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The best YouTube downloaders, and how Google silenced the press

(windowsread.me)
439 points Leftium | 13 comments | 19 Sep 25 12:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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nitwit005 ◴[19 Sep 25 21:40 UTC] No.45306994[source]▶
This seems to be starting with the assumption that it's possible to prevent people from downloading the videos. That is a false assumption. You can, after all, just play the video and record it. Even if the entire machine playing the content is flawlessly locked down, you can just record the output.

The efforts at DRM done by companies like Netflix is done because the companies that licensed the content demand it. That doesn't mean the DRM works. You can find torrents of all those shows.

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1. dylan604 ◴[19 Sep 25 23:03 UTC] No.45307818[source]▶
> That doesn't mean the DRM works. You can find torrents of all those shows.

Causation does not mean correlation. The vast majority of content available via torrents did not come from breaking a streamer's DRM.

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2. nitwit005 ◴[19 Sep 25 23:13 UTC] No.45307906[source]▶
I didn't say anything about breaking the DRM. I suggested there's no reason to.
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3. crazygringo ◴[19 Sep 25 23:14 UTC] No.45307913[source]▶
It didn't? Then how are they getting the streamed bits directly? Since there's generally a torrent available that is the direct source, no re-encoding.

Or do you mean they read the source from hacking into a memory buffer after the player does decryption but before decoding, instead of doing the decryption themselves?

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4. dzhiurgis ◴[19 Sep 25 23:56 UTC] No.45308252[source]▶
AFAIK HDMI protects from direct ripping so how do they actually do it?
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5. lucb1e ◴[20 Sep 25 00:40 UTC] No.45308587{3}[source]▶
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content... You mean this? Doesn't sound that hard to bypass
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6. dylan604 ◴[20 Sep 25 00:46 UTC] No.45308627[source]▶
I’m saying they are getting the original from different sources than a streaming platform
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7. BolexNOLA ◴[20 Sep 25 01:00 UTC] No.45308720{3}[source]▶
Eh sort of sometimes maybe. Lots of hardware/cables out there that don’t care what you’re doing. I can use an ATEM mini to grab basically anything I want so long as I’m down to capture in real time.
8. encrypted_bird ◴[20 Sep 25 01:01 UTC] No.45308728{3}[source]▶
I don't see how that would work with videos that don't have differeny original sources. For example, Netflix-original shows/movies. While a small fraction are released on DVD/Blu-ray, the vast majority are only accessible through Netflix, nowhere else.
9. nitwit005 ◴[20 Sep 25 01:25 UTC] No.45308963{3}[source]▶
I assume HDCP is the reason a lot of ripped content is not in 4K (or because needs a more expensive Netflix subscription). It sounds like people just bypass it by using an HDMI splitter however.
10. veegee ◴[20 Sep 25 02:13 UTC] No.45309536{3}[source]▶
Very easy to remove it with an HDCP remover like HDFury, or even an HDCP downconverter and then using the known master keys to decrypt that.
11. dzhiurgis ◴[20 Sep 25 05:13 UTC] No.45310587{4}[source]▶
Looks like old version. 1080p max perhaps?
12. pta2002 ◴[20 Sep 25 09:45 UTC] No.45311854[source]▶
This is completely bullshit. If you find a proper download, you’ll usually see something like “NFLX.WEB-DL” on the file name. That means it got ripped and downloaded from Netflix.

The DRM decryption isn’t the hard bit - it’s actually mostly a standard thing, and there are plenty of tools on GitHub that will decrypt it from you if you have a key, e.g. Devine.

The issue is mostly around getting a key, but those are easy enough to get if you know where to look (e.g. TV firmware dumps).

Once you have this though, and any piracy group will have this, it’s so much easier to do this than to screen record, and will give you the original quality as well.

13. pta2002 ◴[20 Sep 25 09:48 UTC] No.45311868[source]▶
Ripping the HDMI stream (which is usually still breaking DRM!) is going to force you to reencode the video which will inevitably lose quality. You might also end up with UI elements on the screen and won’t be able to get subtitles out.