Companies behind AACS look into HD DVD hack

02 Jan 07 18:39 by Seán Byrne in category Uncategorized To news archive

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Out of putting a lot of effort into the next generation DVD anti-piracy technology, the last thing the movie studios needed was to see it ruined like DVD’s CSS. Now that a hacker publicly known as Muslix64 made a tool available to decrypt several popular HD DVD titles along with a YouTube video showing a ripped & decrypted HD DVD title playing back, the companies behind the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) technology used to encrypt HD DVD titles is looking into this. To make matters worse, the hacker has promised to post an updated HD DVD decrypting tool to handle a wide range of HD DVD titles. A spokesman for one of AACS’ companies mentioned they are aware of this and are looking into the claims, but will not give any further details at this time.

The movie studios see this hack as a serious threat to HD DVD sales at this early stage, since as consumers move from DVD to HD DVD, they could potentially grab illegally copied HD DVD titles instead of officially released titles. However, while this may appear to give Blu-ray an advantage for the studios, Blu-ray also uses this same AACS to protect its titles, although it does have the advantage of an extra layer of software based copy protection known as BD+.

For consumers who like to be able to back-up movie titles, play them on a digital monitor without the infamous HDCP compliance requirement or at least rip them on to their PC to play around the home and on portable devices (including cases where managed-copy would not allow), this may help push consumers into choosing HD DVD over Blu-ray. For example, some consumers may have hardware and a monitor more than capable of playing back high definition content at up to 1080P, but very few consumers have HDCP compliant monitors and graphics adaptors. This means that if a HD DVD hack is available, consumers would be more tempted to use the hack to watch HD DVD titles on their existing hardware than to replace their monitor and graphics card just to be able to install a Blu-ray drive to play Blu-ray titles (assuming Blu-ray manages to stay resistant to this attack).

11 Comments

agomes: Posts: 1232; Posted on: 02 Jan 07 19:14

You touched the right point: "some consumers may have hardware and a monitor more than capable of playing back high definition content at up to 1080P, but very few consumers have HDCP compliant monitors and graphics adaptors" It just doesn't make sense that to protect copyrights we are forced to buy the discs "plus" hardware we don't need...this will keep a lot of people away from the discs and attrack also some people to any working hack that allow HD on the good working stuff they own (cards and screens). My only reason for concern is if they prevent the use of HD for non-protected material, like my home videos...and up to now there is no clear indication about it.

Lord KiRon: Posts: 257; Posted on: 02 Jan 07 19:59

If they smart enough they will not fix the hack since it will help HD-DVD win the market and fix it later in about 1/2-1 year from now. But they are stupid ...

Ranmacanada: Posts: 290; Posted on: 02 Jan 07 20:09

Just remember under the new regeime you are a criminal if you want to do anything with the products you buy. Have a song playing in the background of your youtube video, you are a crook. Use video clips from a show to use for a presentation, you are a crook. Pay for a cd and have it destroyed in a natural disaster, then download the songs off of allofmp3.com, you are a crook. We have to get these corporations out of the politicians wallets. The more that they buy their votes, the less rights we the consumers have. Let the hack stay, I would love to be able to backup any HD DVD moves. No fricking way am I paying 50 bux a movie and having to replace it cause my nieces decided to leave it on the floor and get it scratched to crap!~

Tru: Posts: 1494; Posted on: 02 Jan 07 21:07

"The movie studios see this hack as a serious threat to HD DVD sales ..." The movie studios don't get it. I believe quite the opposite is true: As soon as people realise that they can copy HD-DVDs from the neighbour or the rental store, or can create DVDs from the HD material, or can copy it to their iPods, they will buy players. The more people buy players, the cheaper they will get. The cheaper they are, more people will buy them. Now we have a broad base of players. Of course a lot of movies will be copied illegally. But everyone buying a player will at least buy 1-5 original discs, probably even more. Discs which would have never been sold if people were *not* able to make copies. Remember the success of standard DVDs? They really became popular *after* they could be copied. Yes, a lot of DVDs are copied. But *a lot less* DVDs would be sold today if people were not able to do what they want with them.

Tru: Posts: 1494; Posted on: 02 Jan 07 21:11

"This means that if a HD DVD hack is available, consumers would be more tempted to use the hack to watch HD DVD titles on their existing hardware than to replace their monitor and graphics card just to be able to install a Blu-ray drive to play Blu-ray titles (assuming Blu-ray manages to stay resistant to this attack)." Yes, it is very simple: HD-DVD is region free, Blu-Ray is not. HD-DVD can be watched on non HDCP hardware, Blu-Ray cannot. HD-DVD can be copied to my Home Theatre PC or media server; Blu-Ray cannot. HD-DVD can be copied to DVD (with AACS hacked) Blu-ray cannot. Regardless if Blu-ray is better, bigger, faster, larger - my money goes to HD-DVD.

btspm: Posts: 611; Posted on: 02 Jan 07 22:23

The main race isn't between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, it's between next gen DVD and current DVDs. The digital storage format and interactivity of DVD gave it a clear leg up over VHS. There is no such silver bullet for the Hi-Def formats. The longer the two formats fight, the more likely that their victory will be Pyrrhic.