Here's an interesting bit of news. CNET has reported that Sony's first Blu-ray Disc drive, the BWU-100A, will not be able to play back commercial Blu-ray movies.
Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, told CNET.com.au that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder, and not commercial movies released under the BD format.
Bautista says that one of two reasons for this is the fact that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn't yet possible.
The second reason, according to Bautista, is that BD playback software that can decrypt HDCP isn't "released as a saleable item yet". Today, the only HDCP-supporting BD playback application is the OEM version of Intervideo WinDVD BD that's bundled with Sony's VAIO VGN-AR18GP notebook. The AR18GP also offers an HDCP-compliant HDMI connector, which makes it capable of playing commercial movies without issue.
Personally, I think that CNET is misinterpretting Vincent Bautista's comments. It's not that the BWU-100A cannot play back commercial Blu-ray movies but rather it requires a graphics card and playback software that support HDCP. As we've found in our own testing, both are in short supply right now. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here.
