[Oli_Oops]

Hey Devs! What's the future of set top boxes, XBMC & Cinavia? Can set top manufacturers be forced to include Cinavia on their hardware? If so what does that mean for XBMC and set top boxes? Just curious.

[Death-Axe]

Good question.

[Ned Scott]

From what I read, there are no legal requirements to use it. Only players that actually license bluray officially have to comply. Since all our bluray stuff is unofficial reverse engineered libraries, we don't have to comply, nor do any Android or x86 set top boxes. Something like a Sigma XBMC set top box with bluray player might have to comply (as that would be a licensed BR player with XBMC, should it come to market), but even then it might only apply to playing from the actual optical drive, and not files.

This is just speculation on my part, though.

[nickr]

When I first read about cinavia (wikipedia only at this stage) I was worried that if it becomes prevalent, it might be very relevant to ripping - the inability to rip bluray would hamper many of the community!

However having re-read it, I am not so sure. In fact the more I think about it, the more I think I should shut up!

[jjd-uk]

From what I read, there are no legal requirements to use it. Only players that actually license bluray officially have to comply. Since all our bluray stuff is unofficial reverse engineered libraries, we don't have to comply, nor do any Android or x86 set top boxes. Something like a Sigma XBMC set top box with bluray player might have to comply (as that would be a licensed BR player with XBMC, should it come to market), but even then it might only apply to playing from the actual optical drive, and not files.

This is just speculation on my part, though.

This is correct, only the holders of official licenses from the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) are required to implement Cinavia, this has been done via an amendment to the license conditions, thus you are only legally bound if you hold an official license as failing to implement Cinavia will risk having your licence revoked.

This is why many media streamers are now dropping full Blu-Ray support and going back to BD Lite support, as BD Lite can be implemented with no official license.

[jjd-uk]

This is a good article on it http://www.anandtech.com/show/5693/cinav...estruction

[Ned Scott]

Thanks for the link! It's too bad this is evil DRM stuff, because the technology behind it is pretty clever.

[jjd-uk]

It's all very stupid as the people they are trying to stop who haven't purchased anything are generally tech savy enough to know not to use a licensed product with Cinavia, all it does is piss off the less tech savy majority who have purchased the disc and and simply want to rip it to a file for streaming to their PS3 or whatever.

[Tuxon86]

It's all very stupid as the people they are trying to stop who haven't purchased anything are generally tech savy enough to know not to use a licensed product with Cinavia, all it does is piss off the less tech savy majority who have purchased the disc and and simply want to rip it to a file for streaming to their PS3 or whatever.

Yes, well there is the little problem of the DMCA in the USA that makes it illegal for you to break the encription on your media, which translate into no ripping. Not that I'm bothered one bit since I don't live in the USA and in any case no one is going to break your door down if you don't share your rip with no one.

Beside, if you have the disk why would you stream it to your PS3 instead of poping it in? I know I know, kids will scrap the disk... the dog will chew on it... But in the end the result is the same, that is, company will continue to enforce DRM on their product.

Yes it is a pain for the less tech savy, but they have the tech savy who rip and share on BT to thank for this. If people would just rent & rip and not rent, rip and share, cinavia wouldn't be a problem today.

[Ned Scott]

Yes, well there is the little problem of the DMCA in the USA that makes it illegal for you to break the encription on your media, which translate into no ripping. Not that I'm bothered one bit since I don't live in the USA and in any case no one is going to break your door down if you don't share your rip with no one.

Beside, if you have the disk why would you stream it to your PS3 instead of poping it in? I know I know, kids will scrap the disk... the dog will chew on it... But in the end the result is the same, that is, company will continue to enforce DRM on their product.

Yes it is a pain for the less tech savy, but they have the tech savy who rip and share on BT to thank for this. If people would just rent & rip and not rent, rip and share, cinavia wouldn't be a problem today.

Not really. I'm not saying piracy isn't a problem or not, but the solution here is one that punishes only the honest, but none of the dishonest. Cinavia is a problem because people try to force solutions that fundamentally doesn't solve the problem they were designed to solve.

[Tuxon86]

Yes, well there is the little problem of the DMCA in the USA that makes it illegal for you to break the encription on your media, which translate into no ripping. Not that I'm bothered one bit since I don't live in the USA and in any case no one is going to break your door down if you don't share your rip with no one.

Beside, if you have the disk why would you stream it to your PS3 instead of poping it in? I know I know, kids will scrap the disk... the dog will chew on it... But in the end the result is the same, that is, company will continue to enforce DRM on their product.

Yes it is a pain for the less tech savy, but they have the tech savy who rip and share on BT to thank for this. If people would just rent & rip and not rent, rip and share, cinavia wouldn't be a problem today.

Not really. I'm not saying piracy isn't a problem or not, but the solution here is one that punishes only the honest, but none of the dishonest. Cinavia is a problem because people try to force solutions that fundamentally don't solve the problem they were designed to solve.

But it does slow down the process on the titles that support it, especially if the DVD is also using cinavia. Plenty of BR rip on the net bypass cinavia by using the DVD audio track. Once those are also watermark it does complicate matters.

I personnaly believe the future of media DRM is a Steam/Blizzard like authentification server, where your player will have to validate your copy before being able to play it. Yes it won't stop piratery completely but it will make the job more difficult and the rip less desirable. Will it stop it, no. Some people will never spend a dime if they can help it. But it will slow things down for a while.

[Ned Scott]

But it does slow down the process on the titles that support it, especially if the DVD is also using cinavia. Plenty of BR rip on the net bypass cinavia by using the DVD audio track. Once those are also watermark it does complicate matters.

I personnaly believe the future of media DRM is a Steam/Blizzard like authentification server, where your player will have to validate your copy before being able to play it. Yes it won't stop piratery completely but it will make the job more difficult and the rip less desirable. Will it stop it, no. Some people will never spend a dime if they can help it. But it will slow things down for a while.

Slow it down? Not at all. There's actually studies out there that say increasing DRM/restrictions increases piracy. ( http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/10/11...0668-1.pdf )

It won't make anything more difficult for pirates, because people who pirate don't play things back on DRM-enabled players. People who pirate movies don't do it so they can burn them to a disc and watch it on a normal DVD player, complete with unskippable warnings and sometimes ads.

When it comes to video and audio, historically speaking, DRM has been largely ineffective. A release group who wants to release a movie from a bluray or even a camrip can do so easily, and nothing exists today that can stop them. Meanwhile, the home user who's trying to rip a movie, so he can watch his legally owned movie on an iPad, gets an error message.

[Tuxon86]

But it does slow down the process on the titles that support it, especially if the DVD is also using cinavia. Plenty of BR rip on the net bypass cinavia by using the DVD audio track. Once those are also watermark it does complicate matters.

I personnaly believe the future of media DRM is a Steam/Blizzard like authentification server, where your player will have to validate your copy before being able to play it. Yes it won't stop piratery completely but it will make the job more difficult and the rip less desirable. Will it stop it, no. Some people will never spend a dime if they can help it. But it will slow things down for a while.

Slow it down? Not at all. There's actually studies out there that say increasing DRM/restrictions increases piracy. ( http://static.arstechnica.net/2011/10/11...0668-1.pdf )

It won't make anything more difficult for pirates, because people who pirate don't play things back on DRM-enabled players. People who pirate movies don't do it so they can burn them to a disc and watch it on a normal DVD player, complete with unskippable warnings and sometimes ads.

When it comes to video and audio, historically speaking, DRM has been largely ineffective. A release group who wants to release a movie from a bluray or even a camrip can do so easily, and nothing exists today that can stop them. Meanwhile, the home user who's trying to rip a movie, so he can watch his legally owned movie on an iPad, gets an error message.

I understand what you are saying, but again, you are missing the big picture. The èlite`who are able to pirate stuff and who have easy access to said stuff are a small group compared to the masses of non tech savy peoples. The industry knows that they.ll never stop those guys/girls. What they don't want is for the joe six pack to have easy access to that stuff also, for then they lose their money cow.

Cinavia/BD+/CSS where never intended to prevent the èlite`. Those are there to prevent another Napster from happening on their watch, another user friendly way to destroy their cherished economic model. They don't want it to be easy and they are making sure it won't be.

[Ned Scott]

What you're saying is what the studios actually believe; that DRM has any significant impact on piracy at all. It doesn't. Joe six pack doesn't have to be a master DRM cracker, he just has to get an easy copy of the movie that someone else already made. The avarage pirate doesnt rip content, they just download it. For the common man, piracy is still easy. Some people pirate only because it's easier to access the content that way, and would otherwise be willing to pay for it.

This is why iTunes and other per-song music stores took off and became successful. They made buying music easier than pirating it. It's also DRM free.

At best, Cinevia stops bootleggers who attempt to sell fake bluray discs as if they were real retail discs. That's about it.

For everyone else, it's a misguided attempt that has no real results. It has no realistic impact on piracy, but it does end up punishing the honest customers with crappy restrictions.

[nickr]

I live in NZ. We are usually way behind ther rest of the world in TV episodes.

This season of Game of Thrones however is playing less than 24 hours after the US broadcast. Part of the reason is to reduce piracy - the reasoning being that if people can see it on their own TV station [1], they won't need to pirate it. This is apparently a worldwide thing with GoT. Everywhere is getting it soon after the initial showing.

Still doesn't stop there being 6,000 odd people on one torrent alone that I saw for the season opener!

Nor headlines like this http://www.throng.co.nz/2013/04/piracy-r...on-opener/ (which makes the torrent stats I saw look tiny!)

The thing is, people will share. Cinavia will be got around.

[1] Of course it doesn't help that it is shown on Pay TV here in NZ, so not available to everyone.