Copy protection hole in Blu-ray and HD DVD movies

Hello guest,: To benefit from all extra features you need to log in or sign up.

07 Jul 06 10:49 by Liggy in category Uncategorized To news archive

Print this page

We all know one of the main reasons for the delayed introduction of next generation optical drives HD-DVD and Blu-ray. It was the copy protection AACS which should ensure an encrypted communication from disc to display.

Now it seems to have been just a waste of time. The German computer magazine c’t discovered that it is possible to use screenshot functions of the player software to record the whole movie when it’s viewed in full screen.

src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1063763752" align=right border=0
> Computer magazine c’t has discovered that the first software players running on Windows XP allow screenshots of the movies to be created in full resolution. To do so, you only need to press the Print key on your keyboard while the movie is running. Such a screenshot function could then be automated to produce copies of HD movies both from Blu-ray Discs and from HD DVDs picture by picture. As c’t calculated, the performance of current PC systems is sufficient for a clean recording using this procedure. Once a pirate has all of the individual pictures, they can be put together to create a complete movie and mixed with the audio track that is grabbed separately.

This copy protection hole affects both Sony’s first Blu-ray PC Vaio VGC-RC 204 and Toshiba’s first HD DVD notebook Qosmio G30. Both of them use special OEM versions of Intervideo’s WinDVD player software.

I think this is very funny. Everyone was curious whether it will be possible to hack the AACS system and now it seems you don’t even have to do this but just record the output of your video player software. But we have to wait whether this function will be disabled with future updates and the key of this version will be withdrawn or not. According to Toshiba, this software version does not violate the AACS license. Read the full story over at Heise Security.

Source: Heise Security

24 Comments

Ivanhoe: Posts: 751; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 12:47

COPPY should be spelt COPY.:B

hajj_3: Posts: 179; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 13:00

good news. hopefully the drives will be out soon for pc so we can get some software that will proper copy it. come on dvdjon and olli, you can do it

Liggy: Posts: 6441; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 13:03

Fixed

Lord KiRon: Posts: 257; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 13:14

Nothing too new, even if the close the screenshoot "hole" somehow the "professioinal" pirate can capture the movie in pure digital form just by hardwaring to input pins of LCD panel (audio probably will be recorded analogue but with given level of quality who cares). As for home users - I bet it will not talke too long untill someone will write some software like Hypershoot or something that takes the images of fullscreen and writes them to let's ay AVI file and this given AACS itself will not be cracken

gammalost: Posts: 34; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 13:51

This has been done before. One of the first apps to rip DVDs called dvd2vcd did the same.

PPeter: Posts: 90; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 14:05

I remember when we did this with a small Visual Basic program and with some early PowerDVD version, the small program did push the screenshot and forward scan buttons repeatedly and the whole movie was saved frame by frame. :B

ConteZero: Posts: 21; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 14:12

AACS has a "per manufcaturer" and a "per reader" copy protection scheme. They can "disable" a player into newer HD-DVD/BD-DVD so the player itself (or the version "affected by the bug") cannot play future movies. Anyway it's just a full load of shit; they are locking down everything...

psychoace: Posts: 351; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 15:18

sounds like a pain in the butt. I mean to keep it in a lossless format (your going to have to compress it in order to make it a mpeg4 again and i would think compressing it into jpg would not be a good thing for quality.) your talking about atleast 1mb per frame and that will add up on your hard drive after 120min's.

ConteZero: Posts: 21; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 15:53

1920x1080x3 = 5,9 MibiBytes. 5,9x30 = 177 MibiBytes. 177x60 = 10 GibiBytes. Uncompressed.

ConteZero: Posts: 21; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 15:59

It means 1,2 TeraBytes for 2 hours of show.

Liggy: Posts: 6441; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 16:24

I'm sure there will be ways to compress this data on the fly. It doesn't have to be MPEG. But I'm sure there are ways to reduce the size.

Crabbyappleton: Posts: 5756; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 16:50

Once the products are mainstream, we will surely see a workaround that is both easy and convenient for blue laser products. The AACS will be defeated. Then, we will read on the Internet where the controls were put in place merely to confound "the casual copier". And that they never intended to stop a determined "pirate". Then we will see Hollywood continue to lobby the government and post harrowing losses due to rampant piracy of their digital masters. Yet, they will continue to sell HD discs through every channel possible as though there is no tomorrow. LOL :B
[edited by Crabbyappleton on 07.07.2006 16:53]

Jagaer: Posts: 40; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 16:55

Off the top of my head, this should work, given enough space on your hard drive(s) With the jpeg's you can create an mjpg (remember that old format, anyone?) From mjpg you *should* be able to convert to mpg, DivX;-) or any other format given a software that can interact with the proper codecs.

psychoace: Posts: 351; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 21:11

With HDTV you are in it for quality and the fact your compressing an image into mjpg which has already been compressed before it reached your tv just to compress again into mpeg4 your going to lose to much quality overall. Also as said before 2terabytes for 1 2 hour movie is not practical.

LastStand: Posts: 321; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 21:26

AACS is easy to beat, just don't buy any discs with AACS protection.

Mordorr: Posts: 874; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 21:32

I love "Holes"!:B

hazel_wu: Posts: 83; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 22:49

movies are 24fps so it should be 5.0 MB x 24 Which means 1 TB for 100 minute movie just for the video. As a comparison, it only takes 150 GB for a 100 minute DVD resolution uncompressed video.

hazel_wu: Posts: 83; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 22:59

I really doubt that the computers today can play HDTV AND compress it on the fly. We could just compress DVD into MPG4 in a shorter-than-movie time not too many years ago. For HDTV, you may need super expensive hardware to compress it on the fly, which, is not realistic for most of us, and the quality will not be as good (more like HD from cable) since there is no fine-tuning done. Copy protection is cracked when we can stream the video digitally, not screen-capture, otherwise it's just better then camcorder method.

robo98989: Posts: 95; Posted on: 07 Jul 06 23:01

I love "Holes"!.... :r lol Umm yeah an uncompressed frame will take way more than 1MB for a blueray movie. To be honest, surprised that no HD rip hasn't been done already of an actual disc (not the crappy cable channel stuff but of actual discs)... Could make some wild quality dvds with this kind of source...

deeznuts: Posts: 31; Posted on: 08 Jul 06 00:09

Does it have to be on the fly in real-time though? I mean we're not trying to watch it and rip it and recompress it at the same time. Just rip and recompressing on the fly I think computers can do. It won't be watchable during the process but it should be afterwards, no?

cas123: Posts: 18; Posted on: 08 Jul 06 01:49

AACS = Another Ass Copy Shit !!! Hollywood is so retarded...

Roj: Posts: 434; Posted on: 08 Jul 06 23:11

Copy protection holes? Good. NOW those formats are fit for consumer use.

0pt1x: Posts: 89; Posted on: 09 Jul 06 08:28

Yeah, I remember hanging out at pcdvd on irc, dvdsoft and oleg's... some smart guy developed PowerRipper(?) to assemble caps from PowerDVD. The audio was recorded seperately with the likes of TotalRecorder then muxed although it did not always sync easily due to the various frame rate possibilites dependent upon source (PAL or NTSC film or video).

peterosesbookie: Posts: 26; Posted on: 11 Jul 06 04:47

If this protection is broken and then reencoded with TS streams (like you see from the air HD) then the movies with be about 50GBs. 720P with full audio is about 15 Gbs. 1080P is about 16 GBs with 384 audio. Now if someone has a program that will rip and encode at the same time. This would be a great. peace out pete

Most popular headlines

Repeat UK file sharers to be banned (2)

Wednesday 28 October 22:56 by Randomus
Piracy

Internet users in the United Kingdom accused of illegally sharing copyrighted music and movie files will face stiff penalties, starting with warning letters that will lead to bandwidth restrictions, according to media reports from the UK.

Nintendo to launch larger screen DSi

Wednesday 28 October 01:35 by Randomus
Game Consoles

Nintendo is expected to launch a new DSi hand-held gaming device in Japan that has a larger screen, as the company tries to increase sales in the hand-held gaming market it once dominated.

T-Mobile offers no contract phone plan

Tuesday 27 October 22:46 by Randomus
Mobile Phones

In an effort to better compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, T-Mobile has introduced new no-contract wireless plans that include unlimited voice services.

2 new Roku boxes launched for Netflix & more

Tuesday 27 October 21:50 by JaredNewman
Online Video

Roku's streaming set-top set-top boxes now come in three flavors, adding new features as well.

See all headlines