Following the release of an Ultra HD (3840×2160 resolution) copy of Smurfs 2 last month, two new Ultra HD Blu-ray films have been released. Ultra HD Blu-ray discs can store 50-100 GB of H.265 encoded content, with 10-bit color depth, high dynamic range, and a wider color gamut. While the AACS 2 encryption protecting these discs may not have been cracked, it seems to be ineffective:
There's quite a buzz among movie pirates who have an eye for high-quality video. After the first Ultra HD Blu-Ray disc leaked last month, two more releases have now followed. While some have rumored that AACS 2 encryption may have been cracked, a bypass is just as likely. And with the leakers themselves staying quiet, the mystery remains.
Up until a few weeks ago, full copies of UHD Blu-Ray Discs were impossible to find on pirate sites. Protected with strong AACS 2 encryption, it has long been one of the last bastions movie pirates had to breach.
While the encryption may still be as strong as before, it's clear that some pirates have found a way through. After the first pirated Ultra HD Blu-Ray Disc leaked early last month, two new ones have appeared in recent days.
Following the historic "Smurfs 2" release, a full UHD copy of "Patriots Day" surfaced online little over a week ago, followed by a similar copy of "Inferno" this past weekend. The latter two were both released by the scene group TERMiNAL and leaked to various torrent sites.
First there was Smurfs 2. Now there are three.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday June 16 2017, @08:20AM (3 children)
Disagree. Video compression algorithms have been steadily improving for years, and are showing no sign of slowing down. H.265 is way better than H.264, for instance. Why assume we're already at the point of diminishing returns?
I believe we're at that point when it comes to audio (Opus is better than Vorbis, but not that much better), but not video.
But it's not like JPEG. There exist lossy still-image compression algorithms which are far superior to JPEG. The problem isn't that we can't beat JPEG - we already have - it's that no-one really cares enough to roll out the new algorithms. Even sites like Flickr, which could [github.io] use JavaScript to implement better-than-JPEG compression, just don't bother.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 16 2017, @02:43PM (2 children)
There exist lossy still-image compression algorithms which are far superior to JPEG.
Really? Which ones? I know there's JPEG2000, but that didn't seem like it was that much of an improvement over JPEG. It was better, of course, but like you noted with Opus vis-a-vis Vorbis, not *that* much better, and with JPEG not enough to get people to switch because JPEG is so entrenched in everything. JPEG is really quite ancient, it goes back to the early 90s; it's too bad it's so hard to supplant an entrenched de facto standard.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday June 16 2017, @03:07PM (1 child)
I linked to one already: FLIF supports both lossy and lossless compression. Their web demo [github.io] takes a couple seconds to load, but it's clearly superior to JPEG (assuming of course that their demo is honest).
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday June 16 2017, @03:14PM
On second thoughts, maybe something's up with that web demo. That, or JPEG really does look better half the time (try the 'Compare against same size JPEG' mode). The main page on their lossy compression [flif.info] makes their stuff look far superior to JPEG.