5 ms·

With how good modern screens are, and how good cameras are (and how easy both are to hack), you could always play back the video and capture the photons through

With how good modern screens are, and how good cameras are (and how easy both are to hack), you could always play back the video and capture the photons through the air. There was something called Macrovision back in the VHS/DVD days that tried to defeat digital/analog conversion, and I'm sure visual techniques could be devised... But I imagine someone with a good OLED and a good mirrorless camera (or even a cell phone nowadays) could make a pretty good 4K replication of any media that displays.

Wowfunhappy 2y ago
Especially when you add HDR to the mix, I think it's still extremely difficult to get a high quality screen recording, if only because it's so hard to get the exposure right.
- Retr0id 2y ago
  You could record multiple exposures and merge them after the fact (and I agree the result would likely be subpar, but better than it's ever been at any previous point in time)
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    Yeah, I guess it really depends on what your standards are. It's certainly getting better but I have trouble imagining anyone would consider this a good solution. At minimum, if this was what pirates had to resort to, then I would think the DRM has done it's job, in that it very significantly degraded video quality for the pirates.
- sudosysgen 2y ago
  Modern dedicated cameras have far more dynamic range than any HDR TV in practice. The movies have to be recorded somehow :)
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    > The movies have to be recorded somehow :) I'd imagine they do this via huge (non-consumer level) cameras as well as by professional editors and graders who spend countless hours on the process. But that doesn't really contradict your point. I don't know. I've never seen a good screen recording but I don't download pirated films so perhaps I've never seen an instance of someone really trying to get it right.
    - sudosysgen 2y ago
      The cameras you can buy used for a couple thousand dollars have essentially the same sensors as huge cinema cameras, if not better in this application assuming you'll take stills. Professional editors and color graders have to lower the dynamic range, because there is basically nothing that can get as bright as, say, the sun, and because basically no display can sustain peak brightness over the screen, which introduces an EOTF transfer curves, reducing the peak brightness and thus dynamic range. You're right about pirated films, but that's because they're typically recorded in a run of the mill cinema while it's playing, not in controlled conditions in front of a carefully calibrated screen-camera combination taking a photograph of every frame.
    - geerlingguy 2y ago
      My A7C II ($2000-class mirrorless) has a sensor with far more range than any monitor I've ever been able to afford.
- kuschku 2y ago
  You'd think so, but I've already run into a situation where DRM broke our screen capture for a live talk recording and I simply set up a camera to record the screen. With a little bit of work (display a few calibration targets and build a quick and dirty LUT to match your display) you can get really convincing results.
  - 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
    It was good enough for the moon landing. The video feed from Apollo 11 was some special format that was specially decoded onto a particular monitor. There was a camera pointed at the screen to rebroadcast the feed globally.
jdietrich 2y ago
Once upon a time, this was how all video-to-film transfers worked. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope
- loeg 2y ago
  Also called Telecine (or at least, a very related process), as in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying)#Piracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying)#Piracy
anfilt 2y ago
Probably would be better carefully tap into the signal lines to the LCD panel, and record and decode that data to then make a video. However if we assume that even the cable going to the panel is encrypted and the board on the panel is decrypting it. (although I have never messed with a panel like that). However it still has to got to drive the rows and columns of the display, so then data to column and row drivers is still in the open. If we were to even assume the Column/Row drivers chips only accepted encrypted data they still have the individual traces coming out of them. The pitch of the traces is super tiny, but still possible to tap, but would be a massive pain, but still do able. Although you can get devices that strip the encryption from an HDMI signal these days so it's kinda moot. So it's not exactly something anyone would need to do these days.
rustcleaner 2y ago
This works for me! Nobody needs more than 480i anyhow.
FMecha 2y ago
Except Cinavia, which worked on audio level, exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia Although it can only trip on certain devices or media players (mainly Blu-ray players, including PS3 onwards), I did read an idea that suggested Cinavia being placed inside an OS's kernel in a secure enclave to make it system-wide.

Wowfunhappy 2y ago

Especially when you add HDR to the mix, I think it's still extremely difficult to get a high quality screen recording, if only because it's so hard to get the exposure right.

Retr0id 2y ago
You could record multiple exposures and merge them after the fact (and I agree the result would likely be subpar, but better than it's ever been at any previous point in time)
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  Yeah, I guess it really depends on what your standards are. It's certainly getting better but I have trouble imagining anyone would consider this a good solution. At minimum, if this was what pirates had to resort to, then I would think the DRM has done it's job, in that it very significantly degraded video quality for the pirates.
sudosysgen 2y ago
Modern dedicated cameras have far more dynamic range than any HDR TV in practice. The movies have to be recorded somehow :)
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  > The movies have to be recorded somehow :) I'd imagine they do this via huge (non-consumer level) cameras as well as by professional editors and graders who spend countless hours on the process. But that doesn't really contradict your point. I don't know. I've never seen a good screen recording but I don't download pirated films so perhaps I've never seen an instance of someone really trying to get it right.
  - sudosysgen 2y ago
    The cameras you can buy used for a couple thousand dollars have essentially the same sensors as huge cinema cameras, if not better in this application assuming you'll take stills. Professional editors and color graders have to lower the dynamic range, because there is basically nothing that can get as bright as, say, the sun, and because basically no display can sustain peak brightness over the screen, which introduces an EOTF transfer curves, reducing the peak brightness and thus dynamic range. You're right about pirated films, but that's because they're typically recorded in a run of the mill cinema while it's playing, not in controlled conditions in front of a carefully calibrated screen-camera combination taking a photograph of every frame.
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    My A7C II ($2000-class mirrorless) has a sensor with far more range than any monitor I've ever been able to afford.
kuschku 2y ago
You'd think so, but I've already run into a situation where DRM broke our screen capture for a live talk recording and I simply set up a camera to record the screen. With a little bit of work (display a few calibration targets and build a quick and dirty LUT to match your display) you can get really convincing results.
- 3eb7988a1663 2y ago
  It was good enough for the moon landing. The video feed from Apollo 11 was some special format that was specially decoded onto a particular monitor. There was a camera pointed at the screen to rebroadcast the feed globally.

jdietrich 2y ago

Once upon a time, this was how all video-to-film transfers worked. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope

loeg 2y ago
Also called Telecine (or at least, a very related process), as in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying)#Piracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine_(copying)#Piracy

anfilt 2y ago

Probably would be better carefully tap into the signal lines to the LCD panel, and record and decode that data to then make a video. However if we assume that even the cable going to the panel is encrypted and the board on the panel is decrypting it. (although I have never messed with a panel like that). However it still has to got to drive the rows and columns of the display, so then data to column and row drivers is still in the open. If we were to even assume the Column/Row drivers chips only accepted encrypted data they still have the individual traces coming out of them. The pitch of the traces is super tiny, but still possible to tap, but would be a massive pain, but still do able. Although you can get devices that strip the encryption from an HDMI signal these days so it's kinda moot. So it's not exactly something anyone would need to do these days.

rustcleaner 2y ago

This works for me! Nobody needs more than 480i anyhow.

FMecha 2y ago

Except Cinavia, which worked on audio level, exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia Although it can only trip on certain devices or media players (mainly Blu-ray players, including PS3 onwards), I did read an idea that suggested Cinavia being placed inside an OS's kernel in a secure enclave to make it system-wide.