DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

So here’s something interesting. I’ve started on a new PC build. It’s not because my Surface Pro 3 is no longer good enough as my desktop replacement (it is more than enough), but I just thought I would update my skills (as a PC builder) with some of the new tech and parts since I last played around inside a PC case (erm, probably in 2012?). Plus, there are some processor intensive tasks, such as video encoding, that are just not suited for a laptop/tablet hybrid (it’s fast enough to do it, but it also runs quite hot, maybe too hot). I will start documenting my build process here, once all my parts arrive.

CES is currently on, and so there’s a bit of news here and there that’s relevant to what I cover here. News for things like Roku branded 4K TVs and Ultra HD Blu-ray players will be relevant, but things like hoverboard booths getting raided by the DoJ are not really relevant, although interesting. Let’s get started then …

Game pirates might have to start worrying about where they’re going to get their new games, as a game cracking group warned that the age of game piracy might be coming to an end. It’s not just because games these days often have so much online interactivity that it’s hard to tell where the single player game ends and the multi-player begins, but apparently the technology used to protect games have advanced to a stage that is making it very difficult for crackers to do their work.

Denuvo becoming a major pain for game crackers

Games like Just Cause 3 and FIFA 16 that use the Denuvo anti-tampering system are proving incredibly difficult to crack, according to the founder of a Chinese cracking forum. Denuvo doesn’t work like traditional DRM, instead it’s another layer on top of existing DRM solutions that protects these platforms (such as Steam, Origin) from being cracked. Sort of like a DRM for DRM. I don’t really know how it works exactly (and the people behind Denuvo, many of whom were responsible for Sony’s controversial SecuROM DRM, are keeping things very secret for obvious reasons), but it apparently makes it much more difficult for crackers to examine and make modifications to game code. Whether this is through obfuscation, encryption or some kind of black magic, I don’t know, but when crackers are struggling to bring out a clean game months after its release, you know things are starting to get difficult.

However it works, there have been unsubstantiated reports that Denuvo might be causing performance problems for certain games, or that it increases the read/write workload for games (which is a bad thing for SSD drives that are becoming the standard for gaming PCs). It’s also apparently a very expensive technology to license, which is why not all games are using it these days.

But if PC gaming piracy can be ended, will this be a good thing for the gaming industry, or will it mean a return to the bad old days of over-priced, buggy, sub-par game release? Oh, never mind.

With everything at CES being 4K, or Internet connected, or both, here’s a copyright story that rides that particular hype train. Remember a few months back when 4K stuff from Amazon and Netflix’s streaming libraries started to appear on pirated sites? The mystery of where these perfect 4K rips came from may have been solved, thanks to court documents from Intel and Warner Bros’ lawsuit against the makers of a 4K HDCP stripper device. The device is apparently capable of dealing with HDCP 2.2 protected sources, which explains how Netflix and Amazon 4K content ended up on the torrent networks. While the cat and mouse game between PC gaming DRM makers and crackers seems to be reaching a conclusion, for video, the idea of “if you can view it, you can rip it” still appears to be holding true (after all, at some point, the video must be displayed unprotected so that the human eye can see it, and this will be true until they invent DRM implants for eyes – oops, did I just give Hollywood a new idea?)

Samsung’s $399 Ultra Blu-ray player could be the pick of the early players

On to the real CES 4K stuff now. Both Panasonic and Samsung have shown off their Ultra HD Blu-ray players at CES, but both are aimed at very different demographics. Samsung’s UBD-K8500, previously exhibited at the IFA show in Berlin, will go on sale in March (already available for pre-order on Amazon) for an acceptable looking $399. It has HDR and wider-color gamut support, and will do 4K streaming, plus all the normal Blu-ray features (eg. Blu-ray 3D) that you’ll expect in a $399 machine.

For those looking for something a bit more premium-y, have a look at Panasonic’s as-yet-unpriced DMP-UB900. It will do all the same things as the K8500, but will do everything just a little bit better. Being THX certified, featuring dual-HDMI output, high resolution audio playback, a 4K High-Precision Chroma Processor and other goodies, this one will definitely set you back more than $399 once it’s released sometime in 2016 (as firm a release date you’ll get from Panasonic at this time).

But for those looking for something a bit more premium, try the Panasonic DMP-UB900

On the 4K TV side, there’s a new brand that you might want to look out for: Roku! Not known for anything else other than a media streamer boxes, Roku has been trying to expand their profile by lending their name, and their much praised OS, to lesser known TV brands, mainly Chinese brands such as Haier, Hisense and TCL. At CES, Roku announced that Roku branded 4K TVs will also soon be available, starting at just $600 (so that’s less than $1000 at retail for both a Ultra HD Blu-ray player and 4K TV for those keeping track). It’s a win-win for both Roku and their Chinese TV maker partners – Roku gets to have branded TVs without having to invest in development and manufacturing, while the Chinese TVs get more exposure in the US and a fantastic smart OS (with tons of apps) to boot.

The earlier sets won’t be fully featured like their more bigger branded cousins, so things like HDR will be missing, but Roku says sets with support for Dolby Vision and HDR 10 (two competing HDR standards) will be made available later in the year.

With so many 4K related products being released in 2016, it definitely has the look of being the year 4K reaches the mainstream. The good news is that these products are not entirely out of reach of the average consumer ($399 for a early model Ultra HD Blu-ray player compares well to the $1000+ you had to pay for the first Blu-ray players, same goes for 4K TVs, thanks largely to Chinese TV makers).

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That’s it for the news this week. For those still interesting in my new PC build, here’s a sneak preview of what’s inside: Intel Core i5-6600K with 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2400 memory. For a full list, and I’m sorry for going all promotional on you, you’ll have to check out issue 490 of my newsletter which will contain a link to my PCPartPicker page for the build!

See you next week.

Welcome to this side of 2016! First of all, best wishes for the year ahead – may it be filled with joy and rewards, and most important of all, may it be safe year for one and all.

As you would expect, news was light on the ground this week, as the drunk were drunk, the hungover were hungover, and everyone else took some time off to reflect and relax. So let’s get started on this incredibly short WNR, the first for 2016!

Pirates apologise for pirating Tarantino’s new film

A follow-up to last week’s story on the leak of screeners, including one for the new Tarantino movie ‘The Hateful Eight’. In a rare act, the piracy group responsible for the hack/leak has apologised to Quentin Tarantino by saying they were unaware that the the pre-release pirated version would become so popularly shared (erm, not sure if serious). But the crux of their apology appears to be related to the quality of the film, in that the group recognises the film’s brilliance and felt a bit bad about the hurt put on the filmmakers thanks to the pre-release piracy.

The group, Hive-CM8, did hold out some hope that the publicity garnered by the pre-release leak and the group’s subsequent apology will actually help to promote ‘The Hateful Eight’, for a film that the group says is “Quentin Tarantino at his best”.

Mad Max: Fury Road – One of the first Warner films to be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray

Warner Bros. became the third major studio to announce their initial Ultra HD Blu-ray line-up. The first titles available on the new 4K-ish disc format will be ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ ‘San Andreas,’ ‘The Lego Movie’ and ‘Pan’, a somewhat better line-up than Sony’s (‘The Amazing Spiderman 2,’ ‘Chappie,’ ‘Hancock,’ ‘Pineapple Express,’ ‘Salt,’ and ‘The Smurfs 2’).

Still, the number of launch titles is still fairly small considering the home entertainment industry is banking on UHDBD as the next best thing, and Warner has promised to have only 35 titles ready by the end of 2016 (and if these are double dipping titles, they best make sure there’s plenty of new stuff in their to justify another buy – relying just on a better, near-4K transfer, is not going to be good enough).

The problem though is that 4K TV penetration is still low, plus making new 4K transfers won’t be trivial, nor cheap.

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So that was it for the last week of 2015 and the first few days of 2016. With CES just around the corner, I’m sure there will be more to cover in next week’s edition. Until then, have a great week!

Merry Belated Christmas. I’m going to watch the new Star Wars film again tomorrow. I once convinced myself I would never be the type of person to watch the same film twice at the cinemas, but I have now been seduced by the dark side (damn you Disney), having uncontrollable immersed myself in all things Star Wars since seeing the film on release day. The film is far from perfect, but things in the Star Wars universe has never been about perfection or even trying to achieve perfection (leaving that for Star Trek) – the movie is fun, it has moment you want to watch over and over again, and what more could you ask from a Star Wars film?

So I’ll go watch it again, this time in a Dolby Atmos enabled theater for maximum aural pleasure, and maybe able to pay more attention to the film, something I wasn’t able to fully do the first time around due to a mixture of excitement and the fear of the thing turning into another Phantom Menace.

With the holidays in full force, as you’d expect, news wasn’t particularly forthcoming this week, although we still have a couple of interesting stories to look at.

Pirated versions of The Force Awakens already available on most torrent sites, but ticket sales are still breaking all records

There is of course another way to watch The Force Awakens again without having to pay, or even to leave your home: piracy! Cam versions of the film are now flooding the torrent-o-sphere, and while they vary in quality from the very poor to merely the poor (compared to the real cinema experience, that is), it may very well be the true fan’s best chance to more closely examine the movie until the Blu-ray hits sometime next year and breaks all Blu-ray sales records (you know it’s going to happen).

And this brings us to an interesting point in regards to piracy. I speak about true fans possibly wanting to download the cam copies as the only current way to “own” TFA and to watch it more closely. These same true fans have probably already paid to see the film twice or more. So in this case, who exactly is getting hurt by piracy? Of course, the people that are happy to have had their first and only experience of TFA via the format of a cam release, are probably not those that will pay for a movie ticket anyway.

In the same story linked to above, there’s also the news that a bunch of DVD screeners have been leaked online due to a security breach related to Andrew Kosove, co-CEO of Alcon Entertainment. Now, if a DVD screener copy of TFA does get uploaded, this might be slightly different than a poor cam copy – some will find the DVD screener more than adequate in quality for their viewing needs, to the point where it may affect their decision to pay for the movie (to be fair, a decision that was already teetering on the brink of “no sale” to begin with). Hollywood really needs to start doing something about leaked screeners, it’s almost where all pre-release piracy is coming from these days, especially during awards season.

This little device can generate millions of dollars worth of copyright “damages” every day

So from piracy that may actually hurt the bottom line to a form of piracy that definitely doesn’t, take a look at Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde’s Kopimashin. The Raspberry Pi based machine continuously makes illegal copies (and then deletes said copy, or more precisely, sends it to the Linux black hole known as /dev/null) of the song ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkely, and thus theoretically generates $10 million in damages each and every day.

Part art project, part protest movement, Sunde has plans to build 13 of these ‘Kopimashins’ to eventually generate billions, maybe even trillions of damages and drive Downtown Records, the label behind ‘Crazy’, to the point of theoretical madness and bankruptcy.

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And that’s it for this short and sweet WNR. Expect even less news next week though, as it has always been the case. I might come back to just say hi and a Happy New Year, otherwise, see you in 2016!

The new Star Wars movie is great fun, for fans and non fans alike. Photo credit: Bella Sun

So I saw The Force Awakens on release day. I was far too nervous and excited to maybe take in everything, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the movie (both the good and the bad things about it) since, and I guess that’s an achievement in itself. I really liked it, although it’s not without its flaws, some quite significant. You get the feeling that the people behind TFA tried to play it safe this time around (maybe too safe), mostly because they (and everyone other than the most die hard Jar Jar fans) didn’t want a repeat of The Phantom Menace. That’s not to say it isn’t without its epic moments, scenes that instantly become Star Wars classics in my opinion.

The next one will probably be a bit more adventurous and it will be a better film for it (just like how ESB was a better film than ANH).

I think Star Wars fans will love it (and many will watch it multiple times, like I hope to do, time permitting), and those not sure of the difference between a Wookiee and a Gungan, will probably love it too, which is probably the greatest compliment you can give to JJ, and exactly what Disney wanted. This movie will break most, if not all records.

As for this week’s WNR (and yes, I still found the time to work, even if I’m posting on Reddit every other hour on The Force  Awakens), there are a few interesting news stories, but not ones that warrant too much discussion here (so, another short one, I’m afraid).

Philips fails in their attempt to introduce DRM to light bulbs

With more and more devices becoming “connected”, true to the vision of the Internet of Things (IoT), there’s one danger lurking in the shadows, just waiting to strike when the time is right … DRM!

So it will surprise no one that Philips tried to infect their “Hue” Iot light bulbs with DRM, to lock out third party bulbs from being used in their system, and again it will surprise no one that their evil plan was foiled by the good guys. By good guys, I mean you and me, and other consumers sick and tired of companies trying to use technological lock-outs, DRM, to stifle competition.

The other thing that was kind of wonderful, and disturbing, about this news story was that Philips was able to use a firmware update to first add inb and then to remove the DRM. Think about that for a minute. A firmware update for light bulbs! If the IoT vision is truly the correct vision for the future, then I wonder how many firmware updates will occur every day for all of my connected devices (my toaster, my toothbrush, my coffee mug, my fruit bowl, etc…). I’m not sure I can afford the bandwidth!

4K TVs will be in many homes by 2019

One of my future devices that will definitely be connected to the Internet, and will receive frequently firmware updates, will be my 4K TV. And by 2019, I will no longer be one of the very few to own a 4K TV, and instead, will be one of the many (but not most) households that will have upgraded to 4K, at least according to a new report by IHS.

What I found most interesting was that China could be one of the biggest markets for 4K TV, with a predicted adoption rate of 24% by 2019. Considering how many households there are in China, that’s a huge number (one that might actually equal the *total* number of households in the U.S.). India, on the other hand, is only expected to have a 4K TV adoption rate of 2%, showing that not all developing countries are the same when it comes to new tech adoption.

Another interesting tidbit from the report was that by 2017, it is predicted that most 50 inch or larger TVs will be 4K. So it’s pretty much like what happened with HD – economies of scale in manufacturing means you’re gonna have to buy a 4K TV whether you need it or not, by 2017.

The PS4 might have been jailbroken, according to a hacker that has previous accomplishments in the field of PS4 hacking. But it’s still early stages, and so don’t expect pirated games, or even homebrew, to work on a jailbroken PS4 (one that has to have a firmware version 1.76 or older).

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Well, I told you it was short. Not as short as Luke as a stormtrooper (not a TFA spoiler), but still pretty short. See you next week!

There are no Force Awakens spoilers in this WNR, rest assured, even if one of the stories is about such a spoiler. It would be far too cruel to know too much about the film only a week to its release.

On to the news …

Star Wars: Rey spoiler subject to DMCA take-down

I normally don’t write news stories unless I’m familiar with 100% of the story (maybe not always the background behind the story), but I did a first time week by writing a news article on a photo that I haven’t even bothered to look at. But it’s all intentional you see, as that photo may very well contain a spoiler for the new Star Wars movie (don’t worry, this link has no spoilers unless you click on the clearly marked spoiler ridden link within the article), and I just couldn’t bear to possibly ruin a major plot point by actually taking a look.

Walmart started selling a new toy for the new movie, perhaps a week earlier than originally planned, and the packaging for the toy apparently contains a major spoiler for the film. The photo was uploaded online and shared, but then became a subject of a DMCA take-down by Lucasfilm, despite them not owning the copyright on the photo at all (and their claim that the photo was for a unreleased product is untrue, since Walmart was selling the toy publicly). So once again, we have the exploitation of copyright law for non copyright reasons, something that will go unpunished yet again.

Or at least that’s what I think the story is about, since as mentioned earlier, I haven’t the heart to look at the “offending” photo for fear it will ruin my Star Wars VII experience. I don’t like writing stories based on guessing, but sometimes the needs of the one outweighs the needs of the many (oops, wrong movie franchise). There goes my journalistic integrity out the window, not that I had much to begin with anyway!

Samsung leads the 4K TV market, but 4K TV adoption still faces many obstacles

What’s holding back 4K adoption? Apparently, it’s the question “what the heck is 4K”. A new poll finds that 42% of those surveyed didn’t even know what 4K was, and when they were informed, most didn’t really care about the increased resolution or the expanded colour range.

Just goes to show that for many, even DVD (and certainly Netflix) is good enough already, and that Ultra HD Blu-ray and 4K will always be a niche thing for those that truly want the best possible representation of the film (until something even better, like 8K, comes along).

Still, many will end up buying 4K TVs eventually once the price premium has dropped to an acceptable level (and then later on, when every TV will be 4K – this might happen a lot sooner than you think, since I’ve already got myself a 42″ 4K set for under $USD 300, and that was months ago, mainly because it was as cheap if not cheaper than similar non 4K sets of the same size).

The Blu-ray Disc Association better market 4K as such (a niche technology for home theater enthusiasts), and don’t waste time (and money) trying to market to the Walmart crowd.

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Got Netflix? Often find movies in your “watched” queue that’s not supposed to be there? Your Netflix account may have been hacked, and you’re not the only one that have had this happen. Read this news story to find out how you can make sure your Netflix account is secure!

The PS4 won the important month of November

Sony has let the cat out of the bag early, and announced that the PS4 was the best selling console in the US for November, ahead of the official NPD announcement. This marks a change from last November and the last month, when the Xbox One won. While the Xbox One could still have won Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it looks like its “greatest gaming lineup” in November failed to beat Sony’s PS4, which many gamers find superior in terms of performance (pricing wasn’t an issue, as both consoles were discounted to $300 for Black Friday, and the rest of the holiday sales period).

If Microsoft want to beat the Sony, it looks like the pricing for the Xbox One will have to below that of the PS4. Exclusives can only do so much, and even the effect of price cuts diminish the longer it gets into a console’s life cycle (if one console has a huge lead, then gamers will naturally flock to that console, just so they can play with their friends online). Can Microsoft afford to do it? Do they want to or need to beat the PS4?

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That’s all I have for you this week. Next week, The Force Awakens opens in cinemas around the world – not sure they’ll be much non Star Wars news, especially during the latter half of the week, but what can you do. See you next week.