What is your take on Cinavia copy protection - Page 7

Thank you for the update, that's very interesting.

It's no real suprise to me though that not just Netgear is affected, I had assumed that all streamers that qualify / want the BDA licence will have to support Cinavia at some point, as I wrote earlier. Considering the fact that Sigma does most of the actual programming in their SDK, and OEMs (more or less) just modifying things to fit their needs, it's no wonder that Sigma is the real 'target' here. I'm surprised that they have managed to delay Cinavia implementation for so long though, that only speaks for them.

Well, to be honest, not that surprised, considering the fact that Cinavia support basically renders most Sigma chipset devices useless for the vast majority of customers. May Sigma long continue to resist the dark side...

P.S.: As a Neo TV 550 owner, I hope that Netgear stick to their word on this. It's at least encouraging that they are so open about it, that's good policy IMHO.

I guess I just don't understand the product thinking here. Any streamer that wants to be able to attach an external BD drive for playing disks will need a BDA license which will come with Cinavia. That means the streamer will not be able to stream the new titles which will increasingly contain Cinavia. So they will essentially reduce their streamer to a second rate BD player with some network capability. There are already a bunch of first rate BD players with some network capability on the market. I just don't get it. Nobody who wants a serious BD player is going to buy one of these and nobody who wants a BD (or DVD) streamer is going to buy one of these. So who are they making them for?

Maybe they have a lot more faith that the boys from beijing will crack it before it gets too widespread and kills their product.

Currently, none of the Sigma Designs based BDA-licensed products recognize Cinavia. Any title with Cinavia enabled will still play back OK as of today. I will be reaching out to Sigma Designs for comments on this.

That's a good point. I have an Oppo for bluray playback and only want the media player for network streaming. If it can't do that because it has a bluray license and thus cinavia, then it is worthless to me.

Sigma is not the one looking to get a BDA license. The HDIs, PCHs and Netgears are. They are the ones building and selling the product and so they are the ones on the hook to comply with BDA license agreements. Sigma is just a parts supplier. If their customers need Cinavia support in their SDK to meet license obligations, they will supply it or their customers will go elsewhere.

Kelson, I am not quite sure that is how things work. What I understand is that Cinavia needs to be supported by the decoder chip (in the current gen case, the SMP8642). If a product based on 8642 needs a BDA license with Cinavia, it will need it enabled on the 8642 by the Sigma SDK. In order to keep up with licensing requirements, the HDIs and the Netgears will turn to Sigma for SDK support.

If you look at the older BD players, not all of them support Cinavia because the underlying platform / chip doesn't support it.

The more I investigate, the more it looks like the SDK for the 8646 will ship in its very first version with Cinavia enabled (the product brief for the 8646 says that it supports watermark protection, but the one for 8642 doesn't)

That's rather discouraging news for all those guys who are waiting for the 8646. Considering the fact that besides a higher clockrate and performance (rather irrelevant in the streaming context, since the 8642/3 handle Bluray just fine), it doesn't really add any new features, there really is not a lot speaking for the new chipset, let alone a justification to wait for it. Cinavia support now just makes it a no-go.

I do hope however that the even newer, just announced Sigma chips that are supposed to support XBMC are not affected by this. Can't really see an open platform like XBMC supporting Cinavia though, it would be totally against the philosophy of the software.

I think it likely that any player that can access BD's with menu or can access paid streaming services like Netflix will be inflicted with Cinavia. Basically any services the content providers have a stake in will be used as a 'tool' against piracy.

You will then have commercial/mainstream/paid content/high street boxes with Cinavia and non paid-content pure streamers without.

The latter will still exist but they will be denied access to all paid content.

Which won't help the content providers one bit since access to paid content is not necessary to get access to everything you could ever want.

The only answer for content providers is to release a playback product that will play every file, will play it in a more user-friendly way than ever before, and is priced in such a compelling manner that it quickly becomes dominant.

i.e. a C-200 priced at $100, with the full support of all movie studios / TV studios, and providing cheap paid access to all their programming.

It is surely better to have a box connected to every TV that has the option of paid content than to have boxes with no ability to access paid content at all?

Copy protection won't work. Whatever the merits / dismerits of it, piracy cannot be stopped. Just look at the music industry. After 10+ years they still struggle on trying to fight piracy whilst all the power and money has leaked away from them. Had they done something pro-active 10 years ago to put the ability to buy music digitally at a reasonable price in front of consumers, instead of being obstructive, then they would be in a better position now.

Does anyone know whether a BDA license covers the whole "device" or just the Blu-ray playing portion?

On the current Sigma SDK (as used on the PCH C200) disc/folder structure/iso play back is handled by a different "application" to stand alone files (avi, mkv etc.).

What's to stop Sigma implimenting Cinavia in the "discplayer" app but leaving it out of the "fileplayer"?

The Popcorn Hours (A200/C200) have a BD-Lite mode that's based on the fileplayer instead of the discplayer. It allows simple playlist selection from an iso or folder but doesn't have full menu support.

Even if Cinavia is required to cover everything on a BDA licensed device Sigma would be mad to force it on anyone making a pure media streamer.

BD-Lite and mkv with lossless audio and (forced) PGS subtitle support would be enough for me. I'm only interested in movie-only rips.

What all companies who face piracy (movies, music, books etc) have in common is that they are stuck in business models that may have worked for them in previous decades, but now have to be changed.
So, they try to protect their business partners and traditional distribution channels (e.g. video stores for movies, music stores for music, book stores for books), sometimes because they even have shares/own them. Neflix gets the movies 1 month after they are released in Blu-ray (but the whole world can download an illegal digital BD copy when they are released ), expensive ebooks (to protect the book stores), crappy .mp3 legal downloading (instead of flac or other lossless), and the list goes on...

I agree with your statement about business models. The problem however is that to make a radical change to a corporate business model requires vision at the top. Few CEO's today are little more than high paid care-takers who simply steer the ship in the direction that it would go anyway on its own inertia. The number of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are vanishingly small and none of them work for media companies.

Anyway, the DVD Fab boys are hard at work on Cinavia and seem confident they will be able to eventually get the upper hand on it. Hopefully it won't take an excessive amount of PC horsepower to do a disk rip.

By way of introduction: I do not own a single ripped or copied blu-ray title.
But I also do not care to own blu-ray titles with the audio codec corrupted by artificial data and signals. Knowing a particular title has a deficient audio codec will make me think twice about purchasing it. It will go onto the $.99 DVD or $1.50 BD rental list at best. I will lean towards spending my hard earned money on titles that do not include polluted digital audio tracks.
The same goes for blu-ray players. That next new/great blu-ray player announcement that comes with this unnecessary drm chip/code implemented can stay on the shelf. I see no need to purchase newer equipment that incorporates downgrades from my current equipment. Firmware updates will no longer be applied without being scrutinized carefully to avoid downgrading my equipment in the process.
I can't see me sticking to this rule 100% if a title comes out I really want badly, but a whole slew of blind buys, or marginal buying decisions will get dropped if I find they include deficient and defective digital audio codec tracks.
The main message here is: make sure the implementation of this technology results in reduced sales & revenues and poor profits for the industry. Then sit back and let them think about that for a bit.

If only they'd learn that easily...

But you're right, that's basically the only power the consumer has, and it hits the studios there where it hurts most.

Just an aside, the codecs are lossless, and not deficient or defective.

I expect that new Gates / Jobs figures will emerge but it won't be from within existing media companies, it will be from new companies aggressively attacking the status quo from the outside. This is how it's always been. I mean, Bill Gates got where he is by thoroughly shafting IBM then ripping off Apple's GUI..

All hail China, it has been done...

http://forum.dvdfab.com/showthread.php?t=11130

(Actually expected someone else to do it first, as I wrote earlier, but glad to be proven wrong. More power to them!)

Needs to be tested out, to see that it actually works and that it does not noticeably alter the audio track.

Of course. But all the doom and gloom, the end of world drawing near, should be put to rest (again...), at least for now.

Btw., it's news now.

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/DVD...46147.html?x=0

Maybe at some point it will occur to them that the more they tighten their grip, the more revenue is slipping through their fingers.

As someone else said, it will require a fresh new approach from someone outside of the industry to force them to change.

Remember, these clowns running the show now are the same ones who tried to shove DIVX down our throats 10+ yrs ago.

Impressive.

You tell me, I've been saying the same for as long as I can remember. The current business model of the content industry, movies in particular, is simply not compatible with the digital age. Either they learn to adopt and make the best out of the situation, or they're doomed. The music industry already had to learn the hard way.

The hack does not remove Cinavia. It only keeps AACS intact on the burned disc.

I'm just waiting for the inevitable "if a man made it a man can hack it" from someone with 2 posts.
They used to say that about DirecTV and DishNet too...

According to fengtao the next version of DVD Fab will support BDAV structure which will allow main title selection, compression to BD-25 and broader player compatibility (as well as being able to run under something other than Win 7). 98% of DVD Fab's customer base is only interested in burning backups of BDs to disks for BD players and not using media streamers. It remains to be seen whether or not these backups can be played on a Cinavia enabled streamer which, presumably, will be BDA licensed. We'll just have to wait and see and hopefully by the time it becomes an actual nuisance in the streamer space, the DVD Fab boys will have completed their removal strategy.

As you say, this was only the first shot. The guys at Slysoft are now feeling the pressure to fire a salvo that at least matches DVD Fab. Sony is probably really ticked-off right now and I'll bet the other studios are probably patting themselves on the back for not spending any money on Cinavia license fees.

I think it's naive to believe whatever protection it is happens to gets hacked it doesn't have any value (to the studios). I'm sure there are plenty of additional copies sold as the direct result based on...

- The in-between time - the amount of time before normal hacking returns.
- Tire of upgrading - having to spend more for hacking software.
- Tired of it all - Having to play cat and mouse to make copies.
- Reduces available hacking software - Every update invalidates older hacking software. Greatly reduces the potential for hacking.

Also I think it's naive not to think the studios know whatever protection they use will only be effective to a point. Clearly after all of these years they feel the point is well worth it and I'm sure they know the facts a lot better than anyone else.

Remember you don't "own" those discs you have spent thousands of dollars on. Send some studio lawyer over to my place so we can discuss that ownership thing with a pipe wrench. Try telling a guy with $30K worth of LP records that he doesn't own them and can't copy them to his iPod and see how that works out.