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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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @01:01AM (8 children)
That was a commonly-held opinion about MP3s encoded much higher than 128kbps at first, too. Give it time. People will start h.265 encoding them (or using a yet-to-be-devised even better codec) and the size/quality ratio, available local storage capacity, and broadband speed & caps will all improve.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 16 2017, @04:18AM (7 children)
People will start h.265 encoding them
That 50-100GB number includes h.265 encoding. 4k UHD Blu-Ray uses h.265 encoding. You're not going to get them any smaller until someone comes up with an even better codec, and like JPEG, I suspect we've hit a point now where we're just not going to get any more significant gains in compression. You can only compress stuff so much without losing too much information.
I'm also doubtful about local storage and broadband speeds getting significantly better anytime soon: what's going to drive those changes and create demand for them? With most users just using streaming services now for everything, including listening to music, there isn't that much demand for local storage. And existing broadband service already has more than enough bandwidth for several simultaneous high-quality Netflix streams (if you get the largest-bandwidth options from your ISP). The main driver for increased storage is on the server end now, not for consumers. From what I can tell, typical laptop HD sizes haven't gone up much if any in the last 5 years or so, and the trend on phones is to just stream everything.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 16 2017, @05:52AM
I don't think most of these films are maxing out the UHD Blu-ray standard by reaching 100 GB. Also, the 50 GB discs appear to be identical to regular 50 GB Blu-ray discs (both are dual-layer), so they should not be too expensive to make. The other two UHD Blu-ray capacities store ~33 GB per layer instead of 25 GB.
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(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @02:33PM (1 child)
You don't need a better codec, you just need to be willing to cut quality to save space. Some people do download YIFY and similar bit-starved HD releases, after all; while applying such extreme compression to 4k sources is just silly (doesn't mean it won't happen!), you could certainly compress these enough to fit on a dual-layer BD-R without losing enough quality to bother most pirates.
To throw some actual numbers around:
Glancing at Inferno (2016) on thepiratebay, the full bluray release appears to be about 24GB, but you can find 1080p versions reencoded to pretty much any size from 16GB down to 1.5GB (!); if one assumes similar bitrate requirement per pixel, 4k reencodes might range from 64GB (well, not quite; the original rip is only 57GB) down to 6GB. Hey, I won't be surprised if we see DVD5-sized 4k releases. Of course they'll look pretty crappy, but that doesn't mean groups won't release them, or that a bunch of people won't download them.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 16 2017, @02:47PM
Some people do download YIFY and similar bit-starved HD releases, after all
Are YIFY's "bit-starved" HD releases really that bad when you compare to the alternatives, which are streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime Video?