AppleTV 6.0 requires Fairplay-DRM Airplay Sources

http://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2013/09/20/warning-on-apple-tv-version-6-0/

by ryansouza • 13 years ago

101 75 13 years ago

weblog.rogueamoeba.com

josteink• 13 years ago

Apple TV, which requires me to ruin my media-collection with iTunes and only get content from the iStore: It was no thanks before. It's certainly no thanks now.

mrbuttons454• 13 years ago

You can import DRM free content into iTunes with tools like iFlicks. But you are correct about the collection residing in iTunes.

robotresearcher• 13 years ago

You can import DRM free content into iTunes with tools like iFlicks.

Or using File/Add to library (Cmd-O) in iTunes.

baudehlo• 13 years ago

I use plexconnect with mine and it works well. But it is a bit of a hack. I'm getting more and more convinced that switching to the roku would be better.

jamesaguilar2• 13 years ago

I did switch to the Roku, and, even speaking as somewhat of an Apple fanboy, it is miles better.

CrazedGeek• 13 years ago

I'm now worried that Apple will update the AirPort Express to require FairPlay for audio as well. The precedent has been set. (The Express + Airfoil makes for a really nice multiroom audio setup.)

JohnTHaller• 13 years ago

Of course they will. Everyone was worried that they'd turn on the whole 'only run apps signed with an Apple ID' in Mac OS X, too. They did. Sure, you can manually turn it off if you're an advanced user, but most users won't (and won't know how), so you need to pay the 'Apple tax' as a software publisher on Mac OS X now, too. The walled garden's walls keep getting higher.

sneak• 13 years ago

If that happens, someone will simply dump the keys out of the update and update the third party software, the same way we got third party AirPlay streaming the first time.

i3863• 13 years ago

It doesn't require that at all. I keep all of my movies and tv shows on my mac and use AirVideo to stream them to my Apple TV using my iPhone or iPad (with no hacks, jail breaks, etc)

http://www.inmethod.com

parasubvert2• 13 years ago

You can watch any third party content you want on Apple TV so long as it's registered in iTunes and is an m4v.

That's what the "computers" tab is for.

rdl• 13 years ago

I don't see why Apple would do this when the chromecast is out there...making a useful device and creating strong network effects for iOS and OSX hardware by making streaming anything from those devices onto tvs seems like a wiser choice than bending over for the media companies. It isn't as if labels will pull their music from iTunes Store at this stage of market penetration; if they were going to withdraw their consent they would have done it early.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

ChromeCast has been breaking apps written to push to it as well: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/21/airplay-mirroring-android...

And honestly, if Google had any intention of having generally open access to it, they would have started with DLNA support, which would have allowed many phones to push to it out of the box. Instead expect it to stay heavily locked down and to only provide good support for getting users on to Chrome and Google Play.

jonknee• 13 years ago

Chromecast's API hasn't been finalized and their are huge warnings all over the documentation telling you to not release an app until the API is final. Apple has never released an API and has actively tried to stop things like Airfoil from working.

JSadowski• 13 years ago

I'm successfully pushing local content to my Chromecast. The developer in question was using an undocumented API. If you use the documented APIs, things work just fine.

thex86• 13 years ago

Reminds me of this:

http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/stickers/DBD-Sticker_002-jmt.svg

archgrove• 13 years ago

Since 10.8, OS X has had native Airplay support. Even if your Mac doesn't have the hardware to do Airplay video, you can select Airplay as a sound output device. Applications can output to Airplay via the CoreAudio API, documented athttp://joris.kluivers.nl/blog/2012/07/25/per-application-air....

Of course, Windows users are pretty screwed.

induscreep• 13 years ago

iTunes on Windows can still do Airplay. I think a hacky solution would be to start an audio streaming server on localhost, add that source in iTunes and airplay it, and send all system audio to this local audio streaming server.

chockablock2• 13 years ago

But 3rd-party software (like Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil) can offer a lot of nice features that are not present in 10.8: Routing of output from arbitrary apps to an AirPlay device (even without app-level support), simultaneous output to multiple Airplay devices throughout the home, graphic EQ, etc. etc.

i3863• 13 years ago

Routing of output from arbitrary apps to an AirPlay device (even without app-level support), simultaneous output to multiple Airplay devices throughout the home

Both of these things you can do with the built in AirPlay support in 10.8+

gdamjan1• 13 years ago

what do you mean by "the hardware to do Airplay video" what kind of hardware would you need for that?

bvttf• 13 years ago

IIRC, newer Intel chips that support some video encoding standard.

notatoad• 13 years ago

Intel QuickSync video, iirc.

windexh8er4• 13 years ago

And this is the typical reason I cannot take Apple anymore. I've paid for numerous RogueAmoeba software licenses over the years and they are top notch. Apple decided, screw that we'll do it how we want it - because, you know, streaming audio in your house you should be doing it exactly how we told you too.

F you Apple. Nobody has cracked the open streaming audio nut, trivial as it may be. And the rest are left with junk, proprietary crap like this.

parasubvert2• 13 years ago

You might want to consider that there were licensing reasons behind this move.

Consider that AppleTV 6.0 now allows "AirPlay via iCloud", which means you can stream tracks you own on someone else's AppleTV where you haven't registered your iTunes account. Such a change might be one of the reasons for FairPlay encryption.

This might be a temporary issue where they open it up if enough people complain.

coldtea• 13 years ago

And this is the typical reason I cannot take Apple anymore. I've paid for numerous RogueAmoeba software licenses over the years and they are top notch.

Well, RogueAmoeba wares was always a bunch of semi-legal stuff, utilizing kernel hacks, private APIs and such.

GoldfishCRM• 13 years ago

Stupid is as stupid does.

yalogin5• 13 years ago

This is rather fucked up. The author does not provide any proof that Fairplay is the reason their app is not able to play. Of course HN crowd do not need proof to bring out the pitch forks. If they can show me proof I will definitely fall in line. In fact if the guys want some help fixing their app they should try talking to Apple and not try to sensationalize things and make false accusations.

mikeash4• 13 years ago

Try talking to Apple! Hilarious!

Apple does not help with Airfoil. They would prefer it to simply go away. Interoperability is not their thing here.

I worked on Airfoil at RA for years, including a couple of major updates and many workarounds for problems like these (although generally less severe). Apple never returned our metaphorical calls.

yalogin5• 13 years ago

Ok. May be Airfoil is not big enough to bother Apple. So are you saying sensationalizing things and making false accusations is the way to go? Because all I see here is that. I don't see proof in that post.

qdcarnicelli• 13 years ago

Here ya go: https://gist.github.com/qdcarnicelli/6653766

Ten seconds of running WireShark and watching iTunes talk to an AppleTV running v6 will give you something like that, where iTunes and the AppleTV do much talking about 'fp-setup' and FPLY and handshake together.

Apple's AirPlay (AirTunes) devices have actually been doing these FPLY verifications for years now, but they were optional and talking to the devices with the older non-FPLY protocol worked. It's just as of Apple TV 6.0 that they appear to be dropping the old connection exchange and requiring the FPLY one to talk to the device.

I'm not quite sure what you think we have to gain by claiming we think FairPlay is required now, when it really wasn't? This weblog post was to inform our customers about an issue with our software and ATV 6. We'd all dearly love a solution.

yalogin5• 13 years ago

Ok. From his reply I thought mikeash works for you guys and that you guys did not have proof. I will look through your github page.

duskwuff2• 13 years ago

...perhaps Apple's intent was simply to drop support for the extremely old clients that Airfoil was emulating? That seems like a much simpler explanation to me than some sort of nefarious plan to break Airfoil.

eddieroger2• 13 years ago

Apple won't help them, because Airfoil is more or less a reverse engineering of Apple's protocol, and it's one that they choose not to share. This move was deliberately made to prevent apps like Airfoil from working. For what it's worth, I'm fine with it - Apple doesn't have to open their protocols just no like one has to buy their products, and Rogue Amoeba's complaints here are the same as anyone who builds off Google's APIs - if you're not paying for the product, expect it can go away at any time, taking your revenue with it.

yalogin5• 13 years ago

Ah. Did not know that. It makes sense now.

rbritton• 13 years ago

On a side note, does anyone who has updated know if this adds 1080p mirroring yet or is it still ridiculously restricted to 720p?

booruguru• 13 years ago

I never understood why anyone would buy an AppleTV when there are cheaper, much more capable alternatives that will play just about anything you can throw at it...without idiotic DRM restrictions.

eddieroger2• 13 years ago

Because if you live in the Apple ecosystem already, it makes tons of sense and is a welcomed addition to get the content you probably already have on to the one screen it wasn't yet on. My 10+ year iTunes collection sounds great coming out of my sound system, and I can control it from my iPhone. Being able to mirror my MacBook to my TV is also pretty great, and with Mavericks, it will have second-screen capability in addition to plain mirroring.

Also, iTunes content hasn't had DRM in years now, idiotic or otherwise.

fpgeek• 13 years ago

Um, last time I checked, movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes were still locked down tight. For that matter, for a long-term user it is surprisingly easy to have random DRMed music in an iTunes library unless you were very diligent about paying to unlock it (as I discovered while uploading my wife's library to Amazon Cloud Player). Unless you have some bizarre definition of iTunes content that doesn't include those kinds of cases, you just don't know what you're talking about when it comes to iTunes DRM.

AJ007• 13 years ago

Between Google Chromecast, Amazon's new "micro-console", numerous other Android "mico-consoles" and Roku, Apple's "hobby" project may be in for a real battle. Locking down the usability scenarios right now is not a good idea.

Terretta• 13 years ago

Except that Amazon just enabled AirPlay on their iOS app.

brandon272• 13 years ago

I'm confused. If I upgrade to Apple TV 6.0 will I still be able to Airplay DRM-free video that I've imported to iTunes?

i3863• 13 years ago

Yes. They just require the source to be iTunes or the Mac.

donatj• 13 years ago

Does anyone known if Beamer ( http://beamer-app.com/ ) still works with the update? I'm putting off updating until I know because I use Beamer all the time.

eelco• 13 years ago

It still works, Beamer uses a different part of the AirPlay protocol ‘suite’. We’ve tested with the betas to ensure it would. (I’m one of the developers.)

thrillgore• 13 years ago

I'm seriously getting sick and tired of all the peripherals and differing standards for every OS I need to buy and use just to play a goddamn song on my surround sound.

AppleTV 6.0 requires Fairplay-DRM Airplay Sources

Related Stories