Fluendo Releases Its Own Linux DVD Player

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Fluendo Releases Its Own Linux DVD Player

Fluendo, the company that's largely behind G-Streamer and produces legal audio/video codecs for Linux, has now launched its own DVD player solution for Linux. Fluendo's new DVD player software is, of course, built upon the G-Streamer framework...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzM2Mg

[Noneus]

That's nice to have a legal DVD-Player for linux. But honestly: Who cares? VLC or xine can play dvds since like forever. Yes they have legal issues. But most people don't care about these.

The interesting thing would be bluray playback. MPlayer and VLC can play ripped Blurays at the moment. But ripping them is a bit of a hassle.

[Yfrwlf]

That's nice to have a legal DVD-Player for linux. But honestly: Who cares? VLC or xine can play dvds since like forever. Yes they have legal issues. But most people don't care about these.

The interesting thing would be bluray playback. MPlayer and VLC can play ripped Blurays at the moment. But ripping them is a bit of a hassle.

This law should definitely not hold water. Businesses don't want to be the ones to challenge it though, so they do like Canonical and resort to playing nice with the laws and hope someone else does.

What we need are outraged citizens pushing to get this stupid laws changed.

[dammarin]

I just bought it.

I like their pricing/support structure.

The player unfortunately uses 100% of my CPU and the image keeps freezing every couple of seconds. I guess they still have some work to do :-)

[bugmenot]

how much money is for the licence and how much for the development effort? thanks. :)

very nice that they do it.

[dammarin]

You can look up their website :-)

It's 20 eur for the player with 1 year updates and then 5 eur for another year of updates. Fairly reasonable, even for me (I'm in a 3rd world country).

[Kano]

The only reason for a new Linux DVD player would be support for DVDs with special copyprotection, css would be no problem, but bad sector protections in all variants cause standard solutions to fail. LinDVD supports those, no idea if that player does.

[deanjo]

The only reason for a new Linux DVD player would be support for DVDs with special copyprotection, css would be no problem, but bad sector protections in all variants cause standard solutions to fail. LinDVD supports those, no idea if that player does.

According to their FAQ on it, the special copy protections are not supported with Fluendo's DVD player.

Some discs can not play with an error saying something like "Could not read NAV pack..."
Yes this is a known problem. This can mean different things : the disc is damaged or dirty, the DVD drive lens is damaged or dirty, or the disc uses some special protection tricks to protect from ripping programs.

[Kano]

Then don't buy that crap.

[bulletxt]

Then don't buy that crap.

Totally agree.

[dammarin]

In all fairness, the next sentence after the one quoted by deanjo says they are working on it and it will be included in the next update.

[Kano]

Well maybe they should have waited with the release then. In order to play those protected dvds you have to rip em first (which works even with wine), then every player can handle it OR you can play em with LinDVD. I usually prefer using kaffeine as it allows for example to add audio filters i. e. for volnorm. DVD menus work with it too, so you gain nothing. The killer feature for it is just missing over free alternatives.

[Ex-Cyber]

This is probably intended more for OEMs than for end users. For a random person to install presumed-infringing software is no big deal, but if a company like Dell ships unlicensed DVD playback software on Linux PCs, a lawsuit is almost guaranteed.

[Kano]

Then i hope they use the other available player because there are LOTS of new dvds out there which have those bad types of copy protection.

[bugmenot]

Can we see the source code for this piece of code?

[jeffro-tull]

I wouldn't mind checking it out, if only to see what how it performs. Gstreamer (via Dragon Player [Phonon] and Elisa/Moovida) couldn't handle DVD playback on my AthlonXP 2600+. Maybe an "official" implementation would work better?

[dammarin]

I wouldn't mind checking it out, if only to see what how it performs. Gstreamer (via Dragon Player [Phonon] and Elisa/Moovida) couldn't handle DVD playback on my AthlonXP 2600+. Maybe an "official" implementation would work better?


Like I wrote above, the player uses 100% of my CPU and the image stutters all over the place (unwatchable). On an Athlon 2500+ (running at 1,86 GHz).

Using the same DVD with VLC the processor runs at 0,9 GHz (lowest speed, should actually be 666 MHz but the new Ubuntu kernel seriously misdetects the speeds for this CPU) and is some 2/3 busy. Some of that difference could be attributed to the fact that the Fluendo player seems to apply deinterlacing and VLC doesn't, but still.

[dammarin]

This is probably intended more for OEMs than for end users. For a random person to install presumed-infringing software is no big deal, but if a company like Dell ships unlicensed DVD playback software on Linux PCs, a lawsuit is almost guaranteed.

Perhaps, but unlike CyberLink and the guys doing LinDVD this is available for purchase for end users.

Since I managed to convince a couple of people to install Linux on their desktops (novice users) I find a dedicated DVD player convenient. Such people might have problems with VLC, which includes a lot of extra options, but a very simple DVD player will be just fine.

Unfortunately, at the moment I cannot recommend the Fluendo player to anyone. Apart from hogging the CPU and not working smoothly, it has a very ugly interface (motif windows).

[dashcloud]

Fluendo is probably going to run into the big problem (in my opinion anyway) of commercial software (mostly non-gaming products): Why should I pay for this if X does the same thing or nearly the same thing?

Also, the kinds of things people here are reporting the DVD player does are simply not acceptable for anyone trying to sell a DVD player in 2009- it should just work (we've been able to play back DVD quality video since the late 90's/ early 2000's), so stuttering is something expected for HD video, not for SD video.

I appreciate what the Fluendo folks are doing, but they have to realize that they are competing against free (which can be done, but it requires you to be the best, or have some key features not available elsewhere, and a commitment to continually improve- because your competition certainly will).

[Kano]

If somebody would release a blueray player for Linux it would be much cooler than this...

[GreekGeek]

Unless these guys already have a large OEM contract sorted or near as Damit, they are on a hiding to no where.

If they have BlueRay support, I would cough up in a couple of moments.... The first moment, would be buying a BlueRay player.

If I recall rightly, BlueDemon has zoning BS attached though, which is a hugh negative, 2 me.

Hmmm.

GreekGeek :-)

[drag]

This law should definitely not hold water. Businesses don't want to be the ones to challenge it though, so they do like Canonical and resort to playing nice with the laws and hope someone else does.

What we need are outraged citizens pushing to get this stupid laws changed.

Well businesses wouldn't mind challenging it if they had a chance of success, but they don't.

Just for the record we are dealing with two different legal things here:

Software patents for codecs. Which is why Theora is being pushed for web content even though it is technically inferior to H.264. DVDs use MPEG2 which is still patent encrusted.

DMCA protections of digital protection schemes. Breaking a digital copyright protection scheme is illegal even if it is not for the purposes of violating copyrights. The protections themselves are protected.

Very insane.

VLC and such, which is insanely popular and one of the best avialable for all platforms, is technically illegal in the USA.

For individual users this isn't a big deal, but for people wanting to use Linux in a professional capacity or OEMs that want to providing working Linux systems to end users then this is a big issue. Providing legal means for working around and licensing patents for codecs is one of the major points behind gstreamer and is a central aspect of Fluendo's business model.

Bless them for it, also. Otherwise we'd be stuck with Helix/Realplayer type things.

[yogi_berra]

Breaking a digital copyright protection scheme is illegal even if it is not for the purposes of violating copyrights. The protections themselves are protected.

Actually everyone is entitled to create one backup copy of all their CD's, DVD's, and Blu-Ray content under the DMCA. You are entitled to break the copy protection, you just can't link to or host the tools that allow that to be accomplished.

[BlackStar]

Actually everyone is entitled to create one backup copy of all their CD's, DVD's, and Blu-Ray content under the DMCA. You are entitled to break the copy protection, you just can't link to or host the tools that allow that to be accomplished.

This law never ceases to amaze me in its braindead-ness. Let's hope something like this never makes it across the pond.

[Ex-Cyber]

Actually everyone is entitled to create one backup copy of all their CD's, DVD's, and Blu-Ray content under the DMCA. You are entitled to break the copy protection, you just can't link to or host the tools that allow that to be accomplished.I've never heard of this; do you have a citation? The exceptions I know of, as I understand them, are:

1) Every 3 years, the Librarian of Congress may specify classes of works that are exempt from anticircumvention.

2) Non-profit libraries and educational institutions determining whether to acquire a copy of a work, but only if it's not reasonably available in a form that doesn't require circumvention.

3) Government agents performing law enforcement, intelligence, or computer security functions.

4) Reverse-engineering of computer programs; only allowed for activities that are not copyright infringement, only for the purposes of interoperability research, only by someone with the legal right to use the program, and only if the information is not reasonably available by other means.

5) Encryption research; only allowed for activities that are not copyright infringement, only performed on legal copies, and the information must be presented in a way that enhances the scholarly understanding of encryption and not in a way that facilitates copyright infringement.

6) Security testing; only allowed for testing that would otherwise be legal under copyright and computer fraud laws.

[yogi_berra]

I've never heard of this; do you have a citation? The exceptions I know of, as I understand them, are:

1) Every 3 years, the Librarian of Congress may specify classes of works that are exempt from anticircumvention.

2) Non-profit libraries and educational institutions determining whether to acquire a copy of a work, but only if it's not reasonably available in a form that doesn't require circumvention.

3) Government agents performing law enforcement, intelligence, or computer security functions.

4) Reverse-engineering of computer programs; only allowed for activities that are not copyright infringement, only for the purposes of interoperability research, only by someone with the legal right to use the program, and only if the information is not reasonably available by other means.

5) Encryption research; only allowed for activities that are not copyright infringement, only performed on legal copies, and the information must be presented in a way that enhances the scholarly understanding of encryption and not in a way that facilitates copyright infringement.

6) Security testing; only allowed for testing that would otherwise be legal under copyright and computer fraud laws.

from http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117 :

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. — Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

[deanjo]

from http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117 :

First of all, those provisions apply for only software (as even specified in the above link). Unfortunately, doing so on a copy protected media requires violating the DMCA which specifies:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html
(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures.— (1) (A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. So while you have the right to copy such works for personal archive purposes under fairuse, the process for being able to do so would be illegal.

The only exceptions to this is:


1. Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
4. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.
5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.
6. Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in compact disc format and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully purchased works and create or exploit security flaws or vulnerabilities that compromise the security of personal computers, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing, investigating, or correcting such security flaws or vulnerabilities.

[yogi_berra]

First of all, those provisions apply for only software (as even specified in the above link). Unfortunately, doing so on a copy protected media requires violating the DMCA which specifies:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html
So while you have the right to copy such works for personal archive purposes under fairuse, the process for being able to do so would be illegal.

And if you'd stop cherry picking and read all of Title 17 you'd find sections detailing similar rights for music recordings, etc. You'd also find that chapter 12 does not limit fair use rights, from your link: (c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected.—(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.

The process of copying is not illegal, it is guaranteed under fair use. The tools that allow the copying, are illegal to distribute, however.

[Ex-Cyber]

And if you'd stop cherry picking and read all of Title 17 you'd find sections detailing similar rights for music recordings, etc. You'd also find that chapter 12 does not limit fair use rights, from your link:

The process of copying is not illegal, it is guaranteed under fair use. The tools that allow the copying, are illegal to distribute, however.The problem is that the exception you quoted says

Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement

There is no general agreement that violations of Sec. 1201 constitute copyright infringement, nor is there any wording in 1201 itself to limit the prohibition to acts of circumvention furthering copyright infringement, so it's not at all clear that fair use or other claims of non-infringing use can be used as a defense to circumvention violations. Indeed, some of the exemptions in the statute explicitly require that the exempted activities be non-infringing in addition to other restrictions. If circumvention for all non-infringing use were permitted, such exemptions would be totally unnecessary.