Blu-ray and HD DVD copy protection defeated by...print screen?
After all the debate over AACS, ICT, BD+ and all the rest, both Blu-ray and HD DVD's copy protection system has already been hacked, if you can even call it a hack. In the oddest way to sidestep DRM since the infamous shift-key to disable AutoRun incident, German mag C't has discovered you can record protected high-def flicks in full resolution via automating the print screen function of the provided Intervideo WinDVD software. Both Sony's Vaio and Toshiba's Qosmio laptops with Blu-ray and HD DVD drives respectively come bundled with the software, and are vulnerable to the hack. Quite simply, it can be used to capture the movies frame-by-frame, and then reassembled to create the entire movie. Not the most elegant solution, but they claim it works.Toshiba has already confirmed the problem, and has announced updates for the software and drivers that disable the print screen function. Interestingly, if you have the software it does not appear to violate AACS and would potentially not face being locked out by a future AACS key update. Expect a pirate run on all remaining non-upgraded laptops and to see the aforementioned WinDVD OEM software floating around your local file sharing network any time now. All those delays, and all those licensing fees, defeated by a button thats been around as long as we can remember. The article detailing their find will be published Monday July 10, unless the DMCA ninjas get to it first.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Christian Newton @ Jul 7th 2006 12:43PM
Even though this occurs in the digital domain, it is still a lossy copy of the material. The image is the result of the compressed source processed by decompression. The resulting "movie" of frames would not have access to the compression source, only the decompressed frames. So the resulting movie would be quite large. To be portable, the movie would need to be recompressed, thereby increasing artifacts in the image. This is basically a version of the "analog hole."
John @ Jul 7th 2006 12:57PM
If there is a will there is a way. I can still remember seeing the first couple of ripped dvds using a method similar to this. They still looked amazing even though it was an "ugly" analog hack. It won't be long till both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are fully hacked to allow straight digtal copies to be made. I give it a year.
BRYAN @ Jul 7th 2006 1:44PM
I love that key. It hasn’t printed anything for 15 years, but it sure is good at "Capture Screen". This is simple. If it can be played out of your speakers....you can record it. If it can be seen on your screen....you can record it.
Jim @ Jul 7th 2006 1:49PM
Yes but the analog hole is closed for the most part for HD. Besides high-end super expensive devices (true movie pirates aiming for illegal activities), there is no way to use component for HD recording. You would need to re-encode the screen captures back to some format (MPEG2, VC-1, DIVX-HD, etc) but I bet the results would still look fantastic, considering how clean a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray image coming off a disc *should* be. Probably much better than broadcast quality HD.
Getting the sound sync'd back perfectly seems like the hard part.
nemi @ Jul 7th 2006 1:58PM
This is exactly how DVD playback protection was first defeated when DVD's came out. I remember hacks of Playback software that automated pausing the film and doing single frame advances with screen captures.
The resulting frames where then sent straight to a MPEG2/ MPEG4 encoder so a compressed version can be generated.
The sound would be interleaved later with the compressed video AVI container by playing back the movie at normal speed and capturing the sound by looping the line out of the sound card into the line in and using a standard audio recorder program.
It's is very funny to see after years of development that a work around that was used 10+ years ago on DVD still works today.
Yes there are artifacts and noise but if you are taking the 20+ Gb source and compressing to ~4 Gb of MPEG4 then you would be hard pressed to tell where the artifacts were coming form compared to a "pure" digital trans code.
GhostDoggy @ Jul 7th 2006 3:18PM
Where can one buy an HD-DVD drive for their personal computer? I see BD drives being mentioned all of the time, but I only see BD drives mentioned.
Mangan @ Jul 7th 2006 4:43PM
I don't think they'll use frame by frame copying. It's too long and it will be popular till next hack will be found. I think it will be soon enough