First to market... Blu-Ray... but there's a catch

[W1nTry]

And a VERY DUMB 1 at that... read:

First desktop Blu-Ray drive can’t play movies

Should be a big seller


By Nick Farrell: Monday 14 August 2006, 06:44

 THE FIRST Blu-Ray disk drive for the desktop PC will not be able to play commercial movies.
The BWU-100A drive was ironically launched at the "Experience More 2006" show in Sydney.

According to News.com, Sony spokespeople sheepishly admitted that there was "significant room for improvement" before the product is viable.

Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, was quoted as saying that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, all the drive can do is run digital camcorder content.

One of the problems is that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections.

However, there are no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP and Blu-Ray playback software that can decrypt HDCP hasn’t been released yet.

News.com says that the only HDCP-supporting Blu-Ray playback is an OEM version of Intervideo WinDVD BD that's bundled with Sony's VAIO VGN-AR18GP notebook.

There is also the AR18GP which has a HDCP-compliant HDMI connector. Sony is confident that both issues will be fixed one of these days. But this must be causing Sony a huge headache if it wants to win any format wars with HD-DVD.

[Xerotolerant]

that kinda funny buying that's like buying a F1 to rome the streets of T&T  as opposed to just buying a lancer like every one else. but that encoding thing, would it be cureable with a firmware update or piece of random software? or does it have to be replaced if you want to watch some random hd video?

[Spazosaurus]

Please excuse my ignorance, but how much better does this high def look than an ordinary DVD video disc played back on a computer?

[Prowl]

HD looks ALOT better than regular video on a computer, but not on a regular tv, even many HD ready tvs/ lcds/ plasmas will not benifit at all. Properly made standard video will scale up very well to HD if done right. The real benifit from hd is archiving, pc users for storage and playback and for those with 37" samsung plasmas the lack of mpeg artifacts vs dvd.  it will be along time before most movies are transfered to hd and even then stuff done in Sd ( standard def ) won't benifit that much. Also note 90% only now have a dvd player with regular tvs, they can't afford to go hdvd or blueray just yet.

[.:Jedi:.]

i dont give a schitt nah! i seen the drive on newegg.....$699.99, sorry.....thais not for me. forgive my lack of knowledge eh, but isnt the ps3 spose to use the blu-ray tech? and the suggested price point of a ps3 from what i've read is $650 (not sure as of recent tho).

[Xerotolerant]

that's a pretty good point .:jedi:. but you sure it was so expensive?

[Qloxx]

Anyhow you take it, it doh make no sense to buy it now. Is like upgrading to vista and microsoft telling you that oh when you upgrade you have to change all your drivers, sure no problem but de damn drivers still in development.
I backing Sony for the Blue ray technology but only if they get it working as it should.
( Microsoft Buffs nuts but i'm too lazy to switch to linux)

[.:Jedi:.]

that's a pretty good point .:jedi:. but you sure it was so expensive?

My Bad.......i "under-quoted" the price.....that stayin right there!!!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131034

and newegg has some of the most reasonable prices on the web eh....

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 Sony wants to commit suicide yes...
   
   But it helps to make the ps3 attractive.... blue ray player ftw