"Star Wars" Won't Play on this Mac? Really?

[Davoud]

I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:

"The selected movie won't play on your display.

"This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
(High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."

The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
RAM, 4GB VRAM.

What the hell!?

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

[Don Bruder]

In article <161220151251598477%st...@sky.net>, Davoud <st...@sky.net>
wrote:

> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>
> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>
> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>
> What the hell!?

Say "Thank you, DRM"...

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

[android]

In article <n4s9g5$ipl$1...@dont-email.me>, Don Bruder <dak...@sonic.net>
wrote:

> In article <161220151251598477%st...@sky.net>, Davoud <st...@sky.net>
> wrote:
>
> > I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> > seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
> >
> > "The selected movie won't play on your display.
> >
> > "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> > (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
> >
> > The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> > RAM, 4GB VRAM.
> >
> > What the hell!?
>
> Say "Thank you, DRM"...

To the OP: Since you have a recent oninall unit we can only come to the
conclusion that you've deliberately inflicted a physical hack on it.
Thou should not do stuff like that... The proper agencies are most
likely to be informed by AIAs patrolling the USENET. The public can thus
rest easy!
--
teleportation kills

[Andre G. Isaak]

In article <161220151251598477%st...@sky.net>, Davoud <st...@sky.net>
wrote:

> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>
> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>
> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>
> What the hell!?

I had this happen once (and said message appeared for all HD video).
Logging out and back in fixed it. Since it hasn't occurred since, I
haven't tried to isolate a cause.

Andre

[JF Mezei]

On 2015-12-16 12:51, Davoud wrote:

> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."

That is an improvement. Apple used to just display a grey screen without
any explanation.

> What the hell!?

You can thank Hollywood for that. Rights "negotiations" force
distributors such as Apple to ensure DRM all the way to the screen. In
fact, Apple got a special deal to allow Quicktime DRM which is generally
not included in other contracts (which specify specific version of Flash
or Silverlight).

A Apple display port to HDMI adaptor will generally provide the illusion
of HDCP and let HD content through. So you need an HDMI capable display.

This is because Hollowood believes people would record the video signals
(they are digital) and recreate the movie file from them.

[JF Mezei]

On 2015-12-16 12:51, Davoud wrote:

> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.

Normally, iMacs are considered DRM acceptable as you can't extract the
video signal from it since the monitor is embedded.

Wikileaks had released those Sony documents which included a lot of
contracts for distribution of dontent and those contracts contain all
the restrictions and requirements imposed on content distributors.

[Jolly Roger]

Davoud <st...@sky.net> wrote:
> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>
> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>
> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>
> What the hell!?

I purchase DVDs and use Handbrake or similar to encode them digitally
instead to avoid this sort of nonsense.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

[Davoud]

Davoud:

> > I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> > seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
> >
> > "The selected movie won't play on your display.
> >
> > "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> > (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
> >
> > The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> > RAM, 4GB VRAM.
> >
> > What the hell!?

Don Bruder:

> Say "Thank you, DRM"...

Really? After using iTunes since Day 1, watching many, many purchased
DRM movies without a single problem, suddenly DRM is a problem? That
doesn't compute.

[Jolly Roger]

Davoud <st...@sky.net> wrote:
> Davoud:
>>> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
>>> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>>>
>>> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>>>
>>> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
>>> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>>>
>>> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
>>> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>>>
>>> What the hell!?
>
> Don Bruder:
>> Say "Thank you, DRM"...
>
> Really? After using iTunes since Day 1, watching many, many purchased
> DRM movies without a single problem, suddenly DRM is a problem? That
> doesn't compute.

Nonsense. The reason you are posting is because DRM is preventing you from
watching this movie.

[JF Mezei]

On 2015-12-16 14:42, Davoud wrote:

> Really? After using iTunes since Day 1, watching many, many purchased
> DRM movies without a single problem, suddenly DRM is a problem? That
> doesn't compute.

HDCP DRM requirememt only applies to HD content. SD/DVD is not limited
to HDCP displays.

Note that embedded screens (like on iMac) are excluded from HDCP
requirement.

[Savageduck]

On 2015-12-16 19:42:21 +0000, Davoud <st...@sky.net> said:

> Davoud:
>>> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
>>> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>>>
>>> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>>>
>>> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
>>> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>>>
>>> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
>>> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>>>
>>> What the hell!?
>
> Don Bruder:
>> Say "Thank you, DRM"...
>
> Really? After using iTunes since Day 1, watching many, many purchased
> DRM movies without a single problem, suddenly DRM is a problem? That
> doesn't compute.

Have you contacted iTunes for refund?

--
Regards,

Savageduck

[Ed H.]

In article <161220151251598477%st...@sky.net>, Davoud <st...@sky.net>
wrote:

> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>
> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>
> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>
> What the hell!?

I got that warning on a download of The Blacklist. Is the video quality
HD? I don't know if this will help you, but what I did was copy the
downloaded movie off my hard drive and deleted the original (and
emptied the trash). In iTunes I tried to play it (or maybe restart
iTunes) and it couldn't find it so it showed up as a cloud download
again. Before I did that, in iTunes I went under my user name and
selected Purchased. I unchecked 'Download HD When Available' and
re-downloaded it. This time it downloaded an SD version. The SD version
plays in iTunes and QuickTime Player 10.x, but not in QuickTime Player
7.

--
Ed H.

[Davoud]

Davoud:

> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>
> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>
> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>
> What the hell!?

None of the DRM horse-shit explains why the video will play on my
Mid-2012 MBP Retina and on my Apple TV. Any ideas from persons who do
not have an ax to grind?

[Alan Browne]

On 2015-12-16 12:51, Davoud wrote:

> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.
>
> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
>
> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.
>
> What the hell!?

Meant to be played via an Apple TV, perhaps?


--
"But I am somehow extraordinarily lucky, for a guy with shitty luck."
..Harison Ford, Rolling Stone - 2015-12-02

[Neill Massello]

Davoud <st...@sky.net> wrote:

> None of the DRM horse-shit explains why the video will play on my
> Mid-2012 MBP Retina and on my Apple TV. Any ideas from persons who do
> not have an ax to grind?

Is the iMac signed in to the same iTunes Store account as the other
devices?

[David Empson]

Davoud <st...@sky.net> wrote:

> Davoud:
>
> > I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> > seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
> >
> > "The selected movie won't play on your display.
> >
> > "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> > (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."
> >
> > The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> > RAM, 4GB VRAM.
> >
> > What the hell!?
>
> None of the DRM horse-shit explains why the video will play on my
> Mid-2012 MBP Retina and on my Apple TV. Any ideas from persons who do
> not have an ax to grind?

The problem is triggered by the DRM, because as far as iTunes can tell,
your iMac's internal display does not have a copy protected video path.

This might be a bug affecting your iMac model (probably in the OS or its
video drivers but it might be an iTunes bug), or might be a random
glitch that could be fixed by restarting, or might be something messed
up on your particular iMac, or caused by third party software installed
on that computer which is interfering with the video path.

More information would help: which OS X version are you running, which
iTunes version, and have you you tried restarting yet?

Do you have any external displays connected, or software which pretends
to be an external display? If so, disconnect the display or disable that
software and try again.

Have you tried creating a new user account, signing in to the same Apple
ID and playing the movie from iTunes in that account? (It will require
authorising that user account to play content from iTunes using your
Apple ID, but you can deauthorise it again after the test.)

Have you tried starting in safe mode to disable third party software, or
tried booting from a separate clean system with no third party software
installed?

The Retina 5K iMacs have a somewhat unusual video display interface,
involving two display channels (each driving half of the display) bonded
together. It is possible that this breaks something to do with DRM, but
I'd be very surprised if Apple hadn't allowed for protected content in
the design, suggesting a bug or software conflict is more likely than a
fundamental compatibility problem.

--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz

[Davoud]

David Empson:

> The problem is triggered by the DRM, because as far as iTunes can tell,
> your iMac's internal display does not have a copy protected video path.

If the latter part of the above is true, then I would rephrase that as
"the problem is triggered by a bug in iTunes." But please see my
"SOLVED..." post.

> More information would help: which OS X version are you running, which
> iTunes version, and have you you tried restarting yet?

Always the latest version of everything. Keeping my Mac OS and other
software up to date has served me well since 1985.

> Have you tried creating a new user account, signing in to the same Apple
> ID and playing the movie from iTunes in that account? (It will require
> authorising that user account to play content from iTunes using your
> Apple ID, but you can deauthorise it again after the test.)
>
> Have you tried starting in safe mode to disable third party software, or
> tried booting from a separate clean system with no third party software
> installed?

I have only rarely resorted to the measures that you mentioned because
when I did I found them unhelpful. In any event, I quickly learned that
this problem is not rare, that it is not limited to certain hardware,
and that DRM does not seem to play a part in it.

[JF Mezei]

On 2015-12-16 17:56, Davoud wrote:

> None of the DRM horse-shit explains why the video will play on my
> Mid-2012 MBP Retina and on my Apple TV. Any ideas from persons who do
> not have an ax to grind?

MacBook Pro: integrated screen. No way to steal the video signals.

AppleTV: video output is HDMI which includes HDCP to prevent video
signal from being copied.

[JF Mezei]

On 2015-12-16 23:38, Davoud wrote:

> I have only rarely resorted to the measures that you mentioned because
> when I did I found them unhelpful. In any event, I quickly learned that
> this problem is not rare, that it is not limited to certain hardware,
> and that DRM does not seem to play a part in it.

It is the DRM code which blocks the video from being displayed. Perhaps
because some other part of the system supplies the DRM code with buggy
information.

[Lewis]

In message <161220151251598477%st...@sky.net>

Davoud <st...@sky.net> wrote:
> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:

> "The selected movie won't play on your display.

> "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP
> (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."

> The iMac is not exactly ancient: Late 2014, Retink 5K, 27-inch. 32 GB
> RAM, 4GB VRAM.

Do you have an external display connected?

--
There are strange things done in the midnight sun/By the men who moil
for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales/That would make your
blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,/But the
queerest they ever did see Was the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge/
When I cremated Sam McGee

[Your Name]

In article <5672497f$0$44405$c3e8da3$aae7...@news.astraweb.com>, JF

You can steal any video ... *at* *worst* all you do is set up a video
camera pointed at the screen. All this crapping about with protection
systems is pointlessly silly, same as it has been on software, DVDs,
etc. for decades. If someone wants to steal it bad enough, they'll find
a way.

[JF Mezei]

On 2015-12-17 01:35, Your Name wrote:

> You can steal any video ... *at* *worst* all you do is set up a video
> camera pointed at the screen. All this crapping about with protection
> systems is pointlessly silly, same as it has been on software, DVDs,
> etc. for decades. If someone wants to steal it bad enough, they'll find
> a way.

DVI connections are digital, so theoretically, taking those signals you
can reconstitute perfect copy of the video portion of a movie. Not the
vase for VGA which was analogue so you had a digital source going
analogue (not HD) and then converted back to digital.

Simularly, camera in front of display is not a proepr digital copy as it
is an analogue copy with loss of quality.


Yes, I agree Hollywood is just not recognizing we are in 21st century
and does not wish to admit that the correct way to end piracy is to
offer content ar low price without DRM or other hindrances that make
purchased copies less quality and more trouble than pirated ones. It
should be the opposite.

But companies like Apple, Netflix and the others have to abide by
Hollowood rights contracts.

Those contracts go down to stipulation of garantees the distributor's
clocks are accurate so that it does not allow streaming of content 1
second after expiration of license.

[Bernd Fröhlich]

Davoud <st...@sky.net> wrote:

> I bought the original Star Wars movie from iTunes as a refresher before
> seeing the new one. An attempt to play it gives me this:
>
> "The selected movie won't play on your display.

And that is exactly the reason why I won´t ever buy films with
view-prot, ähhh, copy-protection.

When the film industry releases DRM-free material I will start buying
it. (Like I do with music since it is available DRM free in the iTunes
store.)