| 02 Jun 2005 01:29 pm |
Flannigan Guest | I’m getting the same dos error when attempting to install freeme. Has anyone tackled this one yet?
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| 11 Jun 2005 05:33 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0 Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | Perhaps I need to make this more clear. FreeMe will NOT WORK on 99% of protected WMV files.
As soon as FreeMe was released, Microsoft encouraged content creators to use V1 DRM protection instead. Freeme cannot crack V1 DRM protection, and neither can any other software that I am aware of. Microsoft has worked very hard to make this protection uncrackable, and they have succeeded. Even if somebody breaks it someday, Microsoft will simply release a “Windows Updates” patch to plug the gap.
In all likelihood. trying to use FreeMe is a waste of your time. It was a waste of mine. (Can you tell I’m a little sore about DRM protection?)
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| 13 Jun 2005 09:18 am |
WINDowzU Guest | That is not an error message. It' the program telling you yhe way to use it. That is the commnad line you have to use in order to crack the file.
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| 18 Jun 2005 03:11 pm |
guest707 Guest | i get the same error.....so what do we do to get freeme to work? im using windows xp
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| 18 Jun 2005 05:11 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | Wow, nobody listens to me. :-0 Oh well, feel free to try it for yourself.
** How to use FreeMe (as best as I remember since I don’t have it installed on this computer right now):
First, it helps if you copy the video to the FreeMe folder and rename it to a short filename. This makes typing easier.
Open a DOS box using Start > Run, then type:
cmd
You need to change to the folder where FreeMe is installed. Type:
cd “C:\Program Files\FreeMe”
(or wherever the FreeMe folder is)
I think the file is called freeme.exe? If so, type:
freeme
(and follow the directions)
For command line help, you might have to type:
freeme -?
Basically, the command will look something like this:
freeme terminat.wmv
There might be some parameters (AKA switches) required, I can’t remember. I hope these instructions make some sense... I’ve been using DOS for many years, so it’s second nature for me.
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| 18 Jun 2005 05:14 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | Yikes... the forum erases backslashes. Where I wrote:
cd “C:\Program Files\FreeMe”
What I meant was:
cd “C:[backslash]Program Files[backslash]FreeMe”
\\
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| 18 Jun 2005 05:16 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | cd “C:\\Program Files\\FreeMe”
Cool... I can do a backslash by using two of them in succession! :-) Like this: \\\\
Not Cool... I can’t go back and edit or delete my previous messages.
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| 20 Jun 2005 02:17 am |
Sohan Guest | Hi,
I have the foll prob too.
when I run the followin from the command line
“G:/aa/bb/freeme.exe” -v AAA.wmv
It gives me the details telling me that its a drmv2 license + details @ the Key
but it also tell
“couldnt find valid license for this content”
Please hit to acknowledge Error
How do I play the file ??
.. Sohan
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| 20 Jun 2005 04:44 am |
flannigan Guest | Steve Posted June 11:
“Microsoft has worked very hard to make this protection uncrackable, and they have succeeded. Even if somebody breaks it someday, Microsoft will simply release a “Windows Updates” patch to plug the gap."
Steve, it’s not that nobody listens. I feel, and I think I’m not alone on this one, that the idea of Microsoft having come up with something uncrackable is an ugly pill to swallow. In the past there’s always been some hotshot capable of circumventing the fly in the ointment. I admit I’ve not read every forum entry regarding this topic but it’s beginning to look rather bleak. I hope you’re wrong. In the meantime, perhaps a refusal to use or, more importantly, purchase any media using the wmv format(en mass)might make the use of drm encryption less alluring.
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| 22 Jun 2005 03:53 pm |
jester Guest | I tried freeme on a similar file, it didn’t work, but I found how to use it for now.
Take freeme, unzipped and all and remember where you saved it. If you are running windows XP, do the following.
right click the file you wish to view, open with, choose program. From here a window will open up, go to browse, and select freeme. From there, it should call on freeme, and the next file you wish to view can be done with the same steps, just that freeme will be an option now.
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| 13 Jul 2005 09:30 am |
noone Guest | try searching for drm2wmv.exe and sidda.exe or wmv-hd
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| 18 Jul 2005 01:10 pm |
darkflux Guest | your best bet (sadly) would be to convert the file to a different format. DivX avi files compress quite nicely, and look rather good as well! i’m not sure if standard programs can open HD wmvs, as i haven’t had the opportunity to test it yet. i usually use Sony Sound Forge, but there are “cheaper” options out there.
also, as a last ditch effort, i would use Tech Smith Camtasia to capture the on-screen video to an unencoded wmv. i think right now it’s the only alternative.
we need to let Micro$oft know that their DRM crap ain’t gonna fly, and users will always hold the ability to change their destinies!
good luck to all of you, and keep your hopes up.
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| 21 Jul 2005 03:56 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | Indeed, you could use screen capture software to capture the video and transcode to another format. But ugh, would it ever look awful! You’d be lucky to capture more than a few frames per second of HD-quality video, not to mention all the sound-synchronization issues. Also, you cannot screen-capture an overlay; you would have to disable overlays first by cranking down the hardware acceleration in Display Properties. This will slow the video down even more, causing even more frames to be dropped. :-(
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| 21 Jul 2005 04:44 pm |
darkflux Guest | true, when you’re used to the quality associated with HD-WMV, captured footage would look rather “lo-tek”. i was merely noting that DivX captures quite nicely (provided you have a decent vid card), especially when dealing with hi-qual content. i’ve got a Radeon 9600, and use DivX for pretty much everything. there are only a few programs that don’t FULLY support it, but it’s worked for everything i’ve done with it so far, and with no CHANCE of being encrypted. that’s all i was trying to say. Camtasia defaults @ 5 fps, but you can change that to 30 fps easy (which doesn’t realy look that bad), and it also has the option to automatically turn Hardware Acceleration on + off for you, so there’s no need to delve thru menus everytime with Windows Media Player capture. as for sound synch errors, that’s usually a (don’t hit me for this...) “SOUND DRIVER ERROR” ! i would recommend the “Radius Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec (professional)", and not DivX’s or Windows' one (which i’ve also had probs with). plus, with VirtualDub (free) you can adjust misaligned audio WITHOUT re-encoding!
like i said, it’s not as GREAT as HDWMV, but it’s still okay, and even compressed to DivX and then again to DVD, an HD-WMV looks as good as Satellite (even if it’s not HD). i hope this helps clear things up.
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| 22 Jul 2005 11:13 am |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | Heh, heh... Thanx for the suggestions, darkflux. :-) I actually haven’t tried screen-capturing an HD-WMV yet, but I’m guessing how the results would turn out based on attempts to do similarly with a 320x240 video. As many different ways that I tried, I was unable to capture the tiny 320x240 video without dropping frames. And usually when frames get dropped, the audio sync suffers accordingly. Considering that an HD-WMV video can have a resolution of up to 1920x1080, I can’t imagine that any computer could possibly capture at 30 fps.
One of the HD videos I have says it recommends at least a 2.4 GHz computer to play smoothly. In my experience, capturing at 30 fps takes anywhere from 2X-20X as much processing power as playing the video. This leads me to surmise that you’d need a 5 GHz or faster computer to capture HD video at 30 fps.
Now that you’ve got me curious, I think I’ll try it. Maybe the results will surprise me.
I’ve actually been dreaming up a different solution to the problem. What if there is a way to change the playback speed so that instead of playing at 30 fps, the video plays at 1 fps? Then I could capture the video without dropping frames. I could record the sound separately and merge it with the video using VirtualDub. Does anybody know how to change the frame rate of a WMV?
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| 22 Jul 2005 07:09 pm |
darkflux Guest | yeah, most people just give up on DivX due to the complexity with choosing the right settings and all, not to mention screen capture. one of the key things to watch for when you screen capture using Win Media Player (assuming that’s what you’re using) is to make sure WMP doesn’t “zoom” in on the picture; that it is it’s actual size, and not just blown up for detail. in WMP 9, click on “View”, and then “Video Size”, and make sure “100%" is checked, and not “200%" or “50%". also, some people may need to mess with the options in “Options>Performance>Video Acceleration”, though if you do, you should write down, or take a screen shot of, the current settings first.
what’s the datarate (kbps) of your WMV Steve? depending on the speed of your PC, you may need to take a loss on capturing at the same datarate. on systems with less than 1.8 Ghz, you shouldn’t expect to get more than 2000 kbps capture quality. i’ve got a 2.8 Ghz CPU, and i’ve been able to capture 6-8000 kps with little to no frame drop occuring. it also matters how fast the hard drive is. i think it’s safe to say you need at least 7200 RPM ; ). anything less than that may not be fast enough to keep up with the capturing.
even on my “old” 900 Mhz PIII, i can capture @ 2000 kbps, which is okay for most standard uses (DVD is usually 4000 kbps, satellite is 2000 kbps approx.).
anyway, if you have anymore questions just ask away : )
-df
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| 25 Jul 2005 10:50 am |
BuddyLuv Guest | To get past the following error:
Usage: FreeMe[-v] protectedfile
Press to acknowledge error
Change the compatibility settings on freeme.exe in WinXP to Win98, as the program was tested on that OS. But after that I get a different error saying invalid license. Please help!!!
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| 28 Jul 2005 04:14 am |
Felpie Guest | I have the same problem and used freeme to and I get the error “Coudnt open file”
I have several files that I can play they all have the same problem =/
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| 02 Aug 2005 05:48 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | Regarding this error about “Can’t open file”, you might try renaming the file to a DOS-compatible filename. That is, 8 characters with a 3-character extension. For example,
FILENAME.AVI
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| 15 Aug 2005 07:41 pm |
Wannabe Rep: 0Joined: 21 Apr 2005 Posts: 58 OFFLINE | darkflux,
How in the world do you pull off high-resolution screen captures with no frame drops? I wonder whether we’re really talking about the same thing. Maybe you’re talking about an analog video capture at 720x480, instead of a screen capture at HD resolution.
I finally got around to testing for myself, and the results were close to what I expected. Here are the specs and results:
Source file: DRM-encrypted WMV
Resolution: 1280x720p
Data rate: 8000 kbps
CPU: Mobile Athlon XP 2400+
RAM: 512 MB DDR 266 MHz
Hard drive: Seagate SATA 7200 RPM, 250 GB
Capture software: TechSmith Screen Capture (TSSC)
Capture AVI format: DivX Pro 5.01, 8000 kbps, Fastest compression mode
Capture speed: 30 fps
Audio capture: Off, for maximum speed
Display acceleration: Off, as recommended by TSSC
** Results: With all the frame drops, the captured AVI appears to be about 2 or 3 fps. (I can examine it in VirtualDub if you want a more precise value.)
If you can get more than 10 fps capturing at 1280x720, I would be impressed. As it is, just playing the WMV without losing frames requires a fast CPU. The site where I downloaded the WMV recommended a MINIMUM of 2.4 GHz to view it at full resolution! At bare minimum, I think capturing such a video would require a dual-processor 3+ GHz system.
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