Blu Ray - Hacked & Pirated - How true ?

Dear All,

The following link confirms that Blu Ray AACS encrypton has been broken and Chinese Blu Ray are already available. How true is it ?

This is true. Infact, some shops do sell blueray content written on DVDs. Ofcourse, quality is not equivalent to blue ray but is that of a DVD
 
I have heard that they are using the AVCHD format on DVD to master at 720P resolution.Since the medium is DVD its cost of manufacturing is lower then blu ray.
 
I have heard that they are using the AVCHD format on DVD to master at 720P resolution.Since the medium is DVD its cost of manufacturing is lower then blu ray.

How to run these disk then?? Do regular dvd players support this format?
 
How to run these disk then?? Do regular dvd players support this format?
Nope..
Only PS3 and most Blu Ray players..
Many of the new Panasonic TVs have an SD Card slot that can play HD AVCHD files without an external player..
But you are better off getting an HD media player and playing the rips from an HDD
 
I have picked up a few DVD's from the street that are supposed to be 'copied' from blu-ray discs. They play fine on my DVDP. I do feel the PQ to be a little better than DVD's (similarly picked up from the street). Can't say about the SQ as I use a 2-ch setup.
 
Dear All,

The following link confirms that Blu Ray AACS encrypton has been broken and Chinese Blu Ray are already available. How true is it ?

Oh Dear, The pirated Blu-ray is already here - Instablogs

Pirates Start to Replicate Blu-Ray Movies - X-bit labs

Thanks.

hey this is really old news!!

AACS and its need for a Protected audio-video path (PAVP) created so many problems playing BDs on PCs, the tech community worked full time to break it.

in fact circumventing AACS was pretty much the only way of getting HD audio on a HTPC till the HDAV et al came out.

there is a free program called makemkv which handles aacs (don't know if it handles BD+)

as far as Blu-ray on DVD is concerned there are 2 specs included in the BD spec.

the simpler of them - AVCHD was incorporated to ensure that HD camcorder stuff could played back on lower cost media. very simple menus --AFAIK, it supports level 4.0 for Video (AVC codec only) (which means a max bit rate of 20Mbps) or 2x dvd speed. the PS3 does support this, and most bd players that have the AVCHD logo. remember though for non ps3, YMMV

BD5 and BD9 are more complex, and were included in the specs to create low cost hi def. essentially this means replicating the BD structure on a single or dual layer DVD, complete with menus. this means in theory can use the VC-1 or Mpeg2 video codecs (though since they are both less efficient, may not be a good idea) while "theoritically supporting level 4.1 (bd spec) they are constraint by 20Mbps bitrate max of the typical BD player handling a DVD disc

support for BD9 or BD5 vary widely, with sonys being better and panasonics being the most troublesome. even more so than AVCHD, YMMV!


none will play on a DVD player. (unless it is an HTPC with a DVD drive)

all this is irrelavent if you are using an HTPC, but then you'd probably be on*. mkv format with FLAC audio anyway, wouldn't you?

if you see a pirated BD, it's probably a AVCHD or BD9.

and yes, using "public domain" tools, you can get very very close to the quality of the original BD.
 
Actually the format has been hacked a while ago.

In July 2007 bluray commitee chairman had noted
"BD+, unlike AACS which
suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10
years".


and 8 months later, SlySoft had this to say
we
had intended to publish this release already in December as promised.
However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the
outcome of the "format war" between HD DVD and Blu-ray. On top of
that, we first wanted to see our assumptions confirmed about the in
the meantime released BD+ titles regarding the BD+ Virtual Machine. We
are rather proud to have brought back to earth the highly-praised and
previously "unbreakable" BD+...

Of course their justification of the crack was to ensure legal owners could back up their disks, but thats another conversation altogether.


Dear All,

The following link confirms that Blu Ray AACS encrypton has been broken and Chinese Blu Ray are already available. How true is it ?

Oh Dear, The pirated Blu-ray is already here - Instablogs

Pirates Start to Replicate Blu-Ray Movies - X-bit labs

Thanks.
 
Actually the format has been hacked a while ago.

In July 2007 bluray commitee chairman had noted


and 8 months later, SlySoft had this to say

Of course their justification of the crack was to ensure legal owners could back up their disks, but thats another conversation altogether.

sure.. but I'm not sure that Makemkv (which is free, still) handles BD+ well.

I have AnyDVDHD (best software I purchased!)

I guess you'll know that BD+ has not actually been cracked, just circumvented. More likely that Slysoft has some player keys cracked, so sometimes, if you get a really new or rare BD, AnyDVD needs to be contact mothership (slysoft) in order to get an info update to play that disc. also the bD-LA ensures any rogue player keys get revoked (like it did in MKB14), but I gues slysoft has an entire repository of player keys!

anyway as long it works whenever I need it (and I need it to watch movies on my main PC which has a non HDCP DVI connection), i am thrilled!
 
I have personally played and watched a pirated BD of 'G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra' and surprisingly the quality, both picture and sound, were very good. Honestly if I did not already know that it was pirated, I probably would never have suspected that it was pirated. The packaging and the overall quality of the BD was exceptional. In fact, the plastic case and the paper and printing quality of the cover artwork was better than the 'original' released by 'BIG Home Video'. The only thing that gave away the fact that the BD was pirated is that, it was a burnt BD-R disc and not a pressed disc. Also, the disc had a printed sticker stuck on the label side, although of very high quality, instead of the printing being on the disc itself. Unfortunately I never got the chance to do a side by side comparison of the pirated copy and the original 'BIG Home Video' BD. Therefore it was hard to remember if one was better than the other, since there was a gap of over a week between the time I saw each copy.

PS: The disc seemed to be an identical copy of the US BD release of 'G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra' and it included a 'DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1' track. The BD was purchased in Bangkok.
 
Sanjay Ji, thats a breaking news, and it indicated that the time is not far from now when we will be able to see all those pirated BDs in Palika for 100-200 bucks, which would eventually make the original disk producers to cut the prices to some extent. Earlier I had bought few DVDs from Palika which were so called BD rips on DVD 9s and here the picture quality was definetely better than the original DVD release of the same movie but the soundtrack was always the lossy track of Dolby or DTS.
 
sure.. but I'm not sure that Makemkv (which is free, still) handles BD+ well.

Thats a personal choice but I respect your position here...



I have AnyDVDHD (best software I purchased!)

I guess you'll know that BD+ has not actually been cracked, just circumvented. More likely that Slysoft has some player keys cracked, so sometimes, if you get a really new or rare BD, AnyDVD needs to be contact mothership (slysoft) in order to get an info update to play that disc. also the bD-LA ensures any rogue player keys get revoked (like it did in MKB14), but I gues slysoft has an entire repository of player keys!

This position was taken by the CRI (developers of BD+ and Macrovision) but in reality its a marketing spin. The fundamental issue with the design of BD+ solution is that it is putting the onus of creating secure firmware for all BDPs. This opens up the possibility of leakage ever more.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that we are seeing Blu Ray copies slowly hit the market. Its just a question of time before the same phenomenon that followed DVD happens with Blu Ray as well.

Sorry Fox/Sony studios, HDCP compliance with a combination of firmware and HDMI cable is just not going to cut it.
 
Sanjay Ji, thats a breaking news, and it indicated that the time is not far from now when we will be able to see all those pirated BDs in Palika for 100-200 bucks, which would eventually make the original disk producers to cut the prices to some extent. Earlier I had bought few DVDs from Palika which were so called BD rips on DVD 9s and here the picture quality was definetely better than the original DVD release of the same movie but the soundtrack was always the lossy track of Dolby or DTS.
Personally I am strictly against piracy and therefore I am not very enthused by this development. Also, I seriously doubt Indian Video distributors really keep in mind the actions of piraters while making their pricing or for that matter any other decisions. Because, if that was the case, then the quality of Indian DVDs would have improved immensely to outshine the piraters. But not only has that not been the case, their quality at times and with certain companies has detiorated to worse than the pirated DVDs.
 
Kindly provide name/url of any computer based free avchd player where avchd files recorded in dvd format can be played.
Thanks.
 
Personally I am strictly against piracy and therefore I am not very enthused by this development. Also, I seriously doubt Indian Video distributors really keep in mind the actions of piraters while making their pricing or for that matter any other decisions. Because, if that was the case, then the quality of Indian DVDs would have improved immensely to outshine the piraters. But not only has that not been the case, their quality at times and with certain companies has detiorated to worse than the pirated DVDs.

Well, I'm happy that it happened. and let me clarify why -
While I've never purchased a pirated disc in my life and I certainly do not encourage piracy, I believe that the AACS and other scrambling systems, restricts a person's rights!

On purchase of the DVD/Blu-ray/ CD you don't purchase the medium (which would in theory give you right to make as many copies as you want)- you simply get a limited license to view / listen to the content for personal use.

however, the nature of the medium itself is limiting - for example you cannot watch your movie on the go. this is where the concept of "Fair use" comes in - making copies for your personal use. - this is what makes your copying your own CDs to your ipod legal, or to your HDD to get low jitter output from the fancy soundcard / DAC. And it is legal - otherwise (esp in india where itunes does notsell music) selling any PMP would be illegal :cool:

while in audio it's easy to move your content around, with DVDs and BDs with CSS/AACS, it's more complicated. hence circumvention of CSS/ AACS is critical to allow a genuine consumer to make the same choices! BTW- anyone who has put a regionfree hack on his BD-player has already "gone the distance"

I do use AnyDVDHD, not just to watch movies on my work computer, but also to backup some movies on my NAS. It's a personal choice, to ensure that I can watch movies anywhere without handling the discs (ensures that they are scratch free, which with kiddies discs is close to impossible). it's insurance against damage in more ways than 1.

I own many HD-DVDs, and while I have 4 PC players for hddvd, I know they will fail much before the HDDVDs get damaged. (it still enjoy the first CDs i got in 1988 and I've changed many players in that period) - without AACS circumvention to copy those hd-dvds to BD, I'd be stuck, because toshiba decided to withdraw.


piracy would have happened anyway - you do not need to circumvent AACS- to make a pirated disc. there are many links in a film's distribution & production, masters can be stolen, (since most films are processed digitially, it's easier than we think, a couple of TeraByte hard drives can do it); you can telecine an actual print when it is distributed all over the world; and then there's the camera print.

how do you think pirated DVDs come out before the original dvds are released? there are many "3 idiot" dvds doing the rounds (I haven't seen that movie - am waiting for the BD)

AACS was more to discourage the private copies - not wholesale piracy - since there is a belief among the music /movie companies that paying customers will pay again (thats why I am eagerly waiting for the LOTR trilogy & starwars on BD, despite owning the full box sets on DVD? - and while we are on conspiracy theories, why are the BDs of these movies not out, yet?)

sorry for a long rant, but as a law abiding citizen (not really - i have got fined for breaking the speed limit), one would expect that your interests get protected.
 
Last edited:
I personally dislike region coding , it stops me from buying discs when I travel from one country to another.......:cool:)
 
.....but AVCHD DVDs comes quiet close to blu ray and it uses the mpeg4 avc codec not mpeg 2......

Adding to Deba;s post yea it is possible to backup BRs to DVD in true 1080p and HD audio as well, its just as he said the DVD backup is NOT an MPEG2-encoded backup! The files are still 1080p AVCHD Blu-Ray files, and playable on any Blu-Ray player, including the PS3. But you still get 1080p and HD audio under 4.7GB!

I have a very comprehensive guide to just do that. If people want I can post it for download.
 
Buy from India's official online dealer!
Back
Top