Dolby Vision won’t work. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any PC playback progress yet. However in addition to the Nvidia Shield there are Chinese devices like the Zidoo Z9X [1] which show that the work can be done. The PC space is still waiting for a champion though. —- [1] https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC2%2B9KKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC...
- gruez 5y ago
  >and there is the movies and tv windows app that can tone map to SDR if you download the Dolby experience app There is? I searched around and couldn't find it. As for tonemapping on open source players, there's madvr, but it's imperfect compared to the official SDR release.
  - knaik94 5y ago
    I might be remembering wrong, it might also need the HEVC windows 10 app. It is a paid app but mine came free with my laptop. I know the main thing is using the Movies and TV app. The DV app is called Dolby Vision Extensions app. https://thewincentral.com/microsofts-new-app-dolby-vision-extensions-now-available-in-google-play-store/ https://thewincentral.com/microsofts-new-app-dolby-vision-ex... Indirect link because the windows store link looked horrible when I tired copy pasting. You might be able to get the HEVC app free if you Google, but I haven't tried it myself.
phoronixrly 5y ago
A gentle reminder to people that work at companies that produce/implement DRM: We live at a time with high demand for developers. Wouldn't your talents be of better use at some other company - working on something not ultimately hindering your users? It's OK to quit your job on moral grounds, and now is the best time ever to do so.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Oh please, get off your preachy high horse, and stop trying to guild trip devs into thinking that developing DRM solutions is like developing WMD or something. This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Plus, some devs enjoy this kind work and some companies working on DRM are in areas that are not as hot as the Bay Area (small cities in Europe) so they might not have that many lucrative options you assume. Sure, no consumer enjoys DRM, like how no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines, but demonizing devs working on such solutions is something I did not expect from the supposedly enlightened HN reader base. How about you target your disapproval at the Bay Area devs whos' generous compensation packages plastered around here depend on them building nefarious ways of siphoning and data-mining peoples' private data to get them addicted to consuming content and click on ads.
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    > This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Not exactly NSO level, but this certainly caused issues at the time.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_roo...
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Pointing out an infamous example of invasive DRM(trojan) that has nothing to do with the DRM in this topic is just whataboutism.
      - 5y ago
mavhc 5y ago
At least all this investment in DRM was worth it and it stopped movies and tv shows and games and music and books being available on pirate websites
- ohcomments 5y ago
  I see what you did there! Haha
satysin 5y ago
And shit like this is why everything I have is the video and audio ripped from the Blu-ray and stored on my own Plex server. The original blu-ray video and audio that I can stream anywhere in my home or even over the net should I wish (although for internet streaming I use a smaller encoded version obviously). Honestly it is like the movie studios want you to pirate their content by making it so difficult to watch what you legally own.
- sneak 5y ago
  If you keep paying them for the discs they will keep paying the engineers to implement this stuff.
  - post_break 5y ago
    If you don't pay for discs eventually those will go away and suddenly everything must be low quality streaming.
halo 5y ago
I'm convinced the inability to easily play Blu-Rays and similar on computers is a major contributor as to why the format hasn't had the same traction as DVDs and may have accelerated the removal of disc drives from devices. Such a self-defeating move.
- jbluepolarbear 5y ago
  I only buy Blu-ray that come with a digital code. I activate the code, it shows up in iTunes, and I give or throw away the Blu-ray. Although this is usually around Black Friday where you can get Blu-ray for $5-$10.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  And I'm convinced the hassle of Blu-Ray DRM or any kind of modern DRM is why I, and many others, still pirate movies and TV shows despite being able to afford to pay for them.
  - CraneWorm 5y ago
    DRM and the unskippable ads that make you aware that you payed to've become a product. The pirates offer superior product, every time.
    - ballenf 5y ago
      And Blu-Ray Live which makes your player yet another surveillance tool, if it has internet access. And if it doesn't you lose some of the features of the disc advertised on the box.
    - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
      Well, except for bitrate. I like my audio lossless 7.1 24/96 or better. I'm seriously thinking about a https://www.kaleidescape.com https://www.kaleidescape.com so I don't have to buy disks, but get the full bitrate.
- jcpham2 5y ago
  I can say that I have never bought into BluRay, I don’t own a BluRay compatible optical drive to play them, and as far as I know we do not own any BluRay discs. I have mountains of DVDs and still prefer it in terms of purchasing movies. Bandwidth and access to other forms of digital media has allowed me to skip BluRay. I understand the resolution is better but it’s not a strong selling point for me. As a side note with the original DeCSS DVD code now considered a virus by many antivirus vendors I basically reject DRM technology everywhere I can. I pay for Netflix, but that’s a recent thing. The kids watch YouTube. That’s it for my household. No local news, no over the air free HD TV. We cut the cord and never looked back. If its not on Netflix I guess we just wait or go to a theater (rarely) or don’t watch it. I ripped my first DVD in college approximately two decades ago. I’m not oblivious to new technology nor am I some type of techno-Luddite; the selling points of BluRay are just weak imho.
activitypea 5y ago
I don't understand why the film industry bothers with DRM. Their product is fundementally easy to pirate, and always will be.
- sneak 5y ago
  It's not about piracy, it's so they can segment the market and charge different amounts in rich and poor countries based on region-locked media. Otherwise first sale doctrine would allow people to sell mountains of imported cheap discs from poor countries in the USA legally. It's to protect the margins in places where $5 isn't much money. Vastly more units are sold in places where $5 is a lot.
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    UHD Blu-Ray doesn't have region-locking.
- izacus 5y ago
  The DRM isn't there just for end-user piracy, it's to enforce contractual obligation on middle-men distributors and for those middle-men distributors to be able to enforce exclusivity onto users (e.g. pay rights for a certain region, to dubbing and then prevent people from watching that content in the same region elsewhere to maximise the moneyed return). It also allows distributors and content houses to repeatably charge for same content as it goes through media conversions (pay once for DVD rights, pay again for BR, pay again for localized BR, pay again for UHD-BR, pay again for iPhone Apple TV version, pay again for version with extras and special edition)... it's a legal hammer that enforces each middle man to stand in the line and to make sure each piece of content extracts as much money as the overextended copyright system allows. And if anyone DOES pirate the content, it's used to cover the middlemen asses by being able to show the abusive DRM practices and saying "we did all we could, YOU ceritified this DRM as good you see!"
hnlmorg 5y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again: DRM only hurts your legitimate customers. Anyone who had any interest in pirating your content will find a way around DRM -- whether that's a technical solution or whether it's just downloading a copy from someone else who has the technical knowhow to bypass DRM. However it's your legitimate customers, the ones who actually paid for your product, who suffer.
dtx1 5y ago
Anyone interested in an invite to torrentleech.org? No DRM there...
- drumhead 5y ago
  lol, yeah why not..
  - dtx1 5y ago
    please give me a way to contact you
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- FalconSensei 5y ago
  Sure, email in profile!
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Very much so! Thanks:)
- dtx1 5y ago
  out of invites
- ohcomments 5y ago
  That's against TL rules... However... French trackers interest me so if any invite available for those... Lemme know!
  - dtx1 5y ago
    Yeah, but who cares? Not like torrentleech is very picky when it comes to their users, sign ups are open so often it barely matters.
- noyesno 5y ago
dschuetz 5y ago
Whoever still buys Blu-rays anyway? Isn't it a dead market already?
- qubitcoder 5y ago
  I do on _very_ rare occasions. Why? I'm fortunate enough to have gigabit symmetrical fiber, so streaming isn't an issue. That said, when viewing content on higher quality TVs and sound systems, there's a very perceptible improvement in both video and audio quality compared to streaming. For example, on my 65" LG C9 OLED with a Klipsch Atmos system, the difference is immediately noticeable. Even with dedicated streaming hardware like new generation Apple TVs, which offer 4K streaming with Dolby Vision/Atmos, it still doesn't quite compare to physical media. Ditto for the native LG apps with identical options. Of course, there are downsides. Good luck finding UHD content on physical media. Redbox doesn't offer 4K discs in my area, and local stores rarely have physical media in stock. Even with physical media, there's other annoyances--e.g. the Xbox One X produces a loud hum as the disc spins, not to mention the delay when seeking/skipping around. That said, for rarified material such as Blue Planet (or anything by Attenborough)--or movies known for their sound quality like Mad Max--physical media can be sublime.
- gmac 5y ago
  I do! Since I got a 1080p projector, DVDs of recent releases are often noticeable fuzzy, while the Blu-Rays look great. Plus a Blu-Ray off eBay or CeX is usually half the price of 'buying' a film to stream, can be lent to friends and family, and is something that I meaningfully own into the future (not only until the service I bought it from goes bust, locks me out of my account, etc). The fact I can rip them with MakeMKV if necessary is handy too.
- no_time 5y ago
  I sure hope not. BDrips, especially if done properly by a good scenegroup have an unparalleled bitrate. Unless streaming sites up their game, we'll see a drop in movie image quality everywhere except cinemas.
  - arbitrage 5y ago
ohcomments 5y ago
Because AMD is life! (Joke)
perakojotgenije 5y ago
A gentle XKCD reminder that you can only be sure that you'll be able to play your media in the future if you pirate it. https://xkcd.com/488/ https://xkcd.com/488/
- acomjean 5y ago
  There was a radio segment last week on boston public radio where Andy Ihnatko explained as stuff floats into the public domain, some of our new media only comes out on digital streaming formats and without piracy copies would probably would never become public domain. This a future problem but potentially a real one.
- rthomas6 5y ago
  Or you could buy physical media.
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    This article is literally about being unable to play your physical media because your computer is too new.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      I have UHD rips from blue-rays that I own made with makemkv. As far as I can tell, doing the rips for personal use is 100% allowed in my jurisdiction. If anything the fact that newer machines can't play them back would strengthen my fair-use case. These are personal-use copies of physical media that I own, which does not fall under most peoples definition of piracy.
carlycue 5y ago
Tim Cook: “This is how I win”
sundvor 5y ago
"Dear latest gen Intel users, please upgrade from Cyberlink to BitTorrent".
InsomniacL 5y ago
You should also consider not updating the OS just wow...
zimmerfrei 5y ago
SGX seems to have pivoted from DRM use cases (in consumer CPUs) to confidential computing (in server CPUs) [0]. Is that so? Or is the Intel server product line just lagging behind and it will be removed from those too? Will Intel replace it fully with something like AMD SEV? As a technology, SGX became interesting the moment Intel added the ability for anybody to launch enclaves (and not only the anointed companies that signed NDAs with Intel) and especially when support for it landed in Linux. Assuming Intel somehow manages to fix its security problem to a decent level, is SGX as a technology worth learning still? [0] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security/confidential-computing.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security/confidentia...
- hansendc 5y ago
  I sure hope it stays around in servers for a long time. Some of us at Intel are actively working on expanding the existing kernel support: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/cover.1638381245.git.reinette.chatre@intel.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/cover.1638381245.git.reinette.c... Intel's equivalent of SEV-ES and SEV-SNP is called TDX: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/intel-trust-domain-extensions.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t... . While you could probably put both under the "confidential computing" umbrella, they do really different things well. As far as I know, SGX and TDX will both be around on the same hardware. Also, just to be explicit about it: I work on Linux at Intel, including on SGX.
anthk 5y ago
Ah, 2004 with libdvdcss again. Thanks, companies. Thanks, companies. You are the perfect P2P marketing advisors.
sergiotapia 5y ago
It's such a shame paying customers get shafted over and over and over again. I went through the whole piracy gamut including torrents, usenet, radarr, sonarr, plex, emby, jellyfin - you name it I tried it. The best solution I'm using today and try to keep it hush is Stremio + RealDebrid. https://i.ibb.co/Mn6VSvq/image.png https://i.ibb.co/Mn6VSvq/image.png No piracy ISP letter risk, no torrenting, just a direct download from one single server that keeps you private. Like having a Plex with _everything_ on it.
LeoNatan25 5y ago
Similar thing happened with DVDs long time ago, when newer DVD drives could not be used to decode older DVD disks, due to incompatibility with early CSS systems. Meanwhile, the torrents, with Dolby Vision or HDR10, play just fine everywhere, without any hardware restrictions, any software arbitrary nonsense restrictions, etc. I’ll continue buying those at the torrent tracker shop.
m_eiman 5y ago
Steve Jobs: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace." https://www.engadget.com/2008-10-14-steve-jobs-calls-blu-ray-a-bag-of-hurt.html https://www.engadget.com/2008-10-14-steve-jobs-calls-blu-ray...
Ratiofarmings 5y ago
It's like they're asking us to pirate everything.
solarkraft 5y ago
It's almost as if piracy is to only way to not constantly be messed with.
dm319 5y ago
I'm glad my naive self learnt this more than 20 years ago when it was apparently normal to apply DRM to ripped CDs on windows. I vaguely remembered that it would allow you to copy it up to three times, but I don't remember the details. I think it ripped to a windows audio format. A few years later I upgraded my machine and lost access to these files. I guess these days I understand more about keys and how they work, but back then I was just someone who had paid rightfully for my music and as a result losing the collection a few years later.
- crtasm 5y ago
  What happened to the original CDs?
miohtama 5y ago
Is there any background information anywhere why SGX is being phased out?
- shthed 5y ago
  Looks like because it's not actually secure and they can't seem patch all of the vulnerabilities https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-intel-chips-wont-play-blu-ray-disks-due-to-sgx-deprecation/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-intel-chi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Guard_Extensions#Attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Guard_Extensions#Atta... https://sgaxe.com/ https://sgaxe.com/ https://plundervolt.com/ https://plundervolt.com/
PaulHoule 5y ago
Secure enclaves aren't necessarily a bad idea but SGX always seemed like a bad design. This follows a long term trend of decoupling between the consumer electronics and the computer industry. For instance CD-ROM and DVD drives were ubiquitous for personal computers but Blu-Ray never really caught on. For a long time Windows came with DVD players but Blu-Ray was always a third-party option. Today there is a divergence between video codecs used for consumer electronics (HEVC) and computers (AV1, etc.) Some of it is fighting over royalties, some of it is the industries having different visions.
mmastrac 5y ago
I forgot how bad the physical media world is. I gave up ages ago and found alternative ways to view media and it just works.
joshstrange 5y ago
I'll never understand the stupidity of studios/streaming platforms (DRM/Widevine). DRM only hurts legit customers, period. Any TV Show or Movie you want to watch is going to be on Torrents/Usenet within hours at most of release, their DRM has completely and utterly failed to stop piracy, instead it punishes paying users. I still remember a good decade ago getting a DVD from Redbox and trying to watch it with some friends. Tons of unskippable ads, FBI warnings, etc. Partway through the hell of enforced watching I started a torrent, before we got to the title screen it was done and we watched the downloaded version instead. Furthermore, look at the state of TV today with all the streaming platforms. I'm excluding "live" TV because I can't imagine why anyone would subject themselves to that cesspool. Having to jump between streaming services/UIs/UX/etc is terrible. "What platform was that show on?", "Wait, weren't we watching this on service X? That's why it lost our place in the season", "Oh, did they remove Y show?", and the list goes on. It's incredibly sad the the best TV experience is some combo of Plex/Jellyfin+*arr-type software. Music piracy is practically non-existent in my friend groups (the same could not be said 10+ years ago), Spotify and friends did that. Not any laws, not any enforcement, not any crackdowns, etc, no a /paid/ service beat music piracy. Why? Because it was better, it was easier, and it had everything. As long as we only have a choice of disjointed services and platforms TV/Movies will never be better than piracy. Things like Amazon Channels and Apple TV (yes the app, not the device, not the service, come on Apple...) are somewhat of a step in a better direction but Plex is still bar none. No ads, instant playback, no BS.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Sometimes it really is easier to torrent a show and know you will see it ad free and without buffering than to find it on any given streaming service and suffer the ads. Recently I've seen even ad free, paid or unpaid, streaming options that still force ads into their shows at the beginning or the end. There is a new Nerdwallet ad that says, "Enjoy this ad free break before getting back to your show - brought to you by nerdwallet" I almost screamed at my tv when I saw that. If your name is plastered on the screen and the show/movie I'm watching is disputed to display it its an ad...
  - joshstrange 5y ago
jmrm 5y ago
Do you know what streaming platform demonstrated since long ago? When you give an easier access to people to consume media legally, people do it that way. This is the complete opposite.
unfocused 5y ago
Over the past many years, the "record" button was disappearing, and now the "play" button is taking a hit! I'm still holding on to an old Asus USB blu ray drive, although I haven't used it much lately, and I got an old NAD C715 receiver, that has USB recording, so I can record my FM radio shows, or anything really being input (streaming audio), straight to MP3 so I can keep the shows. (yes, I know about podcasts, but not all of them are available). Of course, the NAD was limited to 117 minutes per mp3, and when I contact them, they said it was due to memory issues, but I think it was due to people wanting to burn it on a CD. Either way, the analog world is still so much easier to play and record anything for audio at least, and it looks like the video world is moving away from physical media. Is 8K blu ray even going to happen? If not, it's all digital streams from this point on.
SavantIdiot 5y ago
You know who can stop this? You. The only reason Hollywood has power is because you buy DVDs and go to movies. If you stopped, Hollywood would go broke. Quibbling about Intel or legislation is pointless. Just don't buy their product and you'll bring them to their knees. "Ultra HD Blu-ray" ... There is so much marketing BS in that phrase. The brain washing goes deep. Pick up a book. Get a hobby. Go outside. Put down the passive entertainment. Send a real message if you don't like all this DRM shit. You don't NEED to park your ass on a couch and be entertained.
TedShiller 5y ago
Money
josephcsible 5y ago
Remember how Stallman et al complained loudly about "Trusted Computing" technology like SGX, and everyone ignored them and accepted it anyway?
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Yeah. Stallman is absolutely right about everything concerning computer freedom. He saw pretty far into the future.
FalconSensei 5y ago
as always, if you want to watch something it's easier when you torrent it than when you pay for it

618 points by freemint 5y ago

Nextgrid 5y ago

As usual, legitimate customers get shafted while piracy thrives.

theplumber 5y ago
I believe it's a good thing considering that "ligitimate customers" means customes supporting DRM.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Most customers don't know what DRM is, how it works and how/when it fails. It's reasonable for a non-technical person to agree with a solution that claims to prevent piracy because they have no idea how these things work and their trade-offs. They don't mind it because they don't see themselves as pirates given that they just bought the media and are unaware of how the DRM scheme can backfire on them despite not being a pirate. Very few people would agree to DRM if the DRM scheme explicitly had a disclaimer "we can, for any reason, prevent you from playing this in the future even on the same hardware that successfully plays it today".
  - theplumber 5y ago
    As can be seen in this case ignorace does not help much. It's a lesseon that all of us have to learn from time to time.
deepstack 5y ago
The currently model for digital media (film, music, etc) just doesn't work. Instead of preventing piracy, figure out a new way of making money for artists (not the organisations and administrators). Artists ought to be rewarded not the organisation and admin.
- rocqua 5y ago
  Thing is the organizations and administrators around artists are huge. In the current world, they are no longer needed, and they know it. But they still have power. So they are doing everything they can to keep up their revenue streams. If they admit to progress, if they try and make a working ecosystems, they are working on something which, at best, requires massive downsizing for them. So instead they are flailing about looking to construct ecosystems that still have a place for them.
henryackerman 5y ago
"Piracy will continue as scheduled."
gedy 5y ago
I think they don't want people buying movies at all anymore, just to subscribe forever
- ttyprintk 5y ago
  To prove you wrong, one would have to take the position that those industries are making more and better content.
sersi 5y ago
I honestly don't get it, everyone knows that this will not stop piracy, there's no benefit whatsoever to it yet it has significant disadvantages for paying customers.
- scotty79 5y ago
  The benefit is that pirates won't buy the content either way, but legit uses locked out of the content they bought might buy it the second time.
- iSnow 5y ago
  It doesn't outright stop piracy, but making it more uncomfortable to play back on PC means people would either switch to streaming or buy set-top players. Big tech long ago decided that the PC is a problem to them and they want to move to locked-down gadgets.
- hyperman1 5y ago
  That's because piracy is the excuse, not the reason. DRM is very successful at what it should do: Protect the content middleman from the device makers (not the end users). They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. If the content middleman screams piracy, react as if a politician screams child porn. They want something else, but cant' get it without invoking the bogeyman. Hordes of (starving artists/concerned parents) will provide the necessary rope to hang themselves on command.
  - bambax 5y ago
    > They can, for example, enforce market segmentation: You bought the DVD in the USA and play it in the EU. Legal, but DRM stops you. Wait for the EU release and pay the different price. Ok, but don't they risk discouraging people from buying disks? Who buys disks nowadays anyway?
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
amelius 5y ago
As streaming becomes more common, the number of seeders seems to be steadily dropping.
- bserge 5y ago
  And as streaming becomes more fragmented, it steadily goes up :D

LeoPanthera 5y ago

MakeMKV (US$60 for Windows, Mac, or Linux) can rip UHD Blu-Ray discs with the appropriate drive, removing the encryption in the process: https://www.makemkv.com/buy/ https://www.makemkv.com/buy/ Some drives need to have their firmware flashed in order to enable ripping of UHD discs: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19113 https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19113 I'm not affiliated with the product other than having used it to rip my entire disc library. It can also rip DVDs and regular blu-rays. Once ripped, they can be played back with VLC, mpv, or derivatives. (On Macs, IINA is very good.)

shelbyKiraM 5y ago
*clap* thanks for the pointer on IINA. I'm a long-time user of MPV (that's prob what I'll stick with on Windows…) it's good to have all these super useful interface improvements~
henryackerman 5y ago
The stupid thing is that this might be illegal in some jurisdictions. With any DRM scheme you'll end up having to break the law at some point in time to consume the content you legally purchased.
- sys_64738 5y ago
  What happens if you rip out side the USA and bring those rips to the USA. Did you circumvent under DMCA?
  - Mindwipe 5y ago
    No, because the prohibition is on acquisition of the software. Though if you brought the software to do so with you you'd be in breach. But it's worth noting that virtually every country in the world has a prohibition on acquiring software to bypass DRM. In the UK for example it's a criminal offense with potential jail time attached to import it (i.e. download it from a foreign server) or sell it.

user_7832 5y ago

> For users who use an older compatible platform and want to keep the Ultra HD Blu-ray playback compatibility on the PC and with PowerDVD, we suggest you continue using the 7th - 10th generation Core i series of Intel CPUs and motherboards that support the Intel SGX feature. You should also consider not updating the OS (e.g., upgrading to Windows 11) and related Intel drivers to the latest versions in order to keep the Intel SGX feature from being removed from your PC. You should also ensure your platform meets all the other playback requirements of Ultra HD Blu-ray as the playback solution: https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=19144 https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=19144 Wow, the official solution is to use old hardware and software. I'm sure that's a great idea :) Sarcasm aside, I wonder when corporations will realize that until they offer proper easy and affordable solutions, people have little incentives to actually jump through the official loops and simply not pirate content. I hope to see this realization sometime in my life, but maybe I'm too optimistic.

LeoNatan25 5y ago
As long as people reward these ridiculous solutions by paying for them, the corporations will continue deploying them.
- Cort3z 5y ago
  Isn't this move by Intel almost a counter attack on this drm situation. Essentially bricking all drm software.
  - colonwqbang 5y ago
    If they had wanted to show to everyone how futile the whole idea of DRM is, this would have been a great way to do it. However, I don't think Intel management is quite so self-aware.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  I think the big problem is that there are so many different forms of DRM, content media/formats, and playback devices that even a fairly educated and highly technically literate user can't be sure when they buy something about exactly when or how the DRM will rear its ugly head and bite them.

hlandau 5y ago

Good. The desire to support the unreasonable demands of the film industry here has led to the perversion of the x86 architecture to add all sorts of peculiar DRM functionalities, and has precluded firmware components from being made open source; as I have previously written about here [1], which links to forum posts by an AMD engineer: I'm sure I don't have to explain to you that the essense of DRM requirements in the OEM PC market is that the owner must NOT have full control of the machine if that includes being able to tamper with or disable any of the DRM mechanisms. At the end of the day if Intel was going to support this kind of thing AMD also was pretty much going to be required to make such a deal with the devil, or have a product that can't compete with Intel. If Intel is losing interest in supporting video DRM, perhaps due to shifts away from physical media, it's likely to have a positive effect on both Intel's platform as well as other platforms which feel the need to support the same DRM platforms. [1] https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme https://www.devever.net/~hl/intelme

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bserge 5y ago
elzbardico 5y ago
Film Industry => in about half the time, Sony Entertainment, by far the most aggressive company when it comes to copyrights.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I wonder what can be done to reduce their negative influence on the tech world? Ideally I'd like to see reform of copyright law to favour corporate giants a bit less, but given how much of a hand those same giants seem to have in the laws that get written I'm not hopeful of that any time soon. I think a more realistic scenario is rather than a top-down change in the law, a bottom-up approach with a culture change in the general public towards favouring independent content creators who don't employ DRM and other harmful measures and don't stifle creativity with overzealous IP lawsuits is encouraged. I'm still a believer at heart that the internet can be a great democratiser of content, that it can bring down the barriers and middlemen between artists and their audience. Art on the internet should be a participatory thing too in my opinion, not the mindless content consumption that the media companies of yesteryear see it as.

mrweasel 5y ago

Can someone explain why PowerDVD needs the SGX feature? Intel clearly doesn't see it as being useful, or did they replace it with something better and Cyberlink just doesn't want to upgrade? I mean it's reasonable that Cyberlink shaw the SGX as a way of implementing DRM, but I don't believe it's the only way they could possibly do so.

bubblethink 5y ago
Cyberlink doesn't control anything in this. Studios, Microsoft, Intel, etc. decided all this. Cyberlink was just providing a service atop all this nonsense.
hlandau 5y ago
When Blu-ray came out, it came with all sorts of DRM madness (AACS, BD+, etc.) which persists to this day. However playback on PCs still ultimately involved some kind of proprietary player software which contains keys to decrypt the content. Obviously, these keys could be extracted from the player software to decrypt DVDs. In other words, it's the flaw with all DRM schemes. For UHD/4K Blu-rays, the DRM scheme was renewed (AACSv2). As far as I can tell, studios seemed to decide that the above model was too insecure and to require something more for PC playback of UHD Blu-rays. The requirement seems to basically be that some kind of platform-integrated hardware DRM is involved so that the CPU never sees the decrypted video (or equivalent; presumably SGX is used to lock the decrypted content inside an enclave which is remotely attested and then securely transported to the GPU somehow. GPUs also have had this kind of hardware DRM functionality added to support this use case but I don't have the details to hand as they're not to my knowledge public.)
zuminator 5y ago
beemeup5 at ghacks.net wrote [0]: Slight clarification. This is primarily a limitation specifically for software like Cyberlink’s PowerDVD because Cyberlink is one of the very few officially authorized software vendors for encrypted UHD disc playback. Intel SGX is not a requirement for playback in the UHD Blu-ray spec. PowerDVD just happens to make use of Intel SGX for their decryption implementation / HDCP handshake enforcement. Other software players that don’t make use of Intel SGX can play UHD discs just fine, so AMD CPU owners need not worry. Just use MPC-HC or JRiver Media Center, etc. Of course, you may need to use “alternate” decryption options like AnyDVD or DVDFab, and naturally you also need a UHD capable disc drive with compatible firmware. like the Asus BC- 12D2HT. Many sellers will flash the stock firmware with UHD-capable firmware for drives sold as “UHD ready”. [0]https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/14/intels-dropping-of-sgx-prevents-ultra-hd-blu-ray-playback-on-pcs/#:~:text=Slight%20clarification.%20This,last%20decade%20XD https://www.ghacks.net/2022/01/14/intels-dropping-of-sgx-pre....

Havoc 5y ago

DRM - broken by design

skinkestek 5y ago
Defective by Design sounds even better.
- fsflover 5y ago
  https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/

jankal 5y ago

It's the same problem I was facing trying to play Netflix Ultra HD on my AMD CPU. Fortunately Netflix now also works without Intel SGX so I can watch my stuff on my PCs now. On the other hand: It is still not possible to play Amazon Prime Ultra HD on AMD CPUs and probably also on the new Intel 12th gen as of now. The one thing I hate about these limitations is the amount of detailed knowledge that is required to know what is happening. As an average consumer I would have never thought of such bullshit. I only read about the problem wehn I had already bought my CPU...

sneak 5y ago
If you torrent the content directly, it plays on all hardware and can be used offline or easily shared to friends via USB/AirDrop/etc. You also get a wide choice of players. Everything good on the streaming sites is quickly available via torrent, and VPNs are like $5. Don't continue paying the media cartels for abuse.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  > Everything good on the streaming sites is quickly available via torrent This isn’t as true as it used to be. The torrent scene seems a fraction of what it used to be. Presumably it’s still fine in private sites but I wouldn’t know.
  - gruez 5y ago
    I don't have any trouble finding 4K remixes of movies, even ones from a decade ago. This is on public trackers.
- xtracto 5y ago
  WebTorrent + RarBg is where things are at now. Hopefully we will see more and more descentralized or anonymous search databases with Tor, Freenet, IPFS or similar technology to finally end the "Piracy Wars".
wodenokoto 5y ago
You can play Netflix in HD on a computer? I’m watching animated gif video quality on safari, and how do I change it?

bubblethink 5y ago

Didn't realize that cyberlink was still around. Their market share must be minuscule these days. No laptops ship with optical drives and it would be rare to add one to a desktop build these days too.

skinkestek 5y ago
Bought one with M-Disc for backup last year or the year before. Feels nice to be able to watch old movies that I bought back in the day that aren't available on streaming - at least around here :-/
jccalhoun 5y ago
It looks like they also have a video editing program that they sell. I would think that not only is the market for playing discs on a computer small but the market for playing 4k discs on a computer is even smaller.

knaik94 5y ago

I am curious about the current state of playback of Dolby vision files. I know that the Nvidia shield tv can playback videos and there is the movies and tv windows app that can tone map to SDR if you download the Dolby experience app. But has there been meaningful progress for vlc mpv potplayer or direct playback from pc to tv? It seems like Dolby Vision has won over HDR10+ in the HDR video format war.

Strom 5y ago
There’s good recent progress in that Matroska (mkv) can now contain Dolby Vision metadata. There’s also progress with public tools that can process some of this metadata and convert between Dolby Vision profiles, say from profile 5 (hardcoded bitstream) to profile 8 (enhancement bitstream) so that you can have HDR10 fallback for scenarios where Dolby Vision won’t work. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any PC playback progress yet. However in addition to the Nvidia Shield there are Chinese devices like the Zidoo Z9X [1] which show that the work can be done. The PC space is still waiting for a champion though. —- [1] https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC2%2B9KKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html https://www.zidoo.tv/Product/index/model/Z9X/target/VEMg6VRC...
gruez 5y ago
>and there is the movies and tv windows app that can tone map to SDR if you download the Dolby experience app There is? I searched around and couldn't find it. As for tonemapping on open source players, there's madvr, but it's imperfect compared to the official SDR release.
- knaik94 5y ago
  I might be remembering wrong, it might also need the HEVC windows 10 app. It is a paid app but mine came free with my laptop. I know the main thing is using the Movies and TV app. The DV app is called Dolby Vision Extensions app. https://thewincentral.com/microsofts-new-app-dolby-vision-extensions-now-available-in-google-play-store/ https://thewincentral.com/microsofts-new-app-dolby-vision-ex... Indirect link because the windows store link looked horrible when I tired copy pasting. You might be able to get the HEVC app free if you Google, but I haven't tried it myself.

phoronixrly 5y ago

A gentle reminder to people that work at companies that produce/implement DRM: We live at a time with high demand for developers. Wouldn't your talents be of better use at some other company - working on something not ultimately hindering your users? It's OK to quit your job on moral grounds, and now is the best time ever to do so.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Oh please, get off your preachy high horse, and stop trying to guild trip devs into thinking that developing DRM solutions is like developing WMD or something. This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Plus, some devs enjoy this kind work and some companies working on DRM are in areas that are not as hot as the Bay Area (small cities in Europe) so they might not have that many lucrative options you assume. Sure, no consumer enjoys DRM, like how no driver likes police officers issuing speeding fines, but demonizing devs working on such solutions is something I did not expect from the supposedly enlightened HN reader base. How about you target your disapproval at the Bay Area devs whos' generous compensation packages plastered around here depend on them building nefarious ways of siphoning and data-mining peoples' private data to get them addicted to consuming content and click on ads.
- tehbeard 5y ago
  > This is not some NSO-level spyware that can be used to spy and target people. Not exactly NSO level, but this certainly caused issues at the time.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_roo...
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Pointing out an infamous example of invasive DRM(trojan) that has nothing to do with the DRM in this topic is just whataboutism.
    - 5y ago

mavhc 5y ago

At least all this investment in DRM was worth it and it stopped movies and tv shows and games and music and books being available on pirate websites

ohcomments 5y ago
I see what you did there! Haha

satysin 5y ago

And shit like this is why everything I have is the video and audio ripped from the Blu-ray and stored on my own Plex server. The original blu-ray video and audio that I can stream anywhere in my home or even over the net should I wish (although for internet streaming I use a smaller encoded version obviously). Honestly it is like the movie studios want you to pirate their content by making it so difficult to watch what you legally own.

sneak 5y ago
If you keep paying them for the discs they will keep paying the engineers to implement this stuff.
- post_break 5y ago
  If you don't pay for discs eventually those will go away and suddenly everything must be low quality streaming.

halo 5y ago

I'm convinced the inability to easily play Blu-Rays and similar on computers is a major contributor as to why the format hasn't had the same traction as DVDs and may have accelerated the removal of disc drives from devices. Such a self-defeating move.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago
I only buy Blu-ray that come with a digital code. I activate the code, it shows up in iTunes, and I give or throw away the Blu-ray. Although this is usually around Black Friday where you can get Blu-ray for $5-$10.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
And I'm convinced the hassle of Blu-Ray DRM or any kind of modern DRM is why I, and many others, still pirate movies and TV shows despite being able to afford to pay for them.
- CraneWorm 5y ago
  DRM and the unskippable ads that make you aware that you payed to've become a product. The pirates offer superior product, every time.
  - ballenf 5y ago
    And Blu-Ray Live which makes your player yet another surveillance tool, if it has internet access. And if it doesn't you lose some of the features of the disc advertised on the box.
  - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
    Well, except for bitrate. I like my audio lossless 7.1 24/96 or better. I'm seriously thinking about a https://www.kaleidescape.com https://www.kaleidescape.com so I don't have to buy disks, but get the full bitrate.
jcpham2 5y ago
I can say that I have never bought into BluRay, I don’t own a BluRay compatible optical drive to play them, and as far as I know we do not own any BluRay discs. I have mountains of DVDs and still prefer it in terms of purchasing movies. Bandwidth and access to other forms of digital media has allowed me to skip BluRay. I understand the resolution is better but it’s not a strong selling point for me. As a side note with the original DeCSS DVD code now considered a virus by many antivirus vendors I basically reject DRM technology everywhere I can. I pay for Netflix, but that’s a recent thing. The kids watch YouTube. That’s it for my household. No local news, no over the air free HD TV. We cut the cord and never looked back. If its not on Netflix I guess we just wait or go to a theater (rarely) or don’t watch it. I ripped my first DVD in college approximately two decades ago. I’m not oblivious to new technology nor am I some type of techno-Luddite; the selling points of BluRay are just weak imho.

activitypea 5y ago

I don't understand why the film industry bothers with DRM. Their product is fundementally easy to pirate, and always will be.

sneak 5y ago
It's not about piracy, it's so they can segment the market and charge different amounts in rich and poor countries based on region-locked media. Otherwise first sale doctrine would allow people to sell mountains of imported cheap discs from poor countries in the USA legally. It's to protect the margins in places where $5 isn't much money. Vastly more units are sold in places where $5 is a lot.
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  UHD Blu-Ray doesn't have region-locking.
izacus 5y ago
The DRM isn't there just for end-user piracy, it's to enforce contractual obligation on middle-men distributors and for those middle-men distributors to be able to enforce exclusivity onto users (e.g. pay rights for a certain region, to dubbing and then prevent people from watching that content in the same region elsewhere to maximise the moneyed return). It also allows distributors and content houses to repeatably charge for same content as it goes through media conversions (pay once for DVD rights, pay again for BR, pay again for localized BR, pay again for UHD-BR, pay again for iPhone Apple TV version, pay again for version with extras and special edition)... it's a legal hammer that enforces each middle man to stand in the line and to make sure each piece of content extracts as much money as the overextended copyright system allows. And if anyone DOES pirate the content, it's used to cover the middlemen asses by being able to show the abusive DRM practices and saying "we did all we could, YOU ceritified this DRM as good you see!"

hnlmorg 5y ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again: DRM only hurts your legitimate customers. Anyone who had any interest in pirating your content will find a way around DRM -- whether that's a technical solution or whether it's just downloading a copy from someone else who has the technical knowhow to bypass DRM. However it's your legitimate customers, the ones who actually paid for your product, who suffer.

dtx1 5y ago

Anyone interested in an invite to torrentleech.org? No DRM there...

drumhead 5y ago
lol, yeah why not..
- dtx1 5y ago
  please give me a way to contact you
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
FalconSensei 5y ago
Sure, email in profile!
mardifoufs 5y ago
Very much so! Thanks:)
dtx1 5y ago
out of invites
ohcomments 5y ago
That's against TL rules... However... French trackers interest me so if any invite available for those... Lemme know!
- dtx1 5y ago
  Yeah, but who cares? Not like torrentleech is very picky when it comes to their users, sign ups are open so often it barely matters.
noyesno 5y ago

dschuetz 5y ago

Whoever still buys Blu-rays anyway? Isn't it a dead market already?

qubitcoder 5y ago
I do on _very_ rare occasions. Why? I'm fortunate enough to have gigabit symmetrical fiber, so streaming isn't an issue. That said, when viewing content on higher quality TVs and sound systems, there's a very perceptible improvement in both video and audio quality compared to streaming. For example, on my 65" LG C9 OLED with a Klipsch Atmos system, the difference is immediately noticeable. Even with dedicated streaming hardware like new generation Apple TVs, which offer 4K streaming with Dolby Vision/Atmos, it still doesn't quite compare to physical media. Ditto for the native LG apps with identical options. Of course, there are downsides. Good luck finding UHD content on physical media. Redbox doesn't offer 4K discs in my area, and local stores rarely have physical media in stock. Even with physical media, there's other annoyances--e.g. the Xbox One X produces a loud hum as the disc spins, not to mention the delay when seeking/skipping around. That said, for rarified material such as Blue Planet (or anything by Attenborough)--or movies known for their sound quality like Mad Max--physical media can be sublime.
gmac 5y ago
I do! Since I got a 1080p projector, DVDs of recent releases are often noticeable fuzzy, while the Blu-Rays look great. Plus a Blu-Ray off eBay or CeX is usually half the price of 'buying' a film to stream, can be lent to friends and family, and is something that I meaningfully own into the future (not only until the service I bought it from goes bust, locks me out of my account, etc). The fact I can rip them with MakeMKV if necessary is handy too.
no_time 5y ago
I sure hope not. BDrips, especially if done properly by a good scenegroup have an unparalleled bitrate. Unless streaming sites up their game, we'll see a drop in movie image quality everywhere except cinemas.
- arbitrage 5y ago

ohcomments 5y ago

Because AMD is life! (Joke)

perakojotgenije 5y ago

A gentle XKCD reminder that you can only be sure that you'll be able to play your media in the future if you pirate it. https://xkcd.com/488/ https://xkcd.com/488/

acomjean 5y ago
There was a radio segment last week on boston public radio where Andy Ihnatko explained as stuff floats into the public domain, some of our new media only comes out on digital streaming formats and without piracy copies would probably would never become public domain. This a future problem but potentially a real one.
rthomas6 5y ago
Or you could buy physical media.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  This article is literally about being unable to play your physical media because your computer is too new.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    I have UHD rips from blue-rays that I own made with makemkv. As far as I can tell, doing the rips for personal use is 100% allowed in my jurisdiction. If anything the fact that newer machines can't play them back would strengthen my fair-use case. These are personal-use copies of physical media that I own, which does not fall under most peoples definition of piracy.

carlycue 5y ago

Tim Cook: “This is how I win”

sundvor 5y ago

"Dear latest gen Intel users, please upgrade from Cyberlink to BitTorrent".

InsomniacL 5y ago

You should also consider not updating the OS just wow...

zimmerfrei 5y ago

SGX seems to have pivoted from DRM use cases (in consumer CPUs) to confidential computing (in server CPUs) [0]. Is that so? Or is the Intel server product line just lagging behind and it will be removed from those too? Will Intel replace it fully with something like AMD SEV? As a technology, SGX became interesting the moment Intel added the ability for anybody to launch enclaves (and not only the anointed companies that signed NDAs with Intel) and especially when support for it landed in Linux. Assuming Intel somehow manages to fix its security problem to a decent level, is SGX as a technology worth learning still? [0] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security/confidential-computing.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/security/confidentia...

hansendc 5y ago
I sure hope it stays around in servers for a long time. Some of us at Intel are actively working on expanding the existing kernel support: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/cover.1638381245.git.reinette.chatre@intel.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/cover.1638381245.git.reinette.c... Intel's equivalent of SEV-ES and SEV-SNP is called TDX: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/intel-trust-domain-extensions.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t... . While you could probably put both under the "confidential computing" umbrella, they do really different things well. As far as I know, SGX and TDX will both be around on the same hardware. Also, just to be explicit about it: I work on Linux at Intel, including on SGX.

anthk 5y ago

Ah, 2004 with libdvdcss again. Thanks, companies. Thanks, companies. You are the perfect P2P marketing advisors.

sergiotapia 5y ago

It's such a shame paying customers get shafted over and over and over again. I went through the whole piracy gamut including torrents, usenet, radarr, sonarr, plex, emby, jellyfin - you name it I tried it. The best solution I'm using today and try to keep it hush is Stremio + RealDebrid. https://i.ibb.co/Mn6VSvq/image.png https://i.ibb.co/Mn6VSvq/image.png No piracy ISP letter risk, no torrenting, just a direct download from one single server that keeps you private. Like having a Plex with _everything_ on it.

LeoNatan25 5y ago

Similar thing happened with DVDs long time ago, when newer DVD drives could not be used to decode older DVD disks, due to incompatibility with early CSS systems. Meanwhile, the torrents, with Dolby Vision or HDR10, play just fine everywhere, without any hardware restrictions, any software arbitrary nonsense restrictions, etc. I’ll continue buying those at the torrent tracker shop.

m_eiman 5y ago

Steve Jobs: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace." https://www.engadget.com/2008-10-14-steve-jobs-calls-blu-ray-a-bag-of-hurt.html https://www.engadget.com/2008-10-14-steve-jobs-calls-blu-ray...

Ratiofarmings 5y ago

It's like they're asking us to pirate everything.

solarkraft 5y ago

It's almost as if piracy is to only way to not constantly be messed with.

dm319 5y ago

I'm glad my naive self learnt this more than 20 years ago when it was apparently normal to apply DRM to ripped CDs on windows. I vaguely remembered that it would allow you to copy it up to three times, but I don't remember the details. I think it ripped to a windows audio format. A few years later I upgraded my machine and lost access to these files. I guess these days I understand more about keys and how they work, but back then I was just someone who had paid rightfully for my music and as a result losing the collection a few years later.

crtasm 5y ago
What happened to the original CDs?

miohtama 5y ago

Is there any background information anywhere why SGX is being phased out?

shthed 5y ago
Looks like because it's not actually secure and they can't seem patch all of the vulnerabilities https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-intel-chips-wont-play-blu-ray-disks-due-to-sgx-deprecation/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-intel-chi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Guard_Extensions#Attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Guard_Extensions#Atta... https://sgaxe.com/ https://sgaxe.com/ https://plundervolt.com/ https://plundervolt.com/

PaulHoule 5y ago

Secure enclaves aren't necessarily a bad idea but SGX always seemed like a bad design. This follows a long term trend of decoupling between the consumer electronics and the computer industry. For instance CD-ROM and DVD drives were ubiquitous for personal computers but Blu-Ray never really caught on. For a long time Windows came with DVD players but Blu-Ray was always a third-party option. Today there is a divergence between video codecs used for consumer electronics (HEVC) and computers (AV1, etc.) Some of it is fighting over royalties, some of it is the industries having different visions.

mmastrac 5y ago

I forgot how bad the physical media world is. I gave up ages ago and found alternative ways to view media and it just works.

joshstrange 5y ago

I'll never understand the stupidity of studios/streaming platforms (DRM/Widevine). DRM only hurts legit customers, period. Any TV Show or Movie you want to watch is going to be on Torrents/Usenet within hours at most of release, their DRM has completely and utterly failed to stop piracy, instead it punishes paying users. I still remember a good decade ago getting a DVD from Redbox and trying to watch it with some friends. Tons of unskippable ads, FBI warnings, etc. Partway through the hell of enforced watching I started a torrent, before we got to the title screen it was done and we watched the downloaded version instead. Furthermore, look at the state of TV today with all the streaming platforms. I'm excluding "live" TV because I can't imagine why anyone would subject themselves to that cesspool. Having to jump between streaming services/UIs/UX/etc is terrible. "What platform was that show on?", "Wait, weren't we watching this on service X? That's why it lost our place in the season", "Oh, did they remove Y show?", and the list goes on. It's incredibly sad the the best TV experience is some combo of Plex/Jellyfin+*arr-type software. Music piracy is practically non-existent in my friend groups (the same could not be said 10+ years ago), Spotify and friends did that. Not any laws, not any enforcement, not any crackdowns, etc, no a /paid/ service beat music piracy. Why? Because it was better, it was easier, and it had everything. As long as we only have a choice of disjointed services and platforms TV/Movies will never be better than piracy. Things like Amazon Channels and Apple TV (yes the app, not the device, not the service, come on Apple...) are somewhat of a step in a better direction but Plex is still bar none. No ads, instant playback, no BS.

AlwaysRock 5y ago
Sometimes it really is easier to torrent a show and know you will see it ad free and without buffering than to find it on any given streaming service and suffer the ads. Recently I've seen even ad free, paid or unpaid, streaming options that still force ads into their shows at the beginning or the end. There is a new Nerdwallet ad that says, "Enjoy this ad free break before getting back to your show - brought to you by nerdwallet" I almost screamed at my tv when I saw that. If your name is plastered on the screen and the show/movie I'm watching is disputed to display it its an ad...
- joshstrange 5y ago

jmrm 5y ago

Do you know what streaming platform demonstrated since long ago? When you give an easier access to people to consume media legally, people do it that way. This is the complete opposite.

unfocused 5y ago

Over the past many years, the "record" button was disappearing, and now the "play" button is taking a hit! I'm still holding on to an old Asus USB blu ray drive, although I haven't used it much lately, and I got an old NAD C715 receiver, that has USB recording, so I can record my FM radio shows, or anything really being input (streaming audio), straight to MP3 so I can keep the shows. (yes, I know about podcasts, but not all of them are available). Of course, the NAD was limited to 117 minutes per mp3, and when I contact them, they said it was due to memory issues, but I think it was due to people wanting to burn it on a CD. Either way, the analog world is still so much easier to play and record anything for audio at least, and it looks like the video world is moving away from physical media. Is 8K blu ray even going to happen? If not, it's all digital streams from this point on.

SavantIdiot 5y ago

You know who can stop this? You. The only reason Hollywood has power is because you buy DVDs and go to movies. If you stopped, Hollywood would go broke. Quibbling about Intel or legislation is pointless. Just don't buy their product and you'll bring them to their knees. "Ultra HD Blu-ray" ... There is so much marketing BS in that phrase. The brain washing goes deep. Pick up a book. Get a hobby. Go outside. Put down the passive entertainment. Send a real message if you don't like all this DRM shit. You don't NEED to park your ass on a couch and be entertained.

TedShiller 5y ago

Money

josephcsible 5y ago

Remember how Stallman et al complained loudly about "Trusted Computing" technology like SGX, and everyone ignored them and accepted it anyway?

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Yeah. Stallman is absolutely right about everything concerning computer freedom. He saw pretty far into the future.

FalconSensei 5y ago

as always, if you want to watch something it's easier when you torrent it than when you pay for it