HD-DVD circumvened with 360 drive [update 1]

by Richard Mitchell { Dec 29th 2006 at 2:45PM }

Update: Our limited knowledge -- we are not haxxors in the least -- has led to a terminological error. AACS has not been "broken," merely "circumvented" by using the decryption keys. Furthermore, decryption keys can be revoked, meaning that the ones currently available could easily be nullified. It's also likely that the DVD software used to find the keys will be patched. Whether or not AACS was technically broken, the upshot is that you can backup HD-DVD's even though you're not supposed to, for the moment anyway. Thanks to Dylan Neild for setting us straight.

Utilizing a 360 HD-DVD drive, a hacker known as muslix64 has successfully ~~broken~~ circumvented the AACS HD-DVD copy protection. The software used, called BackupHDDVD, utilizes cryptographic keys that are specific to each individual movie. This means that any would be makers of "backup" copies will first need the proper key. It is currently unknown where muslix64 happened upon his keys. Once decrypted, the film can be copied to a hard drive and played with the appropriate program.

TeamXbox points out that Blu-Ray also uses AACS encryption, so it's only a matter of time before Blu-Ray encryption is ~~broken~~ circumvented as well. Muslix64 claims that it took him only 8 days to decrypt his first HD-DVD movie. Makes you wonder how much Hollywood spent developing AACS, doesn't it? The hacker made a short video showing the software facilitated decryption process. Watch it after the break.

Check out muslix64's story on Doom9's forum. Have any of our enterprising readers given this a try?

[Via TeamXbox]

Tags: hacking, hacks, hd dvd, hd dvd encryption, hd-dvd, HdDvd, HdDvdEncryption, modding, mods

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

J.Goodwin @ Dec 29th 2006 2:56PM

You know, I could totally deal with this.

I've been painstakingly encoding my DVD collection to WMV so that I can leave my discs in a closet somewhere and just watch films through my 360. Doing the same, but in high def, would turn me into an HDDVD buyer.

Mark @ Dec 29th 2006 3:08PM

i do the same, there's something nice about owning a movie on dvd rather than just downloading it (lets be honest, that's the real reason this hack was made), often if i'm not sure about a movie i'll download it, and if i like it i'll probably go buy the dvd, so with this now working i'll be able to continue doing it

Haqq @ Dec 29th 2006 3:12PM

Damn... Who knew.

PS> What movie was that looks funny?

J.Goodwin @ Dec 29th 2006 3:33PM

Another short point, is that HDDVD uses VC-1, which is part of WMV9 Advanced Profile.

I assume that the bitstream is different, but it should be relatively trivial to write a program that would VERY QUICKLY convert that HDDVD bitstream (once it is unencrypted) into a proper WMV bitstream.

We'd be talking minutes versus the hours overnight that converting a DVD takes.

John @ Dec 29th 2006 4:06PM

I ripped my Apollo 13 HD-DVD to my hard drive but it wouldn't play when I tried to play it with PowerDVD 7.1 Ultra.

TheDude @ Dec 29th 2006 4:06PM

"3. Damn... Who knew.

PS> What movie was that looks funny?

Posted at 3:11PM on Dec 29th 2006 by Haqq 0 stars"

Stanley Kubric's Full Metal Jacket and it's the furthest thing from funny you'll ever see. Great movie.

Paul @ Dec 29th 2006 5:57PM

What? Full Metal Jacket in widescreen? Stanley Kubrick's probably rolling over in his grave.

ic0n7 @ Dec 29th 2006 7:11PM

i dont think hd dvd downloads will take of that much as i think most people will just buy the hd dvd so they can b shore it is the full kick ass hd dvd

but backing up ya hd-dvd is grate and well worth the cash for the xbox hd-dvd drive i will b doing this soon as my hd tv shows up :D

Virtua Fanboy @ Dec 29th 2006 7:13PM

"1. You know, I could totally deal with this.

I've been painstakingly encoding my DVD collection to WMV so that I can leave my discs in a closet somewhere and just watch films through my 360. Doing the same, but in high def, would turn me into an HDDVD buyer.

Posted at 2:56PM on Dec 29th 2006 by J.Goodwin"

How are ya doin that? I've been wanting to do the same thing but it just doesn't seem to be working out for me. Would appreciate the help.

mike @ Dec 29th 2006 7:58PM

to be clear the boo boo was made my the dvd player software on the pc, it has left the decryption keys aqs plain text in the pc's memory so hes using those aparrently

i can see the specific software player company going out of business for this...

Jared @ Dec 29th 2006 8:00PM

would you rather see it on HBO in 4:3? He may be rolling over, but far less RPM's.

>>>>>>>8. What? Full Metal Jacket in widescreen? Stanley Kubrick's probably rolling over in his grave.

Dylan Neild @ Dec 29th 2006 9:43PM

AACS was NOT broken. Why do news sites keep perpetuating this idiocy????

All that happened here was PowerDVD was compromised so that the title keys could be retrieved. The 'muslix64' user hasn't explained HOW he did that, so the backup tool is still useless for everyone but him and anyone willing to figure out how he acquired the title keys.

Also, AACS uses revocable keys. How long do you think it will be before the keys are revoked and this 'hack' is broken.

Once again, AACS was not broken. One ignorant blogger said it was and then every other news site, instead of checking the facts and figuring out if it's correct, is just reprinting the same exaggerated half truth.

Shame on you, Weblogs Inc. Every one of your sites has reprinted an article just like this and every one of them was equally incorrect.

J.Goodwin @ Dec 30th 2006 5:01PM

Virtua Fanboy...

I've tried various different types of software. Some movies are nigh impossible to get good audio/video sync on, no matter what you use, but I've had the most success with Magic DVD Ripper. Note that Magic DVD Ripper doesn't support encrypted DVDs, so you're going to have to use some other method to decrypt the DVD to your harddrive before you can encode it to WMV.

I'm sure there are ways to get the ones that I'm having trouble with synced, but the amount of time required to do an encode makes it difficult to do by trial and error.

My sense is that the problem is related to the 30/29.97 fps issue. Movies are obviously 24 frames per second, but NTSC DVDs are designed to be played back at 29.97 fps. What they do is they encode the video as if it were 30 fps, then play it back at 29.97 fps. The problem is that they kind of stretch the audio to fit that 29.97 fps, so if you just encode these DVDs without significant tweaks, you end up with a soundtrack that is off by about 8 seconds by the end. By doing some more complicated stuff with Windows Media Encoder 9, I was able to get a properly timed audio on one of my problem discs (Monty Python and the Holy Grail), but there seems to ALSO be an a/v delay problem as well that I would have to figure out (all of the audio for the entire film is off by a few frames per second, so the audio either started early or late versus the video). It's something that can be figured out, and if I come up with an approach that works consistently, I'll probably post a guide on my website.

Anyway, it seems that Magic DVD Ripper works reliably with DVDs from Universal, less so with titles from other companies.

J.Goodwin @ Dec 30th 2006 5:03PM

Also, Warner works fine, but I've had failures on New Line, Miramax, and Columbia (Sony).

New 360 Owner @ Dec 30th 2006 8:40PM

The problem with this is, that if the authorities behind AACS void the security key, then they void the key for *ALL* Microsoft HD-DVD players, not only the one that it was cracked on. The security keys are 128-bits, and each manufacturer is assigned the keys that they can use. They can't make them up on the fly. Once they are eliminated from the list of valid keys, it affects all of us with a player that contains that key.

Rob @ Dec 30th 2006 10:06PM

@#3 - that was Full Metal Jacket - one of the best war movies ever made.

J.Goodwin @ Jan 2nd 2007 7:34AM

New 360 Owner.

The player key in question belongs to the software player that was used on the PC, actually. The drive itself doesn't contain a key in this case.

Peter Denning @ Jan 7th 2007 11:08PM

Just download 1 click and dvd43 and copy all the rental dvd,s you like.only takes about half hour to copy a dvd with extras and it automatically shrinks it to fit on the disk. PS. Check out the new surround sound system by pioneer that was specifically made to intergrate with your xbox 360. The quallity is suppose to be exceptional