Just like efforts to close the analog hole, our old friend the broadcast flag (don't remember what that is and how it was defeated? Take a quick trip back to 2005 with us) has reared its ugly head again. Displaying the kind of tenacity rarely seen outside of horror movie villains and potential presidential candidates, some Vista Media Center users have apparently gotten the above popup while trying to record broadcast TV from NBC. Since the FCC regulation giving the broadcast flag its power to remotely disable your recording ability was overturned, not only should it not be enabled, there's no reason the system should respond if it were. The EFF's working with the makers of the HDHomeRun to find out why this happened at all (although it's not the first time); whether it's an honest mistake somewhere or if Microsoft slipped a bit of extra DRM into its latest OS.

[Via EFF]

Moving beyond day-and-date releases via internet and HD video-on-demand, movie studios may be ready to move towards regularly putting movies online ahead of the DVD release date for a premium price -- that surveys say some of us are willing to pay -- but prepare to have your analog hole plugged again. The MPAA petitioned the FCC earlier this month to lift the existing ban preventing cable and satellite providers from remotely disabling analog outputs on their set-top boxes via selectable output controls (SOC). In a bit of ICT redux, the movie studios haven't said definitively that they will use the technology, but insist on having the ability to force anyone wanting to view high definition movies to only see them through an HDCP-protected HDMI output to a compatible TV. The failure of AACS and BD+ to prevent high quality copies isn't a deterrent to the MPAA's push, so while ICT has gone unused on Blu-ray and HD DVD, we're still too fond of our component outs, switchers and homemade cables -- and too wary of a future change in policy -- to support any changes in the law.

Regardless of what those oh-so-knowledgeable analysts had to say, we all knew this day was coming. Yep, that highly-touted, totally "impenetrable" copy protection technology known as BD+ has officially been brought to its knees, and it's not at all surprising to hear that we have SlySoft to thank. The AnyDVD 6.1.9.6 beta has quite a comical change log too, and aside from noting that users now have the ability to backup their BD+ movies and watch titles sans the need for HDCP-compliant equipment, it also includes a candid note to Twentieth Century Fox informing the studio that its prior assumptions about BD+'s effectiveness were apparently incorrect. You know the drill, hit the read link below to try 'er out.

[Thanks, Aaron]

We haven't broken down the minutes and seconds or anything, but we're fairly certain that July 10th wasn't exactly ten years ago. Nevertheless, the so-called "impenetrable" BD+ DRM scheme has reportedly already been subverted, and it's no shock to hear that the folks behind SlySoft had a hand in it. Regrettably, there's not a lot of details beyond that just yet, but according to the outfit's CEO, the software is ready to rock and should be released before the end of 2007. Chalk (yet another) one up to the hackers.

[Via HighDefDigest, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Reports continue to filter in about DVDs that refuse to play on standard players from Toshiba, LG, Pioneer, Sony, and others. The culprit is titles that utilize Sony's ARccOS copy protection scheme, such as Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," The Weinstein Company's "Lucky Number Slevin," and Sony's "Casino Royale," "The Holiday," and "Stranger Than Fiction." ARccOS artificially scrambles sectors on the disc in an attempt to keep users from ripping the disc to a drive. Many older (or less sophisticated) players simply skip these corrupted areas as unreadable and continue on. Computers -- and unfortunately, some newer players -- try to perform error correction on these areas and fail playback. When contacted, Sony seems to deny the problem, much like Microsoft and the 360 disc scratching, and simply passes the buck onto the player manufacturers to upgrade their firmware. Meanwhile, many users have simply downloaded programs to bypass the protection and make copies without the "defect." So, is this a rootkit-like class action lawsuit in the making? Is it just overblown hype over a few players that don't follow standards? Another example of copy protection that bites legitimate users and ignores the real problem? And do average consumers even care?

It's hard out there for DRM these days, as we've got diligent users working 'round the clock to reinstate the fair use rights that AACS and similar restrictions seem to remove, and now there's an easy, streamlined, and costly method to cracking down on your HD DVD's DRM scheme. Those out there looking to make backups, view your content sans PowerDVD Ultra (or without an HDCP-compliant graphics card / display), get rid of user prohibitions, and skip over studio logos and warning messages should look no further, as SlySoft's AnyDVD HD has been relinquished from its brief stay in beta territory and is ready for purchase. While we've already seen just how compromised DRM is as a whole, and we've witnessed giant steps leading up to this occasion, this $79.99 software gives users a point-and-click approach to freeing up their protected content in order to make it a tad more user-friendly. Moreover, the company's marketing director insinuated that a Blu-ray version of the software should be hitting the beta stage "later this quarter," so if you're anxious to remove those chains from your precious HD DVDs, and don't want the bother with the free alternatives already out there, be sure to hit the read link with credit card in hand.

[Via DTV]

Here's something that opponents of restrictive DRM implementations aren't going to be too happy with: ZDNet is reporting that new copy-protection software for DVD publishers from a company called ProtectDisc not only makes it difficult to rip movies that you've purchased -- no surprise there -- but actually prevents discs from playing in a Windows PC at all. So if you pop in a DVD "infected" with Protect DVD-Video, it can't be read by Windows Media Player, Media Center Edition, or any DirectShow-based software, thanks to a Universal Disc Format that tricks your machine into believing that the IFO file is zero bytes long. As you might expect, there are already workarounds out there that can bypass Protect DVD: SlySoft reportedly updated its AnyDVD software recently as a direct response to this protection racket. Still, this is a discouraging development for home theater buffs who have upgraded their setups to revolve around a hot new HTPC; remember that old standalone DVD player that you stuffed in the attic a few months ago? Well if Protect DVD and other tools like it take off, you may have to dust off that old player and return it to its rightful home in your gear rack.

[Via PVR Wire]

Wouldn't you know it. After paying for anger management sessions to deal with those repetitive delays, finding out it wouldn't work right with your shiny new plasma, and wondering if the thing was even worth the $800 to begin with, we've got yet another reason to pass on TiVo's almost-excellent Series3. If your box hasn't been plagued with issues just yet, we sure hope you aren't the proud owner of a JVC receiver, or you could be facing more of those ever-present DRM snafus. During CNET's testing of the Series3 box with the JVC RX-D702 receiver, things were going perfectly smooth as the TiVo streamed video / audio to the JVC over HDMI, and separate monitors via composite / S-Video -- until they switched over to HBO HD. Programming on this channel, as well as HDNet and Universal HD, yielded a gray screen complemented by a (presumably enraging) message stating: "Viewing is not permitted using the TiVo Digital Media Recorder. Try another TV input." Further investigation (read: hitting the "Info" button) spilled the beans on the DRM-laden troubles, as testers were greeted by a statement declaring "regulations of the copyright holder" the villain. While the "glitch" would probably be a non-issue had TiVo included TiVo To Go on the Series3 boxes, the almighty media providers would have none of that, and currently, the problem can only be solved by swapping out your (presumably costly) HDMI-equipped receiver for another brand. Chalk another one up for the content guardians.

[Via Thomas Hawk]

Privacy types are just going to love this one. Major studios, including Warner, Disney and Fox, are prepping to start embedding RFID chips in every DVD produced, enabling them to track the disc from the factory to the store to your home. The chipped DVDs will then be examined by your home DVD player to make sure you're not trying to do anything fun like playing the movie in an incorrect geographical region, or running a copied disc. While they're starting out with DVD movies, it seems the proprietors of the tech are hoping to squeeze the chips into HD DVD, Blu-ray and any other medium in need of some copy protection. "This technology holds the potential to protect the intellectual property of music companies, film studios, gaming and software developers worldwide," sez Gordon Yeh, CEO of Ritek, whose U-Tech subsidiary is all prepped to start making the discs in Taiwan. Once all the manufacturing kinks are worked out, U-Tech will work with the studios for a test roll-out in Australia. Of course, to make any of this relevant, new DVD players will be required, but we're not clear if the discs will play as normal on non-RFID players. So, we're still short on deets, and there's no real word on when we can expect any of this to show up on Wal-Mart shelves, but that doesn't mean we can't start running around frantically and start decrying the end of our civilisation, for it is indeed at hand.

With all of the time and money that Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry have poured into copy-protecting high definition content, we were amused to learn that both formats can already be duplicated by the simplest of means: the trusty Print Screen button on your keyboard. UK-based Heise Security is reporting that the special OEM version of Intervideo's WinDVD software bundled with both Sony's first Blu-ray Vaio and Toshiba's first HD DVD Qosmio contains a security hole that allows users to capture video frames at their full resolution by simply triggering that Print Screen option -- which in and of itself is little more than a curiosity, but opens up the possibility of running a script that advances a given film one frame at a time and automates the whole screencap process, which would allow pirates to create high def copies by compiling the pictures and dubbing in the audio. Toshiba is already aware of the "problem" and claims that an impending software update will provide the fix, but as one HDBeat commenter astutely pointed out, as long as you can see a picture on your monitor or hear sound through your speakers, there will always be a way to capture that data.

[Via HDBeat]

It seems that HDCP, the high def content protection scheme that's all the rage among Hollywood types, may not be as secure as the suits had hoped: Princeton University computer science professor Ed Felten takes a look at the standard's supposedly well-known security flaws and dumbs down the basic tech on his blog so all us non-math majors can understand. Basically, HDCP relies on a handshake between connected hardware wherein the two devices send each other a set of rules to be applied to the forty-or-so numbers that constitute both devices' "secret vector" -- if each device reports the same numerical result (as the pre-determined mathematical rules dictate they should), sweet high definition content can begin to flow freely. According to Felt, all it takes to figure out a given device's secret vector or create a workable "phantom" vector is to perform a number of handshakes equal to the number of elements in the secret vector, followed by a little bit of algebra to tease out the results from a matrix of equations (follow the "Read" link for a better explanation). Although HDCP-restricted HDMI and DVI connections aren't prevalent enough yet for anyone to have actually undertaken this project (either that, or fear of legal reprisals has kept any successful cracks from being published), the simple fact that it's doable could mean nightmares for Tinseltown sooner rather than later.

[Via Boing Boing]