[mythtv-users] Many new dvd's not working

Glenn Sommer glemsom at gmail.com
Sat Jul 10 15:17:57 UTC 2010


2010/7/10 Brian Wood <beww at beww.org>:
> On Saturday, July 10, 2010 08:37:48 am Simon Hobson wrote:
>> Brian J. Murrell wrote:
>> >  > I
>> >>
>> >>  suspect it's some new stupid copy protection scheme that simply makes
>> >>  life miserable for people legitimately renting or buying movies...
>> >
>> >Indeed.  FWUI, they master the DVDs in violation of the DVD standards
>> >just enough to trip up DVD-ROM drives (and software) but not enough to
>> >trip up bona fide DVD players.  If my understanding is correct, I'm not
>> >sure why DVD-ROM drives/software can't just be more like DVD players,
>> >but TBH, I don't really understand the details.
>> >
>> >  > Is there a workaround?
>> >
>> >The only workaround I know of (which I am not advocating) is to stop
>> >renting/buying DVDs and obtain your material elsewhere where it's not
>> >encumbered by this stupidity.
>>
>> Better still, take it back as faulty and demand a refund.
>>
>> Is there any "test suite" available that we could run against a disk
>> to verify it conforms to the rule book for DVDs ? If so, then run
>> that, and if it's non-compliant I'd also complain to Trading
>> Standards that the supposed DVDs are not "as described" - a key
>> requirement in UK consumer law.
>>
>> The key thing is that "just not buying them" won't hurt anyone
>> because the volumes we'd not buy wouldn't even be a rounding error in
>> the statistics. But returns cost the whole chain dear, and if we
>> could get just one prosecution under consumer protection law for
>> mislabelled "DVD"s then it would raise the profile of what's going
>> on. Especially if there was a concerted effort to target one large
>> chain (such as Walmart in the US) such that they decided it wasn't
>> profitable to stock the output from one studio - now that would get
>> the studio's attention.
>
> A problem with some of these recent "protection" schemes is that they have significant "collateral damage", many
> "legitimate" DVD players won't play the new disks. They count on the fact that most people won't figure out what's
> happening, and perhaps blame their "old" player.
>
> If people started to return players to the store, complaining that they won't play certain disks, that might get
> "Walmart's" attention even more than disk returns.
>
> But handling a return on a disk that has a profit margin of pennies is a losing proposition for a retailer, a great "stone
> in the shoe". Good idea.
>

I've seen this issue in several DVDs rented in blockbuster! :(
The ONLY workaround I've found is to use VLC on a Windows machine...
For some odd reason, that seems less sensible to the "broken" DVD
formats... :(


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