• AnyStream is having some DRM issues currently, Netflix is not available in HD for the time being.
    Situations like this will always happen with AnyStream: streaming providers are continuously improving their countermeasures while we try to catch up, it's an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Please be patient and don't flood our support or forum with requests, we are working on it 24/7 to get it resolved. Thank you.

"AACS Online" & BD-Live - the next challenge?

PilgrImage

New Member
Thread Starter
Joined
May 25, 2008
Messages
2
Likes
0
This is a reference from the user manual of the new Panasonic DMP-BD50 BD-Live standalone Blu-ray player:

http://service.us.panasonic.com/OPERMANPDF/DMPBD50-MUL.PDF
Panasonic DMP-BD50 Manual (page 16) said:
AACS Online
When discs supporting BD-Live are played back, the player or disc IDs may be sent
to the content provider via the Internet.

It appears studios will now track player ID (serial#), disc ID, as well as IP address and use those in conjugation with an online form of AACS (which can work together with BD+) in order to protect and update DRM on their content.

It looks like SlySoft has a new challenge on their hands: the BD-Live AACS Online trojan horse! Note that CyberLink recently updated PowerDVD with BD-Live capabilities. I'm sure it is capable of the same thing...
 
Last edited:
There's no new challenge.

BD-Live is only for additional material that can be purchased. I personally would never connect such a player to the Internet. You never know, maybe Sony is checking their annual revenue and if it's not high enough they inform their players that it's time to rebuy the movie. But that's only a personal opinion.
 
privacy

There's no new challenge.

BD-Live is only for additional material that can be purchased. I personally would never connect such a player to the Internet. You never know, maybe Sony is checking their annual revenue and if it's not high enough they inform their players that it's time to rebuy the movie. But that's only a personal opinion.

No that for a fact is an invasion of privacy.
 
There's no new challenge.

BD-Live is only for additional material that can be purchased. I personally would never connect such a player to the Internet. You never know, maybe Sony is checking their annual revenue and if it's not high enough they inform their players that it's time to rebuy the movie. But that's only a personal opinion.

Ah, but if you read the excerpt from the link I posted it appears AACS is in the process of launching a new online-aware and/or online-updating version of AACS called "AACS Online", which will be enabled through BD-Live. Being that it is described in the guise of transmitting player serial # and the like, I can only guess it is so BD studios can ban players from watching movies via internet checks much like modchip'd XBOX 360's are banned by Microsoft.

And while you say you'd never connect such a player to the Internet, the latest Cyberlink PowerDVD is BD-Live and I think people will want to connect their PCs to the internet :)
 
Last edited:
Don't mod out the BD player and you're good. They can't go by the discs I think as the making home movies and playing them. So a unprotected copy will act as a homemade video.
 
There's no new challenge.

BD-Live is only for additional material that can be purchased. I personally would never connect such a player to the Internet. You never know, maybe Sony is checking their annual revenue and if it's not high enough they inform their players that it's time to rebuy the movie. But that's only a personal opinion.

You are correct but thing is most user, especially average joe or public will connect online which in return can create problem or at least one may except them.

May be should make sticky not to purchase BD-Live content and others, or better yet don't connect to internet!
 
No need to connect to the net with the player to get the use you need out of it as well but I understand the average joe won't know this.
 
There is no way they can force you to connect your player to the net, it's simply not practical. I don't have an inet connection in my living room and the office is 50 feet away, so even if i wanted to connect it , it would require a lot of work and i would have to buy a switch.
 
... and if everybody finally has connected all devices to the internet then there's actually no further need for physical discs. Just download all content.

Marking the end of bluray. :)

So therefore that won't happen in the near future. No new challenge. BD-live is just something to waste money. Not a new protection level.
 
As long as AnyDVD HD can crack the original disc's encryption, online key updating (presumably what AACS Online is) probably won't work since the player will see the disc as unencrypted.

If BD-Live connects to the studio online during playback, it could attempt to revoke the keys of players playing an "unencrypted" movie that the studio knows is supposed to be encrypted. However, that's not a 100% perfect proposition; among other things it could easily lead to consumer class actions over disabled players, thus killing it much like how the Sony BMG rootkit debacle killed CD copy protection. And if it's based on AACS, which SlySoft has already cracked wide open (the latest AACS keys were decrypted before they even hit the stores), that scheme should be much easier to crack than BD+.
 
There are at least two previous examples of what the future plan may be for consumers of BD disks:

-When my wife and I first subscribed to Bell Expressvu, there was no requirement, stated or otherwise, that a phone line be constantly connected to the sat reciever. I understand that now one has to do this. How often that sat reciever is making phone calls back to head office, what type of information it is transmitting, and what head office is doing with that information, is anyone's guess.

-There was a Terminator 2 disk released a number of years ago that had both an standard sd version of the film AND a so-called hi-def version, which I think was WMV format. In order to play the latter, one had to download both a special key and some special software.

We remember that when those fancy new "VCR" machines were introduced, content providers were intent on telling us that to copy any movie to watch later, at one's convenience, was illegal. (I think that's when macrovision first started, buy maybe I'm wrong on that.)

It was the same with music, and continues to be. "Don't copy vinyl with reel-to-reel", was the warning, even if the vinyl record will most likely be scratched as hell after just a few plays.

Didn't Sony recently try out some CD copy protection scheme that downloaded a virus on any computer that tried to play it?

So, to me, Sony's and the content provider's ultimate intention is clear. At some point in the future, after you buy the BD disk, you will then have to get "authorization" from the internet to play it - maybe even every time you want to play it. I'm sure many modern-day consumers will be just fine with that. After all, shouldn't content providers be able to use any and all means to prevent people from copying their stuff for any purpose, or using it in any way that they don't want?:agree:

Long live Slysoft and AnyDVD HD!
 
Sony has currently bigger fish to fry. Blu-ray sales are dropping dramatically. If this continues Blu-ray might not outlive HD-DVD very long.
 
Sony has currently bigger fish to fry. Blu-ray sales are dropping dramatically. If this continues Blu-ray might not outlive HD-DVD very long.
I understand that there's a big BD promotional push about to start.
http://www.videobusiness.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6563665

Also, in order to further promote BD, I would not be surprised if Sony and studios were to start releasing new titles on BD a few days, or weeks, before they release on sd dvd. If that strategy works and sales of BD strengthen, then the length of time for sd release might be increased, etc.

We'll see.
 
I doubt releasing a few days or weeks early will really do BD any justice or at least not till the average joe has the system to actually play such.

With the current status and issues they should just reale BD only now to push as it too is a gambe and will determain the fate of the technology.
 
BD Days Are Numbered

Honestly, I think Blu Ray will go the way of the laser disk. Laser disk adoption rates were slow because of the high cost of the disk and players, the inconvenient disk size, and the lack of burners for laser disk. Now, blu ray doesn't suffer from the last two problems, but the first issue, price, is really a deal breaker for alot of people outside of enthusiasts.

One thing i did find in reading about laser disks is that it revitalized the rental industry as people could rent the expensive disks instead of buying them. So blu ray may have a life in rentals. However, if what other posters are saying about the need to connect the player to the internet, then that will hurt the rental market.

Lastly, DVDs are cheap and while the real resolution of blu ray far surpasses that of dvd, the percieved resolution experienced by the average consumer doesn't justify the price especially with upconverting players and such.

So while blu ray doesn't suffer from an inconvenient disk size and burners are available, the high cost of entry for the consumer and the formats artificial inconvenience in the form of morphous DRM schemes will hinder its growth and eventually relegate it to niche markets.
 
I'd say one of the issues is that too many interesting titles are available only on DVD, and we don't know when, if ever, they'll be released on blu-ray. Galactica, Star Wars, Aliens, Abyss, LOTR, Saving P.R., Das Boot, Good, bad, ugly, Chaplin, Eastwood westerns, Bond collections...
 
Blu-Ray is a fan product, lots of friends have seen HD movies at my place and while they were all impressed with the picture quality most of them thought that DVD was good enough for them. Then there is the ridiculous copy protection, anyone who's had problems with his player not playing the disc he just bought and having to wait for a soft/firmware upgrade will tell his friends about it and/or post it online. And nobody wants a format where he can never be certain that he can actually play the movie he just bought.
 
.................................. And nobody wants a format where he can never be certain that he can actually play the movie he just bought.
Absolutely right on!

And to alleviate any tension this possiblity might cause consumers, Sony will no-doubt recommend that, for "security" reasons, your player should be connected to the internet when you put that brand new BD into thier player for the first time, and that if you don't, "results will vary". :D
 
There is no way they can force you to connect your player to the net, it's simply not practical. I don't have an inet connection in my living room and the office is 50 feet away, so even if i wanted to connect it , it would require a lot of work and i would have to buy a switch.
I'm a newbe so bear with me.

When I recently set up my HD system, I decided on the Sony PS3 as my Blu-ray player (I know Sony DANGER, DANGER!). My system is more than 50 feet from my computer room, but it immediately detected my wireless network, and went on line. I let the PS3 update its firmware, but looked in all the setup menus, and finally found an entry for turning off Inet access. It seems to work, because when I put a Blu-ray movie on, and go to my computer room, neither my wireless routers Inet light nor my satalite modem light show any activity. I have also watched these lights many time when no movie is being watched, no activity shows unless I initiate it from my computer.

So yes they can make you go on line, untill you find out how to turn off Inet access for the player.
 
Back
Top