Video: First working Blu-ray Managed Copy demo
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Sep 10th 2009 7:44PM
posted Sep 10th 2009 7:44PM
Just because Pioneer isn't in the plasma business anymore doesn't mean the company is dead, and one of the new points of focus over there is on media aggregation. So part of the new do-it-all Entertainment Tap concept Pioneer was displaying today included a demo of storing Managed Copies of Blu-ray Discs on a hard drive. The copy itself was done in about 4x real time (dependent on the drive's speed) and looked great thanks to some hardware transcoding. We also appreciated the Pioneer interface that made copying the disc easy. Of course at this point this is just a demo, with no word on availability or price, but it is a start to what will one day hopefully be a better way to enjoy HD movies.
Look amazing!I like Pioneer products
New Price : $$$!!!
Managed copy? Fuck euphemisms for rights-robbing DRM. Torrents FTW! *I'll* manage MY copies.
So I have to pay extra to "legally" put a movie I already bought onto my hardrive? No thanks.
I have copies of all the Bluray/HDDVDs I OWN on my hard drive. Play them through XBMC with a nice interface. I'll be damned if someone tells me I can't backup my $30 movies!
I always assumed this would be free. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
engadget, you might have included this bit to keep your well heeled readers from jumping to conclusions.
Transcription from video:
Pioneer guy - "I'm going to choose the managed copy. It will tell me what the price could possibly be if the studio decides to charge you. I can't imagine them doing that though."
Other guy - "But you get to managed copy through the shopping..."
Pioneer guy - "That's where we put it for this demo."
.....
MKV FTW!
IDK while people hate it, its the best choice for anime.
Even at 4X, it still takes a long time. Why does it have to transcode the video? Can it just "copy" the disc? I mean pirates doesn't seem to have any problems ripping HD movies, but legitimate users have to wait AND pay extra for a transcoded version?
If they didn't transcode it, they wouldn't have any chance to make it look worse.
@John Stracke: I know, which begs the question why legitimate users have the worst part of the deal. Oh well, figures.
Have you ever read about how long it takes to copy a BD movie? 25-50 gigs takes a while to transfer, any way you slice it. And that's why you want to transcode the video when you copy it to a computer's hard drive. Because at 30 gigs/movie, you'd be lucky to fit 8 movies on a laptop hard drive.
Well that looks like a pain in the ass just to have a digital copy.
Managed Copy is a freakin' joke. Pass!
Stupid and Pointless, I hope this dies before its born
Clearly you can't please everyone. If they hadn't come up with the ability to copy to hard drive, people would complain. If they made a direct 1:1 copy, people would complain about how they intentionally made it nearly impossible to use the facility because off the size.
Clearly you people aren't getting it. What's with the Engadget readership lately? Do you people like anything?
Where does this make sense? How about having a managed copy on a PSP or on a media server? Studio's can charge whatever they want to.. it's their content. If it's a price people think is fair, then people will buy it. If not, no one will.
I think what people get aggrivated about it that this is another case where content is sold to customers has less functionality than pirated versions.
If you pirate it, you can back it up, change the format to play on portable devices etc. if you buy it legit, you can't do those things. Its the curse of DRM. I actually don't by Blu Ray for this reasons (I like to watch movies on my laptop when I travel).
This is better than nothing though...
That or we're just all old and cranky... Get of my Lawn!, if you want good comments free from fan boys go to Ars or Slashdot! ARrrg!
"Studio's can charge whatever they want to.. it's their content."
It's our movie. We already paid for it
You corporate shill
Copying your movies to hard disk is the holy grail of digital movies. If people could copy their DVD collection to iTunes, everyone on the planet would own an Apple TV.
I hope other vendors, not just pioneer, can work out the licensing for such technology.
Apple TV sucked, and so does itunes
Another transcript excerpt that I think is a big deal ~50 seconds in:
Pioneer Guy: "....the only thing it's allowed to copy is the movie, it's not allowed to copy all the other supplementals...it only does bit for bit for the movie itself....we had all 5 studio heads here this morning look at this and they confirmed it"
Seriously Hollywood? Pay extra to rip and not get the extras as well? Didn't you just allow for iTunes Extras AND Microsoft's new "Virtual DVD" service (launching in the UK: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10347458-75.html). These guys are ridiculous.
and so does