Warner Brothers, Intel Begin Futile Legal Assault To Defend Ultra HD And 4K DRM
from the let-the-whac-a-mole-commence! dept
If you’ve recently decided to jump on board the ultra-high-definition (UHD) and 4K TV craze and bought a shiny new UHD set, you’ve probably run into HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) 2.2 by now. It’s the latest version of the entertainment industry’s video copy protection standard designed to secure UHD content. Unfortunately for consumers who rushed out to buy a new 4KTV set, they soon realized that every device in your home theater chain needs to support HDCP 2.2 in order to enjoy UHD.
That means that anybody with a new HDCP 2.2 compliant set also needs to spend money to upgrade their home audio receiver to one that’s HDCP 2.2 compliant, just so the entertainment industry can be provided with a false sense of security for a standard everybody knows will be bypassed in months.
And bypassed it quickly was. Last November copies of most major UHD/4K movies started showing up on BitTorrent. It’s believed that most of these copies were thanks to a Chinese company by the name of LegendSky, which has been selling HDCP 2.2 stripping hardware under the HDFury brand. Variations of these sleek-looking devices start at $200 and sit between HDCP 2.2 compliant devices:
“HDCP plays a critical role in linking consumer electronics devices, personal computers, cable and satellite set-top boxes, and other Digital Devices to allow consumers to access and enjoy digital audiovisual content across a wide array of products, all while effectively protecting the rights of copyright owners and controlling access to copyrighted digital content.
Of course, the only thing HDCP 2.2 “links” is the consumer’s wallet to companies making new HDCP 2.2 compliant home theater components they may or may not actually need. Warner Brothers hopes that it can get HDFury’s gear off the market before the company releases 35 movies on Ultra HD Blu-ray for the first time later this year. But the damage has been done, and it’s only a matter of time before countless more HDCP 2.2 bypassing solutions flood the market, once again highlighting DRM’s incredible ability to do little more than eat money and annoy paying consumers.
Filed Under: 4k tv, anti-circumvention, copy protection, dmca, dmca 1201, drm, hd, hdcp, hdfury, uhd
Companies: digital content protection, intel, legendsky, warner brothers
Comments on “Warner Brothers, Intel Begin Futile Legal Assault To Defend Ultra HD And 4K DRM”
Balderdash
Nonsense, clearly someone at HDFury is a literal genie, which is how they were able to easily bypass the brand new form of DRM, as such a task is well beyond the ability of mere mortals.
As such, if they can shut down HDFury, and somehow prevent the genie from taking up employment elsewhere(perhaps by stuffing him back in a bottle somewhere), that will be the end of any DRM bypassing, until they introduce the next form of even better DRM, which will be even more beyond the ability of mortals to bypass.
Is more necessary or just better to some?
While I can tell the difference between HD and SD on my 42″ 1080P non smart TV set, I just don’t care. The SD is good enough, and much of my collection was shot in SD and will never be available in HD. The size (42″) does matter, depending on how close one sits to the screen.
Is 4K or UHD really that much better, or is it something that will be used to measure geekiness, which will only be effective amongst geeks who care? I know a few geeks who’s high testosterone levels will make them care, but the general marketplace?
It is also a safe assumption that all these new high definition sets will be ‘smart’ and reporting the size of your whatzitz should you walk into the room naked. No thanks to that either.
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
With content made for UHD, there really is a pretty large quality difference, especially on bigger screens. If that’s not something that interests you, then so be it, but it’s not a “geek” thing at all. My wife is the furthest thing from a “geek”, but she loves BD content, and won’t touch SD if she can help it.
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
That all depends on just how big of a television you’re planning on getting.
You alluded to the reason [the main one for most normal people anyway] in your post:
I’m old enough to remember when SD color and 19″ was considered a really big deal. Such a huge television was only suitable for the living room. Nowadays I regularly hear of people putting 40″ class televisions in their bedrooms. 70″+ are common and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see 100″+ televisions become a common sight in living rooms everywhere.
So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
With 1080p and 20″-40″ sets it was a question of how close you had to sit to be able to tell the difference between DVD (480p) and HD (1080p).
With sets approaching or exceeding 100″ and finite room sizes, I think the new question is how high does the resolution need to be (4K, 8K) so that you no longer see the individual pixels on the screen.
That’s my take anyway.
Re: Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
Very likely, yes. It’s easy enough to work out: for a typical living-room viewing distance of 3m (or 10 feet, if you prefer), the optimal diagonal dimension for a 1080p set is 136cm, or 54 inches.
A 4K set would need to double that dimension. Make it smaller, and you’d need to sit closer, not further.
Re: Re: Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
So;
If I have an 8ft high room, I can comfortably fit a 210″ class television (larger if I have a larger room, say 10ft high, though 8ft is common enough) with a typical viewing distance of 10ft, how high would the resolution need to be to not see the pixels from that distance?
If history tells us anything, people won’t get a smaller television, just because they don’t have a big enough house.
Re: Re: Re:2 how high would the resolution need to be
This invocation of the above script:
should give you the answer.
I suspect this is the point where a curved screen would start to show its worth…
Re: Re: Re: So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
Ah, no. It doesn’t matter how small the pixels are, all it matters is how BIG they are. Because you just don’t want to see the pixels.
They can be as small as they want (and, with analogue films, they’re really really tiny, they’re the film grain), and you don’t need to sit any closer because of that.
Of course, there could be more details to be seen if you go to the border where you nearly can see individual pixels, and it makes economical sense not to have pixels so small you can’t discern them anyway, no matter the distance.
So for 136cm diagonal at 3m, 1080p is only “optimal” in the sense that you don’t “waste” any resolution. Lean forward and you’ll see pixels, go backward and the field of view gets smaller.
Re: Re: Re:2 So, just how far away will you have to sit from your gigantic television to stop seeing pixels at 1080p? Is your living room that large?
It doesn’t matter how small the pixels are, all it matters is how BIG they are.
How is that different?
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
Not that I disagree with your main point (I don’t care about the differences either), but movies that predate “HD” were not shot in “SD”. These are digital concepts. Movies that predate digital were shot on actual film, which is naturally hi-def (film is about equivalent to 4k). The home release format (VHS, DVD, etc.) were all low def, but that doesn’t mean the source matter is.
Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
Good point. I suppose I mean ‘collected in’ rather than ‘shot’. Either way, the likelihood that I will re-collect any part of my collection just for a higher resolution is significantly less than the possibility that a satisfactory solution to the copyright and patent debacle will appear in 2016.
Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
I remember thinking that about my VHS tapes.
Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
But you didn’t actually BUY any of the content, you just licensed it, so obviously you should be entitled to a new copy in the most current format BluRay, HD, 4K, Xray, whatever that is.
Since we are only licensing the content, we should be free to format and media shift as desired, it’s not like we actually BOUGHT those movies on VHS, we only licensed the content on that archaic format…
Re: Re: Re:2 Is more necessary or just better to some?
The definitions tend to vary depending on what the **AAs are trying to claim at the time. You want to exercise first sale rights on the content you bought? Sorry, that was only a licence, buy another licence if you want another format, etc. You want to transfer the licence, say by getting a replacement for a DVD that no longer works? Sorry, that was a sale, buy another.
Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
So;
if film == HD
iMax == ???
Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
iMax == lawsuit from Apple for tirade mark infringement.
Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
film == HD
iMax == Larger HD
Film is analog. People seem to have forgotten the concept already.
Re: Re: Re:2 Is more necessary or just better to some?
If we’re being pedantic, what you say is true but IMAX has both film and video projection depending on the system. But, yeah, it’s some form of HD (they’re marketing 4K/8K as Ultra HD, so maybe Hyper HD? Who knows).
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
Geekiness factors eventually go mainstream. I haven’t paid much attention to UHD video content but for gaming there is a big difference in quality if your computer can run it. In a few years time, 1080p will be archaic and UHD will be common. Then the geekiness factor will be the new Super Ultra High Definition and you will need your SUHD3DBDVD player watch movies. Once pixel density gets to the point that you can’t make out the difference, then there won’t be a point to go to a higher resolution.
Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
I’m guessing that after 4k, we’ll have stereoscopic 4k (8k). After that… I’m surprised nobody’s been filming with polarized capture. capture on 3 axes, and you’re up to 48k.
64k should be enough for anyone.
Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
I am keeping my fingers crossed for the day when pixel density is thick enough for me to swim in.
That making it really hard to type.
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
As someone watching on a 120″ projector, SD content needed to die a quick death years ago. Unfortunately, expensive bluray licensing kept that from happening.
But it would be interesting if the content changed with the size of your whatzitz.
Re: Re: Meh. Meh I say.
Most stuff is not a problem in SD. It doesn’t matter what resolution it’s being projected at. It’s just not spectacular enough to warrant the extra storage space and bandwidth that a “better quality” copy would require.
This even goes for a lot of “big screen movies”.
Few films actually benefit from the extra clarity.
…and yes, I do project my B&W reruns from the 50s onto a 120 inch screen.
Re: Re: Re: Meh. Meh I say.
I’m watching movies at a distance of 100cm on a 24″ 1080p screen.
And I can pretty much discern 720p from anything less. I actually sometimes can’t see much difference between 720p and 1080p, but anything below 720p really has a “bad quality” feel.
But then, I’m myopic, and my glasses don’t correct everything, so it’s entirely possible someone with better eyesight would really see a huge difference between 1080p and 720p.
Re: Re: Re:2 Meh. Meh I say.
52″ 1080p screen at approximately 9 feet viewing distance here. I agree, anything less than 720p is noticeably soft, though usually still watchable without being too distracting. MadVR does a pretty good job upsampling.
Heck, I’ll even watch the occasional cam if it’s interesting enough (e.g. The Force Awakens, after seeing it in the theater first which, while fun, reminded me why I don’t go there anymore).
I’ve never seen much of a difference between 720p and 1080p either though, hence why nearly all of my Bluray/HD-DVD rips are 720p. I feel the hard drive space I’ve saved did indeed make it the better choice (around 9.8TB by my estimate).
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
The most visible differences between SD and HD, and likewise HD and UHD, isn’t necessarily in the increase in resolution. It’s the increase in the color space and dynamic range (especially in the case of UHD). And you don’t hear much about that.
SD used NTSC for its color space, HD uses Rec.709, and UHD uses Rec.2020. The difference between 709 and 2020 is huge. UHD can display a LOT more colors than HD can.
The difference is very apparent in good quality UHD displays. Reds and greens are especially much more vibrant. That’s a difference you can see no matter how big or small your TV is, or how far away you are sitting.
Yes, in terms of resolution, you might not see much of a difference based on the size of TV and how far away you are. But the difference in color is pretty astounding. Standard def looks pale and bland compared to HD… and HD looks the same compared to UHD (at least when shown on a TV that handles it properly).
Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
This is true, sadly you only appreciate it on the demo footages where you se a couple of landscapes and animals, movies on the other hand will try to trow the “UHDexperience” right in your face same as HD and 3D making it unbearable. Is like eating a whole truffle by itself, it just doesn’t work.
Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
REC601 (SD) and REC709 (HD) are almost identical. In fact, converting the primary colors between SD and HD formats is rarely done as they’re so close to each other. It’s REC2020 (UHD) that is the BIG shift in color and range.
Re: Re: Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
A noticeable increase in dynamic range would be far more appreciated than a bump in resolution. As good as my 52″ HD television is, I do occasionally notice banding when it’s attempting to display fine gradients, mostly when they’re black and white (e.g. fog). Short of my TV dying, that is probably the only other thing that would make me consider investing in a replacement.
Re: Is more necessary or just better to some?
Imagine if you had to buy $1000 glasses to watch Television, Not television on your glasses. Glasses to decrypt the special visual signal that came out of the TV instead of the video itself. Because "people who haven’t bought their own viewing license might be watching from your couch".
Child-like crypto with inadvertent vulnerabilities left there by inexperienced developers bypassed by a firm well out of reach of western law? Not sure what’s more entertaining. Also. They seriously sued a Chinese company? They don’t care. They just won’t show up. If they tried to sue them in a Chinese court the judge would rule something to the effect of “They aren’t bypassing your crypto we don’t know what you are on to. Dismissed.”
So yeah. The real incredible thing in all of this is they keep trying with DRM and failing over and over and over and over….
Re: Re:
> Child-like crypto with inadvertent vulnerabilities left there by inexperienced developers…
The crypto was probably developed by seasoned professionals. They simply had an impossible job.
Cory Doctorow once explained it in a talk to the Microsoft Research group:
Cryptography – secret writing – is the practice of keeping secrets. It involves three parties: a sender, a receiver and an attacker […]. We usually call these people Alice, Bob and Carol. [A few explanations of cipher, ciphertext and key] In DRM, the attacker is also the recipient. It’s not Alice and Bob and Carol, it’s just Alice and Bob. So Alice has to provide Bob – the attacker – with the key, the cipher and the ciphertext. Hilarity ensues.
Which is why encryption is just part of the defense; most of the rest is DMCA-style laws against breaking the encryption, backed by import controls.
Re: Re: Re:
Nice talk. I especially loved this prophetic bit (it was written in 2004) of it:
Re: Re:
They seriously sued a Chinese company? They don’t care.
I don’t know for sure, but maybe they could halt imports of the devices. The Chinese company would care about that.
Anyone planning to invest in a 4K TV should buy one of these. And that’s without piracy entering the picture at all.
Making off-site backups is simple common sense. Especially when your DVD, Blu-Ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are typically not covered by insurance.
And especially with the long history of HDCP-compliant devices not talking to each other.
Re: Re:
I agree. I won’t buy a format I can’t backup. I have 1000s of DVDs and blu-rays, all 2x backed up to external HDDS.
And this is news, why?
And this is news, why?
It’s about as effective as forcing non-infringing users to watch the unskippable “You might be a pirate” messages on DVD and Blu-rays. After the DRM, those are probably the first thing that gets stripped from unauthorized copies of movies. Soon followed by ads and other unskippable marketing.
The proper way to abuse the public:
1. WB and Intel buy stock in major home entertainment equipment manufacturers, and secretly buy HDFury
2. Tweak a few lines of code and you have HDCP 2.3
3. Every sucker has to buy new equipment
4. Enter HDFury and pretend like it’s a bad thing, and sue, sue, sue
5. Goto 2 and add .1 to the version number
HDCP is effective, it is protecting me from their content, and increasing views for the Youtubers that I like.
It’s almost like the DRM was damage, and the market just routed around it. Imagine that! If your product is damaging to the market the market will find a new product.
Re: Re:
It killed the Minidisc. It killed the DAT tape. Region codes did not actually kill the DVD but then everybody circumvented them. It killed a whole lot of interest in Bluray because why would you want to buy media which are not likely to stay operative when upgrading your hardware? And they keep shoveling…
again what this shows is the total ignorance of the entertainment industry in expecting everyone to rush out to buy the latest equipment that will last a few months, then be obsolete. it also shows how much concern there is for customers. if there was any, they would sort out this damn copyright protection so it fought against those that can break it, rather than keep trying to ramp it up rather than using competition! what the lack of competition shows to me is the total fear the industries have of being put out to pasture. let’s face it, that’s where they should have been put years ago and the reason they weren’t is the constant whining to politicians on the backs of bribes and the promises to security. they ignore the harm they are doing being concerned only with themselves but eventually, everyone will see the errors and drop the backing of them in favor of progress!
“HDCP plays a critical role in linking consumer electronics devices, …”
Not likely. DRM’s only function is to prevent that linking. So the consumer gets to pay more for this “feature” that will hobble the interface for years to come. That $200 box should not even be needed.
HD Fury has a response to the lawsuit on their blog https://www.hdfury.com/12133/ They say their device doesn’t remove the DRM but rather just converts it down to HDCP 1.4 (which is broken). Further, this conversion is allowed in the HDCP 2.2 specification and they provide a link.
Re: Re:
But if Warner doesn’t like it, then wouldn’t / shouldn’t that make it illegal?
And similarly for any other MPAA member?
Or RIAA member for that matter.
(answers left as an exercise for the reader)
Re: Re: Re:
All it takes is a prewritten bill and a few monetary bills.
How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
All consumer equipment which has DRM, right down to your toaster and vacuum cleaner, should be continuously connected to the internet to enable monitoring by the manufacturing company.
For your protection, naturally. (think: Macrovision quality protection)
Devices could be continually up to date with the latest firmware. For your protection.
Think how much this would improve your life vs the olden days when your TV, VCR, toaster and vacuum cleaner could not get updates from the manufacturer which could fundamentally change their technology. (think: PS3 getting downgraded after you buy it)
The ability to make remote connections into your devices would only be used to update the DRM. Never anything else. Not for spying. Collecting and correlating information between vendors. And certainly not by hackers. All these devices inside your firewall continuously connected to their respective mother ships would not represent a security concern.
Imagine if the MPAA could disable your kitchen appliances and lock the refrigerator door when the TV is playing a commercial.
The biggest benefit of all is that continuously updated devices would never be obsolete.
Oh, the blessings of technology.
Re: How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
Funny man, devices would be bricked would be unable to sup[port the latest DRM every time the manufacturer needed more sales to boost profits, and this would render them useless.
Re: How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
“Imagine if the MPAA could disable your kitchen appliances and lock the refrigerator door when the TV is playing a commercial.”
Please refrain from giving them ideas.
Re: How to prevent making consumer equipment obsolete
Expect hot tar, torches and pitchforks when DRM Version X disable my toilet during commercials!
Wrong
“HDCP plays a critical role in linking consumer electronics devices, personal computers, cable and satellite set-top boxes, and other Digital Devices to allow consumers to access and enjoy digital audiovisual content across a wide array of products, all while effectively protecting the rights of copyright owners and controlling access to copyrighted digital content.”
Wrong. HDMI does that. HDCP’s specific role is to PREVENT those connection.
Well, I guess the only thing WB can do now is cancel those 4K BD releases entirely.
Hopefully someday I can flash my TV to DD-WRT and have an open source TV.
I'm sure SlySoft will be on it, too
I imagine the same computer software from SlySoft that strips DRM from DVDs and Blu-rays will work for UHD Blu-rays sooner or later, too. And good luck getting SlySoft to cut it out—they’re in Antigua, which means they are legally entitled to scoff at US copyright laws.
we all know drm is wrong
but is there a fix anywhere in sight? Should content providers even seek copyrights? Is copyrighting, itself, just and antiquated ideology? How should we be thinking about ‘payment for artistic works’ in the future? One time payments? Royalties for only 1 year, then it’s all up for grabs?
Right now it’s just a silly cycle: someone makes it…mean corp. puts a lock/payment code on it…someone breaks said lock/payment doohickey…on and on ad infinitum…
What’s the fix?
Re: we all know drm is wrong
Re: we all know drm is wrong
“What’s the fix?”
Stop applying DRM to everything. It never works, it’s always broken, it always has unintended consequences, and it never affects pirates for very long, only people who legally bought the product. Legal purchasers will be pissing around with the DRM long after pirates are able to get 4K movies with no DRM.
The cries of “you can’t compete with free” have been proven wrong time and time again. People will pay for content, even if a pirated version is available. Not every person for every copy, but this has never happened anyway. Nothing needs to change about payment methods, royalty structures, etc. to pay artists.
Re: we all know drm is wrong
DRM and copyrights are not the same thing.
The music business abandoned DRM a decade ago. The music you download from iTunes and Amazon is DRM free, and yet iTunes and Amazon thrives as a business and most of that music is still under copyright. They don’t need DRM to run their business.
And not all DRM is bad. Netflix uses DRM, and aside from hindering Linux users it’s worked out fine for them. DRM’s only bad when it gets in the way of something a legitimate customer is trying to do. In this case, simply watch a movie they bought on incompatible equipment. The only thing illegal going on is breaking the DRM, which is why DRM is wrong here, and having a law against breaking DRM is wrong.
DRM & Jobs
To be fair, the use of HDCP DID create jobs – the jobs of those who developed it, as well as of those who cracked it and made the HDFury.
Oh, HDCP and Cinavia you drive audio visual salesmen to dap dance
Nope, I can’t go UHD and Blue-ray and new audio amplifier and maybe a new computer just to watch my LED based Samsung TV gather dust in a corner.
Streaming? Sorry I can’t stop laughing at that pile of DRM based headache.
However, I love Amazon Prime and xfinity online via 27″ iMac. Note: 300Mbit/s cable modem, theoretical.
Re: Oh, HDCP and Cinavia you drive audio visual salesmen to dap dance
Streaming? Sorry I can’t stop laughing at that pile of DRM based headache.
However, I love Amazon Prime and xfinity online via 27″ iMac.
Um… unless you’re referring to ordering discs via Amazon Prime… that would be streaming, yes?
Re: Oh, HDCP and Cinavia you drive audio visual salesmen to dap dance
“Streaming? Sorry I can’t stop laughing at that pile of DRM based headache.”
“I love Amazon Prime”
So you do a lot of laughing while watching your streamed movies on Amazon?
Seriously, though, while I despise DRM on purchases, at least it makes some sense with rented content, which is what streaming is. I’d still prefer it not to be there for device compatibility reasons and promoting adoption of open source, but it’s easy to understand why it persists.
update
One of the HDFury gadgets would be handy for debugging. free shipping?