Cinavia, Feb, 1, 2012 and forwards

[George++]

Sure it does happen. But to tout that as some major problem is a huge stretch. Whenever Fox screws with BD+ it breaks things. I hope you're not deluded to think that the internet being out is the issue in that case....the issue is the many DAYS or WEEKS it took player mfg's to get the update out. That's a far bigger issue than not having internet for a few hours. And when the updates did come, if you have a profile 2.0 player or higher, then they're pretty seamless. The player tells you the update exists, you install it, done.

Another reason why SlyPlayer (or whatever they call it) will be a much appreciated and needed tool. Theoretically the only updates are to make it play discs better, not to enforce some studio anti-copy standard.

 

[SamuriHL]

Yup, the money issue I fully understand. But I built my HTPC's a couple years ago and I haven't upgraded their hardware in quite a while. So once you make the initial investment, it becomes a very useful device to have. MUCH more flexible than a stand alone.

 

[SamuriHL]

Another reason why SlyPlayer (or whatever they call it) will be a much appreciated and needed tool. Theoretically the only updates are to make it play discs better, not to enforce some studio anti-copy standard.

Yup. It's why a lot of us are using other players like MPC-HC and J River MC17. Let AnyDVD remove all the protection and the player doesn't need to be updated.

 

[andy o]

The PITA updating, manual or otherwise, of BD standalone players makes me hesitate going Bluray over DVD. I want to watch a movie, turn on the TV and pop the disc into the player and relax, not waste time and major effort mucking about to make sure I can watch the latest garbage the studios shove down our throats.

The studios treat everyone as a thief, grrrrrrrrr.

My argument was two-sided. One, the main point that even when updates for standalones are not much of an inconvenience to people with broadband readily available, Cinavia will be even less of an inconvenience to the average consumer, who wouldn't even begin to know how to copy a blu-ray, unless they pirated it, of course.

The second point was that the updates for PC software have been traditionally crappy, and buggy. I don't think that has changed much. You have to have the know-how to work around these if you run into them.

 

[SamuriHL]

Cinavia is ONLY going to affect those who play backups. This is something people seem to forget. All this talk of consumer outrage over Cinavia is limited to our very small group within the BD community...the group that backs up their BD's. The average person buys or rents them, plays them on their stand alone, and sticks them on the shelf or sends them back. In that model of playback, they won't know or care anything about Cinavia. They'll never hit it. The average consumer is going to be far more inconvenienced by having to update her player in order to play the latest Fox disc than they will be by Cinavia. Especially since, Andy, your last point is relevant here. The updates for stand alones aren't immediately pushed out. What's been happening is that the player mfg's are finding out that a disc breaks their player only after the disc is released. Then they have to patch the firmware and do a full round of testing before they can release it to the public. This takes time. So the average Joe that goes out and rents the next "Avatar" finds out his player doesn't work with it, and that the update might not be available for 2+ weeks. That is a far bigger issue to them than some invisible copy protection they'll never encounter. This is what happens when you unleash an unfinished product on the world. BD as a standard keeps "evolving" to the detriment of the consumer.

 

[James]

The PITA updating, manual or otherwise, of BD standalone players makes me hesitate going Bluray over DVD.

Just for the record, I have one of the old, cheapo < 100$ region free Broadcom reference design based players with a firmware from 2009, which has never seen any update (primarily because no update exists, und probably never will).

The little thing plays everything, even those titles where my Oppo needed an update.

 

[SamuriHL]

Just for the record, I have one of the old, cheapo < 100$ region free Broadcom reference design based players with a firmware from 2009, which has never seen any update (primarily because no update exists, und probably never will).

The little thing plays everything, even those titles where my Oppo needed an update.

Neat! That's a refreshing change of pace for BD. Most of the stand alones I've heard about get really ugly when Fox starts messing around with things. They also don't seem to like BD-J changes all that much. Rather nice to see a player that doesn't need to be updated for a change.

 

[robrv21]

Cinavia

Hi, I'm new to the forum and have a couple of questions. First, I just purchased a Panasonic DMP-BDT210 and have yet to hook it up. I'm wondering if I should update the firmware to the latest version or leave it where it's at so I avoid any Cinavia woahs? Does anyone know if the current firmware version adds the Cinavia on this model? I would really like to upgrade to the new firmware so I can enjoy the Vierra Connect and not the Vierra Cast applications. Also, I've read a lot about how this Civania works but I'm a little confused. If I copy a 100 percent cloned copy of the original disc why does it not carry the Civania watermark over to the new disc and play just as the original would? Thank you.

 

[Adbear]

Well as to the last question, you can't make a 100 copy of the disc (especially Blu-ray) as you can't replicate the BD-ROM mark, if you can't have that on a disc then you have to remove the AACS encryption which then means that your player will detect that it's a copy and if it has Cinavia detection that will then kick in on a Cinavia disc (the Cinavia watermark does get copied across, that's what causes the issue)

 

[Pelvis Popcan]

If I copy a 100 percent cloned copy of the original disc why does it not carry the Civania watermark over to the new disc and play just as the original would? Thank you.

You can't duplicate the AACS encryption of a Blu-Ray disc. If you could, it wouldn't be "encryption."

You can use AnyDVD and ImgBurn to make a 100% cloned copy on a BD-R with all of the content unencrypted. That will then play just like the original.

The Cinavia watermark is in the unencrypted analog audio, which means it gets copied when you make a 100% cloned copy on a BD-R with all of the content unencrypted. If you play that on a player that has Cinavia watermark detection, what it does if it detects the watermark is check that the content is AACS encrypted. Only the original can have AACS encrypted video. If it does, fine. If it doesn't, then it not only assumes that it must be a copy... it assumes that it must be an illegal copy, so it kicks in and throws up the message and disables the audio.

 

[Roycal]

The good news is that February has come and gone and not a flood of complaints of new cinavia infections. Keeping fingers crossed!

 

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

Further information in reference to Oppo players and Cinavia. Someone contacted customer service and received the following reply:

Cinavia will never be supported in our current line of players. It is not required by our licensing.

Best Regards,

Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc.

Source here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=21749990#post21749990.

This further clarifies what has been previously been stated by Oppo and dispels any speculation to the contrary on the matter. None of the current players (ie BDP-80, BDP-83, BDP-83 SE, BDP-93, BDP-95) fall under the licensing requirement for Cinavia enforcement.

 

[Clsmooth391]

Will an infected player detect a backed up film if it doesn't have the cinavia watermark? Just want to know if current backed up blu-rays and dvds will be a problem in the future or if only the watermarked films going forward will be the problem.

 

[SamuriHL]

Cinavia works by detecting the watermark. If no watermark exists, then it's not Cinavia. So, any disc without Cinavia embedded in it will not trigger it.

 

[Clsmooth391]

Cinavia works by detecting the watermark. If no watermark exists, then it's not Cinavia. So, any disc without Cinavia embedded in it will not trigger it.

Thank you for clearing that up. Found someone on one forum saying all non watermarked disks will be affected and how it's important to stockpile non infected players.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Then that guy doesnt understand how it works and what it needs. Not only does cinavia need a watermark in the audio for it to be detected, players need to have hardware in them capable of detecting it.

 

[SamuriHL]

Thank you for clearing that up. Found someone on one forum saying all non watermarked disks will be affected and how it's important to stockpile non infected players.

Yea there's a lot of FUD going around where cinavia is concerned. It's really not very complicated. If the player supports detection, and if the disc contains the embedded watermark, and if the disc is not a bdrom with protection in place, then cinavia is tripped. If any one of those variables aren't true then no cinavia.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Just reviewing this topic after some absence from it, rather disappointing there has been no new breakthroughs but not really suprised at the same time.

It looks like a good stockpile of non-cinavia Blu-ray players will be a must, and the cost of a non-cinavia Blu-ray player will be going thru the roof and become liquid gold.

I have stockpiled four non-cinavia players. Come on Slysoft lets get this watermark removed.

I can't honestly see the point in that, if Cinavia is that much a problem then build a single HTPC, problem solved. Thats besides the likely problem of manufacturers abandoning updates for older models.

You have to hand it to the software developers its such a simple solution, rather than a digital encryption which can be cracked what better solution than an analogue audio signal embbeded in the regular audio track. So long as the signal is there the software will detect it, bingo. The only way to remove it is to:

a) build an HTPC with non-Cinavia detecting software on it
b) remove the audio track altogether - not entirely practical (sarcasm)
c) remux an alternative soundtrack that doesn't have Cinavia embedded in - if you have no access to the master audio, again not a practical solution
d) modify the software on the player by "chipping" the BD player with modified software on a chip removing the Cinavia detection routines in the same way my early DVD players had Region Encoding and Macrovision protection systems disabled - thats if it hasn't been made illegal/impossible already (I confess I'm a bit out of the loop on that one)

I favour a) myself. Probably cheaper than d) and you get to choose the software you put on it yourself.

edit: thinking about it even d) is not an option because as soon as the player needs an update that'll be an end of the modified software routines, unless the chip is capable of updating itself over the 'net (seems unlikely)

This wouldn't even be a thought in anyone's mind had DVD HD won the battle. Everyone was concerned about the price if Blu-ray won, not this.

Why do you think Blu-ray won and not HD-DVD? It's precisely because its a moving platform and HD-DVD was not. It certainly wasn't because of cost or any other inconveniance to the consumer.

 

[Hawk]

If HD DVD did win you could assure cinavia would be enforced on it as well. It was just matter of time with HD DVD, if it did win.

 

[SamuriHL]

If HD DVD did win you could assure cinavia would be enforced on it as well. It was just matter of time with HD DVD, if it did win.

How? The spec was finished and couldn't be updated...