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Blu-Ray Facing Delays Caused by DRM Squabbling 201

Posted by Zonk from the just-pick-something-already dept.
Tomo Hiratsuka writes "Disney, Warners et al, the companies behind the AACS content management system, apparently can't get their act together to complete the standard they wish to impose on Blu-ray. The result? Pioneer has the first Blu-ray drive for PCs ready for market next month but is openly admitting the DRM issue may force it to delay." From the article: "The inability of the companies behind the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) content management system to complete their work has already caused Toshiba to put launch plans for its HD DVD player on hold. AACS is made up of a number of companies from the electronics and content industries. The group's founders include IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Disney and Warner Bros."
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Blu-Ray Facing Delays Caused by DRM Squabbling More

Blu-Ray Facing Delays Caused by DRM Squabbling

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  • Welcome! (Score:4, Funny)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:24PM (#14348168) Homepage Journal
    I for one welcome our new indecisive DRM overlords.

    Err, am I welcoming the indecisiveness of our DRM overlords?

    -Rick

    • Re:Welcome! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy@nosPAm.gmail.com> on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:30PM (#14348210) Journal
      Yes, I for one welcome the indecisiveness of our would-be DRM overlords.

      It amusing that the greed of the big media corporations which kickstarted this whole mess to begin with, is the same exact thing that is keeping them from developing effective DRM. All the shifting alliances as all the tech companies try and lock the content providers into their DRM scheme, and all of them fight to make sure their DRM doesn't really work with anyone elses. It'll be a moot point before they get their crap together.

      Ahhh, the sweet spectacle of infighting among ones enemies.
      • lock the content providers into their DRM scheme, and all of them fight to make sure their DRM doesn't really work with anyone elses

        And the ultimate irony here is that all the squabbling over DRM has nothing to do with piracy prevention at all.

        • They are to stupid to figure that out. Anyone got any clues on cracking this bitch so we can get on with the show?

          • Re:Welcome! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Mycroft_VIII ( 572950 )
            I don't think that's quite it. Thier goal is to increase the bottom line any way they can get away with.
            What these schemes really do is allow them better controll distribution and move things more towards pay-per-use by forcing you to buy more copies if the first one gets scratched or damaged or lost.
            The slight effect it has on piracy is just a bonus.
            They say it's all about piracy because by raising up that spector they sell these schemes to the public who otherwise wouldn't

      • I bet they're just removing the root-kits (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cbreaker ( 561297 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @06:39PM (#14348658) Journal
        After the whole thing with Sony's music CDs, I wouldn't be surprised if they've had to change some aspects of the copy protection - namely removing stealth copy protection mechanisms. Because you know it was on their minds, and probably already coded.
      • Hardware always outpaces software. It is only now that software requirements are aborting hardware cabilities. It feels like when the US tried to limit cryptographics. We can't let mere citizens have access to things that actually work for them...

    • Doormat? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rob_squared ( 821479 ) <<rob> <at> <rob-squared.com>> on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:30PM (#14348216)
      If we're welcoming our new overlords, does that make us doormats?

      Anyway, I wish companies would realize that DRM is not the answer to copyright infringement, there is no "answer." The best way to lessen the problem is to lessen the cost to the end user, and don't introduce new formats!

      A lot of people bought DVD copies of their VHS tapes because of higher quality and longer life spans, will BlueRay be enough of an advance?

      • No it's not even close to enough of an advance but once BluRay and HD-DVD are out in the wild properly the big players will start to put pressure on DVD manufacturers to "upgrade" to their favourite next gen format. Before you know it there will be no more licenses issued to press films to DVD format and the DVD market will slowly dry up. There will be no option with new movies. It will be next gen or nothing.

        • I wouldn't go that far. I think the DVD format will be around with us for a long time. I just came from the grocery store, they are selling dvd players for 29 bucks right next to the beer. DVD is no longer the format for the video elete, every fucker and his dog now has one. There is no way anyone in their right mind will abandon a market like that. (Of course who ever said MPAA has a right mind.)

          My point is, DVD is a huge market. Piracy or no piracy there is a shit load of money to be made.

          Then

        • And I still see VHS sold in stores. Not as many anymore, but you can still get pretty much every new video on it.

          I think it would be hilarious if they end up without DRM at all. Probably sell better as well.
      • i have a theory that people transferd to dvd from vhs because of ease of use (atleast in theory. those silly menus and disneystyle mandatory adds for other products dont help much).

        when your done with a vhs, you have to rewind it. with a dvd you just put it back onto its cover and pop it onto the shelf. want to watch a specific scene? find the closest one on the dvd menu and your more or less done. on a vhs you have to fast forward and maybe rewind as you missed the spot.

        quality is often secondary to ease o

    • You should! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by openfrog ( 897716 )
      Err, am I welcoming the indecisiveness of our DRM overlords?

      Indeed, the commercial mess that DRM schemes are now demonstrably causing around a promising technology should further convince decision makers and investors around the world that the business model of DRM is wrong. Reasonable pricing and value preserved DRM unencumbered media will do it. One new nail in the coffin!
      • Ah, no way will they be that intelligent. They'll spend ten times what they've lost in piracy, alienate zillions of customers, get embroiled in countless lawsuits, all in an attempt to make sure that no one NO ONE gets for free what they have the rights to sell.

        It's like the war on drugs...You can't fight supply and demand. The invisible hand [wikipedia.org] will bitch slap [wikipedia.org] you up one side of the street [wikipedia.org] and down the other. But people persist in fighting it.

        • Re:You should! (Score:2, Interesting)

          by openfrog ( 897716 )
          You can't fight supply and demand

          Precisely! If they supply value diminished things instead of value added ones, no one will want them. This is why they are trying to legislate and sue their way to their dreamed toll gates. It will be meaningful to a lot of people to fight this fight in the name of sound economy principles and openness to innovation.
          • You're talking about creating an artifical scarcity to boost prices. That's what got them in this mess to begin with. Do you really think p2p would have blown up the way it did if the RIAA hadn't been gouging with the CD prices? Remember 20 dollar CDs? Pretty unjustifable. As soon as they get truly effective DRM, prices will zip right back up.
    • Need to verify a couple of things.
      Blu-Ray is the one which requires "Activation" for use and disc's once used in one player will not play in another. Right/Wrong?
      Does it send back info to SONY about what you are playing on the device, thereby breaking a few US laws on spying?
      Does it have a remote internet kill sequence that SONY can send out to turn your Blu-Ray player into a brick? If true it will probably take some hacker a few days to figure out and broadcast sequences on the net turning every Blu-Ray
      • Blu-Ray is the one which requires "Activation" for use and disc's once used in one player will not play in another. Right/Wrong?

        Sony has a patent on that technology but its not in the blue-ray spec. Noone knows how/when/where they plan on using that patent. Everything you read was simply idle speculation.

  • Production - (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ruff_ilb ( 769396 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:25PM (#14348174) Homepage
    Now that these companies are actually producing products instead of touting them on paper, will they realize (falsely or not) that it's not worth pushing DRM? Or will they continue delaying a DRM release at the expense of new, otherwise helpful, tech?
    • Now that these companies are actually producing products instead of touting them on paper, will they realize (falsely or not) that it's not worth pushing DRM?

      Absolutely not. This is a group of individuals that apparently read the story about the golden goose, and didn't get the moral of the story.

  • Gee... (Score:5, Funny)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:25PM (#14348176) Homepage
    You mean my ability to buy into an intentionally crippled format has been delayed?

    Darn.

  • Title should say it affects Blueray and HD-DVD (Score:5, Informative)

    by four2five ( 645777 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:26PM (#14348179) Homepage
    I know the excerpt mentions it but both formats will be delayed by this, title seems a bit misleading.

  • Good! Ship it WITHOUT DRM then! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:26PM (#14348182)
    Maybe if Pioneer sold enough of them, there'd be such an uproar when the DRM'd players come out that they'd be rejected completely by consumers. Or, at least, it would wake up more people to the dangers of DRM.

  • Idiots! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) * on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:26PM (#14348183)
    They should decide which copy protection system they want DVDJon to break and get it over with. Geeze.

    Or they could skip the crypto crap and save everyone some time and money, but that just seems too obvious.

    • Although parent is modded funny he raises a good point.

      I think that in the end DRM will cost more to the media companies than it will bring money to them. First of all there is always the cost to add DRM solutions to media. Mass production lowers these costs but they will still be there. Then there's the fact that restricting the use will irritate consumers, even those that don't have grasp for tech. For example my sister and my cousin already have refused to by anything with DRM after they had some bad e

  • Just to make it perfect... (Score:5, Funny)

    by LurkerML ( 668881 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:26PM (#14348185)
    someone should sue them about patent infringments after they agreed on something.
    • That would be an interesting ploy, but risky, the likelihood of a counter suit would be high. But if someone where to claim patent infringment on the DRM system just before the technology made it to market (ie: Plants tooled up and producing units and media) even if just to stall the release for 6 months or longer while litigation goes forth and a 3rd party reviews every line of code in the system. That would have to have quite a profound effect.

      -Rick

  • I'd like to see something like it come out, but take the time to do it correctly. i.e. NO DRM!

  • Not a surprise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:29PM (#14348205)
    The film industry has no real desire to jump into HD-DVD/Bluray. They won't be making much money until player costs drop significantly and the HD market is better established. They have the DRM leverage over manufacturers and will string this out as long as possible to get as strict as possible protection.

    • Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FunFactor100 ( 848822 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:43PM (#14348299) Homepage
      Meanwhile the movie studios will continue to put out non-HD DVD's that can be cracked, ripped, and posted online. 95% of the world won't care if the movie is HD or not, they're happy with the current DVD quality. Most HDTV owners don't even make use of HDTV signals [slashdot.org] anyways, does anyone think they care about buying HD DVD's?
      • Most HDTV owners don't even make use of HDTV signals anyways

        It isn't always wise to take a Slashdot post as Gospel. Still dumpster-diving for that mythical spyware-ridden high-end Windows PC?

        Digital VHS is available now ($500 JVC - $1000 Marzntz) with blank cassettes selling for about $8. DVD sales are down, HDTV sales are up.

    • Disagree: Hollywood wants to phase out the insecure DVD standard as quickly as they can get away with it.

      Right now the studios are in the catbird seat with both BR and HDDVD trying to best each other with more and more DRM. But in either case they will end up with something significantly better for them than DVD.

      • The fly in the ointment... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) * on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:53PM (#14348371) Homepage
        Is that they've got to convince people to switch.

        As sony has found out, asking people to give up a non-DRM format for something with DRM is a tough sell (as in SACD replacing Audio CD).

        • If DRM had anything do with SACD failing, then iTunes would have failed right along with it.

          PC users will willingly buy-in for ~50GB of backup storage. I know I will. That will get the market off the groundfloor.

          Even if the studios fail to get consumers to care about HD, or having an entire season of TV on one single disk, the installedbase of crappy $50 Walmart DVD players will all fail at some point and will be replaced with HD players.
        • The reason why SACD and DVD-A have failed is because you have to be listening very carefully in a controlled environment to notice the improvement over regular CDs (ignoring the multichannel aspects). HiDef DVDs, however, should offer considerable noticable improvement over standard DVDs, assuming you have an HDTV. Some people won't notice a difference, of course. But many people will at least notice some improvement. This is because people's eyesight is more finely tuned than their hearing, since they're r

        • Re:The fly in the ointment... (Score:4, Informative)

          by pla ( 258480 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @06:43PM (#14348676) Journal
          as in SACD replacing Audio CD

          I disagree. SACD nicely commented on the audio industry's real delusion... Namely, they seem to seriously believe that most of us sit at home in our sound-booth/home-theatre ne living-room, and play our music and movies on a dedicated player in a dedicated environment.

          I seriously believe they attribute the success of iTunes to people sticking a computer in that same "home sound booth" model, rather than accepting the cold hard reality that 99.9% of us listen to music:
          A) in the car
          B) at work (mostly through our computers), and
          C) while jogging/waiting to see a doctor/waiting for a train/etc.

          That has held true for decades, and the industry still doesn't "get" it. The rise of modern portable large-capacity MP3/AAC/whatever players hasn't changed anything but the need to change discs/tapes/stations.


          As for SACD... First of all, following the above mini-rant, nothing supports it except for what amount to standalone home-media-center modular units. Yeah, someone will probably point out a Sony/Philips portable player or even a CD-ROM drive that supports it. I've never seen one. I've never even seen it mentioned as a selling point while shopping for either of those two products specifically. Second, although it has theoretically better (high-end) frequency response (1hz-100khz) than a standard CD (0-22khz... interestingly, SACD cannot reproduce 0hz due to the encoding used, not that it really matters), neither my speakers nor any human ears can physically suffer the limitation of a standard CD. Third, although SACD has a slightly better dynamic range than normal CDs, when the idiots mastering them clip even on CDs (Hello? Didn't you guys learn the word "headroom" in Audio Engineering school???), giving anything short of infinite dynamic range won't matter, and even if we gave them that, they'd just use it to blow our speakers on the first note in the name of "volume". And fourth no matter how many channels you can encode, I still only have two ears (plus, arguably, a tactile "bass" channel).


          So... Um... The actual topic. DRM sucks. Yeah.
      • Sure, Hollywood wants a new standard to ensure it has DRM. But most of the public doesn't care much for HD-DVD's along with the cost of purchasing a new player. Hollywood will continue to sell regular DVD's untill there's a market for HD-DVD's...which doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon.

        • Re:Not a surprise (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ClosedSource ( 238333 )
          I agree. Successful media transitions for consumer content are usually based on significant changes in form-factor or durability, not simply on quality.

    • Re:Not a surprise (Score:3, Interesting)

      by macdaddy357 ( 582412 )
      ...And the delay this creates will make blue laser DVD as obsolete as 8-track by the time it actually hits the market.
    • Again, let's take the language back: It's as strict as possible restrictions, not "protection".

      Eivind.

  • so what they're saying is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dark404 ( 714846 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:32PM (#14348224)
    Both HD-DVD, and Blue Ray will be delayed until the DRM is done, so they'll both end up launching at the same time creating a split in the market that makes DVD+ DVD- elegant by comparison.

    Can anyone say 2 stillborn products?
    • 1 stillborn product. Blu-Ray will get market simply because of the PS3
      • It's not clear that blue-ray in the PS3 will have much of any effect of which standard wins the home theater or computer crowd for that matter. While the PS3 may be able to play movie DVDs, will most people use their PS3 as a DVD movie player? I sincerely doubt it. Let's face it, optical drives in videogame stations could as well be their own proprietary format (like it was with cartridges, back in the days) since these disks don't work in a computer or any other devices. These games are custom design
        • The PS2 helped, at least some, with DVD adoption. It was cheaper to get a PS2 than most stand alone DVD players at the time, and history may repeat itself with Blu-Ray and the PS3.

          The last numbers I remember hearing for stand-alone Blu-Ray players was around $1000, and with the PS3 running at half that, it's going to get Blu-Ray players into homes that wouldn't otherwise bother with one for several years. HD-DVD doesn't have that advantage.

    • Both HD-DVD, and Blue Ray will be delayed until the DRM is done, so they'll both end up launching at the same time creating a split in the market that makes DVD+ DVD- elegant by comparison.

      Can anyone say 2 stillborn products?

      That's what worries me. We have a small business creating personalized DVD's using a customers pictures and videos. Occasionally we run into a problem with the DVD media. Usually we burn DVD-R's using Ridata G04's. The new DVD format could work out and everyone just get's along.

      I've
  • Ok, I'm hungover and pissy.. But I'm just sick to fucking death of these profit-mongering fuckers pissing all over us. Fucking us over is one thing - keeping us cringing as they sharpen the blades on the serrated dildo they're about to ram into our asses is just the goddamn icing.

    There's a reason I don't buy movies anymore. Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years. I don't even own a cd player anymore, and I'm sure as hell not buying either of these goddamn new techs. We have to produc

    • What he really meant (Mod Parent UP) (Score:5, Funny)

      by IAAP ( 937607 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @06:05PM (#14348460)
      Ok, I'm hungover and pissy..

      I am quite ill.

      But I'm just sick to fucking death of these profit-mongering fuckers pissing all over us. Fucking us over is one thing - keeping us cringing as they sharpen the blades on the serrated dildo they're about to ram into our asses is just the goddamn icing.

      I am quite exhausted with these media corporations trying to eliminate our basic rights to fair use. Would they please try to consider some basic principles other than their profit motives? I understant that they have fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders - maybe my 401K is invested in one of them, but please, consider the above.

      There's a reason I don't buy movies anymore. Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years. I don't even own a cd player anymore, and I'm sure as hell not buying either of these goddamn new techs. We have to produce an epic amount of pointless shit to fill the amounts of space available on existing portable media and somehow attempt to justify charging a freaking fortune for utter catwank like Freaky Friday.

      I disappointed with the quality of today's media output.

      And then the cunts will only be fucking happy when I give them money to watch the movie, then have the memory surgically fucking removed from my brain so I don't stad the chance of even potentially infringing on their piece of shit, rip off, 'IP'.

      In their overzealous attempt at promoting their profits, are they going to start erasing our memories so that we have to keep paying for the same content over and over? I feel quite used and over-charged!

      Stallman et al are fucking nuts too, but jesus, at least they look you in the face with their crazed eyes and spit flecked jaws when they're fucking your wife.

      Stallman et al are somewhat eccentric. And I assume that they may be having relations with your spouse.

      Burn my damn karma - you know I'm right. Except about Stallman banging your wife. Probably.

      I have strong opinions about this, and I am not concerned with your modderations.

    • Enjoyed the piss and vinegar. "Catwank" was the icing on the cake. Not sure if I'd want to actually eat a cake iced with catwank, but it's still a worthy creation.
    • Shit, I haven't bought a movie or a cd in five fucking years.

      Translation: I can justify my pirating by saying that there's nothing good out there anymore.

      There may be a TON of crap out there, but there's still plenty of good stuff. Too bad you can't find any of it.

  • There is no such thing as DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by McAlt 0178 ( 768553 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:43PM (#14348300)
    If it can be read, it can be copied...
    • What a great, succinct way to put it.

    • If it can be read, it can be copied...

      They figured that one out long ago.

      The plan is to make it harder to copy, so as to shrink the number of people doing it down so that:

      1. less profits are lost to piracy;
      2. the number of pirates remains "sueable".

      Personally, I don't quite get, what the fuzz is about -- if you hate the movie houses so much for this, stop buying their wares. It's only entertainment -- people have given up far more vital things in protest...

      And, if it turns out, Joe Sixpack (a.k.a. "sheep

    • They could care less if you could copy it!

      The great majority of DRM schemes are simly trying to control playback, restricting access to content only, not preventing complete copies from being made.
    • so I guess DRM will finally work properly when the movies are delivered via a disc that contains only rootkit malware and a phone number you call so an operator can describe the movie to you as he watches it.

    • Hmmm. (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Some copy-protection schemes exploit asymmetries in the system. For example, there was a system for protecting analogue audio by having an additional frequency that would overload tape-to-tape recording systems but would not interfere with direct playback.

      With digital media it is much harder, because you don't need to process the information in order to read it. With analogue, the two steps were the same. Thus, copy protection at the data level is completely useless. If you can read the data, you can indeed

      • Re:Hmmm. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by crawling_chaos ( 23007 )
        The best way to pwn the market is to define the market. You're never going to convince the RIAA and MPAA, so don't involve them in the first place. If they're runners-up, then they'll have to make do with what YOU choose to provide.

        The problem is that this is ultimately about content, and your whiz-bang engineering solutions do not make it easy for you to sign bands or fund major motion pictures. The **AAs have beaten you to the market by decades on that front and it is unlikely that you will catch them.

  • Get Your DRM Right Here.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mpapet ( 761907 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:45PM (#14348309) Homepage
    Sadly, I really don't think DRM will bother the unwashed masses. Why?

    -Most people have been trained to buy their information. Along the way free information is derided as just that, "free" and all it suggests.
    -It will "just work."
    -If the quality is good enough, they'll gladly lose what freedom is left in exchange for a prettier picture. Most have gladly done that already with iTunes. So the audio battle is over and DRM has won. Your video is next.
    -Even when someone breaks it, it just won't put a big dent in the corporation's bottom line.
    -The Entertainment corps get to drag the poor guy through court as an "example to all." Thereby reinforcing the mindset that information should be owned, lock, stock and barrel.

    While I understand that DRM and OSS are idealogically polar opposites, there should be an OSS DRM. Then there would at least be some transparency. Not to mention a generally better system.
    • "Most people have been trained to buy their information. Along the way free information is derided as just that, "free" and all it suggests."
      That's an interesting suggestion, one I've never heard before. Quite the opposite is taking place, as a matter of fact. Google and Wikipedia have largely replaced books and encyclopediae as sources of information on pretty much any topic. Both are completely free services, and while neither is perfect, both are good enough for most practical uses.

      "It will "just wor
  • According to the article:

    "IBM has accused Sony of failing to complete a portion of the code responsible for decryption of the video stream. 'The code they delivered for factoring the product of two large prime numbers is [extremely] slow,' said a spokesman, 'but we're confident they'll come through with a solution soon.'"

  • Morons wasting millions. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:50PM (#14348352)
    The really sad part is that these companies have now wasted millions of dollars and months, if not years bickering about a DRM system that will be cracked by bootleggers within months of its public release.
  • What a waste of time...

  • can't they just... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BushCheney08 ( 917605 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:57PM (#14348396)
    Can't they just sell me the drive now and then send me the add-on DRM module once they get that sorted out? I promise that I'll hook it up right away.
  • This should make it more embarrassing when their DRM is cracked within 90 days of release.
    Not that the media mafia really cares or anything but at least we'll get a laugh.

  • Don't blame them (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stan Vassilev ( 939229 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @05:58PM (#14348411)
    It's a lot of stress for them.

    They just FEEL that whatever they end up with for AACS it'll be hacked and dismantled the week it's out, and are frantically trying to prevent it.

    It's of course funny to see how the minuses of DRM pile on top of each other (now delaying manifacturing and entering the market), while the benefits are yet to be seen (if ever).
  • I hope a few of these units leak out into the marketplace before being neutered with DRM. It would be easy then to compare the difference between them and figure out how to remove the offending bits. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, is the DRM really an add-on to the point where you could manufacture them and ready them for shipment, awaiting only an easy DRM plugin? Is the DRM merely firmware or is it somehow embedded more deeply into the electronics?
  • It will only take one company to release blue laser DVD technology that does not have DRM (Even if it is against the law in the USA). The consumers will vote with their dollars. And thus DRM will lose the battle again.

  • Impatient (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @06:28PM (#14348572)
    Jiminy, I don't give three-quarters of a rat's ass about movies on BluRay. I want these turkeys to go ahead and get their consumer market rolling along so I can get a writable BluRay drive and start burning spindles full of data DVD-R's to a handful of BluRay discs.
  • Pioneer has the first Blu-ray drive for PCs ready for market next month but is openly admitting the DRM issue may force it to delay.

    Or you could ship it now without DRM and flash update the BIOS later on when the children have quit throwing food at each other while complaining about who got more than they did.

  • The Real Question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @06:35PM (#14348619)
    The real question is: Will Sony delay the PS3 if the DRM isn't worked out? Or will they ship with what they have at the time?

  • (Via IDG News Service)

    [...]

    The drive will have an ATAPI interface that delivers a data transfer rate of 33Mbps, said Muneto.

    33Mbps? Where did they find a one bit wide, 33MHz ATAPI interface? Perhaps they meant 33MBps? The question is, where did the error come from? If it's from IDG, that's pretty sad.

  • Whats stopping.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @06:56PM (#14348768)

    Someone bulding a next gen dvd player out of parts and breaking at least some of the DRM that way. As I understand it some information will be contained in tracks that can't be read by the player (well they can but you can't see the result of that read). Surely a home built player could just be made to read that info. Now I realize that building a DVD player is not a trivial task but most of the parts are already available. In fact surely all you would really need to build is a new control board just without all the DRM. The read head, trays, drive motors etc etc are already and waiting.

  • They're squabbling over which DRM standard will cracked 24 hours after it's released? What a waste of time.
        LK4
  • The inability of the companies behind the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) content management system to complete their work has already caused Toshiba to put launch plans for its HD DVD player on hold.

    You think that's bad, you should try working a project with EDS. Then you'll learn what "delay" really means.

  • They are trying to come up with a DRM scheme with an algorithm complex enough to not fit on the front of a T-Shirt. They want us to have to use the front AND back of the shirt this go-around.

    Dan East

  • The same thing happened with DVD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cvd6262 ( 180823 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2005 @08:07PM (#14349184)
    Jim Taylor in DVD Demystified explained that DVD's were ready to go (technically) 18 months before they were formally launched. The holdup: Studios wanted encryption. Finally, someone sold them CSS, convincing them it was *very* secure.

    Noting new here. Same old IP concerns holding up innovation and the progress IP protection was meant to promote.
    • And there were a number of studios that dragged their feet and didn't release any movies for DVD in the first 2-3 years after it was introduced. The studio that owned Titanic probably lost millions by delaying its availability on DVD. Ditto George Lucas. Think about how much money he would have made if he had released Star Wars on DVD the Christmas before Episode I instead of waiting until after that suckfest Episode II.

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