360 HD DVD doesn't play by AACS's rules

by Dustin Burg { Apr 12th 2007 at 1:00PM }

The DRM enforcing AACS has officially gone into a tizzy. The hacking communities of Xboxhacker and Doom9 came together and found a way to view Volume IDs for any HD DVD played in the Xbox 360 HD DVD player add on. This of course allows any disc to be played, bypassing any AACS authentication and even playing Volume IDs that the AACS previously revoked. Ultimately, the 360's HD DVD player is pretty much the easiest way to bypass DRM and is an integral part of "backing up" your HD DVDs. It'll be interesting to see how the AACS combats this new hack (which makes last week's effort a wash), will they revoke the entire lot of Xbox 360 HD DVD players or will they force a simple firmware update? Be afraid HD fans, this is when DRM enforcement gets scary.

[Via Engadget]

Tags: hd dvd, hd dvd player, HdDvd, HdDvdPlayer, peripheral, xbox 360, xbox 360 hd dvd player, Xbox360, Xbox360HdDvdPlayer

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

ssuk @ Apr 12th 2007 2:02PM

Hopefully they'll give up and realise that their DRM filed media discs are going to be broken whatever they do and however much money they spend on it.

John @ Apr 12th 2007 2:35PM

they would have got away with it too, if it wasnt for those meddling kids...er hackers lol

they really need to give up on DRM lol

also I want HDDVD to win the whole format war crap but it probably wont...making me very sad :( lol I like my HDDVD addon for the 360

Tarl @ Apr 12th 2007 3:22PM

I'm about sick of DRM. What a waste of time and money.

Muffin_man @ Apr 12th 2007 3:23PM

0/\/\9 73|-| |-|/\>

ZeroCorpse @ Apr 12th 2007 3:23PM

DRM is going the way of the dinosaur. iTunes is now convincing companies to sell non-DRM versions of their music, and people will buy it just to have the DRM out of their hair.

It's worth an extra 30 cents a track to be able to use what I purchase however I choose.

Same will apply to movies. People will avoid DRM and flock to the non-DRM products. Whichever format gives up on DRM and lets people be free with their purchases is the one which will prevail.

We're sick of being jerked around by corporate interests and their teams of lawyers, who almost certainly make up scary stories to tell to executives in order to keep their lawyerly jobs as "protectors" of spartan copyright laws.

Copyright is one thing. Preventing people from being able to use a product they pay for is quite another.

Mark @ Apr 12th 2007 3:27PM

I'm using my HD-DVD add on completely legally. I bought two discs and I've been renting the rest from Netflix. If my device gets disabled because I _could_ be using it to pirate movies, then I'm going to be really pissed off. I might turn to DLing movies just to avoid this BS. There's DRM/copy protection for you. Don't really stop anyone from copying it, but inconvenience honest people enough that they'll turn to rips and cracks just to avoid the problems you create for them.

Muffin_man @ Apr 12th 2007 3:27PM

WTF? my message was half erased! I guess they thought it was HTML.

John @ Apr 12th 2007 4:36PM

Also atm regular DVD is the only format with no DRM and its doing better than any of the HD formats lol :)

blueGrassTubb @ Apr 12th 2007 5:14PM

@8 (John)

DVD does have DRM. It's littered with it. It's called CSS (Content Scrambling System), but was hacked years ago by DVD Jon. The reason why we can copy them so readily is that CSS was never built with "upgradeability" in mind (there is no system to revoke CSS keys). Those systems have been built into HDCP so that the companies can keep throwing away millions (billions?) of dollars trying to "protect" the content on the discs. When will these stupid companies ever learn that no matter what system they come up with, that it will be broken.

AoE @ Apr 12th 2007 5:23PM

@ZeroCorpse,

No FUD please. EMI approached Apple about selling DRM-free music, not the other way around. Also, it was Apple's choice to jack up the price, not EMI's... So, while I can understand your mock turtlenecked hero worship, let's not confuse facts ;) Mr. Jobs isn't a saint, just a business man with a brilliant marketing sense.

ShaleX @ Apr 12th 2007 10:58PM

Yes, standard DVD does have DRM, That's why you can't up-convert DVD over component. That's why I hate HDMI. Every time you all fought for HDMI, you were fighting FOR DRM. HDCP is the only reason HDMI exsists. And DRM ain't going anywhere any time soon. People don't like to pay for anything.. why would they pay for something they don't have to.

Burnt Meatloaf @ Apr 13th 2007 6:15AM

*ZeroCorpse: "It's worth an extra 30 cents a track to be able to use what I purchase however I choose."

Funny how expensive HD-DVDs are, and you don't get that privilege.

Here's an idea: buy DVDs. The lower picture quality is worth the flexibility, AND it's cheaper.

KR @ Apr 13th 2007 4:08PM

Burnt Meatloaf - spoken like someone who owns a 27" Magnavox from 1992.

HD DVD is more than worth it for me. It's hard to go back once you get a few high def discs. For those wondering, movies do generally look a bit better on disc over the XBLM's marketplace content, due to XBLM movies/TV being a bit more compressed for downloading purposes.