Intel's SGX deprecation impacts DRM and Ultra HD Blu-ray support

[Toju Mikie]

PC blu-ray support has always been funky.
I have considered buying a used Xbox One S/X for viewing 4k blu-ray but prices for used consoles are insane right now

 

[wiyosaya]

Plundervolt allowed stealing 4KUHD blu-ray keys. sIntel dropping it, OTOH, is not great, but if the Blu-ray Forum has any sense, they will allow 4K UHD playback on the equivalent AMD procs. There is a large contingent of HTPC owners out there, myself included, that would go with that kind of configuration in a heartbeat.

Yeah, Yeah, I know - disks are dead. Right.

 

[Red34jfp]

What an anti-consumer company! Nvidia and Intel are on the same boat. With my blu-ray collection I can't touch an Intel CPU even with a long pole.

You are aware that AMD's CPUs never supported this instruction and have never been compatible with 4k Blu Ray, right? The only CPUs that you should touch are the Intel ones released between the 6th and 10th generation...

 

[hahahanoobs]

I read the tech news every day and this is the first I'm hearing this ever being an issue. That typically means this will only affect a small group of people. Intel doesn't hate money, so there is not enough money or public interest to keep it around.

Don't like it? Buy AMD...

 

[Austinturner]

I read the tech news every day and this is the first I'm hearing this ever being an issue. That typically means this will only affect a small group of people. Intel doesn't hate money, so there is not enough money or public interest to keep it around.

Don't like it? Buy AMD...

Actually it wasn’t even supported on AMD cpus at the time it was being supported by Intel, there obviously wasn’t much of a market for playing 4k blu-rays on pcs and what was there has reduced to being too niche for any vendor.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

Yeah, you definitely need to chill out. I use Linux 90% of the time but I don't like the idea of telling me what to install, especially DRM.

LoL
Who told you to install DRM?

 

[Bullwinkle M]

All of them need to work together to enable users to enjoy content from disks. I would not single out one company. It's the ecosytem that needs to work.

As for the stand alone players, people are free to buy whatever devices they want for home theatre. I do not have one, but even if I had, I would be using it for variety of content; for music predominantly, as my music collection is bigger than movies. So, the idea of "enslavement" does not really make sense. Move on.

No, all of them need to work together to enable users to enjoy content without requiring DRM

You have no right to add DRM hardware wherever you want or tell any Company to market your malware

If you are worried that someone will copy your Movies illegally, then I must require that you stop selling Disks and only show your movies in a theater where they will rarely be seen

If you choose to put your movies in the public domain, you lose all copy protection

If you require copy protection, simply eliminate public access to your garbage

Win/Win

 

[TekCheck]

If you choose to put your movies in the public domain, you lose all copy protection

No. Intellectual rights deserve reasonable protection. Copying someone's books or works of art without permission is also not acceptable.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Actually it wasn’t even supported on AMD cpus at the time it was being supported by Intel, there obviously wasn’t much of a market for playing 4k blu-rays on pcs and what was there has reduced to being too niche for any vendor.

I know. I was throwing a jab at AMD.
There are other reasons it's going bye bye side from low adoption. Namely lack of proper support and system security reasons.

 

[dualkelly]

What an anti-consumer company! Nvidia and Intel are on the same boat. With my blu-ray collection I can't touch an Intel CPU even with a long pole.

Use redfox anydvd hd software. you can get lifetime licences for cheap. bypass all the DRM nonsense.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

No. Intellectual rights deserve reasonable protection. Copying someone's books or works of art without permission is also not acceptable.

You have reasonable protection as long as you keep it off the internet and off of my hardware

I do not want your books, movies, or any other crap with hardware based copy protection

You have no right to violate "my" hardware to protect "your" alleged rights

If you believe that I am wrong, then "I" have the right to violate "your" hardware and encrypt all your drives with ransomware

Did I say ransomware?
Sorry, I meant DRM

My one sided Licensing Agreement being forced upon you is as good as any other being forced upon me.
You know....
Terms that I clearly do not agree with yet am unable to use my machine as I see fit until they are agreed to through blackmail, extortion or ransom by Corporate Scum

By forcing your malware onto my hardware, you hereby agree that everything on your drives belongs to me, to do with as I please

I can now encrypt everything on your drive for copy protection as it is now my data

If you wish to ever use my data again, you must pay me a rans..... I mean..... Licensing Fee

You see, if it's Legal for you to force that crap on me, I can certainly do the same for you

Win/Win

ENJOY!

 

[captaincranky]

They'd rather stand by their failed DRM rather than let people enjoy content they would pay for.

Frankly, this is a problem caused by the content publishers, not AMD or Intel. Don't get mad at chip producers for not wanting to waste silicon space on a failed DRM

Not to mention that when this newest version gets cracked, (and it will), they'll change it again.

 

[BSim500]

Blu ray DRM was the worst idea possible, makes me wish that HD DVD had won the format wars.

Exactly. Any DRM that requires a hardware specific instruction from just one sub-section of a family line of products from one single brand is broken by design. Imagine if DVD decryption on PC's was tied to AMD's 3DNow! instruction. Or in fact see the several pieces of expensive software that have stopped working because you can't plug in an LPT (parallel printer port) based hardware DRM dongles in PC's that have long lost such ports) and it's not hard to see how all hardware specific DRM will end up in the long run.

If you want 100% guarantee of future playback of DRM'd content in years / decades to come, then tackle the problem at its root cause and remove the DRM. There is no substitute.

 

[Axeia]

When you have code included in disks you can’t change after release, this will inevitably happen as the surrounding tech ecosystem moves on. The content producers don’t have any financial motivation to help customers either because they already got their money for the disk sale, they don’t care if you can’t watch it how you want to.

Even worse, they stand to gain from selling you the same content again. This time 'remastered to 8k' with a different DRM and history will repeat itself again. Thankfully I've never really wanted to watch the same content over and over again so to me physical copies never really held any value. But I'm sure there's people that own the same movie on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray 1080p and blu-ray 4k and will buy the inevitable 8k version as well.

Seems kinda silly to have this fixed on CPU silicone level in a time where what kind of percentage still uses blu-rays on a PC? PCs stopped having 5.25" slots in PC cases about a decade ago? Laptops stopped having optical bays probably around the same time. So the amount of potential pirates is around the same number as the number of usb Blu-ray players being sold - a rather small number. Everyone else was just paying Intel for a feature they don't need.

 

[human7]

DRM isn't the only use case for SGX. I wonder why Intel decided to remove the instruction set. Perhaps that was the primary use for it (I dunno)? With Windows 11 requiring a TPM, maybe Intel decided to cut out the cost of SGX in anticipation of future DRM using TPMs?

 

[wiyosaya]

Use redfox anydvd hd software. you can get lifetime licences for cheap. bypass all the DRM nonsense.

But limited support for 4K UHD Blu-ray - and that only if you are willing and able to flash a UHD Blu-ray drive to be a "Friendly Drive".

 

[wiyosaya]

DRM isn't the only use case for SGX. I wonder why Intel decided to remove the instruction set. Perhaps that was the primary use for it (I dunno)? With Windows 11 requiring a TPM, maybe Intel decided to cut out the cost of SGX in anticipation of future DRM using TPMs?

Good question. My thoughts, too. I think the Blu-ray forum should allow using TPM for 4K UHD Blu-ray

 

[rmcrys]

I have an external Blu-Ray drive but only to backup my own Blu-Rays. When I bought it, Blu-Ray writable media was rather cheap and SSD / NAS were still too expensive/GB. Nowadays those disks (writable) are "dead" and in most cases streaming is almost as good for most home media devices. I know no-one that have 4K Blu-Ray, me included (I stopped on FHD).

Why? Too expensive, too much space at home, too little perceived difference.

Solution: 64-128 GB personalized SD (read only) cards with the movies like console games, naturally no DRM. That way people would have a physical updates media, fast, small readers and high bitrate video. A 128 GB SD for those read speeds costs around $2 to make, so they could still sell for good prices.

 

[TekCheck]

in most cases streaming is almost as good for most home media devices

It's not for audio. Streaming is still lossy with DD+, whereas disks have lossless audio for great home theatre experience. I actually cannot believe that streaming platforms are still dragging their feet with lossy audio. Dolby True HD or DTS MA over streaming would need ~10 Mbps more only. Streamed 4K videos are also more compressed, with lower bit rates and lose some details in comparison to disks.

Solution: 64-128 GB personalized SD

Good idea.

 

[Bao Nguyen]

* Laugh in MakeMKV *

 

[quadibloc]

I am simply astounded that Intel would omit an absolutely essential feature from its latest processors. One may not be happy with the fact that certain content creators insist on using some form of DRM with media containing their content, but it's just a fact of life that we ordinary individuals have to live with and can't change.
So a PC without SGX is a PC that can't play most commercial pre-recorded 4K BluRay discs at full resolution. What's next, PCs that can't play DVDs or CDs?

 

[captaincranky]

The trouble is that not many of you are able to distinguish, need", ftom from, "greed".

And as long as a person needs to be, "the first kid on the block" to have something, then corporations will stick it to you every time.

As for streaming services in general, they've morphed into the mean old cable companies you've so proudly and adamantly abandoned. The only difference is, the system is now decentralized

 

[Bullwinkle M]

I am simply astounded that Intel would omit an absolutely essential feature from its latest processors.

I am simply astounded that anyone would have the gall to pretend this garbage is an absolutely essential feature of any processor

 

[maroon1]

I just found that none of the AMD CPU actually support SGX
https://community.amd.com/t5/general-discussions/4k-player-on-pc-with-amd-processes/td-p/432796

I wish if techspot mentioned that in the article. The average joe will think that only modern intel CPU lack this feature, but reality none of AMD CPU can run protected 4K UHD content

What an anti-consumer company! Nvidia and Intel are on the same boat. With my blu-ray collection I can't touch an Intel CPU even with a long pole.

I could say same thing about AMD for not supporting this feature

Don't like it? Buy AMD...

No. AMD can't run protected 4K

The only choice is to buy older intel CPU (6th to 10th gen) if you don't want to be a pirate.

 

[wiyosaya]

I just found that none of the AMD CPU actually support SGX

While AMD does not have SGX (its an sIntel Exclusive) it does have something similar called SEV https://developer.amd.com/sev/

If you want to blame anyone for the fact that only sIntel processors are approved to play 4K UHD Blu-ray disks, its the Blu-ray forum. Its the Blu-ray forum (this I found out in a support e-mail from Cyberlink) that required sIntel's SGX for 4K UHD Blu-ray playback.

It will be up to the Blu-ray Forum to change the spec to allow something else to take over that functionality. IMO, calling themselves the "Blu-ray Forum" is somewhat of a misnomer, as they are really the Blu-ray standards forum - I.e., the group that writes and sets standards that anyone wanting to support blu-ray is supposed to meet. (BTW - that link was not working for me, but that IS the official site).

IMO, the Blu-ray forum shot itself in the foot with this in two ways.

1. They attached themselves to a vendor specific hardware standard (I.e., sIntel SGX)
2. Plundervolt allows the extraction of cryptographic keys - meaning it can be exploited to make the CPU dump the protected UHD Blu-ray keys, and with those keys, one might be able to break the 4K UHD Blu-ray encryption, however, I have not heard of anyone successfully doing so.

SGX has turned out to have several severe issues and thus, it was in sIntel's best interests to drop it.

IMO, if the Blu-ray forum wants to sell more 4K UHD disks, they need to either drop this assinine requirement, or revise the standard to allow something else like TPM or AMDs SEV to take over that functionality. Otherwise, 4K UHD Blu-ray is dead on PC - and, BTW, I have a 4K UHD BR drive.

Not to mention that when this newest version gets cracked, (and it will), they'll change it again.

No one has broken it yet. I hope someone does as, IMO, it would be in the best interests of 4K UHD Blu-ray PC playback.

It's not for audio. Streaming is still lossy with DD+, whereas disks have lossless audio for great home theatre experience. I actually cannot believe that streaming platforms are still dragging their feet with lossy audio. Dolby True HD or DTS MA over streaming would need ~10 Mbps more only. Streamed 4K videos are also more compressed, with lower bit rates and lose some details in comparison to disks.

For those of us with FTTH, that's not a problem, but for those without an equivalently speedy ISP, it won't help them.

However, I wish more streaming services would support something better than DD+ AFAIK, few, if any, streaming services support even DD+ other than Netflix and Hulu.

EDITS: for clarity