[MPlayer-users] MPlayer hangs playing 'Sony Pictures' DVDs.

[Alexander Roalter]

The Wanderer wrote:
> Plus, some people (including at least one person who is considered a
> dev) are most likely of the opinion that buying such discs constitutes
> supporting DRM, and that permitting them to be played would encourage
> people to buy them, and thus would constitute supporting DRM - and thus
> that MPlayer *should not*, as a matter of policy, be able to play such
> discs.
> 
> I don't know if I entirely agree with that perspective, but I can easily
> see the reasoning involved in it, and it does make a certain amount of
> sense.

One might think so, but I don't see the difference in breaking CSS for 
the sake of playing DVDs and implementing a smart VOB cell navigation 
for the sake of a) gaining better compatibility with all the fancy 
things a DVD can do following the specification and b) playback DVDs 
with arbitrary erroneous sectors by simply jumping over them. It is not 
as if these DVDs are broken per se (as is the case with some copy 
protected CDDAs). And where here DRM should come into play I don't see. 
I sure get the idea of DRM, but no bundling to a specific 
machine/OS/application is the case here, nor is the data encrypted 
(apart from CSS).

cheers,
Alex