Of course, that's ridiculous. Basically, I'm breaking the law by turning my own, legally purchased, DVD disks into iPod-format files. Well, I've only got this to say to that: too darn bad :). I bought them, I'm not going to buy it again just to have it in another format. Of course that's just one of the ridiculous cases for the DMCA. As far as HDCP goes, you won't escape it for long. Even on iTunes, some of the HD video already has a similar scheme known as DPCP. This only affects newer Macbooks and Macbook Pros at the moment, as this is an encryption method for the new display port (DVI and Mini DVI aren't affected). Basically, both the display port and your monitor need to support DPCP, it is similar in concept to HDCP. Failure to support DPCP on your monitor gives an error message, saying this display is not authorized to play this content. Completely ridiculous, naturally, how many people are going to want to buy a new monitor just to watch their movies--movies, I might add, that they have already purchased before this display port was introduced? I don't get it, I really don't. The only thing these restrictive DRM schemes do is drive customers away, in many cases to pirated versions that have been cleaned of these restrictions. They are penalizing those who are legally buying content, and letting the piraters off the hook. It seems the movie industry wants to take up where the music industry left off, most record labels have gotten it into their heads that DRM causes more problems than it solves, and we now have stores like Amazon MP3 and iTunes Plus is growing as well. I don't mind basic DRM, iTunes's fair play is fair enough: up to five machines authorized to play the content, and you have control over those authorizations at any time. This digital signal encryption for video, I think, is going to push a lot of people over the edge--I do understand what they're attempting to do, but I think in trying to close one hole they're ripping an even larger one. That, plus Blue Ray's capability to phone home and lock the disk to one player only will hopefully cause an anti- DRM backlash if this "feature" actually goes into widespread use. Fortunately as of yet it doesn't seem to have done so.
Ok, done ranting :).



On Dec 9, 2008, at 17:39, Chris Blouch wrote:

From what I've read there is a whole encryption chain from the player up to and including the output device (known as HDCP). So if your TV doesn't support DRM or your player software or whatever you get a downsampled version of the video or no video at all. This is rather onerous and Apple has rejected the scheme so far. Windows Vista has embraced it so it must be bad. I've also read that the BlueRay encryption, like DVD encryption, was very weak and is already cracked. Also like DVDs, in the US at least, the mere act of breaking the encryption is illegal so avoiding all the silliness is not possible without breaking the law. Apple is probably banking that digital download via iTunes (or NetFlix or BlockBuster) will be the new delivery platform of choice and this whole bits on a disk with DRM distribution channel can just die under the weight of its own torturous red tape. Some links for your enjoyment:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/23/blu-ray_drm_cracked/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

http://techdirt.com/articles/20081030/1954252694.shtml

CB

Jacob Schmude wrote:
Not as stock, and I'm not sure if there are any blue ray players for OS X at the moment. You could use an external drive, but you'd still need a program capable of decrypting and playing the video. Apple isn't embrasing blue ray yet, and I don't blame them for holding out at the moment. You're not going to find any open source blue ray movie players yet either, as the DRM and encryption hasn't yet been cracked... and blue ray sure has a lot of DRM, I'd venture to say a ridiculous amount though not all movies use all of it. There are some blue ray burners that are OS X compatible though they're not cheap, but as far as I know there's no way to actually play a blue ray movie.



On Dec 5, 2008, at 18:13, Will Lomas wrote:

     hi can the macbooks play blueray dvd's



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