this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Oppenheimer and the resurgence of Blu-ray and DVDs: How to stop your films and music from disappearing::In an era where many films and albums are stored in the cloud, "streaming anxiety" is making people buy more DVDs, records – and even cassette tapes.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Bullshit. Piracy is the only thing preserving it. Why? Because as a PC user 4k HDR Blu-Rays are forbidden for me anyways to play legally despite owning them.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

What are you on about? In the US at least, there's no legal restriction on you playing 4K Blu-Ray movies on a PC.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The drive is not the issue.

Most Blu-Ray disks have DRM encryption. There simply doesn't seem to be a (legal) decryption mechanism on PC, probably to avoid people ripping the movies.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was under the impression that software like PowerDVD could play 4K HDR media if you're using Windows.

And at the end of the day, it is also (generally accepted as 'probably') legal to decrypt the media using whatever other methods available as long as you are only doing so to back up or enable viewing for yourself.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, PowerDVD doesn't support it. It requires discontinued Intel SGX hardware features which are not present in current products. https://www.cyberlink.com/support-center/faq/content?id=19144

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

AACSv2, which is used to DRM UHD bluray disks has just been broken. Maybe we'll see a new generation of backup tools soon.

https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-12296-full_aacsess_exposing_and_exploiting_aacsv2_uhd_drm_for_your_viewing_pleasure

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Sounds good. I didn't have issues sourcing 4k UHD pirated material.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm curious as well. I googled to make sure there was a PC Blu-ray drive, and there is.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have a Blu-Ray drive myself, which can read 4K discs format wise. But the DRM industry forbids me from playback. There is no software playing it back in 4K HDR format, unless I crack the disc.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

In my country (Australia) you're allowed to break the DRM for interoperability purposes. We could legally use deCSS, back when DVDs were state of the art, if we wanted to play them on our Linux computers

~~I don't think blue ray is nearly as easy to break~~ I just double checked. Not quite "super easy, barely an inconvenience" but quite do-able

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This doesn't apply to every country and some of the laws have to be stretched. I interpret this industry boycott of an entire platform as an abandonware situation. You don't give me the opportunity to make a deal in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah it sucks if your government just rolled over when asked for strictest copyright.

I'm pretty sure VCRs and tape backup got it legal in the US to move media you have right to watch between media

Australia got its law on circumvention through American diplomatic pressure, we refused leaving out the interoperability clause. Others under the same pressure didn't push back

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

But there is a regulation prohibiting breaking the DRM. And obtaining a program that can decrypt the disk and save the file while having keys to latest disks is hard.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've run into a similar issue, I built a media PC for my living room which includes a 4K compatible Blu-ray drive. After spending an hour trying to flash it's BIOS in Linux, realizing Windows would take 2 minutes to do the same task, then finally testing a disk, I find that DRM ruins that. All my 4K disks will not play because it's a crapshoot if they do play. It will rip them no problem, but not play.

I could fix this by using Windows, however I don't want windows on this system, it works quickly and with no annoyances in Linux.

So now I have to resort back to the PS5 as my player until I figure something out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

You cannot play 4k HDR on a Windows PC as well. Just pirate it. https://www.cyberlink.com/support-center/faq/content?id=19144 It requires Intel SGX which is not a feature anymore.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Nah. I'm sure there are multiple factors, as mentioned in the article, but another big thing preserving physical media is home theater enthusiasts. With a good system, the higher bitrate video and lossless audio on a UHD Blu-ray is noticable compared to most streamed content.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Plus things like director's commentary and things. I really do want those.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Buy an Xbox One Series X, or PS5. Heck, there are even stand alone 4K players.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I was looking at PS5, it doesn't support HDR for blurays

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It does do HDR, but only HDR10. No Vision or HDR10+.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

It does do HDR, it just doesn't do DolbyVision HDR. So, depending on your television, HDR10 works fine.

Stand-alone players with DolbyVision are about the same price as a game console:

https://a.co/d/aoejj85