Cinavia, PS3 & my hatred.

I do my best to back up the Internet. Like many others, I may or may not have downloaded the odd movie or two. Though I'm morally against piracy, I am hypocritically against the organisations that try to police it. Instead of embracing the technology and the marvelous convenience of digital content delivery, these organisations have waged a war on those they understand to be infringing on their copyrights. No arguments on that front. But I buy a movie or play a game or purchase an application that I find unsatisfactory, can I get my money back? Well yes and no. There are game and application trials so I won't argue that in this blog. 

Let me explain my situation... I have a PS3 with a broken Blu-ray player that is out of warranty. I use ps3mediaserver (http://www.ps3mediaserver.org) to stream DVDs and Blu-ray’s from my PC to my PlayStation to avoid forking out $200 to Sony to get a refurbished PS3 (for the second time). It works perfectly... Until the sound cuts out. Now we have arrived at the crux of this blog entry.

Cinavia (http://www.cinavia.com) is DRM audio watermarking. Long story short, an audio signal is embedded into the audio of a movie. Devices that are Cinavia aware will pick up on this signal and depending on the source, will mute the audio. This technology is muting the audio on legally purchased genuine Blu-ray films I have.

Just get your PS3 fixed Shane!

This, being the second one I have had. Having already had a PS3 replaced (under warranty). This situation has left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not paying for devices that have Cinavia! Not even to be fixed.

I have searched the Internet for ways to circumvent Cinavia. There are few old tricks I have tried.

• Setting the audio to optical output on the PS3 - doesn't work with the firmware release I have installed on my PS3 (>4.21).
• Play the film at x2 play speed - works but is not ideal.
• Hack my PS3 - no hacks for PS3 with firmware =>4.21.

Options that don't involve the PS3

• Get a mediaPC (popcornhour) - too expensive. (http://www.popcornhour.com)
• Raspberry Pi - I tried this and it worked quite well as a device to stream to. Cheap and easy to use. Somewhat complicated to initially setup and configure. (http://www.raspberrypi.org)
• Get a new Blu-ray player - maybe, but it had better not have Cinavia. (http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=41885)
• Media streaming device - I tried this. I got WDTV (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330). Installed B-RAD's (http://b-rad.cc) firmware and bingo I was back!!

Should the film industry refund my money because I can't watch a film on my broken Blu-ray (PS3) player? Of course not!

But think about this: it would be very convenient for me to illegally download or rip the movies I have to my PC and stream them to my WDTV. I wouldn't even need to get off the couch to crack a Blu-ray out of its plastic case and cram it into a device that is now redundant in my house hold.

What am I even talking about?

Don't pirate stuff! Unless you have to, because of anti-piracy technology.