Hackers release Playstation 3 homebrew app to circumvent Cinavia

A Playstation 3 homebrew application developer has released an app that will remove and restore the Cinavia copy protection on Playstation 3 consoles running a custom firmware. The Cinavia removal application is available for Playstation 3's running custom firmware version 3.55, 4.21, 4.46 and 4.50. The download appeared on the PSX-Scene website and is nearly 50 MB.

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Cinavia is a copy protection for Blu-ray that is mandatory on Blu-ray players since 2012. The protection is based on a watermark that is embedded in the audio stream of a Blu-ray movie. Blu-ray players, both hardware and software contain a Cinavia detector that checks for a valid watermark. If not found because e.g. someone tries to playback a backup of a movie, the audio is muted after 20 minutes and a Cinavia message will appear. Recent versions of the protection might also prompt the user to purchase a legitimate version online.

Also the Playstation 3 Blu-ray player contains a Cinavia detector which makes it impossible to playback Blu-ray movie backups on the console. There are some tricks by changing some settings but it continues to be an annoyance for users as a search on Twitter reveals. While the hack is a convenient way to disable the Cinavia protection it will likely only appeal to a limited amount of users as it required a Playstation 3 which allows homebrew software to be run.

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