Hi, the reason why i am insisiting in getting facts is that i want to know whether drive firmware can get altered by just inserting and reading a commercial Blu-ray disc.
I sincerely doubt that the drive firmware will do this, but rather believe it is about software on the level of operating system and application software. (Both of kinds which i would not touch with fire tongs.) i wrote: > > Are you sure that this applies to Blu-ray recorders in > > computers ? > > [...] > > i get the impression that it only > > applies to consumer BD players, and that "firmware" actually > > means the operating system of the player, not the firmware > > of the Blu-ray drive that's built into this living room > > computer. T.J. Duchene wrote: > Players > like WinDVD 8 have had their AACS keys revoked, and with them the > ability to play BD discs. But WinDVD 8 is MS-Windows software, not drive firmware. > Since I will > not encourage you to break the DRM, the subject has no resolution. Just to be clear. I use BD and DVD drives for data storage, not for watching videos or for copying what the seller does not want to be copied. DRM does not righteously affect me, therefore. > The consortium that lords over Blu-ray can and will "brick" you > expensive players in the name of "copy protection." For now you only showed an example of MS-Windows software which turns against you. Maybe you have paid for it. Then you have reason to feel betrayed. But that's not even comsumer player "firmware". It's MS-Windows. What do you expect ? > all I would have > to do is program any BD drive to make an exact logical copy of the disc: > copy protection and all notwithstanding. Would you be willing to share the knowledge how you program a BD drive ? Some example SCSI commands would be a good start. > You're paying for it, and you will never be > able to play it back on any device without their blessing, and if they > want to, they can take that away at any time. What i burn on my LG GGW-H20L can be read on my LG GGC-H20L (a combo joke), my Optiarc BD-5300S (growler joke), and my LG BH16NS40 (all so civilized joke). I need no blessing from "them" because i am the one who decides over the SCSI transaction dialog between my burn software and the drives. And i need no player software from "them" because i do not play. At best i read what is stored on the BD disc. This i do either by the Linux block device driver (e.g. read(2)) or via SCSI transactions (which i decide how they should happen via ioctl(SG_IO)). No "them" involved except LKML, FSF, Debian, their friends, my own software, and the firmwares of the drives. All other "theys" can keep their prescious bit patterns and also may get knotted. > BD is not cost effective for everyday storage, so as far as Linux is > concerned, BD is really a moot point. One BD spares you four exchanges of the DVD in the drive when you make a large backup. A BD allows to make incremental backups up to 23 GiB whereas DVD+R DL allows only 8 GiB of poor reliablilty. With reliable DVD media you are restricted to 4.4 GiB. Of course, hard disks are cheaper per GB. But they have other needs when it comes to long term storage or rough transport. Further they are large and non divisible. I would commercially compare BD media to USB sticks. The sellers of BD-RE take care to stay cheaper than the sellers of 16 or 32 GiB sticks. One big problem is that the burners deteriorate with time. The begin to fail recording readable data. But this affects only new recordings. The old recorded media do not die with the burner that wrote them. I believe no BD problem is so sincere as the problem of USB sticks which can be programmed to emulate a keyboard. http://www.zdnet.com/article/usb-flash-drives-masquerading-as-keyboards-mean-more-byod-security-headaches/ So i have few scruples to put a foreign BD into my drives but would not allow a foreign device to be plugged into my USB sockets. Have a nice day :) Thomas
