Previously, Muslix64 had discovered the "volume keys" for individual HD-DVD movies (and subsequently Blu-ray titles) which, when used with his BackupHDDVD software, allowed technically adept users to decrypt and copy individual HD titles protected by AACS. Since then, volume keys for more than 100 HD titles have circulated on the Internet.  The processing key discovered by Arnezami can, until revoked, be used to easily determine the volume key needed to decrypt and copy any HD title.  

It is unclear to me, at this moment, whether the processing key so discovered is unique to one specific player (and therefore easily revoked under the AACS system) or a key that is universally used in all players.

More importantly, if this particular processing key is revoked, hackers could simply use the same technique to discover the next processing key implemented by the AACS authority.

[UPDATE 1:] A day later beta software called AnyDVD is circulating the net (See here and here). This software purports to use Arnezami's processing key to automatically strip out the DRM, FBI notices etc. from any HD-DVD or Blu-ray disk. 

[UPDATE 2:] SlySoft is distributing AnyDVD on the net: See here.

Sources: PC World | ComputerWorld | Engadget | ElectronicNew.net | DailyTech | The Register | ZDNet Blogs | Team Xbox | Wired Blogs | AfterDawn | *Beta News | Bit-tech.net | Gizmodo

Related posts:

• Arnezami Hacks HD-DVD/Blu-ray – Discovers the One "Processing Key" to Rule them All (February 14, 2006)
• BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack (January 13, 2007)
• HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked? (December 28, 2006)
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Reportedly Successfully Hacked via PrintScreen (August 2, 2006)

I do have a few criticisms:

• 8 Gigs is not enough RAM for the music and videos I’d want to carry around. 30 Gigs of storage would be my preferred minimum.
• Cingular’s U.S. exclusivity.
• No Canadian or other International carriers announced – though Rogers is a pretty good bet for Canada given its relationship with Yahoo! and nation-wide GSM coverage.
• Walled-Garden – no third party apps will run on it – no SKYPE.
• No WiFi VoIP announced.
• EDGE only – no announced 3G support – though Steve said its planned and rumors are it already exists – until then, non-WiFi web access will be s … l … o …. w.
• 5 hr battery life for phone or video or Internet seems a bit low for me (the 16 separate hours for audio is fine).

All that said, I still want one! Come on Rogers! Do a deal with Steve!

• Click here for Wikipedia coverage.
• Click here to view Jobs’ iPhone Keynote at MacWorld 2007.

Dale's Comment: I want to be clear about something. I do not endorse piracy nor the use of BitTorrent to circulate pirated copies of HD-DVD content.

I do, however, believe the DMCA unfairly criminalizes the behavior of honest consumers wishing to exercise their "fair use" rights to make copies of and/or format shift copies of content purchased by the consumer for the consumer's own personal use.  The DMCA and the WIPO Copyright Treaty unfairly take away rights that U.S. consumers have under the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright law. It is therefore understandable why consumers would choose to use software such as BackupHDDVD to exercise the rights the U.S. Copyright regime otherwise affords them. In my opinion it is copy-protection mechanisms such as AACS put in place by the content industry to penalize the activities of honest consumers that leads to massive piracy by the same consumers through BitTorrent and other P2P networks. As I've said here for years, treat honest consumers fairly and they'll purchase your products in record numbers. Treat them like criminals and they'll rebel.

Sources:  Engadget | ars technica | DigitalMusicWeblog

Related Posts:

• Arnezami Hacks HD-DVD/Blu-ray – Discovers the One "Processing Key" to Rule them All (February 14, 2006)
• BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack (January 13, 2007)
• HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked? (December 28, 2006)
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Reportedly Successfully Hacked via PrintScreen (August 2, 2006)

In an effort to put the format wars behind (and increase sales), Warner has committed to licensing the Total Hi Def technology to any other TV/movie studio for free. Not surprisingly, fellow Time Warner properties, New Line Studios and HBO, have said they will also use the Total Hi Def format. Major retailers including Best Buy, Circuit City, and Amazon.com have announced they will support this format and make Total Hi Def DVDs available through these retail channels.  No word yet from Walmart.

Dale's Comment: This is an interesting development in the high-def wars (which I personally believe HD-DVD is winning). Consumers don't want to be left in a loosing Betamax-like camp. Universal exclusively supports the HD-DVD standard. Fox, Disney and Sony, of course, exclusively support Blu-ray. Other studios support both. If Warner is licensing this this technology for free, it is possible that these studios, with the exception of Sony, could eventually support this hybrid disk approach. That said, the per-unit manufacturing costs will be higher than producing disks with one format or the other because the process requires the purchase of dual manufacturing equipment to support both formats. 

With an alternative approach to solving the same problem, LG also used CES 2007 to announce an expensive ($1,200ish U.S.) hybrid player that could play disks of either format. Under the LG hybrid-drive formulation, something both Sony (Blue-ray) and Toshiba (HD-DVD) strenuously oppose (and until now had precluded through licensing restrictions), we would be headed down a similar road as the CDR+/CDR- and DVDR+ and DVDR- standards where no format won and eventually all players could support all formats.  But its difficult to envision consumers, that are unwilling to pay $200 for an Xbox 360 HD-DVD sidecar or $600 for a PS3 with its internal Blu-ray player, wanting to spend $1,200 on a hybrid player. It would be cheaper to purchase an Xbox 360, its sidecar DVD player and a PS3 than to purchase the LG hybrid player at this price.

Previously the HD-DVD camp had announced its HD-DVD/DVD hybrid disk technology as a key advantage over Blu-ray. Purchasers of those disks could play the movie on either current gen DVD players OR HD-DVD players. I had also seen this as a format Blockbuster and Netflix would glom onto because one disk could serve its rental needs for customers of both existing DVD and HD-DVD formats. One SKU per movie cuts the needed display/warehousing space in half.

Importantly, the porn industry announced at CES 2007 that it will standardize on HD-DVD. Don't laugh at this! The porn industry has been a huge factor in the advancement of interactive media technologies over the last decade and could play an important part in determining what HD format wins. It embraced VHS over Betamax in the early years. We all know the outcome there.

My sense is that while one format or the other may win, or one of these hybrid approaches might solve the problem, in the longer run, none of this matters too much. I believe, as does Microsoft, that the world is headed for a paradigm shift where HD downloads, such as those done through the XBox 360 right now, will become more important than any physical disk-based HD distribution approach.

Sources: Engadget | Engadget CES Coverage | LinuxInsider | Pocket-lint | Newsday | PC World | Fox News | CNet | PC Magazine (Reuters) | ZDNet | PC World | MovieWeb | Economist | Playfuls

Discussed at the 32:03 Minute Mark of this Engadget Podcast 98 (after iPhone segment).

This new method seems to rely on a compromised HD-DVD player whereby muslix64 was first able to access the unique decryption keys for particular HD-DVDs. Then using those keys and his java-based BackupHDDVD program, muslix64 was able to implement the AACS decryption protocol as outlined at aacsla.com (the official AACS website) and play it back using standard HD-DVD play-back software (in this case PowerDVD 6.5 HD-DVD). 

Muslix64 says the tool works on his XBOX 360 external HD DVD player, but that the software would not be limited to just one specific player.

It is unlikely that this will become the HD-DVD/Blue-ray equivalent of DeCSS, however, because it does not provide a universal method of decrypting HD-DVD/Blu-ray disks. Nonetheless, even if this is only usable by the most dedicated of hackers, once a decrypted HD-DVD/Blu-ray title is out on the wild and wooly Internet, it would be freely copied by the P2P community.  As the recording industry knows too well, it only takes one decrypted copy for the file to spread around the Internet like wildfire.

Whatever its future, DVD Jon is smiling somewhere.

Sources: ars technica | New York Times | Doom9 Forum (original announcement) | Gizmodo | DailyTech | idm.net | ZDNet Blogs | bit-tech.net | Engadget | Hexus | Inquirer | EDN | PC World

Related Posts:

• Arnezami Hacks HD-DVD/Blu-ray – Discovers the One "Processing Key" to Rule them All (February 14, 2006)
• BackupHDDVD & Doom9 Forum Create End-to-End HD-DVD Crack (January 13, 2007)
• HD-DVD & Blu-ray Cracked? (December 28, 2006)
• HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Reportedly Successfully Hacked via PrintScreen (August 2, 2006)

The relative success of video downloads on Microsoft's Xbox Live and disappointment of Amazon.com's Unbox point to two factors that differentiate Xbox from Amazon and its many other competitors — consumers who download a movie want a simple way to watch it on their TV, and those with high-def TVs want high-def content.

A primary reason for its success lies also in the fact that DRM is not a relevant consideration for most users when the content is delivered directly to the display unit of choice. iVOD services to PCs have largely failed because most people do not want to watch TV and movies on their computers. And the DRM used by most of those services preclude users from copying the movie onto a DVD for playback where they want to watch them – in the living room. 

FYI: Joystiq has a pretty good preview of the system here including a YouTube demo. Note that the demo was done early-on. As I understand it the slow-downloads and other glitches experienced in the early days have been resolved.

Sources: Variety | Joystiq | XBox 360 Fanboy

Warez.com: Piracy, the clear choice for 2006 

Dale's Comment: Each of these articles make the same essential point. Piracy of video content is pervasive because it provides consumers with a product they want – a vast selection of high quality content, meeting the tastes of both the masses and the long tail – with the ability to use/view the content on any device and with any software/service of their choosing. Something the TV and movie-industries fail to provide to the very consumers eager to purchase it from them – if only it was conveniently available at fair prices and under fair use terms.

This oft-quoted remark by Disney co-chair Ann Sweeney made at a conference in October, shows at least that the industry is finally starting to grapple with the issue: 

"We understand now that piracy is a business model. It exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand. Pirates compete the same way we do – through quality, price and availability. We we don?t like the model but we realise it?s competitive enough to make it a major competitor going forward."

Following a similar suit by the BPI in July, AllofMP3.com's Moscow-based parent Mediaservices, Inc. has been sued by the RIAA for massive copyright infringement in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to the New York Post:

The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each instance of copyright infringement. That equates to an astounding $1.65 trillion for the five-month period in question.

Wow! I suspect they'll have a little trouble collecting this damage award if successful!

Interestingly, along with the damages award, the suit seeks court ordered control of AllofMP3.com's domains. Given the global nature of the Internet, it will be interesting to see if a court would grant such a prayer for relief. Mountainview California-based  Verisign operates the domain name registry for the .com domain space.

AllofMP3.com has long claimed that they are in full compliance with Russian law and pay licensing fees on all music sales to Russia's equivalent of the RIAA, the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS). The RIAA's response is that ROMS has no authority to issue licenses to AllofMP3 and that AllofMP3.com would require licenses from record companies to legally sell downloadable music – which it does not have.

Dale's Comment: Aside from the astronomical damages request, what intrigues me is the global implications of an order to transfer the domain. There has been much controversy at the United Nations over who should control the Internet and the Internet domain space. The U.S. has fiercely guarded its ultimate ability to control it. If such an order was made by a U.S. court at the behest of the U.S. music industry, and if Verisign complies, this might spark protests from nations around the globe.

Note: I have not yet found the claim online. When I do, I'll post it here. Most of the stories online are all repeats of the original AP story so there are not many details available at this point.

Sources: ars technica | techdirt | Associated Press| Out-Law.com | ABC News | PC Pro | Pocket-Link | New York Post | BBC | Playfuls | Red Herring | MP3.com

Related Posts:

• RIAA Sues AllofMP3 – Seeks Domain Transfer and $1.65 Trillion in Damages! (December 21, 2006)
• AllofMP3.com Lives On Despite U.S./Russian WTO Agreement (December 10, 2006)
• Russia Agrees to Shut Down AllofMP3.com at U.S. Request (November 29, 2006)
• Danish Court Blocks AllofMP3.com (October 25, 2006)
• Visa and Mastercard Stop Servicing AllofMP3.com (October 18, 2006)
• Russia Implements Internet Piracy Law in Gambit to Join WTO (September 1, 2006)
• BPI to Sue AllofMP3.com (July 5, 2006)
• AllofMP3.com Responds to Recent Scrutiny (June 6, 2006)
• Russia-based AllofMP3 Launches DRM-free allTunes (March 29, 2006)
• RIAA's Next Big Target: Russia (December 27, 2005)

A free two month trial is available here. No word yet on final pricing. Of course it cannot manage any DRM'd AAC files purchased from iTunes.  If it could, my work here would be done! Well, at least until Apple and/or the RIAA sued them!

I haven't tried it yet, but one possible downside to this approach to managing your iPod is that it likely won't support podcasts. For some reason that only the God's know, Windows Media Player does not include podcast support. Since I discovered podcasts in October of 2005, I use my iPod primarily for podcast listening while on the road. Without podcast functionality, I'm not ready to head back to WMP!

Sources: DOPISP Website | Smart Cannucks | lifehacker | Uneasy Silence

The interview covers the history of the company, the current status and trends (YouTube, convergence) and where this promising, yet controversial, company and its technology are headed.

Dale's Comment: I had to smile when I read Greenhall's answers. Having lived in Silicon Valley for a few years, and having left it, his "Silicon Valley-speak" reminds me of the good old bubble days.  Take this snipped for example:

So the fact that DivX technology is associated with that path is a really interesting physical manifestation, but the reality of the value proposition is that the market, the community itself is a value proposition, so what you’ll find is, if you map our progress on a go forward basis …

Silicon-valley-speak notwithstanding, its an interesting interview of an interesting man in control of an important technology. Good work Davis!

Sources: Davis Freeberg

Dale's Comment: Listening to this was my first introduction to Professor Moglen's ideas. I don't exactly know what to make of this speech. With the flair of an elequoent Baptist preacher he advocates on behalf of the free software movement. The speech has many interesting and compelling points.

But, my goodness, this substance of his speech seems to be, Open Source – all good, Closed Source – all bad, all the time. To my mind there is a place for both. Contrary to the underlying sentiment of this talk, I believe capitalism and software-for-profit is critical to global development and advancement. Open Source software is also, obviously, very beneficial to the world. Both have their place and importance.

Perhaps I haven't had enough exposure to Professor Mogeln yet. But while interesting, I found his talk, effectively dissing closed source software and its creators, eerily discomforting.

In response to Visa's and Mastercard's cessation of services to the site, AllofMP3 now uses a prepaid credit proxy, Xrost,which can, in turn, be paid by Visa or Mastercard (See AllofMP3's payment page as explained here).

This recent TechWeb article explains that the payment process is not exactly easy. Only the most determined are likely to work their way through the payment maze. See also this Wired Blog description of the process. Incidentally the Wired Blog claim about the "complete legality" of music downloading in Canada is nonsense (see my blog entry on the topic if interested)! 

On another note, AllofMP3 has engaged a New York-based intellectual property attorney, John Kheit of Chadbourne & Parke, LLP. as a U.S.-based spokesperson, advocate and PR person. In a recent panel discussion Kheit asserted that AllofMP3 has not broken any laws, that it operates legally in Russia and pays 15% of all music sales to Russia's equivalent of the RIAA, the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS). Kheit claims that foreign rights holders could petition ROMS for payment but that record labels have specifically not requested such payments in fear of legitimizing AllofMP3.

The RIAA's response is that ROMS has no authority to issue licenses to AllofMP3 and that AllofMP3.com would require licenses from record companies to legally sell downloadable music – which it does not have. 

Under the U.S/Russian agreement, Russia has until June 1, 2007 to modify its laws and clarify that such activity is illegal. Until it does AllofMP3.com can continue as is. AllofMP3.com says it will comply with any new laws put in place by Moscow.

Sources: DailyTech | ars technica | The Register | Digital Music | TechWeb | NewHouseNews | MosNews.com | AllofMP3.com Press Release

Related Posts:

• AllofMP3.com Lives On Despite U.S./Russian WTO Agreement (December 10, 2006)
• Russia Agrees to Shut Down AllofMP3.com at U.S. Request (November 29, 2006)
• Danish Court Blocks AllofMP3.com (October 25, 2006)
• Visa and Mastercard Stop Servicing AllofMP3.com (October 18, 2006)
• Russia Implements Internet Piracy Law in Gambit to Join WTO (September 1, 2006)
• BPI to Sue AllofMP3.com (July 5, 2006)
• AllofMP3.com Responds to Recent Scrutiny (June 6, 2006)
• Russia-based AllofMP3 Launches DRM-free allTunes (March 29, 2006)
• RIAA's Next Big Target: Russia (December 27, 2005)

Within days of TiVo's DRM being cracked, someone has automated the rather difficult to use TiVo Decode Manager and created an easy to use TiVo2Go application, without DRM, on Apple computers. The software automatically discovers local TiVos. With one mouse click shows are downloaded from the TiVo, DRM-free, to the Mac by episode, recorded date etc. The resultant Mpeg-2 files still need to be converted to a PC-usable format such as .wmv using a program like VLC. My guess is that it won't be long before the end-to-end process is fully automated.

Dale's Comment: I foresee TiVo-released DMCA take-down notices being sent to whoever controls thebenesch.com (the site hosting the program) in the near future!

Sources: Engadget | PVR Wire

Related Posts:

• TiVo Decode Manager v1.0 Exploits TiVo's Cracked DRM on Macs (December 8, 2006)
• TiVo's DRM Reportedly Cracked (December 4, 2006)

Initially, after reading the many comments in the support pages I figured this was going to be too difficult and didn't bother.  Since then I've seen articles popping up all over th net (see Sources below) touting TVersity as the second coming of video streaming to the 360.  I wonder how many of these bloggers actually tried to install it!

So, reluctantly I dug in, got out the notebook and pen (actually my tablet PC) and spent the better part of a day trying to install this program and get it to work.  I failed!  I can definitively conclude that this program is not ready for prime time. If you are a software and network engineer (or just plain lucky), you may be able to get it to work. I couldn't, and I suspect the average user won't be able to either.  

I followed the detailed installation instructions (here and here), I forwarded ports in my router, I downloaded and installed codecs and other recommended software/drivers (FFDShow, latest AC-3 filter, latest Quicktime Alternative). I followed ever jot and tiddle of the instructions and dutifully followed the suggestions in the TVersity/Xbox 360 forum – no TVersity for me!  

I could get it to work on my PC. I could get it to see all my videos and play them – apparantely an important sign of success – or so say the instructions. This is no biggy though as WMP11 can already play all my videos in all formats that I use (I had long ago installed all the relevant codecs on my 'puter). I got the localhost:41953/lib to work (though I didn't understand why this is required since it seems to be a duplicate browser-based version of the standalone .exe application).  It looked very promising at this point. 

But from there it went down hill. At no time could I get my Xbox to see this service.  I enabled and disabled sharing through WMP 11, among many other things.  My Xbox 360 just staired at me like a dog wagging its tail wondering what I wanted.

Alas, as a good computer user I deinstalled all the stuff I installed, and I reset my computer to the restore point I set prior to this adventure.  I'm now back to where I was.  The  VLC converted videos are detected and play, once again, through my XBox 360. 

If you have had better luck then I, please post a comment and let me know what your secret sauce was.  I couldn't find anywhere in any description, FAQ, support document etc. exactly what the user experience is supposed to be on the 360 once this is all working. I know it takes time for movies to start streaming.  Does anyone know if you can pause, rewind or fast forward through videos with the Xbox remote when using TVersity? If you can't the exercise is, to my mind, pointless.

What's next for me? I'm waiting for the new TiVo Series 3 software updates (expected any time soon) before I try anything like this again. Those updates along with TiVo Desktop Plus 2.4 are supposed to let me do the same sorts of things with my TiVo Series 3 that TVersity is supposed to do. 

Sources: Gizmodo | Joystiq | PVRWire | DailyTech | Team Xbox | TVersity Development Blog

Related Posts:

• Failed Getting TVersity to Stream to Xbox 360 (December 8, 2006)
• Success with Movie Playback on my Xbox 360 using VLC (November 23, 2006)
• Using TiVo Series 3 in Canada (October 15, 2006)

TiVo's Director of Broadband Services, Evan Young, gave this interesting keynote address to the Streaming Media West 2006 conference. I learned a few new things about TiVo's nascent TiVoCast service and I am concerned with the seemingly walled-garden-only approach TiVo seems to be going with the TiVoCast service.

Approximately 520,000 TiVo users have access to TiVo's broadband services and about 80 percent of those users use some of TiVo's broadband services. I wasn't aware of the extent to which TiVo intends to integrate videocasts (a.ka. vlogs, a.ka. video-blogs, a.ka. video podcasts) like RocketBoom into the TiVoCast service.

TiVo's intent is to elevate/enhance a selected group of Internet-based video-casts for use/access within the TiVo service so that the viewing experience for such walled-garden content is similar to current TV viewing experience through TiVo. So, for instance, video-podcasts would be fully indexed and searchable through the TiVo interface just as TV shows are today and the user could subscribe to Wishlists that would include video-podcast content. The full range of TiVo functionality will be available for videocast content originating from TiVoCast.  And TiVo intends to make the viewing information that it makes available to TV networks today, available to videopodcast partners in the future.

While I appreciate the degree of planned integration, indexing, searchability and quality of experience that TiVo wishes to bring to the TiVoCast experience, as a leading edge Internet user and TiVo customer, I also hope that TiVo provides its users with an alternative and completely open access service, let's call it TiVoCast Raw, for its users to subscribe to and view any subscribable/RSS-fed Internet video content available on the Web.

TiVoCast and TiVoCast Raw could be two side-by-side options/services in such a TiVo user interface. TiVoCast content would be fully integrated and of a consistently high quality while TiVoCast Raw content would be more catch-as-catch can. The TiVo user would understand the differences between the two and the user expectations would be appropriately set in advance.

AOL's walled-garden approach failed. AOL was forced, after much kicking and screaming, into making the full panoply of the Internet available to its subscribers. Mobile phone users are rejecting expensive curated content offerings being made available to them of late.  TiVo should learn from these experiences. Yes, users will enjoy the high-quality TiVoCast experience TiVo foresees but they'll also want complete choice as to the content they want to watch, not the content that TiVo selects for them.

Davis Freeberg also provides a nice summary of Evan Young's Keynote and interesting thoughts here.

Source: soapbox

Dale's Comment: I was quite stoked about this announcement. I'd love to learn some new Halo 2 moves from Fatal1ty. That is, until I got to the fine print. Apparently CBS will only show snippets of actual game play because the content of the competitions are too violent for prime-time television.  How crazy is this!?  While I gather getting network coverage IS a step forward, this is the same-old, same-old network thinking! Who would want to watch something called the "World Series of Video Games" without being able to watch the actual competitions in their entirety!  Clearly network TV is not the right venue for this. This will have to head on over to cable in order for it to be successful in the long term.  

Sources: New York Times | IGN | Next Generation | Team Xbox | Business Wire | GameDaily.biz | Kotaku

Dale's Comment: If true, expect a patch from TiVo soon!   Unfortunately for those of us waiting for the TiVo Series 3 software upgrade that was due out about now, my guess is we'll be waiting awhile longer while TiVo's engineers work at sorting this one out.

Sources: Gizmodo | Engadget | Engadget 2 | Crunch Gear | PVRWire | Megazone-TiVoLovers | PVRBlog | TiVoCommunity Forum | Daily Tech | ars technica

Related Posts:

• TiVo Decode Manager v1.0 Exploits TiVo's Cracked DRM on Macs (December 8, 2006)
• TiVo's DRM Reportedly Cracked (December 4, 2006)

ars technica and others are reporting that AllofMP3 says it will not be shut down. Instead it says Russia agreed to certain copyright reforms that AllofMP3.com says it will comply with. Even if this is true, AllofMP3 could never be what it was. If the reported agreement is implemented by Russia, any new AllofMP3.com would be as close to its current incarnation as today's Napster is to its original form.

As of the time of this post, AllofMP3.com was still up and running.

Dale's Comment: This is a sad day of sorts. While the legality of AllofMP3 was always murky, its success (second in world-wide sales only to iTunes) was a clear example of the fact that consumers are willing to pay a fair price for music from a site that services the users needs, if they are given fair rights to use the music they purchase. In the case of AllofMP3.com the user could chose the format they wished to purchase and there were no restrictions on the use they could make of the music.  I look forward to the day the major labels learn this lesson and start offering DRM-free music for sale to honest users under fair terms.

Sources: TechCrunch | CNet | ars technica | Inquirer | The Register | ABC News | ComputerWorld | PC Magazine | MOSNews | MP3.com | Techwhack | Techdirt | ZDNet | Macworld | DailyTech

Related Posts:

• AllofMP3.com Lives On Despite U.S./Russian WTO Agreement (December 10, 2006)
• Russia Agrees to Shut Down AllofMP3.com at U.S. Request (November 29, 2006)
• Danish Court Blocks AllofMP3.com (October 25, 2006)
• Visa and Mastercard Stop Servicing AllofMP3.com (October 18, 2006)
• Russia Implements Internet Piracy Law in Gambit to Join WTO (September 1, 2006)
• BPI to Sue AllofMP3.com (July 5, 2006)
• AllofMP3.com Responds to Recent Scrutiny (June 6, 2006)
• Russia-based AllofMP3 Launches DRM-free allTunes (March 29, 2006)
• RIAA's Next Big Target: Russia (December 27, 2005)

Over the last few days, I have become aware of dozens of online TV, movie and other aggregators running the gamut from sites streaming literally hundreds of live TV channels over the Internet to others indexing and hosting thousands of TV shows and movies for instant viewing over the Internet. 

Many of the live broadcast feeds are likely accessed from Internet feeds supplied by the content owners themselves. But, I'm guessing, others are likely redirected Slingbox or similar streams. As you can read in my TVUPlayer post, the company's CEO, Paul Shen, believes he can escape U.S. copyright infringement liability using the DMCA's ISP safe harbor. He argues that the streams are made available from the service's users and not hosted directly by his company.   

peekvid and QuickSilverScreen in particular, seem to be the most blatantly infringing services of the lot. They directly index over a thousand TV shows, movies, cartoons etc. for instant viewing. Users can select a particular TV series from a list and then directly view selected episodes – on demand. Movies can similarly be selected and viewed on demand. If peekvid is located in the U.S., I suspect it won't be long before the link fails to work owing to NAB and MPAA legal actions. QuickSilverScreen was located in the U.S. until Fox sent it a cease and desist letter. The proprietor has sold it to someone offshore and it continues to operate unabated from an offshore location. 

In no particular order, here are only a few of the dozens of live TV aggregation sites that have popped up recently.

• ChooseAndWatch
• Streamick.com
• Freetube
• ChannelKing
• Channelchooser.com
• Worldtvpc
• OMGfreeTV
• wwiTV
• medinalia.com

• They all actually worked when I tried them
• Of the dozens of other aggregators available, these sites required no prior signups or passwords. 
• Unlike Tioti and the TVUPlayer, no plugins or downloads were required for these sites to work – simply show up, click and watch.
• My browser, Firefox 2.0, is set to disable popups and redirects – all worked without popups or redirects 
• Many of the video streams were resizable – even to full screen in many contexts

This Arne360 blog entry describes the basics of setting up the new Windows Media Player 11, sharing media directories with the 360 and setting up the 360 so it can access content from a home network. That was all well and good, but a continuing basic problem was that the Microsoft video streaming solution only supports their proprietary (but still very good) .wmv codec. Most of my video content is not in the .wmv format – or at least it wasn't.

Today I stumbled across this Joystiq post about the freeware transcoding program called VLC (download here) (official website). This program is butt-simple to use.

• Download and install the VLC program.
• Download and save this text onto your desktop into a batch file (ie: Copy and paste it into Notepad and save it as VLC.bat onto your desktop).
• Then simply drag and drop most any video in any format (or at least any format I use) onto the batch file's icon on the desktop, and it will automatically be transcoded into the .wmv format.

When done, a WMV version of the video will be saved in the same directory of the source file and, assuming that directory is accessible to your Xbox 360, it will be accessible and playable on the 360 with  no further effort. It's THAT simple.

All is not peaches and cream though. There's good news and bad news.

First the good news:

• Once set up, it works like a charm.
• Transcoding with VLC is easy-peasy.
• The picture quality is as good as the source – in this case, most of my videos/movies look fantastic when played back through the Xbox 360.
• All my .wmv videos are easily and instantly available for playback through the 360 – no more DVD flipping.

Now the bad news:

• All the videos (even when sorted in different directories on my PC) end up being tossed into ONE long directory when listed on the Xbox 360. In my case there’s some 140 .wmv videos, video snippets, tutorials, video poscasts, demos, movies, trailers etc. on my computer. When I access them through the 360, they all show up in one long alphabetical list.
• There is no way, that I can find so far, to separate them into sub-folders on the 360. This is notable because when I view my pictures or access my music through the 360, they are sorted into directories as they are on my PC. This anomaly is quite odd.
• The fast forward and rewind seems to be busted. When I try to fast forward and rewind the .wmv files when watching them on the 360, they just stutters as if I was playing the videos back in frame-by-frame mode – there certainly is no "fast" movement forward or back.
• I can only play and pause – though pressing the chapter forward and back buttons does seem to move me forward and back in indeterminant and varying time increments backwards and forwards through some, but not all, videos.
• The Xbox 360 does not remember where you I left off when returning to a video that was previously viewed (as TiVo does).

Upcoming Streaming Through my TiVo Series 3

• TiVo recently announced a new service about to be launched that does effectively the same thing – and more.
• The new TiVo service will allow users to stream Quick Time, .wmv format and Mpeg 4 movies/podcasts/video content stored on the PC to the TiVo.
• Since TiVo will also play videos coded in the .wmv codec, the transcoded video files I'm creating now for playback on the 360 will be equally accessible through my TiVo Series 3 – once TiVo rolls out that software upgrade that is.

While I don't like the fact that all the videos are tossed into one directory on the 360, and while the fast forward and rewind functionality seems to be broken, it is still terrific to finally have all the videos I care about, permanently saved on my computer and playable at will on my Plasma TV through my Xbox 360 – no more DVD flipping! Yeah!

Note: I’m not talking about Microsoft’s new Xbox 360-based movie/tv download service that launched in the U.S. yesterday. That’s a whole different kettle of fish. For licensing reasons (Listen to Major Nelson's Podcast #201 on this topic for more info.), Microsoft has not yet launched this outside the U.S. No doubt the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and the PS3 launch made this a high priority for U.S. roll-out before the rest of the world. I expect Microsoft to extend this to Canada, Europe and the world as their team has time to negotiate the various country by country rights. I certainly am looking forward to it.

Sources: Joystiq | Arne360

Related Posts:

• Failed Getting TVersity to Stream to Xbox 360 (December 8, 2006)
• Success with Movie Playback on my Xbox 360 using VLC (November 23, 2006)
• Using TiVo Series 3 in Canada (October 15, 2006)

Dale's Comment: This is an interesting claim. It may very well turn on the facts. As I understand them, MySpace is agnostic as to what the content is. It has taken some steps to limit infringing uploads. In this case its servers accept user video uploads, examine the format, if not a supported format they then transcodes it into a playable format. This seems to be similar to what YouTube and other video hosting sites do. But YouTube signed a licensing agreement with Universal (and others) after being threatened with a lawsuit. If Myspace fights this, it will likely argue that it is an ISP, and all they are providing is a tool that can be used by their users for legitimate or illegitimate purposes. Assuming that MySpace is otherwise responding to Universal's DMCA take-down notices, this transcoding service may very well fall within the DMCA's safe harbour.

Sources: TechCrunch | Reuters | Yahoo! News (AP) | Forbes | *Law.com | VNUNet | MTV | CIO Today | Out-law.com | PCPro | Silicon.com | BBC | CNet | DRM Watch

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

In this case, the plaintiff doctors operated Web sites devoted to exposing health care fraud. Rosenthal, a woman's health advocate, posted a third party's e-mail that included harsh remarks about the doctors, calling them “quacks'' and “dishonest,''. The doctors sued for defamation, arguing that Rosenthal should be held responsible for posting the allegedly libelous material, along with the author of the e-mail.

"The prospect of blanket immunity for those who intentionally redistribute defamatory statements on the Internet has disturbing implications," writes Associate Justice Carol A. Corrigan in the majority opinion. "Nevertheless … statutory immunity serves to protect online freedom of expression and to encourage self-regulation, as Congress intended."

While an important victory for the likes of AOL and Google, it is also important for the growing Bloggosphere as it represents the first time an individual has sought, and obtained, the same immunity from defamation liability that is provided to ISPs under this Act.

Dale's Comment: OK, so I guess this means I'm off the hook for the silly things you might post in the comment section of this blog – at least in California.

Sources: New York Times | MSNBC | San Jose Mercury News | BBC | Inquirer | Forbes (AP) | LA Times | ZD Net | Washington Times | Red Herring | USA Today | SiliconValley.com | Washington Post | Toronto Star | Reuters | Bloomberg | EFF | Silicon.com

We currently index 1,600+ TV shows – 90,000+ episodes – and we are matching everything up with content sources like iTunes, AOL and Amazon Unbox – with more to come.

Our beta feature set allows you to do exactly what it says on the tin and do it in style. With integrated message boards, groups, personalised badges and an extensive API, we have lots more great stuff coming soon too.

Dale's Comment: It appears the TIOTI founders believe they can steer clear of the many recent lawsuits brought against torrent host sites by including only pointers to torrents hosted elsewhere rather than the torrents themselves. I have little doubt that this presumed 'safe harbour' will be quickly tested in the courts if TIOTI becomes at all successful.

I have added myself to the waiting list to test this out once it expands its beta. I'll report back what I see if/when I join the beta.

Sources: TIOTI's Website | Techcrunch 1 | Techcrunch 2 – Paul Cleghorn (Founder) Interview | PVRWIre | TorrentFreak Interview with founder Paul Pod | Guardian Unlimited

Related Posts:

• TIOTI – Another Web-based TV Service Combining Legitimate TV with BitTorrent Feeds (November 15, 2006)
• TVUPlayer – Watch Most Any TV Station Anywhere (October 19, 2006)
• Judge Shuts Down UK-based Streaming Football Site (June 14, 2006)
• Canada Blocks Free Net TV – iCrave TV (January 17, 2003)