Archive for the ‘Video Technology’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (May 28, 2017)

Sunday, May 28th, 2017

Hello from not so sunny Melbourne, as we once again tackle the news that was this week.

And the news was that there wasn’t much news. To be fair, I’ve been busier than usual with other stuff this week, and so perhaps didn’t look hard enough for interesting things to write about, but still, it was a relatively quiet week in all respects. But there are still a couple of things to go through, so let’s get started.

Copyright

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

So has Star Wars: The Last Jedi been stolen or not?

A follow up to last week’s story about the possible leak of a Disney movie, torrent news website TorrentFreak has done some more investigation and it’s becoming somewhat clearer that the full story is a lot less clearer. The veracity of the leak is now under question, according to TorrentFreak, as they managed to find the alleged hacker/leaker/blackmailer, who claims he has access to a workprint of The Last Jedi. The problem is that the leaker, who claims he got the film from a friend who had access to it in post-production of the movie, has failed to release convincing evidence that he even has the film, and now, he’s claiming he has a hold of Sony’s Emoji movie as well.

So what might have been a story about a leak and blackmail, might be one about delusional boasting and extortion. Or it might be just for a the lols, some kind of attention grabbing stunt that may not have anywhere to go now that Disney has called the leaker’s bluff.

High Definition

Samsung 4K TV

4K is doing well in sales

So UHD seems to be going pretty strong, for both TV sales and for movie sales. Just how strong? According to data released by Futuresource, sales of Ultra HD Blu-ray disc players are expected to be up 148% in 2017 compared to 2016, with some 1.4 million new units being sold this year. A third of all new TVs being sold this year will be UHD capable too.

Coupled that with the expected release of 250 new UHD Blu-ray titles this year, it all looks like to be a pretty healthy ecosystem for this still very new format.

Samsung remains the king of TV sales for the present, but Chinese brands, including TCL, are catching up apparently.

Still, Futuresource expects TV sales to remain flat for 2017, due to market saturation, and the lack of any major sporting events (which usually help to push TV sales).

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So that’s it for the week, I know it’s not much, but it’s all I have. Times are tough, you know. See you next week.

Weekly News Roundup (May 21, 2017)

Sunday, May 21st, 2017

Sorry for the brief hiatus – stuff got into the way (more dental stuff as well) and I just couldn’t rush out a WNR last week. But it’s all good now, and we have lots to go through this week, so let’s get started.

Copyright

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Poster

Is Star Wars: The Last Jedi the film that hackers have stolen from Disney?

The new trend in piracy appears to have shifted to one of hacking, theft and blackmail. Following the theft of Netflix’s ‘Orange is the New Black’, a story I covered a few weeks ago, it appears Disney has become the latest victim of this trend. Disney boss Bob Iger revealed that hackers claims to have stolen one of the studio’s unreleased films and have threatened to release it publicly if a ransom demand, in BitCoins, is not met.

Iger did not reveal the name of the film, but did categorically ruled out meeting the hacker’s demands, which means the hackers might soon release the film online and we’ll all know then what film it was. It’s also unclear whether this is related to the Netflix theft, although based on the Twitter account of the Netflix hacker, it’s probably not the same guy (he did not mention anything about having hold of Disney content).

Many are speculating as to which movie was stolen, but with Disney’s line-up for 2017 including the likes of ‘Cars 3’, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’, Disney better hope it’s not one of these mega blockbusters that ends on being leaked on torrent sites.

Speaking of being leaked on, Netflix’s new Android app, or rather Google’s Play store, is preventing those with rooted phones from downloading the latest update. Those with rooted phones are being met with a message stating their phone is not compatible, and this is most likely due to the new DRM requirement of the updated Netflix app.

The issue isn’t that bad though, since users can always sideload the Netflix app and it will run perfectly on rooted phones (so it’s really just the Play store being a d*ck, and not letting rooted phones from updating) – assuming you can find a secure place to download the Netflix app.

As for what’s actually new in the app, there’s a huge new feature for users of LG’s G6 phone. It is one of the first phones to support Dolby Vision HDR, and the new Netflix app will be able to take full advantage of the phone’s gorgeous screen. Samsung Galaxy S8 owners like myself got prematurely excited when the HDR logo started showing up on our phone too (which also supports HDR, but not Dolby Vision), but it turns out it was just a mistake and that the streams weren’t happening in HDR.

The HDR update for the S8 and S8+ will be coming soon, most likely, and I can’t wait!

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LG G6 Dolby Vision Comparison

Dolby Vision promises better, more colors, and more vivid pictures than even HDR10

Speaking of Dolby Vision, the first Dolby Vision enabled Ultra HD Blu-ray movies will be coming in June, first from Universal and then from Lionsgate. Universal will release ‘Despicable Me’ and ‘Despicable Me 2’ while Lionsgate has chosen ‘Power Rangers’ to showcase just how awesome Dolby Vision will be (assuming you have a good TV to show it off).

I haven’t covered HDR as much as I should here, so I copy/paste a section from the above news article to explain the difference between Dolby Vision and the HDR used by most currently available UHD Blu-ray movies, HDR10.

Dolby Vision offers several improvements over the open HDR10 standard, including greater color depth (12-bit vs HDR10’s 10-bit), support for a brighter picture (1,000-4,000 nits vs always 4,000 nits) and Dolby Vision enabled TVs feature a special chip that knows the TV’s own capabilities and helps these displays produce the best possible reproduction of the film compared to the original masters.

In other words, while HDR10 is a more open standard that’s easier to implement, Dolby Vision should offer a better picture quality with all things being equal. And don’t discount the extra 2 bits in color depth – this turns out to be an increase of 67 billion colors being represented! The brightness support also means that DV requires everything to be mastered at 4,000 nits, whereas HDR10 content can make do with only 1,000 nits (of course, whether your TV can support such a high nit count is another question).

DV also has better tone mapping (thanks to that special chip), and support for dynamic metadata that allows for scene by scene optimization of the picture.

But for now, HDR10 has the better hardware support, greater quantity of content, and for most people, it’s already awesome enough.

Gaming

Nintendo Switch

The Switch is a top seller!

Speaking of being awesome enough, the Nintendo Switch has outsold both the PS4 and Xbox One again in April, despite there being stock shortages. And despite only being released two days before the end of the April NPD reporting period, Nintendo’s Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the top game seller for the entire month as well.

It’s quite a turnaround for Nintendo, which hasn’t been top of any chart for a very long time. Whether it will last, is anybody’s guess, but whatever you say about the Switch, it’s definitely something different compared to the offerings from Sony and Microsoft.

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That’s all I have for this week. Have a great one!

Weekly News Roundup (May 7, 2017)

Sunday, May 7th, 2017

How are you on this fine Sunday? Hope you’ve had a productive week, or perhaps like me, you had such a super productive week, where you managed to accomplish so much that everything becomes kind of a blur and you actually can’t even remember all the things you did. Or maybe I actually didn’t do much at all, I don’t know.

As for news, there’s definitely some, so let’s get started.

Copyright

The Smurfs 2

Not my first choice for the first ever ripped Ultra HD Blu-ray

Bad news for Hollywood, and the Ultra HD Blu-ray format. It appears crackers have managed to break the upgraded AACS 2.0 protection on these discs and successfully ripped the first 4K title. Just why they chose to rip The Smurfs 2, and not something like Deadpool or Suicide Squad, I don’t know.

A little refresher, the copy protection scheme used on standard Blu-ray discs, the original AACS, was long cracked. But AACS 2.0, used primarily for 4K content these days, was supposed to be better and tougher, and many theorized it would take years to break it. I guess not.

While it appears Ultra HD Blu-ray discs may soon lose their protection, they do still have several “natural” forms of protection left. First, the sheer size of 4K movies makes them less than ideal download targets – why waste time and bandwidth downloading 50+ GB of movie, when you can get a pretty decent one for under 3 GB. Second, making disc copies of these movies is still not easy to do, given the price and lack of availability of these high capacity discs. Thirdly, if you can afford the “proper” set up to view 4K movies at their best, you can probably afford to buy the discs.

So for now, the piracy of UHD is strictly an academic exercise, and buying the disc still makes much more sense. For now.

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Samsung 4K TV

4K TVs are selling well, and so are discs, but physical media is still on the way out

From piracy straight to sales, and Ultra HD Blu-ray is doing pretty well at the moment, according to the latest report from DEG. But it may be the only bright spot in the overall gloom that is physical media at the moment, with revenue down 14.3% in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same quarter last year. Digital, on the other hand, is enjoying record growth, with subscription streaming revenue up 26%, and digital sales of theatrical titles up an amazing 30%.

As for 4K, Q1 2017 added a further 2.6 million 4K TVs to the total number in U.S. households, up 54% from a year ago. Disc sales are going strong too, with 900,000 discs sold from a total of 139 titles now available on the new disc format.

Overall, total spending was up 2%, meaning the losses in physical media is being more than adequately replaced by gains in digital.

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I have more than adequately done my quota of work this week too (maybe still not enough right here for the WNR, but what can you do), so it’s time for me to call it a week. Until next time, have a great one!

Weekly News Roundup (April 23, 2017)

Sunday, April 23rd, 2017

Welcome to a brand new week on the WNR, where we bring you all* the latest news and happenings in the world of digital video, Blu-ray, gaming and everything else. It looks like I survived my wisdom teeth surgery after all, sorry about the lack of updates the week before (too busy barfing from postoperative nausea).

I’m writing this WNR a little bit later than I usually do on Saturday because I just picked up my new Samsung Galaxy S8+ and have been playing too much with it. It’s a really nice, I can’t say little but it definitely doesn’t feel too big, phone, with a gorgeous screen that doesn’t seem to end (gaming and watching movies, particularly those in the wider aspect ratio of 2.35:1, is a fantastic experience).

But no time to play time, it’s time for work, and there’s quite a bit to go through this week too, so let’s get started)

(* “All” is defined as the news stories I found interesting and/or had time to write up)

Copyright

2Dark

2Dark’s updated Denuvo protection cracked already

The cat and mouse game between anti-tampering system Denuvo (ie. DRM) and game crackers continues afoot with Denuvo releasing an updated version, dubbed v4, of their system. Unfortunately for Denuvo, it only took a month for the first game to be protected by v4, 2Dark, to be completely cracked – something that others had thought would take a lot longer.

While this does not mean all games with Denuvo v4 will be easily cracked from this point onwards – each game needs to be cracked individually – it does mean that crackers possibly have found an entry point into the system and it will make it easier to crack other games that are scheduled to use v4, including Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3, Dead Rising 4, Nier: Automata, Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, and Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Of course, being protected for a month is still better than nothing and one could argue that a month is actually all that’s needed for a game, as that’s why most of the sales happen. However, it seems with each cracked game, crackers improve their technique and reduce the time needed to crack the next one. So if Denuvo v4 only manages to protect Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 for a couple of days, then perhaps publishers won’t be so keen to use Denuvo unless they can get some kind of money back provision in their contract.

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PowerDVD 17

PowerDVD 17 has UHD, VR and other cool stuff … but you’ll need the hardware to match

It’s been a long time coming, but there’s finally a way to play Ultra HD Blu-ray movies on your PC. And if you have one of those fancy PC based VR system, then you can watch your favourite movies in a VR environment too (or watch immersive 360 degrees movies).

I am talking about the latest and greatest version of PowerDVD, now in version 17 (I remember talking about it here on Digital Digest way back when the software was still in 0.x version). If you get the Ultra version, which is still at the $99 that it has almost always been, then you’ll have access to all these fancy new features.

Of course, you’ll still need the hardware, and that’s when the problem starts. The latest Kaby Lake CPU, the latest integrated Intel GPU or a GTX 970, and an Ultra HD Blu-ray reader drive are your *minimum* requirements, so it’s by no means accessible for everyone. And that’s just for Ultra HD Blu-ray – you’ll need more hardware for VR.

But if you’re rich and you already have all of these, than PowerDVD 17 Ultra is a must-buy. A must-buy mainly because it is the only thing you can buy that will play UHD discs.

While Disney is still saying away from UHD, unfortunately, Rogue One’s Blu-ray release was still a big one. Just not as big as The Force Awakens, which is not surprising. The 3D edition of the movie also sold really well despite it being a Best Buy and Target only exclusive. If it had been available on UHD, I think the UHD results would have been amazing. Not as amazing as Planet Earth II from the previous week, but still amazing. Come on Disney, pull it out!

Gaming

Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch outsold the PS4 and Xbox One in March

If you’re also rich, you’re probably one of the million or so people that already have Nintendo Switch. Not to say that the Switch is expensive, it’s quite good value for what you’re getting, but you’ve either already spent a load on a Wii U and games or you’re coming from the PS4/Xbox One camp, which means the Switch is another thing you have to buy, and given what has happened with the Wii U, you might be a little bit cautious.

But there doesn’t seem to be a need, since all reviews point to the Switch as an excellent, fun system that gives you something the others can’t. And it seems a lot of you agree, as it was the best selling console in March, at least in North America, easily beating the PS4 and the Xbox One.

This may not hold up for the coming months, since the Switch’s game library is still quite small (although I found the fact that more Zelda games have been sold than the total number of consoles to be quite interesting – are people buying games before they buy the Switch?).

But poor Xbox One, relegated to third place. Scorpio can’t come soon enough for Microsoft, and even then, success is not guaranteed. It might be the most powerful console in history when it’s released, but if it’s also twice as expensive as the PS4 Slim, then you can forget about it.

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You can also forget about me getting a lot of work done in the next few days, as I’ll be playing with my S8+ and the Gear VR. Actually, I will most likely be doing the vacuuming and house work, but that doesn’t sound very cool does it?

Weekly News Roundup (April 2, 2017)

Sunday, April 2nd, 2017

So April Fools went by and I didn’t take part at all. Partly because what with the war on fake news at the moment, it just didn’t seem very tasteful. But mostly it was because I forgot until it was too late (damn you time zones)!

So rest assured all news stories covered in this issue of the WNR are real ones. Or at least I think they are, it’s so hard to tell these days.

Copyright

Pornhub

Are pirates really resorting to using porn video sites to upload popular mainstream movies?

Okay, this one does sound like an April Fools joke, but it was posted days before, so it should be safe. Apparently, pirates are turning to porn sites to share popular mainstream movies, like ‘Rogue One’. With the usual streaming sites, like YouTube, under constant surveillance for pirated content, pirates have resorted to using tricks like changing the audio pitch, or creative cropping and mirroring, to escape the ever more vigilant anti-piracy scanners. And even if they achieve this, once the upload becomes popular, it will usually become noticed by the powers that be and get taken down faster than you can say “oh that’s a good quality upload”.

But by turning to porn video sites like PornHub, where automated anti-piracy filters don’t exists and the watchful eyes of rights-holders and their agents are not focused on finding pirated content (that’s not to say they don’t visit these kind of websites, hint hint), uploads stay uploaded for longer if not indefinitely.

Dailymotion

It’s a bit easier to find real pirated films on less popular video sharing sites like Dailymotion

But of course, since this story went public, sites like PornHub have gone on a cleaning spree and most of the mainstream pirated content has been removed. Even after extensive searching on the site by your truly, um definitely for research purposes only of course, I could not find any mainstream pirated content on PornHub even after hours of extensive searching. Did I mention it was for research purposes only?

After clearing my browsing history, I went to a few other video sharing sites (non adult ones), and also noted that other less popular video sharing sites like Dailymotion also seem to escape relative scrutiny.

The conclusion? There are plenty of options for people who want to watch pirated content. Some of which you may have to put up with some rather distracting ads and the occasional moaning sound, while you may only have to worry about buffering issues and the lack of a really usable mobile app with some of the other more sensible choices.

Censorship

Anti-piracy filters are a form of censorship, says tech startups

Which is why introducing a law that forces the use of piracy filters for Internet sites and services simply won’t work, because it’s easy for sites to escape the attention of rights-holders, especially if they happen to be in jurisdictions that don’t have to abide by the new law. The lobby group for Internet startups, Engine, are basically saying the same thing, and have commissioned a report that says filter schemes will place an unfair burden on startups, as the cost of implementing a filter can be tens of thousands of dollars just for licensing costs.

Engine are also concerned about the false positive rate of such a filter system. While the false positive rate is only 1 to 2 percent, this adds up to be quite a large number when potentially dealing with millions of files that wouldn’t be out of place for a file or video hosting site. It could literally means tens of thousands of legitimate files being blocked or removed for no good reason at all.

So an expensive, innovation crushing system that won’t work and may block thousands of legitimate files, is the one system that rights-holders are now pushing for all Internet sites in the U.S. to adopt. Yep, sounds about right.

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It also sounds like the end of another WNR. I know, another short one. There will be more next week, hopefully.