Re: [gentoo-user] High Definition and OSS

[Stroller]

On 24 May 2008, at 18:37, Florian Philipp wrote:
> On Sat, 24 May 2008 17:15:34 +0100
> Stroller <stroller@××××××××××××××××××.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hmm, on which features depends the encryption? Would a Windows Media
>>> Player in Wine be able to play it or do I need an operating system
>>> supporting it, maybe in a virtual machine? Has anyone tried?
>>
>> Neither of these methods would work at all.
>>
>> Read up on the Protected Video Path (PVP) at:
>> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
>> command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9005047
>>
>> Basically you won't be able to use a "legitimate" player under
>> Linux. You either rip it, use a DeCSS equivalent, or not at all.
>> ...
> Well, then it's a no-go. The display is a pre-"HD-ready" TV-set with a
> standard DVI-D-port and a fairly high but non-standard resolution so I
> don't expect it to work with a hardware player or PVP.
>
> Well, it seems like the only thing someone like me can do is to use
> alternative ways to obtain a copy.

I wouldn't rule it out completely. I should mention that not all  
disks require Protected Path at present, but more new releases may do  
in the future. But I really wouldn't expect Nero HD-DVD player (or  
whatever) to run under WINE.

I believe instead that you can rip the movie files off the bluray to  
hard-drive and either play them from there or transcode them.

Blurays are about 25gig, IIRC, so it's a bit much to keep your whole  
collection on your PC's desktop, but I think I read they can be  
transcoded to half their size (or is it 5gig? I can't recall) without  
quality loss. And I'd think they'd  still be better-than-DVD quality  
at 2 or 3 gigs.

So - 500gig harddrives coming in at under 10p per gig these days -  
it's feasible to rip 100 or 200 blurays (which'd cost you a packet at  
today's prices, anyway!) to the NAS, just until you upgrade your TV  
in 5 years time.

If you Google "bluray Linux" an Ubuntu forums post comes up  
explaining the hows & whys. All the bluray's VOB files are a standard  
container/codec, so it's just the encryption you have to worry about.  
What teh haXorz are doing is running a debugger under the Windows  
players and reading the decryption keys out of memory; you download  
the list of cracked keys and put it in ~./keyz or whereever and your  
Linux ripper does the job. I think you can playback in mplayer.

Finally I should mention that hi-def isn't IMO worth getting excited  
about, and I don't think it's that much better than regular old DVD.  
I happen to have a bluray player because I bought a PS3 for  
videogames and I have been tempted to buy a couple of movies for it.  
I'm sure the clarity & crispness is much clearer on releases of the  
latest movies (Transformers or whatever) but when watching classics  
like Terminator the source material (grainy film) is the limitation.  
I've got high-bitrate DVDs on which the failings of the source  
material is clearly visible, FFS! On "28 Days Later" (bluray) you can  
VERY clearly see the haze of the greenscreen behind the actor's head  
as he walks across Westminster Bridge - they filmed that scene using  
a small handycam (lower def than 1080p?), then used software to put  
the background in afterwards, and it's quite obvious that they did  
so. Any of these movies I'd enjoy just as much on regular DVD, so  
just remember that hi-def isn't necessarily better - I might spend  
the odd tenner here or there indulging myself on BluRays, but new or  
second-hand I'm only paying £3 - £5 for DVDs, and it's hard to argue  
that hi-def is 3x to 6x better.

Stroller.

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