You Can Buy It, But You Can't Use It
From Daily Tech:Sony has said that the company’s first Blu-Ray disc drive won’t play protected movies released under the Blu-Ray format. Sony unveiled its first Blu-Ray computer disk drive, the BWU-100A, this year at the companies “Experience More 2006” event held yesterday in Sydney, Australia.
Sony officials said copy protection and software development issues were behind its decision to release the drive without movie playback support. Among the reasons given was the fact that Blu-Ray commercial content can only be played with HDCP compliant hardware and that currently very few devices actually support HDCP.
Sony is optimistic that the issues will be resolved “soon” but does not have a specific time table available as to when that might take place. The company emphasizes that the drive is still useful as a mass storage device...
Here's the big honking phrase: Blu-Ray commercial content can only be played with HDCP compliant hardware and that currently very few devices actually support HDCP.
They're not exaggerating--far less than 1% of existing monitors are compliant with the HDCP standard. So if you want Blu-Ray on your computer, you can shell out $750 for the drive AND buy a new monitor if you actually want to watch Blu-Ray movies. And don't think those monitors are going to sell like hotcakes--it could be years before HDCP-compliant monitors get traction.
This may also be a problem with HD-DVD computer drives. I expect them to require an HDCD-compliant device.
What's so totally offensive from a consumer standpoint is that this is just about copy protection. That's it--we're supposed to buy expensive new monitors to support advanced copy protection schemes. What's in it for us? Nothing. Welcome to Screwedville.
Oh, and remember when I said I thought that the PS3 was actually costing Sony in the range of $1,000 a unit to manufacture? If a single drive is selling for $750, shouldn't the Cell processor, graphics card, hard drive, and advanced video processing technology (remember, it upconverts regular DVD's to HD resolution, which the drive alone doesn't do) represent $400 to $500 more in additional cost? Even with a profit margin on the drive, I don't think a thousand dollars a unit for the PS3 is out of the ballpark.
Years from now, case studies will be written about the launch and promotion of Blu-Ray, and it will be regarded as one of the most incompetent episodes in corporate history.
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