Well well well. The industry tried their best to make the new competing high definition formats blue-ray and hd-dvd as secure as possible so that no one would be able to view them with insecure hardware or would be able to copy the movies. The files themselves are protected by AACS which stands for Advanced Access Content System. HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) makes sure that high definition playback is only available if the output device (television, monitor) is HDCP capable, if not the movie will be downsampled to 960x540p.
The german computer magazine CT apparently found a way to copy Blue-Ray and HD-DVD movies. The first movie players on Windows XP that are capable of running those protected movies allow the print screen key to work which saves a hd image of the current frame to the computer. Automating that screenshot function to take 24 / 25 / 30 was the logical next step.
The mag calculated that it would not be a problem for todays high end computers to save all images in real time. All that was left to do is join all images. The result ? A high definition movie of course.
The mag tested this exploit with Sonys first Blue-Ray Pc Vaio VGC-RC 204 and with Toshibas HD-DVD-Notebook Qosmio G30. Both were running a special OEM version of WinDVD.
Upcoming versions of WinDVD will most likely be patched.
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