Samsung Sued

[GetSmart]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...y-players.html

Blu-ray may be at the cusp of victory over HD DVD in the next-gen format war—especially with Netflix's decision to stop offering HD DVD rentals—but some of the decisions its backers made in the format's infancy may be coming back to haunt them. A Connecticut man has filed a lawsuit against Samsung and a bunch of John Does in federal court over what he calls the "defective" Samsung BD-P1200 Blu-ray player.

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At issue are some significant title-compatibility problems with the player. In his complaint, plaintiff Bob McGovern says that a number of movies he purchased after buying his BD-P1200 wouldn't play on the device. He also accuses Samsung of failing to offer firmware updates to remedy the problem, saying that the consumer electronics giant "does not intend to provide future firmware updates or otherwise repair" the problematic player.

As one of our readers pointed out via e-mail, the P1200 has a checkered reputation when it comes to hardware reliability. A massive thread in the AV Science forum is filled with numerous complaints about the player. "I have had the BDP 1200 for 7 weeks. Not a finished product," reads one post. "Should not have been brought to the market until it was fully beta tested. Would not play Blu-ray Weeds. Was told needed updated software."

In other words, the P1200 has had problems from the outset, and Samsung has not been able to fix them to the satisfaction of its customers. But there are a couple of other issues that could be lurking in the background, issues that are not named directly in the lawsuit, but may be contributing to the obsolescence and playback problems cited in the lawsuit.

First, there's the question of the BD+ layer of DRM certified last summer. Not long after movies with the bonus DRM began shipping, owners of some players—including the BD-1200—began reporting playback issues. As Wired pointed out in its coverage of the Samsung lawsuit last week, McGovern's frustrations and resulting lawsuit may be due in no small part to the extra layer of DRM now a part of the Blu-ray spec.

The Samsung player's hardware profile is another one of the issues. All Blu-ray players have a hardware profile which denotes the base set of requirements that a player must support in order to be certified. The first of those was Profile 1.0, which made local storage, network connectivity, secondary audio, and secondary video decoders all optional features.

The meager requirements of the 1.0 profile mean that Blu-ray players which fail to implement the optional features won't be able to take advantage of picture-in-picture, which requires secondary decoders. 1.0 players are also unable to store local content, lacking the 256MB of storage mandated by the 1.1 profile. Profile 1.1 discs should still play on 1.0 players, however, but the extra features will not work.

As we pointed out in our coverage of the 2.0 spec, there's no upgrade path for older players due to the changed hardware requirements—a simple firmware update will not suffice. (If you want the most future-proof Blu-ray player available, we suggest the PS3.)

McGovern's suit seeks class-action status for his lawsuit as well as the usual damages and attorneys' fees.

It is about time someone is sueing BD-J doesn't work on most old players and if it does it barely performs and 9 times out of 10 if a disc with BD-J only on it doesn't play in the old players at all!!! I hope this guy wins!! It will have a major impact on the Blu-Ray market place.

[WickyWoo]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ewpost&t=36034