I’m referring to the SCOTUS case regarding making copies of TV shows. Of course it’s legal to make copies of physical media in a general sense.
@JPLemme: there was no DVD rentals in 1984, so the ruling obviously did not consider that possibility. In any case, it’s pointless to argue about law here. Until a court rules about this specific case, we can only guess. Your guess is as good as mine. And Jeff should be presumed innocent until proven guilty 
Just let me point out that the first amendment protects your right to free speech only from the government. It does not apply to the private parties (such as an NDA, or to a million other situations when you can NOT say anything you want.)
I wish there were a Hardware assisted Encoding. I encode a lot of movies for my PMP (cowon D2) and it is painfully slow.
I guess NVIDIA CUDA will hopefully change this.
If someone has any more information, please let us know.
And gr8 post Jeff.
But all this is so complicated its only meant for geeks, wonder how the average joe will cope up with all those codecs and players. It becomes too damn complicated.
Dude you made my day, I bought a new LCD tv and I was seeing the very same Planet Earth videos you mention over a pretty high end laptop and utterly disgusted each time the output got chopy. Thanks for this info, heading off to download the codecs
In response to your digression: T3 got such a bad rap, because it’s not a landmark film like T1 or T2. It really doesn’t matter if it actually was a solid entry in the franchise, because everyone would first compare it to T1 and T2.
I haven’t bothered to read all the comments, but I’d like to wholeheartedly recommend Media Portal. It’s does everything MCE does and you can configure it to your liking. Oh, and it’s open source too!
Check it out at http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
@ed
I’m not sure what you were getting at. I think you missed my point also. All I’m saying is that it’s getting pretty old seeing posts in every Windows-related forum from some geekier-than-thou Linux user. Let’s just keep on topic, m-kay? This post is about HD decoding performance in Windows, not whether Windows or Linux is better at it.
The renting debate reminds me of the ISP marketing model. The issues comes down to the usage of the term unlimited.
rant
At some point, it became OK for businesses to redefine that word to fit whatever meaning the would like. I don’t fault Netflix here as much as other companies, but the reality is that the companies don’t really mean unlimited. What they want is the ‘idea’ of unlimited without having to actually provide it. I wish someone court/government would just tell these businesses that the details of their TOS don’t mean sh*t if the consumer was sold a product with conflicting marketing speak.
/rant
My ripping is purely about simplicity and ease of use
Huh?
Here we go:
-Rip using AnyDVD HD
-Install Media Player Classic Home Cinema - after a Great Deal of Research (your words, not mine)
-Offload Video Decoding Duties to the video card
Done!
No, wait… You want to use Windows Vista Media Center. So, using an obscure forum post (again, your words), you needed to
-download standalone filters
-extract the codec, copy to c:\windows\system32
-register the codec using regsvr32
Done!
No, wait, forgot about the H264 Blu-Ray encoding format:
-Get yourself a copy of Radlight Filter Manager
-Navigate to DirectShow filters part of the tree, look for MPC - Video decoder, go to Properties
-Check the H.264/AVC box, and finally…
Done!
THIS is simplicity and ease of use?
How about this:
-Buy Blu-ray player
-Attach to TV using HDMI cable
-Watch movie
Done!
CPU usage: 0%
Great post. I used to use MPC but dropped it in favour of VLC. That was before they used internal codecs, shall give it another spin now.
a weird little standalone app
come on, give open source some love. media player classic is a great program which does what it is supposed to do perfectly, as your example also illustrates. its small size is a POSITIVE thing, and doesn’t make it weird.
@rmf:
imagine if that amount of time a customer keeps the disc is artificially shortened… the model falls apart and the value of the disc is diluted
So, if Netflix can rent out the same disk more often… their business model falls apart? Funny, I’d think they’d enjoy the extra profit.
@department_g33k
You need to lighten up, man. You’re taking this way too seriously.
//And have you tried Linux? I really like it and I think you would, too.
I got HD video working on quite an old system doing the same steps, if you have a decent video card it’s well worth the time to offload video processing to it. Can’t wait until general computing can be more easily passed off to the GPU.
Fantastic article! Great research and information! I am totally inspired to create my own HTPC in this manner. That MPC codec replacement hack is brilliant!
As for the legality issue, given how absurdly draconian, anti-consumer, and anti technology the DMCA and media industry trade groups are, it really scares me that some of your readers (presumably programmers/tech people) are so complacent with it and adamant about being DIGITALLY CORRECT.
Clearly, a heavy dose of civil disobedience is in order.
Here is my DVD playing process:
When I get a DVD, I press the eject button on my DVD player to open the little drawer. This simultaneously opens the drawer to allow disc insertion and switches the TV to the correct channel (I like this part, it’s very clever the way it does that). I then press the play button, which has the benefit of both closing the drawer (now with the disc inside it) and starting the playback.
Sometimes the TV gets the wrong widescreen mode, and I need to press a third button, and perhaps turn the volume up a bit too (Button press number 4) but in principle I reckon I have my process down to two simple steps.
Clearly, I’m doing it wrong.
@rmf, Joe Chin:
I read the whole thing and didn’t once see I rip the movie and immediately send it back for another one, and then watch it later when I have time.
If you want to add assumptions, fine. But make sure you mention that it’s your assumption.
I personally am a Netflix member as well; I’ve been holding on to Shaun of the Dead for about 2 months since my wedding. (Things have, understandably, been busy.) During the time I hold on to the movie, if it’s easier for me to rip it to my PC and watch it there, am I hurting Netflix in any way? No.
Am I violating their TOS? Not according to Krenn’s post (I haven’t looked for myself).
If I delete it after I watch it (as Jeff did specifically say he did), then what’s the problem?
Try to remove your assumptions and then reread the post, and see if you can find a way down off that high horse of yours.
Dear Jeff, as a younger computer scientist I was wondering how you were able to get around the drm that is embedded in vista so that you could watch a ripped movie in HD and not a degraded image.
Jeff:
I’ve followed your blog for some time now because you often have had good things things to say, things worth thinking about and learning from.
What seems to be your conscious decision to ignore the Netflix Terms of Service, however, leaves me surprised and disappointed. From your postings, you’ve always seemed like someone who understands technical issues and tries to do the right things: in this case, apparently not.
One may not like copyright law, but it is the law – and you don’t seem to be doing this as an act of civil disobedience.
If I hired you to do some programming for me, would you treat our contract and NDA terms the same way?
I hope to see a future post from you clarifying your position.