AppleTV 6.0 requires Fairplay-DRM Airplay Sources | Hacker News Reader

AppleTV 6.0 requires Fairplay-DRM Airplay Sources

weblog.rogueamoeba.com

101 pointsryansouza75 comments

Since 10.8, OS X has had native Airplay support. Even if your Mac doesn't have the hardware to do Airplay video, you can select Airplay as a sound output device. Applications can output to Airplay via the CoreAudio API, documented athttp://joris.kluivers.nl/blog/2012/07/25/per-application-air....

Of course, Windows users are pretty screwed.

iTunes on Windows can still do Airplay. I think a hacky solution would be to start an audio streaming server on localhost, add that source in iTunes and airplay it, and send all system audio to this local audio streaming server.

But 3rd-party software (like Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil) can offer a lot of nice features that are not present in 10.8: Routing of output from arbitrary apps to an AirPlay device (even without app-level support), simultaneous output to multiple Airplay devices throughout the home, graphic EQ, etc. etc.

> Routing of output from arbitrary apps to an AirPlay device (even without app-level support), simultaneous output to multiple Airplay devices throughout the home

Both of these things you can do with the built in AirPlay support in 10.8+

If this is your response then 1) you don't own Airfoil nor understand how nice it is compared to the simplistic ability 10.8 brought to the table 2) you don't have other sink sources that are non OS X.

How? I'm on 10.8.4, and in the 'Sound' preferences panel the only option I can see is to route all sound out to a single Airplay device (I can't multi-select more than one Airplay device).

Typical use case for me using Airfoil: Send Spotify output to an AppleTV, and a couple Airport Express devices, while all other apps send their output to my Mac's speakers.

what do you mean by "the hardware to do Airplay video" what kind of hardware would you need for that?

IIRC, newer Intel chips that support some video encoding standard.

Intel QuickSync video, iirc.

And this is the typical reason I cannot take Apple anymore. I've paid for numerous RogueAmoeba software licenses over the years and they are top notch. Apple decided, screw that we'll do it how we want it - because, you know, streaming audio in your house you should be doing it exactly how we told you too.

F you Apple. Nobody has cracked the open streaming audio nut, trivial as it may be. And the rest are left with junk, proprietary crap like this.

You might want to consider that there were licensing reasons behind this move.

Consider that AppleTV 6.0 now allows "AirPlay via iCloud", which means you can stream tracks you own on someone else's AppleTV where you haven't registered your iTunes account. Such a change might be one of the reasons for FairPlay encryption.

This might be a temporary issue where they open it up if enough people complain.

I can understand licensing issues. But since Airplay only runs on the local network segment, this shouldn't be an issue.

This has nothing to do with the local streaming issue. Playing via AirPlay is a different delivery mechanism and is tied to the hardware. No impact to Apple since RA doesn't participate in this mode of operation.

>And this is the typical reason I cannot take Apple anymore. I've paid for numerous RogueAmoeba software licenses over the years and they are top notch.

Well, RogueAmoeba wares was always a bunch of semi-legal stuff, utilizing kernel hacks, private APIs and such.

meh. It's your computer. We really should be allowed to use it however we wish, if whatever it is you're doing is fostering innovation or solving problems.

Maybe it should be looked at on a per-app basis. or company. Apple should have relationships with these very talented software shops. They should of course not support anything that would cause harm. In my wildest dreams, right?

semi-legal stuff

Ummmmm, I'm going to call BS on that. If What RA was doing was illegal Apple would have shut it down ASAP - especially if it was with regard to using some undocumented features of the core OS that Apple wanted to protect. We're talking about streaming audio here - locally on your network (yes, there is the possibility of routing this across networks but if you're going through that much trouble you can implement a homegrown system much more reliably).

I find it interesting people go to bat for Apple when Apple screws over devs that makes a great product - and obviously are fans of Apple, and no, nothing RA was selling was illegal, that's just unfounded FUD. I've asked RA repeatedly to just build an interoperable product that has it's own streaming components that runs this way on Linux. At the time they said they had no plans - I really hope Apple pushes these guys over the edge to build products that can bridge the OS gap. Apple won't ever do anything along those lines.

Apple TV, which requires me to ruin my media-collection with iTunes and only get content from the iStore: It was no thanks before. It's certainly no thanks now.

You can import DRM free content into iTunes with tools like iFlicks. But you are correct about the collection residing in iTunes.

> You can import DRM free content into iTunes with tools like iFlicks.

Or using File/Add to library (Cmd-O) in iTunes.

Just don't forget to turn off itunes file organization or it will relocate every file in your library (assuming you store it album artist -> album like most rippers default to creating).

Still recovering from this one, b/c I didn't know that it would do that...

iTunes organizes files the same way.

Unless they've changed it, it splits it out by performing artist, then album. This is really bad for soundtracks, but even a lot of albums with fine-grained ID3 tag accuracy gets screwed by it - you'll see things like "X Feat. Y"/"Album 1", "X Feat. Z"/"Album 1", etc.

I use plexconnect with mine and it works well. But it is a bit of a hack. I'm getting more and more convinced that switching to the roku would be better.

I did switch to the Roku, and, even speaking as somewhat of an Apple fanboy, it is miles better.

But no AirPlay (or anything like it built in), which is a pain. There are a couple of hacky third-party solutions.

The Roku remote on your iDevice will allow you to play the music on your iDevice on your TV. No hackiness required.

I've just bought one based on your comment and I've got more Apple kit than is probably healthy :) Just read about the Roku and it looks impressive.

I've got a MacBook, iPad, and iPhone, and I still love my Roku more than my old AppleTV. The only issue is that the AppleTV has better options for watching sports, but Plex alone more than makes up for that.

Roku and Plex are a match in heaven.

It's a little crazy that Roku has no YouTube and no AirPlay equivalent. Twonky Beam sort of bridges the gap, but the experience is terrible. I really wanted to replace ATV with Roku3, but I ended up switching back.

IIRC there is a YouTube plugin for Plex, but honestly I don't watch YouTube on the television so it does not affect my use-case.

I'm now worried that Apple will update the AirPort Express to require FairPlay for audio as well. The precedent has been set. (The Express + Airfoil makes for a really nice multiroom audio setup.)

Of course they will. Everyone was worried that they'd turn on the whole 'only run apps signed with an Apple ID' in Mac OS X, too. They did. Sure, you can manually turn it off if you're an advanced user, but most users won't (and won't know how), so you need to pay the 'Apple tax' as a software publisher on Mac OS X now, too. The walled garden's walls keep getting higher.

You seem to be engaging in some revisionist history of Gatekeeper. The original concern was that it would be turned to MAS apps only by default, which it wasn't (and still isn't in Mavericks). By default the only thing you need is a free developer certificate to distribute apps outside the MAS (or to tell your users to right click to open, which bypasses the restriction).

Whether or not Apple does something in the future is a separate question, but accusing them of something they haven't done (despite several opportunities) appears more than a little biased.

Update: I am 100% incorrect about the developer certificate being free. You must be a member of the $99/yr Mac dev program to get one. So score one for "raising the walled garden" and I will gladly eat this humble pie.

It’s not free actually, you have to sign up to the Mac Developer Program which costs $99 / year. I think it used to be free in the past (the certificate, not the membership) but now it isn’t.

I didn't believe you so I just checked and now it's time to eat crow! You are absolutely right. I will update the original to note that my statement is completely wrong.

Correct, IIRC in the keynote they said it would be free but that turned out to, ahem, not be the case.

And beyond the fee; I would love Gatekeeper if I could manage the certificates myself! I don't want the choice to be "Apple's feudal system" or "wild fucking west" exclusively.

IMO they are being complete shitbirds about app signing and I am actually surprised to hear Mavericks is not more restrictive. I fully expect them to lock it down at some point. (I've resolved to use only FOSS in the future and not buy Apple.)

Also I want really fine-grained permissions that I can disable to make system calls return fake information a la Cyanogen Mod.

You can manage the certs yourself. Absolutely nothing to prevent adding your own cert to keychain and signing an app with it.

seriously?

then does that mean all the CA's in my system keychain can sign apps and have them run without the "risky click" dialog?

Nope, CA needs to be explicitly added to gatekeeper. http://strangetheorists.tumblr.com/post/30515713765/using-ow...

This is great! Thanks ptomato

If that happens, someone will simply dump the keys out of the update and update the third party software, the same way we got third party AirPlay streaming the first time.

It doesn't require that at all. I keep all of my movies and tv shows on my mac and use AirVideo to stream them to my Apple TV using my iPhone or iPad (with no hacks, jail breaks, etc)

http://www.inmethod.com

You can watch any third party content you want on Apple TV so long as it's registered in iTunes and is an m4v.

That's what the "computers" tab is for.

I don't see why Apple would do this when the chromecast is out there...making a useful device and creating strong network effects for iOS and OSX hardware by making streaming anything from those devices onto tvs seems like a wiser choice than bending over for the media companies. It isn't as if labels will pull their music from iTunes Store at this stage of market penetration; if they were going to withdraw their consent they would have done it early.

ChromeCast has been breaking apps written to push to it as well: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/21/airplay-mirroring-android...

And honestly, if Google had any intention of having generally open access to it, they would have started with DLNA support, which would have allowed many phones to push to it out of the box. Instead expect it to stay heavily locked down and to only provide good support for getting users on to Chrome and Google Play.

Chromecast's API hasn't been finalized and their are huge warnings all over the documentation telling you to not release an app until the API is final. Apple has never released an API and has actively tried to stop things like Airfoil from working.

I'm successfully pushing local content to my Chromecast. The developer in question was using an undocumented API. If you use the documented APIs, things work just fine.

Reminds me of this:

http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/stickers/DBD-Sticker_002-jmt.svg

This is rather fucked up. The author does not provide any proof that Fairplay is the reason their app is not able to play. Of course HN crowd do not need proof to bring out the pitch forks. If they can show me proof I will definitely fall in line. In fact if the guys want some help fixing their app they should try talking to Apple and not try to sensationalize things and make false accusations.

Try talking to Apple! Hilarious!

Apple does not help with Airfoil. They would prefer it to simply go away. Interoperability is not their thing here.

I worked on Airfoil at RA for years, including a couple of major updates and many workarounds for problems like these (although generally less severe). Apple never returned our metaphorical calls.

Ok. May be Airfoil is not big enough to bother Apple. So are you saying sensationalizing things and making false accusations is the way to go? Because all I see here is that. I don't see proof in that post.

I'm simply saying that your notion of asking Apple for help with this issue is deeply misinformed.

Understood. I just hate these kind of posts where they have a title that the crowd wants to see but there is no proof.

Here ya go: https://gist.github.com/qdcarnicelli/6653766

Ten seconds of running WireShark and watching iTunes talk to an AppleTV running v6 will give you something like that, where iTunes and the AppleTV do much talking about 'fp-setup' and FPLY and handshake together.

Apple's AirPlay (AirTunes) devices have actually been doing these FPLY verifications for years now, but they were optional and talking to the devices with the older non-FPLY protocol worked. It's just as of Apple TV 6.0 that they appear to be dropping the old connection exchange and requiring the FPLY one to talk to the device.

I'm not quite sure what you think we have to gain by claiming we think FairPlay is required now, when it really wasn't? This weblog post was to inform our customers about an issue with our software and ATV 6. We'd all dearly love a solution.

Ok. From his reply I thought mikeash works for you guys and that you guys did not have proof. I will look through your github page.

...perhaps Apple's intent was simply to drop support for the extremely old clients that Airfoil was emulating? That seems like a much simpler explanation to me than some sort of nefarious plan to break Airfoil.

The fact that it requires DRM is clearly a nefarious plan to break third party usage in general, surely.

My suspicion would be that feature was added in response to external demands (e.g, movie/TV studios required it for remote playback), and making it mandatory was a later simplification.

Apple won't help them, because Airfoil is more or less a reverse engineering of Apple's protocol, and it's one that they choose not to share. This move was deliberately made to prevent apps like Airfoil from working. For what it's worth, I'm fine with it - Apple doesn't have to open their protocols just no like one has to buy their products, and Rogue Amoeba's complaints here are the same as anyone who builds off Google's APIs - if you're not paying for the product, expect it can go away at any time, taking your revenue with it.

Ah. Did not know that. It makes sense now.

Does anyone known if Beamer ( http://beamer-app.com/ ) still works with the update? I'm putting off updating until I know because I use Beamer all the time.

It still works, Beamer uses a different part of the AirPlay protocol ‘suite’. We’ve tested with the betas to ensure it would. (I’m one of the developers.)

I'm seriously getting sick and tired of all the peripherals and differing standards for every OS I need to buy and use just to play a goddamn song on my surround sound.

I'm confused. If I upgrade to Apple TV 6.0 will I still be able to Airplay DRM-free video that I've imported to iTunes?

Yes. They just require the source to be iTunes or the Mac.

On a side note, does anyone who has updated know if this adds 1080p mirroring yet or is it still ridiculously restricted to 720p?

Between Google Chromecast, Amazon's new "micro-console", numerous other Android "mico-consoles" and Roku, Apple's "hobby" project may be in for a real battle. Locking down the usability scenarios right now is not a good idea.

Except that Amazon just enabled AirPlay on their iOS app.

I never understood why anyone would buy an AppleTV when there are cheaper, much more capable alternatives that will play just about anything you can throw at it...without idiotic DRM restrictions.

Because if you live in the Apple ecosystem already, it makes tons of sense and is a welcomed addition to get the content you probably already have on to the one screen it wasn't yet on. My 10+ year iTunes collection sounds great coming out of my sound system, and I can control it from my iPhone. Being able to mirror my MacBook to my TV is also pretty great, and with Mavericks, it will have second-screen capability in addition to plain mirroring.

Also, iTunes content hasn't had DRM in years now, idiotic or otherwise.

Um, last time I checked, movies and TV shows purchased from iTunes were still locked down tight. For that matter, for a long-term user it is surprisingly easy to have random DRMed music in an iTunes library unless you were very diligent about paying to unlock it (as I discovered while uploading my wife's library to Amazon Cloud Player). Unless you have some bizarre definition of iTunes content that doesn't include those kinds of cases, you just don't know what you're talking about when it comes to iTunes DRM.

I don't understand why this comment is being downvoted. Is it a little abrasive? Sure. But it's also absolutely correct. The comment he's replying to is simply misinformed. While it's true that iTunes music got rid of DRM years ago, iTunes video content still has it. If you're buying movies or TV shows to watch on an Apple TV, that content is locked into Apple's ecosystem unless you manage to crack their DRM.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com