DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LIVE UPDATE Issue 42
22 January, 2004

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TOP NEWS SUMMARY:

1. Introduction

2. What's happened on DivX Digest since the last newsletter?

3. What's happened on DVD Digest since the last newsletter?

4. What's happened on DVD±R Digest since the last newsletter?

5. Copy Protection Palladium Style

6. How to cancel/change your subscription email address/settings
- how to maintain the subscription to this newsletter even if
your email address has changed

7. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

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1. Introduction

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2004. I hope you've had a good
holiday period, and arrived at the other end of it safe, happy and a
little heavier :)

A lot to talk about in this issue, so let's get started...

-- DVDGuy

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2. What's happened on DivX Digest since the last newsletter?

There are quite a few subtitle rippers (software that convert DVD
subtitles, which is stored in picture form, into text form), and
furthermore, there are software that allows you to edit previously
ripped subtitle files. But what do you do when a movie doesn't come
with subtitles?

There was only one software on DivX Digest that was designed to
solely allow you to manually create a subtitle file from scratch
while previewing the video, and unfortunately, that software is no
longer in development. Luckily, DivXLand has come to the rescue, and
DivXLand Subtitler does just this. By providing a video preview and
being able to preview the caption while it is being added makes the
whole process rather painless, although it's still a long process (as
I found out when I tried to subtitle the Forrest Gump trailer, which
took me well over 10 minutes for a 2 minute clip).

I have also added a new link for the French version of the DivX 5.x
Setup Guide. Olivier Van Muysewinkel liked the guide enough to make a
translation of it to French, and also added more info specifically
for DV related tasks. He also spotted tons of mistakes (albeit mostly
minor) in the original guide, and helped me correct the problems. A
big thanks for Olivier for all the good work.

While I haven't updated the AutoGK guide yet (although I will
probably wait until a new stable version comes out), a new Alpha
version of AutoGK has been released. It now supports the latest
version of DVD Decrypter (3.1.8.0) and all the features that comes
with it. Audio encoding has been spruced up with ABR encoding and
audio boosting features being added.


Related Links:
AutoGK: http://www.divx-digest.com/software/autogk.html
DivX Code: http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxcodec5.html
DivX 5.x Setup Guide : http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/divx5_setup.html
DivX 5.x Setup Guide French version :
http://www.dvforever.com/article.php3?id_article=48
DivXLand Subtitler: http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxland_subtitler.html
DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com


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3. What's happened on DVD Digest since the last newsletter?

A few updates, but just one new software during this festive period.
The new software happens to be Cyberlink entry into the lucrative
Home Theatre PC (HTPC) market, with its new PowerCinema software.

Like the Intervideo equivalent, Intervideo Home Theatre, PowerCinema
provides a graphical front-end for HTPCs that can be operated by
remote control, and comes with a range of multimedia software that
you would normally need for an HTPC (eg. movie, music players and
picture viewers). It's priced at a lower price than the Intervideo
offering, so it could be worth a look.

In the same period, a new version of Sefy's DVD Backup Guide was also
released. If you haven't had the pleasure of reading this guide
before, this is probably one of the most complete DVD to VCD backup
guides out there, covering pretty much every software alternative you
might even consider using. Future versions of the guide promises to
have instructions for converting to other formats.

Taking advantage of this usual slow period, I've started re-designing
DVD Digest (which has been on the planning board for some time now),
possibly the biggest re-design since DVD Digest was launched back in
1999. The problem with the design of DVD Digest is that it is still
based heavily on the original design of the site back in 1999 and
updated time and time again based on those original templates, and
so, it's patchy at best. It also does not employ things like
databases and dynamic scripting, and anyone who has worked on a
website knows the pains of updating a static HTML site, especially
where each page may be different to the other (so you can't even use
search and replace scripts properly). It's taking quite a bit of
time, but it will mean easier updates in the future (and even entire
site re-designs will mean changes to just a couple of files). If
things go well, look out for a site re-design for DivX Digest...


Related Links:
Cyberlink PowerCinema:
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/powercinema.html
Intervideo Home Theatre:
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/intervideo_homethreatre.html
myHTPC : http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/myhtpc.html
Sefy's Complete Newbie DVD Backup Guide:
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/dvdtovcd/index.html


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4. What's happened on DVD±R Digest since the last newsletter?

Without doubt, the biggest update in this last period has been the
new major version of DVD Shrink (version 3.1.x). After months of beta
testing (some of it done in our very own Digital Video Forum), the
new major version aims to be the best version of DVD Shrink (and
possibly the best DVD shrinking software) ever.

There's a huge changelog, but the most important changes are an
enhanced video/audio preview (with fullscreen mode and audio/sub-
picture selection - a mini built-in DVD player, if you will).
Shrinking is also more flexible now, with a greater range of of
compressibility settings, and the magic "auto" setting, which can do
all the work for you and select the best compression settings given
the current available space. And most important of all, built-in DVD
burning is now possible (a demo version of Nero Burning ROM is
required), as well as creating image files and the old write to disk
mode.

This is a great piece software, and to go along with the new release,
I spent a few days and completely re-wrote the DVD Shrink Guide,
which now features instructions for the re-authoring functions in DVD
Shrink. Including the previous versions of the guide, the guide now
totals 50 pages, most of it taken up by screenshots.

If there was a cloud (and a dark cloud at that) with the s silver
lining that is the new version of DVD Shrink, then it would have to
be the announcement by the author of DVD Shrink of the end of
development for this software. One of the things that I am most proud
of when it comes to working on Digital Digest is the emergence of DVD
Shrink, and my small role in it. It all goes back to that fateful day
when I received an email with an attachment in my mailbox, and to my
surprise, it was neither spam nor a virus. The person that sent the
email talked about a new software he was developing, and attached,
was an early pre-release version. I opened up the attachment (having
an active virus scanner installed made me feel a little bit easy
about this action) and what started was this small, yet intricately
designed program. It's name was DVD Shrink.

The author of DVD Shrink had asked me if this piece of software was
worth the effort publishing, and after discovering the fact that it
will be released as freeware, the answer was a loud and resounding
YES!!

And the rest, as the cliché goes, is history...

It will be sad that the development of DVD Shrink will end (although
work will continue on the help file and translations to different
languages, and of course, bug fixes), and I wish the author of DVD
Shrink continued success in his new projects.


Related Links:
DVD Shrink: http://www.dvdr-digest.com/software/dvdshrink.html
DVD Shrink Guide : http://www.dvdr-digest.com/articles/23_1.html


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5. Copy Protection Palladium Style

Below is my mandatory rant for this issue. As with all rant, it is
designed to be divisive and hard hitting, with truth sometimes a
casulty in it all. I have tried to ensure everything is accurate (and
if they're not, then blame the magazines and links I've used for
research), but as with any issue worth ranting about, the truth is
usually somewhere between the extremes that are being debated in
public. Here goes...

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If you thought the DVD copy protection war is divisive, just wait
until the "Fritz chip" hits town.

Palladium, the Microsoft name for the "Fritz chip" (named after an
American Senator, who worked on the bill to ensure Palladium will be
mandatory on all consumer devices), is the next big thing in the area
of copyright protection, specifically in the area of Digital Rights
Management (DRM). Think of Palladium as the hardware version of
Microsoft's activation feature, as found in Windows XP.

The key to DRM is the control of what software and media can be
used/played on your computer, when it can be used/played, and how
many times. While on one hand, DRM is great in that it allows you to
encrypt your own documents as to make them unreadable by someone
else, it can also prevent you from viewing your own files if the
control DRM rests not in your hands, but that of external powers (and
unfortunately, this looks like to be happening). As mentioned in
previous issue, DRM is already present on the Terminator 2 Extreme
Edition DVD for the HD WMV version of the movie on the disc - the
first time you try to playback this DRM protected movie, you have to
have connect to a Microsoft server where it checks for the valid DRM
components (i.e. it hasn't been hacked), and make sure you have
permission to playback this movie (which in this case, is the fact
that you live in the US or Canada - is this the future of DVD region
protection?). But this is just software protection, and in the case
of T2, you can use a public proxy server (at least one that hasn't
been "black listed" by Microsoft yet) to override the region check.
But what if your computer has Palladium hardware? Will it close down
these loop holes and prevent any sort of hacking? If it does work,
then yes, this is exactly what it will do. But DRM is just half of
Palladium. The other half, I'm afraid, is even more scary.

While DRM can connect to an outside server to check for permissions,
communication in the other direction may be possible too. For
example, Palladium might allow Microsoft to connect to your computer
remotely, and detect any signs of what it deems to be "inappropriate
content" (I wonder if Linux is part of this category) on your
computer, and if the laws allow it, delete those files without your
permission. The movie industry might now release DVDs that can only
be played on a Palladium enable device (which may not necessarily be
a computer) a certain number of times. If you want to take this a
little further, the government might even use Palladium to track down
anti-government activities (including what it perceives to the
terrorism, be that the real kind, or the kind that may be damaging
only in a political sense), for example deleting documents or black
listing anyone which criticizes the government. With Palladium, it
may be possible to turn your computer into a piece of scrap metal, by
preventing every Palladium enabled software and hardware from
working - malicious hackers and virus writers rejoice.

I would not be surprised if a licensing fee (perhaps they should call
it "protection money", as it sounds more appropriate in more ways
than one) to use Palladium, which will probably be made mandatory
anyway. Software/hardware that does not pay this licensing fee can be
expected to not work with Palladium enabled software/hardware, and
certainly not with encrypted files - home made and open source
software could find itself endangered real quickly. And since
Palladium is tied to the hardware, and hardware changes like
replacing your hard-drive or CPU, could mean the need to "re-
activate" (with a fee involved, possibly) all your Palladium enabled
software, or face not being able to access your own encrypted files.

Unfortunately, all of this is happening without any sort of real
legal framework occurring, which means our personal privacy will be
compromised and possibly abused. Just like the DVD CSS copy
protection fiasco and the DMCA, lawsuits will be fired left and
right, but unlike CSS, Palladium might actually work (2048-bit RSA
key could be just a tad harder to crack than the 56-bit key used in
CSS).

I do believe that if the control of Digital Rights Management rests
in the our own hands, then it will be a great way to enhance the
security of files and the operation of your computer (eg. prevent
spyware from running on your computer). But if this power (and it is
a great power) rests in the hands of private companies and external
groups such as the RIAA/MPAA (and we already know how much
they "respect" personal rights), then perhaps the term "Personal
Computing" just won't hold true anymore.


Related Links:
`Trusted Computing' Frequently Asked Questions:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
TCPA Trusted Computing Platform Alliance or Microsoft Palladium:
http://www.sharpwit.com/articles/Pub_html/internet/palladium.html


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6. How to cancel/change settings/email address for your subscription
to this newsletter

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


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7. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

Just a note to thank all the thousands of people, including you, who
joined the Digital Digest LiveUpdate list. I've spent quite a bit of
time developing this site, and making it what it is today, and really
do appreciate your continued support.

I hoped you enjoyed another issue of the LiveUpdate newsletter. You
won't have to wait seven more months for the next issue, I promise :)

Thanks!!


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