Blu-ray doesn't play due to encryption change

[PierreW]

Recently I bought Blu-ray "Joy". My (expensive) Philips player BDP9600 refuses to play the disk. Error message: Unknown disc. I contacted Philips' support division and the explained that (translated from Dutch): "the encryption of discs can change over the years. This includes that the hardware in the blu-ray player can become incompatible". If this is true, it's outrageous. In this way Fox is despising her customers. It's probably to prevent piracy but in such a foolish way they drive movie fans in the arms of piracy. Ridiculous and scandalous. PW

[SilentNoise]

Hi Pierre,

To be honest, this sounds like a weak excuse from Philips support. Although I believe in theory there is an option in the Blu-ray specs to update the encryption I do not believe this has ever actually happened.

Maybe you have just a bad disc, try to exchange it if you can.

[manicsounds]

Fox discs are notorious for this...

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by manicsounds

Fox discs are notorious for this...

Fox are the absolute worst at always pushing the boundaries of the BD security encryption as they are so paranoid about people ripping their disks and "stealing content" and posting online. They are always using the latest encryption which can be ahead of what the various BD player manufacturers are using in their firmware.

It is therefore up to the hardware manufacturers to update their firmware to the latest BD security specification. The problem arises if your particular machine no longer has supported firmware. If they don't update you are screwed.

Fox did a big BD security change on their BD encoding in Q4 2015 which meant many of their new titles released that quarter including the X-Men and Planet of the Apes franchise films refused to work in Sony machines.

Luckily my Sony player did get a firmware update from Sony so could play these disks, but the older ones like the one I passed on to my dad did not, so it won't play any Fox or MGM title released post late 2015.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by SilentNoise

Hi Pierre,

To be honest, this sounds like a weak excuse from Philips support. Although I believe in theory there is an option in the Blu-ray specs to update the encryption I do not believe this has ever actually happened.

Maybe you have just a bad disc, try to exchange it if you can.

As I posted the BD specification same as UHD but unlike DVD is NOT fixed so the software BD disk manufactures are allowed to continually update to the latest security settings.

It is the responsibility of the hardware manufacturers to update their firmware in their machines to work with these changes. Some are better than others.

The most proactive I have seen at updating firmware are Sony with PS3 and PS4 and MS with X-Box One etc. probably because they have the largest number of players out there.

[timeschange]

Fox screwed up many players when they released Avatar and their US release of Lost In Space also stopped some players playing the discs.

But I don't think Fox can take all the blame. Over the last 10 years since I got into Bluray I've always had Panasonic players and when Avatar came out I still had a very slow very early Panny machine but while players from the likes of Sony all needed upgrades the Panasonic players all continued working so the excuse that updates are needed seems weak. How can Panasonic players carry on while others don't?

I've never updated the firmware in my Panasonic machines although I got their UHD player a few weeks back and that told me an update was available on day one although that only had to be done when I wanted to use the smart tv features.

My Bluray Disc Recorder told me an update was needed 2 years ago but its multi region mod is firmware based so any update would remove that feature but although I have never done the update I've never had a problem with any discs . But the smart tv features will no longer work

[David M]

It’s not really true. Encryption can change, but not in a way that stops older players playing newer discs. A firmware update should be all you need to play the disc.