One annoyed consumer, going by the name of
'muslix64', bought an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player over the holidays along with
some HD-DVD's and was annoyed to discover he couldn't watch his movies at 1080p
because his hardware lacked HDCP support. In what would seem like in an act of
frustration, the consumer set out about finding a way to playback his HD-DVD
movies on a system without any content protection available. He believed it was
not 'fair' and that something should be done.
The
very basic software he created, self-described, allows you to backup copies
of your HD-DVD movies as long as you have the decrypted title keys. How does the
program work? According to the
FAQ, " This is a java based command line utility
that decrypt video files (.evo) from a HD DVD disk that you own, to your hard
drive and you can play them back with a HD DVD player software." As long as you
know how to find the encrypted title key and then know how to decrypt it, you
can use the program and "backup" your movie. Naturally though, the software
seems innocent but it's clear where this is headed. How long will it be before
software is created which tells you the key? Surely not long. Interestingly, if
you know what you are doing and I'd say most software programmers would consider
this simple, you can follow the
PDF guide which is publically available on the AACS website itself. On page
30 and onwards, it begins to talk about extracting the title key, decrypting it
and even changing it - all publically available for download mind you - we
assume for HD-DVD and Blu-ray developers to follow as guidelines.