First generation HD optical disc players won't allow copying

More bad news for consumers: PC World is reporting that the first generation of high definition optical disc players will not allow content to be copied or streamed to other discs or devices thanks to their implementation of the AACS interim standard -- with the "interim" part meaning that it lacks provisions for managed copy. So even though the content that you buy for your brand new Toshiba HD-A1 / HD-XA1 HD DVD or Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 / Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (or players, if you're really hardcore) will work on future-gen machines, and media with the finalized AACS protection will likewise be backwards compatible with your device, early-adopters will be unable to do much more than enjoy all that HD goodness on stationary displays until both a hardware and software hack are in place, it would seem. Still, if you've gotta catch the great selection of movies available at launch, at least try scoring a replacement warranty for your first-gen player because you know how these types of products have a tendency to "break" at just about the same time that they're replaced with something better.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

[Ryan Dellolio @ Mar 21st 2006 8:33PM]

Surprise! Surprise!...I didnt see this one coming.

[Eric @ Mar 21st 2006 8:48PM]

I wonder if this is the issue Sony cited as the reason for delay of the PS3 (not that it would've been shipping soon anyway). That would definitely be a strike against the PS3 if it didn't allow managed copies.

[Mike @ Mar 21st 2006 8:50PM]

Which is why I am boycotting all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray products.

I urge you all to do the same.

Don't give into shitty DRM's!

[Andy @ Mar 21st 2006 9:10PM]

Good! Make it as restrictive as possible. It'll only give more motivation to crack it wide open.

I mean seriously, it's like a joke now. The format is crippled, now they're crippling the players? All for what, resolution that's only really beneficial if whatever size screen you have is large relative to your distance to it?

I'm sort of glad they're going all-out with the DRM; someone's gonna sue and maybe we'll see some precedents set (if not by the law, then by what consumers will allow you to get away with).

The next couple of years are going to be interesting.

[andy @ Mar 21st 2006 9:16PM]

i cant see it taking off, every one is happy with dvd and we're slowly moving away from physical media, no need for disks soon (well not for movies and music anyway) nah, not happening

[Jake @ Mar 21st 2006 9:28PM]

Sounds good. So I won't buy it. Money talks, no?

[fender @ Mar 21st 2006 10:00PM]

Why not trying to boot OSX on a pc rather then Vista on a mac ??

[Wes Felter @ Mar 21st 2006 10:03PM]

Uh, CD players and DVD players can't make copies either; where would they store them? This is not not news. Managed copy is about using a computer to copy a disc onto a hard drive. These HD-DVD and Blu-ray players don't even have hard drives, so they can't make copies.

[Jake @ Mar 21st 2006 11:16PM]

#7

It's been done.

[Monmin @ Mar 21st 2006 11:18PM]

Geez... anyone have a knee jerk reaction lately?

The interim agreement may prohibit managed copy for now, however the 2 toshiba hd-dvd players that are to be released soon were never intended to make copies anyway. So, the restrictions on the interim agreement really mean nothing at this point.

No device intended to do managed copy has yet been announced.

I'm betting Windows Vista will be the first platform that will allow you to make copies of your hd-dvd movies.

ALL hd-dvd movie discs that you buy will allow you to make a copy. You just need to wait for Vista to actually be able to make the copy.

[esotericsean @ Mar 21st 2006 11:19PM]

@5

hd-dvd / blu-ray are most definitely going to take off. have you ever seen the quality from an hdtv broadcast on an hdtv? it's insanely better in both video and audio than dvd-quality. we're quite a bit off from our internet to be able to share/support 30gb movies. physical media will be here quite a while longer.

[Jake @ Mar 22nd 2006 1:11AM]

#11 (esotericsean)

I have to disagree. Not enough people have HDTV for either format to take off. In my humble opinion, it appears that the companies are trying to create a market where there is none. The two different will confuse people to the point where they will be scared to buy either, for fear of not being able to play all of the HD movies coming out (and thus negating the point of buying a player). Either that, or we'll see a DVD-R/+R scenario where every player is dual-format, which just wastes everyone's time and money.

[mikem @ Mar 22nd 2006 2:48AM]

Who would shell out $500-1800 for those huge monstrousities of electronics when in about six months they will be half the size and most likely half the price? In order to compete Sony will have to price the PS3 at around $400-$700 max, yes they may operate at a loss but as we've already seen with the PSP Sony is willing to do what it takes to grab big piece of the market. The PS3 looks about half the size of the regular players, they look like vcrs, I wouldn't allow any of them to be in my living room as part of my home theater. I'm pretty sure they don't have to cost that much or to be that big or ugly, until then I'll keep my money.

[Lisa G @ Mar 22nd 2006 4:33AM]

Sounds good.

[MadaMadaDane @ Mar 22nd 2006 6:30AM]

Monmin--and China is a communist paradise. I mean, will be, as soon as we no longer need the 'interim' tyrannical government.

Or look at what we do in the USA in terms of 'temporary suspension' of human rights nowadays.

Dramatic examples? Well, some would consider the right to property, inalienable since the Magna Carta, to be a pretty fundamental human right. Well folks, that's exactly what we are giving up.

When people show they accept the most restrictive situation, is there really any pressure at all for the ones doing the restricting to change? When the most restrictive situation is presented as 'interim,' people have a very high threshold for tolerance.

And the funny thing is, the liberties taken with the ironclad 'interim' protection can barely even be harsher than the already draconian 'normal' AACS. Its 'managed copy' already assumes that you submit your will to the will of the publisher, who can check or veto your rights at any time with their revokable licenses.

[Alex K. @ Mar 22nd 2006 7:15AM]

you know what, screw them both, I was getting pretty pissed off at blu-ray, but now how about I just keep using DVDs?

They look damn well enough for me. As long as I never look at a Blu-ray or HD-DVD video, I'll never know what I'm missing and honestly still think that DVDs look pristine in quality.

[James @ Mar 22nd 2006 8:52AM]

I don't really care about the quality of video or audio on either system. I'm looking forward to the next way to backup my computer data. And right now, 25GB discs for $1-2~ sounds very enticing. 1TB of space is hard to manage properly.

[Jason @ Mar 22nd 2006 9:33AM]

I'm boycotting both formats.

I'm still waiting for a real next-gen disc format, not a locked-down service pack for DVD.

[Arc @ Mar 22nd 2006 10:05AM]

Too bad the HD-DVD and Bluray camps will both lose. Most people, myself included, will not buy old DVDs in a new format (this means you Star Wars). With Hollywood cranking out maybe 1 or 2 decent pictures a year, and the cost of the new format will be more than that of current DVDs, and most people will only see marginal increases in quality (how many of those EDTVs made their way into homes because it was a cheaper plasma/lcd?) what exactly will drive the market? My guess is that HD-DVD/Bluray will become the DVD-A/SA-CD of video. Good job guys!

I'm an early adopter. I still have my 32meg Diamond Rio, my $500 Sony DVD-player, a Rear Projection Pioneer HDTV, the original Voodoo 3d card, the first Microsoft MCE and the list goes on. I bought those things because I saw the benefit the technology would provide. In my eyes, the HD video solutions being presented aren't a way to get the most from your HDTV, but studios trying to close, lock and booby trap the barn door after the piracy horses have run off.

[wanorris @ Mar 22nd 2006 10:12AM]

#12 (Jake),

"Either that, or we'll see a DVD-R/+R scenario where every player is dual-format, which just wastes everyone's time and money."

Why is it a waste of time and money? A dual-standard DVD drive for a PC is what, $30? I'm sure the first dual-standard player will be expensive, but DVD players were stupid-expensive when they first came out. Maybe by the time you can buy a dual-standard player for a reasonable price, they'll actually have movies worth watching.

[CHRIS @ Mar 22nd 2006 11:10AM]

I THINK IT'S TIME CONSUMERS CHARGE THESE BIG COMPANIES TO WATCH THEIR MOVIES ... IF NOBODY BUYS THEM ... NO BODY WATCHES THEM ... SONY AND OTHERS MAKE NO MONEY.

CONSUMERS HAVE "ALL" THE POWER, THEY JUST NEED TO KNOW HOW TO EXCERSIZE THEIR RIGHTS, AND FIND BOOTLEGS ON REGULAR CD! LIKE THEY ARE DOING NOW, ENMASSE!

[diulei @ Mar 22nd 2006 12:21PM]

#21: Too bad there are too many idiots who continue to see, buy, and listen to the crap that corporate America produces. For every one of you, there's ten of them.

[c.Lake @ Mar 22nd 2006 3:25PM]

@diulei #22 - you are absoluty correct.

What's that old saying, "There's a SUCKER born every minute". Every other day Engadget writes-up a story about the format war, and every other day someone is posting about which one is going to win or how their going to buy the first one off the assembly line. Every other day I'm laughing my ass off, because I can't believe what I'm reading.

Nobody is denying the higher picture quality of HD, but for the love of God -- Boycott both these formats -- we the "consumers" have got to be unified in this message or it won't work.

[David @ Mar 23rd 2006 12:18AM]

Quoting #22:
" #21: Too bad there are too many idiots who continue to see, buy, and listen to the crap that corporate America produces. For every one of you, there's ten of them. "

Totally. Think of every stupid product on the market, everything that's overpriced, and you know exactly who to blame -- the idiots that are paying for it. This world pretends to be anti-monopoly, but we allow it if it's something we "need" like cable TV (anybody have more than one cable company in their town? Noooo! If there were two (like in my grandparents neighborhood 10 years ago) cable TV would cost $15/month. But soon enough one company buys out the other and up go the rates to $50/month...and you only get such a "deal" if you sign up for a year so you can't switch to satellite or whatever else is also $50/month. These dumb players coming out at $1000 is retarded -- there is no way the hardware costs that much...except perhaps all the crippleware they're loaded with drives the cost up. But they'll stay expensive for a year so while the companies milk the 'tards in society who'll pay such a ridiculous prices. And the disks are supposed to be $30 too -- as if it costs more to start with an original film, SCALE DOWN THE RESOLUTION EVEN LESS THAN YOU HAD TO DO ON DVD, and stamp out a disk. pfff....i'm with the guys above...boycott these things at least until the dual-format HD-DVD/Bluray players are under $100.

[Bobby Tables @ Jan 17th 2008 6:45AM]

I personally will be boycotting these formats - and besides, I don't exactly have the kind of money for an HDTV lying around anyways! (If?)/When they make a DRM-free format that's legally playable on any OS (that means *nix too!), I'll buy into it. DRM has already proven to be a pointless measure innumerable times, and yet they still do it. I agree with the previous posters that if we want this changed, it has to be on a large concerted scale - otherwise they'll keep on walking all over us.