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MGM and Warner Bros....when will they announce an official distribution deal? (1 Viewer)

jcroy

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I would imagine that the cost of reauthoring and repressing discs would exceed whatever licensing fee there would be for using the existing discs.

I'm thinking of dvd or bluray titles where the original first-released versions had extra basketcase drm encoded on their original releases, while the subsequent repressings/re-releases had no extra basketcase drm at all.

As concrete examples, I have many Sony dvd titles which were widely known to have the Arccos extra basketcase drm on their original first released dvd versions back in the day (circa 2005 -> 2010). For some of these same titles, I also have the repressed (or re-released) dvd versions which had no extra basketcase drm at all. (I found the older original first releases at various goodwills or $2 local dump bins). Stuff like: Stuart Little 3, Resident Evil 2, Stealth, District 9, etc ...

As a prominent example, the James Bond Casino Royale dvd released by Sony in early 2007 was notorious having very nasty extra basketcase drm which made the dvd discs unplayable on many Sony manufactured dvd players. Sony had to do a recall/replacement on this version at the time. Subsequent released dvd versions of Casino Royale had no extra basketcase drm at all.

As an example of minimal "passive" reauthoring, the Fox released bluray version of the non-restored Terminator 1 had the AACS encryption keys updated. The first bluray version of Terminator 1 was released by Sony in 2006, which had the first batch of AACS encryption keys that were cracked very quickly by the doom9 crowd.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I remember a lot of those. The thing today though is that sales numbers are nowhere near being in the same universe as they were then. In the vast majority of cases, for the vast majority of catalog titles, it doesn’t make financial sense to update a disc for “under the hood” type changes. There are of course exceptions to this but it’s a much different world today.
 

jcroy

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I remember a lot of those. The thing today though is that sales numbers are nowhere near being in the same universe as they were then. In the vast majority of cases, for the vast majority of catalog titles, it doesn’t make financial sense to update a disc for “under the hood” type changes. There are of course exceptions to this but it’s a much different world today.

The only exception would be if an update is mandated by the bluray/AACS licensing folks, to more recent AACS mkb encryption keys. The previous Fox released James Bond blurays have older AACS encryption keys which have already been cracked for a decade.

I suspect if Warner/MGM were to re-release the James Bond series with newly manufactured bluray discs, the AACS licensing folks might possibly madate that the current AACS mkb encryption keys have to be used.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I actually doubt that. I’m used to seeing repressings with older keys. It’s gone from being a high volume, high margin business to bring a low volume, low margin business.

We seem to keep going around in circles on this point and I really don’t want to come across as disrespectful or argumentative. I acknowledge all of the technical expertise you’re bringing to this but I don’t think I’m likely to persuade you, nor you likely to persuade me. We’ll one day find out if/when stuff starts being reissued, and I’m happy to agree to disagree until then :)
 

jcroy

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If Warner/MGM does any new pressings of James Bond titles, most likely it will be after "NO Time To Die" is released. No point in doing it sooner, especially when there appears to still be plenty of old Fox manufactured Bond inventory littering wallmart dump bins (both dvd and bluray).

My guess it will likely be a 5-disc Daniel Craig set, which will be a first repressing by Warner/MGM. (Assuming it is not the old Fox 4-disc Daniel Craig set held together with plastic sandwich wrap and masking tape with an individual copy of "No Time To Die").
 

jcroy

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(On an historical tangent).

The only other widely documented case of discs being massively reauthored I can think of offhand, was after the the Sony/BMG rootkit was made public in late 2005. Come 2006, the record companies which were widely using xcp, cactus data shield, mediamax, etc .... basketcase drm, ended up recalling all their "tainted" cd discs and repressing most of them without any drm. (Mostly EMI, Sony, and BMG releases over 2002-2005).



I still have an old 2005 first pressing cd of Coldplay's X&Y album, which had a really nasty variant of the cactus data shield drm which no computer cdr drive could ever rip accurately. Eventually I picked up a later EMI cd pressing which had no drm at all, instead of wasting further effort on the basketcase version.

Previous to that time, I cut my teeth on getting an accurate cd rip of a version of Iron Maiden's 2003 album "Dance Of Death" which had an earlier variant of the cactus data shield drm. (This was where I learned a lot by trial and error about the underlying technical details of cd/dvd drives, and writing my own computer code to directly access the disc sectors. A lot of "under the hood" details which modern ripping programs like EAC, dvd disc rippers, etc ... take into account).
 
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jcroy

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We seem to keep going around in circles on this point and I really don’t want to come across as disrespectful or argumentative. I acknowledge all of the technical expertise you’re bringing to this but I don’t think I’m likely to persuade you, nor you likely to persuade me. We’ll one day find out if/when stuff starts being reissued, and I’m happy to agree to disagree until then :)

I don't have any issues with arguing by technical, factual, or even plausibility type arguments.

Usually I don't engage in discussions/arguments which are driven solely by emotion and irrational impulses, such as politics, etc ...
 

jcroy

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If Warner/MGM does any new pressings of James Bond titles, most likely it will be after "NO Time To Die" is released. No point in doing it sooner, especially when there appears to still be plenty of old Fox manufactured Bond inventory littering wallmart dump bins (both dvd and bluray).

My guess it will likely be a 5-disc Daniel Craig set, which will be a first repressing by Warner/MGM. (Assuming it is not the old Fox 4-disc Daniel Craig set held together with plastic sandwich wrap and masking tape with an individual copy of "No Time To Die").

What's unknown is how much of the old Fox manufactured bluray inventory is still left over for Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre.

Over the past year or so, 4Kbluray versions of these four films were released which all included respective generic bluray copies. Probably an easy way to clear out all the old remaining spindles which have been collecting dust for several years. (Fox manufactured all their blurays at the Cinram/Technicolor disc manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Alabama).
 

jcroy

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With MGM now up for sale it would be good if Warner Bros became the owner of their film library, putting all MGM films under one roof again.

I would be somewhat surprised if this would be Warner's motivation for buying up MGM, unless the C-level suite at AT&T is run by a bunch of hardcore film archivists or historians.
 

ahollis

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Warner’s kicked the tires on a buy about 10 years ago. But I agree with the post above. New owners, new thoughts.
 

jcroy

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I actually doubt that. I’m used to seeing repressings with older keys. It’s gone from being a high volume, high margin business to bring a low volume, low margin business.

(On a tangential precedent).

Fox/MGM titles used the BD+ drm on almost all of their bluray releases over October 2007 to Oct/Nov 2017.


There is a definitive precedent of an older Fox bluray title with the BD+ drm with MKB9 encryption keys, which was repressed with an updated MKB66 encryption keys and WITHOUT any BD+ drm infesting the actual audio/video. The latter is the generic bluray disc which came in the Disney released 4Kbluray/bluray combo pack of "Home Alone", which was released in mid-late 2020.

MKB9 was the then-current aacs keys back in 2009, while the MKB66 keys are reflective of the aacs keys around late-2018/early-2019. This is highly suggestive that Fox's home video divison already knew in late-2018 that the Disney/Fox merger was going to be a done deal, and prepared accordingly for potential re-pressings of older Fox bluray titles.

Apparently this repress of the "Home Alone" bluray disc by Disney, was not reauthored/remastered very well. Fragments of the old BD+ junk files were still present on the disc, but the BD+ drm scrambling was not implemented at all. Whoever did this reauthoring was either really lazy, incompetent, and/or inexperienced.


Disney does not use BD+ at all on their blurays. This might also be suggestive that Disney does not want to pay royalty fees for using BD+ on bluray re-pressings.

With amazon now being the owner of MGM and having a reputation for pinching pennies with extremely efficient cost cutting, I wouldn't be surprised if Warner/MGM's bluray titles end up being re-pressed without any BD+ drm. (ie. After most of the old Fox manufactured inventory is sold out and/or liquidated).
 

jcroy

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It’s more likely that Warner will repress the existing disc rather than reauthor, even if it contain’s another studio’s logo.

(On a technical note).

In the case of dvd discs, I have noticed the set of css encryption keys are actually very specific to a particular disc manufacturing plant. For example, almost all dvd discs manufactured at Technicolor's giant manufacturing facility in Mexico, have been using the exact same sequence of encryption keys. This includes all Disney, Sony (since 2018), Paramount, Universal, Warner (since 2010), etc ... discs manufactured there in the recent past.

In contrast, many of the dvd discs manufactured at Sony's now-defunct disc manufacturing plant in Terre Haute, Indiana, all used the same sequence of encryption keys. (Sony dadc's Terre Haute plant, stopped manufacturing dvds and generic blurays in early 2018). These "dadc Terre Haute" keys are entirely different than the "Technicolor Mexico" keys.


I do have a few dvd titles, where I have an older pressing manufactured at Terre Haute, and also a later pressing made in Mexico. The primary data differences, are in the sequence of css encryption keys used.
 

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