To answer the question: no, BR equipment is way too much expensive for me and the availability of BR movies isn't that of standard DVD here, and I guess such SPECIAL equipment will cost WAYYYY too much.

Not worth it for me... yet

This reminds me of the DVDs that were good for 24 houres, used in rentals. Did this technology made it somewhere?

Sounds like a band-aid. If you make a copy ... and then your original is damaged, you're back to square one.

Yay buy a new player for a feature that should have been there in the first place. No thanks they dont get my money.

Blue ray is already worthless. Ive got a 70" 1080p with all the supporting equipment. Including a blueray player. Yes you can see the difference between hd and regular dvds. But its not worth the price. You can buy 3 4 5 dvd movies for the same price as a blue ray. So why bother buying blue ray, go buy 3 movies instead that look 95% as good for the same price and tripple your enjoyment.

According to Ars, the following niggly little details apply:
-Current BR hardware probably can't get a firmware upgrade to support this, and all the BR movies you've already bought don't support it at all.
-In order to start the copy, the hardware has to ask an authorization server from a URL that's mastered into the BR disk at the time of manufacture. Better hope the servers in question stays up forever or the URLs never change.
-Studios are free to charge you for the privilege of your one guaranteed authorized copy. They can let you make more than one copy, but they're also free to charge you for all of them too.
-The copy itself has to be DRM'd, and can only be in a WindowsMedia file, CSS'd DVD, or AACS'd Blu-Ray disk.

Yeah. Thanks but no thanks.
Why can't these people just die off already and get out of our way? This kind of stuff only makes life more difficult for the law-abiding, paying customer.

I imagine the ps3 will be able to be updated to support this.

No Blu-Ray for me.....Going with a Popcorn Hour...

I would first have to own a blu-ray player to buy another blu-ray player. I bought an HD-DVD player for $99 and it came with 7 free movies. 18+ months later I'm waiting for a similarly priced blu-ray player to get my money.

But the best format for the consumers won I'm sure.

considering it's about $25 just for the blank blu-ray disk.....you are better off just replacing the movie for about the first 50 times you break on, rather than buying a new player/recorder and blank disks.

where's the catch? People can already archive blu-rays themselves for the most part (not as easy as a dvd, but possible)

and no, that 24 hour dvd thing died a horrible death

What I'd like to be able to do is buy rights to playback the content and have access to it on Blu-ray, my iPod, Zune, or any other media. Basically it doesn't make sense to buy multiple copies of the same movie just to be able to playback on many different devices.

thanks for the info Hatecrime69

Man there are too many "THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE" things that die without a notice. I bet this copyable technology will be one of them, considering scook9's comment.

They're talking legally.

Way to get my hopes up, and then screw it all up.

Why not just call this article "Another reason to not buy a PS3" if this can't be fixed via a firmware update.

Buy the rights? Please do not suggest that. I'm against stealing copyrighted material you don't already own but as far as I am concerned if I go out to Best Buy and purchase a brand new copy of The Dark Knight on blu-ray I have the legal right to play it back on any medium I so choose. If Warner Bros doesn't provide me with a download link in iTunes or some other service I will download it from a torrent site and accomplish the same goal. I will watch that one copy on my cell phone, on my laptop, on my desktop, in my iPod, and on my television. I will not purchase a digital copy, an iPod copy, and a hard copy. It will be a cold day in hell before I buy a movie than buy the "rights" to watch my movie on some other device. I already bought the right to do so when I swiped my Credit Card and I don't give a damn if the RIAA says otherwise.

Don't get any of statements confused with you thieves downloading games/movies/software that you don't already own. Completely different.

let me update having actually looked at some prices now, the cost of disks is around 5$-12$ (US) each - not as bad. Guess they are only that high at micro center where I used to work. Still MUCH more than I would want to pay for BLANK disks. I mean, its metal film and plastic ffs.

Blue Ray & HD are non events IMHO. I have no problems copying whatever I want right now and I see no reason to spend the exorbitint amounts required for BR.

No thanks, I can already copy them ;-)

Um no, its outdated technology and not any different then HD-DVD was, minus the fact that the DRM was way stricter. Now the Blu-ray has been cracked you can find em everywhere online, the BD-Forum is going to have just as a hard time as HD-DVD did or the DVD forums does with copy protection. PLus we all know the movie and tv industry will outcast everyone that jumps onto Blu-Ray. its only a matter of a couple years before they release some new "standard" (DVI anyone?)

The only thing I would *possibly* be interested in doing with a BD burner is backing up PC data files (pictures, HD camcorder home movies, etc.) as they hold nearly 25GB in one disc, and more down the road in double density form. Sure, you can pay to store your data off site, but I prefer to have my own hard copies stored in a fire/water proof safe.

Nope.... It's called PS3 and it gets updates that adds nice features like this all the time.

Just one note... I live in EU, and EU copyright laws clearly states that anyone who puchases a legal copy of CD/DVD/BD and so on has the right to make one personal use LEGAL copy for backup purposes.
So the problem it's simple: it's illegal in EU for any company/consortium/forum to prevent a legal user from making a personal use identical copy. Period.
But those companies are too much powerful and have too much money to pay attention to laws...

It's not completely different... If I buy a copy of an album from iTunes for $10, do I have the right to go into Best Buy and steal it? That's your logic.

I agree that if you purchase something, it should be yours to do with as you please, but there has to be some limitations on that as well... If I buy a DVD, does that give me right to download a BluRay copy from a torrent? No, it doesn't.

BUT I think that more movies should include additional material (let's not use "rights." I picked up Blue Harvest at Meijer last Christmas time for $4, and it included a second disc with a digital copy on it that I can transfer to my BlackBerry or my computer... If more studios started doing that, then they may get more sales...

But you also have to realize that the percentage of the population that would do that is tiny..... What reason do they have to give away content when maybe 10% of the people will use it? They are spending money they don't have to...

There's a good business model out there somewhere, and someone has to find it... What about this? You purchase a movie, you can register it with iTunes and then download a copy at the price Apple would get for it, and the studio doesn't get money again... So let's say you buy Dark Knight @ Best Buy and you can buy a copy for your iPod for $2. Does that interest you?

I'll say this. Blu-ray was supposed to be relatively scratch proof, and from what I've seen that is true. Further more, blu-ray is the standard when it comes to high def, if you cannot tell then then don't bother posting here because this is not for you. In Audio alone, you cannot download or stream anything close to it. Picture-wise you can get close to it by using the VUDU player but it takes about 6 hours to download for the HDX and the audio is only DD not lossless. So I'll take all my high end audio equipment and my high end tv and watch my high end blu-rays and not worry about copying them because I know how to put them in cases so they don't get messed up.

How can such a good format be tainted with so much fail?

Does anyone ever make a personal backup copy for a movie? Give me a break!

Na, I'll just stick to third party software to make copies. And download MKV's.

that feature was actually part of the standard since early on, just never incorporated. price still determines how well this will do and how fast, if at all, it will be taken up and i don't believe it'll be fast. verbatim recently figured out a way to make the bluray blanks cheaper to make but it will prolly be months to years before we see anything from it. i'd like to know wot the percentage of ppl in the mainstream actually own a TV capable of taking advantage of HD movies at all at this time. i don't believe it's above 20%...

What is this Blu Ray everyone keeps talking about? (sarcasm implying price has in general kept me away from the tech for now)

Apparently flashlv never had little kids and disney DVDs ....

skook9 STFU you L@M3r, I agree with WheelsOfConfusion, makes good points. Buy one BJ ooops BD then buy it again .... hmmmm. Only to be able to make ONE backup up thats regulated by millionare CEO's. so for like almost $1000 I get to do this? wow how dumb.

No. My logic only applies to purchased PHYSICAL copies. Please learn to read before you respond with ridiculous similar "scenarios."

Viva la internet!

I don't give a damn about having a physicl copy. I dislike watching movies 2+ times.
Video games are a better buy anyways. 10+ hours for twice the cost...