BD Managed Copy Launches in 2010, New Player Required

[admin]

We reported early this week that the recently-approved final AACS license included Managed Copy, enabling consumers to make one copy of any Blu-ray Disc they buy. Now additional details on the acquisition procedure and on the actual rollout of this feature have arisen. Soon, the vast majority of BDs will support Managed Copy, but studios will be able to charge for it, and new players will be needed.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2894

The way managed copy will work is as follows:

• The Blu-ray movie has to be enabled for MC by the studio
• You will need a Blu-ray player that's compatible with MC - none of the Blu-ray players made so far are compatible
• If the movie and player both support MC, there will be a menu option on the Blu-ray movie to make the copy, either to a blank Blu-ray disc, DVD or portable devices.
• There will be online authentication before the copy can be made, and there will be limitations as to how many copies can be made (each disc will have a serial number, and so, an online database stores how many copies you have made for this disc).
• There will be additional cost placed on the consumer for discs that have MC enabled
• None of the above are mandatory, so studios and manufacturers can choose to include MC or not

The easiest way, I suppose, would be to make managed copies on your PC, since its software can be easily upgraded to allow for MC and you will need a burner or some of kind of connection (USB?) to make the copy, which many standalone players will not have. So this solves the problem of making MCs without the need to buy a new standalone, but to playback the MC (especially if burned to Blu-ray), may require special players as I don't think MC produced copies will be exactly the same as commercially made ones (or even home made ones from your own content).

[drfsupercenter]

I wonder if they'll have an update for the PS3 that lets you use that feature?

[admin]

That's probably not too hard to do, since the PS3 is flexible enough to be updated through software.

Standalones can be updated through firmware too, but perhaps there will be a level of encryption required for the authentication phase, and maybe that's too taxing for the processors on standalones. And some will also need to be fitted with ways to connect to portable devices, which the PS3 can do quite easily already.

[Budreaux]

This is great news actually....for reasons I'm sure we shouldn't discuss here.
They've just opened a window that they "THINK" they can control.
Reminds me of the old DTV programming days.

[admin]

To be fair, if I was given the opportunity to make a DVD version of my Blu-ray movies for use on my DVD player, and then another copy for my portable media player (or phone), and perhaps one more copy in HD either on Blu-ray for backup or for my home media server, then that's pretty much all the copies I will need, and I won't mind if I have to jump through a few hoops before I'm allowed to do all this legally. But I guess it also depends on how much extra I would have to pay for the right to do this, despite the fact that I should already have the right under fair use anyway.

In other words, studios should at least try and make ripping legal and make money off that, because I think some people will be willing to pay (and those that don't want to pay won't be paying anything anyway, so there's nothing lost).

Just don't add too many layers of DRM to the ripped video, and I don't think they need to with serial numbers and online authentication, it would really easy to track if a ripped copy ended up online and who's responsible for it.

[drfsupercenter]

If it puts it on a DVD, what sort of DRM could it possibly have?

Digital Copy, on the other hand...

[admin]

Yeah, I was mainly talking about the digital copy. But they could put something on it to make it more difficult to rip (the copy) on PCs, or require that the copied DVD will only play in Blu-ray players with MC enable (so technically not a fully compliant DVD).

[Wombler]

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2894

The way managed copy will work is as follows:

• The Blu-ray movie has to be enabled for MC by the studio
• You will need a Blu-ray player that's compatible with MC - none of the Blu-ray players made so far are compatible
• If the movie and player both support MC, there will be a menu option on the Blu-ray movie to make the copy, either to a blank Blu-ray disc, DVD or portable devices.
• There will be online authentication before the copy can be made, and there will be limitations as to how many copies can be made (each disc will have a serial number, and so, an online database stores how many copies you have made for this disc).
• There will be additional cost placed on the consumer for discs that have MC enabled
• None of the above are mandatory, so studios and manufacturers can choose to include MC or not

The easiest way, I suppose, would be to make managed copies on your PC, since its software can be easily upgraded to allow for MC and you will need a burner or some of kind of connection (USB?) to make the copy, which many standalone players will not have. So this solves the problem of making MCs without the need to buy a new standalone, but to playback the MC (especially if burned to Blu-ray), may require special players as I don't think MC produced copies will be exactly the same as commercially made ones (or even home made ones from your own content).

Hmmm..... seems like the perfect way to inhibit a market that's just starting to blossom.

There's a high proportion of existing adopters that have paid a lot of money for their players and will feel hard done by.

Also a certain proportion of people getting ready to buy players, now that they're finally getting to an affordable level, are bound to be put off.

I can only see this having a negative effect on player sales and if there are less players then there'll be less people buying discs.

As our Americans colleagues would say "way to stunt the market dude!".


Wombler