[ale] DVD-Rom ?

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Mon, Dec 13, 1999 at 03:59:52PM -0600, Patman wrote:
> Does anyone know if there's going to be DVD-ROM support for the Hollywood+
> DVD decoder card?  That's what I have with the Toshiba DVD-ROM drive (got
> both when Office Depot was clearing them out for $49 for the 5X package
> from Philips). 

	IMU that they keep saying "No, not that particular board".

	Before anyone jumps up and down on them, they are suppose to be
developing open source drivers for a new board with CSS decryption in
hardware.  This is a good thing.  They want to do the right thing and seem
to be trying to support the Linux community a whole lot better than others.

	The main reason they can't release drivers for the Hollywood+ is
that it did the CSS decryption in software and that would violate their
agreements with the DVD consortium.  The fact that the CSS algorithms and
half the keys on the DVDs have already been reverse engineered and busted
are not withstanding the fact that they still have to stand by the
agreements they've signed.  The dudes that had their CSS key busted
initially got suspended from the consortium so the DVD crowd is obviously
not amused by the "oops".

	Sooo...  These guys are actually the good guys.  They're working on
getting us something we can use and we'll have a DVD player for Linux in
time.  They just won't be able to officially support that particular board.

> On Mon, 13 Dec 1999, Jim Williams wrote:

> > Rumor is true.  decss.  It can be gotten if you want
> > it.  Not sure how it will help you exactly but I am
> > going to look at it as soon as I get a chance.

	Yeah, I've got a copy but it's really a proof of concept (the
concept being that the IDIOTS that designed it were lamers who had little
or no comprehension of robust cryptography).  It has not been optimized
and needs a pretty beefy box in order to do real time decryption.

> > --- Patman <patman at io.com> wrote:
> > > I'm currently running a Toshiba 5X DVD-ROM as my
> > > CD-ROM drive in my Linux
> > > box, and it runs as a CD-ROM (ATAPI interface) just
> > > fine.  But there is no
> > > support for playing DVDs yet on a Linux box
> > > (something to do with hacking
> > > the DVD encryption being the hurdle so far - though
> > > there is a rumor that
> > > it has been hacked, but no one's released a DVD
> > > player for Linux just
> > > yet.)

	[...]

	Mike
-- 
 Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
  (The Mad Wizard)      |  (770) 331-2437   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
  NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
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