Saturn devollopers CD-R

Sure

Sure

Yeah, you are probably right. My understanding, based on how I understand RPS' and Pinchy's posts:

The special "track" consist of:
1. pre-ring data (EFM)
2. the ring data (EFM)
3. the Sega TM "barcode" (non EFM)

According to RPS the Saturn does four checks on the disc. Then the ring data is read according to Pinchy. So, a modchip sends 4 OKs to the CD controller when the Saturn checks if the CD is authentic, and then it sends the ring data. Now with Pinchy's half working CD, his custom modchip only needs to OK one check. According to RPS this is the Sega TM "barcode" check. The rest of the CD-R is good, including the ring data.

Now why does the Sega TM "barcode" check fail? The track can't be burned or read with a normal CD writer since it is not EFM encoded but is more like a bitmap. This is beginning to look like an advanced non-MFM sector floppy disk protection to me. Hard to say how the Saturn checks the "barcode". Would i.e. just a few frames that are zeroed out be enough (impossible with EFM) to pass the test, or does it actually check for some sort of Sega TM pattern?

Anyhow, this might boil down to burning some non-EFM data last on a CD-R, which obviously would require an extreme mod of a CD-Writer, but I wouldn't say it is impossible in theory, compared to changing ATIP info for instance. Such a mod would certainly remind me of the X-Copy dongle for Amiga floppy drives.

I agree - and I do not support piracy. I just like to discuss the inner workings of stuff.

A document on exactly how this works would be a good read

CF

 

and you wonder why no one including Sega ever used this in other CD based titles... ???

 

As well as generic CD-R.

The "branded" Mega-CD, Saturn, etc. CD-Rs were nothing more than standard CD-R media with a custom silkscreen on em.

-hl718

 

HUmm... I read your post, and I wonder if this copy protection is physicaly impossible to reproduce, today after 12 years. Sega is a genius, it created the best protectection ever made. :clap:

But... So, it's strange why other console manufacturer don't use this incredible copy protection ? Even Gamecube\Wii which have a very good copy protection, but is obsolete in comparison of Saturn game protection...

 

You're missing the point. It's not copying which is the issue (it's trivial to make an image of a Saturn game), it's reproduction. The same issue is true for Gamecube and Wii, games for which are considerably harder to copy than a Saturn CD. Copying data is one thing, reproducing custom security on an off-the-shelf burner is another.

 

I'm not sure if you're serious or just being sarcastic...

No one's been able to reproduce the PSX copy protection method on CD-R, but that didn't stop it from getting pirated all to hell.

Copy protection is moot if you can get around the check with a chip.

-hl718

 

Exactly. It is NOT the perfect copy protection, because the discs had no other protection. Copying the discs to CD-R was simplicity in itself. You then had to fool the hardware into thinking it was real - either with a system disc, swap trick or mod chip. And the fact that the machine could be done with a swap trick goes to show how poor the protection was!

One of the best protection systems was that for Jaguar, I believe. IIRC, the encryption information was never cracked or found.... they're just using developer's tools/methods to get around it now.

 

Saturn is still very well protected because nobody has been able to dump the chip's PIC or come up with a new program. All other consoles have free or even open modchips.

 

What about Pinchy's modchip?

Files:
http://www.crazynation.org/SEGA/Saturn/files/

Thread:
http://forums.segaxtreme.net/showthread.php?t=14769

CF

 

News to me! Too bad it's sure not a reasonable replacement for the HK mod; 8051 and a FPGA is completely backwards from a PIC and PLD

 

According to me, ( and I've took many hours ripping/hexing this ring) the saturn ring is really like RPS said: A bitmap-like non-EFM pattern (in fact random holes to make it looks like text).

But this is not the REAL best copy protection ever.

The sega dreamcast, wich got the same ring as the saturn (but in the middle of it) got the Best copy protection EVER !! The Whole game is outside the TOC, and the drive checks for a saturn like ring before to boot. BUT the DC had a terrible mil-cd backdoor ...

Perfect copy protection : Sega Dreamcast Without Mil-Cd BackDoor + Custom sectors encryption (GC/Wii-like).

That would make normal people unable to rip games themselves from BlockBuster(like with DC serial or swap dvd-drive and GC/Wii Hitachi special app.[rawdump] allows) And make it almost impossible to reproduce on a cd-r/dvd-r, like the sega saturn/dreamcast ones !
(ModChip still being possible, but still more Marginal, and games needs to be downloaded from the net(1337-r1pp3d by h4x0r 6r0up5), making it hard and complicated for the average end-user to pirate a game

ps: I'm aware Dreamcast can boot Backups wihtout any modchip, but it was a backdoor, a big mistake that makes it able to run Mil-Cd. But it's still impossible to reproduce a real Gd-Rom on a cd-r to amke it boot by the REAL bootstrap of the DC.



-=FamilyGuy=-

 

Any non-standard disc format is going to be good for a while from the general public.

Gamecube wouldn't have been hacked without the phantasy star online backdoor. Well maybe not until datel did the action replay.

Any disc can be bootlegged, because otherwise it would be impossible for anyone to make games for a system. There are unofficial Playstation CD's, the swap discs that allow you to play imports without a mod chip managed it ( I have one ).

You have to seperate burning and pressing cd's from the argument. Pressed media can be a perfect reproduction of the original. Burnt media is likely to require a mod chip.

Unless you are going to make a legitimate product then it's not worth investing the money. There are mod chips out there, so just sell cheap cdr knock offs. Otherwise you've got to create counterfeit copies. Which would drive the cost up.

Why nobody ever recreated the saturn protection ring? Why there were less mod chips? Probably because it was a commercial failure.

I'd say that the best protection at the moment is on the Playstation 3. It's on a new technology and after 3 generations, Sony is going to be quite good at locking everything down. Nintendo & Microsoft just re-used their already cracked dvd subsystems. However it will probably be cracked at some point, like all the others.

smf

 

Well I agree with what you said, beside the PS3 thing.

To base their console on a linux client make it pretty vulnerable. And there's already some persons that had been able to bump a complete blu-ray PS3 disc on a external hard-drive. Next step is to hack theLinux engine of the PS3 adn to make it boot/mount blu-ray PS3 images. Also, the playstation discs are the same kind then the psp mini-discs.


-=FamilyGy=-

 

off topic..But I had to ask.

What do you mean that the Dreamcast doesn't need a mod chip to play Dreamcast backup?

-Lockar

 

The DreamCast is capable of booting burned CD-Rs with no modification to the system. Instead the game is modified putting it into Mil-CD format (opposed to GD-ROM) where it can be burned on any CD-Writer. Thus you don't need a modchip. However the last batch of DreamCasts stopped the Mil-CD from booting, stopping you from playing copies. I'm not sure if the Modchips would fix that or not.

But DreamCast was loved by homebrew users because of this backdoor/exploit meant all they needed was a CD-Writer and could put the CD-R into any DreamCast to play.

 

There are very few DCs that wont boot a CD. The date thing has been pretty well proven to be false.

 

Using non standard media didn't help the dreamcast and gamecube.

The next step sound simple, in other os mode the GPU is locked out by the hypervisor. But thats only a small hurdle when you can't decrypt the executable. Burning a blu ray disc and then hacking the hardware to make it think it's real would be a more likely step. It's much easier to do this on the xbox 360 where it's just a sata dvd drive that can be flashed.

smf

 

I still have one of these boot-discs laying around here, which is of zero use to me now.



--Selgus

 

Oh, I dunno... it makes a nice ornament! And should you ever torture yourself and code for Saturn again, it would be handy!