What is your take on Cinavia copy protection - Page 3

If I could bypass the warnings and trailers and jump straight to the menu/episode in the movie/tv show where I wanted, I would just buy the Blu- ray changer. I would not bother spending time ripping anything at all. I would also like some decent metadata (especially for tv shows) to find the episode I wanted to watch quickly and easily, like you get with music cd's when you rip them to itunes, for example. Maybe one day, we'll have a changer that will give the consumer a poor man's Kaleidascape experience, without having to rip the disks or pay a small fortune.

Mark.. you get paid meal penalty? In 20+ years, I've yet to. (hazard pay is another issue...)

I agree with all your points... and I'm not an advocate for the "appropriateness" of the technology.. I'm just saying the studios have a right to protect their investment.... if they do so in a way that isn't detrimental to the track, we have to live with it.

(And from a full disclosure point of view, we end up getting an extra day on the stage to do the watermarking process, so both me and my company profit from the technology.)

I can tell you that, in one studio's case, the use of the watermark didn't come from a post exec, etc, but the head of the studio... there is no choice for the film makers doing work for them (and this is one of the majors...)

So we have no choice...

My point is that, in it's current state, I haven't found it to compromise the integrity, either artistically, objectively or subjectively, of the sound track (the early version of the watermark were awful)... if we did, and the film makers felt it was, I'd be up in arms about it.

I'd been in front of the line with the pitch forks...

Im my opinion, and having mixed well over 140+ films, we do more "damage" to the track when we have to squeeze it into a compressed lossy codec like DD or DTS for film playback at lower bit rates..... that is much more audible than this process.

I think we are on the same page..

To the others who say a defeat of the system is coming, it will have to be on the playback side of things... there is no way to remove the watermark in a way that will not damage the quality of the audio... to do that, you would have to have access to the non-watermarked master and re-encode/re-author the disc...

BD+, etc, were encryption solutions.... there hasn't been a system that I can think of where the watermark was embedded inside the content at a fundamental level (Marcrovision rode on top of the video, if I remember correctly, not "inside" of it...)

Until the next time -- queue evil music

It's amazing just how many people feel that way and resent having to be forced to watch promotionals and trailers (aka. advertising). That in a nutshell is the reason I don't even own a BluRay player. I rip all my main titles for instant playback on my media player. I just want to see the movie. Trailers on a recent release that showcase upcoming movies might be interesting the first time you see them, but having to watch them two years later when you want to watch the movie again is supremely annoying. If I buy a CD I can immediately skip to any song I want; If I buy a book I can go to any page any time. Why should buying a video disk be so different.

And so I wonder what they hope to accomplish. The biggest pirates on the planet are the chinese. They basically make all the players and so will simply make players for their people that ignore cinavia. Can you imagine anything easier for them to defeat. Probably the only players that will support it will be those sold in Canada/US and Europe.

I think I'll be disabling the auto update feature on my media player.

That would require a law that states all players sold [in the US] would have to license watermarking detection; including Windows, Android, Chrome OS, Apple OS, etc., as software players are currently available for free that have never heard of Cinavia. That would be difficult. Otherwise, manufacturers of players that implement this tech will only be harming themselves, as consumers who are interested in backing up their discs and HDD based playback will simply opt for players that haven't implemented Cinavia.

That would also hand Verance a monopoly, as I can't imagine studios implementing more than one watermarking tech on the same disc.

Such a law would also have to make it illegal to import players from other countries that do not have such laws.

In lieu of such a law, studios could try implementing a carrot and stick - a legal method of ripping that would suffice for most of what consumers want, which is relatively painless for both consumers and player manufacturers. But to implement this 'studio approved' ripping/storage method, manufacturers would also have to implement Cinavia.

Perhaps this is what Ultraviolet is set to accomplish. But I haven't seen much said about Ultraviolet that includes local storage - they seem to be concentrating on a cloud based solution.

No, not a law. All that is required is for the BluRay Alliance to require Cinavia implementation as a part of obtaining a BD license -- they can stipulate any legal conditions they want to as a requirement of obtaining a license. Can't build and sell a functional BD player without one. Not if you want to decrypt and play commercial disks.

Playing an unprotected BD.m2ts or a main title BD.iso does not require a BD license so the player manufacturer is under no obligation to implement any BD Alliance restrictions. I'm not even sure that BD menu support requires a license, but I suspect not. The media players that may have a problem are those that have a BD license for playback of commercial disks -- the Dune and possibly the Netgear NTV-550. If the BD Alliance requires everyone, including media players, with a BD license to implement Cinavia, then they're screwed.

Hi Kelson,

Although everything you said is true, your discussion is limited to Blu-Ray. I believe the Cinavia concept was intended to extend beyond Blu-Ray.

For a digital medium, like BD, there are better ways to prevent copying. Cinavia is meant to work in the analog world, as well. It would allow a movie that was copied from a theater screen with a camcorder to be protected. To do that, the detection would also have to be inside DVD players as well as BD players. Matter of fact, any computer software capable of playing a camcorder file would need to implement it.

But of course, BD players will dominate, so the BD alliance does have a lot of weight.

Hi Mark,
Yes, I realize it could be used in other places including DVD video. I just used BluRay as the example because this is a media player forum and people seem most concerned with streaming BD over DVD.

Now AFAIK Cinavia is a watermark, not an encryption -- it's purpose is just to be there. A player (hardware or software) does not need to support Cinavia in order to play a video file. So a player maker has no reason or need to include it unless it is a license requirement. Is that not correct?

And remember, at this point, a DVD burn of a BR, or camcorder feed, or ???.... will cause a cease of playback in a Cinavia enable BD 2.0 player, regardless of media format (BD, DVD, file or USB/Flash/Etc..)...

It doesn't need to be on a Blu Ray proper.

In regards to US / Region A, I remember being informed that part of the BD Live/2.0 licensing agreement required Cinavia "awareness" as of 1/1/2010... it has been, unknown to many, in the PS3 since Summer/Fall 2009...

The "Man" is closing in. Slowly but surely.

My personal take on Cinavia is that it does cross a line for me as a consumer. I have always felt that piracy protection measures end up hurting legitimate consumers more than the pirates who will find a way around it.

At the end of the day, we already put up with a lot of crap to playback the content that we rightfully purchased. Non-skippable trailers and promotional messages, warning logos, obnoxious menus with inserted interactive content. Imagine purchasing a new CD and having to listen to 10 minutes of un-skippable garbage every time you put the disc in to listen to it, as well as an iron clad copy system to prevent you from listening to your music how you want... we, as consumers would simply not stand for it.

Remember that the same studios pushing this Cinavia garbage are the same geniuses that backed DIVX, the format where you never owned the disc, and had to have a player that phoned home just to authorize you to play it. Thank god that died, hopefully Cinavia will die a painful death too.

Where this ultimately might be decided is in the Supreme Court, with another big case that pits regular consumers against the studios. They really don't want that because there's a reasonable possibility that all of their draconian "piracy protection" measures would be deemed illegal and they would be told to provide a painless way for a consumer to make a backup copy of their own content. Sadly it will probably be when todays teenagers are in the Supreme Court, in 40+ years before anything like that can happen. By then the studios will have eliminated all physical media and we will all be forced to pay a charge every time we want to watch a film. The idea of owning a high quality copy will have ceased to exist.

Hey, it's all about delivering a complete and authentic movie-going experience. You cannot skip trailers, promos, warnings, or commercials in movie theaters either.

What country is that?

Does Cinavia even apply to media streamers and content servers? I haven't had any issues playing my back up rips that have Cinavia through my PBO.

Only Media players with a license from the BDA would be required to run Cinavia if the BDA made Cinavia a requirement to get the license. So, if you have a media player that plays factory Blu-Ray discs.... then it may be firmware updated in the near future to run Cinavia.

+1
What's even more annoying, is that when you buy a player that supports this, you are actually paying for it!
When we bought any DVD player, we paid Macrovision (even when 6 year olds were burning digital DVD copies, we were still paying Macrovision).
One user here found out a trick to allow 1080p output via (analog) component with the first WD Live firmware, and WD read that and disabled it in the next firmware! At the same time anything can be copied digitally!

Chinese media player/ BD player manufacturers will have a field day with this. More money for them, demand creates supply.

On the other hand, have you seen how those "cam" rips lately are getting better (near "dvdrip" quality)? With cheap HD cameras available, any kid going to the cinema can do the next "scene release". It's a nightmare for the studios, they have to do something...

I'm still amazed that people would watch that crap from a handheld camera. Even if the quality is approaching dvd, it still looks and sounds like crappy.

***sent from my HTC Incredible***

I have a simple solution to this, which the studios probably don't like.

Simply put your studio movie out on torrents in SD-DVD quality with inserted commercials that show you that for $10 you can get the high (BD) quality digital download version from Amazon, iTunes or on physical disc and what all the benefits are (no ads, chapter skips, extra content, etc).

While this would not eliminate the torrent business it would cut into it, and in a way that continues to promote their product.

Maybe then they would be seen less as "greedy evil bastards" and more as a company that is legitimately trying to curb theft of their intellectual property.

They would have to follow the same BDA license requirements as any other manufacturers, would they not?

That would depend on the country that imports the chinese players -- whether they have laws that govern it and are willing to enforce them. The US would not allow chinese players to be sold that violated license agreements. They would be confiscated at the docks. Other countries may have laws that would also protect the license agreement but in todays world economic downturn, they may decide that the cost of enforcing such laws is not worth it to them -- after all, they are not faced with protecting a product of their country.

The US will always be heavy handed in these matters because let's face it, the product produced by hollywood and the media companies is some of the last made-in-america stuff that we can still export to the rest of the world.

In other words, the chances of China Inc. making non-compliant BD players is pretty much nil.

Who says media players need a license from the BDA? Maybe chinese manufacturers of bluray players would need a license but why would a media player that doesn't play blurays?

If the media player plays back BD ISO with menus then it requires a license as far as I know.

So, this could eventually effect players like Dune and PCH (and Netgear) who offer players with full BD menu support.

If you mean chinese players for the US market, then I would say yes. But chinese players made for the mainland chinese masses probably will have no restrictions built in. Pirate DVD and BD are sold on the streets of Beijing for $1 from cart vendors. I think it safe to say that their people will never have to worry about players with Cinavia built in. All of which makes me wonder what they hope to accomplish with Cinavia outside the US.

I could argue with that. To play back commercial BD video disks certainly requires a BDA license to get access to the decryption keys. I don't believe a license is required for BD.iso menu support. The Netgear NTV550 currently does not have a BDA license for playback of commercial BD video disks through an attached BD-ROM drive. However, it has full support for BD menus from unprotected BD.iso rips. This may be an eventual advantage of the NTV550 over the Dune which has a BDA license.

That's kind of what I was thinking too. In the end, I don't really see this affecting media players that don't also play bluray disks, especially if they don't support bluray.iso.

Ah, good point. I was not aware that you could play BD ISO with full menus, etc, without having a license. It makes sense that this is only needed if you are playing commercial BDs with encryption.

Either way, I hope Cinavia tanks in a big way. I hope there are snafus in which batches of new titles come out and don't play properly on players with Cinavia, resulting in consumer backlash.

Long story short, we need to move the ball towards getting the studios to sell us the product we want.... digital downloads that look and sound every bit as good as a BD and can play on any of our devices. At a minimum, don't jack with my purchased BD discs, which pay your salaries ya studio dicks.

I'd be all for digital downloads IF I had the bandwidth to support full bit rate bluray downloads. As it is right now, my download cap is 150GB per month which would be around 4-5 blurays and they would take forever on my 30Mb/s download speed even at full usage.