It has nothing to do with "messing" with anyone. It has to do with the stupidity of Fox if they actually went exclusive with BD because they thought it wouldn't be cracked. Fox got up on a soapbox about why they would only release on BD and praised Sony for their security. Now they will come up with some other reason to give Sony a reach around. It doesn't matter to me, but I do enjoy Fox getting exactly what they told the world they were now inuslated from because of the power of Sony.

What we haven't been told is that BD+ isn't actually a software encryption, it's a program Sony has begun where they track down hackers and send a hitman to kill them.

haha!

And here I thought all Blu-Ray players had a bomb in them that self-destructs if the DRM is compromised. That explains the extra cost involved.

Link???

I've seen articles with Fox talking about BD+. Interested to see otherwise.

But still, anyone that believes in software copy protection =

You serious? I might take the time later, but we have had lots of quotes from the Fox heads about this very issue.

Don't bother. I'll check them out myself. No big deal.

I'm interested in how HD DVD studios plan to prevent mass-piracy by Chinese firms of their titles now that their movie keys are effectively out in the open. AACS does not look as if they're going to revoke PowerDVD's license, according to CED, so the loop-hole will remain in effect.

HD DVD rips have already appeared on the net. They rip them and encode them at 720p with the x264 codec, basically an HD version of Xvid, and full 5.1 sound. They more or less look like the HD Apple movie trailers. So apparently there are pirates that do care about quality. I agree with the blank media and drive part though, I'll be a long time (I think) before you start seeing mass copying going on in China or anywhere for that matter.

Um, do you honestly believe these companies truly think that these protection schemes wont get broken? All that stuff about copy protection and that piracy is killing the movie industry and what not is just BS they put out there, so that they can justify to the public certain things they want to put in place. Of course this shit is going to happen. IT ALWAYS HAPPENS. We know it, and so do they (including Fox).

Agreed. Plus, if nothing else, BD+ gives BD a few more months of claiming they are the format that hasn't been hacked. A few months during a very critical adoption time...

The main aim appears to be to prevent large-scale piracy by orginized gangs. The studios have given every indication that they are serious about persuing this aim. Though I'm intrigued to hear what these "things they want to put in place" might be. What dastardly scheme do you think they have?

That is what BD+ seems to be aimed at more than anything and, as such, this should at least be interesting seeing how the pirate market deals with it.

I thought the ROM mark was the thing that deals with duplication.

Yes, sorry you are correct. I sometimes forget that ROM mark is the third layer of security added to Blu-Ray. Not sure how Rom mark interacts with BD+ and AACS though because available info is pretty quiet.

I just looked up the torrents out of boredom, it appears all the big titles are on torrent sites now for HD DVD. I didn't check Blu Ray.

Agreed. I don't think Fox is sitting there going, "Oh, and let's make a program that takes money out of the customer's bank account every ten minutes and call it copy protection. MUAHAHAHAHA!"

Who cares? No one has any way to burn them or play them, so let's all take a step back.

whatever you say there skippy.

also, they don't just do this to burn a copy on a blank disc. you can keep a copy to watch on your pc or stream it to a tv

You're going to need terrabytes of storage for any appreciable "media" server to stream high def content.

And that's not really a big deal these days, storage is cheap.

I dont think they have any dastardly scheme per se, but this makes it easy for them to go back and say, look we need to put in greater macroblocking, region encoding, self-destruct discs(j/k but you never know, ) or you need to pay a usage fee after a certain amount of times used to protect us and you. Im not a tinfoil hat kind of guy, but they have to know this will happen and continue to happen.

Indeed - do the math - $150 buys a 500gb hard disk that can store 16 HD/BDs at ~30Gb each.
At an average price of $20 per HD/BD those 16 would cost over twice as much at $320.

It is reasonable to expect hard disk space to get cheaper faster than HD/BDs get cheaper.

Terrabytes of storage is not cheap. We are talking single-drive here.

i dont know how to write..i meant, im not bill gates, i dont understand the computer technicalities of this, such as, can it be pirated....it obviously can after I've read this thread.

Yes it is cheap. Why are you talking single drive, no need for that.