Comments on: Disney, Fox, DIVX and Blu-ray

By: Richard Matthews

Richard Matthews — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:29:22 +0000

Blu Ray and Warner sucks because they really believe they can stop piracy when in fact they already pirating Blu ray disc as we speak. Warner decision to go exclusive with Blu-Ray is to support the high end cost the internet access can be more profitable than the already existing HD DVD because it an open source and wont have security aspects inbedded in them. That the main reason for the added space for the Blu Ray not for video or audio quality but for added security measures from the Studios. Suck it Up and swallow

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:03:47 +0000

Funny that the DVD DRM has been cracked, they’re not, comparatively, very high quality, and studios made and are still making a fortune on them. DVD ISOs can easily be compressed and downloaded off of any number of sites–but studios are still making money. Most people like owning the movies they enjoy–in the best format possible. Studios should be more concerned with offering worthwhile and affordable content.

By: Dave Mueller

Dave Mueller — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:16:19 +0000

Great article. Great, but scary.

What has always amazed me-and continues to amaze me-about DRM is how hard the studios go about what is essentially a fruitless task. All this effort is spent to make sure I don’t burn off a digital copy of a DVD to a buddy of mine who hasn’t seen the movie yet (when, instead, I just lend it to him), when the real piracy takes in a totally different sector of society-be it the high-end hackers or overseas professional pirates. And those people have very spohisticated systems and have managed to crack every DRM system that’s come along.

So they spend all of this effort to make things difficult for the consumer who-at worst-is going to make a copy for a guy at work (who may or may not have gotten around to renting it on his own), but they make little headway against the organizations that are actually costing them money.

It makes me wonder what the true motivation is behind these DRM schemes-unless deep down they believe one of them will work. Don’t they see the writing on the wall? There’s always going to be that percentage of attrition because of piracy. Its just part of the cost of doing business-like an acceptable level of loss in a retail store. It ’s just part of life in that world.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating pirated DVDs. Not at all. I’m just saying the the DRM schemes don’t really affect the pirates-they affect the consumer. Especially if they talk about subverting the Mandatory Managed Copy. Do we always want to move physical discs from room to room for the rest of our lives? Or do we want to start a movie in the family room, and then pause it and resume playback in the bedroom when you start to feel tired? The server based entertainment experience is the future. The studios are fighting the inevitable.

Damn them! I would boycott them…if they didn’t produce all the pre-recorded entertainment I like to watch : )

By: cgw

cgw — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:56:39 +0000

I bought my first DVD player years ago from Bestbuy instead a DIVX player from CC. The reason you mentioned in the article is the precisely why I did not see the advantages of DIVX. I used to like Blu-ray for its capacity reason, but now I like HD-DVD more and more.

By: Brian Hoyt

Brian Hoyt — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:09:35 +0000

This article brought up the memory of the other DRM like DVD scheme Disney came up with. The bio-degrading self destruct disc – http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58883,00.html. It has been a few years since that flopped even worse than DIVX, so I guess it is time for the next.

The other interesting thing is I believe I read that the initial Samsung player out now doesn’t support BD+ (along with other half-baked BD standards). What happens then to that player once BD+ discs are released?