Digital Home Thoughts: More Woes for HD Discs: Newest Blu-Ray Discs Don't Work in Some Players

"Fox just came out of their hiatus and with their first two releases they opted to use Blu-ray's optional DRM, BD+ -- which has been part of the spec, but this is the first time it's been used. The problem is that all the Blu-ray players aren't ready for BD+ yet, and without a firmware update you can't play the movies at all. You'd think the problem would only plauge 1st gen hardware, but the Samsung BD-P1000 was able to play the new discs just fine after a very long delay. The newer BD-P1200 didn't fair as well, but instead you see a scary red screen instructing you to install a firmware update that doesn't exist. We've contacted Samsung to see what the deal is and we'll let you know if we hear anything. We'd tell you to avoid titles with BD+ for now, but there's no way to know just from looking at the package..."



Four words: "Red Screen of Death." Okay, now that I got that joke out of the way...it would appear that BOTH camps have failed to do thier homework. Jason has well-documented his recent problems with HD DVDs and the Xbox 360 drive, and now the latest Blu-Ray titles pop up a RSoD in several different players. To be clear, it's unknown if this is because of BD+ or BD-J (BD+ is an extra DRM layer, while BD-J is used for interactivity), but whichever it is, these discs were obviously rushed to shelves before being tested in a variety of players. It would appear that the spec is still immature, and hasn't been fully vetted yet. Problems like this are only going to delay widespread adoption, and keep the door open for downloadable content.