What is your take on Cinavia copy protection - Page 11

What could Intel possibly have to gain by appeasing Hollywood overlords? The only explanation is that Intel is courting them for some other reason.

Intel have always been at the forefront of bringing hardware based DRM technology to the relatively open PC platform, they just named it differently back in the days ('trusted computing').

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing_Group

They don't produce content, so they must think these features will increase their chip set sales.

Security is part of their overall strategy, they bought McAfee and announced (with no details) that they've developed new hardware antivirus technology. Though DRM isn't the same as security, it might be part of the same thrust.

Their Atom processor has also gotten the design wins for Google TV, so perhaps they are thinking they can build share in that space with this technology.

Seems to me it will be a tricky balancing act for them. Locking out content that people can play on existing Intel chips will only result in driving those folks to AMD when its time to upgrade. And it doesn't seem likely that the content distributors will take a DRM solution that leaves AMD (and older Intel chips) out - at least not when they are distributing content to a traditional PC.

With so many good titles already out on Bluray, without Cinavia, that are worth owning in a private collection, I think the best solution is to only rent Cinavia titles from here on out.

In time, surely it would impact the studios profits and they couldn't say it was because of pirating since Cinavia prevents that. Hoist by their own petard I think they might be.

This Cinavia crap is really out of hand. Did you know that if you record a home movie that happens to pick up some Cinavia-protected audio in the background (say, someone is watching a Blu-ray/DVD in the other room, or if CDs eventually get Cinavia), and you then try to play back your home recording on your Cinavia-protected player, the player will mute the audio and/or halt playback! So much for not affecting the customer who actually purchases the discs!

Every time my LG home theater system gets a firmware update, I immediately come to AVS to check if someone reported it containing Cinavia, and if not, I do my own tests. Luckily, I keep old firmware in the event that I want to go back to a firmware that doesn't contain Cinavia. I wonder if the implementation of Cinavia will be any different for the "home theater in a box" systems with built-in Blu-ray players, than it is with standalone Blu-ray players.

What if the content providers WON'T allow that content on devices without that technology? Then AMD, without that implemented, will be left "out".
This is while Intel would be able to play the non-DRM files too.

It is similar with WDTV Live versus WDTV Live Plus. Only the latter one has hardware DRM and only that one can be used for Netflix and Blockbuster movies.
And of course plays well everything else that is non-DRM.

This is a good reference on the DVD Fab site for the Cinavia issue. A running tab is kept of protected titles and Cinavia enabled players. So far its a Sony show and so far nothing about it's removal.

Sony, Pioneer, Denon and LG all have models listed that are Cinavia enabled. This will come to all players soon as apparently Sony is trying to pressure that it be a required "feature" for any new player to get a BD license.

It is to be a requirement of a BDA license for new players. Media players that have no aspirations to be disk players will have no need for a BDA license and therefore no reason to implement Cinavia.

I don't think it's really been infecting the market enough until recently when the PS3 started supporting it. I suspect while it has been worked on over time, the pace of work on it will increase and it will be cracked, just as every other copy protection has.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the cases start to arise when people realize their home recordings are being infected because they happen to make them when their kids were watching a Cinavia infected DVD/BluRay.

Code can be cracked. Cinavia is not code, it is encoded into the audio. Cracking it would be analogous to removing a logo baked into a jpg. It can't be removed without destroying the source. Defeating it will require a completely different approach than previous DRM. I suspect you're aware of that though. So I'll just say I agree with the sentiment and I hope it gets "cracked" soon too.

I would like to see it gone too, but it's going to take a very long time. It took the DVD Fab guys a long time to completely crack BD+. It has been barely a year that they figured it out completely and released the first version of their SW that included a general BD+ crack for all known disks. They worked on it for a long time. Cinavia is very different. If offers no protection on it's own but is intertwined with the audio stream in such a way that it's simple removal destroys the source. I have a bad feeling that DVD Fab's current "solution" is all we are likely to see for the rest of this year.

There is no way to "crack" Cinavia. What we will see is efforts to re-engineer player firmware to remove it, but still leave other features intact.

This is difficult.

The only other option is to re-engineer or substitute the audio track, which is even more difficult.

The best thing we can do is boycott the Cinavia releases and email Sony telling them WHY we aren't buying that particular release.

You are making the assumption that the No Home Use watermark on theatrical masters is the same as what is being done with authored media, and that the system has no way of knowing the difference between the two...

http://www.verance.com/technology/index.php

I for one have decided not to buy anything Sony anymore, not only because of Cinavia, but I am sick and tired of the constant required firmware update for the PS3, which I only use for Netflix. It seems a new firmware is out every two weeks or so that are mandatory and there is no way for me to access Netlix without upgrading to a newer firmware that has nothing to do with the Netflix app but the increasing measure that Sony wants to implement to have total control on anything we do with PS3. This is getting pretty ridiculous. I will be returning my Sony S570 since the return window has not expired.

It's not just Sony. The reason I scratched the Netgear NTV-550 off my list of media players of interest is because of their stated intent to implement Cinavia in their player as a result of their acquiring a BDA license. Whether or not it happens is irrelevant. Just having the sword hanging over their head (and by inference, any other media player with a BDA license) was enough to dissuade my interest.

It's Sony who started it all, AFIK. But my reason for dumping Sony it just not about Cinavia, but it is what they are doing to the PS3. I just don't trust Sony anymore.

Yeah. That was a factor in my going to the Dune. At least with the Dune, if they implement cinavia, I don't need to update my firmware b/c everything on it works fine now. With the netgear, I think I'd probably need to update.

If Cinavia has to be implemented in both hardware and software, then existing players that do not have the required hardware would be the way to go. If it only requires software implementation then, they can make all new disc unplayable with existing players without a firmware update which will make all existing players Cinavia compliant.

You hit the nail right on the head. The Dune can stand it's ground as-is. Not clear if the Neo ever will before Cinavia.

I don't buy anything Sony any more either, but actually I think it was Warner Brother's "The Losers" that was the first BD release with Cinavia. But since then it has been a total Sony show. Starting with "The Karate Kid", every Sony BD release has Cinavia. All the other studios have been sitting on the fence, watching.

It may sound easier said that done, but the slysoft guys et al only need to put a phantom protection in place to keep cinavia silent...

Trust me, the cinavia is another waste of time...

I found out my PS3, an original 60GB version which I stopped updating at 3.15 in order to retain my ability to run OtherOS has Cinavia.


Out of curiosity I downloaded a version of Social Network to see whether it would activate. Sure enough the streamed mp4 lost audio at around 20 mins with a grey message 3 at the bottom.

What was interesting is what I heard before then.

I had my PS3 attached to a Panasonic XR-59 digital amp via HDMI. When the amp was on I got the audio decoded and fine on the speakers. When I shut down the amp and played it through HDMI pass through of the amp the TV speakers gave a very different soundtrack!

I heard an electronic like pulsing voice on all the dialogue like one might hear on a very compressed voip line, almost like the "weirding" voice on Dune if anyone can remember it. Very electronic. No other real sound was produced.

This was interesting since I believe somehow I was hearing the Cinavia component or watermark here directly!

When the amp went back on the soundtrack was again full. This was repeatable.

I do feel cheated that Sony put this through in 2009 hidden in purpose. I had stopped buying all Sony products a long while ago, and the PS3 was my first in years for its Linux OtherOS feature. Recently I had bought a Sony reader PRS650 because it supported epub and SD cards. I was being optimistic that Sony had seen the light.

Even more recently I had bought a Sony S580 BD player to replace my aging Pioneer 51fd. That player allows streaming and playing of USB attached drives. I put the same mp4 file of the Social Network on a USB stick and renamed it to .mpg so the Sony would see it. The file played through and I have decided to not update it ever again.

I have also made the decision to not buy Cinavia infected media or any more Sony products going back to my embargo of their products.

Finally after reading this thread about linux and makemkv on this thread I unplugged my PS3 from the home theatre and have decided to use this combo of hardware/software exclusively to rip all my BD collection, comprising about 50 discs so far and making them all playable in an instant over my home network.

I had been away from HT for a while, and the other night was irritated no end to find 3 unskippable trailers and piracy warnings on Kingdom of Heaven DVD I had bought a while ago. This is on somethon I bought!

Well I have seen the light and as more people do, I think it spells the worst for the "suits". I have purchased my final disc and I've had enough.

According to the Cinavia thread in DVD Fab, Cinavia in the PS3 came in with FW v3.10 and higher. AFAIK, there is currently no Cinavia removal solution. The only current solution is to generate a protected BD-R from the original disk using DVD Fab which fools the player into thinking you are playing an original disk. This is not fool-proof because not all BD burners are capable of generating a protected BD-R. Also, the solution is pretty PS3 specific since the protected BD-R won't play in most other BD players. As far as streaming media, there is no fix or work-around available. If the rip has Cinavia, it won't play on the PS3 or any other media player that is Cinavia enabled.

The fix is to use a media player that doesn't support Cinavia.

They keep going the wrong direction. It is long past the time where physical media should be dead. I want to browse my collection with a remote not standing in front of a bookshelf. I have a 3 story home with 7 TVs which makes physical media a PITA because it will never be where you want it when you want to view it.

Go ahead and stop the pirates but do it in a way that allows me to buy and play content without discs because I am not buying a single BD. I bought over 600 DVDs and that is my last hurrah with physical media. The only way anyone is making money off of my BD habits is by way of Netflix.

If anything, they are moving further toward the dark side.

Agreed. I bemoaned the time when downloading music became the norm and my CD collection began to collect dust but in the end I'd rather have my music stored on a small external hard drive rather than in boxes in my closet.

That said, I also want a way to back up what I paid for and external hard drives will fail (and thus wipe out my music) far faster than my 15 year old CD's will. The problem, as I see it, is making a way for regular people who just want to back up their music and movie collection and at the same time having a way to deter piracy. Cinavia does the latter but, from everything I've read, makes the former impossible as well. If I can't back up what I've bought and have to hope that my hard drive never breaks down then I don't want anything to do with it....but unfortunately I don't see them scrapping Cinavia anytime soon.