Blu-Ray and Linux

[Beni Cherniavsky-Paskin]

On Jun 27, 2013 11:48 AM, "E.S. Rosenberg" <esr+linux-il at g.jct.ac.il> wrote:
>
> 2013/6/27 Omer Zak <w1 at zak.co.il>:
> > On Thu, 2013-06-27 at 10:14 +0300, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jun 12, 2013, Omer Zak wrote about "Re: Blu-Ray and Linux":
> >> > So the only reason to buy a Blu-Ray drive would be to view Blu-Ray
> >> > movies and TV series (such as Dr. Who).
> >>
> >> Or look those up in bittorrent ;-)
> >
> > Are there any legal means, available to <oxymoron_alert>frayer
> > Israelis</oxymoron_alert>, who wish to buy such content and download it
> > via Internet, without bothering with physical media?
>
> Downloading is legal (at least in a lot of countries), uploading is
> generally considered problematic.
>
Do you have a reference?  Uploading to N peers lets them claim you
facilitated N infringements => absurdly high royalties, so that's what they
sue for.  But I always thought downloading from ftp is still infringement.

> But if you insist on overpaying (I am all for paying for content you
> like to support the artist but generally the prices asked are way to
> high, though with digital media it is improving) I am pretty sure
> every cell provider/ISP has online stores these days have online
> stores, amazon, itunes all do business here.
>
TLDR: http://xkcd.com/488/
Before you pay for any steaming/download, check for subtitle support and
HDCP enforcement.  /TLDR

Not all who do business in Israel have licenses to sell all content;
selection varies by country and is much better in USA than elsewhere.
http://canistream.it will tell you the options for a given movie/series, at
least for USA.
(There are many grey market services proxying you to appear in USA...)

I've spent a week recently looking for a legal way to buy The Hobbit (in
California) online (trying to go paper-less & disk-less) with best Linux &
Android support, resulting in VUDU -- and another week cursing the
experience :-(

The worst news is that all legal streaming/downloads come with DRM.
(Except some indie movies that offer DRM free downloads, especially if you
kickstarted them.)

Most if not all use Adobe Flash for DRM, whose Linux support is
deteriorating - Adobe no longer updates Flash for Linux, and Chrome has
it's own fork...

There is a very annoying tendency to limit resolution by platform.  Many
only allow DVD quality on PCs and restrict HD quality to "locked down"
devices such as roku box/stick, xbox, Android/iOS etc...
VUDU were one of the few to offer 1080p to PCs.  However, IIRC I only got
480p quality on Linux because HD is also conditioned on the OS reporting
end-to-end HDCP to the monitor, which AFAIK Linux doesn't even have an API
for :-(  I don't remember for sure if this happened to me on VUDU or I read
about it wrt. other services but in any case HDCP enforcement is a crucial
point to check before paying for HD on Linux!
[
http://blog.linuxacademy.com/linux/unplugged-replace-your-cable-provider-with-linux-enabled-media/reports
HDCP does exist on Linux, but only with binary bulk nvidia/ATI
drivers, to WINE apps.  I don't call that Linux...]

Aside: Netflix also limit by ISP: the highest quality is reserved to ISPs
that peer with them.  Not sure if they're the good or evil guys here, but
smells suspicious on net neutrality grounds...  (they're also annoying in
limiting by bandwidth - no (reliable) support for pre-buffering the whole
movie in HD on a slow connection, AFAIK).

In any case I ended up in windows because I sentimentally felt I want to
"own" the whole movie on hard disk, and VUDU only offer a downloading app
for windows.
Mind you, it's still DRM'd, keyed per machine, stored in some opaque cache
folder (which I find offensive for 9GB, on general principles).  The player
is as limited as the in-browser streaming player.  And it kept
stucking/crashing at a particular spot - I guess the download was corrupted
(and there is no Verify Data like with torrents - you can only delete and
re-download the whole file).
Streaming OTOH was flawless (15Mbps cable)!
The only annoyance with streaming is re-buffering after seeking, even 10
seconds back (dear Adobe, or whoever I should hate for this: I have enough
RAM to retain the last hour of the movie).

So the only reasons to download are slow connection and watching offline.
"Keeping" the movie forever isn't, as once bought you can stream it
forever, no restrictions, and download forever on up to 5 or 10 machines.
There is a scheme called Ultraviolet to formalize this proof of purchase =>
online access arrangement, across providers.
*Most recent disks also come with an Ultraviolet code, letting you
re-downloaded/stream them.*
This makes excellent sense!
But the implementation so far is bad [
http://m.networkworld.com/community/blog/ultraviolet-another-drm-dead-end-internet-video,
http://m.ign.com/articles/2012/03/14/opinion-why-ultraviolet-is-frustrating].
Most notably, access is only guaranteed for one year?!  More functionality
and interoperability is promised once they agree on a downloadable format
(CFF).

VUDU also have streaming & downloading app for Android, which works well
subject to HDCP.  As it happens, my 1080p monitors report (EDID) max
resolution of 720p when I enable HDCP; It was easy to force X and Windows
to use 1080p but not Android.

All of the above, even when working perfectly, requires using VUDU's player.
- I had a fancy to watch the two angles of the 3D version on my dual
monitors.  Forget it, nobody sells 3D streaming/download, only on bluray.
- OK then, how about stretching the one image across 2 monitors?  Nope,
Flash only maximizes to one monitor.  (could probably fool it, didn't feel
like reconfiguring X for it)
- Most important of all: external subtitles.  Nope, unsupported.  And there
were no built-in subs either, not even English!  I was watching in low
volume (sleeping baby), so this was painful.
I suspect other DRM'd services have similarly limited players...

---

Are blu-rays better purchase than streaming sites?
Perhaps, esp. considering the UV code which will let you try both (but note
UV functionality differs by studio).

I read too little about blu ray on Linux (E.S.Rosenberg's links paint a
brighter picture than I thought) but from what I gathered encryption is
partially managed in hardware - merely seeing disks that revoke the drive's
keys can irreversibly brick the drive.  Even if not a concern in practice,
the whole idea sounded too draconian for me to pay for such hardware...
Nevertheless, blu rays are somewhat future-proof: at least on windows
they're easy to rip & decrypt (if you call 1 or 2 temp. 25GB files "easy"),
so there is *some* way to obtain a DRM-free version, which can be played
happily ever after.  Wherever & however you want, with subtitles etc.

Or you know, download the torrent that somebody else ripped ;-)

Personally I'm considering paying for online copies (just to be a freier),
then downloading the torrents.  I could still be sued - I don't suppose
paying is a defence for p2p uploading (ianal) - but I'd enjoy the resulting
headlines.
What bothers me more is that along with giving money to creators I'll be
giving it to DRM.  I'll probably limit the paying part to movies I really
love.

---

So far I only discussed long-term buying.  If you want to watch it once or
twice, time-limited streaming is cheaper and viable.  The question how this
DRM will work forever on free platforms is replaced by much simpler
question: can you acceptably watch it now?

P.S. On prices: Buying online copies is slightly cheaper than physical,
which I considered expensive but acceptable -- until I started buying used
books on Amazon and noticed the paradox that they're several times cheaper
than kindle editions!
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