I'm reasonably certain Fox is trying to singlehandedly destroy Blu-Ray

[Agentbolt]

Is anyone else having serious problems with Fox titles? Firefly, Horton Hears a Who, and several other Fox Blu-Ray films are refusing to play in quite a few players due to their updating their BD+ copyright protection.

Updating the firmware on your average Blu-Ray player is brutal. The 2.0 versions that can go on the 'net do it automatically, but the other 95% of players out there don't, and then you have to burn a CD or (sometimes) use a USB flash drive. That's not a problem for us, but the average fundamentally retarded consumer is now supposed to burn CDs just to get their Blu-Rays to play correctly? Does anyone see this actually working?

 

[Baked]

Where did you pull the 95% stat from? PS3s take up the majority of all BR players on the market, and everybody w/ a PS3 knows updating firmware is just 2 button clicks away. Even if you don't have a PS3, the top 3 best selling BR players (~$250) on Amazon, made by Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, come with built-in network, which means consumers can easily update the firmware.

 

[Shawn]

Yep. Neither of my dad's blu-ray players (LG BH100 and Samsung BD-P1000) will play any of the latest BD+ Fox titles.

They are:
1. Futurama: Bender's Game (U.S.)
2. Firefly, The Complete Series (U.S.)
3. Planet of the Apes (1968 ) (U.S.)
4. Predator 2 (1990)
5. Shine a Light (U.K)
6. Planet of the Apes (most of the series), U.S.
7. Space Chimps, USA
8. Meet Dave, USA
9. X-Files 2
10. X-Files 1
11. Home Alone
12. The Day The Earth Stood Still: Special Edition
13. Jingle All The Way
14. Super Troopers
15. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
16. Horton hears a Who (US version only)

And any other Fox title that is coming out from now on. These titles are also having problems on other older blu-ray players and some new ones too, like the Memorex player. Luckily they do play on my Samsung BD-UP5000, but that had a firmware update recently.

 

[masteryoda34]

The average consumer will get angry at the manufacturer of their blu-ray player without understanding that its not the mfg's fault and buy a new player from another company.

 

[sivart]

Aren't they the same ones that from day one had the MSRP on their titles at $45? Guess they've been at destroying it for a while now. Of course, we want to spend money on a product and sell it so that it doesn't work, have to replace discs, take customer complaints, and deal with crap from manufacturer's to lose money...I'm sure that was their goal from the outset.

 

[Dman877]

Yeah I can see a lot of BD players getting returned to Walmart with the complaint, "I can't watch movies on it!"

 

[Agentbolt]

Originally posted by: Baked
Where did you pull the 95% stat from? PS3s take up the majority of all BR players on the market, and everybody w/ a PS3 knows updating firmware is just 2 button clicks away. Even if you don't have a PS3, the top 3 best selling BR players (~$250) on Amazon, made by Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, come with built-in network, which means consumers can easily update the firmware.

That stat came squarely out of my ass. I also didn't even think about the PS3, which is inexcusably stupid of me, that constitutes a large % of Blu-Ray players out there and obviously doesn't have these problems. Sorry.

However, while I don't disagree that NOW the top selling Blu-Ray players are 2.0 compliant and can download firmware updates, Blu-Rays been out and about for 2 years now, and I'm certain the vast majority of standalone players out there in the wild do not update over the 'net.

I didn't even get into the 30-45 dollar price for Blu-Rays, although I'm certain that's also a big part of the problem. All companies seem to be charging way too much for them though, not just Fox. My beef with Fox specifically is for that list above of movies that don't work properly now thanks to their changing of these codes.

Anyone who's worked in a Best Buy or Wal-Mart understands that the chances of the average consumer being able to figure out how to update their firmware by burning CDs and running the install on their players is slim to none.

 

[abaez]

I'm still confused on how any player "coming with a built-in network" makes it any easier to update firmware? So are people expected to have a lan cable going to their BR player to make updates to the firmware? How does that make anything easier for the average consumer at walmart or bestbuy? That's never been a requirement to watch anything before...

 

[tk149]

I agree that forcing Joe Average consumer to update his BD player is sheer stupidity. Add the high price of BD discs AND the fact that I've had several BD titles load up a screen that says "This disc may take up to 5 minutes to load" (fortunately, my PS3 doesn't take that long), and it really seems like they're trying to kill Blu-Ray.

 

[CorCentral]

Can't you just register the product then when a new update comes out, they send you the firmware update disc?

Like Toshiba did with their HD DVD players.

 

[Slick5150]

I'm curious how retailers are handling this situation. Ther'es bound to be an influx of people wanting to return the movies because they won't play, but of course most stores have their policy to not accept returns or exchanges on open movies (some even saying its a law that they can't accept them back, which is of course totally untrue, but whatever)..

 

[Oyeve]

Wow, for a winning format it sure is a loser. Glad im sticking with DVDs until a stable HD format comes out.

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Wow, for a winning format it sure is a loser. Glad im sticking with DVDs until a stable HD format comes out.

That's one reason why HD-DVD was superior. It came out with a finished spec, so no updating firmware.

 

[zoiks]

Originally posted by: tk149

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Wow, for a winning format it sure is a loser. Glad im sticking with DVDs until a stable HD format comes out.

That's one reason why HD-DVD was superior. It came out with a finished spec, so no updating firmware.

There are so many bugs with Blu ray. WTF. Why did this format win over? Fucking movie companies.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: tk149

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Wow, for a winning format it sure is a loser. Glad im sticking with DVDs until a stable HD format comes out.

That's one reason why HD-DVD was superior. It came out with a finished spec, so no updating firmware.

Well not entirely true. Some movies did need an update however the spec was finalized so the players could all get updated firmware via the internet. Unlike the initial BluRay players which were 1.0 and 1.1 compliant and lacked that functionality.

This is a real problem because many people dont even know about this. I was at the movie store a few months ago right after Iron Man came out. And this guy was asking the clerk about why a lot of the BluRay movies he rents wont play. I tried to explain to him you need to update the firmware but I think it went in one ear and out the other.

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: tk149

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Wow, for a winning format it sure is a loser. Glad im sticking with DVDs until a stable HD format comes out.

That's one reason why HD-DVD was superior. It came out with a finished spec, so no updating firmware.

Well not entirely true. Some movies did need an update however the spec was finalized so the players could all get updated firmware via the internet. Unlike the initial BluRay players which were 1.0 and 1.1 compliant and lacked that functionality.

This is a real problem because many people dont even know about this. I was at the movie store a few months ago right after Iron Man came out. And this guy was asking the clerk about why a lot of the BluRay movies he rents wont play. I tried to explain to him you need to update the firmware but I think it went in one ear and out the other.

I stand corrected. Anyway, releasing something before its ready for the mass market, and then trying to patch it afterwards is beyond stupid. It's just going to piss off the casual user, which is the majority of the market you're trying to sell to.

 

[Oyeve]

Remember the good old days when you bought electronics it just worked like it was supposed to? VCRs for example. Only time there were issues was towards the end with Super-beta not being able to be played on non superbeta sets and SVHS not watchable on standard vhs sets. Now our TVs, stereos, video formats have ethernet and USB slots for updates. Your average consumer has no clue what a cat5 cable is or usb port. And not everyone has a usb flash drive, computer and internet to get these firmware updates. Its amazing. Truly amazing.

 

[T9D]

...

 

[Baked]

I love reading the BR bashing 'cause it's made by Sony and it won the format war over HD-DVD, a format that's backed by MS. Since Sony totally cock blocked the 360's HD-DVD player from ever getting any new movies, people come out in drones to add fuel to the fire of a simple firmware update process. Look, people knew about how shitty unreliable the 360, killing itself and scratching up discs from day one. It took MS three years to fix this problem w/ their latest version of 360. Meanwhile it didn't stop millions upon millions of people from buying an half ass product like the 360. Now, let's look at BR's market share. It is far behind 360, but most people who owns a BR player just so happen to have a PS3, a device that can easily update its firmware. The minority of people who own stand alone BR players are early adopters with higher knowledge of technology devices compared to your wal-mart shopping joe six pack. Do you really think these early adopters would have a problem updating their BR player's firmware? No. While there are some playback problems with early stand alone BR players, these problem can easily be fixed by updating the firmware, and newer generation of BR players shouldn't have this problem. BR isn't going anywhere, Sony put too much money into this format to let it "fail." I'm not sure where you got the idea that it's a stepping stone format, there's nothing replacing the 1080p HDTV format on the horizon, and there's nobody with enough capital or market share to bump the BR.

 

[AlexWade]

Hmm ... Well, Fox was a hair-trigger away from dumping Blu-Ray for HD DVD, but the BDA bribe got the better of them. However, Fox is not trying to make Blu-Ray fail, Fox is just being Fox. That is to say, being stupid. Remember, this is the same Fox that canceled Futurama and Firefly, two of the best shows ever.

I have Firefly Blu-Ray, and have had no trouble playing it both on my computer and on my PS3. I did notice, however, that WB Blu-Ray and all HD DVD titles played fine on my computer without hardware acceleration, but FireFly did not. I bought the ATI HD4870 to take care of that, problem solved.

By the way, PLEASE BRING BACK FIREFLY! Let me give you one of my favorite quotes of all time which came from Firefly:
"Y'all see the man hanging out of the spaceship with the really big gun? Now I'm not saying you weren't easy to find. It was kinda out of our way, and he didn't want to come in the first place. Man's lookin' to kill some folk. So really it's his will y'all should worry about thwarting."
www.browncoats.com

Please bring back Firefly.

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: Baked
I love reading the BR bashing 'cause it's made by Sony and it won the format war over HD-DVD, a format that's backed by MS. Since Sony totally cock blocked the 360's HD-DVD player from ever getting any new movies, people come out in drones to add fuel to the fire of a simple firmware update process. Look, people knew about how shitty unreliable the 360, killing itself and scratching up discs from day one. It took MS three years to fix this problem w/ their latest version of 360. Meanwhile it didn't stop millions upon millions of people from buying an half ass product like the 360. Now, let's look at BR's market share. It is far behind 360, but most people who owns a BR player just so happen to have a PS3, a device that can easily update its firmware. The minority of people who own stand alone BR players are early adopters with higher knowledge of technology devices compared to your wal-mart shopping joe six pack. Do you really think these early adopters would have a problem updating their BR player's firmware? No. While there are some playback problems with early stand alone BR players, these problem can easily be fixed by updating the firmware, and newer generation of BR players shouldn't have this problem. BR isn't going anywhere, Sony put too much money into this format to let it "fail." I'm not sure where you got the idea that it's a stepping stone format, there's nothing replacing the 1080p HDTV format on the horizon, and there's nobody with enough capital or market share to bump the BR.

Try hanging out around the BD players at a Best Buy. People have all sorts of questions and it's pretty clear that a LOT of them have no clue about firmware updates.

Number of people who know how to update firmware <<<<<<<<<<< Number of people who don't know

The first group is much smaller than the second group. Without a lot of people in the second group, BD will remain a small niche market, and possibly die off. There just won't be enough demand for BD, if people start getting the idea that some Blu-Ray discs won't work in all players. They'll just stick to upconverted DVD's and avoid the hassle.

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: AlexWade
Hmm ... Well, Fox was a hair-trigger away from dumping Blu-Ray for HD DVD, but the BDA bribe got the better of them. However, Fox is not trying to make Blu-Ray fail, Fox is just being Fox. That is to say, being stupid. Remember, this is the same Fox that canceled Futurama and Firefly, two of the best shows ever.

I have Firefly Blu-Ray, and have had no trouble playing it both on my computer and on my PS3. I did notice, however, that WB Blu-Ray and all HD DVD titles played fine on my computer without hardware acceleration, but FireFly did not. I bought the ATI HD4870 to take care of that, problem solved.

By the way, PLEASE BRING BACK FIREFLY! Let me give you one of my favorite quotes of all time which came from Firefly:
"Y'all see the man hanging out of the spaceship with the really big gun? Now I'm not saying you weren't easy to find. It was kinda out of our way, and he didn't want to come in the first place. Man's lookin' to kill some folk. So really it's his will y'all should worry about thwarting."
www.browncoats.com

Please bring back Firefly.

I just finished watching the series for the first time tonight. I'm very sad now. No more Firefly. I watched the movie first, and that got me hooked.

 

[Shawn]

nm

 

[Agentbolt]

Originally posted by: Baked
I love reading the BR bashing 'cause it's made by Sony and it won the format war over HD-DVD, a format that's backed by MS. Since Sony totally cock blocked the 360's HD-DVD player from ever getting any new movies, people come out in drones to add fuel to the fire of a simple firmware update process. Look, people knew about how shitty unreliable the 360, killing itself and scratching up discs from day one. It took MS three years to fix this problem w/ their latest version of 360. Meanwhile it didn't stop millions upon millions of people from buying an half ass product like the 360. Now, let's look at BR's market share. It is far behind 360, but most people who owns a BR player just so happen to have a PS3, a device that can easily update its firmware. The minority of people who own stand alone BR players are early adopters with higher knowledge of technology devices compared to your wal-mart shopping joe six pack. Do you really think these early adopters would have a problem updating their BR player's firmware? No. While there are some playback problems with early stand alone BR players, these problem can easily be fixed by updating the firmware, and newer generation of BR players shouldn't have this problem. BR isn't going anywhere, Sony put too much money into this format to let it "fail." I'm not sure where you got the idea that it's a stepping stone format, there's nothing replacing the 1080p HDTV format on the horizon, and there's nobody with enough capital or market share to bump the BR.

Where are YOU getting the statistic that "the majority" of Blu-Ray players out there are PS3s? A lot of people could care less about gaming but enjoy high-def movies. With the new Memorex player and several others retailing for 200 dollars, the PS3 hasn't been a no-brainer choice for awhile now.

Joe Sixpack isn't going to start buying Blu-Ray players until they're below 200 bucks or so. Even the newer cheap players are still 1.1 compliant at best. (Again, look at the Memorex player) The old 100 dollar Insignia-type DVD players that helped bring DVDs into the mainstream had problems, but at least you could put the fucking disk in the slot and reasonably expect it would play.

 

[SlickSnake]

HAHAHA. :laugh:

I have over 200 HD-DVDs now that all play just fine. I have had trouble renting a few that were so scratched to hell nobody could reasonably expect them to play, but oh well. I can rent scratched SD DVD crap from the local BB store that plays just as badly.

And I even bought 5 dirt cheap BRs recently just on the off chance I pick up a cheap 2.0 BR player some time in the near future.

But the cheap BR player I finally buy will NOT be a SONY one. :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: