m4v vs wmv for playing videos on the n7

[EpicBlender]

Hopefully I'm posting this in the right spot, if I'm not I apologize.

I have a few DVD's/Blu-Rays that have come with digital copies of the movie, but when I got to download them I have to select between an itunes version (an m4v file I'm guessing) and a windows version (wmv, again, guessing). Does the nexus 7 play one or the other or both? If it plays both, are they both of the same quality? I've never used digital copies before, so I'm fairly new to all this.

Thanks in advance.

 

[bigtroutz]

Hopefully I'm posting this in the right spot, if I'm not I apologize.

I have a few DVD's/Blu-Rays that have come with digital copies of the movie, but when I got to download them I have to select between an itunes version (an m4v file I'm guessing) and a windows version (wmv, again, guessing). Does the nexus 7 play one or the other or both? If it plays both, are they both of the same quality? I've never used digital copies before, so I'm fairly new to all this.

Thanks in advance.

there are apps that will play either of those, altho I would use the .m4v format in general unless you have some overwhelming reason to do otherwise.

MXplayer, BSplayer, DicePlayer are some well known examples that will play .m4v or .wmv (and a zillion other formats) videos.

 

[B. Diddy]

Keep in mind that those digital copies are DRM protected, so you won't be able to simply transfer them to your N7 to watch. What I do is download the wmv version, then use Tunebite by Audials to re-record it (which is legal because of something called the analog loophole). You can re-record it into a different format--in the case of the N7, into MP4, which can be played natively. Then you can transfer that video onto your N7 and enjoy watching it. Silly, yes, but it's the only way I know of to do it legally.

 

[MJKearney]

Keep in mind that those digital copies are DRM protected, so you won't be able to simply transfer them to your N7 to watch. What I do is download the wmv version, then use Tunebite by Audials to re-record it (which is legal because of something called the analog loophole). You can re-record it into a different format--in the case of the N7, into MP4, which can be played natively. Then you can transfer that video onto your N7 and enjoy watching it. Silly, yes, but it's the only way I know of to do it legally.

Diddy, I'm curious about how you would playback the DRM copy otherwise. What devices are they intended to be played back on? I don't mean to doubt your word, but why wouldn't the N7 play it back if it's the original copy that's being used?

Also, I think the "analog loophole" you mentioned is why the duplication company I used to work for would make a single copy of a VHS (remember those?) copyrighted movie for consumers, with the idea being the customer could then archive the original. But we would always refuse to make additional copies. I'm not sure if this was technically legal in terms of our company doing it, but we did it anyway. Of course, any time we made only a single copy for someone, we probably lost money (corporate and educational duplication in the hundreds and thousands was our niche), but we did it as a good will gesture.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok, so this is my understanding of the whole Digital Copy thing, based on prior experience. The Digital Copies that you can transfer from DVDs are DRM protected (which makes sense, because the studios would otherwise be afraid that people would download the movie, copy it, and distribute it to whomever they want). When Digital Copies were physically on DVDs (as opposed to being downloadable, which is the standard now, I think), you had the option of transferring them to your computer either on iTunes or WMP. You could only choose this ONCE--i.e., if you decided to transfer the iTunes version, and then later changed your mind and wanted the WMP version instead, you were out of luck.

If you chose the iTunes version, you could then watch the movie on iTunes on your computer or sync it with your iOS devices--but the only way you could get it onto your iOS device was to sync it, and I think you were limited to how many devices or how many times you could sync it.

The same thing applied to the WMP version, but the problem was that in order to watch it on a device, it had to sync with WMP using their now defunct PlaysForSure protocol. You couldn't just transfer the file itself to your device--if you did, you'd get a message saying the video couldn't be played. Since PlaysForSure went away in 2008, there really aren't many WMP-based options to play these Digital Copies. I think (but am not sure) that syncing the video to a non-PlaysForSure device still didn't render the video playable on the device, but others can correct me if I'm wrong.

So I don't think the N7 will play back an original Digital Copy because there's no way to reliably sync it to preserve the DRM. The only way to play it that I'm aware of is to get rid of the DRM by re-recording it using 3rd party programs like Tunebite. The "analog loophole," from what I've read, is a loophole in the digital copyright laws that makes it legal to play a digital video on your computer and use a separate program to re-record the video while it's playing in the media player. This re-recorded video is DRM-free, and as long as it's not used for monetary gain, is legal.

Nowadays, I think movie studios have stopped putting Digital Copies on the DVD to transfer, and instead give you a code to download the video from their website, typically using some proprietary download manager. I believe you still get to choose between iTunes and WMP, and the resulting video that you download still can't be transferred in a simple way to your device to watch--it still has to be synced.

Hopefully, I'm not completely wrong here and seeming like a total buffoon--but seriously, if I am wrong, by all means let me know, because things may have changed since I first started dealing with this.