HOT - $50 ASUS Blu Ray SATA drive

[Exterous]

Hum. Can you give a few examples? I have the same drive and have not yet had any problems.

I didn't mention which drive I had. It's not this one but an older one

Constantly changing? I thought Profile 1.1 went final last year. The only new "standard" is profile 2.0, but any 1.1 player will play BR movies with 2.0 profile as 2.0 only adds bd-live which isn't a requirement to play movies. Another profile coming out is 3.0, though 3.0 will just be an audio standard for audio only BR.

And in regards to firmware updates, to go with the profiles there are hardware requirements. If a BR player doesn't fit the hardware requirements for 1.1 or 2.0 there won't be firmware upgrades to make them compliant with those standards.

Which is probably why a PS3 is still considered the best BR player you can buy.

Perhaps I used the wrong terminology but disc playback with at least older Lite On drives (and many others) would require fairly frequent firmware updates for them to play the disc. I updated the firmware no less than 4 times (Although I am pretty sure it was 6) in the year I had it while they were providing firmware updates

My understanding is that the only new hardware required for profile 2.0 drives is:
1) An ethernet jack for internet connections
2) Extra storage for Live material
Does not seem like a stretch to enable 2.0 playback without the features of a drive

Furthermore my questions about why no new firmware would be provided was met with
"It's an older drive that we no longer support" not "We can't support it because it's 1.1"

 

[zposter]

Over the last year I've had Blu-ray drives I've never had to update firmware in order to play any disc. Maybe really early ones weren't quite ready for the standard that eventually emerged?

I have had the software players needing frequent updates though.

 

[mikeford]

Does extended warranty include failure to play newer blue ray?

 

[Soundmanred]

Does extended warranty include failure to play newer blue ray?

Noe, I doen't think soe.

 

[yh125d]

I'm pretty sure that it can't on its own. You'd need a decrypter like AnyDVD HD, wouldn't you?

Correct. You must either have BR player software (like powerdvd), or decrypting software (AnyDVD HD, which is what I use), to play BR on your computer. I prefer AnyDVD because it also allows you to rip the files to your computer, pick out the main movies .m2ts file, and delete the rest.