Hacker News Reader

Yes, but then why do they need to reverse engineer anything? Can't they use a capture card?

They can, it's called "webrip" then (also in the article).

Creates an obvious problem though.

What is this "obvious problem"?

Aside from the quality loss due to re-encoding - which should be identical to the loss encountered when capturing digital video and audio output, assuming the capture is done correctly - I fail to see anything "obvious".

I assume it's per stream identifiable information added by the stream provider, making the identity of the ripper traceable

Sorry - clearly wasn't thinking straight - their alternative approach has this same issue (and having now read the article! - They do plan around this)

Presumably this is still present in the encoded stream they decrypt. I believe the way around this is by prepaid accounts etc and throwaway emails. High end piracy like this is big business. Correct me if I’m wrong about the IDs in the stream though.

Edit: I just saw parents reply. It took a while to type this out on my phone :/

You can only record in real time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com