BluRay's Trojan Horse

BluRay Trojan Horse

Having access to a Reference State-of-the-Art Home Theater has its rewards, among them being the ability to treat my family to a private viewing of the latest high-definition DVD releases – this past weekend being Avitar.   But this long awaited viewing experience was spoiled when the BluRay DVD was loaded into our player which released a firmware upgrade requirement which crippled the player from further use until the upgrade was performed.  Welcome to things to come…  

Without naming component manufacturers, the BluRay disc planted a Trojan Horse (a virus) that disabled the BluRay player from generating a high definition output video signal (HDMI or component) while continuing to allow a composite signal (low definition – 480i).  Facts that further confirmed our findings was the menu option (asked by the player during firmware upgrade) to purge the data residing from the most recent played DVD.  After all system components (BluRay player, A/V receiver, and HDTV display) were upgraded, the system regained ability to properly display HD material.

This was our first real introduction to AACS, Sunset Analog and the things to come.  The Advanced Access Content System (AACS) is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management (DRM), intended to restrict access to and copying of the next generation of optical discs and DVDs.   Developed by a consortium that includes Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Warner Bros., IBM, Toshiba and Sony, AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA) is the latest form of DRM to restrict access to and copying of content on Blu-ray video.  

Now introduce Sunset Analog… effective December 31 2010, manufacturers are no longer allowed to introduce new Blu-ray players with component video outputs capable of HD output; they must limit those outputs to SD (480i or 576i). Existing models may continue to be sold until the end of 2013.  However, this does not preclude media (Avitar BD disc for example) to upload data to your player to disable certain functions (such as HD resolution output).    They gotcha.

Tags: AACS, Great Conspiracy Theories, HDTV, High Definition, Technology Ahead

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 7:20 pm and is filed under HDTV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.