How to Install DumpHD (HD-DVD/Blu-ray Decryptor) in Ubuntu?

Although as far as I know, HD-DVD format is no longer supported... nor any new movies are released using that technology and slowly the rival of HD-DVD, known as Blu-Ray, has replaced the market and is adopted as the new "standard".

But the point is, starting with DVD (which was introduced when I was really young :P) which is followed by HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the content of these disks come encrypted by default using a proprietary system called "AACS" in hope of a "digital rights management", they say.. 

The manufactures has their reasons, saying that the purpose is to reduce abuse of "digital thieves and their activities", but as with MS Windows Vista where a certain encryption algorithm was pre-installed by default (which was more worse than with HD-DVD/Blu-ray) but few days after their initial release, hackers found a way to decrypt the content nonetheless :).

As everyone knows, if you just copy and paste an encrypted Blu-ray (or any other data) other than it consuming GigaBytes of your HDD space, you won't be able to do anything with it whatsoever, because it's encrypted. But interestingly, almost all of these encryptions seems to be a bit weaker than what our computers are capable of and as a result as said before, most of these "encryptions mechanisms" are decrypted as soon as they're released!. 

Anyhow, let me come back to the topic. If you're searching for a HD-DVD/Blu-ray data decryptor for Ubuntu or GNU/Linux in general, then DumpHD is one of the best out there without a doubt. It's written using Java thus as long as you have installed the Java virtual machine (not just in GNU/Linux but it any OS!) in your operating system, DumpHD will run on top of it. Thus it's a cross-platform utility.

Main features...

*. Supports Dual-Core decryption over EVO and m2ts container formats.

*. Decrypts ever ARF protections.

*. Support for every pack type of an EVO (including in-place decryption of ADV_PCKs - slightly incomplete, excluding Sequence Key Sections).

*. Also supports the "old" HD-DVD apart from the obvious contender Blu-Ray.

*. Decrypt the whole disk or file by file (single files).

*. Console out-put.

*. Change out-put directory.

*. 4 Themes (who cares!).

*. A nice, simple GUI.

You can easily install the DumpHD decryptor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 (might also work in 10.04 or older versions as well) by simply issuing the below command.

sudo apt-get install dumphd

Once installed, simply press "Alt" + "F2" keys and enter the below command to launch it.

dumphd

For the playback, you can use any command media player such as Mplayer, Xine or VLC, etc.

So, decrypting DVD/HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content is illegal, right?

To be honest I don't have a single answer for that. But I think if you really own the media/disk (if you purchased it for yourself) and the reason for the decryption is for back-up the data (in case something happens to the disk, etc) then I think it's pretty much legal, only as long as you don't "share it" with others!.

But that could also change according to the laws of your country. So I personally hold no responsibility over what you do with this app and let me just copy->paste the usual legal notice here :).

Legal Notice: Patent and copyright laws operate differently depending on which country you are in. Please obtain legal advice if you are unsure whether a particular patent or restriction applies to a media format you wish to use in your country.

That's it. (seriously!, don't break any laws :D). Oh btw, if you want additional information, Ubuntu has an excellent help page which explains almost everything. Enjoy.