WMV + DRM + maybe OSX = SUX

July 13, 2006 12:51 PM

Help me defeat Thai internet television cooking show WMV DRM!

I have a subscription to some thai cable tv network; they serve out DRM'd WMV files, which are incompatible enough with my mac, but after a lot of fighting I got one on a pc (i've actually tried this on two) and thought it'd be okay. I wasn't!

When it tries to acquire the license, it asks me to go log in on the web site (in IE). So I hit "cancel" on the license acquisition thing, log in on the web site, and try to play the file again. When it attempts to get the license, it comes up with this gibberish, and the "Play" button stays greyed out.

I'm assuming that's my license key, but it's being sent or received incorrectly. What can I do? Is this a known bug? Could I capture the traffic and save the license as a file somewhere? Anything? The WMP on this comp is version 10.00.00.3646 and I don't know Thai.

posted by soma lkzx to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Why do you hit "cancel" on the license aquisition window?
posted by nomisxid at 1:00 PM on July 13, 2006

"Play" is greyed out. If you log in while that screen is up nothing happens. "Cancel" is your only choice!
posted by soma lkzx at 1:01 PM on July 13, 2006

Nevermind. On our license-required window popups, we have the login page available. I notice now you say they explicitly send you to the external browser...
posted by nomisxid at 1:02 PM on July 13, 2006

Have you tried contacting the web site? Do they speak English?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 1:31 PM on July 13, 2006

I sent in a customer service request a little while before i posted here, haven't heard back from them yet.
posted by soma lkzx at 1:39 PM on July 13, 2006

Google eventually turned up this thread at doom9, which seems promising. You can download a zip of the program about halfway down that page. I can't test it, though, 'cos I have no DRMed WMV files.
posted by reklaw at 1:44 PM on July 13, 2006

reklaw: I ran across that, too, and plan on trying it later tonight, but I believe it requires a valid license key before you can strip the DRM. I don't think WMP is ever actually acknowledging that I have a license, so i bet it won't unlock the content enough to let me strip the drm from it.

there's another site out there that offers the show, i might just take a bullet and try to subscribe there, too.
posted by soma lkzx at 1:54 PM on July 13, 2006

I can probably help you out with any Thai language problems, email me if you need it.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 2:08 PM on July 13, 2006

soma lkzx, yes if wmp does not actually play the file (i.e. acknowledge that you have a license) then it's unlikely that the drm-stripper will work.

I have been doing an extremely similar process with protected wma audiobooks -- wmp asks for a license and pops up a small window (probably just IE ocx or whatever) and asks me to login to the library site; at which point I login and wmp downloads the license and then all is good.

so you have to get wmp to successfully download the license and start playing, otherwise you are just wasting your time.

NB: one thing that generally seems necessary is to remove (or move) C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM
and then go to this site using IE:
http://services.wmdrm.windowsmedia.com/indivSite

unless of course you've already done that (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM already contains IndivBox.key (which will be hidden/system, just so you know) at version 10.0.0.3646. any higher version and you are screwed)

also, if you have ms hotfix KB891122 installed, remove it.

also, do not update wmp past version 10.0.0.3646.

ever.

no, really. and there are a couple other ms hotfixes to be very careful of in this respect, but I don't know what they are off the top of my head.

god what a stupid hasslesome procedure, just to listen to some audiobooks from my library on my iriver player.
posted by dorian at 3:34 PM on July 13, 2006 [1 favorite]

oh another thing is, you may have used up all the currently available licenses for a particular file (or for your account) and may have to try a different file (or wait for the expiration date when you're considered to've "returned" the file. etc.)

it's hard to say as the distributor can license files in any number of ways.
posted by dorian at 3:39 PM on July 13, 2006

Customer service directed me to a page that manually downloaded the license for me, and then the program reklaw mentioned hooked it up so i could play it on my mac!
posted by soma lkzx at 3:32 AM on July 14, 2006