DVD copy hack

This hack was sent to me by a guy (thanks Taps!) and it allows the NorthQ to copy files from a DVD-Video to the hard-disk.

Unfortunately the files copied to the hard-disk still contains the CSS encryption . And since the NorthQ does not seem to decrypt .VOB files played from the HD, the result if you try to play them from the hard-disk is pretty bad.

	Open the players DVD-tray (press OPEN/CLOSE on the remote control).
	Press the buttons "2003" on the remote control, you will then get the message on the left on your TV screen.

From now on, the NorthQ won't play a DVD-Video if it is inserted in the DVD tray. Instead it will show the directory structure of the DVD.

	Here I have inserted the DVD-Video "Office Space" in my NorthQ. As you can see, the NorthQ now enters the SmartNAVI menu and shows the directory structure of the DVD.
	If I scroll down to the VIDEO_TS directory (where the actual movie is located), you can see that it holds 12 files. Press "ENTER" on the remote control to go down into the VIDEO_TS  directory.
	Here you can see the files that makes up the DVD movie. These are the files you can copy to the hard-disk. Look here for information about how to copy them.

When I copied all files from the DVD-Video "Office Space" to the hard-disk, and tried to play these files, it didn't work very well.

	Often the clips starts out very good...
	...but after a second or two, the picture gets worse and worse.
	Here is another example.

To find out what caused the bad picture quality, I did some more tests:

	Removed the hard-disk with the copied DVD-files from my NorthQ and connected it to my PC.
	Copied one of the .VOB-files from the NorthQ hard-disk to my PC.
	Inserted the "Office Space" DVD in my computer DVD.
	Made a standard drag-&-drop copy of the same .VOB-file from the PC DVD to the PC hard-disk (this does not remove the CSS encryption from the file copied to the hard-disk).
	Made a binary compare of the two files.

Unfortunately, the compare showed that the two files were identical! This means that the NorthQ does not remove the CSS encryption from the files when it copies them from DVD to hard-disk.

So the bad picture quality when playing files (copied from a CSS encrypted) from the hard-disk is most likely from the fact that the NorthQ does not decode CSS-encrypted files when playing them from the hard-disk.

To get back to normal mode again, open the DVD tray and press the buttons "2003" on the remote control. You will then get the message on the left on your TV screen. Now, if a DVD-Video is inserted in the NorthQ, it will start playing the movie instead of entering the SmartNAVI menu.

I don't know if this is useful for anyone, but it's worth a try!

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