The inherent problem with copy protection and security "schemes" is that they are only effective as long as they can be kept secret - once the "secret" is out, there are lots of "creative" people ready and willing to exploit or otherwise bypass the "security".

Security Rule #1, NOTHING is uncrackable.
Security Rule #2, if you claim something is uncrackable, SOMEONE will prove you wrong...

Dave, no, the problem with THESE copy protection schemes is that they're more of an inconvenience to customers and (independent) producers than to file sharers and pirates.

I've always liked this ad promotion:

DIGITAL - It's everything you could do with analog - AND LESS!!!

You've made my point - copy protection "schemes" are designed to make it inconvenient to make copies... which PRIMARILY affects the casual user who makes a backup or a rare copy. They DO NOT present a serious obstacle to the very parties who seek to profit from... MAKING COPIES.

They ultimately provides little protection against the pirates who will turn out hundreds or thousands of copies, so have a financial interest in doing so.

And in inconveniencing the "end user", the manufacturers discourage the adpotion of the very things they are trying to protect and profit from! In the short term this makes some sense to some bean counter, who is trying to preserve "profits" from a traditional product curve that I suspect no longer exists in the digital world...

The new paradigm is - offer a reasonable price, offer it fast and sell a boatload (making your profits on quantity, not high per piece markup), move on to the next thing, repeat - oddly enough the exact "business model" employed by the pirates - if the legit businesses adopted that mindset, there might be no pirating, as there no longer would be any profit in it!

How many Blu-ray players/burners/content discs do you think they would sell at a competitive price point to current DVD offerings? DVD would die nearly overnight.

Traditional marketing says you have to protect your product through a life cycle, start pricing high, then slowly move it down until you introduce the "next big thing" at a high price, and commoditize the "old tech". I'm not sure that mindset has much validity now, and expect it will become less and less viable as time goes by.

Enough philosophy, but I think you get my point...

Dave! Stop that at once! You're making entirely too much sense. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is??? The MPAA knows and hears all...

There's also the "analog hole," meaning re-recording content from a display without bothering to crack DRM. With hi-def displays and hi-def camcorders, this is becoming ever more feasible. Although some quality degradation will occur, the result may still be better than standard DVDs, with their digital artifacts.

That's a real problem. The truth is that people that care about quality are likely the same folks that don't mind paying $15-25 for a movie. On the other hand, the people that are paying $2-6 for pirated movies are *not* discriminating shoppers that are very concerned with quality. I bet an analog copy of a BD movie downrezzed to 720P and burned onto a DVD9 in AVC basic video mode would do quite well in the $5 pirate market.

So unfortunately in the end DRM typically hampers honest paying consumers while not really denying the $5 pirate crowd anything. :(

Yeah, well sometimes I like to think that common sense is actually common...

Add to the cost of AACS, the President of Sony....
 

I hope all that are in favor of blue ray and horrahed it's triumph realize what has been done. If you think I am just blowing off steam, take a look at words from this interview:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ref=technology


I already had an A2, but I picked up an A3 a few days ago. No blue ray for me for a while... I am interested in how this will play out over the next year..

And then there's the genius at Sony... yeesh.

Sure it's great to have a "premium" product, but not eveyone is going to pay premium prices, and 2-3 years later the tech landscape can change A LOT.

I'm 110% certain that there are Chinese reverse engineering the things right now, it's inevitable. Wake up Sony... the only way to beat them is make their business model unprofitable and make your profits on volume market adoption... while you can!

Nothing says you can't have models at various price points with various features!

Some people will always buy the most expensive thing (I pick up my slightly used cameras that way when they discover they have no idea what to do with them....) because it's expensive and gives them some satisfaction... the other 90%+ will hold out until something cheaper and just as useful is available - and some will just buy cheap Chinese junk or knockoffs because it's what they can afford...

Ultimately market penetration and mass adoption makes or breaks the product. Sony is apparently slightly clueless to this concept. Reality will come their way soon enough.

Dave, I think you are correct, but in a way, I also think we are way to close (as video people) to be objective.

We have knowledge and often an interest in Blu-ray because we want a stable delivery platform as well as a great way to watch movies.

A lot of people just flat out don't care about it and will not get one until they trip over it.

The Blu-ray adoption is tied to HDTV adoption, which has been on the market for 15+ years and it finally getting a little traction in households.

I would trust that Sony has a strategy. Maybe they know the majority of people do not have HDTVs, so they are treating Blu-ray as a higher end piece until the HDTV install base is larger, then they can give up some margins and lower the price.

Or maybe they know it will never be as big as DVD, but be just a part of the future. The very thing that makes Blu-ray so great (HDMI, Component & HDTV) also makes everything else better as well. Another reason not to give it away but make higher margins on the units they do sell.

I think flash memory deliverables have a future for us video producers if devices would play files from them.

A cheap reader that has HDMI out to your HDTV that has USB 2.0 and SD card slots would be inexpensive and easy if the memory gets cheap enough.

The bottom line is the future looks a lot more complicated compared to VHS or DVD. And no technology will be a slam dunk.

The Panasonic DMP-BD30K is supposed to be able to play AVCHD from either a SDHC card or standard DVD disk:

http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-e...702#tabsection

The DMP-BD30K isn't what I would call cheap, but I'm sure prices will drop. I hope other Blu-Ray player manufactures follow suit, and start producing players that can play AVCHD from flash memory or DVD.

Right now, 16GB SDHC cards are retailing as low as about $60, and flash memory prices are forecast to plummet even further this year. 16GB is large enough to deliver a couple hours of good quality HD video, encoded as AVCHD.

i dont get what the hubbub over this is.

how much $ do you have to fork over for the CURRENT SD DVD's to encrypt it using macrovision's copy protection schema or arcos PER title @ a replication facility?

isn't that $ comparable to aacs/bd+ copy protection schema for Blu-Ray discs?

as for movies. indie content makers have been burning their own DVDRs for ages. the same will apply to blu-ray. it's just a media spec.

whether or not you, the content creator, choose to enact copy protection on your content is upto you and your finances.

the issue will arise if the BDR u burn CANNOT be played by a blu-ray player. that's when we should get MAD!

Well, you don't *have* to buy the macrovision protection :) AACS is mandatory on BD-J replicated Blu-Rays and possibly even "basic" authored discs sent off for replication (still not clear on "basic" discs).

Well, actually there some differences from DVD to Blu-Ray in that arena. For DVD the indie content makers have pretty much had access to 100% of DVD features when authoring their home burned movies. The same features like full motion menus, subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc.. that are available to studios like Disney or Warner are also available to the indie producer. So with some time and effort (and maybe Adobe After Effects ;) its possible to produce indie DVDs just as cool as big studio releases. Now that's gone for home burned Blu-Rays; Studios will be able to do all sorts of neat things with BD Java - but BD Java authored discs don't play without AACS. So the studios and larger content producers now have a lock on high end interactive features.

Personally that aspect of Blu-Ray bums me the most. With HD DVD, the potential existed to create home burned HD DVDs (even burned on normal DVD5/9 media) with all sorts of cool HDi interactivity and features, just like what companies like Warner and especially Universal did fairly regularly. With home burned Blu-Ray movies, I'm pretty much limited to more or less standard DVD menus and interactivity. All the hubub about "next generation interactivity and features!" and its pretty much limited to studios with budgets for full on replication runs.

Actually I believe that's happened on some models. Hopefully going forward this isn't an issue.

That's right, the BD30 is supposed to play AVCHD from a standard DVD disk however for me, it will not.

hi philip,

people have been burning BDRs&DVDRs and playing it on Blu-Ray standalone without aacs. i dunno about replication, but replicators should take your business if you choose to NOT aacs. i haven't acquainted meself w/BD authoring yet, but u require java to author simple menus? that's kind of ridiculous.

re: disc authoring tools. that's only temporary. studios held those same tools away from prosumers in the early days as well, but they all eventually trickled down. MS gave the HDi tools away quickly cause they wanted that format to succeeded but if there were only HD DVDs today they wouldn't be so quick to give those tools away.

i think it's only a matter of time before things trickle down.

Well it just seems to me the Sony is shooting itself in the foot (which they do very well and often). If I can not shoot HD on my Sony Camcorder, then edit it with Sony Vegas on a Sony Computer with a BD Burner and then Play it on a Sony BD player, Sony may have a problem. Two geeks bought computers with stickers saying they were Vista Ready and when that was not true their lawsuit against Microsoft was given class action status. I'd happy if that happened to Sony.

Not guaranteed to play on *all* players :( Again, hopefully that isn't an issue as we move forward. And those BDRs and especially DVDRs are all *basic* authored discs. No cool java stuff.

Nope, depending on the type of disc you want replicated they *cannot* do it without AACS.

No, simple menus are available in basic authoring. Its the really cool stuff (on screen interactivity, etc..) that requires Java.

You can't make Java discs without AACS. BD players will *not* play them. So even if one gets their hands on Java authoring tools, they'll only be usefull for authoring titles that will be sent off for replication with AACS. Its not a case of studios holding anything back. Its the Blu-Ray standards that prevent home authoring Java BDs.

I don't know, Microsoft has traditionally been pretty good about making development tools available to the public, including free and/or low cost visual development tools and databases. Regardless, the HD DVD standard allowed players to run HD DVDs with advanced HDi authoring. Blu-Ray does *not* have that provision. Moot point, format war over :)

It really isn't a case of anything trickling down. Blu-Ray won primarily by gathering a much greater share of studio support. This was accomplished partially by integrating more anti-piracy measures than HD DVD. One of those anti-piracy measures is that Java discs *only* play if they have AACS on them. And that basically locks out the little people from creating Java discs.

1. i assumed that all profiles are backwards compatible for playback of video only. i personally don't care for the 'cool' java stuff. i just want my 1080p+lossless audio for playback purposes.

2. replicating with aacs required is ridiculous. content makers have NO CHOICE but to enact copyright protection on their customers? most low-end indie SD DVD's aren't macrovision enabled. marketwise they want more people to watch their content, not less.

3. last point. so, this means there'll be little to no indie movies for BD? man that really, REALLY sux =*(.

Interesting article about BD replication. I hope Universal and Paramount can find room in there soon, lots of good movies/shows I'd like to see from them :)

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/new...ticle_ID=12404

Sony Strategy?
 

I asked Sony customer service about playing BD-R discs. Both the telephone response and the e-mail response were the same:

The Sony High Definition camcorders use a the AVCHD format for the videos. The disc recorded with these videos can be played on this Sony Blu-ray player.

I also note that the HDV cameras are not getting much attention from Sony. Is this perhaps their strategy for the home HD enthusiast -- the only major group not covered by the move to Blu-Ray -- that they should only use the AVCHD format discs?

It leaves the HD indie and HD event videographer in the lurch, but they (we) are not a large market just now.

Alan

Very interesting. It certainly points out the cost problem w/ the replication line.

A new replication line will cost between 1.5 million to 2.7 million...and the industry needs 80 more replication lines to meet demand. 250 million of investment needs to be spent just to meet capacity. Those type of costs always get sent back to the consumer.

Sony or any HD company has yet to earn any money w/ there HD format. With Sony just having real losses last year of 1.2 billion dollars in their gaming division...The hope of lower costs getting to the consumers seems to be years away.

It will be years before the format actually becomes a profitable business model. Hence, the licensing fees will stay as high as possible.

The authoring software investment was originally a huge chunk of money. The software was in the range of 75 to 250 thousand. It's gradually coming down to a more pedestrian 50 grand.

Interestingly, Warner raised their new release BD prices from MSRP $35 to $36 last year. They're also starting to bundle small books with several catalog releases and pumping those up from their typical $29 to $35. I also noticed that Disney's June release for Signs has jumped from their normal catalog price of $30 to $35. And Sony's 2 disc special editions MSRP for a whopping $44. I've seen folks argue that its just a buck or five or six here and there, but I do wish prices were going down instead of up. I suspect that subsidy deals may be ending or being reduced and the studios do appear to be passing the added expense on.

More from Sony.

I spoke to a very knowledgeable person at Sony. He remarked that with firmware version 2.0, the new BD players from Sony will all play the BD-R/RE discs with either BDAV or BDMV formats. They currently do not have a player like this on the market yet but expect to have one available by late summer.

In the meantime, he suggested that Playstation will play most anything.

He acknowledged that the situation has not stabilized yet but that it should work itself out soon.

Alan