[Dillweedshake]

By: César A. Berardini - "Cesar"
Jul. 7th, 2006 1:04 pm
In previous editorials, IGN covered the different technologies developed to protect high-definition content stored in next-generation optical media. HDCP, HDMI and the AACS’ Image Constraint Token aim to impede the unauthorized copy of content stored in either HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc media but as ironical as it may sound, there is no need of any complicated crack to break those technologies.

German computer magazine C't has discovered that PC owners only need to hit the Print Screen button to capture a frame of a HD DVD or a Blu-ray Disc movie and that means that any programmer could create a script that captures the screen 30 times per second to enable a lossless capture of the video frames.
Then, it’ll be required to capture the audio and merge the video and audio files into one big 50GB movie.


C’t tried to capture screens with both a Blu-ray Disc powered PC, the Sony VGC-RC, and a HD DVD-powered notebook, the Toshiba Qosmio G30 and the “Print Screen” workaround indeed worked in both cases, which means that the security hole is present in both blue-laser technologies.

It remains to be seen if this workaround will give birth to a program that allows the copy of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies.