[desktop-discuss] project proposal-- opensolaris needs a built in, working DVD player

[Garrett D'Amore]

Patrick P Korsnick wrote:
> i've been evangelizing opensolaris to coworkers and friends for almost a year now and one phenomenon i've noticed is that for every nod and smile dtrace and zfs evoke in my audience i get one or two that point out how hard it is to do simple stuff like play a DVD.  i usually mention you can get ogle and mplayer from Blastwave, but that build of mplayer won't handle DVD menu's or DVD's that are split into multiple titles and that ogle build hasn't displayed video  (only sound) on any of the machines i've tried it on.  i've managed to get mplayer to build from source a few times, but it wasn't much better.  and don't even get me started on what a piece of s#!(&% totem is-- even on linux it's not worth the disk space it's stored on.
>
> i've tried to emphasize that solaris is growing from a different direction than linux, which has all the user interaction goodies-- and i'm sure most solaris users share the opinion that it's easier to add those kinds of 'frills' to solaris than to try and add enterprise class features to linux.
>
> but that doesn't stop people from saying stuff like "its [i]the world's most advanced operating system [/i]and you have to jump thru hoops and hope the planets are aligned right to play a DVD"
>
> so where i'm really going with this is if there isn't a project devoted to getting built in, out-of-the-box, no monkey business DVD support i think we need one!
>  
>  
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
> desktop-discuss mailing list
> desktop-discuss at opensolaris.org
>   

I'd love to see this be a standard feature.  The problem we have is the
same problem that every other free operating system has, however. 
Namely, the stupid encryption system that the DVDs use (which is
breakable) combined with crummy legislation in some jurisdictions (i.e.
DMCA, here in the US).

The upshot of this is that it is not possible to build any kind of free
_open source_ DVD player that can play movies that you get from
Blockbuster.  (Home movies are not a problem, as they lack the content
encryption.)

The only way to get a legal right to play this is to pay big $$ to the
trade association to get a license on the various technologies involved,
and I believe this requires one to sign NDAs, etc. that mean you can
only provide binaries.

Some companies have worked to solve this for other OS' (Linux and
Windows), but ultimately this has still required them to front some
serious money, which they (in theory) get back from sales of closed
binary solutions.

The other wrinkle in all this is that it is possible to get free
software which can decrypt these movies, but it is not legal to do so
(at least in the US), and so no reputable US hosted site can really
provide any detail on this.

If you don't like this state of affairs, please let a) your contacts in
the media/content industry that you don't like it, and b) your
congressman know your feelings about DMCA, and finally, c) your
therapist know your total frustration at your inability to actually
change any of this.

As for this project:

    +1 for nice form in Windmill Tilting
    -1 for complete detachment from reality

Sorry. :-)

Of course, if you just want a player for your home-produced movies,
there is no problem whatsoever.

    -- Garrett

-- 
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134  Fax: 951 325-2191