Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

There are a lot of things that I don't like about Blu-ray as a format, but as the industry has settled on it as the physical standard for HD discs, things have slowly started to improve. One such improvement is the increased proliferation of Managed Digital Copy on Blu-ray discs. It works like this: in many new Blu-ray packages, you'll have the Blu-ray disc, a regular DVD, and a small card with a code on it. When you insert the regular DVD in your computer, you'll typically get an auto-loader (pictured above) for the movie, and it will give you the ability to transfer a DVD resolution (or lower if they offer a portable device version) copy of the movie to your computer in one of two DRM-laden formats: iTunes MPEG4, or Windows Media Player WMV. In each case, the code you're provided is used to authenticate the WMV and MPEG4 versions of the movie. The neat part is that you can get both the iTunes and Windows Media Player versions of the movie - I did this with four Blu-ray discs I purchased. Read more...

"Beginning next year, studios and other content holders will be required to give consumers the ability to make one copy of any Blu-ray Disc they buy. Dubbed “managed copy,” the requirement has long been planned for the Blu-ray format, but has only just been finalized by the Advanced Access Content System License Administrator, a consortium of studios, hardware manufacturers and technology companies that licenses the AACS copy protection used on Blu-ray Discs."

Good news everybody! The specification that will allow you to make one copy of your Blu-ray Disc has been finalized! That is the sound of progress marching that you hear in the background. The one thing left standing in your way is for studios, manufacturers and licensers to approve of the new specification. Actually, the two things left standing in your way is approval and new hardware. Okay, the three things left are approval by a those related to Blu-ray, new hardware and the licensing server to go online. Oh, and you might have to pay the sudio a fee for making that copy. But that is it! Really! Technology really had made our lives easier, has it not?