The Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD are new data carriers for high-resolution motion pictures. For fear of piracy, Hollywood had the developers install a cornucopia of copy prevention mechanisms on them. For instance, the film data on the disks are protected by means of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Digital output only reaches the monitor via connections encrypted by means of High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). This copy protection chain is designed to ensure that no unencrypted data can be grabbed.
But this security chain has a giant hole. Computer magazine c’t has discovered that the first software players running on Windows XP allow screenshots of the movies to be created in full resolution. To do so, you only need to press the Print key on your keyboard while the movie is running. Such a screenshot function could then be automated to produce copies of HD movies both from Blu-ray Discs and from HD DVDs picture by picture. As c’t calculated, the performance of current PC systems is sufficient for a clean recording using this procedure. Once a pirate has all of the individual pictures, they can be put together to create a complete movie and mixed with the audio track that is grabbed separately.
Bill and Co are probably already scrambling to dump out a windows update that will disable this.
I, for one, would love to hear the good Senator from Alaska explain this.
YET AGAIN!
Technology sees censorship as a bug, and routes around it.
Isn’t insanity trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? DRM doesn’t work. Businesses: Evolve or die.
I’m still wating to see how the HDMI – HDCP fiasco works itself out.
Both standards allow content to be “flagged” so that it will only output HD via a HDCP-authorized connection, which seems to require HDMI.
Xbox360 doesn’t have an HDMI output. The cheaper version of Playstation3 doesn’t have an HDMI output.
How much market-adoption of HDMI-equiped TVs will there need to be before that “feature” is enabled by the studios?
Even with the `Prt Scrn’ key, most users don’t know the feature exists. I would be easier to write a program that samples the video memory at every refresh and mixes it with the soundcard memory and encodes it to a file. Very few computers can keep up with this because of all the other crapware processes that are weighing the processor.
Besides, the complete lack of original ideas and replacing great screenwritings with CGI and other special effects, has become a pretty good deterrant to copying movies.
Holy Moley! As for copying Blu-ray and HD-DVD using print screen…. there’s no way my computer could do that and not drop an excess of frames. I don’t know what kind of rigs pirates would use, but they would have to be top of the line to pull off a gig like that.
I don’t many computers that could pull it off, but it proves the obvious point. Anything you put on a screen or into a pair of speakers can be captured on their way out one way or another, even if you DRM the OS screen connecting device original content and optical drive. You lose to $20 in cables from Radioshack.
How to crack these protective mechanisms:
1. Play the HD film onto a native 1080p HDMI supporting screen.
2. Setup a 16×9 HD 1080p camera on tripod in light controlled room, recording the screen.
3. Press play & record
4. Strip AC3/DTS audio from film – worst case via the discrete analog outputs of your Amplifier
5. Sync & Mux audio & video together.
6. Burn to disk or create MP4 or whatever.
No matter what they do – If a human can see it or hear it it can be recorded (at least until they put a chip in our heads).
Regards,
Shane.
I have said before…
the digital revolution would be MUCH cheaper, if they spent it on Quality instead of security…
Make it cheap enough to afford, and everyone would have one, buy one, and HACKING it wouldn’t be worth the time.
I hope that if there is a real exploit to the Blueray or HD-DVD formats that someone DOES NOT reveal it yet. At this stage in the game, there have been very few players sold, and the exploit could be patched for future players. Let it wait about a year until a substantial number of people have their systems and then release it.
That way, if the only ‘fix’ for the manufacturers is to abandon or break the early systems (like changing the encryption keys), there will be too much public backlash and they won’t be able to enforce it. If the hack were to come out now, they could still reasonably recall the early systems and fix it before it is widely distributed.
While I’m sure there will always be ways around any DRM they come up with, there’s no telling how much more hassle a second exploit might be.
>You lose to $20 in cables
The article is implying that the content is encrypted while going through the cables, so capturing there won’t work.
“The article is implying that the content is encrypted while going through the cables, so capturing there won’t work.”
Its analog.
(Video is being recorded via analog as well).
Until they eliminate the whole analog existance, it will be impossible to fully protect… you can’t hear/see digital.
If you cant hear/see it, then who’s gonna buy it?
Exactly.