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DIGITAL DIGEST  | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 216

19 September, 2010

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INDEX:

1. Introduction

2. Weekly News Roundup

3. Weekly Software Roundup

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1. Introduction

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2. Weekly News Roundup

And so another week is upon us. Not much news this week though, but there was one big breaking story, which we'll get to soon enough. The PlayStation Move has been released since I last posted, and there's a bit more on that in the gaming section, although I do plan on writing a short little comparison between the Move and Kinect, or rather, why a direct comparison between the two motion gaming accessories is a bit silly, and that one doesn't necessarily have to lose in order for the other to win (unfortunately, the Wii loses in either scenario).

In copyright news, the big news of the week I alluded to earlier is that HDCP, the copy protection scheme we've all learned to love, is dead.

It was short lived, we hardly knew thee, but HDCP copy protection has been cracked, with the master key posted on Twitter of all places. People at first were sceptical, but a few days later, we had confirmation from Intel, the company that developed HDCP, that, yes, the posted key was in fact the legitimate master key. So what does the master key do? Well, it the way HDCP works, it allows legitimate source keys (keys for things like Blu-ray players) and sink keys (keys for receiving devices, mainly TVs and monitors) to be generated, and therefore it means that there is no way now to tell the difference between authorised devices, and unauthorised ones, thus killing HDCP as a viable DRM scheme. Well some articles screamed that "Blu-ray copy protection has been killed", it isn't quite that simple. Yes, Blu-ray players rely on HDMI and therefore HDCP copy protection, but the disc itself is still protected by several other layers of DRM, including AACS. However, it will now be possible to intercept the HDMI output and get access to the raw digital stream to make copies of the movie, although that will require a bit of hardware ingenuity, although something could be done in software too. Those around when DVD ripping first came onto the scene will remember Power Ripper, the tool that used PowerDVD's screen capture tool to rip DVDs, frame by frame. Since then, many DRM schemes have protected this sort of ripping by disabling screen capture or encrypting the path from software to screen. But with HDCP out of the way, this kind of ripping may be possible again (and this time, since HDMI carries audio too, the whole stream can be riped). Of course the question is why would anyone want to do this when there are much easier ways to rip Blu-ray movies? But there are also other applications other than ripping, such as allowing movies to still be played via HDMI even when the TV's HDCP chip has died.

But the most important aspect of this leak of the master key is that it confirms once again relying on technical measures to prevent piracy is an extremely naive strategy. There are people that crack HDCP for fun, and it doesn't matter if it takes a month, or 5 years, they have the time! Now, Intel has hinted that since the technical protection is all but gone, they may rely on legal protection to keep HDCP viable. After all, it's worked for DVD's CSS, which has been cracked since 1999 and yet it's still widely in use today, largely thanks to the legal protection it, and any DRM scheme (no matter how weak), offers (thanks to the DMCA). But even legal protection won't stop people doing things that annoys rightsholders, once the technical barriers have been removed. So HDCP will still be around, and all your TVs and Blu-ray players will use it, but once again, you have to ask, what's the point? Having some crappy DRM in there makes lawsuits simpler, but copyright infringement is copyright infringement, it doesn't really matter to the court if DRM has been broken once, a hundred times, or that DRM didn't exist at all. And when the DRM negatively impacts on legitimate customer's user experience, then one should wonder if this is a fair deal, that legitimate customers have to pay dearly just to give rightsholders a false sense of security (but I guess a false sense of it is better than nothing, which is why companies are still paying a lot of money to license DVD's CSS).

Technical, legal ways to fight piracy has obviously failed, and continues to demonstrate how it fails every single day, whether it's HDCP, or France's Three-Strikes, or multi-million dollar settlements being thrown out of court for being unconstitutional. The common sense approach would then to be to find another way to fight piracy, perhaps a way where rightsholders can get loyal customers to join their battle, no, not by paying out rewards for dobbing your friends and family, but by making sure that paying customers want to stay paying customers because they are treated right. So right that even those that aren't paying would start to envy those that are paying, and would do so if they could afford it. Whether this means making the whole experience so much easier than going out and obtaining the pirated version, or if it means more exclusive content and experiences that cannot be pirated, or even just making the price so reasonable that, it makes it not worthwhile to pursue pirated content. I firmly believe such a solution is possible, and in the end, everyone will benefit.

Or you can just launch DDoS attacks on BitTorrent websites. But if you use less than ethical and possibly illegal tactics, then don't be surprised if the response is of a similar nature. Last week, I mentioned the story of an Indian based anti-piracy firm, AiPlex, who appeared to have owned up to launching DDoS attacks on BitTorrent website. So this week, a group from 4chan, called Anonymous, have decided that the right response is to DDoS AiPlex's website. And attack they did, bringing the entire website down for hours. And not only that, they decided to attack the MPAA website too, also bringing it down for several hours. Both websites appear to be back up again this afternoon, after having changed IP addresses, but it's unknown at this point if the attacks will continue (both sites appear to be slowing down again, which could signal the start of a new attack, or just that I have a crappy Internet connection). Now, I don't think many people will condone DDoS and similar attacks, but that's exactly why people were shocked to discover that AiPlex had resorted to such actions in the first place.

Over to the UK, Internet users over there will soon have to pay to be spied on by their ISPs, so the profits of record companies and other rightsholders can be protected. The government has announced that ISPs will have to foot 25% of the cost of anti-piracy operations, with the rest of the 75% being the rightsholder's responsibility. You would think that rightsholders, you know the multi-billion dollar music and movie industries, would be happy with this arrangement, but they're not. They had wanted ISPs to foot all of the bill, to even pay for the investigation part of the operation, and so wanted to contribute nothing in order to gain all the benefits. I should be surprised, but I'm not, because these are industries that are out there blaming everyone else for problems of their own creation (by that I mean not moving quickly enough to satisfy user needs, so the users found something better, cheaper).

Let's move onto 3D/HD news. The good news is that the PS3 should be able to play 3D Blu-ray movies by this time next week, as apparently the "delayed" 3D Blu-ray firmware is now going to launch on time, on September 21st.

There's very little detail about the exact implementation, so there's all sorts of rumours on 3D Blu-ray being a bit more limited on the PS3 than compared to dedicated 3D Blu-ray players. One of the rumours suggest that when 3D is being played, BD-J/Java based menus can't work at the same time. I find this highly unlikely though, since the PS3 has to still be the most powerful Blu-ray player out there (how many other Blu-ray players can do 1080p 3D rendering?). Another earlier rumour suggests that due to the older version HDMI on the PS3, especially the fat one, that 3D Blu-ray will not be full 1080p. This sounds more likely, but I think Sony has already refuted this suggestion. Anyway, we'll know more in a few day's time.

But while the update means the number of 3D Blu-ray players around the world has just jumped up quite a bit instantly, the number of 3D Blu-ray movies, on the other hand, is still barely above double digits. One problem many have noticed is that most of the movies released are tied to hardware, usually 3D TVs, and most are not available for general sale. Sometimes like 60% of the movies released or announced for release so far are this types of exclusives, including the big one, Avatar. And some say this will kill off the 3D Blu-ray format before it begins. I'm not sure I agree. Yes, the exclusive releases are an annoyance, it means many 3D Blu-ray owners, like myself, have access to a very limited number of movies (for me, I only have just the one). However, this is just the effect of the hardware-before-content model that 3D Blu-ray has adopted. And this causes the lack of content means manufacturers are even more protective of whatever content they can get their hands on, so they can make it an exclusive and sell more TVs. The alternative is to have content-before-hardware, but producing a 3D Blu-ray movie is quite costly possibly, as opposed to adding 3D to TVs, which isn't costing manufacturers much at all (and in fact, they're making more per TV because of the premium attached to 3D sets). In any case, Warner has just announced they will release 6 more 3D Blu-ray movies to general release for this holidays, including the "faux 3D" Clash of the Titans. Sony have also announced Open Season on 3D Blu-ray as well. But all eyes are on when Avatar is going to get a general release on 3D Blu-ray, and that will be the title to take the format to mainstream, I think.

And finally in gaming, the PlayStation Move is out and I thought I should briefly talk about it. Most people are wondering if Move will beat Kinect or the opposite, but really, the battle people should be looking at is whether Move can hurt the Wii, and I think it will.

The similarities between the Move and the Wii makes the Move both harder to market, and easier. Easier because people already know what it's all about, harder because many thinks it's just a Wii clone. However, those that have played it (not me though) will almost always say one things: it's very very accurate. That doesn't sound as sexy as Kinect's "look Ma, no controllers" advantage, but super accuracy can give motion gaming a whole new dimension. For traditional gaming, accuracy already makes a huge difference (think controller versus keyboard/mouse for FPS games). With motion gaming, accuracy will draw users more into the action, without them wondering why their real world movement of the controller isn't being translated into the virtual world. And accuracy means the Move controller can be used for games that are more simulations than just random waving of the wand. And of course, accuracy makes for better player, and allows for more complicated games that require more intricate movement. Now whether this makes for better games, I'm not totally convinced yet, but the potential is there. And by being similar the Wii, but better, the Move positions itself as a potential Wii killer.

Kinect is a totally different animal. It's a lot riskier, but if it succeeds, then Microsoft will have a truly unique product that offers something completely different to the Wii and Move. And this difference could either make or break Kinect, but I'm already seeing lots of signs where people generally tend to think of Kinect are more innovative, more fun, and these are two very critical factors in determining what's the must have item for this holiday season. And not having to buy controllers, and the endless list of accessories for them (from steering wheels, to guns, to tennis racquets …), might be a plus for some.

And as I mentioned before, I might just write a blog comparing the two new motion control systems, and also whether the Wii is doomed.

But that's the news for this week. A bad week for DRM, which in my book, means a good week. I wonder which DRM will get broken next week!

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3. Weekly Software Roundup

September 19, 2010	XBMC media center Dharma 10.0 Beta2 Freeware
September 19, 2010	MakeInstantPlayer 1.50 Freeware
September 19, 2010	MeGUI 0.3.5.13 Freeware
September 19, 2010	HDConvertToX 3.0 RC1 Freeware
September 18, 2010	RAD Video Tools 1.9w Freeware
September 18, 2010	TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4.0.12.42
September 18, 2010	BDedit 0.38
September 18, 2010	PlayOn 3.0.15.1175
September 18, 2010	SPlayer 3.6 Build 1543 Freeware
September 17, 2010	XviD4PSP 6.0 Beta (14 Sep) Freeware
September 17, 2010	K-Lite Codec Pack 64-Bit 3.9.0 Freeware
September 17, 2010	K-Lite Codec Pack 6.4.0 Freeware
September 17, 2010	K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 6.4.0 Freeware
September 17, 2010	BD Rebuilder 0.34.10 Beta Freeware
September 17, 2010	DVDStyler 1.8.2 beta 4 Freeware
September 16, 2010	Replay Media Catcher 4.0.1.0
September 16, 2010	TMPGEnc XPress 4.7.8.309
September 16, 2010	DVBViewer 4.5 RC1
September 16, 2010	Codec Tweak Tool 4.5.0 Freeware
September 16, 2010	The KMPlayer 3.0.0.1438 Freeware
September 16, 2010	Media Player Classic HomeCinema Edition 1.3.2550 Beta Freeware
September 16, 2010	Serviio 0.4.2 Freeware
September 15, 2010	Opti Drive Control 1.50
September 15, 2010	ConvertXtoDVD 4.1.2.336
September 15, 2010	Connect360 3.41
September 15, 2010	Moovida 2.0.1.2 Freeware
September 15, 2010	EncodeHD 1.2.221.0 Freeware
September 15, 2010	Kdenlive 0.7.8 Freeware
September 14, 2010	GOM Encoder 1.0.0.38
September 14, 2010	MediaLink 2.02
September 14, 2010	AVCHDCoder 10.09.14 Freeware
September 14, 2010	ffdshow Rev. 3572 (generic/x64 Freeware
September 14, 2010	BDtoAVCHD 1.1.5 Freeware
September 14, 2010	Burn4Free 5.0.0.0
September 14, 2010	eXtreme Movie Manager 7.0.8.3
September 14, 2010	kmttg v0p7o Freeware

======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

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DIGITAL DIGEST  | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 215

12 September, 2010

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INDEX:

1. Introduction

2. Weekly News Roundup

3. Weekly Software Roundup

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1. Introduction

• Game Consoles – August 2010 NPD Sales Figure Analysis 

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2. Weekly News Roundup

I posted the August US video games sales analysis yesterday here. Nothing too surprising, but we're getting into exciting territory now (if, one can be excited about video game sales stats, that is), what with the Move and Kinect on the way. Many have already expressed their opinion that the Wii is doomed, but rather than looking at it at a glass is half empty perspective, I think the Wii has done extremely well given what it offers. It was never going to last as long as the Xbox 360 or PS3, due to the use of old tech in the console. And the fact that its core audience are casual gamers, and casual by definition means these are not the type of users to buy a lot of games frequently.

Let's start with copyright news. Sometimes there is such a things as saying too much, and an anti-piracy firm based in India may have just admitted to too much in their pursuit of copyright infringing websites.

The managing director of AiPlex, Girish Kumar, has admitted that apart from requesting web hosts to shut down websites that are hosting or providing links to copyrighted material, they have even gone as far as to trying to "attack the site and destroy the data". This could either mean actual server hacking, although it seems more likely to be describing an attack based on denial of service. Regardless, both acts are illegal in most countries (or at least frowned upon), and so using an illegal technique to pursue anti-piracy goals seems to be a bit over the top. Although if you consider that the likes of the MPAA and RIAA are willing to forgo even the basic tenets of democracy and rights to privacy, then a little hacking or DoS doesn't sound too bad at all. While DoS isn't a popular anti-piracy method, but anti-piracy companies have tried various similar techniques to make Torrent downloading a harder task. These includes uploading fake torrents, uploading invalid pieces to increase the number of errors, and massive leech based attacks, denying downloaders from connecting to seeds. As far as I know, these kinds of "attacks" are not illegal, although their effectiveness is highly questionable.

An update on the newspaper copyright trolling news last week, it appears that a Nevada Republican Senate candidate, Sharron Angle, has become Righthaven's latest victim, being sued for up to $150,000 for allegedly copying/pasting a newspaper article. It will be interesting to see what happens, whether the settlement fee is paid up promptly, and whether this has any impact, positive or negative, on the actual election campaign. It was always a matter of time before someone prominent was sued by one of the copyright trolls, and it just made things a little bit more interesting. And if it was downloading one of the porn torrents I mentioned in the last WNR, then expect the fireworks to fly. On a side note, if I was running against Angle, I would use the slogan "Sharron Angle, She's no Angel". You see, that's funny because people often misspell both words, and not a reflection or opinion on her actual character by this blog, since I have no idea who she is.

But one issue that has been raised before is whether an IP address is considered to be private data or not. If it is considered to be private data, then monitoring and storing it could in fact breach privacy laws in many regions. And one country seems to be moving in this direction, as a recent court case in Switzerland has pretty much made copyright trolling illegal. A government agency there actually took an anti-piracy investigation firm to court and won the case that basically confirmed that IP addresses are in fact private. Already, some are saying this ruling is a mistake which may turn Switzerland into a safe haven for copyright infringers. I like to think of IP addresses as akin to phone numbers (those with static IP addresses in particular, but those with dynamic ones, then it's more like having a different pre-paid number every so often). Just like a phone number, an IP address is required to establish communications, and because of this, it means it has to be given out to other parties. But just because it can be seen publicly, like say in a phone book for phone numbers, doesn't mean that it isn't personal, private data. You can't sell a list of my phone numbers for money without my permission, for example, and I think the same should apply to IP addresses. The fact that these companies are making money collecting other people's IP address suggest there needs to be more protection on Internet addressing. Certainly, just like it was argued in the Swiss case, IP addresses should not be used so negligently in civil cases – criminal cases would be another matter, of course. Hopefully, other countries will follow suit, but somehow I doubt this will happen …

And this is also why making ISP liable for their subscribers potentially illegal activities is just so wrong. Of course, the powers that be aren't asking ISPs to be liable for all crimes, just copyright infringement, which seems strange to me. Why would the ISP be more liable if one of their subscribers downloaded the movie Inception, then say if another user used their Internet connection to send spam or commit Internet fraud? Either they're liable for everything, or they're not liable for anything that their subscribers do. One of the more controversial points of the ACTA is the request for member nations to implement new laws designed to add liability for ISPs, but it seems that this provision is no more. So instead of forcing every country that is a signatory to the treaty to make their ISPs liable, the requirements will now most likely be much more vague, although many countries are still very keen to adopt similar legislation to France's Three Strikes, for example. And again, I have to ask, why is copyright infringement so special that it requires special laws to overrule long standing privacy laws and practices, and to force liability onto ISPs, when other more or less serious "crimes" are not getting the same attention? I haven't heard one argument that explains this, other than the fact that copyright infringement is far too common and so it needs something special. But I would argue that spam, spreading malware, hacking, DoS, fraud, identity fraud, Internet bullying and the myriad of other crimes that can be committed via an Internet connection all deserve more attention than helping the movie and music industry make more money. Spam and spam related fraud, for example, takes billions out of the economy each year, and yet, we see very little action (comparatively) from government agencies and industry bodies in combating this rather serious problem. Is this because the anti-spam lobby isn't as rich or powerful as the anti-piracy lobby?

And all this misplaced attention on anti-piracy all assumes that piracy is actually hurting the economy badly, but you look the record profits that Hollywood studios and music labels are bringing in, and you wonder is this really the case? Is piracy really that bad? Well, for video games at least, an industry experts says that piracy isn't so bad after all. Scott Steinberg, head of technology and video game consulting firm TechSavvy Global, says that piracy can actually help the video game industry. Or more precisely, the industry can use what makes piracy so popular to their advantage, as opposed to continuing the "arms race" against piracy websites and groups, a race in which the industry is losing badly, or using the legal system (and politically lobbying) to stop piracy. Instead, Steinberg argues that by making games cheaper, or even free, and charging small amounts for add-on content, may just be the way, pointing to free social network games such as Facebook's FarmVille (which is free to play, but extra items can be purchased to enhance the gaming experience). This isn't actually a new strategy, or one that hasn't been tried – it has been deployed in practice and the results are usually quite good. For example, Steam are now offering discount games (or even free ones, like Portal a couple of months ago) much more often than before, and I suspect that's because it's making them much more money than charging full price for games. Of course, hit games like Starcraft II will always sell well, and a high price is sometimes justified, even though it will lead to more piracy. But I think a balance can be achieved, where you can minimize piracy by reducing the price, but not so much that it becomes unprofitable – if the balance is right, I think publishers can look forward to short term increases in revenue and bigger long term benefits such as purchasable add-on content, sequels, paid online services. The alternative is to take the short-sighted approach and continue charging $50+ for games, and then complain about why gamers aren't buying all the numerous good games that come out every year.

In 3D/HD news, what if there was a way to get Blu-ray movies to play on the iPad, or even the iPhone?

Sounds too good to be true? Then perhaps it might just be. The upcoming VLC player for iOS promises to support HD MKV files, which for those with the skills, means they can rip their Blu-ray movies and get it to play on the iOS. But play it might, just don't expect to be at full frames, or anything approaching semi-playable if this video demo is any clue. Without some sort of optimization and acceleration support, it's just expecting too much of the 1 GHz processor in the iPad, remembering that even a P4 3.2 GHz processor struggles to play Blu-ray movies at more than 15 FPS without help from a GPU that supports AVC/VC-1 video decoding.

So the dream of being able to use your iPad for 1080p HD movies remains just that … a dream. For now.

But that HD MKV file may not play on the iPad, it may very well play on your TV. Many TVs already support the decoding of HD MKV files. Then there are HD streams on the Internet too, and these will be much easier to access thanks to Google TV, which is coming to a TV near you this Christmas. It's hard to describe exactly what Google TV brings to your TV, but just have a look at the video I posted here, and it will give you a fair idea of what to expect. I'm not sure browsing the web on your TV is going to be great experience, without a keyboard and mouse that is, which is why most Internet TVs have offered only "closed" Internet, just apps that have been custom designed to make using them easier with the TV remote. But with Google TV, perhaps it will be incentive for websites like Facebook and YouTube to offer a version made specially for TV/remote navigation (if they haven't done so already, in the case of YouTube XL).

And finally in gaming, the PS3 has just had a new firmware out, and the changelog lists "additional security features" as pretty much the only change.

So I'm just going to take a wild stab here and say that it had something to do with the PS Jailbreak device. And guess what, the PS Jailbreak device certainly no longer works after installing firmware 3.42.

But for those that avoided the update, then there will apparently be a new updated version of the Backup Manager. It promises support for future firmware updates (I gather this means that someone will go about hacking 3.42 or later to ensure that the exploit is still there, and that online services are still working). The update also promises native MKV playback, a much missed feature of the PS3, and even bringing back PS2 emulation. So it's clear that the PS Jailbreak device will be more than just about piracy in the future.

And that's all the news I have for you this week. Have a good one.

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3. Weekly Software Roundup

September 12, 2010	MediaCoder 0.7.5 Build 4742 Freeware
September 12, 2010	SPlayer 3.5 Build 1527 Freeware
September 12, 2010	kmttg v0p7n Freeware
September 12, 2010	ImageGrab 5.0.5 Freeware
September 12, 2010	Windows 7 Codecs 2.6.3 Freeware
September 12, 2010	Vista Codec x64 Components 2.6.7 Freeware
September 12, 2010	Vista Codec Package 5.8.2 Freeware
September 12, 2010	VideoCacheView 1.77 Freeware
September 11, 2010	Splash 1.5.0 Freeware
September 11, 2010	HC (HCenc) 0.24 Freeware
September 11, 2010	AVStoDVD 2.3.2 Alpha 100910 Freeware
September 11, 2010	PlayOn 3.0.14.1155
September 11, 2010	BurnAware Free Edition 3.0.5 Freeware
September 11, 2010	BD Rebuilder 0.34.09 Beta Freeware
September 10, 2010	K-Lite Codec Pack 6.3.8 Freeware
September 10, 2010	D2MP 4.22 Freeware
September 10, 2010	MeGUI 0.3.5.9 Freeware
September 9, 2010	MediaLink 2.01
September 9, 2010	multiAVCHD 4.1 Build 770 Freeware
September 9, 2010	BDInfo 0.5.6 Freeware
September 8, 2010	CCCP 2010-09-07 beta Freeware
September 8, 2010	Total Video Converter 3.71
September 8, 2010	Media Player Classic HomeCinema Edition 1.3.2505 Beta Freeware
September 8, 2010	PopCorn MKV ReMuxer 1.04 Freeware
September 8, 2010	madVR 0.31 Freeware
September 8, 2010	Preferred Filter Tweaker for Windows 7 3.6 Freeware
September 8, 2010	ConvertXtoDVD 4.1.1.334
September 8, 2010	PopCorn MKV AudioConverter 1.82.12 Freeware
September 7, 2010	MediaInfo 0.7.35 Freeware
September 7, 2010	AVS Video Converter 7.0.1.449
September 7, 2010	VirtualDub 1.9.10 (Build 32839) Freeware
September 6, 2010	eXtreme Movie Manager 7.0.8.1
September 6, 2010	AVIAddXSubs 9.8 Freeware
September 6, 2010	Quick Media Converter 4.0.0.32 HD Beta
September 6, 2010	GB-PVR 1.5.31 Beta Freeware
September 6, 2010	xVideoServiceThief 2.4.1 Freeware
September 6, 2010	DVDStyler 1.8.2 beta 3 Freeware
September 5, 2010	Wii Video 9 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	PSP Video 9 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	PS3 Video 9 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	Videora Xbox360 Converter 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	Videora iPod Converter 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	Videora iPhone Converter 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	Videora Apple TV Converter 6.00 Freeware
September 5, 2010	WinMPG Video Convert 9.1.6
September 5, 2010	Bitrate Viewer 2.2 Freeware
September 5, 2010	Ut Video Codec Suite 8.2.0 Freeware
September 5, 2010	MKVToolnix 4.3.0 Freeware

======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

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