Cinavia second audio steam PS3 work around?

[satansgutter]

Hey everyone,

Just a thought please shoot me down in flames if I'm talking rubbish but.....

From what I've read Cinavia works by a watermark within the audio stream. If we was able to interrupt this watermark would this prevent the watermark being fully "read" and then prevent the Cinavia protection from working?

If so then would happen if you was to create a second blank audio stream in the video file, so when watching on the PS3 you can breifly change from the first cinavia watermarked movie audio stream to the second blank one you have inserted and back to the first again, every so often so that it interrupts the watermark?

Was just an idea and thought I'd put it out there to people, I hope I've made my idea clear, just I don't know how many times or at what intervals you would need to switch back and forth from the streams.

Thoughts?

[tarzan54]

I personally don't think it will work, I had some bluray movie backups that wouldn't play at all with the cinavia protection, I can't believe that someone hasn't came out with a fix yet since this cinavia thing has been around a few years now, What I do is shrink the bluray down to a standard dvd 5 or 9 with BDRebuilder then play it on my standard dvd player which I think the picture is very good.

[jman98]

It's an interesting idea and I commend you for thinking outside of the box, but my gut feeling is that it probably won't work. However you'd have to take it up with the geniuses at Doom9 as it seems that they have the people who are still looking into how to crack Cinavia. I truly don't know, but I suspect that the watermark does not have to be continuous and it's case of as soon as it's found, a timer starts and Cinavia kicks in at some random interval (less than 10 minutes though) to stop playback. If so, your idea wouldn't help.

[satansgutter]

Thanks for the comments and props. I'll put a message over at Doom9 and see if anything helps

[tarzan54]

satansgutter, If you find anything new at doom9 about this crazy cinavia thing, Please let us know.

[mh2360]

I haven't really read up on Cinavia that much, but from the little I have read it seems to use some sort of inaudiable signal that can only be picked up by suitably equipped players.

It occurs to me that one simply needs to find the frequency range used by Cinavia, and run the audio track through a filter that would overlay random garbage at the frequencies used by Cinavia.

As satansgutter said, "don't shoot me down", i'm just thinking out loud.

[jagabo]

It occurs to me that one simply needs to find the frequency range used by Cinavia, and run the audio track through a filter that would overlay random garbage at the frequencies used by Cinavia.

You don't think somebody's thought of such an obvious fix already? You don't think the Cinavia engineers thought of it before they created Cinavia?

[yoda313]

I am confused about something - is cinevia relevant on bluray burnt backups or does it get passed on a mkv file too?

Also if you have the dvd of the same movie can you simply downgrade the audio and replace it with the standard def audio and be done with it? Yes you are crippling it that way for those that can enjoy hd audio but will this sd audio swap work?

I haven't worked on any recent movies to know if I have come across it yet. I don't have a bluray burner and I haven't converted a bluray to a mkv/mp4 file in awhile to know the effects.

Are there any general ideas of which studios do cinevia? Is it everyone? Is it just the new modern releases? Do they put this on new prints of older classics that are coming to bluray for the first time?

[jagabo]

I am confused about something - is cinevia relevant on bluray burnt backups

Yes.

or does it get passed on a mkv file too?

Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

Also if you have the dvd of the same movie can you simply downgrade the audio and replace it with the standard def audio and be done with it? Yes you are crippling it that way for those that can enjoy hd audio but will this sd audio swap work?

Yes, if you can get the same cut of the movie. But that's whey they're adding Cinavia to DVDs now too.

Are there any general ideas of which studios do cinevia?

There are a few web sites that maintain a list of Cinavia protected titles.

[yoda313]

Thanks for the info and confirmation jagabo.

But that's whey they're adding Cinavia to DVDs now too.

So even though a standard dvd player would not recognize the cinavia using it to replace the audio in a bluray conversion would reactivate the cinevia problem you were trying to get rid of right?

There are a few web sites that maintain a list of Cinavia protected titles.

Thanks. Maybe this weekend I'll check it out.

[jagabo]

But that's whey they're adding Cinavia to DVDs now too.

So even though a standard dvd player would not recognize the cinavia using it to replace the audio in a bluray conversion would reactivate the cinevia problem you were trying to get rid of right?

Yes.

[yoda313]

Yes.

Thanks.

[yoda313]

Sorry for the bump but:

Has this been tried?

Take your dvd with confirmed cinevia and dub it via component and fiber optic cables to something like a hdpvr. Than extract the newly dubbed ac3 track from the hdpvr and use that as your replacement audio.

Is this just wishful thinking?

Is the realtime dubbing that an hdpvr uses pass the cinevia on along as well?

[jagabo]

I'm sure it has been tried.

The watermarking and steganography facility provided by Cinavia is designed to stay within the audio signal and to survive all common forms of audio transfer, including lossy data compression using discrete cosine transform, MP3, DTS, or Ogg Vorbis. It is designed to survive digital and analogue sound recording and reproduction via microphones, direct audio connections and broadcasting, and does so by using audio frequencies within the hearing range. It is monaural and not a multichannel codec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

[yoda313]

I'm sure it has been tried.

Well worth a shot.

[satansgutter]

Yea even if you record the film on a camcorder, the protection sound waves are picked up by the microphone in the camera. So then playing that recorded footage has the protection in it..

[yoda313]

Yea even if you record the film on a camcorder, the protection sound waves are picked up by the microphone in the camera. So then playing that recorded footage has the protection in it..

Wow that sure is devious.

I was wondering about ripping a bluray with cinevia then downconverting the whole she-bang to dvd and ac3 448kpbs then using that downconverted ac3 track in a h264 conversion of said bluray. BUt if its that devious would the protection still be embedded in the downconverted track?

[jagabo]

I was wondering about ripping a bluray with cinevia then downconverting the whole she-bang to dvd and ac3 448kpbs then using that downconverted ac3 track in a h264 conversion of said bluray. BUt if its that devious would the protection still be embedded in the downconverted track?

Of course. If it can survive analog recording with a microphone it surely can survive digital conversion.

[yoda313]

Of course. If it can survive analog recording with a microphone it surely can survive digital conversion.

Did you ever see Mars Attacks? Maybe if we play Wayne Newton over the dubbing of the analog recording it will destroy the cinevia like it did the aliens in the movie?

Too bad there hasn't been a successful circumvention so far.

Final question for now:

With these dvds getting infected now if you were to do a h264 conversion with an infected dvd and play that on a cinevia activated device will it not play then?

That would truly suck.....

[jman98]

There's nothing to stop manufacturers like Sony from making DVD only player that recognize Cinavia too. Just keep that in mind.

If something respects Cinavia, then no, it should not play files that have it even if they are in different formats. However, do note that streaming media players like the Western Digital models and others do NOT license BluRay and are not certified for it. They do not support Cinavia and Cinavia protected BluRays/DVDs may be ripped and put into MKV and other containers and the streaming media players will play such files fine. This is the main reason that the panicked buying of non-Cinavia BluRay players is kind of dumb. There are other playback options right now.

[jagabo]

With these dvds getting infected now if you were to do a h264 conversion with an infected dvd and play that on a cinevia activated device will it not play then?

It wouldn't even matter if the video was from a completely different movie, or your own video. When the player finds Cinavia it looks to see if there is a legit AACS protected Blu-ray disc. If not, it stops playing.

[yoda313]

Ok I was just reading the other thread on cinavia and had a brainstorm. I'm sure its been tried but here we go.

Question 1 - Cinavia is post hd-dvd correct?

So meaning then that any hd-dvd does not know what cinavia is correct?

Here is my suggestion - can you reformat a bluray to hd-dvd and do it that way keeping the audio intact?

Is this just too impractical? I mean its ass-backward but you'd still get full 1080p hd and hd audio right?

Though did hd-dvd support dts-hd?

Am I on the right track or is this just a hairbrained idea equivalent to trying to downconvert a bluray onto a vcd?

[HemLok]

Ok I was just reading the other thread on cinavia and had a brainstorm. I'm sure its been tried but here we go.

Question 1 - Cinavia is post hd-dvd correct?

Yes.

So meaning then that any hd-dvd does not know what cinavia is correct?

Yes.

Here is my suggestion - can you reformat a bluray to hd-dvd and do it that way keeping the audio intact?

Is this just too impractical? I mean its ass-backward but you'd still get full 1080p hd and hd audio right?

Though did hd-dvd support dts-hd?

Am I on the right track or is this just a hairbrained idea equivalent to trying to downconvert a bluray onto a vcd?

DTS-HD MA was optional for both formats however the accepted maximum bitrate specification differed. For Blu-ray it is 24.5 Mbit/s the last I knew whereas HD-DVD was limited to 18 Mbit/s. Obviously, if the max bitrate exceeded the HD-DVD standard maximum you'd need to convert to another accepted format within the accepted bitrate specs.

[HemLok]

PS: There are also differences between the formats for the maximum accepted spec bitrates for raw data transfer, audio plus video plus subtitle bitrate, and video bitrate with Blu-ray having the higher max bitrate. All of this would need to be taken into account when doing the conversion to HD-DVD.

[yoda313]

DTS-HD MA was optional for both formats however the accepted maximum bitrate specification differed. For Blu-ray it is 24.5 Mbit/s the last I knew whereas HD-DVD was limited to 18 Mbit/s. Obviously, if the max bitrate exceeded the HD-DVD standard maximum you'd need to convert to another accepted format within the accepted bitrate specs.

So if hd-dvd won't recognize cinavia then converting the audio shouldn't be a problem. Since the converted audio would still retain cinavia it won't matter if the hd-dvd player doesn't know what cinavia is right?

Of course hd-dvd burners were virtually non-existent even when hd-dvd was relevant.

But there were hd-dvd players that could playback video files right? So would this be a worthwhile experiment?

@hemlok - I saw the second post - so there wouldn't be any possibility of a simple remux then except in rare circumstances, undertood.

But is someone up to the task? I don't have a hd-dvd burner and I only have a xbox 360 hd-dvd drive so my test would be incomplete.

[HemLok]

So if hd-dvd won't recognize cinavia then converting the audio shouldn't be a problem. Since the converted audio would still retain cinavia it won't matter if the hd-dvd player doesn't know what cinavia is right?

The HD-DVD specs were finalized when HD-DVD was released and Cinavia didn't exist nor did the hardware in standalone players to recognize it. Regardless of the audio format Cinavia is meaningless for playback from an HD-DVD in an HD-DVD playback device since they are no longer made.

Of course hd-dvd burners were virtually non-existent even when hd-dvd was relevant.

I've never personally seen an HD-DVD burner. I believe they existed but not to normal consumers.

But there were hd-dvd players that could playback video files right?

While I wanted HD-DVD to win the format war back back in the day largely due to AACS being mandatory with Blu-ray I never purchased a standalone player nor do I have any friends who did. I stuck with a multi-format HD-DVD/Blu-ray PC reader and went that route. I don't honestly know if any HD-DVD players did more than played HD-DVD and DVD discs.

So would this be a worthwhile experiment?

If someone had the necessary hardware then sure but as long as the specs for HD-DVD were met I see absolutely zero reason why it would fail.

@hemlok - I saw the second post - so there wouldn't be any possibility of a simple remux then except in rare circumstances, undertood.

I'm sure that there are movies out there on Blu-ray that don't break the max bitrate specs for HD-DVD but finding them might not necessarily be easy since I don't know of any database to look that up on.

But is someone up to the task? I don't have a hd-dvd burner and I only have a xbox 360 hd-dvd drive so my test would be incomplete.

Depends on whether someone has an HD-DVD burner and wants to try. A true conversion to HD-DVD following the specs and played back has to succeed. I can't see how it could possibly fail. As for playing another media format from an HD-DVD player that depends on whether any HD-DVD players could do it and what the accepted specs for those media formats would be but as long as specs were met then again I don't see how it could fail.

HD-DVD was finalized long ago so I just don't see Cinavia making a bit of difference.

[jagabo]

Of course HD-DVD players won't respond to Cinavia. And it's irrelevant.

[HemLok]

Another thing is that the of the tripping of Cinavia from a Blu-ray backup is the lack of AACS and the existence of the watermark. Since AACS was not a requirement under the HD-DVD specs that poses issues right there. What rules would HD-DVD have to enforce Cinavia? It would have to be different than Blu-ray and, again, given that HD-DVD players aren't made anymore that just throws it all out the window.

[FulciLives]

I read somewhere that the newest LG Blu-Ray players ignore Cinavia when using the USB 2.0 input so if you have a back-up with Cinavia then I guess you can make a MKV of it (if it isn't in that form already) and copy it to a USB Thumb Drive and play it back on the USB input.

[HemLok]

I read somewhere that the newest LG Blu-Ray players ignore Cinavia when using the USB 2.0 input so if you have a back-up with Cinavia then I guess you can make a MKV of it (if it isn't in that form already) and copy it to a USB Thumb Drive and play it back on the USB input.

The Oppo BDP-103 and BDP-105 ignore Cinavia in MKV and M2TS files the last I was aware, as well.