An Apple Original on DVD: The Definitive Unboxing and UX Review

https://thenougatmachine.wordpress.com/2022/03/23/an-apple-original-on-dvd-the-definitive-unboxing-and-ux-review/

by robbiet480 • 4 years ago

103 70 4 years ago

thenougatmachine.wordpress.com

"This is to be expected, but DVD subtitles are crummy, with low-resolution text and unappealing typography."

DVD subtitles are encoded as images, not text, so in fact you can have any typography and style of typeface that you like, if you're willing to put some effort into it.

The first release of Ghostbusters on DVD abused a subtitle track to store a Mystery Science Theater style silhouette of the people doing the commentary track. It was very funny, but sadly only worked on the 4:3 version of the DVD.

It was removed from all later releases, but they never re-recorded the commentary track, which still contains references to things they are supposedly pointing at, even on the blu-ray releases.

dylan60415• 4 years ago

DVD subtitles were worse than crummy. The highlights for the buttons used the same image formatting. The DVD could only use 4 colors in the sub/highlight. To make subtitle text legible, the black text on white background was posterized to 4 levels. Each of the posterized level was replaced in the authoring software so that each level was replaced with the corresponding transparency levels (100,66,33,0). It was janky as it sounds, but it looked so much better on low resoution TVs of the day. Once better HD screens came out, the crappiness was more noticeable.

xattt3• 4 years ago

Tangential, but has there been any demoscene attempt to abuse the elements of the DVD-Video UI?

jchw2• 4 years ago

Closest I can think of, there is a demo (maybe a few) made to run as Bluray Java applets.

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=59098

dylan60415• 4 years ago

What to you mean by DVD-Video UI?

Edit: To the dead comment about JVM shipping with DVD. No, you are confusing DVD with Blu-ray. You may use the terms interchangably conversationaly, but they are 2 totally different things. DVDs were quite simple, but that's what made them so effective. While Blu-ray used Java, HD-DVD used ECMA script. They were both overcomplications to a situation nobody really cared about, a solution looking for a problem if you will.

paxys• 4 years ago

It's a stretch to assume that Apple had anything to do with the creation or mailing of this DVD. This stuff is handled by the production company.

rndgermandude• 4 years ago

They might not have authored it, but they certainly had to be asked for their approval prior to sending anything out with an Apple logo prominently displayed and a [redacted]@apple.com in the letter. And it's not unreasonable to think that a company that is a lot about brand message and identity as Apple would have had some feedback/required changes prior to finalizing and printing these things.

Maursault2• 4 years ago

And it's not unreasonable to think that a company that is a lot about brand message and identity as Apple would have had some feedback/required changes prior to finalizing and printing these things.

Apple has style-guides for every product and everything Apple, which whatever external contracted agency is provided and will meticulously follow. Unless novel design is involved, review is expedient. Any that have had previous contracts will become efficient and accurate. I've seen it with my own eyes happening so fast and quietly, and periodically, it's like they didn't want anyone to know they were making money between periods of inactivity, or that Apple had been their only client for many Moons (unclear).

Timwi• 4 years ago

I was confused by the “form over function” comment. The author commended Apple’s “prioritizing form over function” but then criticized the function of competing items, indirectly lauding the function of Apple’s product.

naoqj• 4 years ago

Is the comment about packaging a joke? That packaging is very standard.

dylan60415• 4 years ago

The whole thing is more or less a joke, so what about that particular part stood out to you?

Wowfunhappy5• 4 years ago

I feel obligated to point out that every Mac still ships with a non-removable app called “DVD Player” preinstalled, so DVDs are still supported in the Apple ecosystem.

philistine• 4 years ago

To work with the still sold external DVD player that they stock in every Apple Store: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD564LL/A/apple-usb-super...

Keep in mind this thing is USB-A, meaning you need an adaptor for any laptop sold in the last couple of years.

twmiller2• 4 years ago

I have a M1 Mac mini. It doesn't have a non-removable app called "DVD Player" on it. (Or, if it does, spotlight can't find it and I don't see it in the folder where I copied the 'apple droppings' apps to.)

gjsman-1000• 4 years ago

I have an M1 MacBook Air. It exists - the easiest way to summon it is to put in a DVD, but it can also be found by perfectly typing “DVD Player” in Spotlight.

kalleboo• 4 years ago

It's hidden in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/DVD Player.app

on my MacBook Pro 16" M1 Pro

lwkl• 4 years ago

There are some Mac users like my mother that still use this app today.

bluescrn• 4 years ago

Apple will still quite happily sell you a USB optical SuperDrive.

What's 'super' about is is the non-removable USB type-A cable, at a time when all their new machine are type-C only...

reaperducer2• 4 years ago

Coincidentally, at this very moment I'm ripping an old home video from DVD using an Apple SuperDrive on an M1 Mac.

The SuperDrive happily works with the M1, as long as it's connected via the little Apple adapter. When I try to use one from Anker or Amazon, the drive won't spin up, and macOS complains the device is drawing too much power.

I've ripped about 100 home movies for friends in the last couple of years. What I love about the SuperDrive is that even though it's old and slow, it is the most reliable piece of gear for this task.

Generally speaking, I start with a Pioneer Blu-Ray drive because it's fast fast fast. If that can't read the disc (because people are simply awful with the way they treat their most precious memories), then I try a Sony DVD drive. And if that fails, I go to the SuperDrive. So far, I've only had two discs that the SuperDrive couldn't read.

goosedragons2• 4 years ago

What I wonder is do they still actually make those or are they just burning through current supply? I can't imagine they still sell too many 10 years on...

vimy• 4 years ago

I’m one of those weird people that still watches DVDs on my Mac.

A couple years ago they rewrote the dvd app and dropped a ton of handy features. It’s very barebones now.

dylan60415• 4 years ago

The Screener DVD production process is a curious bit of insanity. The "production" area[0] for this work is in a "secured" area of a "secure" facility. First, to enter the building, you must place any and all electronic devices in a locker. Once your credentials are approved, you then must be metal detector wanded before entering production floor. Once on the production floor, you must then enter a separate area from the rest of your co-workers that is secured even further by restricted access card readers and secure cage (I'm dead serious). Cameras, and I do mean multiple, are everywhere in this area, not that there aren't cameras in the rest of the place. If you've never been through an MPAA security audit, count your blessings.

Once inside, the production is not dissimilar to normal short run DVD production. Standard DVD authoring software. Standard DVD burners. There are a few additional steps during video encoding that includes forensic watermarking and the pain in the arse that entails to ensure each disc is uniquely identifiable. Once the disc is burned, qc'd, and packaged, the physical media is then handled in also ridiculously security theater fashion. Lots of signatures and timestamps.

To leave, you must once again pass through security to make sure you haven't succumbed to the temptation of walking out of the facility with more than you entered. You can return to your locker to retrieve your personal devices before finally being able to leave.

[0] There are more than one company that does this work, but this is the description of where I worked many many moons ago.

Wowfunhappy5• 4 years ago

Do you happen to know whether the individual watermarking thing works? By which I mean, do these typically end up on torrent sites?

dylan60415• 4 years ago

When I was first introduced to the forensic watermarking software, I was very skeptical. I, along with fellow curious coworkers, took it upon ourselves to see if we could circumvent it. We did all of the things their marketing people claimed it could do (inverting, flipping, scaling, skewing, combos of these, etc), and at the end of each of these tests, the ID could be read back.

There were of course a few things we could do to make the ID unreadable, however it resulted in an unwatchable bit of video that would no longer be meaningful.

The system does work. Every screener season I was involved, people were caught. They didn't always make the news because not everyone released to torrent sites. There are other screener "crimes" that don't involve the police but perhaps loose future screener privilages.

There are other forensic techniques for feature films screened in theaters to catch camcorders. Modified versions of the content could be sent to different regions of the globe. When a pirated copy was found, they could look for these modified portions of content to narrow down what region was copied. These are innocuous things like changing the color of something in the background that oridinary people wouldn't even notice if it was changed from shot to shot. You'd also have to see the content from multiple regions to even possibly know that it was done. This is just one example.

kingcharles4• 4 years ago

LOL. You can buy them on eBay.

mrpippy• 4 years ago

For this Apple one it was a pressed DVD, would it be possible for those to be uniquely identifiable?

AMPAS has almost 10,000 members, presumably at that scale it makes sense to have pressed DVDs made.

For screeners just sent out to certain branches though, maybe burned DVDs make sense?

dylan60415• 4 years ago

Not all production companies choose to do the forensic watermarking distribution method. Production companies are cheap summabitches. The main users of the forensic watermarking services were the Majors (the traditional studios, not these young upstarts).

It could very well be possible that nobody working for this company even knows it's possible to do this. It could be possible they know and decided it's not worth their money for it. I cannot provide the definitive answer.

If it is a pressed DVD release, then there is no way for each disc to be unique without each disc having a glass master created which is just beyond the realm of sanity. Even with Apple having more money that God, this particular silo of the Apple universe cannot tap into it willy-nilly for something like this.

dylan60415• 4 years ago

As a follow up, I could think of one way that would make each disc identifiable, but not the content extracted from it, so it wouldn't realy make financial sense to me to do it. On the inner ring of the disc where the printing typically stopped could be placed a bar code or other type of marking that could ID the disc. All this would help find is someone in possession of something they were not issued, and trace back the person who did not follow screener policy of not letting unauthorized persons access to the content.

everyone2• 4 years ago

What I want to know is how do they prevent high quality copies of big films like 'spiderman: no way home' from being shared?

High quality copies were in thousands of cinemas all over the world for months and not a single copy leaked. How can that be possible?

dylan60415• 4 years ago

I have no definitive answer for you, but we can all spend some time coming up with plausible answers.

For the people that used to camcorder a theatrical showing, the studios cracked down on theaters to police themselves. Getting caught as your theater being the one allowing for this to happen would get your theater banned from receiving new content. Also, nobody wants these copies. They suck plain and simple. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

For the digital copies, other than the hacking examples like the Sony situation, most were rogue employees. Companies providing pre-release services have taken much more interest in their security both physical and network. Production companies have also become much more concious about who they work with and the threat of pre-release leaks is a big concern. If you're a service company chasing production company work, you're going to do what you need to make yourself a viable option.

kingcharles4• 4 years ago

The encryption system used for the hard drive deliveries in the cinemas is pretty locked down. The playback hardware also has anti-tamper stuff to put you off opening it and trying to rip it that way.

I'm still surprised it hasn't been broken though.

slg• 4 years ago

I understand all the copy protection that goes into screeners for first-run theatrical releases. The industry doesn't want their next $1b movie to hit torrent sites immediately on release. However it seems a little silly to put in all that work for movies that are already available to be watched at home and therefore can basically always be pirated from those sources which are usually much higher quality anyway.

dylan60415• 4 years ago

Are you 100% positive that the video you are streaming while logged into your account with your email address and billing address attached is not receiving a uniquely encoded video JIT style with a forensically identifiable ID? I wouldn't be so sure, but that's just me. What do I know?

yannikyeo• 4 years ago

Do they just watch on DVD resolution to select special effect winner? 1080p resolution and Blu ray has been with us for 15 years and they are still on DVD?

dylan60415• 4 years ago

they are still on DVD?

The SD resolution of the DVD screener is part of the security. It's not dissimilar to changing the port of SSH. It's just one more thing to make the time less desirable to copy. After all, who wants to pirate/share/download/watch a crappy SD video?

deergomoo• 4 years ago

I find it insane that DVDs are still so widely produced.

Who cares enough about movies that they want a physical copy, but not enough that watching standard def video blown up to 1080 or 4K is fine? That Venn diagram must overlap far more than I think it does.

maxerickson• 4 years ago

It can be the other way around, where people using DVDs don't have fast Internet or don't realize how convenient video on demand has become.

classichasclass2• 4 years ago

I'll throw in a data point here: I dislike streaming services on general principles (I have HBO Max, but it came with my AT&T plan) and I'll pick DVD if there's a substantial cost difference on a movie I'm not sure about. Likewise, I'll gravitate to BD/DVD combo packs for movies I do want to see because pretty much anything plays DVDs nowadays and I might want to watch it on the road.

Also, upscalers matter. To my nearly half-century eyes Sony upscalers aren't too bad. No one is claiming they're in any respect hi-def, but they're also hardly a miserable experience. Craptastic upscalers, on the other hand, are craptastic, sometimes from major brands who cheaped out.

blamazon• 4 years ago

Seems like it yep. At least every competitor is on the same playing ground video quality wise?

Also, OP article pointed out how most people screening these things "haven't touched their AV setups since 1999." Blu-Ray might be a nonstarter if you want to win the popularity contest. Lowest common denominator and all that.

An Apple Original on DVD: The Definitive Unboxing and UX Review

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