Intel's Dropping of SGX Prevents Ultra HD Blu-Ray Playback on PCs (ghacks.net) 81
Intel removed the security feature SGX from processors of the 11th and newer generations. Problem is, the feature is one of the requirements to play Ultra HD Blu-Ray discs on computer systems. From a report: The Ultra HD Blu-Ray format, often referred to as 4K Ultra HD or 4K Blu-Ray, supports 4K UHD playback with a pixel resolution of 3840x2160. One of the requirements for playback of Ultra HD Blu-Ray discs on PCs is that SGX is supported by the installed processor and by the motherboard firmware. The Blu-Ray Disc Association defined DRM requirements for Ultra HD Blu-Ray disc playback. Besides SGX, playback is protected by HDCP 2.2 and AACS 2.0, with some discs using AACS 2.1. Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) "allow user-level as well as operating system code to define private regions of memory, called enclaves, whose contents are protected and unable to be either read or saved by any process outside the enclave itself, including processes running at higher privilege levels" according to Wikipedia.
Memory card movies (Score:2)
How come movies aren't being legit sold and distributed in memory cards? Before you say DRM or some BS like that, there is no reason a memory card can't have that.
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A 64GB SD card costs about 10x - 50x what it would cost to stamp these discs in bulk. They could, but they might as well offer digital downloads at that point.
Re: Memory card movies (Score:3)
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Because it costs 45 cents to make a bluray disk.
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Too expensive too slow.
To press a disc costs pennies and takes seconds. So for under a buck and maybe 30 seconds later, you have a disc.
To store 100GB of movie, you need a 128GB memory card, which while they're cheap, you're still looking at $10 or so in bulk. And writing 100GB to it will take 10-20 minutes, because the premium high speed versions
Re: Memory card movies (Score:2)
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It still takes time to do the OTP thing whether it's erasable or not, every byte has to be written individually. Just try copying 20 gigabytes to a flash drive and see how long it takes. And OTP still can decay over time whether it's EPROM or fuse based.
And it's a lot easier to stamp a plastic disc from a glass master at the rate of one per second than it is to deal with chip masks for mask ROMs, then building chips around them. The bonus is how they nicely stack up on spindles when they're done.
Re: Memory card movies (Score:2)
It's actually written in blocks rather than bytes. A read only memory device might actually be quite a bit cheaper than your typical memory card though. If you directly etched the content into the silicon, which could potentially be practical, you'd greatly simplify the hardware needed. The controller would only need to send data in one direction, and you also eliminate the need for things like wear leveling. Even in OTP you would still simplify it a lot as you could also eliminate the need for things like
So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:4, Insightful)
to be able to watch them on newer computers or just buy AMD?
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Can you consistently rip 4K Blu-Rays now? I haven't looked into how cracked the encryption is in a long time. A few years back, I ripped all our DVDs to a file server, keeping them in .iso format (but stripping out the encryption). The discs are all the basement, and we can play any of them from our media computer, complete with any included extras. At the time ripping Blu-Rays wasn't really an option, and they took up too much space, and we didn't have many, so we still use the player for them. But at
Re:So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:3, Informative)
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Yea but I only buy 4K if no other option is available at the time. WalMart for example sometimes sells just 4K disks.
I generally get a DVD when available or Bluray with a DVD disk. If not, I rip it and downconvert it heavily, a couple of gigs in size or less. 4K is a last resort and even then I’m looking for a combo 4K + Bluray or + DVD.
Any TV watching though, like our Friday night movie night, is on Disc.
[John]
Re: So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:2)
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I second MakeMKV. It's the easiest ripping software and most smart TVs can play most MKV files as-is. Use Handbrake for the occasional movie/TV show that doesn't convert/play properly. VLC can playback everything and can even splice deleted scenes into a movie sequence without modifying the original files via a custom playlist - a bit tricky though to get the timings right and I've only done it a couple of times where I thought a specific deleted scene resulted in a better movie.
Haven't really found a go
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That looks great for pulling out the content. What I really want is to do this like I do for DVDs: Create an image of the disc in a file, and point a player at it, so I get all the menus and everything (preferably stripping out the encryption in the process).
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I don't call breaking DRM and format shifting for LAN streaming piracy. Illegal, technically, but but piracy.
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If "breaking the encrption" is so trivial then the argument can be made that it provided no protection and that bypassing it was not required and that therefore no violation of the law occurred. As a general rule, lawyers are stupid and blinkered.
Re:So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:4, Informative)
If "breaking the encrption" is so trivial then the argument can be made that it provided no protection and that bypassing it was not required and that therefore no violation of the law occurred. As a general rule, lawyers are stupid and blinkered.
Calling CueCat [wikipedia.org], where an XOR [lib.la.us] was used for DMCA purposes. Was that really 22 years ago? I'm getting old.
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I think I've still got mine somewhere. I did the hardware mod, didn't bother with the software. It was still a really crappy barcode scanner, but hey, free.
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No, Sony v. Universal is time shifting (the famous Betamax case from the 1980s).
You're thinking of Recording Indus. Ass'n of Am. v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc., 180 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999) [google.com], which is the Diamond Rio case. (For those who don't know what that is, it's an early handheld MP3 player)
While the court did, very briefly, hold that space shifting was a fair use, remember that fair use is a case by case analysis based on the circumstances at hand and where the effect on the marketplace is a factor
Re: So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:2)
The DMCA doesn't say that it's illegal to break encryption, but that it's illegal to circumvent digital locks. This is why Lexmark and many others used it to sue people who refilled printer cartridges and reset the controller to think the cartridge was full again. There wasn't any encryption involved in that, just a digital lock that they defeated.
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It's easier just to download a high quality rip from The Pirate Bay or RARBG. No need to waste your time and electricity doing a rip yourself, just buy the disc and throw it in a storage box, then pirate the MKV file for your NAS.
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If you just want the movie, that's fine, but if you want the special features, then you need to rip the full .iso image and point a player at it. I've had good luck on that with DVDs (though a few are a pain with my tools). I haven't looked into doing that with Blu-Rays, but last I looked, that wasn't really an option, at least on Linux (my media computer runs Linux).
Re: So everyone should rip their bluerays? (Score:2)
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to be able to watch them on newer computers or just buy AMD?
You, and probably others, misunderstand. Blu Rays are not impacted this. This is a problem for what is variously called "Ultra HD Blu Ray" or "4K Blu Ray", which is a higher resolution format based on Blu Ray technology. It's so difficult to get 4K Blu Ray working on a PC because of the ridiculous specs that it's really not worth it in my opinion, and I speak from experience here. Most of the things required to even have a shot at getting it work correctly actually aren't useful, they seem to have be
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According to TFA, that isn't quite the case. AMD users have been able to watch Ultra HD Blu-Ray using software other than CyberLink's PowerDVD, which relies on SGX.
beemeup5
Intel SGX is not a requirement for playback in the UHD Blu-ray spec. PowerDVD just happens to make use of Intel SGX for their decryption implementation / HDCP handshake enforcement. Other software players that don’t make use of Intel SGX can play UHD discs just fine, so AMD CPU owners need not worry.
Just use MPC-HC or JRiver Media Center, etc. Of course, you may need to use “alternate” decryption options like AnyDVD or DVDFab, and naturally you also need a UHD capable disc drive with compatible firmware. like the Asus BC-12D2HT. Many sellers will flash the stock firmware with UHD-capable firmware for drives sold as “UHD ready”.
complaints of not enough DRM? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re: complaints of not enough DRM? (Score:1)
Yet another learning opportunity will be wasted (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't own things that come with digital restrictions management.
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It only affects playback of discs on PCs.
You can still play those discs on easily available standalone disc players.
It's not really a huge deal wither - playing back the disc on a PC requires you have a very specific drive in your PC as well, as well as Cyberlink PowerDVD which while you buy it outright for $99 a year (on sale), support only lasts for a year so you have to buy a new copy a year later because the keys expire.
By the time it's all said and done, you've invested $300 on your PC just to play bac
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In fact, what everyone else does is invest maybe $50 on a blu-ray drive and rip the UHD discs on the PC.
To me, it seems intangibly more than $50. I don't have the time or patience to figure out which drive and which firmware is required. I have a decent sized collection of standard Blu-Rays ripped to the server but haven't bought a single 4K disc. Now, if I could pay $100 and have someone else figure out the right model and flash the drive, I would probably do it.
Seems like a great hiding place for malware (Score:3)
> Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) "allow user-level as well as operating system code to define private regions of memory, called enclaves, whose contents are protected and unable to be either read or saved by any process outside the enclave itself, including processes running at higher privilege levels"
Seems like a good place for malware to hide. I'm glad Intel got rid of this feature.
What amuses me is that they seem to go through all this trouble to DRM the entire pipeline including the CPU and HDMI cable but stuff still gets copied and released by the piracy community on the day of release or even earlier. They really should stop trying so hard; it's affecting the experience of legitimate users while doing nothing to stop piracy.
Re: Seems like a great hiding place for malware (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeed. The only people hurt or inconvenienced by DRM are the legitimate, paying customers.
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The ones whose parents still had CDs will. The parents who tossed everything out to stream on Spotify on their stupid-phone for ten bucks a month, not so much.
But when it comes to movies, most are trash anyhow, even when they've been turd-polished to 8K UHDR.
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From that article, Ian Hickson of Google and HTML5 fame wrote
The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations. The purpose of DRM is to give content providers leverage against creators of playback devices.
Unfortunately, as Google is also famous for shutting down services, the original article was on G+ and is no longer available.
Re: Seems like a great hiding place for malware (Score:4, Informative)
Don't worry, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has got you covered [archive.org].
I don't normally plug things, but: donate [archive.org] today to keep this valuable resource online!
Re: Seems like a great hiding place for malware (Score:2)
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Sure, they lose business the piracy, but imagine how much they lose to working backups.
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Sure, they lose business the piracy, but imagine how much they lose to working backups.
I'm imagining not that much. In order for them to make money from lack-of-backups, people would have to be losing Blue Ray discs and then responding to that loss by buying new copies as replacements -- which seems like an uncommon scenario, since any Blue Ray that you care about enough to bother replacing, you probably also liked enough to be careful not to lose in the first place.
My guess is, 99% of movies are watched once or twice, and after that, they sit on a shelf unwatched for many years, until final
Defective by design (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well that's the thing. They really want to do something but the only thing they can do is annoy their paying customers. So that's gotta be it.
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I don't think I've ever seen any legitimate user use a bluray player in their PC. I know what you're saying, but there will be only the tiniest number of people affected by this.
Discs are still a thing? (Score:2)
Re:Discs are still a thing? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Discs are still a thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
UHD discs also can be played offline. Short of being robbed, you cannot be deprived of the ability to play the movie as long as you have the disc and a player.
Streaming, while way more convenient, is at the whims of so many people that "movie night" can be cancelled because someone has a snit with someone else
Even if Disney decides that only Disney+ can show a Disney/FOX/Marvel/etc movie, my old discs will play in my player - Disney would have to break into my house and physically steal the copies of the movies to remove my ability to play them.
Also, I hate paying subscrpition fees. The cost is high enough that the few movies I care about, is probably a couple of months worth of a subscription service like Disney+. So I can pay money forever to Disney, or I can pay once and watch it until the disc and/or player disintegrates.
Yes the discs have DRM in them, but they've been broken so many times over and standalone players don't really do much with it - it's basically transparent.
So don't buy them (Score:3)
Let the MPAA members burn the discs this winter to keep warm.
Unfortunate. (Score:1)
SGX was a great way for malware to mask itself from anti-virus scanners. The good news is that Intel never gives up on a bad idea, so this will likely be back in some form or another. This will also impact a handful of other criminal corporations posing as legitimate software vendors.
It's just so sad. /s
Ultra HD 4K Blu-Ray? (Score:1)
Seriously, I still buy DVDs (which are essentially DRM-free at this point, except Disney's) even though I do have a blu-ray drive on my system
Now, get off my lawn!
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Blu-rays have been almost as easy to rip for many years now.
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Bluray yea, UHD is a little more limited
MakeMKV and LibreDrive have had UHD's cracked for a long, long time. I ripped all my 4k UHD's to my Plex. Screw all this DRM shit. I watch it when I want, where I want, on whatever I want. Only downside is there's no Dolby Vision support, but I can find most anything I want in HDR/HDR10/HDR10+ format.
Re: Ultra HD 4K Blu-Ray? (Score:2)
DRM is the issue (Score:3)
So, the processor isn't the issue - DRM is. If they change or remove their DRM software then the issue goes away.
We all know that crafty developers have a solution already, or will have one soon.
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This solution is already in use. If "shit" is causing a problem, simply get rid of it. Arbitrary code execution by "SGX" is fixed by getting rid of or turning off SGX with a laser if necessary (since that is the only way to ensure it is turned off). That leaves "DRM" as an "ugly bad on the side" that has no useful purpose and can then be removed in order to restore utility.
If you do not like that, then you can get on your knees and blow me. If you get violent you will be put down. If you are brandishin
Not Intel Problem (Score:1, Insightful)
This is not an Intel problem. It is a Digital Restrictions Master problem, and it is being experienced only by the slave class.
Since I do not permit the execution of arbitrary third-party code on my computer(s) for security reasons, the whole SGX crap was merely a shitshow in search of an off switch. It is good that it is gone, a net improvement in the state of affairs.
Next thing that needs to be addressed is the propensity of assholes to include camera's and microphones (and spyware) in everything so tha
Re:Not Intel Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you write and maintain your own closed-source OS, chances are this statement is categorically false. You're likely running all manner of "arbitrary third-party code" from hundreds if not thousands of different developers, none of whom you know or have any insight into. That is pretty much the definition of "arbitrary."
Bigger problems: (Score:3)
Has anyone seen a computer built in the past 3 years with an optical drive? I don't think it's Intel's 11th gen CPU that will prevent playing back 4K blurays, but rather the fact that basically no one really does this.
HTPC owners maybe?
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The truth is that DVD was made compatible for NTSC/PAL so it is the same as VHS.
No. VHS plays on NTSC hardware, but only has 240 visible horizontal lines of resolution. DVD has double that at 480.
There was plenty of room for anamorphic widescreen. A lot of cheap discs were pressed with burned in black bars on 4:3 which nobody should have ever done. VHS just doesn't have the technical merits to compare. There were good analog formats at the time - like what TV stations were using for broadcast masters. Those got directly transferred to DVD for a lot of TV releases on DVD. The qua
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Even a few years back when optical drives were more common, Bluray drives were pretty rare. If you had an optical drive, it was more than likely a DVD. That's all my computers have ever had.
What's Blu-Ray? (Score:2)