First Blu-Ray PC Drive Won’t Play Blu-Ray Movies >

	2006/08/11 10:37:34: Posted by DM
	Sony officially announced its BWU-100A PC Blu-Ray drive yesterday at the Experience More 2006 event in Sydney, Australia. Here is the catch -- the drive will not play Blu-Ray movies, it will only read user-made Blu-Ray discs. Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, stated that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder. How this will play out for Sony in the public relations department is anyone's guess, but it cannot be good. )(Thanks, DjjSin) >Link
	Labeled With  blu-ray sony Comments [20]  | Rate this article: -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Avg. rating of 1.0

Strike 2! Or is it 3?

lol thats sony for you.

now who, besides a sony fanboy, would spend over $1000 for a blue ray drive that doesnt play any movies?

What i really wonder is what this means for the ps3 no hdmi system. Thats not HDCP complient either, does that mean it wont play commercial blu ray discs either!?

Boy this sounds stupid, thats like saying your dvd player wont play dvds.

ridiculous, Ric is right, its like saying a dvd player wont play dvds. Blank Blu-ray media wont be available for a while, and it wont be cheap thats for sure. Horrible move by sony. This was supposed to be the backbone of their company and yet they dont have their shit together. This could be trouble

Ok, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. WHy not just hold back until it does play Blu Ray DVD's? What are they thinking? Are they thinking? Coach, I think Sony is trying to throw the game.

1. BD is NOT A SONY Format .. get over it people. Why do people insist on calling it a SONY format?

2. To be fair there are currently ZERO HD-DVD external burners/players availble, and they face the SAME issues. ie, you need software/hardware and/or HDCP decryption and playback.

3. The DVD player on my computer at work doesnt play DVD movies because i dont have an mpeg2 decoder installed. Same issue.

4. When the software becomes available; go buy it and then play your movies.

Yup, dont be so blind...software will be available over time. The stupid thing is market it at this time when it cant play movies...well, you can but just home made movies..

Well yeah but can we assume there will be a firmware upgrade to allow you to play movies down the line.. or is this thing stuck as a storage device for life. Sony should be clear about it.

And there are Toshiba Laptops currently availble that do play HD-DVD movies, but you're right (fruity Loops), nothing external and no burners yet.

I love it ahahaha, I just love it man. They are getting so much bad press left and right. We got EA saying they are pretty much backing away from PSP and focusing on NDS this week, Now this... I can only dream that the sony vid/corp will die out. They release horrible cheap products that always end up breaking, Below sub par titles pushed out every 15 mins... No thx. Better preorder my PS3 so i can sit it next to my Phantom and gizmodo.

Wasn't it announced that Sony's motion picture branch was the most profitable of the last quarter? I don't think they are in quite the trouble you are making them out to be in DepheCt. They haven't functioned this long as a big name brand for no reason.

I don't care who wants to put a positive spin on this. There is no positive way of looking at this at ALL! Fanboys need to recognize this is NOT a smart move at all, if PC HD-DVD players let you play HD-DVD's. Which one do you think consumers will buy? People will buy HD players to PLAY HD movies, period!

LOL... This is beyond stupid.

Blu Ray Drive that can't even play blu ray movies HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE exactly? Why even bother buying a blu ray disc drive then? I'll go in some store and purchase a dvd drive that can't play dvd movies... I'll surely get my money's worth.

yall sony fanboys are just that, "SONY FANBOYS". me however i keep an open mind, but i can clearly see that sony is "shady" company.

Fruity.. BD IS a Sony Format. Sony is THE head company in charge of blu ray. Its their baby. If Blu Ray becomes as successful as DVD sony will get royalties on every Blu Ray disc.

Sony is 100% responsible for Blu Ray and its success. If Blu Ray flops sony will be hurt the most because its their format.

I say its still too early to make a Blu-Ray PC drive :/ The DVD PC drives came out when they were ready to play DVD movies. I say Sony should wait until more software comes out and when Blu-Ray gets a little more known.

At the price they're asking and given the intial roll-out, its not like people are gonna pick this drive up on a whim. People buying will know what it is and whats its capable of. And, they will have a specific purpose for it. ie; average Joe isnt gonna wander into Best Buy and drop 750USD on a BD drive. So, they're a non-issue for now.

And, as i previously mentioned; HD-DVD uses the same security...they will have the same issues once their drives start coming into the market. So, why the need to single out BD?

BD Association has a board of directors; look it up. If this was a Sony only format it would have been out long ago. But, its slowed, because they need to reach a consensus at teh board level on all decisions ..esp. security related. Now, UMD and MD are a Sony only formats.

I dont know the specifics of the royaltie payments; if you have a reference that would be great; but, dont make stuff up.

This affects us as gamers?? NO!!!! then lets stop this stupid discussion!

BD isnt just a Sony format, the fact is Sony is forcing anyone wanting to get a PS3 to buy into this format. So they're acting like its their own child.

Regarding HD-DVD having the same copy-write protection its there in the spec but to date it hasnt been switched on in any of the movies, so far. I'm sure down the road we might see some studios turn it on in the media.

Regarding the unit in this article I have to agree with the negative comments. It pretty much is a ROM device and thats it. So all the guys wanting to build the ultimate home theater PC with both formats are sol right now.

My question really is whats the point of releasing this unit? Why didnt they just release a Firewire / USB unit with the HDMI built into it?

The PS3 has a Blu-ray player. If Blu ray flops the PS3 might get hurt.