Copy Protection Backfires on Blu-ray

An anonymous reader writes "The first two Blu-ray releases to hit the market encrypted with BD+ (an extra layer of protection designed to stave off hackers) are wreaking havoc on innocent consumers. As High-Def Digest reports, this week's Blu-ray releases of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'The Day After Tomorrow' won't play back at all on at least two Blu-ray players, while load times on other players (including the PS3) are delayed by up to two minutes. 'The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastrophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players ... Calls placed to both Samsung and LG customer support revealed that both manufacturers are aware of the issue, and that both are working on firmware updates to correct it. Samsung promised a firmware update within 'a couple' weeks, while LG said an update is expected in 3-4 days.'"

Comments

...firmware update?

[TruePoindexter]

A firmware update? For my bluray player? Yeah because the average consumer will know how to do this or even be aware of the possibility.

DRM is just plain bad business...

[Jennifer York]

Why punish the people who actually pay for your product? The only way to suffer from this is if you purchased a copy, the people who are downloading this are free of the pain... It's like they _want_ you to pirate it. They are creating a system with incentives for illegal copying.

This is one of the reasons I don't care about this format war, they both are wrong headed... I want content delivered over the wire (or wireless, you get the idea).

Firmware updates!? To my DVD Player?

[arkham6]

Dear God, what the hell is this crap? Are we now to allow manufacturers to produce shoddy equipment and promise 'firmware' fixes down the line? That is totaly unreasonable. I should not have to patch my DVD player, update my receiver, or flash my TV.

I should be able to buy some equipment, plug it in and watch my movies. thats it.

Re:Obligatory

[laing]

I am a member of the general public and I have *NOT* accepted HD-DVD or Blueray as viable formats. I have been waiting for something else to come along that promises my ability to view HD movies that I buy on future players. Part of the DRM system incorporated into both standards will "bind" the discs to the players and play them at reduced resolution in any other player. What happens when my player wears out? Must I re-purchase my entire movie collection?

JSL

--
This space for rent.

Awful nice of them

[Selfbain]

The more they do stupid things like this, the better I feel when I pirate.

Region locks and now this!

[GreatDrok]

You know, I understand how people complain that HD DVD isn't as open as DVD but to be honest, to me it is more open because I didn't have to worry about buying a region free player. On the other hand, BD is far more locked than DVD since there were region free DVD players available fairly early on but so far none for Blu ray. Until Blu ray is at least as open as DVD (ie can be made region free) then I will go with HD DVD all the way. Sure, it isn't currently as easy to rip them as with DVDs but it took years before DVD could be ripped.

I just don't understand why people are supporting Blu ray......

The other day I was looking at disc prices. The typical price for a BD here in NZ is close to $50. HD DVDs are about $35 and regular DVDs are $30 for comparison. Also, there are no discounts to be had on the PS3 and while the US looks to be getting a new SKU at $399US ($525NZ) we are expected to pay $1200NZ which works out at $910US. Think about that.