Mod Chip Raids

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 1, 2007, 9:22 pm

(AP) -- Federal customs agents Wednesday raided more than 30 businesses and homes, looking for devices that let pirated video games play on Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360, and Nintendo's Wii.

The alleged sale and distribution of illegal modification chips and copyright circumvention devices for the popular consoles and others included 32 search warrants in 16 states, said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE declined to release the names of those targeted or any other details.

The illegal chips and other devices used on gaming consoles violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Sales of counterfeit or illegally obtained games costs the industry about $3 billion a year globally, not including Internet piracy, estimates the Entertainment Software Association trade group.

"Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections," Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, said in a release. "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering."

The federal raids came after a yearlong investigation conducted by ICE's Office of the Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Cleveland, which coordinated with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio and the Department of Justice's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section.

ICE said it also received technical assistance from the software association and other industry members.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. issued a statement applauding ICE's efforts to reduce piracy and protect the gaming industry's intellectual property. A company spokeswoman would not divulge Microsoft's individual piracy losses.

Shares of Microsoft added 15 cents to $29.14 in afternoon trading, while Sony Corp. dipped 44 cents to $52.30.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Sony just can't win!

miir · Post by **miir** » August 2, 2007, 10:40 am

The correlation between stock prices and this little nugget of non-news is tenuous at best.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » August 2, 2007, 11:08 am

Ahhh, i love living in a country where getting a chip installed that allow you to play LEGAL backup copies of your games (good if you have kids for example) or play LEGAL privately imported games you cant get anywhere else (Katamari Damacy never had an euro release, only We

Katamari got released in europe), are actually LEGAL

.

My nice PS2 got a nice legally installed chip, i even got 1 year warranty on both chip and PS2, since i paid to get the store to install the chip for me, would woid the guarantee if i were to open my PS2 and install it myself.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 2, 2007, 1:27 pm

miir wrote:The correlation between stock prices and this little nugget of non-news is tenuous at best.

I'm sure it had close to zero impact on the stock price. I found it funny that they mentioned the stock prices at all in the article. People buying that day wouldn't have known about the raids most likely.

Stopping pirates doesn't translate into revenue either. Piracy in the case of Windows probably actually helped. It probably helps with the current 360's as you can't play the games online anyway which is typically the appeal so the pirated games turn out to be mostly "deluxe" demos. You also still aren't going to get many that are willing (more like have the knowledge and capability) to download 27GB for a game which is what it will take to play Blue Dragon.

On the other hand, HD-DVD and Blu Ray movie images are being posted on the newgroups now, re-encoded into WMV-9 (1280x720) format with a file size of a DL-DVD ~8GB. I grabbed 300 the other day to see how the quality was compared to well encoded Xvid movies in the 800mb-1.6GB range. It's debatable so far. The Breakfast Club has been posted so I'll grab that and see how older films look. I can easily tell the better quality of John from Cincinnati 1 hour episodes that are 700mb in size compared to the typical 350mb file size so it will be hard to resist not grabbing the higher quality versions.

With cheap 750 GB HDs now (and Im sure 1TB in a few months etc etc), you could have about 80 HD movies on of them compared to ~800 Xvid movies. Whether I buy a movie or not, I don't use DVDs and don't plan on using HD-DVD or Blu Ray as having copies on a HD is much better for HTPCs. Just as many people grab no CD cracks for games they purchase, I'll be shelving the Blu Ray/HD-DVD movies and grabbing the re-encoded versions to place on my media server. If it were possible with the 360/PS3, this line of thinking would also apply to 360/PS3 games as playing them off a HD is a speedier solution. The hacked Xbox with advanced homebrew dashboards serving up excellent selection menus for games and media stored on the hard drive was great.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » August 2, 2007, 2:21 pm

Winnow wrote: On the other hand, HD-DVD and Blu Ray movie images are being posted on the newgroups now, re-encoded into WMV-9 (1280x720) format with a file size of a DL-DVD ~8GB. I grabbed 300 the other day to see how the quality was compared to well encoded Xvid movies in the 800mb-1.6GB range. It's debatable so far. The Breakfast Club has been posted so I'll grab that and see how older films look. I can easily tell the better quality of John from Cincinnati 1 hour episodes that are 700mb in size compared to the typical 350mb file size so it will be hard to resist not grabbing the higher quality versions.

pfft... why the fuck would you download a degraded/re-encoded hddvd? wtf! I downloaded overnight the 28+ gig version of 300... can't wait to watch it.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » August 2, 2007, 2:29 pm

Some movies warrant a 28+ GB download. 300 isn't one of them.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » August 2, 2007, 2:50 pm

I just bought it since I enjoyed it so much. No download, encoding, burning, wiring, etc.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » August 2, 2007, 2:51 pm

Boogahz wrote:I just bought it since I enjoyed it so much. No download, encoding, burning, wiring, etc.

dvd or hddvd? big difference!

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » August 2, 2007, 2:55 pm

Fash wrote:
Boogahz wrote:I just bought it since I enjoyed it so much. No download, encoding, burning, wiring, etc.
dvd or hddvd? big difference!

Um, no. No difference.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 2, 2007, 2:56 pm

Fash wrote:
Winnow wrote: On the other hand, HD-DVD and Blu Ray movie images are being posted on the newgroups now, re-encoded into WMV-9 (1280x720) format with a file size of a DL-DVD ~8GB. I grabbed 300 the other day to see how the quality was compared to well encoded Xvid movies in the 800mb-1.6GB range. It's debatable so far. The Breakfast Club has been posted so I'll grab that and see how older films look. I can easily tell the better quality of John from Cincinnati 1 hour episodes that are 700mb in size compared to the typical 350mb file size so it will be hard to resist not grabbing the higher quality versions.
pfft... why the fuck would you download a degraded/re-encoded hddvd? wtf! I downloaded overnight the 28+ gig version of 300... can't wait to watch it.

What format is it in its native form? Are you burning it to HD DVD/Blu Ray? There are very few movies I can think of that I'd download the full sized HD-DVD/Blu Ray size for.

8GB is the sweet spot for me! Takes about 1:15 mins @ 12.65 Mbps

Aardor · Post by **Aardor** » August 2, 2007, 3:15 pm

Winnow wrote:
miir wrote:The correlation between stock prices and this little nugget of non-news is tenuous at best.
You also still aren't going to get many that are willing (more like have the knowledge and capability) to download 27GB for a game which is what it will take to play Blue Dragon.

I am confused...Blue Dragon is on HD-DVD?, or is it on multiple DVDs? or does something have to be unpacked for the hacked game?

Additionally, where do you download HD quality movies? I was using btjunkie to download a few, but it takes 1 week + to download all 30GB (it's not internet speed, i have a 10mbps connection).

Fash · Post by **Fash** » August 2, 2007, 3:20 pm

Winnow wrote: What format is it in its native form? Are you burning it to HD DVD/Blu Ray? There are very few movies I can think of that I'd download the full sized HD-DVD/Blu Ray size for.

8GB is the sweet spot for me! Takes about 1:15 mins @ 12.65 Mbps

I've downloaded native hddvd and blu-ray, and some that come down as wmv... i use powerdvd for most of them, media player classic for others.. I'm not burning them, just using the PC and my 24" widescreen. I want the quality!!

edit: just uncompressed 300.. it's native hd-dvd format, plays in powerdvd, and looks fucking incredible.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » August 3, 2007, 2:58 pm

http://consoletech.net/forum/showthread ... 13#post813 if interested in seeing one of the search warrants. Interesting to note they mention "vintage video-games or ROMS".

Looks like the FBI pulled some phat lewtz from that residence!

Fash · Post by **Fash** » August 3, 2007, 3:16 pm

funny that they grabbed stuff like a super nintendo... the cops who do the searches don't know anything.

I once had a computer 'seized' (unjustly and only temporarily)... they also took VHS tapes that happened to be near the desk.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 3, 2007, 6:11 pm

Aslanna wrote:http://consoletech.net/forum/showthread ... 13#post813 if interested in seeing one of the search warrants. Interesting to note they mention "vintage video-games or ROMS".

Looks like the FBI pulled some phat lewtz from that residence!

Interesting reading the actual warrant and what they confiscated.

From the looks of it, he was running a business modding Xbox 360's so at least it appears they aren't going after the end-users yet. I remember when DirecTV raided some big Access Card businesses up in Canada years back. They got a hold of their sales/mailing records and send threatening letters to everyone on the list. I wasn't on the list but one of my friends was. I think all he had to do was sign up for a legit subscription to DirecTV and he was off the hook.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » August 3, 2007, 6:16 pm

I just got a message on myspace today saying that a copyright claim had been filed against me for my "chronic-what-cles of Narnia" video I had on there. They sent me a message saying that this company could sue, and I may be required to pay for their service to clear things up, like you said about your friend winnow.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » August 3, 2007, 7:16 pm

Fash wrote:funny that they grabbed stuff like a super nintendo... the cops who do the searches don't know anything.

Are you serious about this? You do realize that there are/were modded SNES consoles as well, right?

I saw a modded SNES unit out of Singapore capable of playing NES, SNES, Gamecube, Dreamcast, and PS1 games several years back.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » August 4, 2007, 8:10 am

Funkmasterr wrote:I just got a message on myspace today saying that a copyright claim had been filed against me for my "chronic-what-cles of Narnia" video I had on there. They sent me a message saying that this company could sue, and I may be required to pay for their service to clear things up, like you said about your friend winnow.

Well, the companies just use a buckshot technique to try and get people to pay. We had 1 guy at a danish university that got threatened with major lawsuits for having hosted the Doom movie.
Unfortunately, the "movie" he hosted was a 17kbit file called doom.exe used to kill processes

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » August 5, 2007, 9:37 pm

Not totally related to the main thread but why does PowerDVD suck so much?

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » August 5, 2007, 11:26 pm

Aslanna wrote:Not totally related to the main thread but why does PowerDVD suck so much?

In fact, not even tangential as far as I can work out... anyway, what about it sucks? I don't have much trouble with it... but then I rip everything I buy before I play it, so perhaps it's all the UOP shite giving you issues?

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » August 5, 2007, 11:35 pm

Zaelath wrote:
Aslanna wrote:Not totally related to the main thread but why does PowerDVD suck so much?
In fact, not even tangential as far as I can work out... anyway, what about it sucks? I don't have much trouble with it... but then I rip everything I buy before I play it, so perhaps it's all the UOP shite giving you issues?

Well Fash mentioned it first so there is a bit of relation!

And I have no idea what UOP stands for. Sorry!

VeeshanVault

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