Windows Media Player 9

[Rory]

Have been testing video with alot of different players and couldnt for the life of me get any protected .wmvs to work with a comp. that I installed Windows Media Player 9 Beta on. Here are the release notes for it which is fairly alarming and im sure will effect a bunch of you in here. Here it is from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...r/relnotes.asp :

"Access Denied" errors
If you manage or host a site that features media, be aware that to increase the security of the Windows Media 9 Series platform, Microsoft has removed all support for the HTTP Basic Authentication protocol for streaming media.

Support was removed because the HTTP Basic Authentication protocol sends the user?s credentials over the network without the use of any encryption. This means that malicious users can monitor network traffic and obtain user credentials in streaming scenarios, because none of the streaming media protocols support Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The Windows Media 9 Series platform components offer the Digest and Negotiate (NTLM/Kerberos) authentication protocols as replacements for the inherently insecure HTTP Basic authentication protocol.

For content that is served from a Web server using SSL (e.g., HTTPS://), you can still use HTTP Basic authentication with Windows Media 9 Series components. SSL provides a layer of encryption to help protect the end user credentials even when HTTP Basic Authentication is used. If SSL is not employed, HTTP Basic authentication will not work, and the Player will respond with the error "Access denied."

Does anyone have any ideas? I imagine that putting them in a dir that is protected with .htaccess referer check may work, but I would imagine that there must be a more effective method. I really hate the thought of pulling my videos out of the members area and putting them in a dir that is checked by referer and or cookies which seem so easily spoofable. Please if anyone else has any ideas, I just see this as a huge future problem when its added to the windows update or some shit. I can just imagine all the emails right now...... The greatest thing is that it is impossible to unistall it from windows XP or ME. Read the release notes , only way to get it offf your system is to do a system restore. Does anyone else see this as a major issue once this thing is in release and starts coming installed on new os's (cant really figure out how you will do a system restore from a fresh install...)......

Rory

[Shoplifter]

Have them right click and download the damn videos.

[m0rph3us]

good job microsoft. Video site users love to stream the videos. It's stupid that they don't support htaccess now.

I guess it's time to offer users the old version on WMP or a different player

Damn it .. why does VISA & Micosoft have to make this so fucking hard for us.

[Rory]

The thing that is really bugging me about this is the fact that I know that alot of people are going to install this (its actually being pushed as the 1st option on the microsoft site) without even realizing that they will be locking themselves out of there favorite porno sites. The fact that they cant uninstall it (try installing it on XP or ME) IMO really places the responsibility on site owners. I mean you wont be able to tell them they will need to revert to an older version since its fairly impossible. However alot of people use windows media player since it comes right out of the box on windows machines. How frustrating.....

Rory

[BrettJ]

so this will only really affect free movie sites ..?

member areas can just be put in a secure area - https ... and they are still good to go, eh?

[hibbidiji]

Hey,
I was at th Windows Media 9 developers summit, and I have all the info on 9, including the SDK... Are you trying to protect these movies with DRM and THEN have them downloadable with HTTP? or are you just having problems with ALL 9 encoded movies?
Drew

[Calvinguy]

Originally posted by BrettJ
so this will only really affect free movie sites ..?

member areas can just be put in a secure area - https ... and they are still good to go, eh?

Https is used for secure transactions... not a memebersarea.... too slow for that

[m0rph3us]

well free movie sites don't use HTTP auth so they won't be affected.

I can't even IMAGINE the chargebacks and bitches when people start installing this shit and saying 'wtf, your videos don't work'

!!! die gates. you're making my life fucking hell.

Anybody know an alternative video player that works for all OSs ?

[Rory]

Originally posted by hibbidiji
Hey,
I was at th Windows Media 9 developers summit, and I have all the info on 9, including the SDK... Are you trying to protect these movies with DRM and THEN have them downloadable with HTTP? or are you just having problems with ALL 9 encoded movies?
Drew

All iam doing is streaming the movies with Cleaner 5 then uploading them to my members area which is protected with normal .htaccess password protecion. I dont wanna make my members area ssl, just wanna let people watch the videos lol. Iam not encoding them with the 9 codec, but as mosts people just use there default player anytime a wmv is clicked it pops up windows media player 9 (when its installed on that persons pc). Even with my mpg's when I installed windows media player 9 it took over those file associations as well. I understand that I can just download a different player, my concern is people who just wanna watch the video and not have to i nstall different players, etc.

Rory

[magnatique]

ahh man... more problems...

first, there's the aol player that is a bitch....

NOW, the damn player 9 does it on us?

anyone knows if using php to parse in the username and pass before the movie will work?

I.e;
http://login:[email protected]/movies.wmv would work?

or does 9 work fine when a user auth himself in first and then browses (from within the member's area) to the movies??

is that thing in the upcoming releases, or already functional?

[ZoiNk]

Originally posted by m0rph3us
well free movie sites don't use HTTP auth so they won't be affected.

I can't even IMAGINE the chargebacks and bitches when people start installing this shit and saying 'wtf, your videos don't work'

!!! die gates. you're making my life fucking hell.

Anybody know an alternative video player that works for all OSs ?

RealOnePlayer does windows media files, but not by default yet, you have to go into updates, drivers, then download support for windows media files. It is still a beta, which is probably why it is there, once a final version is out, I can see a lot of ppl switching. Realplayer was shit, realoneplayer rocks!
ZoiNk

[PaulSweet]

Its good that MS is pushing their beta product out into the market like this for everyone to do their testing work for them....makes sense to me.

[grumpy]

build your own active x player and no more problems...well thats what id did.

[Rory]

Originally posted by magnatique
ahh man... more problems...

first, there's the aol player that is a bitch....

NOW, the damn player 9 does it on us?

anyone knows if using php to parse in the username and pass before the movie will work?

I.e;
http://login:[email protected]/movies.wmv would work?

or does 9 work fine when a user auth himself in first and then browses (from within the member's area) to the movies??

is that thing in the upcoming releases, or already functional?

Tried parsing with $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] and $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] and no dice. Windows media didnt even wanna find the file with that method let alone give me an access denied. The player is not allowing the user to auth himself (ie popup username/password) UNLESS its an https connection. I encourage everyone to try it out on a test machine. Its ridiculous, the user doesnt even have an option to turn it off thats what really pisses me off. The fact that they made it impossible to uninstall and no way to disable has really got me worried and Im surprised that more people here dont seem to be concerened.

It doesnt matter if you embed the player into a page, etc. , if the end user is using Windows Media Player 9 when a file is requested anywhere behind your .htaccess file its not going to work. Try it folks, its not very fun =(.

Rory

[Rory]

Originally posted by ZoiNk


RealOnePlayer does windows media files, but not by default yet, you have to go into updates, drivers, then download support for windows media files. It is still a beta, which is probably why it is there, once a final version is out, I can see a lot of ppl switching. Realplayer was shit, realoneplayer rocks!
ZoiNk

If Real Player came installed on every windows PC out of the box (with support for most file types), and they didnt install so much other crap on your computer when you install it that may actually be a real option.

Rory

[Mr.Fiction]

I thought that was just a problem with the beta.

Now we find out that it's a "feature".

Great.

[LBBV]

Does anyone have any ideas? I imagine that putting them in a dir that is protected with .htaccess referer check may work, but I would imagine that there must be a more effective method.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, using a referrer-based method does not work, because of the following reasons:

1. When you do a "right-click/save as", a referrer is not passed.

2. If you just open them using any Windows Media Player, a referrer is not passed.

We wrote a program called "PRS" (Private Referrer System) that our customer use. Basically, it uses a combination of protection methods. It uses a combination of referrers, PHP sessions and directory renaming. The directory renaming is there in case someone is able to circumvent the referrer and/or the session. Even if they do get around the first two and hot link the movies, the URL that they link to is only valid for 3 minutes.

We have quite a few of our customers using it on their third-party plugins and it works quite well.

You might try doing something like that, if you're handy with PHP. You could even write a small PERL script that renamed the directories and automatically updated your members movie page with the new "renamed" URL.

[Rory]

Originally posted by LBBV
Does anyone have any ideas? I imagine that putting them in a dir that is protected with .htaccess referer check may work, but I would imagine that there must be a more effective method.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, using a referrer-based method does not work, because of the following reasons:

1. When you do a "right-click/save as", a referrer is not passed.

2. If you just open them using any Windows Media Player, a referrer is not passed.

We wrote a program called "PRS" (Private Referrer System) that our customer use. Basically, it uses a combination of protection methods. It uses a combination of referrers, PHP sessions and directory renaming. The directory renaming is there in case someone is able to circumvent the referrer and/or the session. Even if they do get around the first two and hot link the movies, the URL that they link to is only valid for 3 minutes.

We have quite a few of our customers using it on their third-party plugins and it works quite well.

You might try doing something like that, if you're handy with PHP. You could even write a small PERL script that renamed the directories and automatically updated your members movie page with the new "renamed" URL.

That may be our only option at this point it seems. Thanks for the constructive advice, I will put together something in PHP and see what I can do.

Hey Microsoft

Rory

[Darkystar]

Originally posted by Rory


Tried parsing with $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] and $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] and no dice. Windows media didnt even wanna find the file with that method let alone give me an access denied.

I have no idea why it didn't work for you but the code below makes movies inside protected zone play fine in Windows Media Player 9, at least it works for me and my friends

PHP Code:

<a href="http://<? echo $PHP_AUTH_USER, ":", $PHP_AUTH_PW, "@", $HTTP_HOST; ?>/members/movies/blabla.wmv" >link</a>

[Apollo]

Originally posted by Rory
The thing that is really bugging me about this is the fact that I know that alot of people are going to install this (its actually being pushed as the 1st option on the microsoft site) without even realizing that they will be locking themselves out of there favorite porno sites. The fact that they cant uninstall it (try installing it on XP or ME) IMO really places the responsibility on site owners. I mean you wont be able to tell them they will need to revert to an older version since its fairly impossible. However alot of people use windows media player since it comes right out of the box on windows machines. How frustrating.....

Rory

I agree, and WMP 9 is irreversible. You have to completely reinstall windows (and I believe a clean version at that) to go back to an earlier version. That's information straight from MS' tech support

[Mutt]

This is only a problem for sites who use http streaming am i correct? If the movies are on a Windows Media server this problem doesn't happen I suspect.

LBBV is your system for people who use http streaming or it also a solution for people who use Windows Media server to stream movies and don't want clever surfers to find out the mms: addresses of the streams?

I do see a lot of people using this constantly renamed directory thing but i'm not sure if it is a solution for people who actually do real streaming via a media server versus people who just put their movies in a directory on an Apache web server.

[Pornwolf]

I hate to say this but Real Player is becoming my favorite.

It plays all formats. How can you beat that. WM9 is demon spawn. I've never seen anything like that. Irreversible!!!

Real's Helix server setup is fantastic as well.

Damn. Look how quickly the tide turned.

[DirkPitt]

Did we ever find a solution?

[FadeEP]

I had a authentication problem but MS released a patch for it

[DirkPitt]

see here

[Nasty D]

Microsoft has really dropped the ball...good thing all our members also have the quicktime option for now until WMP9 gets its shit together. Thanks Bill, great fricken DEVIL product!

[uptheyingyang]

Originally posted by Darkystar


I have no idea why it didn't work for you but the code below makes movies inside protected zone play fine in Windows Media Player 9, at least it works for me and my friends

PHP Code:

<a href="http://<? echo $PHP_AUTH_USER, ":", $PHP_AUTH_PW, "@", $HTTP_HOST; ?>/members/movies/blabla.wmv" >link</a>

sorry to bump an old thread, but these guys were having the same problems a few month's ago, that i'm encountering now.

this "fix" sounds interesting, exactly how is it implemented?

rename members navbar to ".php" extension?

can anyone expand on this---sounds like a good solution if it works.

thanks!

[johnbosh]

huh????

[uptheyingyang]

using internet explorer and windows media player 9 that combination will not open movies in my member's area---it will only open movies outside the members area (in areas not password protected) --- tried it on 3 different machines, win98, winxp and win2000.


but, what's weird is that using netscape and quicktime the member's area mpg files will load and play fine, the same file that wmp9 gives me a "could not find filter" error. drives me nuts.

i don't use much video, but i'm trying to get it to work so most surfers can access it.

just looking for the best approach. and by now i've downloaded every patch and codec i can find, still using the IE and WMP9 combination i can not open movies protected in my member's area

[Calvinguy]

Just update your player. That error was fixed long time ago

[Trax]

Originally posted by Calvinguy
Just update your player. That error was fixed long time ago

thought the same

[SGS]

Yes, update needed

Unless Microsoft has done something stupid again...

[uptheyingyang]

ok, i'll uninstall and download a new one, and see if it fixes it.

thanks you guys.

[uptheyingyang]

well that didn't work.

$50 paypal to the first person that can show me how to do this.

thanks.

[tony286]

isnt it better to have them right click and save them then stream them. That way they want to play it 100 x its on tthier computer.

[uptheyingyang]

tony404,

do you have IE and wmp9 installed, maybe we can do some testing, solve the problem, and i can paypal you $50?


when using IE, wmp9 won't let me right click and save---it just automatically opens when clicking the video file link---then it starts to load, then gives an error and stops.

that's when using IE6 and wmp9.

i enter the same member's protected area with netscape which has quicktime setup as it's default player, and the file plays fine.

what i'm trying to do is make it work for IE, wmp9 users.