SlySoft cracks HD DVD copy protection

Films now able to be copied

19 February 2007 18:04 GMT / By Amber Maitland

The copy protection on HD DVD discs has officially been broken with the release of SlySoft's AnyDVD HD.

The $80 software decrypts your HD DVDs so that you can store them or copy them on to other discs.

Because it removes the AACS encryption from the discs, you can also watch movies over a digital display connection even without an HDCP compliant graphics card and display.

And unlike previous versions, it will let you watch films from Studio Canal, The Weinstein Company, Kinowelt, and Optimum Releasing, none of which will run without the software.

CSS encryption, region code, and copyright warnings can also be removed.

There is some rumbling that the product has been released suspiciously soon after hackers started posting their hacks to decrypt HD DVDs, but SlySoft claims they've used their own methods to solve the encryption problem.

The company has said it will soon release similar software for copying Blu-ray discs.