Cinavia protection
By Fengtao
Dear all,
Download latest version of DVDFab [B]v8070[/B] to copy Cinavia protected Blu-ray disc.
A new protection for audio-video content appeared: it is called Cinavia. It is reported to be used for protection of movie from theaters and disc releases on DVD & Blu-ray. It consists of a multi-level watermark that is embedded in the audio track and, while being theoretically transparent(not-audible) for the listener, it is supposed to resist various transformations of the audio stream like re-compression, analog playback&record, re-sampling, pitch shift, etc. The base levels are analog, but on the top level there’s the watermark payload that contains some restrictions regarding the playback environment.
The protection has two elements (one cannot work without the other):
- The watermark embedded in audio-video content.
- Cinavia enabled player, that will refuse to play the content if it does not match the restrictions.
Examples:
- A movie copy made with a camcorder in a theater that contains Cinavia (THEATRICAL_NO_HOME_USE) watermark will stop playing within about 1 minute on a Playstation 3 and display a Message 1.
- An unprotected (no AACS) Blu-ray backup of “The Losers” (US release) will mute the audio after about 20 minutes with Message 3 (for not coming from a TRUSTED_SOURCE).
We consider that it is useful for the users to know about discs that contain Cinavia protection and about players that have detectors for it.
Also, DVDFab and DVDFab Passkey provide information about original discs that have the watermark.
Blu-ray discs:
The Losers (Warner Brothers, volume name=THE_LOSERS) (English track only)
The Karate Kid (2010) (Sony, volume name=THE_KARATE_KID) (most of the tracks)
The Other Guys (Sony, 14dec2010) (English track only)
Resident Evil: Afterlife 2D* (Sony, 28dec2010) (English track only)
Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D* (Sony, 28dec2010) (English track only)
Salt (Sony, 21dec2010) (English track only)
The Social Network (Sony, 11jan2011) (English track only)
Takers (Sony, 18jan2011) (English track only)
Burlesque (Sony, 01mar2011)
- for those, in teritories where the movie is not released by Warner Bros. or Sony, the Blu-ray does not have Cinavia
DVD discs:
Takers (Sony, 18jan2011) (English track only)
Blu-ray/media players that use Cinavia:
Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) firmware 3.10 or higher
Pioneer BDP-V6000
Marantz UD5005
LG BDP550 (fw: 8.31.283.C)
Denon DBP-1611UD
There have been identified a couple of workarounds (listed in the order of usability):
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Use the audio track from the DVD release of the same movie, particularily handy if it was a Blu&DVD Combo release.
Pros:
Good quality (DVD audio track is probably an AC3, cannot compare to the lossless of a BD but still good)
Works on any Cinavia-enabled player, because the audio has no watermark (future proof).
Cons:
Needs the DVD version as well (may be hard to source a ‘clean’, matching DVD).
Needs remuxing skills.
The DVD version may be a different mix, so the whole track may not be 100% in sync with Blu-ray release.
Recently, with Takers, the DVD also has Cinavia watermark, making this workaround useless.
-
Embed DTS core in a PCM track, like in the DTS CDs. There is a special way in which DTS compressed can be stored in a WAV file, for example, and eventualy written on a CD-audio. A player such as VLC will see there is a DTS track inside and decode it correctly; others may not know that and will produce a hissing noise (static). So appart from embedding DTS sound in a PCM track, one absolutely needs an external AV-receiver to decode it.
Pros:
Very good quality, the bitrate of the DTS track is higher than of a AC3 one, from a DVD.
Not detectable by the Cinavia enabled player if it is set to pass-through the audio to an external decoder. This way the information about the source of content is lost and the external decoder has no reason not to decode the audio.
Cons:
Well, there could be a reason: if it does not know how to extract DTS from PCM. We tried this a while ago, but could not find an AV-receiver to cope with the DTS-in-PCM track, so we only mentioned it now to present you all the posibilities, even theoretical ones. This is more like: “what a nice idea, too bad I cannot use it”
-
Apparently there is another trick to be tried on a PS3 (only) and it needs you to select optical cable as output in Sound settings and checking all the sound formats (weird and dangerous! see the warning PS3 will display there), then also select the multiple output option. See this and this.
Cons:
We could not manage to replicate it on our PS3.
Seems more like a bug in the Cinavia detector of PS3, so it’s quite likely to be patched in future firmwares.
And finally, the first solution to disable Cinavia is here. DVDFab has a new way of creating backups so they don’t trigger Cinavia anymore. This solution is particularly useful for PS3 users who were the most affected by Cinavia. What makes it a great solution is that the disc is much like the original, a protected backup so the Cinavia-enabled player will see it as trusted source and will play it back just like the original. People have made protected (isos) backups in the past, but those had the disadvantage that they only worked with the programs that made them; well, these protected backups are supposed to work on standalone players too.
Technical details: the discs created are called BDMV-REC as they are AACS protected recordable BDMV. Another solution would be AACS protected BDAV, like the ones produced by Japanese BD recorders.
Requirements:
original Blu-ray disc with Cinavia watermark. DVDFab and DVDFab Passkey will tell if you have such a disc
a BD-RE (recommended for initial tests) or BD-R disc to store the protected backup
a BD writer
updated writing software. DVDFab checks for it anyway
Pros:
It is a solution to disable Cinavia, exactly as it is disabled for the original disc, due to (AACS) protection layer being active.
DVDFab does all the tricks involved to create such a protected backup at a push of a button.
The disc can preserve all the original features like menus, interactivity, BD-Live.
Broad firmware support: PS3 users with firmware from 1.60 and up to 3.55 can use BDMV-REC discs; fw3.55 is the latest at the time of writing.
At any time, DVDFab or DVDFab Passkey can be used to remove the protection, if you need to.
This is kind of an official solution, because it involves support from AACS standards, the same standards that force adoption of Cinavia
While we tested it on PS3 for now, it may work on other players too. As results from tests will become available we’ll update you with. Also it seems that only PS3 has Cinavia detector in current, up-to-date firmware (others disabled it, like LG, or just announced it for future firmware).
Cons:
BDMV-REC is not implemented by all players. BD Players implemented Blu-ray standards as they saw fit to market their products. Not all of them have implemented AACS Recordable BDMV (BDMV-REC). PS3, being one of the best players, did.
If not on PS3, we encourage users to check the playback support for “AACS protected recordable BDMV” either with BD Player support or with a BD-RE.
PC players support protected BDAV, but not BDMV-REC.
Cinavia is not removed, just disabled. Well, whatever works We tried to provide you with a solution asap and this was the quickest.
