OK, why didn’t anyone think this wouldn’t be a problem when Blu Rays player were designed? Most people connect it to the TV and forget. If I had one, which I don’t, it would be a problem because the TV is done the hall in another room away from my interconnection. Yes, we’re more tech-savvy, but most people wouldn’t update the AV and Windows if it weren’t done so automatically. So, why exactly do the players need to be update, when DVD players of old didn’t, and why can’t the DVDs be made to fit the “standard” of out-of-the-box players?
Someone with more knowledge will surely come along to fill in the details, but…
I believe one of the main points of having blu-ray players upgradable was so that they *could *modify the DRM schemes on new discs to stay one step ahead of the pirates. They wanted a system that could change and be flexible. It also allows them to add new features to existing units.
With DVDs, once they cracked the copy protection, that was it–from that point on virtually all titles could be easily copied.
I’m pretty sure they did anticipate the problem, but thought it less important than keeping people from being able to make illegal copies. People tend to put up with a lot.
DVD players often needed updates in the early days; it took a few years for compatibility problems to be ironed out. This archived AVS Forum thread demonstrates a number of problems across a wide variety of DVD players circa 2004, and mentions the need to update firmware for many of them.
I’m sorry but things like DVD/Blueray should be considered purely hardware, and have such a well established standard that they never need upgrading. This is a huge huge FAIL. Who in hell would connect their Bluray player to ethernet? WTF?! One of the reasons the BR-HD war lasted as long as it did was because BR was delayed in solidifying it’s standards. Now we know that the “winner” declaration was a bit premature.
Most Blu-ray players also have a USB port, so it is possible to download the firmware update onto a flash drive and plug it in directly rather than hook up the Blu-ray to the internet directly.
Can I hijack this thread and ask what seems to be a related question.
[long story]
I bought a DVD copy of the JanArthus-Berttand Home through Amazon UK.
It came from Florida and is Region 1 (despite ‘Home’ being open source/creative commons licence)
It won’t play on any of my DVD players, not even in the Linux computer, which would be no fun anyway as I can watch it on YouTube there. I wanted the DVD to see it on my 50" plasma screen in HD.
Now Amazon have for pre-order a Blu-Ray version that has no mention of regionocity which makes me suspect that Blu-Ray players are not regionalised.
If so it would be a reasonable motivation to buy a Blu-Ray player, which I have no desire for otherwise.
[/longstory]
[/hijack]
So, does anyone know if Blu-Ray is region free?
ETA: Although the majority of discs don’t come with the region code, so for all intents and purposes they are region-free. You say tomato, I say tomato.
OK, Thanks - I see now that Amazon are to release a DVD on June 7th so I’ll just get that instead. Why a year delay is anyone’s guess, should have been region free under the licence anyway
A bit of a hijack, I bought the PS3 to use as a Blu ray player. It gets the BR update when the system updates which is a “good thing”. I also wanted to use it as a media center for music from my main computer. Oh, I use Tversity software BTW
There are a few nice features you can get from hooking your player to the internet. I am not an expert since I just got a BR player for my birthday yesterday but you can stream HD from Netflix, you can get “channels” like Pandora or some other internet video sites. Apparently they also plan to add some features where they can release more material after a disc is released that can be accessed if you have an internet connection. I am not sure what that would entail but it might be things like additional commentary or video footage. I could see them having alternate endings or extended footage that you could only get by owning the disc.
I am sure there will be commercials as well. If you are watching Iron Man it might not be so bad to be able to see the previews for Iron Man 2 for instance.
The interconnectivity of all of our home electronic hardware is coming. It is just in its infancy right now.
Anyone with a Profile 2.0 player is pretty much going to have to… anyone with an earlier player may well be SOL, as anyone selling the hardware could easily have predicted. As you can see from the profile descriptions, the differences were feature-driven, so blame “the market”. If it’s any consolation, IMHO the next players available will be leased streaming boxes that let you rent movies but never again “own” them. They’ll still need occasional updates, but SONY et al will be a bit more careful to make sure everything keeps working.
Well, it’s not as if HD-DVD didn’t require updates either. If they’d won, I think you could have expected very development from Toshiba.
I on the other hand predict that this will be tried for real once and then die a quick and deserved death when people find out stuff they payed for can and will disappear on the studio’s whim (or when the distributor goes bust). On the other hand, people are still buying Kindles and games with pretty much that kind of system*
SONY keeping everything working? You must be joking. - read the two lines in red at the top of that page.
And note that the only reason to have these systems in the first place is to prevent customers from copying. It has no benefit to the consumers themselves.
The thing that finally got me to buy a blu-ray player was that I could connect it to ethernet and get streaming content. If my fairly typical 2 adults 2 kids household is any indication it will primarily serve as a streaming box with the added benefit of high-def DVD output. Not too bad a deal for <$200 (more for Wi-Fi I believe).
If an internet connection is required to make the things simply play DVDs, though, then this needs to be stated boldly at the outset.
