Macrovision plugs the "digital hole" (1 Viewer)

[John Alderson]

I heard that the new copy protection scheme works by requiring the user to type in a scrambled word that appears at the beginning of each chapter break.

The only way I'll mind is if it fails to work on my 6 year old DV414... I'm sure it'll be cracked before it hits the shelves, and efforts to decrypt DVD's, legitimately or otherwise, will not be slowed. Such is copy protection since the beginning of the digital age...

 

[Eddie Estes]

My take on this DVDs don't need to be backed up is:
The companies and people who have this attitude don't
have little children who love Beauty and the Beast and Alladin. They are pulled from release soon after.
So you have the choices of let the DVDs get scratched up and then either buy them again or in the case of Disney pay 3 or 4 times the original price on Ebay.
I make the copies so I can let my kids watch them and if they scratch the copies up I can pitch them and make more for them to watch.
Bootlegging I am sure is not a priority for most consumers!

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Hm. . .those all played fine in my DV-05. Must be a newer firmware.

And Sony releases about 5 titles per *week,* not per month.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Maybe I wrote it wrong. I meant 5 titles that I may buy each month, 3 of which I will definitely buy.

I know, I'm confusing... too enraged about Sony Anti-play schemes

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Actually, I just realized I wrote it wrong too. . .I never got The Grudge. :b

 

[Michael Osadciw]

Good! I've very tired of people copying DVDs. They look aweful and copying and distributing these discs does hurt the industry no matter how you look at it. DVDs are cheap enough now there is no need to consider copying.

I'm tired of people downloading on peer-sharing programs too...

My biggest fear is the reaction of all studios to curb copying and downloading (music and movies) is stream all media into the homes rather than being able to purchase a physical product in the store (like a CD or DVD).

If that day ever comes I'll blame every one of you copying.

Mike

 

[Pat Frank]

If we end up with streaming and no physical choices, it'll be greed, not piracy, that pave that road. If piracy is hurting the movie business, it sure isn't reflected on the balance sheets of the studios.

What Americans should be leery of is the concept of throwing their rights away purely for entertainment purposes, of all things. The ancient Romans will be laughing at us from their graves.

 

[Brian Kidd]

So I guess the dvd standard can't really be called a standard, now can it? I suppose that means that any licensing fee that is paid to the DVD Forum when I buy a dvd player or dvd software will be returned to me in the form of a nice cashier's check.

Seriously, we can go around and around on this topic but what it comes down to is that 1) any protection scheme can and eventually will be cracked, and 2) any protection scheme that causes lawful users to lose the ability to legally play these discs on whatever legitimate player they possess won't be around for long. The market won't stand for it.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Although it remains to be seen, the only way the copy protection would get removed would be if enough customers couldn't play the new disks.

I can see complaining to XXX studio and getting a reply something like..." This version of copy protection has been tested and works on every DVD player currently on the market.

HINT - buy a new machine!

Glenn

 

[Kelly Grannell]

So my perfectly okay DVD players have to be replaced to accomodate these so-called DVDs?

Must be nice to be able to buy a new machine everytime there is a movie that can't be played on your machine.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

PS: My Yamaha DVD-S5650 is only a year old (bought it when it was first released). I have to buy a new DVD player already? or spend $$$ to ship it to the manufacturer for a firmware upgrade? It's still cheaper for me to back up these anti-play DVD and play the copy. (again, don't ask/PM me how I can copy it)

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I think that's the goal anyway, whether they care to admit it or not and whether it happens in 10 or 50 years time. They wont be happy 'till we're paying every time we watch or listen.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I won't be buying a new player until I fry mine! I guess I have to take the position that if I buy a disk with this new technology and it doesn't work, it'll go back for a store credit and I won't buy any others that are done that way.

It would be nice to know that all of the players out will accept and play them, but I know that as it stands now, some disks just won't work in some players. I hope they know what they're doing.

As for streaming a movie, forget it. I don't do any PPV now, and won't in the future. The revenues that the studios will get will be much lower than they expect.

However, if they do that, then they have the opportunity of wiping out every movie house in the country. Why get up and go out at all? A new movie could come out and only be available on-line. Wouldn't that be weird!? The theaters that are up now now all become 'art' houses.

Glenn

 

[Thomas Newton]

I read that Bringing Up Baby was coming out on DVD, so I went to the store in anticipation. (Aside: I see that it also came out as part of a six-film box set that you can get online for under $50; had I known about that set, I would have been shopping for it.)

When I got to the store, I discovered a strange copy protection logo on the back of the package. There was a circle-with-a-slash, inside of which you could see a white blob connected to a black blob. On the side of the logo, in tiny, tiny print, was a phrase including the words "copy protected".

I have no idea whether this logo refers to the new MacroVision scheme (I've seen at least two other styles of copy protection logos) -- but seeing it was enough to turn an automatic buy-on-sight into a put-it-back-on-the-shelf. (This being Bringing Up Baby, I can't completely rule out the possibility of allowing myself to buy it as a once-a-year-type exception.)

 

[Peter Schorn]

The copies of Clone Wars and I Heart Huckabee's (both Fox) I received yesterday have this wonderful new logo to indicate that the studio considers us thieves.

Copy-protection in software, particularly PC games, is getting worse and worse as some games won't work in certain brands of CD-ROM drives, may not install on a PC with copying software installed or installs a damn near unremovable anti-copy applet that loads into memory and wastes resources, even when you're not playing.

You know how most people are dealing with this punishment of the honest customer? They're downloading these games with the offended anti-copying software already hacked out!!!

The forced trailer junk is getting so ridiculous, I'm including how much crap you've got to wade thru before being able to access the main menu in my reviews, in case any readers aren't in the mood to fast-forward thru 10 minutes of Universal's advertising. My old Pioneer only has a single speed cue/review function - no 100X FFWD for me and that sucks!

When DVDs are being pirated en masse for profit by organized crime syndicates in Eastern Europe and Asia, it makes total sense to inconvenience any NetFlix customers who may get the wrong idea about what they should be doing, right?:rolleyes

And you parents with kids wanting to watch The Little Mermaid a zillion times - spare me the bleating about how you need to make a copy to save the original! If your squalling little brats are so undisciplined that they can't preserve their possessions, then they should either do without (that'll teach 'em a lesson!) or maybe you should by some backup copies to keep on hand. You don't have just one glass glass for each member of your household, do you?!?

(You do know that last paragraph was ironic, don't you? )

 

[RobertDigilio]

I think you meant sarcastic, not ironic, right Peter?

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Peter, that was so funny that I had to break the Kleenex out to wipe my tears off!

Glenn

 

[Brian Kidd]

Peter, I almost crawled through my computer monitor to sock you before I realized you were joking. Good one.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

You can do that...?



Well, if any "improved" "DVDs" don't work an a lot of players, I suppose it's because they don't conform to the DVD standard. If so, I hope we can be notified of the releases in question, so that we can avoid them like the plague.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Oh, I just remember. I tested my Forgotten, LBB and Grudge disc on my dad's old Panasonic DVD-300 (?) he bought in May 1997, they play with no glitch whatsoever.

Is it also possible that today's DVD players' firmwares are programmed worse than those 'oldies' DVD players?