Originally posted by: ferris209
When I use DRM as an example, I mean you just know any downloaded content will have so much DRM that you would be lucky to get two whole full viewings of the movie before it deletes itself. Then even if you purchase a movie by download and try to watch it, you just know the industry will have all kinds of hell trying to get the various companies to be interchangeable, hardware wise. If I download an HD movie with some sort of crazy DRM security protocol then the network I use had better be able to decode that protocol, and you just know they'll update the DRM stuff each year. That's the mess DRM causes. Now if I bought the damn movie on a disc, it will play in any player I put it in, so long as it is disgned to play that format, regardless of the DRM which is on the disc.
When I use DRM as an example, I mean you just know any downloaded content will have so much DRM that you would be lucky to get two whole full viewings of the movie before it deletes itself. Then even if you purchase a movie by download and try to watch it, you just know the industry will have all kinds of hell trying to get the various companies to be interchangeable, hardware wise. If I download an HD movie with some sort of crazy DRM security protocol then the network I use had better be able to decode that protocol, and you just know they'll update the DRM stuff each year. That's the mess DRM causes. Now if I bought the damn movie on a disc, it will play in any player I put it in, so long as it is disgned to play that format, regardless of the DRM which is on the disc.
But this is not necessarily true with the latest DRM scheme the studios have cooked up for the hi-def formats. Right now, every Blu-ray player, whether hardware or software comes with a bunch of decryption keys. If someone cracks the key on a hardware player, that key is removed from the "acceptable" list of keys, which makes that player useless for playing future titles. The only way to make it work with future titles is through a firmware upgrade. So essentially, every Blu-ray and HD-DVD player is no different from a software hi-def player. The only difference is that they'll be harder to crack.
Of course, this functionality hasn't been implemented on any Blu-ray or HD-DVD titles yet (and I'm not convinced that the studios would ever do it), but it is there. I believe the studios have said they'd wait until 2008 or 2009 to start implementing it, so they do have the capability.