Cinavia DRM: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blu-ray’s Self-Destruction
by Ganesh T S on March 21, 2012 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Blu-Ray
- DRM
- Cinavia
We originally set out to provide a one-stop information piece about Cinavia. Soon enough, we felt the need to make the Blu-ray industry aware of how they are completely ignoring the consumers. Just as we were wrapping up the piece, details of the Walmart - Vudu - UltraViolet initiative came to light. The conversion pricing for existing disc owners only furthered our conclusion that the Blu-ray industry is woefully out of touch with consumer reality.
From our perspective, we feel that the Blu-ray industry (studios as well as the licensing authorities) is overpricing their technology in today's connected world. Most of the Blu-ray features such as BD-Live and interactive BD-J content are just too much effort spent for very little return (because the consumer has no real interest in using them). The addition of new licensing requirements such as Cinavia are preventing the natural downward price progression of Blu-ray related technology. Instead of spending time, money and effort on new DRM measures that get circumvented within a few days of release, the industry would do well to lower the launch price of Blu-rays. There is really no justification for the current media pricing.
We also covered some wonderful tools that enable the consumers to enjoy their Blu-rays in the best possible manner. It is really disappointing that backing up discs after removing the content protection mechanism is illegal in many parts of the world.
In light of what we have covered in this piece, we do hope the mainstream consumers wake up and evaluate whether the Blu-ray industry is really worthy of their support.
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SpaceRanger - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Those aren't youtube videos..
ganeshts - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Thanks for the note. We had initially uploaded to YouTube, but later shifted to DM on account of copyright concerns (Fair use and all that is good to talk about, but the possibility of tussling that out with YouTube is not something we really want to do). I have fixed the text.yelped - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Yup, this idiocy is really getting out of hand.I personally don't watch movies at all, but I hate watching all this big-brother bullying.
So, thanks for writing this article!
zxr250cc - Friday, March 23, 2012 - link
I worked for a medium size consumer electronics manufacturer in Japan when DVD was about to launch as a director or marketing. Many of the regional distributors in various global markets for future DVD players were asking me about the Regional encoding for disks and how it would affect their sales or ability to have content. I told them then that the stupid idea of having a region for disks would create a so called 'black market' for region free players. I have also worked in the US high end manufacturing sector and followed the 'breaking' of all encryption schemes with great interest.I have done many public AV demonstrations with disk based source material and I always have been EXTREMELY OFFENDED by the FBI label telling me I am a thief for disks that I purchased at retail for my use. Anyone ripping the titles will choose to delete that stupid and offensive section of the disk and the only loser is the normal retail user. Any copy protection code will be broken quickly. ANY... If Blu-Ray wants to be succeed for a longer period of time it should be attempting to be easier to use. HDMI and HDCP are only short term solutions that have caused more trouble than they have fixed, by a long sight. USELESS FEATURES, FORCED TRAILER VIEWS and other such idiocy merely feed into consumer dissatisfaction with the format.
Make it easy to use for the normal retail customer, make it have good simple features and put the stupid FBI and trailer views in the back of the disk, if they are there at all, and let the consumer watch their purchase in peace. I hate the various encumbering schemes attempted to make using products that we have paid good money for and irritated by while trying to enjoy a movie.
Cheers,
zxr250cc
SlyNine - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
DVDFab has a free DVD/Blueray decryptor. Which will burn a bluray in to a folder structure on your HDD.I use ClownBD to get demux the video/audio and MKVtoolnix's MKVmerge to remux into MKVs.
Sorry to hijack your thread but I wanted this on the first page.
SlyNine - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
And to save money on backups, Flexraid is AWESOME. Snapshot based raid for free baby.Aankhen - Thursday, March 22, 2012 - link
I liked the bit about both of the three videos too. ;-)Death666Angel - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
"A look at the market trends seem to indicate that online streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are overtaking conventional media distribution channels such as DVDs and Blu-rays."I guess you are solely talking about the North American market? I haven't seen such numbers for Germany or Europe, much less for Russia, Asia and Africa....
ganeshts - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
I believe that the European market already has some online streaming services such as LoveFilm and even Netflix is setting up shop over there soon. In India, the first VoD subscription service was started last month. Internet infrastructure needs to come up to speed first for online streaming services to be effective. So, yes, many comments in the piece are based upon our opinion, being here in the US, but we do feel that the trend will soon reflect worldwide.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
I have to say that the offerings are pretty much non-existent here in Finland. A couple ISPs offer some kind of movie rental services but the quality is 480p and you have to be a customer of that ISP to get access. Usually, you also need a specific plan which may not be available everywhere (at one point, they offered it only for ADSL contracts, high-speed optics were left out). iTunes offers HD quality but the selection is rather small, at least right now.As far as I know, there is no online streaming service similar to Netflix. All services are pay as you watch, which is quite expensive.
Also, it's definitely not the internet infrastructure that is causing it here. The average internet speed is faster here than in the US according to NetIndex. Plus we don't have any caps.
I think one of the key things is dubbing/subtitling. I think UK is a lot ahead of us because their native language is English so all content is ready for them. However, other countries have their own language. Dubbing or subtitling takes time and money, so it makes sense that the companies are concentrating on English countries first.