I've seen some of the videos that I downloaded from the internet are only playable through one particular application. How did they do it? How can I implement the same thing with my application? What technology should I research on to know more about this?

You should research "how to be a cunt"

What are you using to try to play it? As a professional video nerd, welcome to codecs? There are two reasons you can’t play video, one is drm, the other is compatible codecs. Wrappers (avi, mp4, etc) != codec. Try VLC as it’s the most compatible video player for codecs. If that doesn’t work, I’d have to see what it was…media info is a free cli/app that can tell you what it is.

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

This looks like scam. That PLAYit app is probably malware.

Git gud

I guess you used vidmate to download this video, dont download playit. just delete the video, uninstall vidmate and find another video downloader

Also interested in this

Simple scam.

Waw ok

a) don't research this "technology", why would you want to be a total cunt on the internet?

b) It's probably not a DRM, just an unsupported codec. Not all players and devices for example can play x265 videos, and even less can play 10bit x265. Some still struggle to play WebM somehow and god only knows in what state is flv now

GET SCAMMED

NEERRRRRDDDDDD

@Hazarth It's most certainly not a codec issue, if it was a codec issue you'd get an error instead of an image with a scammy content.

The most basic way to do this kind of crap is to just create a video of a still image, since 99% of people won't realise it anyway. Then if you really want it to play in some specific app, put some data in the meta header of the video, and use that data in your player to fetch the actual video.

@hitko but he did get an error message, and it says "doesn't support this video format"

Emphasis on "video format"

If it was a scam it would say something like "buy our premium player to play this video" or something. But it complains about the video format, which points to codecs imo

As someone who works at a global cable megalopoly, specifically on media/video, I can’t help but cringe a bit in this thread. 😖

@Hazarth Yeah, on an image which for some reason contains a generic "player" name instead of actual video player where this happened, no information which video format it is that can't be played, and a reference to a third-party player which supposedly can play this unknown unrecognised format. Also player description is in horrible English: "A new video player & video player all format support".

You sir would fail to recognise a scam even if it had a bright flashing "SCAM" written all over.

Noooope.

that is all.

@Hazarth Now if you look up the advertised player on Play store, the description is pure cancer (every third word is an emoji), it has in-app transactions, and it requests full control over networking, system settings, location tracking, and heaps more.

@hitko
You can't name an unrecognized format...

If you make a player today and in a year a new format comes out, you wont be patching your software to name the new Unrecognized format just so the error message contains a name of something you don't support.. duh...

If they said "try using VLC" you wouldn't bat an eye, but you call it a scam if they recommend something else?

They probably just made this cheaper player with just basic support because full support of everything requires constant updates and large packages and they are probably handing business down to their friends or child company with a better player. It might well be a marketing move or a ad contract, but that doesn't make it automatically a scam. If I made a shitty basic player and had to deal with unsupported formats I would totally recommend VLC to the user as an alternative.

Don't just jump to conclusions about scams unless you have an actual example of this somehow tricking people. Ocam's Razor

@spongessuck ha ha! nice one.

@atrabilious thanks for the link.

@Oktokolo PlayIt pirate movies like this so that people can download their app to watch it.

@ilechuks73 I don't want to watch it. I want to know about the technology used over here.

@hitko no. actually, it's playing with that one particular player. I just want to know how they did it.

Just a guess, but maybe have the error image as a regular video file. Then, append the file with the actual video. Normal players will (hopefully) play the error image and ignore the rest as junk (probably depends on format). You magical player knows to start from the end.

Possibly something more advanced, maybe even encryption if they're serious.

I would never download that app.

@souvikpaul so looks like they have a proprietary codec: Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41/56d3/fbd2/a209) wrapped in avc mp4

Google says if you turn off the “smart muxer” on download it doesn’t encode it that way. I suggest googling more if you want to see encoding and encryption formats.

@souvikpaul also, I’m a damn fool for looking at moar video shit off hours. This is like the landscaping guy mowing his own lawn. 😞

@Hazarth
Occam's Razor is a good tool - you should really try using it.

When did you last saw software outright advertise a competing product in an error message?
How many toolbars has your browser?

And most important: I am a Nigerian prince and had to flee my country. Please help me get a few millions USD. All you need to do is receive payments of 1000 USD each and transfer them to a set of other accounts. You can keep 30% of each transaction...

@atrabilious do you know how regular video players are able to play the PLAYit app ad and not the rest of the video?

@Oktokolo Yes, it's a great tool, I'm using it for every argument to keep myself grounded

1) I did mention it's probably a friend or a child company. That's the most intuitive possibility and still not a scam

2) my browser has no toolbars except for builtin (firefox). Who even makes toolbars anymore? I was alive in the age of toolbars and even then I didn't fall for it

3) Nigeria doesn't have an aristocracy :) It's a republic, they have a president.

So far no one was able to put out a good argument how this is a scam and not just an ad or pushing business to a friendly or related company, which is very much not what a scam is. I'll gladly debate anyone who has something to say, but "It surely doesn't play my format on purpose, so it's a scam" is not an argument.

much simpler answer is that they made a minimal viable product as an advertising for their premium flagship of a related brand. Similar reason to why you have limited free versions of paid apps in the store.

@electrineer I have not downloaded one of these things to analyze. Unless the links it shows are clickable, my guess is it’s similar to a broadcast slate. It shows a leader in a common format (maybe mpg) and then it hits a codec/encryption it can’t decode and dies there on the image.

Much like bars and tones and a slate on every tv show, you don’t see that countdown because we know it’s there and skip it..I imagine the native app does something similar, probably a “start on weirdo codec begin”. We run drm and encryption on our content on our app to stop someone from putting it on YouTube without a lot of work, but we didn’t write a custom codec, so umm, good on them.