DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

So Digital Digest celebrated its 19th birthday last week, on July 4, which seems like a familiar date for some reason here in Australia. Who am I kidding? I deliberately launched Digital Digest 19 years and a few days ago on America’s birthday mainly because I know how bad my memory is and the only way I would remember the anniversary would be to piggy back it to another, more easily remembered one.

As for the reasons behind launching Digital Digest (then known as DVDigest)? It was mainly because I had become bored of answering the same questions on several message boards that I had been visiting and decided to put all the available information in one place so I can just link to it in my responses. Plus I could also host a few downloads for people to use on the GeoCities hosted site (sites, actually, since one account usually wasn’t enough to handle all the bandwidth required).

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of the site, and so I suppose I should celebrate it somehow being that it’s such a nice and rounded number and all. The arbitrariness of it all …

Netflix is testing new pricing tiers that could mean price rises for many

The arbitrariness of Netflix’s subscription tiers comes to the fore this week as it was revealed the streaming giant was testing a new, top subscription tier that sounds a lot like the current, top tier, except at a higher price. Netflix’s proposed “Ultra” tier would cost $3.50 more than the current “Premium” tier and would offer exactly the same 4 simultaneous screen plan with 4K and HDR support. What would be different is that the “Premium” plan would drop support for HDR streaming (while still maintaining 4K streaming support), and may even drop the number of simultaneous screens to 2, while the “Standard” plan may end up only supporting 1 screen. In other words, it’s a $3.50 price rise for those that want to watch shows in HDR, and price rises for everyone who needs simultaneous streaming.

This somewhat cynical move might not happen, as I doubt Netflix can get away with something like this if they don’t call it a price rise. But Netflix does need to raise prices because licensing and producing content is expensive business and may get more expensive now that Disney is all about to acquire Fox and will definitely launch their own streaming product – without Disney and Fox’s content, Netflix will have to pay more for other studio’s content or pay even more to produce their own.

There is possibly the argument that content costs too much to license these days because Hollywood is making for losses in DVD and Blu-ray sales with profits from streaming despite not every title making it to a streaming platform. Most of the other streaming platforms, like Amazon, are not even anywhere near profitable due largely to excessive licensing costs, and I’m just not sure this is a wise long term strategy for Hollywood. What is happening is that the high cost of licensing, and particularly the headaches involved with global licensing, means that it’s often more economical for the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon to make their own original content – this, eventually, could put Hollywood in a weaker position both in terms of direct revenue (more competition for eyeballs) as well as when it comes to negotiating future deals, much like how music labels are now at the whim of the likes of Apple and Spotify. In other words, short term greed may end up equaling long term pain.

Still, the idea of subscribing to one or maybe just two platforms that offers pretty much all the content I will ever want to watch, seems like a distant and impossible dream right now.

Google may be getting into gaming in a big way

Google may be dreaming of something too: their own gaming platform. And as with the direction of all things these days, the new platform, codenamed ‘Yeti’, will be streaming, cloud based.

Game streaming, or cloud gaming if you prefer that term instead, isn’t something that’s widely used yet, but all the major players want a piece of it, as it definitely has some major advantages over how games are traditionally distributed. For one, there’s no need to go to a store to buy a retail disc package (which, for a popular game, may be sold out), install it and then install updates to play. Digitally purchased games removes the need to go outside, but it still means a lengthy download, followed by more updates. Both methods also require local storage space, which if you have a lot of games, will always be a problem.

And that’s all assuming you can afford the hardware to play it on – a latest generation console or a souped up gaming PC – both of which will be outdated by the time most of the good games that can take advantage of the hardware actually comes out.

So streaming removes these hurdles, as you can start playing a game in just a few minutes time, with no need to pre-download GBs of data. Plus, with the rendering done on the server level, your local piece of hardware won’t need constant upgrading or to be powerful at all in the first place. Google’s plan is that eventually, you should be able to start a new Chrome tab on any device you own and it will be able to stream-play any game at the highest quality level.

Of course, the major hurdle for this would be bandwidth, because even games these days are 4K and unlike movies and TV which can be pre-compressed to have low bitrate requirements, games are live and have to be encoded live, and so won’t be as efficient when it comes to compression (and games tend to have more motion than movies of TV shows, which further affects their ability to get compressed well). So when everyone has 100 Mbps connections, game streaming might become as normal as Netflix, but until then, it’s still not for everyone. But the major players all want to be in a position to be able to take advantage of this when the bandwidth does eventually catch up, and so this is why Google has Yeti, Nvidia has GeForce Now, Sony has PlayStation Now, Microsoft has that so far unnamed one that they just announced, and also the dozens of other lesser known platforms. Watch this space.

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Well, that’s it for the week. I just realised that it’s nearly 11 years since I started doing this weekly news roundup. The very first roundup started with these words: “This might become a regular feature on the blog (hopefully) if, unlike most of my other projects, I actually manage to keep it up for more than a few weeks”. Looks like I did manage to keep it going for “more than a few weeks”. Here’s to a few weeks more …

Welcome to the second half of 2018. My oh my, didn’t it go by fast? Actually, I completely understand that for some, maybe even many, it hasn’t seemed that quick, or even not quickly enough. Which just goes to show that time really is relative, and that we are heavily influenced by our perceptions, even when our perceptions are wrong at times.

What isn’t wrong is that we do have a few stories to cover, and so there’s definitely no time to waste (regardless of how quickly or slowly it passes for you).

Roku’s anti-piracy measures have worked according to the company

We have a trio of copyright related stories in regards, to apps, streaming and gaming, three of the largest arenas when it comes to the digital world. Starting in no particular order, Roku has announced that they’ve succeeded in taming the beast that is piracy on their platform.

Roku has had a piracy problem so bad that it got banned in Mexico, of all places, and they’ve removed more than 400 organisations that have links to piracy on their platform, and who knows how many channels that were run by these organisations. Of course, some of these actions have led to unfortunately collateral damage (like when the Netflix and YouTube channels were removed accidentally), but there is no doubt that Roku is now a much more legal platform than when it started (although my feeling is that people who are using their Roku for piracy are using it wrong, or rather, there are better ways to get pirated content than from a Roku!).

The positive PR message is much needed from Roku, what with the streaming device industry now firmly in Hollywood’s sights. These days, preemptive action is the perfect prophylaxis when it comes to avoiding the unwanted attentions of the copyright industry.

Piracy on the Switch is possible, but dangerous

Nintendo is also taking preemptive action against what the company thinks might be a flood of piracy occurring on their Switch console, following the jailbreaking of the console earlier this year. The Switch now apparently has code that could ban an entire console from being able to connect to online services, if it detects that pirated games are being run on it.

It’s not the only thing that Switch pirates have to worry about, as apparently the custom firmware they’re using the run pirate games has its own copy protection mechanism that could brick their consoles. Apparently, even pirates are worried about piracy, in this case of their custom firmware that they’re selling (as opposed to being given away, like most of these types of things). As with most things piracy related, use at your own risk!

There’s also a risk that when you look at everything through the prism of copyright, that sometimes, you see more than what’s actually happening. This may have been the case with the story involving Google’s addition of metadata on Android apps that, some say, could be used as a form of anti-piracy DRM.

Never mind the fact that Android apps can already use a Google provided server based authentication DRM for paid apps, and that Google was pretty clear what the metadata is for. Of course, the cynic would say that Google would never say that their DRM was a DRM, because that would be met with a huge public backlash. But what Google says is also true and also an important point, is that by adding metadata support, it will allow offline distribution of Google Play store compatible apps. Previously, offline distributed apps would count as a separate entity to Play store downloaded apps, in terms of updates, licensing and tying into Google accounts.

So there’s definitely the possibility that metadata can be used by app publishers as a form of DRM, to restrict the sharing of “unauthorised” apps, but there are already means to do this, so perhaps the Google Play store aspect is the more important story here (as it would open the way for third party app stores to exist, that would be able to sell apps for developers and have those apps work in exactly the same way as an app downloaded from the Play store).

Perception matters.

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So that’s all we have for the week. All related, but all different as well. See you next week.

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. It was another slow news week, and so this is going to be another short one. Some of you are probably too busy watching the World Cup to worry about copyright issues, or how streaming is taking over everything. I get it, and I would be too, if the time differences were a little kinder for those of us here in Australia.

Let’s get on with it then.

Disney may own Star Wars, but it actually doesn’t own the distribution rights to the original trilogy … not until they buy Fox

Disney’s bid to buy Fox’s film and TV business now has some serious competition in the form of a rival bid from Comcast. The telecommunication company has to react to rival AT&T’s takeover of Time Warner, which took place last week and was quickly followed by the launch of AT&T’s streaming product, WatchTV.

Comcast’s bid put pressure on Disney to up their earlier offer, and this they did too, now offering more cash on top of their original stock only offer. Throughout all of this, Fox has always said they prefer to do business with Disney and the new offer cements this believe.

Disney wants Fox not only to re-unite its Marvel properties (not to mention the distribution rights to the original Star Wars trilogy with the rest of the franchise), but may also needs Fox’s content for its own streaming product to be launched next year. When that happens, the new yet unnamed streaming platform will be more akin to Netflix than AT&T’s WatchTV, which focuses more on live streaming of TV channels, some of which are now owned by AT&T (including CNN, TBS and TNT). And with both Disney and Fox’s library of content, the new streaming service will offer some serious competition to Netflix.

Fox shareholders will hold a special meeting on July 10 to vote on the potential merger.

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Other than that, there wasn’t anything else that was of particular interest. Hopefully there will be more stuff to cover next week. Until then …

It’s another week here at WNR headquarters, and for the first time in a little while, we actually have some ripping related news. It’s not so much that people don’t care about ripping any more, but mainly because there hasn’t been anything new that requires a decrypting breakthrough, because DVD and Blu-ray ripping has become quite easy (and a quick glance at the piracy scene indicates that most rips come from web sources as opposed to BDrips, as web sources usually have new content arrive much earlier). Ultra HD Blu-ray appeared to be unbreakable when it first appeared, but this does not seem to be true these days (as you’ll see in the story below). Not that many people are lining up to download 50GB+ files when a 2GB looks perfectly fine.

Alright, let’s get started then.

Pirates score a direct hit against Hollywood in the on-going battle to crack Ultra HD Blu-ray discs

The war between pirates and movie studios has raged for almost two decades now (ever since the days of DeCSS), and the recent battles have all been about Ultra HD Blu-ray and the so called “unbreakable” AACS 2 copy protection scheme. Just to prove that there really is no such thing as unbreakable, the latest version of the copy protection scheme, AACS 2.1, has been broken only a month after it first made its appearance on the UHD BD version of the movie ‘Fury’.

AACS 2.1 was a response to the series of UHD discs protected by AACS 2.0 that were somehow ripped and uploaded online during the back end of 2017. It appeared that a flaw had been found in AACS 2.0, which while strictly not a full crack, allowed users to achieve the same result – to obtain an decrypted version of the UHD files. According to Arusoft, the company that broke AACS 2.1, the new version added an encrypted m2ts file that contained “forensic information”, and it was a simple process to decrypt the file and remove any potential tracking information (although this part is not completely confirmed).

The problem with trying to update AACS is that the bigger changes required to re-secure the copy protection scheme may cause it to be no longer compatible with existing hardware, which is why a crack or workaround, once discovered, pretty much means the end of the copy protection scheme. With Arusoft’s DeUHD software now claiming to rip more than 1100 UHD titles (up slightly from the 30 titles that DeUHD supported at launch), it seems AACS 2.x has reached the end stage of its lifecycle.

Apple looking to ink more content deals as it signs WGA master contract

Media companies are starting to realise that having original content is more important than ever. Some non media tech companies, such as Apple and Facebook, have also realised that having original, unique content is key to keeping people “loyal” to your platform, even if media isn’t your main game. So Apple signing the Writers Guild master contract last week doesn’t really seem all that surprising, considering the company is already producing a couple of shows (including the new series of ‘Carpool Karaoke’).

The Writers Guild is keen to sign up companies like Apple and Facebook because, increasingly, these companies are producing “free to consumer” type of content that’s not quite the same as the content on pay per view or subscription networks. Having agreements in place means that in future rounds of negotiations, both sides have something concrete to point to when trying to find the most equitable terms.

Shortly following the announcement of Apple’s contract signing, Apple announced that it had reached an agreement with Oprah Winfrey’s OWN in a multi-year deal that will produce (as yet unannounced) original programming. Expect more of these types of announcements in the near future.

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Righteo, we’re at the end of another WNR. Short and sweet again. Maybe minus the sweet part. See you next week.

Sorry about the brief hiatus last week, but in the WNR’s stead, I hope you enjoyed reading the (really really delayed) Blu-ray: The State of Play article. As the preview for the article mentioned, there were no real surprises, with Blu-ray (and DVD) continuing their slide towards VHS.

No need to skip anything this week though, as we do have a bit of news to go through.

People are threatening to cancel their Netflix subscriptions over politics

Skipping straight to digital video news, streaming and the world of politics intersected this week when a campaign to boycott Netflix sprang up in response to an announcement by the streaming giant that angered the US conservatives community. Netflix announced that a new deal was struck with a production company linked to the Obamas, which along with the recent appointment of former Obama admin advisor Susan Rice to its board of director, had caught the ire of conservatives, now accusing Netflix of having a liberal bias.

Polling conducted by YouGov did find a serious slide (of 16%) in Netflix’s favorability rating among conservatives (unsurprisingly, they also found a 15% rise in favorability among liberals), but Netflix remains one of the most liked networks in the US (second only to the Discovery network), even among self identified Republicans.

Like many critics have concluded, Netflix’s move has very little to do with politics, but very much to do with business (like any good corporation). The Obamas are popular in many of the markets that Netflix are trying to grow, and so business trumps (pun unintended) any real or perceived political bias.

For those that haven’t cancelled their Netflix subscriptions yet, they are increasingly watching Netflix and other media via their streaming media devices such as the Apple TV or Roku, as opposed to using their smart TV to do so, according to new data released by Parks Associates. In fact, 50% of people who have smart TVs also down a streaming media device that probably duplicates many of the functions they already have on their TV.

People prefer Amazon’s Fire TV over Google’s Chromecast

For anyone who has used both types of devices, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Smart TVs often have cumbersome interfaces that makes little effort to be user friendly, and have apps that aren’t updated frequently enough to take advantage of the latest features of services such as Netflix. There’s nothing “smart” about many of the set ups on these so called smart TVs, with many of the features merely an afterthought and it’s more for marketing reasons than anything else that these features exist.

The Parks data also pointed to a small decline in Google’s share of the streaming media device market, with Amazon filling the void. The Chromecast, as good as it is, is also limited in the number of supported apps and in terms of usability (relying on your smartphone/tablet app in order to provide much of the usability, leading to a lack of a coherent and consistent interface between services).

Other data shows the adoption of 4K/Ultra HD television sets is gathering pace, with 30% of TV purchasers now going for the 4K type over the standard HD ones. Again, not too surprising considering the sometimes small price premium between HD and UHD models.

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And unsurprisingly, we’ve come to the end of another (short) WNR. See you next week!