BD Managed Copy Launches in 2010, New Player Required

[Grubert]

Link

We reported early this week that the recently-approved final AACS license included Managed Copy, enabling consumers to make one copy of any Blu-ray Disc they buy. Now additional details on the acquisition procedure and on the actual rollout of this feature have arisen. Soon, the vast majority of BDs will support Managed Copy, but studios will be able to charge for it, and new players will be needed.

Source

AACS Content Participant Agreement

[bhampton]

Why don't they believe in Blu Ray as it is?!?!?

If they keep changing it ... people will never take interest in it.

Whoever is in charge is a maroon. If you want it to replace DVD then you have to decide at some point the format is finalized.

I hate this plan. Lets see if we can make everyone buy new Blu Ray players again.

For anyone who "needs" a backup of a Blu Ray ... there's always the option of buying 2 copies.

Blu Ray is the best but ... I'm thinking it's too complicated for it's own good. I hate the digital copies that come with Blus. It's like in case Blu Ray fails here's this super compressed itunes version as a consolation prize.

Forgive me but this managed copy thing really bothers me.

Remember VHS.? DVD was too complicated for many people and lots of people have no idea to this day what aspect ratio is. Now a Blu Ray will soon require a training course.

I hope these tweaks don't kill the format... because I like Blu Ray. I have no use for digital copy, managed copy, BD live, Bonus view or video games packaged with movies. Just movies please in High Quality.

=Brian

[Sciatti]

Originally Posted by bhampton

I hope these tweaks don't kill the format... because I like Blu Ray. I have no use for digital copy, managed copy, BD live, Bonus view or video games packaged with movies. Just movies please in High Quality.

=Brian

+1.
The article makes it sound like you'll need a new player only if you want the ability to make copies and your current BD player will still be able to play the movie. Am I wrong?

[BluLobsta]

Originally Posted by Sciatti

+1.
The article makes it sound like you'll need a new player only if you want the ability to make copies and your current BD player will still be able to play the movie. Am I wrong?

Nah, a new player will only be required for Managed Copy features. This seems kinda ridiculous, though. Why not just update the firmware on existing players for those who want the feature?? Stoopid Another money-making venture from the people with all the money They're raking in huge cash over Blu and they can see a gold mine....

[bhampton]

Hello again,

I have a lot to do today but can't let this news bother me all day so,.. I'll make my final case against this new development and just be done with it.

Consider me... Give me a movie I like in HD with uncompressed audio and I'll buy. I guess I'm a profile 1.0 fella.

But wait... a lot of people (with ADD) can't watch unless you can have at least 2 programs on the screen at once... bring on profile 1.1. You can have your movie on and have the actors telling you how great it was to work with this director and the stunt crew reminding you how difficult this scene was and so on.

But wait ... I can't find the film's website! ... google is too hard for me... Ok,.. bring on Profile 2.0. We will turn your disc into a web experience like AOL in 1996. Slow as can be but you asked for it.

But wait... I just got a cell phone with a little LCD screen I need my movies on there!... Ok.. Here's a digital copy. You bought the movie in High Def but you need to watch it on your cell phone and just going to itunes and buying it there is too much to ask of you so ... we're here for ya.

But wait... When I buy a happy meal it comes with a toy!... Ok,.. we got special editions now that come with little action figures so you'll be alright.

But wait... the anti-scratch coating isn't good enough.. I need several copies to ensure my movie is "safe"! Ok... here's a new thingie that will let you backup your Blu Ray onto... a DVD or a thumb drive. Dial up our database and see if you meet all the security checks and maybe will will give you yet another itunes version so you can sleep with the knowledge that you have several copies of your whole library or at least the titles that have this feature.



And with that ... I rest my case... I'll try to pretend the people in charge of Blu Ray are not trying to kill it with this new stuff.

Managed copy .. brought to you by Toshiba.

-Brian

[Blu Titan]

I have very little interested in "managed copy". Fist, it appears that they will make you pay for the copy. Second, you will need a new BD to watch the managed copy. Think I will pass.

[scweb13]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Hello again,
Managed copy .. brought to you by Toshiba.

Where did you read that?

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Here's the problem with this feature... It's really logically good for making back up copies on a recordable Blu-Ray disc (assuming you can get the full thing on a recordable disc. Do they even make 50GB recordables? A 25 GB recordable isn't going to work for a movie on a 50GB disc).

BD movies take up so much space that for anyone that buys a lot of movies and has a large collection, even some the biggest hard drives available now would fill up fairly quickly. And while HD sizes will get even bigger in time, odds are there will be some kind of terrible DRM that won't allow anything you put on a current hard drive to a newer one. And since this thing only allows you to make the copy once, good luck getting it to work again if your original HD crashes or becomes obselete.

And according the info on the main page of this site, as of now, things like Ipods aren't going to be supported. And even if they were, since these are full quality back ups, they would only work on the Ipods with larger memory and just a movie or two would take up a SIGNIFICANT amount of that memory.

Which just brings things back to blank BDs being the only logical, viable way of storing a large quantity of these back ups.

But if that's going to be the case, then wouldn't it just be easier to simply include 2 copies of the same movie in the one case to begin with?

Disc replication is fairly cheap for the studios. Simply printing up an extra disc doesn't add much to the overall cost (it certainly can't be any worse than the money going into all the technology needed to make these back ups work). And if for some reason they felt the need to add to the cost for the extra disc, then they could simply release a standard edition with 1 copy of the movie, and some kind of "Double Copy Special Edition" or something like that.

And sooner or later there will be programs that get past copy protection and allow people to make back ups of their BDs however they want, just like what can be done with DVDs now. So, people won't even have to go through this obnoxious authentication process just to make a simple back up.

If the studios want to help people with having a back up copy, then just include a second copy in the case to start with.

The way they are doing this, with needing to get a new type of player to get this to work, and to go through the studios' obnoxious authentication process to make this thing work just the one time, it's like they are going all of the way around the earth just to get across the street. It's ridiculous.


That being said, as long as this feature being added to the BDs doesn't prevent the BDs themselves from playing on existing players, that's fine. But if this is going to cause more issues with existing players and end up becoming a firmware/glitchy playback nightmare, then I'm really going to have something to complain about.

Originally Posted by scweb13

Where did you read that?

I believe he was just making a joke at Toshiba's expense, because they were the company behind th now defunct HD-DVD format.

It is a funny joke, but I would actually expect the opposite from Toshiba. HD-DVD had it's disadvantages and Blu-Ray is superior in many ways, but the one piece of Kudos I can give to the HD-DVD camp is that their format was at least more finalized than Blu-Ray (it still had it's share of problems, but not quite on the same level since it didn't need to be upgraded as much as Blu-Ray did).

I understand that Blu-Ray wasn't finalized in part because they had to get on the market as soon as possible to compete with HD-DVD, so there was some excuse there. But now this is the Blu-Ray camp prolonging these problems for no real good reason at this point.

[dadkins]

Managed Copy?

Too little too late people...

[androvsky]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

It is a funny joke, but I would actually expect the opposite from Toshiba. HD-DVD had it's disadvantages and Blu-Ray is superior in many ways, but the one piece of Kudos I can give to the HD-DVD camp is that their format was at least more finalized than Blu-Ray (it still had it's share of problems, but not quite on the same level since it didn't need to be upgraded as much as Blu-Ray did).

I understand that Blu-Ray wasn't finalized in part because they had to get on the market as soon as possible to compete with HD-DVD, so there was some excuse there. But now this is the Blu-Ray camp prolonging these problems for no real good reason at this point.

Actually, managed copy was a major bullet point in favor of HD-DVD for many PC makers, and getting their support is the reason why blu-ray ended up having to promise it.

Btw, why can't a firmware update let a current PS3 use this feature? Is it because the unique serial is in an area of the disc currently unreadable by existing drives?

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by androvsky

Actually, managed copy was a major bullet point in favor of HD-DVD for many PC makers, and getting their support is the reason why blu-ray ended up having to promise it.

I was not aware of that. Thanks for the info!

Btw, why can't a firmware update let a current PS3 use this feature? Is it because the unique serial is in an area of the disc currently unreadable by existing drives?

I don't know for sure. And actually, we don't know for sure that it cannot be be added to the PS3.

Here is a segment of the info from the main page (with emphasis added by me):

"Existing BD players and devices don't support Managed Copy, so in all likelihood a new player will be needed. Hardware manufacturers aren't expected to get new players out until the first or second quarter of 2010 at the very earliest. "

This seems to be pointing to the fact that no existng player or device supports this feature RIGHT NOW.

And granted, most players probably cannot be upgraded to support it.

But I could see the PS3 being one of the few, maybe even the only exception to this rule. I could see it requiring a significant amount of hard drive space (so those people with smaller HD sized PS3s may have to upgrade), but I could see PS3 potentially supporting it.

Of course, it all depends on how this works. For instance, if I want to back this up to a blank BD disc, then I'm going to need something that can burn BDs. Does this mean I'll have to use a computer to do this? Or will the players enabled with this feature the ability to record the discs? If that's the case, then I can see where the PS3 would have an issue, at least for the specific purpose of burning a disc.

There's a lot of ifs ands & buts that aren't clearly spelled out here, so we really don't know for sure how all devices, esspecially the PS3, will be effected by this.

[androvsky]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I don't know for sure. And actually, we don't know for sure that it cannot be be added to the PS3.

Here is a segment of the info from the main page (with emphasis added by me):

"Existing BD players and devices don't support Managed Copy, so in all likelihood a new player will be needed. Hardware manufacturers aren't expected to get new players out until the first or second quarter of 2010 at the very earliest. "

Yeah, I noticed that, but I thought the complete absence of a mention of the PS3 was fairly conspicuous; maybe the stand-alone market's grown to the point where the PS3 isn't synonymous with blu-ray player any more. Probably a good thing, overall.

But I could see the PS3 being one of the few, maybe even the only exception to this rule. I could see it requiring a significant amount of hard drive space (so those people with smaller HD sized PS3s may have to upgrade), but I could see PS3 potentially supporting it.

The way I'd want to use it is so my PSP can finally get digital copy support from more than just Sony titles. Even though the managed copy can be full resolution, it doesn't have to be. If you don't mind using your one copy on a low-res version for a portable player, that's fine. I see this as finally doing away with the incredibly stupid platform-specific digital copies that currently require multiple copies of the movie on another disc; I'm sure Apple does too since they haven't submitted any iPod products to be certified.

[Another_Dude]

Maybe I'm not understand how this all works (which puts me in the vast majority of consumers) but this just sounds stupid.

I want the movie, and maybe some extras, but the movie is what I'm buying. If I had the choice I would never pay for slipcovers, digital copies, BD live, or any of this other crap (to me).

Now we have a this headline that makes Joe Sixpack think he should NOT buy a player in 2009 and maybe 2010 because they won't have some certain feature he might need to watch a movie?

Studios, I beg you, stop spending time and money on this junk and put 100% of your resources towards bringing titles to the market that the public wants. This will sell hardware and software....your current strategy does the opposite.

[blujacket]

It will be quite obvious why Blu-ray will go the way of the Laser disc if the BDA doesn't focus on the mass adoption instead of crap like this.

[scweb13]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I believe he was just making a joke at Toshiba's expense, because they were the company behind th now defunct HD-DVD format.

Right, but where would the "beloved" PS3 be without the help of Toshiba?
I just don't see the point of keeping a grudge against the other (dead) format.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by dadkins

Managed Copy?

Too little too late people...

Or way before its time.

The full resolution provision seems to be to support media servers. But, as many have said for years, the HDD have to get a whole lot bigger and cheaper before people can afford to store 25-50GB movies on HDD.

Gary

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by BluLobsta

Nah, a new player will only be required for Managed Copy features. This seems kinda ridiculous, though. Why not just update the firmware on existing players for those who want the feature?? Stoopid Another money-making venture from the people with all the money They're raking in huge cash over Blu and they can see a gold mine....

A few things:

(1) Many players don't have USB or Ethernet. How would the Managed Copy data get off those?

(2) Most players are underpowered. Managed Copy includes provisions for re-encoding at different resolutions under different codecs and DRMs. That requires a heck of a lot of processing power, unless you'd be happy waiting days for a copy to occur.

(3) If the license keys are different for playback and copying (which I expect) then the device would have to have been designed to allow expansion in the number of licenses (I believe they are stored on stored on a secure chip or in a secure section of the SoC).

Gary

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Or way before its time.

The full resolution provision seems to be to support media servers. But, as many have said for years, the HDD have to get a whole lot bigger and cheaper before people can afford to store 25-50GB movies on HDD.

Gary

What I meant was, it is already possible to copy Blu-ray Discs - so they say.

Yes, the copies will take up substantial space on a HDD.
But, as external drive prices keep dropping, and networking devices evolve, the problems are starting to disappear.

This laptop has 320GB of HDD space.
Newer laptops are hitting 1TB and larger.
Desktops can have several HDDs - space is becomming a non-issue.

HTPCs are really neat items!

[mredman]

This is the most stupid idea ever
If one of our Blu's get scratched or even lost we just buy the "Original" blu ray movie at the stores again that was damaged or lost.
Would rather have the real deal then a freakin copy. I mean WTF is this crap who the hell thought up this braindead idea. Who the hell needs a copy of the discs when they are not even broke. And if they break you just buy them again at the local store its not like the Blu's will be limited for sale. Damn this is F U C K E D UP

[mredman]

from article:
Ayers said he expects hardware manufacturers will add Managed Copy because it's something consumers have indicated they want. �We think that consumers really do want the ability to use their content flexibly,� he said.

Andy Parsons, U.S. chairman of the BDA Promotions Committee and senior VP of product planning at Pioneer Home Entertainment, agreed. �There's enough interest in the consumer community that there should be enough incentive in the hardware community to do this,� he said.


Are they f ucking joking. Who the hell have they asked about this feature because i have not seen any on this forum that supports this massive stupid idea. Whre the hell have they found those consumers that want this.

Besides it is much easier to buy an "original" copy at the store if one of the Blu's get scratched and everybody also rather want an "original" Blu Ray then a copy. This is just insane