Blu-ray gets Managed Copy next year, requires new hardware | Hacker News Reader

Blu-ray gets Managed Copy next year, requires new hardware

engadget.com

4 points_pius11 comments

I think the people that want to make illegal copies (read: to make money on) will just keep downloading them from the usual places, and as usual, the honest consumer will continue to be the whipping boy for international piracy rings.

I get the Managed Copy concept. What is not clear to me, however, is whether or not this means existing players will be able to play the analog-disabled AACS disks to be produced in the future. In other words, if an existing player doesn't honor the "no analog" switch, will the disk still work over HDMI, or will it just fail on that player completely?

if an existing player doesn't honor the "no analog" switch, will the disk still work over HDMI, or will it just fail on that player completely?

It should work. These people are dumb, but not completely stupid.

the solution is just don't buy Blu-ray. problem solved.

This is why I bought an HD-DVD player and supported HD-DVD media. Unfortunately my side lost.

I'm unsure what to do at this point, as Blu-Ray now has a monopoly. Just not buying new HD movies doesn't seem like problem solved to me. :/

At E3, we announced 1080p instant watch streaming, coming soon to your Xbox 360. The compression is directly related to your internet connection.

Interesting. So I guess, to generalize, the answer is "streaming HD."

HD-DVD had pretty much the same DRM as Blu-ray, so that doesn't accomplish anything.

Pretty sure that's false. The enhanced DRM capability for Blu-Ray was always used as a selling point to the studios.

Yes, Blu-ray contains extra snake oil. However, the stuff mentioned in the article (managed copy, analog sunset) is present in both formats.

I'm not sure about DRM, but an interesting point which is often unmentioned is the VC-1 codec. Microsoft licensed it for HD-DVD, so they threw their weight behind it. When comparisons were dinging Blu-ray for artifacts in red colors, Sony also licensed the VC-1 codec. Microsoft then made a penny or so on both formats, since both were using their codec, so they pulled their army out of the fight. This may very well have been the tipping point for Blu-ray.

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