Friday December 4th marked another milestone in Blu-ray’s short history. On this day, it became a requirement for anyone releasing titles on Blu-ray to offer consumers a back-up copy.
Announced on June 5th, as part of the final AACS agreement, were details of how Mandatory Managed Copy would be implemented. Note that this system should not be confused with the current trend of “Digital Copies” or “Triple Play”, whereby a Blu-ray is released with a companion DVD or Digital Copy in the same packaging.
With Managed Copy, the Blu-ray Movie you buy will be able to contact an Authorisation Server on the Internet, which will determine
• What kind of copy you can make (from 1:1 Blu-ray to DRM protected Windows Media File – currently no iTunes option)
• How many copies you can make.
• What resolution that copy will be – HD or SD.
Which is all great news except that there are no current players on the market which support this system. No, not even the Playstation 3. For users to take advantage of Managed Copy will require them to purchase a new Blu-ray player, none of which currently on the market offer this option.
There also still appears to be confusion within the production industry regarding the requirements and implementation. ScenaristBD, considered “the standard” for Blu-ray production supports the ‘hooks’ for Managed Copy, but as to when the authentication servers will become available and the process of recieving the required information from, one assumes, from the AACS-LA, that remains to be seen. Certainly, there appears to be no suggestion that replicators will reject BD masters not containing Managed Copy data anytime soon, and this confusion could well explain why promotion of this feature has been low, and will remain low into Q1 2010.
Further Reading
engadgetHD – Blu-ray gets managed copy next year needs new hardware