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 The High Definition DVD Studio Support Petition Campaign |
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Bluray Recordable Disc Playback being reigned in!!? Was always supposed to be restricted, say Bluray insiders! The news first started to break on the Roxio user forums. One user created a BDMV production (I'll explain further down), which he burned to his Bluray BD-R disc, and then took it to his local electronics store to test on the new Sony BDP 300 player they had just gotten in. ALAS! It wouldn't play. So to help try to figure out what was going on, he posted queries on the Roxio site. To make the situation even more ominous and disturbing, another poster at Roxio reported that his friend at Pioneer had told him that Pioneer had been FORCED by Sony to remove BD-Recordable BDMV playback from their new player coming out, and ALSO that he believes that new players from Panasonic were also similarly affected. What on earth could be going on? This was unexpected and a surprise to most people. The questions spread from the Roxio forum to other AV Forums, including the AVSforum site. A discussion thread was started there to attempt to get answers to these troubling reports, and also, questions were asked on the "Insider's Thread" there. While you read these links, you may want to discount some of the answers given by a poster called "talkstr8t", as some of his information turned out to be incorrect, and he shut down the discussion after claiming everything was fine - which has turned out not to be the case it seems). What became clear from extended question and answer sessions might send a chill down the back of anyone who has been planning to use the Bluray format to record their own interactive BDMV Bluray discs for themselves, or their friends and family - OR, indeed, for their commercial business, such as some of the wedding videographers who chimed in on the discussions. Discovering the true situation was made quite difficult, as a lot of this issue seems to be shrouded in the typical Bluray secrecy and lack of transparency that has become a typical hallmark of the format. And insiders became quite reticent about answering some of the more detailed questions that were asked - so we will try to piece together what we have been able to ascertain about this very troubling issue, as well as what it might mean to those people who have bought into the Bluray format expecting it to let them do some of the same things that can be done with HD DVD. First, t here are two types of video that may be recorded on Bluray discs, BDMV and BDAV. BDAV is apparently a fairly simple, stripped down "model" for recording video on a Bluray disc. Think of it as a videotape. You put a simple A/V file on the disc in a BDAV folder, and the player plays it when it is inserted. You have very little flexibility with the BDAV structure. It is not like the full-featured structure we've become familiar with on DVD, where you can have various menus with custom graphical backgrounds and various custom-graphics for menu items on each screen. To get this custom structure and interactivity, you apparently need the BDMV structure, which is more like the standard DVD format, with custom graphics and menu items. Not surprisingly, commercial movie studios release their movies to Bluray using the more advanced BDMV format, so they look more like what we have become used to on DVD. This much is confirmed by BD insider, Paidgeek: "The menu capabilities of BDAV are minimal, but consumers will be able to use the full BDMV spec if they choose to, so long as they are using approved AACS recordable media." And THIS, apparently, is where it gets sticky, but our dogged reporters have managed to scoop out the story from the muck. First, according to "talkstr8t", accurate in this instance, BD-R/RE playback is NOT required of Bluray players. Yes, you heard that right, in what I would classify as another HUGE oversight by the BDA, Bluray players are NOT required to playback recordable bluray media. Holy Smokes! That is pretty sad. Paidgeek also confirms that this situation did not change in the BD 1.1 player spec. Contrast that with HD DVD, where all HD DVD players are able to play HD DVD-R/RE media, and DVD-R also, for that matter! Second, according the the Bluray insider "Paidgeek", consumers were NEVER supposed to have been allowed to record their own BDMV video content to regular BD-R/RE recordable media, and were only supposed to be able to record BDAV content: "Blu-ray players were never supposed to support BDMV authored content using ordinary data type BD-R or BD-RE media. An exemption was made for a number of months so that available blank discs could be used for testing and other promotional activities; this exemption expired recently." WHY? According to what we have been told, the BDA and the BD Studios were concerned that users might be able to "burn" their "cracked" Bluray movies to these recordable discs. So, in order to restrict piracy on the Bluray format, they decided that this should not be allowed. Paidgeek claims it was not Sony's idea, but that the studios insisted: "Sony is not responsible for the control of recording on blank media. The studios asked for certain controls to be made available to avoid mass piracy using recorded discs." However, none of US consumers knew anything about this at all, since this isn't explained anywhere. According to the Bluray insiders, this "restriction" was temporarily lifted after the launch of the Bluray format during an unspecified "grace period", because the Studios were apparently having problems testing Bluray releases that they were preparing for production. So all players released during this "grace period" were allowed to play BDMV content from recordable discs - HENCE why no-one noticed this issue before now. Now, let's try to put this in perspective! The Bluray format was touted as being a "great" recordable format as well as a movie format. So much has been made of the fact that users could supposedly take their own Hi Def home video content and create fancy interactive presentations, with advanced menuing and graphics. This has been talked up and down as one of the strengths of the format. Indeed - programs such as DVD-It HD Edition were created to allow customers to produce these advanced home video productions (HD DVD programs are out there too, don't worry), yet these programs might now be useless. How might these developers feel about THAT?? Yet, now, we find out that this is technically not supposed to be possible! One Bluray insider even went so far as to say that the consumer doesn't NEED the advanced menuing, as they can do basic menus with the BDAV format, and so tried to justify this BAN on playing back BDMV content from recordable discs. There is a potential exception, which has YET to be explained clearly to those asking the questions. According to an insider response, consumers might be allowed to record their own BDMV content to special AACS-approved BD-R/RE "3.0" standard discs in the future. You can check the specs here for these various disc types. BD-R 3.0 discs do not yet seem to exist on the market, nor show up in the online specs for the Bluray disc formats! In fact, only BD-RE shows up as even having a 3.0 version. And neither can be found on store shelves, as confirmed by paidgeek: "There is no AACS approved media in the market at the moment that I am aware of. If you are burning content that only requires data mode, or BDAV, then you should have no problems." Nor does anyone know WHEN these discs will be available? What IS IT with the Bluray format and trying to think out all their standards BEFORE they launched, like every other format has to? So, the bottom line, based on the insider answers, is this - if a new BD Player has full support for BD-R/RE 3.0 media, including AACS-encoded BDMV content on BD-R/RE, then it will be "allowed" to play non-AACS encoded BDMV from BD-R/RE discs also. Otherwise it will not. And so far, the new Sony BDP S300 and apparently, the new Pioneer and Panasonic units - do NOT. Greeaat... As a closing note, I wish to state that I suspect that there is more to this story than the BD folks have been forthcoming on. Time will tell, of course. We'll be watching the reports from the field as more new BD players come to market. But there has never been this much confusion (and possibly obfuscation) with the HD DVD player out there, or coming. Thank the heavens for HD DVD! Go to the "ACTION" page and send those emails, Please! It'll only take 10 to 15 minutes...
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