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Ripping "Advanced Resolution" stereo and mono files from the DVD-audio side of a DVD-Audio disc

Discussion in 'High resolution audio' started by olk, Jul 8, 2004.

  1. olk

    olk Member

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    In a previous thread "somebody" said the audio stuff seemed to be unripable and there are some good reasons why. So i just wonder which ones? Whats the difference in ripping VIDEO_TS stuff and from AUDIO_TS. Is the VIDEO_TS-content less worthy than the AUDIO_TS's one or what didnt i understand now?


    greetings
    olk
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2004
  2. wilkes

    wilkes Regular member

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    Wasn't "somebody", it was me.
    Audio_TS folders are for DVD-Audio files, not DVD-Video files, and are totally different. They use a so far uncracked copy protection method, as well as an encoding format called MLP most of the time, and there are no MLP stream rippers either - IF you could demux the AOB fioles, and IF you could break the CP. There are 3 reasons for you right off the bat.

    As to the difference - AOB (Audio_TS) content is generally either 24/96 or 24/192 stereo, plus 24/96 surround - in PCM audio encoded to MLP which is lossless, so is way superior to Dolby Digital or DTS lossy compression audio found in the Video_TS.

    Video_TS is DVD-Video. Audio_TS is DVD-Audio.
    Main difference between the two formats is DVD-V is video favoured - the audio files are secondary, and in DVD-A the audio is dominant, and any graphic files (there do not even need to be any graphical files) take a back seat.

    It is easy to rip AC3 (Dolby Digital), DTS or PCM from the Video_TS folder. There are several apps out there that do this.
    There are none that will rip DVD-A.

    And personally, I hope it stays that way, although I doubt that it will. It is going to be seriously difficult for this to be done, even though WinDVD will now decode DVD-A, it cannot rip it.
     
  3. olk

    olk Member

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    Regarding MLP you are right, looks like a variation close to the well known .ape or .flac stuff, but thats just speculation am investigating on that but the informations about are allmost non-existant.

    Well, the .aob files dont differ that much from .vob files, there is a x-byte header followed by y bytes of data, and that repeatedly through the whole .aob file.
    An .aob is a just collection of concatenated pes-frames. Nothing extraordinary or mystical.
    Needless to go further into detail since it might be a dialogue between us :)

    A funny observation was to see the first frame being empty and the last 2 frames also. The Audio information started about in the middle of the 2nd frame and ended in the middle of the 3rd last frame, that was how an dvd-a authoring tool did create aob files.

    What do you mean by: "And personally, I hope it stays that way,...", you dont want them do get demuxed?
    Or did you mean the audio-format (bps/sf/chan)?


    greetings
    olk
     
  4. wilkes

    wilkes Regular member

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    Nothing wrong with dialogues! :)
    DVD-A AOB files are multiplexed in a different way, I believe - plus there is the CPPM copy protection which is a heavy duty 128 bit encryption.

    It ain't gonna get cracked any time too soon.

    MLP, Meridian Lossess Packing, is nothing like any other form of packing, as it uses 3 different techniques to reduce filesizes, not just one as all the others do, plus it does not need to be decoded before playing - all the complexity is in the encoder, and the files can be played back in real time by a suitably equipped player.

    It also allows you to reduce the actual bitrates "on the fly" too, so as to assist in getting a better encode at the right bitrate.

    It is the combination of encryption, MLP & muxing that makes DVD-A unrippable.

    Of course, it is relatively simple to copy an unprotected DVD-A, but again demuxing is another kettle altogether.

    And np - I do not want to demux the things - I go to enough trouble authoring them on a daily basis.
     
  5. listen

    listen Member

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    How about a joint effort similar to seti@home and others, working to crack the encryption scheme? I think it would be quite popular, having a relatively short term goal..
     
  6. wilkes

    wilkes Regular member

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    Not me.
    I don't do illegal things, plus I am a professional DVD-A author, and regularly encrypt all my discs with CPPM/Macrovision and also CSS for the DVD-V layers.

    Tsk Tsk for suggesting such a thing.

    I paid a lot of money for my licenses.
     
  7. ByteMstr

    ByteMstr Member

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    According to DiscTronics,
    "Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM) has been developed by 4C (comprising IBM, Intel, MEI and Toshiba) and uses 56-bit keys, instead of the 40-bit keys used for CSS, and the Cryptomeria Cipher (C2) for content encryption."

    see here (very interesting):
    http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/dvdaudio/dvdaud_copyprot.htm

    56 bit should be done within a reasonable timeframe.

    The page also states that compromised player keys can be revoked.

    Edit: more stuff on workings of CPPM at extremetech:
    http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1231543,00.asp
    and
    http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1231538,00.asp

    I think WinDVD Platinum plays DVD-A on the PC. Now if "DVD-Jon" Lech Johansen decides he wants to play the DVD-A part JMJ's Aero on his linux box...
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2004
  8. wilkes

    wilkes Regular member

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    Forget it.
    CPPM is nothing even similar to CSS.
    With DVD-A you have several CP measures to be got around, and one of the biggies that everyone forgets is an MLP decoder.
    Dolby do not make the code for this publicly available.
    CPPM works so differently to CSS it is not funny.
    See also http://www.verance.com/technology/index.html for details of the watermarking that can be added before authoring.
    So what you then have is a watermarked file that is heavily encrypted in a totally different manner to CSS - brute force decryption methods as used by all rippers simply does not work here - then this is also MLP encoded as well.
    Then you have the analogue protections also included.
    This is another form of both Macrovision & CSS on the graphical & video content of these discs.
    And they use a different block basis - not the usual 2048, as stated at extremetech in the referenced articles, but 2056 instead.
    So, if you rip an image stripping out the CSS/Macrovision, tyou are left with the MLP encoded. CPPM encrypted watermarked audio content that your rips at 2048 blocks has further scrambled into incomprehensibility.
    It is the combination of techniques that works here, not just the one or the other.

    Even GEAR Pro ME cannot rebuild a CPPM protected DVD-A disc, and GEAR is thew world standard for DVD-A.
    What happens when you attempt to copy the Audio_TS folder to a PC is you scramble it even further.
    Try it.
    What will happen is this...

    Audio_TS contents can be copied to HDD.
    Remount it however, and you will find that due to the block issue that you can indeed burn the contents, and the disc will mount, and the play button will work.
    but
    all you will get is a dark, silent screen.
    Your graphics will not display, and your DVD-A player will no longer be able to decode the disc as you have scrambled the keys and the actual information by the act of copying it.

    You have just wasted your time, and a disc.

    You cannot rip these discs.
     
  9. ByteMstr

    ByteMstr Member

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    I agree right now it looks hard to do but it's not impossible.

    Since the watermarking is supposed to be inaudible, let's ignore that for the moment. Also any video content (including DTS and Dolby Digital versions) can be ignored for now. I'm just interested in the DVD-A audio.

    I was looking into upgrading to an Audigy 2 ZS card with the intention of playing DVD-A (I have 6.1 speakers). Creative offers software with it that will play DVD-A, so the MLP player (=decoder?) is somewhere in there. If I'm not mistaken, one of the original linux DVD-video player projects took a good, hard look at the internals of a Windows software player. This is probably what will happen to software DVD-A players as well, be it legal or not.

    As far as I'm concerned, MLP is the format of choice anyway since it's lossless and has good compression. As long as you can play from HD (a 120GB drive should hold about 25 DVD-A discs @4.5GB each) it's fine with me.

    So I think that reduces the "problem" to transferring the data from the disc and decrypting it to 'standard' (watermarked) MLP.

    Back in the old days, CD writers didn't read/write all subchannels and certainly didn't do CD-TEXT as it didn't exist yet but today most CD writers offer RAW DAO/96 and some even have the possibility to write unmodified ECC and other tricks that have nothing to do with writing a standard CD-DA or CD-ROM. There was a demand for it, so the manufacturers provided it.

    I wouldn't be surprised if soon there will be "RAW mode" DVD drives/writers that read and perhaps even write the full 2056 block. Perhaps for reading it's a matter of a special firmware 'upgrade' (they're already changing them to RPC-1, removing read and burn speed restrictions, etc.) I admit I can't fully understand the complexity from a techical standpoint, but I do know that a lot of "impossible" things have been possible a couple of years down the road.
    I agree with wilkes, as long as you're not able to read all the required data, it's pretty pointless to attempt any CPPM decoding. I looked at the DiscWelder ChromeII specs and it said it can enable copy protection but the keys etc. are introduced at the processing facility, so you can't create your own test material.

    As far as I can see now, there isn't much known about the inner workings of C2 encoding, except that according to disctronics it's 56 bits (same as DES).

    But if it's like CPRM, then there are 4 layers of encryption. The Device Key is used ("C2 Function") to obtain the Media Key and that in turn nets ("C2 Function") the Media Unique Key. This is used to decrypt ("C2 Decryption") the Title Key. The Title Key decrypts ("C2 Decryption") the actual content.

    I'm assuming that's the length of the Media Unique Key and the Title Key. Since 56 bits, even using a distributed attack, is still quite long for a single disc which may contain more than one Title Key, it seems more advantegeous to obtain these keys the way a legimate DVD-A player would.

    Disctronics says the Media Key is recovered by using the Player Key on the DVD-A's Media Key Block. If they Player Key is compromised, the player can be revoked (I'm assuming there will be some special code in the MKB which will lead unmodified players to de-activate themselves?). When a very popular player gets compromised (Creative's?), that will create a lot of very angry customers demanding a replacement player. Which will in turn get compromised as well.

    Edit:
    This is what I found regarding the watermark:
    The watermark contains 72-bits of data comprising 4 CCI (copy control information) bits and 8 Usage Identifier bits every 15 seconds plus 60 Content Identifier bits every 30 seconds.


    Edit 2:
    From slashdot: There's a Unique ID on the hub of the DVD (in the "burst cut" area that can't be written to) which is hashed with the media key and the key taken from the media key block (which you need the device key to decode) to determine the cypher key.


    Edit 3:
    More information came up from a lecture given by Jeff Lotspiech (IBM Almaden) at Stanford in 2001. Also some other sources.

    DVD-Audio is based on 'broadcast encryption'. Broadcast uses a session key block, DVD-Audio -as said- a Media Key Block.

    The media key block for DVD-Audio is 16 columns and about 25,000 rows so that's 400,000 keys per medium. Each column is probably 8 bytes each (64 bit) but the actual encryption is 56 bit.

    C2 is a 10-round Feistal network block cipher with a 64-bit block size and a 56-bit key

    Each player knows about 1 key for every column. The player key and this key can unlock the media unique key.

    He also said on DVD-Audio the Media Unique Key is not on the burst cut area, but it was actually somewhere in the lead-in (though on CPRM compliant DVD-R the MKB is in the leadin and the Media Identifier is in the BCA).

    The reason the encryption is limited to 56 bits is because of Japanese export laws prohibiting strong encryption from being exported.

    He also mentioned over and over again that it's not really strong encryption, it's the licensing scheme (and their patents) that is the main (legal!) protection in CPRM.

    So I'm assuming the DVD-A authoring works like this:

    "Raw" PCM (stereo or 5.1)
    + Verance Watermark (most probable to be added here)
    ---> MLPenc ---> MLP-track

    Note: though we'd rather end up with the PCM before the watermarking, getting an unencrypted MLP track is fine for now.

    MLP-tracks
    ---> C2_ECBC (C2 Block Chaining Mode)using randomly generated track key and Copy Control Information (C2_G One-way Function=hash)---> C2 encrypted track

    Track keys
    ---> C2_E (C2 Encrypt) with Media Unique Key

    Media Unique Keys and Media Key Blocks are given out by the C4 Entity LLC for a certain fee.

    Media Unique Key
    ---> media key block

    media key block
    ---> player keys

    So,
    with a newly compromised player key and a look-up in the MKB you can decipher the media unique key (the value 0xDEADBEEF came up somewhere as a check). If it fails the key may been revoked by C4 Entity in the MKB but you have 15 more to try.

    Oh here are some more urls:
    http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/ay0001.html
    (look for Jeff Lotspiech, plays in WMP)

    http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2002/volume06issue04/art05_protection/p07_existing.htm

     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2004
  10. ByteMstr

    ByteMstr Member

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    Here's some more tech documents on the cryptomeria cypher (C2) encryption that's used in DVD-Audio

    C2 description:
    http://www.4centity.com/data/tech/spec/C2_100.pdf
    (without the magic number)

    C2 facsimile testing with an S-Box and player keys:
    http://www.4centity.com/docs/

    Edit: in a paper called "Key-Assignment Strategies for CPPM" two researchers (André Adelsbach and Jörg Schwenk, both from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) confirm that 56-bit encryption is the achilles heel of C2/CPPM and hence DVD-Audio.

    Quote:
    "It may thus be economically feasible to compute a blocking set solely from the Media Key Blocks contained on different DVDs.
    This would allow to compromise the security of the whole system, because the row and column values of a key computed by exhaustive search are completely known."
    End Quote.

    Here's the link:
    http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1022431.1022451

    So it appears full access to DVD-Audio tracks just like CDDA and audio contained on DVD-Video is just a matter of time.

    Enjoy,
    Byte
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2004
  11. wilkes

    wilkes Regular member

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    I often wonder how well it would go down in certain quarters if I posted on websites the times and dates that home owners were going to be out at work.
    And what windows have the dodgy locks.
    And what the alarm weaknesses were at each house.

    And then pointed out that breaking into these houses would actually be quite easy for anyone with a working knowledge of alarm systems.

    This kind of post is just like doing that.

    Despicable, IMHO.
     
  12. ByteMstr

    ByteMstr Member

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    Actually, there's the MIT Guide to Lockpicking... and Kryptonite can start replacing bicycle locks... but that's irrelevant.

    What I want to be able to do is take track #1, #3 and #7 from one disc, #2, #3, #4 from another disc, etc. etc. and burn it all on a self-made disc with 0.000 loss in quality. Take Jean-Michel Jarre's latest "Essential" compilation. I don't like it one bit. My compilation is exactly how I like it (except 80 minutes isn't enough) I own both "The Essential" and "Images" (another compilation) and all the original CDs too (save 1 or 2).

    Someone smart enough to mount an attack on DVD-Audio really doesn't need the couple of links I posted. It's more to show the "that's impossible!" crowd that they shouldn't be so sure.

     
  13. Arx

    Arx Member

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    The problem with copy protection is, and always will be that it puts a lot of rediculous limitations on the way people use the content they spend their hard earned money on.

    I would simply like to listen to DVD-Audio on my 192khz/24bit soundcard, without being forced to run a specific operating system/software, or purchase yet another expensive player to clutter up my living room. Perhaps I would also like to listen to the same music on my headphones at work. Am I to buy another player for there? Maybe I'd like to downmix one to 44khz 16bit to listen to in my car. I don't want to buy another copy of an album I already have, just for the odd time I want to listen while I drive.

    A fairer analogy would be:

    Bigass corporations have locked and alarmed your house, and will only allow you in if you agree to live in the manner they dictate. If you don't like it, you can live in a tent.

    Personally, I don't think I'd hold it against you if you posted instructions telling me how to break into my own house, in spite of the fact that your instructions may allow some less honest people to steal.

    I'm sick and tired of people implying that I'm doing something illegal. I'm merely hate the extortion. I've bought a lot of music, and it pains me to think that 95% of the money I've put out, is going to the very people who are trying to screw me out of listening in the way I choose.

    To add insult to injury, here in Canada, we are charged a levy on blank recording media to cover losses due to piracy. Oh, BTW, did you hear they're adding a new tax to gasoline? Yeah, everyone uses it to burn down buildings, and we need you to pay for the damages. (I'm being facetious, if it's not blatantly obvious)

    I want to see this thing broken.

    Don't say "Tsk Tsk" or call me dispicable. I'm not a thief. I merely want to enjoy the music, which I've paid too much for already, in whatever way I see fit.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2004
  14. wilkes

    wilkes Regular member

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    This is the final comment I am going to make on this, as I cannot be bothered with wasting my time on people who will either not understand the problem, or refuse to see it, or simply assume that the rules don't apply to them somehow.
    The problem can best be summarized in the quality and resolution of the material available here, and if it is possible to copy it and then the inevitable will happen - "I'll jut run off a couple of copies for my mates" will occur. Inevitably.
    Then those mates will copy it for their mates, and so on.
    DVD-A is SOFTWARE.
    It is software with music on it, sure, but it is primarily software. If the development costs are not met, then it will fail.
    The analogy about players is incorrect.
    With vinyl you had to have a second player, and if you taped it there was generational loss of quality.
    With DVD there is none.
    You can get cheap software players for DVD-A, so go buy one. WinDVD 6 comes to mind.
    There is also one free with Audigy cards.

    Piracy is theft, and copies for your mates is also theft. If you don't like the conditions of sale, don't buy the product, and certainly don't start whining "unfair" when you cannot copy it in full resolution.

    I have lost count of the software that was superb and is now not available any more because of piracy.
    I don't even like the term piracy, as it implies a romantic overlay to stealing. The UK music industry loses untold millions every year to people like you, and it has to stop. Why should we subsidise your so-called "rights" - that are not really rights at all, but merely something you seem to take for granted, that the purchase of a single disc entitles you in some way to use it however, wherever & whenever you choose in perpetuity. Get a grip will you, and again think about the vinyl analogy.
    It didn't last forever, unless you cared for it, and it was not possible then to take it out on headphones, so why do you feel that you have a "right" to rip off a hard working musician and "convert" a 24/192 resolution DVD-A into a CD or an MP3?
    You have no such right, and neither should you have either.

    Stealing is stealing.

    And that is all I am saying on the subject, and this is also now my final post on these forums as well.
    I am so sick of all the discussions about how it is a god given right to steal from other people, and usually written by people who hide behind pseudonyms and webmail services to ensure that nobody can find out who is spouting this load of gonads.

    Finally, I got a private email the other day, from someone at these forums, with a cracked copy of wavelab who has just taken away work from me by underciutting to a point that I cannot even begin to match. Why does this piss me off so much? 2 reasons.
    1/. He has stolen all his software, and has no overheads & the morals of a guttersnipe.
    2/. He had the brass balls to ask me how to do the f***ing job after taking it from me.

    I no longer wish to be involved in a public forum that seems to advocate piracy, to the point of allowing posts like this to carry on.
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]www.opusproductions.com
    Digital Audio Specialists[/small]
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2004
  15. Arx

    Arx Member

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    I'm not really sure who you're responding to. If it is me, you've got me all wrong.

    Never said I copied anything for friends.

    That is true, and why I use cds. If not for the convieniences, and unavailability, I'd stick to vinyl.

    I'm sorry, did someone say something about not wanting to be forced to use a specific os? Oh, never mind. that was me. I would gladly buy a software player if someone releases one at a reasonable price, that doesn't require me to spend a couple hundred bucks to buy an operating system I don't want for any other purpose.

    Oh thank god, you mean all I have to do is buy a new sound card, and an OS, and I can get the software for FREE?

    Who said anything about piracy, or copies for my "mates"? And as far as the conditions of sale go, would you suggest that I quit purchasing music? I've pumped thousands of dollars into the music industry buying cds, and quite enjoy listening to them as I please. Playing from my hard drive, from my mp3 player, while I'm at work, home, in the car. I don't see how there's anything wrong with this. It's not "stealing" because it's not leaving my posession. I'm not out giving copies to all my friends.

    That IS a shame.

    People like who? They lose money to me? Is that how it works? I buy music, and they lose money?

    This shouldn't really be an issue, as long as I'm not violating the rights of others, Should I go down to the store and buy 5 more discs so that I may listen elsewhere?

    And you used to have to go outside to take a crap too.
    But now we have indoor plumbing, and all the inherent conveniences.

    Yeah, but once again, how exactly am I stealing?

    So, you just rant and insult people, and accuse them of theft, and they're all wrong, and you're just right, and that's the last word on the subject? And as for webmail and pseudonyms. Webmail is convenient. I can check it at home, at work, and in my car if I chose to. (And nobody bitches that I'm stealing.) Pseudonyms... I dunno, whatever. Call me Nick if you prefer.

    And my car got stolen a while ago, what does that have to do with anything. Some guy working with stolen software doesn't have anything to do with me wanting to play DVD audio on my linux box.

    And you support what? Supression of any speech you don't agree with?

    Sorry to all if this comes across as a rant. I'm really into my music, and don't see why I should have to put up with anything less than the best quality, just because some OTHER people don't pay for theirs.

    And one more thing. READ the message before you reply to it. Maybe then you wouldn't make so many unfounded accusations.

    l8rs
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2004
  16. ByteMstr

    ByteMstr Member

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    I'm sorry to see Wilkes (or any other user) go because of what is being discussed here, but the issue was whether it's possible to extract high resolution audio from DVD-A. Not just on this forum but on more web pages people claim it's not possible. The ACM publication by the two German researchers said it is, and even that the whole system is at risk.

    I never intended to pirate anything or condoned piracy. I am not copying anything for my "mates". Piracy is a separate issue and has more to do with morals than technical challenges. Copy protection doesn't help there; it costs a lot of money and when the real pirates deem it profitable to pirate anything, they'll find a way around it. What does help is education on the consumer's part and transparent pricing on the supplier's part.

    Whether people have the right to (down)mix their own compilations from discs they bought is also another discussion and may vary from country to country. My opinion (and that's all it is) is that people should have the right to convert their music between different formats/media (DVD-A, CDDA, MP3, etc.) They already do NOT have the right to copy it for their "mates" in most countries. Sometimes stringent conditions of sale are overruled by consumer rights legislation.

    If I was Wilkes I'd worry more about why Jean-Michel Jarre's new AERO album, note for note re-engineered for 5.1 surround sound, was put out on a "lossy" DD 5.1/DTS DVD-Video instead of a DVD-A (there's a CD and a DVD-V in the box). This could have been a DVD-A "killer app".
     
  17. abm-org

    abm-org Member

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    My 5 year old uses the DVD player on his own now, but rarely do I allow him to get a hold of and damage the originals. (Thanks to DVD X-Copy!) Reading this thread sure ticks me off as I wonder just how much more I'm paying for my DVDs because of anti-copying measures that are more or less phucking worthless.

    My attitude years ago on music was, MP3s are of inferior quality. I downloaded lots but then purchased music I liked. Numerous times over. But the RIAA didn't get it, and really ticked me off over the edge when they made a mockery of both a 12-yo and a grandmother that they sued in an NFL superbore commercial. Phuck them too, I found lossless compression to be my friend and haven't purchased a single CD since.

    People will always steal, stop making it so difficult for those of us trying to be legitimate and use what we paid for.
     
  18. Arx

    Arx Member

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    That's exactly the problem. It's what the copy protection people are trying to prevent. Your point about making copies so the kids don't wreck them is totally valid, but then you completely ruin its credibility by making a stupid statement like this.

    I probably do buy less cds because of mp3. But not because I'm just copying, or downloading them instead.

    If I hear a good song on the radio or something, I'll download a couple tracks from the album. If I don't like them, I won't buy it.

    Downloading music has also let me discover a lot of music that I would have never otherwise heard. Who's going to walk into a store and buy a cd that they've only heard mentioned once by someone they don't really know? Nobody. If it's as simple as popping onto the internet and grabbing it, however, I might give it a go, like it, and go out and buy the cd.

    [bold]I REALLY DO THIS.[/bold] I'm not one of these guys who is just making a bs hypothetical "I [bold]could[/bold] use it for this, so it should be legal, and will continue to copy everything, and never buy anything.

    It's true that there are a LOT of people who will just copy it because they can, and wouldn't think twice about it.

    [bold]Copy protection doesn't prevent this.[/bold] It will either be broken, or subverted. This isn't a challenge or anything, it's just a simple fact. If a person doesn't want to pay for their music, they're not going to do it. Back when cds were effectively uncopyable, did people buy everything they listened to? Of course not. they'd just borrow a friends cd, and copy it to cassette tape.

    The next argument is usually. "That's ok, because of generational loss, but now it can be given to 2 friends who give it to 2 friends, blah blah blah" And that's true. It used to be more difficult for copies to spread, so it presumably happened to a lesser extent.
    That DOESN'T mean that copy protection is the answer. The MOST good copy protection could possibly do, if it were perfect and unbreakable is to make sure that all the copies are 1 generation away from the original, which is still plenty good enough for most people.

    Copy protection WILL add cost to the music. And WILL prevent many listeners from getting the most out of the music they have purchased. Many protection schemes also reduce the quality of the final output(supposedly undetectable, but who's to decide)

    If anything, copy protection is likely to kill the DVD-A format. I can buy my music on cd, and copy it to my ogg/mp3 player, and listen to it on my headphones at work. With DVD-Audio, I would likely be forced to sample it in analog, and add all sorts of nasty quantization bugs, and jitter issues. Although I would very much prefer the higher quality from DVD-A, CD is still very much more practical for me, as I do a lot of listening on my headphones, or in the car.

    I'm NOT going to buy 2 copies of the same music, and I think it's completely insane that anyone suggest I should have to.

    If this makes users like Wilkes unhappy, I'm just as glad he's gone. But I hope it doesn't. I'm not saying people making illegal copies of music is not a problem, but this isn't the answer.

    To anyone doing DVD-A mastering: If you want the format to succeed, ditch the encryption. Only then will it become a practical format.

     
  19. natemc

    natemc Member

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    I'm just pist that I spent $20 on a disc and I can't take my music with me on my iPod. Especially considering that there is no portable DVD-A players out there, plus they would take up more space than I want. I don't wanna have to pay another $10 to download some DRM laced AAC file when I already have a fair use right to a disc that is in my posession.

    The format will fail if such restrictions are kept on music. I don't have a single DRM license tune on my iPod and I plan on keeping it that way.

    Speaking as a musician I want to give people the opportunity to listen to the 5.1 mixes that I have had done but I also want these same people to listen to it in their cars or on their portable player of choice.

    But then again I'm not the norm in the industry, I won't charge people more than $10 for a cd anyway. I still make over an 80% profit on $10.

    DVD-A will die, unless people are given choices, which obviously people want. Look at the proliferation of PVR/DVR, people want it their way. Give them the option.

    I think with my next release it will be either DVD-A and CD double set or DVD-A with mp3/ogg/aac files in the data section.
     

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