Re: [TCLUG:8616] DVD

[David Carter <dcarter@visi.com>]

On Sat, Sep 25, 1999 at 03:33:37PM -0500, Nathan Hartzell wrote:
> I have a Creative Labs DVD -Encore Dxr3 drive in my system.  I am running Caldera OpenLinux 2.2.  Is there any way I can play DVD movies through Linux (I use KDE), and if so, what do I have to do to set everything up?  By the way, thanks to everyone who helped me with my NIC problem, got everything working under both OS's eventually.
> 
> Nathan Hartzell

Right now, there is no way.  The main impediments to a Linux DVD player are:

	1) Hollywood is so terrified of copying that they've pressured the
	DVD forum (the group that licenses the DVD patents, which any player
	app would have to license) to disallow any 'insecure'
	implementation, or anything that would reveal the DVD spec.
	Basically, this means no open source players, no easily
	disassembleable CSS decryption or copy protection modules, and no Linux
	players of any kind.  (They're scared of some skilled Linux hacker
	using a player app to reverse-engineer the DVD spec.)  They're also
	scared of someone writing a player which *didn't* put Macrovision on
	the outputs and/or ignored region coding and/or played a PAL disc on
	an NTSC TV or vice versa...

	2) Getting the DVD specs requires thousands of $$ in license fees,
	and the signing of numerous NDAs.  There are the DVD patents
	(navigation/menu/CSS decryption/MPEG-2 enhancement specs) as well
	as the Dolby patents for the AC-3 sound specs.

The main impediment to a Linux player (the CSS encryption scheme) has
already been reverse-engineered (by a warez group, in a program called DoD
DVD Speed Ripper -- this would be easier to reverse engineer than a player
app).  The other problem is that no one not under an NDA knows how the
navigation/region coding/macrovision is coded for in the VIDEO_TS.IFO file
on the disc.  This is also slowly being reverse-engineered, but all that is
known right now is the region coding mechanism.  (This gets us nowhere
nearer to knowing how the menus work, the chapter divisions, multiple
languages, multiple angles, subtitles, etc.)

If such an open source app were ever made, it's unlikely to be freely
redistributable in the U.S. because of software patents.  (You won't see
it in the main Debian tree until the various patents expire, and by then DVD
will be a relic.)

The only way we'll be able to (legally) play a DVD under Linux is with a
100% hardware solution (all decryption and decompression performed on an
expansion card).  There is a company that is pursuing this right now, but
their board won't be available for several months.

There is also a chance the the DVD Forum could be made to see the folly of
region coding/copy protection/CSS (which is just security through obscurity
anyway) and release the complete DVD specs to the world in a freely (free
speech) available way, but that's about as likely as Clinton suddenly
removing all encryption export controls...

-- 
David Carter ** dcarter@visi.com
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