So much for Blu-ray's & HD-DVD's copyright protection...

[Sephiroth_VII]

German magazine CT have found a pretty simple, yet effective way to copy both HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc media. Although Blu-ray and HD DVD are supposed to be highly secure, using both AACS and HDCP copy protection in order to ensure that you cannot simply copy media from a disc, the German computer magazine CT found a much easier, crude way to get around the copyright protection. It was so simple it must have been overlooked by Sony, Microsoft and other next-generation DVD manufacturers.

The exploit in the copy protection meant that you could copy media using the print screen function on a computer, copying each frame individually. This may seem too crude to actually work but of course you wouldn't sit there pressing print screen manually, it wouldn't take a genius to create a program that would capture each frame using print screen. However, this flaw in the system will be fixed. CT magazine contacted Toshiba in order to notify them of the problem, and later versions of Toshiba's HD-DCD players will protect against this flaw. And Sony - I guess they'll take the hint!
Source (http://ps3.qj.net/Blu-ray-And-HD-DVD-Copy-Protection-Fails/pg/49/aid/58184)

[VG Aficionado]

That would still need the video to be reencoded, which would result in a lower quality copy. Besides, there's little point in obtaining such a good copy since most people actually look for 700 MB files to download and burn them easily. It's just not reasonable for pirates to make illegal HD copies of HD media for the time being.

Anyway, we know that HDCP and its ICT are not really going to be that restrictive until the new HD formats are accepted. Only when these become mandatory and broadband expands, people will start caring about all this.

[Viper]

One thing about digital security....it's only secure until someone breaks it.

[The_One]

One thing about digital security....it's only secure until someone breaks it. That's true for all security, isn't it ;).

[gljvd]

eh , i say 3-4 years after hd-dvd or bluray becomes the standard we will see it hacked and broken . If I recall correctly that is how long it took with dvd .

[The_One]

A "crack" for HDCP/ICT is supposedly already "out there" from what I've heard. I haven't confirmed this myself, but I have heard that a crack to disable ICT has been created by a certain cracker.

[frosty]

ICT isn't even being used yet by blu-ray. And DVD was cracked a lot sooner than that.

[Lekko]

It's not that they really want to make it hack-proof per se, they just want to make it a big enough hassle that most people won't bother to do it. That's more or less how security works.

All forms of passive security can be overcome with an infinite ammount of time and resources, the point it to make the cost of cracking it greater than the cost of just getting it yourself. ($20 for the legal disc, or 2-3 hours of pulling your hair out getting the thing to copy correctly).

I know a LOT of people that would love to copy DVDs, but are completely clueless on how to do it (even though it's really easy now if you look into it). They just won't put up with the hassle of doing it themselves. Hence: it worked.

[nemesis121]

eh , i say 3-4 years after hd-dvd or bluray becomes the standard we will see it hacked and broken . If I recall correctly that is how long it took with dvd .


I say less, hackers are more advance and work in larger groups, and Broadband Internet makes it easier for them to share the result, BD and HD will be hacked in less than a Year.

[frosty]

don't count on it. you can't send 50 GB of data online easily on any connection. You can compress it into a smaller HD format like H.264 or WM9-HD, but then it won't play on any set top player and are forced to watch it on a fast PC. That fact alone will curb 95% of potential piracy. The vast majority of people do not like to watch movies on their PC's.

[venomv]

Size is a huge copy-protection for them (for now anyway), for them to copy it they would need to put it on something, if they don't have blank BD or HD-DVD's (and burners) around it won't be easily do-able, it would fill up most peoples hard-drives way to fast. So people will probably just not do it till the blank disks are cheap. They are better off copying DVD's.

[Domination]

eh , i say 3-4 years after hd-dvd or bluray becomes the standard we will see it hacked and broken . If I recall correctly that is how long it took with dvd .

Even if it was (Blu Ray getting hacked,) since the discs are water marketed, they can be patched instantly. Hense the reason Blu Ray was choosen over HD-DVD by most movie studios.