[mythtv-users] The Status of MythTV on the PS3

Charles Mason charlie.mas at gmail.com
Fri Aug 10 14:54:38 UTC 2007


> > Are you able to get BluRay playback from within Linux and thusly within
> > MythTV? If MythTV runs well on it for HD content and it's easy to play
> > BluRay then I'm sold and will join the BluRay camp. I'll relegate my LCM16
> > setup to my bedroom.
> >


>
> I think you mis-understand me. I'm not running Myth on the PS3. I'm running
> Yellow Dog Linux, Terrasoft's PS3 version. I am able to play HD files using
> mplayer from the command line.
>
> I did try accessing a Blu-Ray disk from Linux with no luck. This is likely due
> to the "advanced" content protection of the disk, I suspect if you had a
> non-protected BR disk you could access the data on it, but that's only
> speculation at this time.

Blue Ray Support in Linux would be really nice but its unlikely to
happen any time soon.

Firstly when any none Sony OS is run on the PS3 Sony runs it in a sort
of hardware virtualisation mode. In the background there is still some
Sony code running restricting access to certain pieces of hardware, in
particular the entire GPU. So OpenGL on Linux can't access it. I am
sure this is to make sure any commercial game developer has to pay
Sony the license fee and percentage of game sales. That way Sony
aren't risking the standard console business model by allowing Linux
to run.

Secondly Blue Ray can't be played on Linux by any open source app at
the moment. This is because of the security wrapper Blue Ray and HD
DVD both use called AACS (if i have remembered the acronym correctly).
Like with DVD you have to be a big commercial software vendor with
deep pockets to get access to AACS. The problem is that unlike DVD
once someone got the keys to break DVDs copy protection the format was
broken wide open forever. AACS has an extremely complicated process
where it effectively gets nearly infinite goes at securing all new
disks.

On certain parts of the net there is an going cat and mouse game to
get the latest AACS keys for Blue Ray and HD DVD. So far they have
been fairly successful. But up to once every 90 days (is the rumoured
time frame) the AACS people can change the Keys of new disks rendering
old keys useless for old players. So may be one day there will be a
Linux Blue Ray player but it will have to use a database of broken
AACS keys to access the content and only being able to play new
content as its broken.

So if the PS3 ever became able to play Blue Ray disks on Linux its
likely AACS would compel Sony to make a "security update" to stop
this. Certainly if it was done by using the PS3s existing AACS
credentials used by the Game OS there access to Blue Ray could be
revoked by the AACS people. I can't see it coming to that, Sony bared
from access to its own invention it spent years championing, although
its technically possible.

So whilst you can get certainly get Linux h.264, and MPEG2 playing
software it can't get through the AACS layer in any reliable way to
get at the content.

Charlie


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