HD Monitor Causes DRM Issues with Netflix

Jeremiah Cornelius points us to Davis Freeberg's blog, where he discusses his "nightmare scenario" of losing access to his DRM-protected purchases by upgrading his PC monitor. "When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I've purchased from Amazon's Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue. Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup."

Owned

Yet another reason to pirate all the content you want.

Re:Owned

AnyDVD + Handbrake + VideoLAN

"We work hard, so you don't have to"

Re:Owned

AnyDVD is commercial software for Windows that decrypts + rips DVDs. There is also an 'HD' version out now that supports HDDVD and BluRay. It can be used to rip commercial DVDs to a DVD-R disc with region-free playback, or simply to an ISO on your hard drive. (http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html)

Handbrake is an open-source DVD-to-MPEG4 converter. (http://handbrake.fr/)

VideoLAN is a media player that can play back the MPEG4 files created with Handbrake. In addition to local plaback, it has the ability to unicast/multicast video & audio across a network. (http://www.videolan.org)

So basically, the idea is, rip the video to make it DRM-free, convert it to a smaller, more efficient format for storage, stream across a network.

Re:Owned

How would that help? They wouldn't even troubleshoot on a system like Linux. He could have refused their scan and kept his freedom.

In my opinion it is your own fault if you purchase DRM content. You don't HAVE to have their content. I know you really want to because its big Hollywood movies but what is difficult to understand. Your making a choice to retain your freedom or your use of Hollywood entertainment. If you know before hand that you could be screwed over while not doing anything wrong as well as not being able to go after the content provider because they did nothing outside of their agreement who's fault is it? It's surely not theirs. You decided to play their game and to pay them for the privilege. You get burned and cry to slashdot. It's very sad that there is good content that is going to be locked in DRM away but thats just bait for suckers.

Re:Owned

Agree.

(Unfortunately) More people should get burnt by these DRM schemes so that people will ask twice before signing up for them. As knowledgeable as we (the /. community) is, we have to get the word out to friends and family when they ask for our recommendations. It doesn't take much. When they ask about bluray or HD-DVD, just mention off the cuff the dueling standards. If they talk about downloadable content, ask them what happens when you change computers or if the service closes down. Mention that the Walmart service (backed by a company bigger than Microsoft) is closing down and the mess it leaves the customers.

We are the people with the (purchasing) power. We have the power to get rid of DRM. We just have to use it wisely.

Re:Owned

It probably isn't even that cheap.

It's a free add-in to their service. For every buck per month you spend you get an hour of streaming. It may not be cheap, but since their standard mail service is already worth the money I spend, the Watch Now is a pleasant bonus.

It probably isn't even superior to their snal-mail variant and possibly not even much better in terms of delivery speed.

It would be better if the library were more robust, but the speed is fine. It starts in a few seconds.

Anything Netflix is offering over the web I can also stream around the house if I want to.

I don't know what you mean here, but it reminds me of the folks who say "I can just torrent whatever I want." Maybe, but I'm not interested in maintaining multiple gigabytes of video files, and torrents are hideously slow for things that are not widely popular. Netflix trades "free" for excellent service and breadth of offerings. It's like a massive hard drive with high latency. Since movies arrive in a timely fashion I'm rarely waiting for stuff, and on the off chance I want something now now now, and assuming it's offered on Watch Now, that option is available.

I dunno, maybe it's just because I have no vested interest in screwing the MPAA or whatever. The few bucks I give to Netflix every month is more than repaid in the service they provide without any streaming.

Re:Owned

Anything Netflix is offering over the web I can also stream around the house if I want to.

I don't know what you mean here, but it reminds me of the folks who say "I can just torrent whatever I want."

Don't confuse streaming over the Internet and torrenting with streaming through a local network to another TV. He is saying "I can view it anywhere I want" not "I can get anything I want". Big difference.

He wants to view all of his content - even his legally obtained DRM content - anywhere in his house. Its exactly like expecting to place a TV or radio anywhere in the house and being allowed to watch and listen to the same channels. What if Channel 7 only let you watch Channel 7 on Sony branded TVs? What if you couldn't watch Channel 7 on a Sony TV if you had a Hitachi TV in the same house?

Re:I'll bite.

And you're neatly sidestepping the issue altogether. Nice trick, that. The issue is that switching to a "free" (however one defines that, which is a discussion unto itself) OS will not solve the problem at all. All that will happen is you'll have to pirate your videos, which is the same damn solution that you'd have to go to under Windows... so the OS change has netted you no benefit whatsoever with respect to this DRM issue.

Alternative to DRM

If distributors could invisibly/digitally watermark the video that gets legally downloaded with a user-id/serial number-that could make people think twice about distributing the video freely to others/thereby potentially eliminating the need for DRM. The video would be traceable to the original consumer. I guess it's possible a video file could be 'leaked' accidentally and it could cause a lot of trouble for the consumer/distributor. My guess is that anyone who is willing to pay for a download would likely NOT participate in redistributing the file - but I'm too naive and too much of an optimist at times maybe!

I buy sheet music online - the site only allows you to print to a physical printer NOT a PDF recorder (it also prints my full name on the sheet music). I'm sure there is someone who is smart enough out there to bypass this, I've thought about it (for the technical challenge) but really I'm probably just to lazy to even try.

Re:Alternative to DRM

That doesn't work because watermarks are incredibly easy to get around. Simple signal processing techniques will eliminate most watermarks without noticeably affecting the output. In many cases you can just add your own watermark over the top and either destroy the existing watermark or no-one knows which one is the original watermark.

Pretty much all watermarking research assumes that an attacker does not know how the watermarking technique works and does not intelligently attack the watermark. That assumption is hopelessly unrealistic. It's 100% security by obscurity.

DRM display lockout

This was one of those "features" of Vista that I heard about in the earlier days of the hype. There wasn't a clearly defined explanation of how they would indeed tie DRM to your HD monitor but I guess the results are starting to show. Someday maybe all of our hardware will be locked down so that if you don't buy content with appropriate DRM, it simply won't play. Hurray for freedom!

DRM sucks

This perhaps doesn't directly address the problem mentioned, but this is what I do. I only bother with Netflix DRM because I get it "free" anyway with my subscription.

Anyway, using a script I wrote, I parse the HTML saved from Firefox (pretending to be IE7) and download the highest bandwidth version of a movie. I then cringe and for the only time each month boot Windows and using Mirakagi, FreeUse4Win, WMP and unDRM the file. Then I can play in perpetuity in Linux/MythTV.

The size of the files is normally 1-2GB. Yes, that's less than DVD quality, but pretty acceptable in most cases. You can fetch the keys for 9 hours of movies per month (for the basic subscription), but they round up, so if you do it carefully and get keys for 8.5 hours of movies, you can make the last one a 3 hour epic - about 5-7 movies total.

This is all based upon information I got from here: http://forum.rorta.net/showthread.php?t=1134&page=6 [rorta.net] (link to last page)

Kaffeine didn't play the resulting WMVs very well. mplayer and VLC do a better job.

Lots of Netflix haters... but why hate Netflix?

I don't see why all the antipathy against Netflix exists - it's not even Netflix that is distributing the files he would lose, just that the streaming player will not work because of a corruption in the DRM database.

Blame Windows for not having a better handle on backing up that data, sure. Blame UnBox for selling such crippled media - OK then. But Netflix has no other choices because content providers will not accept other solutions. They aren't even storing anything locally, just streaming.

Upgrade to XP

This is a bug that only affects Windows Vista (defective DRM is prevalent). Upgrading to Windows XP will solve the problem.

OOhhhh Look!!

Chickens! Why it seems they've come home to roost!

I always said that as soon as customers started loosing legally purchased media and having real difficulties with brand new hardware that the days or DRM would be over. Could that day be here already?! Happy 2008 all.

What do you mean YOUR eyes and ears?

Read the F'ing EULA my friend.

And if you don't stop fast-forwarding through those Axe commercials we're going to deactivate your reproductive module.

Re:I call bullshit...

Oh, I wish I'd copied the text while it was still mysterious red. Anyway, he provides screenshots, model numbers, and so forth. There's a "DRM reset" tool that Netflix recommended that they say will nuke anything from other vendors. It's clear that his digital restrictions keystore became corrupted somehow, and Netflix, Amazon, and Microsoft all directed him to each other. In the end he wonders why he bothered paying at all, noting that he could obtain higher-resolution rips for less money using bittorrent.

Re:I call bullshit...

He changed the monitors, which caused Vista to invalidate the DRM, much like a Windows Genuine Advantage. Now his Netflix account is invalid and has to revalidate it and for this the application will scan all his licenses and reset all license it finds (which means he would have to contact Amazon and all the other companies and request to have the licenses activated again). Or something like that.

Re:Hmmm. What is the problem here?

Okay, I won't buy from Netflix, especially since they don't "sell" digital downloads. What they do offer is an online-viewing service that's included "free" (currently) with their standard by-mail service. A service which, I might add, happens to work beautifully if you're running XP. It looks like this guy's problems stem from the fact that he's running Vista and has decided to change his hardware (even if it is only the monitor). We were given plenty of warning that Vista would do this, so we shouldn't be surprised when it happens.

Re:There are sample videos in the "My Videos" fold

The fact that you can download mp3s from amazon.com is probably due to the fact that computer speakers have become such a low-end commodity that vendors can't convince anyone to "upgrade" to DRM-enabled models.

Wanna bet? When I build my "dream" computer 3-1/2 years ago, I got an Audigy 2 sound card. It appears that the digital audio outputs are disabled if you are trying to play some restricted hi-def audio files (not MP3, though). So, if you went high-end and run your computer to an amp with digital inputs, you simply cannot listen to some music. The sad thing is that the people most likely to care about hi-def audio are the ones most likely to switch to an all-digital setup. Yet another reason to stick to analog speakers.

works as advertised

A Microsoft problem? No. The feature is implemented correctly. If the monitor does not have the authorization chip that the new drivers in Vista are set to check for (thus closing the analog hole), the DRM will not play. Because VGA is older, the content will play on that. It's a feature of Windows Media, that might be fixed if Microsoft does not implement the monitor check in Silverlight which they are switching to. Since they want to support Macs, and Apple isn't that stupid, hopefully they won't be able to.

--Sam

Re:vista only

Hi. I posted this story. The guy is not lying. You should try this yourself, with HDMI sometime.

When he's done being Slashdotted, look at the screen captures of his dialogue boxes.

I watched this technology being demonstrated - as an insider during development. Sheer suckage.

Re:vista only

Bad COPP No Netflix
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 by Davis

Movie Viewer Message [zooomr.com]

When In Doubt Blame Microsoft

Even though I'm an HDTV fanatic, it wasn't until this past weekend, that I finally made the jump to an HD monitor. While I don't have HDTV tuners on my Media Center, I do have an HD camcorder and it was important for me to be able to edit my high resolution videos.

After doing a little bit of research, I decided to pick up a SyncMasterTM 226BW from Samsung. Between the new monitor and my ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT video card, the resolution looks absolutely stunning. Even my home movies look fantastic in HDTV. I really couldn't have been happier with the upgrade.

Unfortunately, Hollywood isn't quite as thrilled about my new HD Media Dream Machine and they've decided to punish me by revoking my Watch Now privileges from Netflix.

I first found out about the problem on New Year's Eve, when I went to log into my account. When I tried to launch a streaming movie, I was greeted with an error message asking me to "reset" my DRM. Luckily, Netflix's help page on the topic included a link to a DRM reset utility, but when I went to install the program, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this warning.

Netflix Reset Microsoft DRM Utility [zooomr.com]

Netflix DRM

The minute I saw"this will potentially remove playback licenses from your computer, including those from companies other than Netflix or Microsoft" I knew better than to hit continue. Before nuking my entire digital library, I decided to call Netflix's technical support, to see if I could get to the bottom of my C00D11B1 error message.

When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I've purchased from Amazon's Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue.

Technically, there is a way to back up the licenses before doing a DRM reset, but it's a pretty complex process, even by my standards. When I asked Netflix for more details, they referred me to Amazon for assistance.

Perhaps even worse than having to choose between having access to Netflix or giving up my Unbox movies was the realization that my real problems were actually tied to the shiny new monitor that I've already grown fond of.

Netflix's software allows them to look at the video card, cables and the monitor that you are using and when they checked mine out, it was apparently a little too high def to pass their DRM filters.

Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup.

As part of their agreement with Hollywood, Netflix uses a program called COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocal). COPP is made by Microsoft and the protocol restricts how you are able to transfer digital files off of your PC. When I ran COPP to identify the error on my machine, it gave me an ominous warning that "the exclusive semaphere is owned by another process."

My Netflix technician told me that he had never heard of this particular error and thought that it was unique to my setup. When I consulted Microsoft, they suggested that I consult the creator of the program. Since Microsoft wrote the COPP software, I wasn't sure who to turn to after that.

The irony in all of this, is that the DRM that Hollywood is so much in love with, is really only harming their paying customers. When you do a DRM reset, it's not your pirated files that get revoked, it's the ones that you already paid for that are at risk. I'm not allowed to watch low res Netflix files, even though I have the capability to download high def torrents? How does this even make sense? It's as if the studios want their digital strategies to fail.

While I understand the need for the studios to protect their content, I believe that these measures go too far. It makes little sense to block my ability to copy low res internet movies, when I can always rip the DVD straight from my Netflix discs instead. By blocking access to my Netflix membership, Hollywood is once again punishing their customers by pushing defective DRM.

Re:Cancelling

In this instance, it's not really Netflix's fault. Netflix has repeatedly said that they want to make their steaming feature available to more operating systems, browsers and the like. The reason they haven't is because the MPAA studios which supply the movies that Netflix's rents won't license them movies unless they use some form of DRM that they approve of. And they only approve of Microsoft's DRM, which means the only options open for Netflix are Microsoft supplied DRM movies or nothing at all.

If you want proof of this, there are videos of Netflix having a working demo of their streaming tech on OS X from back in March, but they still haven't released it for the main site, since they still haven't gotten approval on the DRM from the sudios.

If you're going to protest, your protests should be directed at the MPAA. That may involve a boycott of Netflix as well, but it definitely shouldn't stop there, nor should Netflix be the primary focus.

Sorry Server Down - Link To Article

Sorry everyone /. was a little too powerful for my hosting company and they won't let me up my quota. If anyone knows of any webhosting companies that can handle the /. effect, I'm in the market for a new one. In the meantime, here is a link to another copy of the article [seekingalpha.com] in case you would like to read it. If someone can get Commander Taco to update it in the main article, I would appreciate it. Thanks for all the support and I hope that you don't hate me too much for making the mistake of buying Vista and DRM movies. Sometimes you have to experience how crappy DRM is first hand, in order to realize how much value it strips from your content.