Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

IIRC you can update the ps3 from a thumb drive.

Oh come now. There are millions of people with dial-up; the idea that almost none of them buy Blu-ray Disc players is absurd. Not everyone wants to waste money on broadband (or cable/satellite TV, for that matter). A high speed internet connection is not required to enjoy home theater. It shouldn't be a requirement to enjoy Blu-ray Discs, which is the salient point here.

While it is probably true that vast majority of people here have broadband, whether at home, school, or at work, DVD Talk works fine on dial-up. The secret to dial-up is to open numerous windows and tabs and be working/reading one while the others are loading, then toggle to the next. Even on dial-up it isn't necessary to do the "World Wide Wait" if one knows how to avoid it. The only limitation is that large files — movie trailers, for example — are impractical to download/stream on a slow connection. Those have to wait for a broadband connection; I use the library and a one day a week volunteer job for broadband. It isn't much of a sacrifice.

Perhaps JamesDFarrow and I are the only two on dial-up here, but I doubt it.

Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

Has anyone thought of tethering? Technology exists today to tether your PC to your smartphone in order to get high speed internet accessvia your phone. Just need to get Sony onboard with getting the PS3 to support that technology.

Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

I hadn't realized that there had to be constant updates for even the movie portion of a blu-ray to work ... I guess that means I have to stop badgering my parents to upgrade to blu because unless they are in the middle of nowhere and pretty much stuck with dialup.

I've never had a movie not work on my Panny BD80. I think it depends on the movie and player.

If you are willing to keep an eye on firmware updates, you could burn update CDs and give them to your parents from time to time. Just a suggestion.

Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

Definitely must be the players. I had a Sony with no updates for at least 9 months and it played about 200 BDs with no problem. Heck, I only did the first update because I was getting curious if anything would improve or change when I did. As far I can tell, nothing changed.

We are looking for a house to buy right now and we found this beautiful community where the the houses have smart boxes. They put your router in there with the cable modem and with ethernet connections in all of the rooms, you can be wired to all your computers and blu-ray players. It's pretty cool.

Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

I agree with you in that it is crazy that you have to have internet access to watch a movie on a stand-alone BD player (the PS3), but I guess that's the way it is.

In the future, do downloads like that at your local library, 150 GB will download in ten or fifteen minutes, while you are surfing DVDTalk.

Until earlier this year I was also a dial-up customer but luckily I had a low-cost wireless DSL move into my town. For $20 I can download at about 65 kbps - not cable internet speeds, but less than half the price of cable internet ($45 to $50 around here). It's all about saving the money to spend where I want to. Think of it as my getting a "free" BD each month.

Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

You can do it. It'd be easier to just go to a computer at the library or from work or a friend.

To do it:
Install linux, use your tethering gadget. Download file. Copy to usb drive. Boot back to the PS3 menu. Load update.

Re: To Play This BD, You Must Renew...
 

It's DRM. My PS3, which hadn't been used since September 2008, required a firmware update for Terminator Salvation. I'm not sure if it's AACS or BD+ that's to blame, but I wasn't aware of Warner using the latter.