Is this news somehow, been using handbrake since 2012!
Because https://twitter.com/lego_operator/status/1461077353476628488
which is relevant to a high profile trial contention.
HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
61–70 of 117 posts
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing has changed here. I get Blurays in mail from Netflix, rip them via MakeMKV, re-encode with Handbrake and put them on Synology NAS for later convenient viewing via Vero4k. Disk space is cheap, skipping stupid menus and previews is priceless!
Does MakeMKV have some sort of magic fairy dust that allows them to rip blu rays? It seems weird to me that a random closed source tool on the internet does this, and the fact that ffmpeg can’t do it after all these years feels really weird.
Seems like it in my experience. Basically, I think people "find" decryption keys and then MakeMKV integrates them.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
To expand: It was discussed extensively in the Rittenhouse court case today that the prosecution provided the defense with a much lower quality of a particular video file (one that was also possibly cropped) than what the prosecution possessed. The prosecution contends this was an accident and the transcoding occurred when they AirDropped it from one phone to another and then emailed it from their personal Gmail acco…
HN isn't the right place to discuss most of the aspects of this case, but I will just say that there have been multiple tech stories that have come out of that trial that highlight how antiquated our legal system can be in terms of understanding technology and the repercussions from that ignorance are troubling.
It's a big problem with this case. The judge has admitted that he basically knows nothing about technology, and the lawyers clearly don't know a lot either. The prosecution in particular has made several blatantly false statements about how interpolation works when resizing images, but it's impossible to know if that's due to ignorance or malice. The bigger problem is the judge just accepts these statements without any expert to confirm them. It really feels like there should be a tech expert on standby (one provided by the court, not the prosecution or defense, so generally a neutral party, like other court staff should be).
What really shocked me was the carelessness in handling critical digital evidence in such an important trial - lots of discussion of Airdropping, emailing, Dropboxing, etc. You'd think critical video evidence would be controlled and only played back in an appropriately-vetted player without any software scaling (or at least only with known scaling) on approved devices. Checksums would be checked to ensure videos were unmodified, etc.
Instead, they're using random laptops, Windows Media Player at times, VLC at others, personal phones, 4K TVs that apparently the defense brought in, etc. And none of the lawyers in that courtroom understand that every single one of those can and will affect the way the video is presented.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#64For context, today in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the prosecution (ADA Kraus) claimed that he was basically technically illiterate and basically didn't know about transcoding, not in as many words. A review of previous video testimony from PBS's live feed showed that he (Kraus) had Handbrake in the directory that he was showing the video from. That's not a normal application one would just have floating around. The b…
> the prosecution (ADA Kraus) claimed that he was basically technically illiterate > A review of previous video testimony from PBS's live feed showed that he (Kraus) had Handbrake in the directory that he was showing the video from So someone who is technically illiterate (let's take their claim at face value) has evidence tampering tools visible on their machine? Where's the chain of custody on the original file con…
I've been watching most of this trial. As far as I can tell there is no chain of custody for video, and no one in the courtroom seems to think this is unusual.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing has changed here. I get Blurays in mail from Netflix, rip them via MakeMKV, re-encode with Handbrake and put them on Synology NAS for later convenient viewing via Vero4k. Disk space is cheap, skipping stupid menus and previews is priceless!
Does MakeMKV have some sort of magic fairy dust that allows them to rip blu rays? It seems weird to me that a random closed source tool on the internet does this, and the fact that ffmpeg can’t do it after all these years feels really weird.
Yes. Specifically, it has the ability to decrypt commercial encrypted Blu-ray content. How they manage to keep up with updates the publishers put out I don't know, but they've typically got an update to MakeMKV within a few days.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#66For context, today in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the prosecution (ADA Kraus) claimed that he was basically technically illiterate and basically didn't know about transcoding, not in as many words. A review of previous video testimony from PBS's live feed showed that he (Kraus) had Handbrake in the directory that he was showing the video from. That's not a normal application one would just have floating around. The b…
> Kyle Rittenhouse trial what is this trial about?
I purposefully left it out, but left just enough to google, because the trial itself is a political hotbed and has nothing to do with the technical/court discussion. This will degenerate off-topic quickly.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN isn't the right place to discuss most of the aspects of this case, but I will just say that there have been multiple tech stories that have come out of that trial that highlight how antiquated our legal system can be in terms of understanding technology and the repercussions from that ignorance are troubling.
watching the proceedings of this trial, I've been blown away at how lax the standards are for digital evidence submission and presentation. from some friends in law I've talked to this seems pretty darn common. how is there not some kind of startup centered around this specific use case?
There's plenty of products for digital evidence management, especially now that bodycams on police officers are so common. But it would seem that many courts have not caught up on this yet.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing has changed here. I get Blurays in mail from Netflix, rip them via MakeMKV, re-encode with Handbrake and put them on Synology NAS for later convenient viewing via Vero4k. Disk space is cheap, skipping stupid menus and previews is priceless!
Does MakeMKV have some sort of magic fairy dust that allows them to rip blu rays? It seems weird to me that a random closed source tool on the internet does this, and the fact that ffmpeg can’t do it after all these years feels really weird.
I belive they have a legitmatly obtained decryption key. I don't know how they managed to license one, though, one would imagine the powers that be would hate it.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the speculation is that because he had free transcoding software on his desktop, that he understands transcoding?
The generous explanation is that it’s just a coincidence that he had handbrake installed. The malicious explanation is that he intentionally downgraded the video quality with handbrake (or some other means) before handing over the evidence. Keeping in mind that the video was the only thing shared with Kyle’s lawyer that was not shared via Dropbox, per his lawyer.
> The malicious explanation is that he intentionally downgraded the video quality with handbrake
The problem is that in the trial, the prosecution actually said "Our versions are much clearer". They also used algorithmic enhancements and blowups on the bad copy to show to the court.
Here's the link (https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1461034426717122572) but I remember watching this in the trial and people were commenting on it in realtime. The defense even mentioned they weren't given the copy.
Re: HandBrake – An open source video transcoder
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing has changed here. I get Blurays in mail from Netflix, rip them via MakeMKV, re-encode with Handbrake and put them on Synology NAS for later convenient viewing via Vero4k. Disk space is cheap, skipping stupid menus and previews is priceless!
Does MakeMKV have some sort of magic fairy dust that allows them to rip blu rays? It seems weird to me that a random closed source tool on the internet does this, and the fact that ffmpeg can’t do it after all these years feels really weird.
No fairy dust, but you do need to re-flash the firmware on your bluray drive to make it work. As far as I know bluray drive manufacturers (and there's a handful at most at this point) have tried to disable ripping.
MakeMKV has been around a long time, works well and it's not what I would call a "random" closed source tool.