Rick Byers <rickb@iaw.on.ca> writes:

> Just curious, what sort of DVD hardware do you have?  Looking at the Livid
> stuff, I assume it only functions in conjunction with a DVD decoder board
> (i.e. they haven't implemented decryption yet, have they?).

Right now I'm using:

cd0 at atapibus0 drive 0: <TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1202, 2900700597, 1020> type 5 cdrom removable

I also have a Hitachi drive at home.

The LiViD stuff is entirely in software.  It currently consists of
three components:

1) css-auth, which is a set of tools for negotiating CSS sessions and
   decrypting the data.

2) ac3dec, a freeware AC-3 decoder.

3) nist, an MPEG audio/video/program player written at NIST, with
   ac3dec glued into it.  (This was not originally targeted for Linux,
   BTW.)

> I'm also curious as to the legality of the Livid stuff.

The `nist' and `ac3dec' packages are entirely legitimate -- though
there may be patent issues for commercial use.  `css-auth' is a bit
more nebulous, since it was derived by reverse-engineering.

> (I buy all my discs legally so I don't mind
> cercumventing the security for convenience),

I have nearly 250 DVDs.  They're not losing any money *here*.

> Thanks a lot for the great work, keep it up!  I think it would be great if
> NetBSD had end-user DVD video support at the same time (or shortly
> after) Linux does.

I need to get my NetBSD-specific patches integrated, but otherwise
it's basically `there'.  (The build configuration stuff is really
broken right now; it was seriously hack-and-slashed for
Linux/x86/MMX.)

I also need to think about building in 48KHz->44.1KHz downsampling,
since a bunch of older sound cards can't do 48KHz.