First HD-DVD rip shows up online

by Brad Linder Jan 15th 2007

Well, the controversy over whether BackupHDDVD actually does anything like, you know, ripping HD-DVD movies appears to be over. Several movie rips, including Serenity have already made their way to BitTorrent trackers.

The breakthrough came when members of the Doom9 Forum tracked down several unique memory keys that BackupHDDVD needs in order to decrypt HD-DVDs. Apparently the keys for King Kong and 12 Monkeys are also available, although Serenity appears to be the only movie to have made it online so far.

The video file is in EVO format and takes up 19.6GB, meaning it will take a very, very long time for most users to download. At that rate, you might as well just spend the $20 to get a copy from Amazon.

While it was inevitable that hi-def video rips would show up online, I'm much more impressed that we now have evidence that the HD-DVD encryption scheme actually has been cracked, and users who want to make backups of videos they've purchased for home use may be able to use software to do so.

Tags: aacs, encryption, hd dvd, HdDvd

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mike said 2:43PM on 1-15-2007

Although I'm no fan of DRM, the people who dislike it the most are the same people that are encouraging the publishers to use it.

Yeah, you'll keep breaking DRM, and the publishers will get more and more into DRM to the point that everything will have DRM at the hardware level.

If all this DRM breaking was kept in the shadows, it would be better for everyone.

Charles said 4:17PM on 1-15-2007

I have to disagree with Mike... The studios ultimately want complete per play control of their content and they are moving forward with that objective. By publicly breaking the DRM, it is stating to the studios, "Why waste your money? Whatever you make we can break!" Look at what Apple had to go through to continue to offer $99 songs!!! The music studios want to charge up to $3.99 per song if that song is popular at the time. Again, if it was up to the studios, every time you play the "content" that they produced, have the rights to, or distribute they want to charge you as you are getting entertained, educated, etc and there by they should make money each and every time.

Please keep the breaking of DRM up guys... make the studios realize that we do NOT want to nickeled and dimd to death.

Brian! said 7:47AM on 1-16-2007

I want content providers to make money. I have no problems with studios is making a profit. However, I agree with post #2 with being charged for every last step. I also hate the idea that my media choices are being restricted. With DRM TVs, displays, media players, etc... the world is starting to suck for us consumers. Hell, I hate that I cannot get a working cable card for Tivo 3 in my area because of content controlling media companies.

The faster Blue-Ray and HD-DVD are stripped of their DRM the faster the content publishers will have to find a new way to connect with us consumers. There is a middle ground where they will make plenty of money and we will have the freedom to copy our movies to our multi-terrabyte media storage servers. That is the future, simple as that.

adey said 10:12AM on 1-29-2007

its about time the consumers ruled the show instead of fat cat executives. they need us more than we need them so let them know it. they would be nothing without our money and theyve got away with too much of it for too long

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