Avatar Blu-Ray DRM Issues 376
geekd writes "Once again, DRM only hurts legit content purchasers: 'An unusual glitch has angered some Avatar Blu-ray owners. For these unlucky people, since the disc won't play on their Blu-ray players, their new Avatar DVD serves no real purpose other than to sit idly on the coffee table. ... It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM (digital rights management). ... Even with updated firmware, a lot of Blu-ray players weren't prepared for these security measures. Despite the security problems, bootleggers are having a field day. Pirated copies of Avatar, according to Los Angeles Times, were available as early as January.'"
Reader Murpster adds that this problem isn't specific to the Blu-ray version: "Got a regular Avatar DVD and it won't play on either of my DVD players. It will play on one computer DVD drive, if I want to watch it on a 12-inch screen."
DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Everytime they shoot themselves in the foot like this, public awareness and knowledge of DRM goes up. Even though the consumers are being hurt by this, it will make them realize that it's not always as easy as "buy, own, use however I want" anymore -- word of mouth is a powerful force in this industry.
And right now, the word is... fail.
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Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Does spending a certain amount of money on a movie give you the right to sell a copy of the movie to anyone but only allow a subset of those people to view the movie they have bought?
Sadly (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. (Score:3, Interesting)
Avatar plays fine on my PS3. Looks fabulous. (I blogged about the movie here [fyngyrz.com].) Still not clear why anyone would buy a Bluray player other than a PS3. Horsepower (and therefore loading speed), up-to-date-ness, ability to play games, music, etc... just can't see why you'd want something else. We've got a lot of Bluray titles. They all play flawlessly on the PS3. If I buy a new Bluray tomorrow, I've every reason to think it'll play just fine, too. Sony's been 100% on the ball for us. If my PS3 were to break,
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DRM is basically "Pay and pray".
Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Pay and pray that they do not alter it further?
Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)
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My copy of Avatar works fine. I bought it in 2001 when it was called Disney's Pocahontas.
Re:DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm increasingly convinced that "consumers" do not associate DRM problems with DRM itself -- rather, they view it as one manufacturer's problem, or even just a flaw in the DVD mastering. When the same DVD plays perfectly on another DVD player, that just "validates" that the DVD player was at fault, not the DRM.
As such, wide-scale problems like this aren't viewed as *DRM problems*, just a DVD player problem.
Terms like DRM are thrown around, but I don't see them sticking in the minds of most consumers. It's just another 3-letter-acronym that tech people like to use so much.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm increasingly convinced that "consumers" do not associate DRM problems with DRM itself -- rather, they view it as one manufacturer's problem, or even just a flaw in the DVD mastering. When the same DVD plays perfectly on another DVD player, that just "validates" that the DVD player was at fault, not the DRM.
As such, wide-scale problems like this aren't viewed as *DRM problems*, just a DVD player problem.
Terms like DRM are thrown around, but I don't see them sticking in the minds of most consumers. It's just another 3-letter-acronym that tech people like to use so much.
I disagree completely. DRM does stick in the mind of consumers in a case like this, and they do not blame the players, but do blame the disc.
As soon as one disc doesn't work, they stick another disc in to see if it works. When the previously owned disc works just fine, and the new one does not, they blame the new disc. I imagine quite a few get upset, return the disc in exchange for another just like it. Then they get frustrated when two in a row don't work, call their IT Guy/Friend/Teenager and ask why. I/they explain DRM to them, how they must wait for an update to come out to play the disc, and nobody is happy.
Even if they ask "do I need to buy a new player?" The best answer I have is "Who knows? A new one might have a better firmware, might not."
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Sure they do, they go ask an IT guy at work. We politely tell them what happened and that they can either spend lots of money to replace their player,rip the disc or find it online in the usual places. What they do is up to them.
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Is she giving you that look now? Does she have a "Oh now he's going to bash Apple for some unrelated reason" look?
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till I'm blue in the face
Did you audition for Avatar?
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Just call it "copy protection" when you talk to average Joes.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
If I could magically cad-cam-3d-print-replicate a car I would without a second thought.
So would every bible-thumping person on the planet.
Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)
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Indeed. I have filed suit against my son, because his body is currently busy fabricating copies of fully half the characteristics encoded in MY genome, which I am sure all slashdotters would agree, belongs to ME. I have compiled extensive photographic evidence that he looks like me as a child, and won't even get into how he is infringing on my few areas of talent by displaying equal or even more aptitude in them.
My wife is also named in the suit for using her wiles to obtain this genetic information for h
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever this does - it will essentially make it a PR win for the downloadable non-DRM-infected versions.
But of course - the movie industry will be VERY silent about problems caused by DRM.
It only takes one way to crack an encryption and the content is out of the box - and every player does contain means to decode the encrypted content. As soon as somebody is able to go into it a non-DRM version of a movie will appear, and it will also miss the hated copyright warnings that is pestering us to death.
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But of course - the movie industry will be VERY silent about problems caused by DRM.
Don't underestimate them. They will likely find a way to blame pirates. "If the movie hadn't been pirated for months before it was released on DVD, then DRM wouldn't be needed and these problems could be avoided" . This is exactly the type of marketing doublespeak that I would expect, with the hope of deflecting the blame from their own incompetent asses.
Didn't anyone actually try playing the master disks in a couple dif
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
he problem with calling it "doublespeak" is that it's true.
No, it is false. DRM doesn't stop pirating, and they know this. If anything, DRM *causes* more piracy than it prevents.
1. DRM doesn't stop people from making bit for bit copies of the disks and selling them.
2. DRM has never prevented any movie from being released to bittorrent.
3. DRM on movies or games seldom slows down the release of pirated versions by more than one hour, or one day.
4. DRM *does* force legitimate buyers to sometimes seek an unencumbered version, to use it the way they want to use it.
5. DRM is about control, not piracy.
6. Profit! If you live in zone 1, you can't buy and use DVDs in less expensive zones. They use DRM to make more money by controlling when and where you buy the copy.
In this case, the only way the people who bought Avatar on DVD and Bluray can watch it, is to download a copy, effectively making them pirates because the manufacturer sold them a defective copy, since it won't play on all players.
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If piracy was as bad as they claim though, every movie, music and software company would've been out of business years ago.
I think your key word "rampant" needs to be quantified...
Re:DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
I tend to think of it as lost revenue. Because of this issue, people could be forced to return the BD+. Then some percentage of them will download it as opposed to wait for the problem to get fixed.
Hell, the people who ripped it and uploaded it may already returned it, claiming to have been affected (people who rip and upload movies not being well-known for honesty concerning disk purchases).
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Except that the people who ripped it and uploaded it did so in January.
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Except that the people who ripped it and uploaded it did so in January.
No they didn't. That part of the summary is misleading. The stuff available back then was either recorded off the screen with a video camera - some pirates use high-def cameras so those recordings can look pretty good - or it was a rip of a DVD released in region 5 where bootlegging has actually forced the studios to release barebones DVDs early and for relatively cheap (a couple of dollars which is still a lot more than the bootlegs but a lot cheaper than what they used to price at).
Either way blurays we
Re:DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
I never went to the theaters, I don't need to be a part of that much of a circus. I had an (impressively good quality) screener a few days after it was out and that sold me on getting the bluray when it came out.
I bought it the day it was released, but found that I was unable to feed it to my playstation because the BD+ DRM was too new for my ripper to support. The solution of course was to find the appropriate torrent and download the unprotected MKV file. Ahh 1080p on the 53" is nice. My laptop doesn't have the muscle to decode and scale down 1080p on the fly at that bitrate (the mkv is 19gb) so I transcoded it down to a more reasonable 720p so I can watch it on my computer when I feel like it.
See what's wrong with all this, all you hollywood people? The only reason I am having anywhere near the experience I want with your product is because the pirates are delivering me a better product than you are. Figure it out. I just happen to be one of the people that supports you despite your insulting business methods. You have very little right to complain about the other % of us that just cut you completely out of the picture.
Interestingly enough, I haven't even bothered to put the bluray in the PS3, so I don't even know if it will play properly. It was only out of its case long enough to rip (43gb?) to hard drive in a vane attempt to transcode. Nice touch including the DVD, and the coupon for a discount on a bluray player, interesting angle to get people to get a bluray player.
Troubles with the plot (Score:5, Insightful)
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Like the plot was only thing in a moving picture.
Not to mention that it wasn't the plot that sucked, but the cheesy lines full of clichés, the weak portrayal of groups of characters, and Sam Worthnothington.
When you troll an otherwise good film, at least do it right.
Re:Troubles with the plot (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever can you mean? How could you not love "Dances with Smurfs"?
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Whatever can you mean? How could you not love "Dances with Smurfs"?
Stop trash talking Ferngully In Space. Sure, it was Pocahontas with Mechas, but hey! Everyone loves the last alien Samurai.
Don't buy blu-ray. (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't worth the price premium when you can't backup and it won't play without more tools to prevent you from backing up or even watching it.
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Price premium = $2 more at Target.
LOL!!!
Nice try though!!! Keep playing!!!
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That and the player itself. Not insignificant.
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My player was $99 (the same as my first DVD player) and it also does Netflix streaming. Maybe not insignificant, but pretty reasonable. I've found that I use the streaming way more than actual discs. I have had one disc (Ponyo) give me trouble due to firmware issues, which I ended up downloading & watching in Japanese with subtitles instead - good for the kids' reading!
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Re:Don't buy blu-ray. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually the ripping tools work fine on it, and it the only way I could watch my legal shop-bought copy of Avatar was to rip it to disk and watch it from there, so they've failed completely.
Re:Don't buy blu-ray. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the thing we need to get through to the content producers.
Once the movie or game has been ripped and put on a torrent site, the ONLY people who encounter DRM are your customers. It's vaguely like having a security checkpoint at a concert with no fences. All of the people who are legitimately standing in line for hours and giving money will be inconvenienced, and all of the people you're trying to keep out will just walk right in. By definition, you're only stopping legitimate customers to verify that they're legitimate customers. Or, in this case, absolutely everyone the DRM is catching and rejecting is by definition a legitimate customer. Otherwise, they wouldn't encounter the DRM, and they wouldn't be rejected.
actually, I can back it up (Score:2)
I buy Blu-ray because I can rip the movies and transcode them. Including Avatar.
Try that with streaming or other DRM-laden options.
And the price premium is almost 0 for this movie. It was $19.99 at all major stores including Amazon, and you get a copy of the Blu-ray and the DVD for that price!
For the record, I didn't buy this movie. But if I did want it, I wouldn't have hesitated at all.
That's not a bug, that's a feature (Score:5, Funny)
Because when only criminals can watch movies, then ... er ... all the children will have guns. Or something.
Re:That's not a bug, that's a feature (Score:5, Insightful)
When only criminals can watch movies then everyone will know how to hack their way into watching a movie they bought with their hard earned money.
If DRM needs to be bypassed it will be bypassed.
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DRM will always need to be bypassed as long as it exist.
The people responsible for the DRM are hoping that this need won't apply to the average consumer, who doesn't want to make backups, to utilize their fair use rights on the movie, or to play it on Linux. And while I feel bad for everyone that got fucked up by the DRM now, I'm happy that they failed to make it seemingly unobtrusive. If DRM issues were more widespread, the DRM would slowly die and stop breaking it for us, the minority who are crazy enough
Already cracked. (Score:5, Informative)
Digital Restrictions Management (Score:5, Insightful)
the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM (digital rights management).
What's ironic about that? If you had expanded the acronym correctly, you would probably understand that it's just consequential.
Re:Digital Restrictions Management (Score:5, Funny)
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Ironic, you know, like rain on your wedding day.
I'm glad we can all keep on making fun of that song, even 16 years later...
It's a little too ironic...
Re:Digital Restrictions Management (Score:5, Funny)
And what's ironic about rain on your wedding day?
Its totally ironic if your parents arranged the marriage with a neighboring family in order to get access to their water rights in a drought-stricken land.
No matter (Score:5, Insightful)
This was a bare-bones release anyway. I'm waiting for the double-dip release which will inevitably contain a metric assload of extras. I have no desire to watch the movie again (although I did enjoy it strictly from an entertainment point of view)...I do, however, have great interest in watching any making-of featurettes that may be included.
DRM issues or no, I'm steering clear of this release.
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Yeah, I got the release and I'll probably buy the double/triple dip version when it comes out. I will admit though, that the mastering is quite good and the bitrate is
Re:No matter (Score:5, Insightful)
I do, however, have great interest in watching any making-of featurettes that may be included.
They did it on a computer.
Re:No matter (Score:5, Funny)
LOL, that's pretty much what my fiancee said :-)
"Why would I want to sit there for six hours watching overweight bearded guys talk about where on the screen they clicked with a mouse?"
Re:No matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, though, modern "Making Ofs" are all the same.
Whereas the late 70s and 80s are actually interesting, because they had to do things. The "Making Ofs" for Tron and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, regardless of your opinions on the movies themselves, are actually interesting because they faced challenges that normal people could understand and met them with answers normal people can understand.
In fact, a really technical "making of" of Avatar might be really interesting to us, but because the "making of" will be targeted at people in general, it is unlikely to have more than a few seconds of really interesting technical content, because people in general do not understanding complex computer graphics issues. (Nor should they have to.) All they can say is "They made it with computers. Here, here's some shots of rotating computer models."
Tron 2 and the latest Star Trek movie are, of course, "They made it on a computer."
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Did they patent it yet then?
Re:No matter (Score:5, Informative)
"This is not from the master. This is from an analogue print"
Mods, the parent is bull-shitting. I own an Avatar blu-ray and the audio and video quality is outstanding. In the latimes interview, James Cameron even stated that he wanted to use all the available space in the disk just for the movie to ensure highest possible bit-rate
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In the latimes interview, James Cameron even stated that
I'm not arguing the factual merits of your claims, but I'd like to remind you that what showbiz people say in interviews can be pure utter bullshit designed to enhance shareholder value. They'll tell you they're very faithful to the source material, they'll tell you their tech is revolutionary, they'll say ANYTHING to get you to fork over some money. Anything. Grains of salt are mandatory.
your opinion is not a consensus one (Score:5, Interesting)
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2915/avatar.html [highdefdigest.com]
'As for its other image quality attributes, this 'Avatar' Blu-ray is, frankly, perfect. I can find nothing at all wrong with it. The digital video picture is razor sharp and has enormous amount of fine object detail that puts the comparable DVD to shame. There is absolutely no grain or noise in any shot. Nor are there any digital processing artifacts such as artificial sharpening, Digital Noise Reduction, or compression flaws. The vibrant, vibrant, vibrant colors are stunningly beautiful. Cameron uses colors in 'Avatar' that you just don't see in other movies. The contrast range has solid blacks and excellent shadow detail. For a 2-D image, the picture has a terrific sense of depth. Really, this is the best-looking demo material yet released on Blu-ray, regardless of which aspect ratio you watch it in. I'd give it 6 stars if I could. '
The DVD I bought (Score:3, Insightful)
I still haven't bought in to blu-ray though so I can't speak to that.
Also from the op... 12 inch screen... a 23 inch 1080p monitor is like 150 bucks, come on.
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Yeah, 12 inch screen? Lame.
Definitely lame. Don't you know that 9.7 inches is the size of the week [apple.com]?
Re:The DVD I bought (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, 12 inch screen? Lame.
Mine is larger. Otherwise, blue pill helps.
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Blue Pill? I was only offered the red or green one. Dang, I got ripped off.
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WTF LOL 12 INCHES. Hell the 24' monitors have a higher resolution than any hd tv
I imagine that when the screen size breaches twenty feet you need a lot more resolution to keep the pixel size down.
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I'd love to be able to afford 24 ft. wide monitor.
pirates provide better product (Score:5, Insightful)
Warning Requires Constant Internet Connection (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
In reality, the disc works fine; the problem stems from the Blu-ray players themselves. In order to run optimally, the firmware for these fancy Blu-ray machines needs to be updated regularly via a download from the Web. ...
If a Blu-ray player owner doesn't have a home Internet connection, the chances are good the player's firmware will be out of date.
Wow, this is cringe-worthy. I mean, Blu-ray quality is so awesome, it needs a connection to the internet! Did someone from Ubisoft work on the blu-ray spec, or was it the other way around?
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Where on Earth (or even Pandora) does it say you need a constant internet connection? They were just implying it has to be downloaded regularly for updates, not constantly.
Consequence of copy protection; is a fail (Score:4, Informative)
FTA:
In reality, the disc works fine; the problem stems from the Blu-ray players themselves. In order to run optimally, the firmware for these fancy Blu-ray machines needs to be updated regularly via a download from the Web.
Of course they need this, to try and avoid the problems with older DVD encryption that had to store the keys on the disk and the player.
Hence easily broken.
Still, it's a bit of stretch to think that everyone who has a Blueray DVD, (especially a stand-alone one), will be able to keep it updated via the tubes.
As always, DRM punishes the honest customers, and is busted fast by the hackers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy [wikipedia.org]
Re:Consequence of copy protection; is a fail (Score:5, Informative)
To make matters worse, the first few generations of Blu-ray players don't have any network connection at all.
BD+ issues (Score:2)
Yeah, I ran into issues. Played fine on my PS3, but didn't on my blu-ray equipped HTPC.
Turns out it was BD+ - the Arcsoft folks issued a patch the next day and it worked perfectly.
But those with older players also had BD+ issues and many a firmware update is reuqired to fix it.
BD+... now why did we let Blu-Ray win again? HD-DVD had none of this crap... just the leaked AACS key.
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Was the Laser Disk beaten by VHS?
Sometimes failure is just failure.
Take them back (Score:5, Insightful)
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To be fair, they'll exchange it for a closed version of the same movie. Were it a more reputable shop, this would be useful since the store would have to deal with the return to the manufacturer. As each Best Buy has a shrink wrap machine on-site, they'll just wrap it up and stick it back on the shelf.
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To be fair, they'll exchange it for a closed version of the same movie. Were it a more reputable shop, this would be useful since the store would have to deal with the return to the manufacturer. As each Best Buy has a shrink wrap machine on-site, they'll just wrap it up and stick it back on the shelf.
Which is illegal. Its OK to re-shrink-wrap merchandise returned because the customer didn't like it and it is in like-new condition, but re-shrink-wrapping merchandise that is returned because it is defective is illegal in all 50 states. Since BBY and most other stores won't accept returns of opened media for any other reason than it being defective, any store shrink-wrapping DVD returns has a massive legal liability.
Pirated product is actually better! (Score:5, Insightful)
When will the studios ever figure out that the DRM isn't stopping piracy at all, and only hurts the honest customers?
It's a bitter irony that the pirates offer a better product: it will play in any player (no DRM), it probably doesn't force you to watch an "FBI warning", it probably doesn't have a commercial about how evil it is to pirate things, and it probably doesn't have endless trailers for other discs.
And it seems like discs get more and more annoying over time. Now it's not just the FBI warning, but also a studio logo, a distributor logo, a warning that "if you listen to the commentary, the views expressed may not represent the official views of the movie studio", and then finally an annoying long intro sequence (that may contain spoilers) before the menu finally appears to allow you to actually play the movie. The trailers are usually skippable but all the rest are not! You have to put up with this stuff anytime you want to watch the movie! Again, I'm pretty sure that the pirates don't do all this stuff, making the pirated product better.
Once anybody, anywhere in the world, has released an illegal copy of your content, it's all over. No amount of DRM that punishes the honest customers can get that content back once it's on the Internet. Why do they even try?
steveha
Re:Pirated product is actually better! (Score:4, Insightful)
As said xkcd before. pirate this comic : http://xkcd.com/488/ [xkcd.com]
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let me get this strait... (Score:5, Funny)
Due to restrictive policies put in place by the big evil corporation to restrict the power of people who own the material, I can't watch a movie about a big evil corporation who is restricting and stealing from a people who own the material?
Wow. I think I figured out why the natives were blue.
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Oh, please mod parent up, he may be an AC, but he definitely have managed to nail down the irony of the whole farce.
Class Action Suit? (Score:2)
Where are the class action law suits for this crap?!? Isn't it fraud to sell something that you know is broken? Essentially the movie industry selling a plastic and aluminum coaster and billing it as a full length feature film. The only way to make these idiots stop putting DRM on everything is to cause them serious financial pain when they do...
If you own one of these discs call an attorney!
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And some players do not have an update to make this work. Even better will be when they discontinue an old player and you can't play new films on it. Just wait it will happen.
ironically (Score:5, Insightful)
"It appears the main culprit concerning playback issues with Avatar is, ironically, the disc's DRM"
That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Quite right. I think the OP thinks that 'ironically' means 'predictably'.
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The Avatar DVD not playing because of DRM is very much like having ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.
Thanks for the warning. (Score:2)
I won't bother buying it then. I'll wait for it to come on TV. Which, extrapolating from the time it took to go from cinema to DVD, will be about three weeks.
DVD (Score:2)
As to Blu-Ray, only total idiots pay the high prices and allow somebody else to kill your movies. The fact that you might upgrade your player and it PURPOSELY kills your encoding MAKES ZERO SENSE WHY ANYBODY WOULD BUY IT. And if you check the license, it is not only leg
Streaming HD video (Score:3, Interesting)
Case-in-point: DRM on streamed video can be implemented significantly more thoroughly than via physical medium. I wouldn't be surprised if Blu-Ray/DVD releases stopped being the norm and instead people bought streaming rights to a film from a co-op like Hulu, or straight from distributers like Universal/Paramount/etc. They can continue to charge ridiculous fees like $25-$30 per film, with extras, etc. And you get "lifetime" access (lifetime in quotes, of course, because it will never be like that if you never actually own a physical copy) for that price... or they can do things like "rent out" movies (which would put rental houses out of business; precisely what these publishers want, since because of the doctrine of first sale, they don't see any profit from rentals; this would eliminate that completely) for $5 a day or something. They can even sell the extra features separately for a few dollars a piece.
And if they implement the DRM correctly, encrypt the stream itself, and black-box the decryption system (via a TPM-like chip or something along those lines), it's very possible that it will be *extremely difficult* to pirate future content such as movies. They can even somehow embed the user's ID into the stream (via watermark/stegonography; I'm not an expert here so bear with me), so if pirates did manage to grab and release the stream, somehow, they can track down the source and prosecute.
Finally, this system would basically always work. Users wouldn't see the problems they're having right now with DRM, and, on top of that, they won't have a bunch of DVDs/Blu-Rays lying around that they'd have to find room for. Plus they get a searchable catalog and a bunch of other stuff that comes with having a purely digital library.
Not saying it's a good thing, necessarily, just that it's probably inevitable.
What are the DVD problems? (Score:2)
Is it something specific to Windows or to Mac OS X or both, or some weird on-purpose bad titles/tracks numbering? Anyone has more info about the technical side of the problem of the DVD version? And is the problem only on region 1 DVDs?
Insert Witty Subject Here (Score:2)
I feel like I should have a standard "I told you so" post that I paste in for stories like this. Since I don't it's story time.
Yesterday I went to store and tried to buy a copy of the Ironman DVD. They (multinational big box electronics retailer) were all out. WTF? An item with almost zero unit cost and you have none available. I went home.
Based on the standard ~1.3GB of DVD rips it would have taken me less time to download it than to go to the store, 20 minute roundtrip plus browsing time. And I woul
Bought the Blu-Ray and DVD Combo - Both Broken (Score:5, Interesting)
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Are you joking? Computers have no problem playing back video at far higher resolutions than merely 1080P.
Sounds like a problem on your end, not computers in general.
Since I needed time between my postings here is a relevant xkcd comic. http://xkcd.com/732/ [xkcd.com]
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Actually, mediocre decoders (ffmpeg) on mediocre hardware (some Core 2 Duo laptop, for example) will not play high-bitrate/high-complexity scenes properly at all. 1080p H.264 does push today's CPUs quite a bit. This is why you want GPU acceleration. My one-year-old desktop replacement laptop lags through some 1080p streams using just the CPU, but let the GPU do the work through VDPAU and it just breezes through everything. Heck, I have an underpowered HTPC that can play everything without a hitch using one
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I guess I broke the law but the drm was nicely removed. Now if only computers could playback 1080P without choking on their own spit.
They can, you just need software/hardware which works properly (i.e. x.264 GPU offload engine).
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