9 ms·
New Intel chips won't play Blu-ray disks due to SGX deprecation
- Lammy 4y ago> The issue impacts Ultra HD Blu-ray discs that use DRM, so if the Blu-ray Disc Association ever decides to lift the strict protections, the playback will return to nominal resolutions (3840 x 2160). As usual, thank goodness for MakeMKV letting me avoid knowing this was ever an issue: https://makemkv.com/ https://makemkv.com/
- alfalfasprout 4y agoThe DRM has been broken for ages now already though?
- wmf 4y agoThe last time I checked it hasn't been completely publicly broken; you have to request the key for each disc from some offshore pirate server.
- csdvrx 4y agoNow that SGX is dead, can we please get undervolting back? It was axed due to the risks to SGX safety.
- chx 4y agoHow could we get this to Intel and partners? This would be amazing. Plundervolt protections make it impossible to remove the EFI variable write protection controlling undervolting. It would only require a BIOS upgrade to unlock it and then we could undervolt our rather power hungry Tiger and Alder Lake CPUs.
- RandomBK 4y ago> No matter if a movie leaves a streaming service or if the digital rights change in the future, a physical disk makes the content permanently available. Well, isn't that ironic. Sure, the content is "permanently available" in a technical sense, but it'll hinge on the permanent availability of playback devices deemed suitable by the DRM.
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoIt's permanently available if you're willing to fly the black flag. I know a few people who hoard huge amounts of BD-rip movies on their multi-TB NAS at home. That way it's permanently available. DRM is a scam on the law abiding consumer and the "Blu-ray Disc Association" is a cartel. Honest question: do people still use PCs to watch BD movies? Have they ever? AFAIK the rare few people who still have a BD movie collections, use dedicated players or their consoles for that. Using a PC for that always seemed like masochism from a UX perspective so it was never popular. To play the devil's advocate, I think it was too expensive for Intel to invest in patching the SGX IP block vulnerabilities, porting it to smaller nodes, and wasting valuable silicone die, just so the last 5 remaining people on the planet who still use a PC to watch BD movies can now do it from a brand new PC instead of using their existing ones. So, ultimately this problem backtracks to the use of DRM and why that's bad, not on Intel who can't financially justify supporting such old & niche DRM IP moving forward.
- vimy 4y agoI still watch Blu-ray’s on my computer. I’m most likely an exception.
- epakai 4y agoWhat do you use for playback? Most of the free/trial stuff I used had subpar menu support (some would only even play the longest playlist). The other issue was my intent was to rip so it was useful to reference playlist numbering, and not all players made it accessible. Sometimes I just resort to using a physical player.
- goosedragons 4y agoI've used both WinDVD and CyberLink PowerDVD. They are AFAIK the only "official" ways to play Blu-rays on Windows. PowerDVD is IMO better. Most Blu-rays don't support using the mouse for menus because they are BD-Js. It's not a great experience and a decent player like a PS3 is a better option.
- qbasic_forever 4y agoNot a big surprise because if you actually tried to watch blu-rays purely on a PC you know how much of a horrible, broken experience it has been for more than a decade. I could only get it to work with a very specific commercial version of PowerDVD on Windows years and years ago. Never been able to make it work since then, it's a real cluster.
- acomjean 4y agoDRM so good, even owners of the disks can't watch it. I've always wondered why companies punish those that actually purchased their products. Those that got it though other means have no such problems.
- hakfoo 4y agoIt's probably about protecting a commercial-level monopoly. You could presumably put together a box with a BD-ROM mechanism that runs a kiosk-mode VLC or the like that could play every concievable format. I'm sort of surprised it doesn't exist already on Alibaba. But chucking around the legal weight of DRM keeps that product off the market, ensuring that the "legitimate" manufacturers willing to pay for licenses, keys, and patent pools don't have to fight it.
- npteljes 4y ago"Defective by design" as the FSF eloquently called it. https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
- kzrdude 4y agoQuite apt for some of the techniques, like: “BD+ mainly works by adding errors to the video stream, not enough to make it unwatchable but enough to make it unpleasant to watch due to near constant artifacting. These are fixed in official players by using "fixup tables", which are downloaded from the internet and provide a mapping to convert the broken video stream into the correct video stream.
- salawat 4y ago....Someone wrote that software/firmware. I hope there is a special place in hell for them. That is just not cool.
- eric__cartman 4y agoI'd rather send the bone headed executive that decided that drm should be a thing on a movie I bought a copy of.
- fzfaa 4y agoDude, calm down. It's just DRM for movies.
- redeeman 4y agoeveryone has a responsibility to not do anything reprehensible. Some people just do not have a very good value system. I, for example, would not, no matter the money offered, construct a prison for kidnapped kids, or software to scam elderly people of their life savings. I also would not produce shit like DRM. Some clearly will, and hopefully there is a place for them :)
- 4y ago
- manholio 4y agoLuckily, there are people doing Blu-ray digital backups for the disks we own, in open formats unnecumbered by DRM, then store them in large file distribution systems.
- tantalor 4y agoI guess in CPU land, "deprecated" and "removed" are synonymous. Everywhere else, "deprecated" means "it still works but don't use it".
- antonymy 4y agoDRM only punishes paying customers.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoAnyDVD[1] (Windows only) and MakeMKV[2] (Windows, Mac, and Linux) will allow you to read blu-ray video discs without SGX support. AnyDVD will allow you to "play" it in the traditional sense by presenting the disc to your player software as unencrypted and unprotected. With MakeMKV you have to make a copy of the video first, and then play the copy. Both are paid software. I use MakeMKV on Linux, it works well. [1]: https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html [2]: https://www.makemkv.com https://www.makemkv.com
- Flameancer 4y agoMakeMKV with a pioneer drive (4K or regular) just works s as well.
- js2 4y agoMakeMKV is great. Also works on macOS. You have to use a LibreDrive with it though to rip Blu-rays.
- jerrysievert 4y agono, you don't. I ripped many a blu-ray with an unsupported blu-ray drive (I was even the one to mail in the copy of the firmware as requested by makemkv when it doesn't recognize a drive). ripped great up until the poor drive started having read errors (much later). new drive supports libredrive though, but I've noticed no real difference in functionality/behavior.
- js2 4y agoLibreDrive is a mode of operation. If you can rip with it, it’s LibreDrive compatible. That’s all I meant. For anyone getting into this now and that wants to rip UHD disks, they are going to need a compatible drive. https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18856 https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18856
- jerrysievert 4y ago
- marcodiego 4y agoBookmarking for my list of "why drm is bad".
- linuxhansl 4y agoWe know a lot of past humans, in part because we can still read old books. Image a future when all one can find are digital artifacts and all license servers have been disabled. No e-books, movies, etc, will aid our future selves to decipher what was going on. (Well, maybe they'll find some TikTok clips.)
- lillecarl 4y agoIt's not entirely like that, I know that essentially all media produced In Sweden is transfered to the Swedish libraries for archiving. There's always going to be someone to manage the originals. EDIT: With a Swedish library card you can rent most if not all newspapers and such too. Even the older ones.
- DiabloD3 4y agoThe article is slightly wrong: I can legally play Blu-rays without SGX, and none of the PCs I have have SGX. If your Blu-ray player requires SGX, it sounds defective.
- Guthur 4y agoRemember, you will own nothing and be happy.
- ace2358 4y ago“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…” Steve Jobs, 2008 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...
- jimbob45 4y agoPatents only last 15-20 years, right? How is Blu-ray not public domain by now?
- TingPing 4y agoAn expired patent doesn't help bypass DRM.
- tragiclos 4y agoThe issue applies specifically to Ultra HD Blu-rays, which were introduced in 2016.
- HeadsUpHigh 4y agoWell thanks to the DMCA and friends even if the patent is expired if the tech is marked as drm you are not allowed to bypass it for eternity.
- dwheeler 4y agoBlue-Rays and DVDs aren't replaceable by streaming services. The key distinction is that specific videos disappear from streaming services at any time - there are no guarantees. I pay for a number of streaming services, and yet every month things I used to be able to see have disappeared from those services. If you just "want to watch something" but don't care exactly what it is, a streaming service is great. However, if you want to watch a particular movie/show repeatedly, then you want a Blue-Ray or DVD, not a streaming service. No streaming service will guarantee you endless future access to a particular video, and that makes them distinctly different. Buying and downloading a file would also work in theory, but in most cases you can't legally buy a video file, you can only lease video files for a specific device for a finite indefinite time. So while that's an option that should exist, in practice it usually doesn't, so disks are the only thing legally available for those who want continuous access. When I want to watch the a particular show, I want to watch that. Not a random show that may or may not be on a streaming service I'm paying for. The show may not be on any streaming service available to me at a particular point in time. Of course, I could always go to a pirate site and get access to practically everything, but while that's probably more convenient, I'm trying to do things legally. I think it's fraudulent for vendors to say that you "buy" a video when you don't get to keep it permanently, but it does happen. What's worse, that fraudulent misuse of the word "buy" confuses some people into mistakenly thinking that disks (like Blue-Rays and DVDs) can be replaced by streaming services. Yes, they have similar purposes, but they are not interchangeable.
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago> I think it's fraudulent for vendors to say that you "buy" a video when you don't get to keep it permanently, but it does happen. At least one other person thinks that way and agrees with you, and has subsequently filed a lawsuit against Apple for the use of the "Buy" button which contradicts the fine print on their terms. Check out Andino v. Apple
- chmod775 4y ago> No streaming service will guarantee you endless future access to a particular video Apparently neither do Blue-Rays, since about 10 years from now hardware that will read them will become scarce. In maybe another 5 years it will become an ordeal to get software that can bypass the DRM working on a recent system with whatever Blue-Ray drive you could scrounge up. This may be accelerated by such software becoming even more illegal to create and use. Additionally these kinds of discs physically degrade within about fifty years tops. Some can become unreadable after a much shorter time. The time range "20-50 years" is often thrown around. If you want to preserve something long term, the very first thing you should do is strip any DRM, then save it as a "dumb" format on long-term storage. Preferably decentralized with multiple backups (Torrent?). This stuff can go incredibly quickly and it will become harder every year to salvage anything. I learned this the hard way with my library of .swf files, of which I only managed to convert a subset to video files (where applicable) so far. For now next to them I store a disk image of an OS (old debian+Firefox+Adobe Flash) that can play them - who knows how long that will keep working on future hardware? Sometimes I wonder if this urge to preserve is patently ridiculous and we should learn to just... let things go. In any case, the Blue-Rays sitting on your shelf aren't much better than some streaming service.
- dtx1 4y agoI never understood who this is protecting the data from. I can pirate 4K Blu-Ray MKVs that are quality wise indistinguishable from a blu-ray disc. I'd often rather buy the discs to get movies and tv shows in archival quality without paying for even more storage but it always seems way more complicated to get that to run right.
- layer8 4y agoIt’s to prevent the general public from copying everything en masse, like people did in the VHS and audio cassette days. Now it’s only enthusiasts who are willing to jump through the hoops it takes. Of course, the general public also largely doesn’t buy physical media anymore.
- pseudosavant 4y agotl;dr; DRM significantly reduces the value of a product like a Blu-ray disc. For a long time I never bought a single Blu-ray. Then MakeMKV made it super easy to rip Blu-rays. Now I've bought dozens of Blu-rays. I haven't 'played' a single disc, but my home server has optimally compressed versions of all of them. The discs are in a box in the attic in case I ever need them in the future.
- Shank 4y agoThis is the second "non-advertised" feature reduction I've heard of on Intel's 12th generation processors. The first was losing the AVX-512 instructions [0]. The problem is that these processors are viewed as direct upgrades. But if you need to run AVX heavy or SGX-dependent workloads, these chips are now objectively worse than their prior generation counterparts. It's quite a shame, because most consumers don't realize the impact until it's too late. For example, I had to help a friend troubleshoot low framerates on Star Citizen. It turns out that disabling the AVX instructions absolutely destroyed his framerates in that game. Turning back on AVX using his motherboard's BIOS (because the motherboard manufacturer reversed the microcode and figured out how Intel disabled it) alleviated the problem, but it's a ridiculous step that most people won't do. If there's anything that makes me think twice about Intel's future, it's moves like this. [0]: https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-is-set-to-disable-avx-512-on-its-12th-gen-cpus/ https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-is-set-to-disable-avx-512-on-i...
- zozbot234 4y agoSGX-dependent workloads like... playing Blu-Ray disks? It seems to be the only use of SGX anyone cares about.
- _nhynes 4y ago* dynamic HSM https://github.com/intel/ehsm https://github.com/intel/ehsm * machine learning in tandem with GPUs https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-confidential-computing-with-nvidia-gpus-for-trustworthy-ai https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-confidential-co... * autonomous key management https://docs.oasis.dev/general/oasis-network/overview#privacy-first https://docs.oasis.dev/general/oasis-network/overview#privac... * signal contact discovery https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ These will also work with next-gen enclave tech (mainly in the direction of total VM encryption), but those (AMD SEV, Intel TDX) aren’t as secure as SGX yet, so SGX has continued utility to applications beyond DRM.
- pessimizer 4y agoIf there were a lobbyist for piracy networks, this is what they would be trying to convince Intel to do.
- josephcsible 4y agoIf Intel wants people to stop using SGX, they should have intentionally leaked the master attestation key for it. Then the only loser would be the MAFIAA, instead of all of the innocent customers who bought Blu-rays.
- ivegotnoaccount 4y agoBut then, all usages of SGX, not only DRM, would be compromised easily. I don't know, for instance, if password wallets use it for protecting their data when they are loaded, but that would lead to pretty bad consequences.
- josephcsible 4y agoI'm pretty sure that no password wallets, or any other legitimate security, relies on SGX.
- mmis1000 4y agoThese usually relies on TPM. Which is always designed as 'no private key can be extracted physically'. If your hardware enhanced wallet relies on SGX, It sounds it is defected as it shouldn't be readable after first write at first place. And why did you think you need signing key for SGX to extract info from it? You only need the decrypt key (Which is already been pwned). Lack of signing key only prevent you from running random program in SGX but not decrypt existing one.
- compsciphd 4y agoThis keeps on being reposted. 1) its not blurays as a whole just UHD blurays 2) it has nothing to do with the technical capabilities of the chip to playback the codecs, but simply to do with AACS's lack of desire to license playback without sgx availability 3) as noted elsewhere with anydvd/makemkv this just hurts regular users as the ability to decrypt and playback UHD blurays is readily available and one can't easily put that genie back in the bottle. 4) As a caveat to #3, AACS hasn't been broken (as opposed to DVD's CSS), its just well understood and people know how to put the effort in to exfiltrate player keys from devices. As each player key can be used to figure out the volume unique key (VUK in terminology), its "easy" enough to make a database of VUKs for each unique disc that one encounters. Of course player keys can be revoked and then not be able to used to generate newer VUKs (happens with newer MKB revisions) so then people have to exfiltrate a new player key. In fact, AnyDVD basically does this itself, you can make a bit perfect image of a bluray (making an assumption you have an old drive that avoids bus encryption, or use other mechanisms, say libredrive, to prevent it) and assuming AnyDVD has seen the disc before (anywhere thats connected to the internet and their servers), it will be able to decrypt the encrypted image. This is opposed to DVDs, no special areas of the disc unreadable by normal mechanisms are used on blurays, for DVDs while one can also make an encrypted image and decrypt it, one is then limited to normal DeCSS brute force methods that require a certain amount of data to work so dont work on the smallest of files, in practice, this limitation doesn't matter much and is more noted for technical interest.