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Last week I setup my new media PC. I made sure to get an internal Blu-Ray drive for it ($100, eat that PS3!), and just finally got it to play my first Blu-Ray disks. Was the drive broken? No. Were the disks scratched? No.
First, the software included with the drive, Cyberlink PowerDVD 9, was the Deluxe version. PowerDVD 9 comes in three flavors: Standard, Deluxe, and Ultra. Ultra is the only one that has Blu-Ray functionality included. Any guess as to which they actually package with the player? That's right, Deluxe. Interesting that a Blu-Ray player would be packaged with software that you have to upgrade immediately in order to use with said drive.
PowerDVD9 Ultra was subsequently... 'acquired'.
The proper software, when loaded and reading the disk, actually gave me an error within the first three seconds. The error said something about not being able to process the contents of the disk. Huh? Alright. After a few searches on the intertoobs I found something wonderfully amazing called HDCP, High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection. Basically, this is hardware implemented anti-piracy scheme used by the ever-paranoid recording industry. This is a three pronged attack against piracy:
1. Devices go through an authentication process, whereby all devices being used to read, transmit, process, and display HD content need to be 'licensed' to perform those actions.
2. The data are encrypted while being transmitted, because obviously digimal piracy involves grabbing bits from the toob that connects the computer to the TV.
3. There are unique keys in these 'licensed' devices that help ensure that compromised devices can't be used. Blah blah blah.
So, what does this mean for me? My Blu-Ray player, graphics card, sound card, HDTV, and probably my AV receiver need to be HDCP certified/licensed/whateverstupidbullshited. I know the graphics processor on the motherboard isn't compliant, neither is the sound card. Hell, I don't know if my TV is even compliant, but that's moot with the rest of the hardware failing the compliance test.
The next piece of information I came across was that there's a program called AnyDVD HD. Running in the background, this software will remove copy protection schemes from any DVD that is playing, so the HDCP never gets initialized. This is a legal program that requires purchasing a license. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this, but I'll move on. I 'acquired' that license and now I can play Blu-Ray disks. Finally.
The recording companies are so damn paranoid about piracy that now I have to buy software to remove copy-protection from my legally purchased Blu-Ray disk, and upgrade the useless software that came with this drive so I can play said disk in my legally purchased Blu-Ray drive, with my legally purchased graphics and audio processors in my motherboard, transmit those data through my legally purchased HDMI cable, so my legally purchased HDTV can display this movie to my legally purchased eyeballs. This is the reason I refuse to pay money for anything that will help these companies get richer.
This just makes me want to pirate media MORE.
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4 comments:
Jesus tap dancing Christ! What a hassle!! Glad you got it working though.
And I don't think TVs need to be compliant. I can watch Blu-Rays on my old and busted TV through my PS3 with no problem.
That's just insane. You're absolutely right. As a consumer, you should have things work 100% out of the box, work as advertised (BluRay drive should read and play BluRay, for example) and not have any kind of hassle like this. The DRM issue is TINY compared to this. By this model, they assume that EVERY legitimate customer is a thief. I'd say their very model is piracy itself. Make you pay above and beyond the sticker price just to legitimately use the products you've rightfully purchased. Makes me mad just thinking about it.
Dave, your old and busted TV isn't HD. You watch it through composite cable, right? Only DVI and HDMI need HDCP shit. Your composite cable is sending a downsampled version of the 1920x1080 resolution from the Blu-Ray, and HDCP only requires encryption when sending true HD signals of 1080i or better. If you get an HDTV, you will have to make sure it's HDCP compliant. I believe there are adapter boxes or cables to provide a work-around for the PS3, but I'll leave that research up to you. :p
The DRM issue is a non-issue in my mind. The pirates out there always seem to be at least two steps ahead of the DRM protections. Blu-Rays have been pirateable for a long time now, you just need to search out some software online. No big deal. The only people that are negatively impacted are the people that want to watch the disks in a legitimate fashion.
Bill is absolutely right, they treated me like a thief, despite me buying all of this shit legally. I feel like I should send them a bill for all the time I wasted trying to get this to work properly.
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