A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[ian]

I have paid for a DVD. With money. I'm told I am "Supporting the movie industry".

All I want to do is watch it on my lappie, perhaps avoiding the titles and/or logos that apparently it's "not permitted" to skip.

But no, some stupid, brain-dead anti-piracy thing means that about half way through watching the film (that I've paid for. With money. Supporting the movie industry) it starts jumping from scene to scene. So fucking clever. Do you really think that will stop someone pirating it? Or will it just piss off people who have paid money thinking they were supporting the movie industry? Perhaps next time I'll just download it.

I suspect it's just a clunky DVD, QA has always been a bit shonky and cheap(er) DVDs tend not to have the robust error correction that computer optical drives have (so try playing it in a computer). There's no mechanism that I know of that introduces logic into playback to enable a DVD to randomly switch between titles/chapters based on something that happened earlier during playback. They'll follow the index.

Beyond that, yes, rental and purchase for downloads is clearly out-of-whack. You can often buy the physical DVD for less than a digital rental.

[Feanor]

I have paid for a DVD. With money. I'm told I am "Supporting the movie industry".

All I want to do is watch it on my lappie, perhaps avoiding the titles and/or logos that apparently it's "not permitted" to skip.

But no, some stupid, brain-dead anti-piracy thing means that about half way through watching the film (that I've paid for. With money. Supporting the movie industry) it starts jumping from scene to scene. So fucking clever. Do you really think that will stop someone pirating it? Or will it just piss off people who have paid money thinking they were supporting the movie industry? Perhaps next time I'll just download it.

Is it a actually a DVD, or is it a Blu-Ray?
( People often use the term DVD to refer to both.)

Some Blu-Rays do indeed use such behaviour as a 'copy protection'.

It's called 'playlist obfuscation'.
Google 'screenpass' for deatails.

Here's how it works:

Blu-rays can contain the main movie in a single big file, or as a daisy-chain of shorter clips.
The daisy-chain of shorter clips is called 'seamless branching', and allows the disk to contain different versions of the movie; eg a directors cut, or on-screen language variations.
All the versions may share most of the same content, but branch out to different clips as required.

This is controlled via the Blu Ray menus.
Depending on the menu choices you make, you are directed to different 'playlist' files, which list the clips to be played, and in which order.
If you play the movie on a 'legitimate' player, this works OK.

Now, Screenpass protection adds a bunch of fake playlist files which serve up the movie in random orders.
These fake playlists will never be reached by legitimate players which use the menus.

But ripping software will often try try to rip the 'main movie' by simply choosing the longest playlist.
They don't try to process the menus.
So they will usually get a garbled movie.

Any software players that don't properly support Java menus will also fail in the same way ( eg VLC ).
If they try to ignore the menus, and choose an incorrect playlist, this will give an out-of-sequence movie.

Fixes:
1) Use a proper player program that properly supports the Java menus.

2)Use AnyDVD-HD in the background, which will report the 'valid' playlists.
Then point the inadequate player to the 'valid' playlist file.

[ian]

Indeed, Blu-Ray is an entirely different kettle. Some DVDs did something far simpler, but similar, by hiding the most likely title, so you'd end up with a version in Swedish. Admittedly, it'll add to the flavour of Die Hard 7: Smorgasbord when an aging Bruce Willis has to get through Croydon Ikea that's been infiltrated by terrorists posing as 'co-workers'. On a bank holiday. He also has a sofa to return. Blu-Ray offers a lot more scope for playlist complexity and obfuscation, but as Feanor says if it's an actual player and a legit disk, it should play.

[Pickled Onion]

There's no mechanism that I know of that introduces logic into playback to enable a DVD to randomly switch between titles/chapters based on something that happened earlier during playback. They'll follow the index.

After a bit of searching around, I have worked out what's happening. The DVD contains around 35 titles. The first few are the stupid adverts you're not allowed to skip and the coming soons. Followed by 25+ versions of the film in different random orders apart from one which is in the right order. If you try to play any of the wrong order ones via the menu you get "not permitted", however Handbrake obviously doesn't know which is the main feature as they all look the same.

You might imagine the way round this is easy - tell Handbrake which title to rip. Unfortunately that one has some further magic that skips straight to the end, so you can only rip from chapter 2 onwards.

[ian]

Hmm, that still sounds like a DVD glitch. It's rumoured that film companies deliberately manufactured data glitches in DVDs to thwart ripping, but they mostly seemed to have stopped. I find the correct title by playing the movie briefly. I still know of no DVD mechanism to force this sort of behaviour. DVDs are logical in the way they structure content for playback. If Handbrake can't handle a title, you may need to rip it separately.

[Mr Larrington]

My desktop machine doesn't seem quite to have got the hang of this hibernating business.  It goes to sleep OK but later wakes up of its own accord

[Afasoas]

Moved house. 'Network', dynamic DNS, VPN all reconfigured and working.
A whopping 2.5 Mb/s. I'm underwhelmed.

[perpetual dan]

Visiting year 10ish person said today "programming's just like algebra".
My work here is done

[Feanor]

Hmm, this week I am a programmer.
I have to hack out a class library that encapsulates an obscure file type that I seem to be the only person old enough to know about!

So I have learned some of the finer points of C# ( which I've had some previous with ) and hacked up a DLL that encapsulates the file type.

I've passed it onto the Real Programmers to use in their real applications.

I await the complaints.

[Woofage]

The TV recording box seems to have died and will not re-boot. I plugged in a display and nothing appeared on that either so I suspect a dead mobo . The other bugger is that I use this box for my personal network storage so I'll have to make other arrangements.

[Tim Hall]

The Mothership (more of a life raft really) has installed Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on my  lapdancer.

I notice that the paper size is reported in inches.
I drill down in the preferences and change the units to mm.
It now tells me my A4 paper is 209.97mm x 296.93mm

I think not.

[Mr Larrington]

Write a Stern Letter to that nice Mr Obambi.

On A4 paper.

[tiermat]

I was surprised, at breakfast this morning, when the waiter came over to replenish my coffee, that he recognised my mobile to be OnePlusOne.  This is not a slur of the intelligence of front of house staff, but rather that most people, when they see my phone, say "What is that?" or "Is that an iPhone 6?".  We then had a conversation about the OnePlusTwo.

[Ham]

Nothing to be ashamed about 

[tiermat]

Nothing to be ashamed about 

LOL!

[barakta]

Upper Management refused to allow those of us in our two teams without two computer screens to get them "cos money" (which is bollocks cos we have plenty of money and we could purchase from internal budgets but that would be disobedient or something)...  However they told MY boss who has two screens that those who have two screens will get to keep them in the office move of fail... 

"O Rite" says I and goes on a thieving scrounge around the building... I need 5 screens, I have three in my equipment stash, three on stupid monitor arms (must extract the arms, they cost £££ and are irreplaceable now) and discovered three in unused PCs in random offices.  Thank deities for the stupid WEEEE disposal system which makes it so difficult to get rid that tech-stuff just accrudulates around the building...  I now have 6 screens of varying types and think I can do some various swappy roundy to get everyone a reasonable setup including two of the more decent screens for the person with dyslexia who is complaining that their screen is crappy (it is).

And if I can't config them, folk can phone IT and get them to do it once the screens are in situ...

Dear management, we now all have two screens  

[woollypigs]

barakta could you please come and run UK PLC

[barakta]

To be fair, if I was in charge of UK PLC - many many things would differ!

[woollypigs]

For the good I'm sure.

[perpetual dan]

Last time we did a clear out of my old equipment hoard I think we donated half a dozen surplus but perfectly serviceable screens to various admin types who couldn't otherwise get them.

[barakta]

I have bagged an admin to help me sort the equipment cupboard on Thursday.  It's largely overpriced underutilised 'assistive' technology from Alumni funding where we HAD to buy ALLTHETHINGSNAO rather than think more carefully about what would be used... Hence 6x £600 gadgets which most studes WON'T use cos they suck and library won't take cos EsteemedExColleague didn't ask nicely enough or something...

I've been slowly binning win95 era software for ages but have to make a WEEE request by calculating the volume and asking them to give us a quote to take it away... Or we could just hide it somewhere else randomly around the building for the next lot of fuckers to find (tempting cos they're decorating the building under us after refusing to make it even safe for us for 6 years).

[woollypigs]

Just a side note : Our local WEEE is outside, which probably kill off a few items for sure that could have been saved if undercover.

[Mr Larrington]

As far as I can tell I have had no spam whatsoever since quarter to one this morning

[Mr Larrington]

Note to self: if you Do Things to the master copy of the NAS-stored music library such that every single file is modified then it will be way quicker to get a backup copy onto the lapdancer's internal HDD via a USB 3.0 external drive from the desktop, due to the steam-powered nature of the lapdancer's notwork adapter.  FFS, it's been running since midnight and has just reached Half Man Half Biscuit 

[Mr Larrington]

As far as I can tell I have had no spam whatsoever since quarter to one this morning

Ah.  Thunderbird is no longer downloading messages that the Mega!-Global! Exclamation! Mark! Corporation! of! Sunnyvale!, USAnia! thinks! is! spam!  I do not know how this changed but it does mean I have to use the Mega!-Global! Exclamation! Mark! Corporation! of! Sunnyvale!, USAnia!'s poxy! web! interface! every so often to check the crap.