Will RipGuard Kill The DVD Ripper?
Macromedia announced today the next generation of DVD copyright protection, as RipGuard is set to debut in upcoming DVD new releases in the not so distant future.
RipGuard is set to replace the Content Scramble System (CSS), which most DVD's currently feature.
CSS copy protection was first released in 1999, just before the DVD revolution, and most movie studios and DVD distributors were quick to adapt the new technology, however within months of it's debut DeCSS was released as an open-source project thus rendering copyright protection useless. To date nearly 100 DVD "back-up" programs have utilized DeCSS.
However Macromedia believes that RipGuard will pick up the guantlet and succeed where CSS has failed.
"CSS encryption standards are binary", said Adam Gervin, senior marketing director for the entertainment technologies group at Macrovision. "They're great until you break it, and then it's worthless. DeCSS made its way into the public's understanding, that perfect digital copies can be made in minutes. The cat's out of the bag".
However with RipGuard, Gervin believes pirates will be in for a much tougher battle as the new applications biggest weapon is the fact that it eliminates the entire digital bitstream. With current DVD's, DeCSS "cracked" the digital bitstream and converted the data it into a single analouge hole, which then allowed users to copy and burn content to a DVD-R, and in the process produce a perfect copy of the original.
However with RipGuard any attempt to bypass copy protection through these means will result in the ripper software crashing or freezing.
"RipGuard will stop 97 percent of rippers by market share," says Gervin. "Look for MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) studios to adopt complete DVD protection (using RipGuard) in 2005", continued Gervin.
And to further boost Gervin's claims that RipGuard will soon debut on a video store shelf near you, THX has given the program the thumbs up after it's engineers conducted independent tests in an attempt to circumvent RipGuard protection. In addition Gervin told ExtremeTech.com that most of the major movie studios have committed to use RipGuard in future releases although he declined to elaborate any further citing FCC regulations.
RipGuard is set to replace the Content Scramble System (CSS), which most DVD's currently feature.
CSS copy protection was first released in 1999, just before the DVD revolution, and most movie studios and DVD distributors were quick to adapt the new technology, however within months of it's debut DeCSS was released as an open-source project thus rendering copyright protection useless. To date nearly 100 DVD "back-up" programs have utilized DeCSS.
However Macromedia believes that RipGuard will pick up the guantlet and succeed where CSS has failed.
"CSS encryption standards are binary", said Adam Gervin, senior marketing director for the entertainment technologies group at Macrovision. "They're great until you break it, and then it's worthless. DeCSS made its way into the public's understanding, that perfect digital copies can be made in minutes. The cat's out of the bag".
However with RipGuard, Gervin believes pirates will be in for a much tougher battle as the new applications biggest weapon is the fact that it eliminates the entire digital bitstream. With current DVD's, DeCSS "cracked" the digital bitstream and converted the data it into a single analouge hole, which then allowed users to copy and burn content to a DVD-R, and in the process produce a perfect copy of the original.
However with RipGuard any attempt to bypass copy protection through these means will result in the ripper software crashing or freezing.
"RipGuard will stop 97 percent of rippers by market share," says Gervin. "Look for MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) studios to adopt complete DVD protection (using RipGuard) in 2005", continued Gervin.
And to further boost Gervin's claims that RipGuard will soon debut on a video store shelf near you, THX has given the program the thumbs up after it's engineers conducted independent tests in an attempt to circumvent RipGuard protection. In addition Gervin told ExtremeTech.com that most of the major movie studios have committed to use RipGuard in future releases although he declined to elaborate any further citing FCC regulations.
posted by James Mason at 9:00 PM
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