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Blu-Ray playback problems with Silver Surfer?

What's going on? I have a fancy new LG BH100 Blu-Ray high-def video player and when I finally got my hands on Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer I was aghast to find that it just didn't work at all. All the other Blu-Ray DVDs I have work fine, but that one is rejected by the player and I never even see the top menu. What the heck is wrong?

Dave's Answer:

One of the biggest problems with DVDs, and certainly the bane of all music player owners too, is digital rights management systems, or DRM. Another name for this makes it clearer what's going on: copy protection systems. DVDs have a variety of different techniques in play, from the simple "region encoding" that means the $2 DVD you buy while on a trip to Hong Kong or Africa won't play on your US-bought DVD player. There are, however, considerably more complicated encoding systems that are supposed to ensure that only people who have the master disk can watch a particular movie or access specific data.

Enter the high-def world of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, and while the data size is considerably larger, the challenge is the same. How can a movie studio ensure that you and your buddies don't buy one copy of a movie like Silver Surfer and make a bunch of quick dupes. Or, worse, dupe the movie and sell those bootleg copies on eBay. Not good.

The new Blu-Ray movie Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (and The Day After Tomorrow) are the two newest Blu-Ray releases from Fox and, well, they're trying out a new copy protection scheme called BD+. Surprise, it doesn't work on all the different Blu-Ray players on the market, most notably your LG-BH100 and the Samsung BDP-1200. There have also been sporadic problems reported with the Sony Playstation-3, which proves to be a very elegant Blu-Ray player with the addition of the cheap PS3 remote control.

The best place to learn more about the problem is over at HighDefDigest.com, which originally reported the problem, then issued a follow-up from Fox the next day: Fox Speaks Out on Blu-Ray Problems.

The gist of the issue is, as they explain:

"Steve Feldstein, Fox senior VP of marketing communications advised that consumers having difficulties should contact manufacturer support lines directly.... "We are releasing more and more advanced interactive titles, and consumers should lobby their hardware manufacturers to release firmware upgrades post haste," said Feldstein.

There, does that make you feel better?

Seriously, since you have the LG player, I'd call them up (try (800) 243-0000, according to the Web site) and complain about its inability to play the newest Fox Blu-Ray DVD. It's bad enough when we early adopters have to put up with the stream of mediocre movies trickling into the Blu-Ray / HD-DVD market, but to also have good movies like Silver Surfer fail to work entirely just stinks!

By the way, when you do get it working, the buzz is that the Blu-Ray disk is splendid. While you're on hold, why not read HighDefDigest's review of the movie? :-)

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Categorized: d) None of the Above (Article 7616)
Tagged: blu-ray, drm, hd-dvd, hddvd
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Comments

There's a more complete response and story on this at Video Business now:

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 10/4/2007
OCT. 4 | 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is aware of consumers experiencing playback problems on Oct. 2 Blu-ray Disc release The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, but the studio believes the issues are confined to a limited number of players.

According to postings on home theater enthusiast sites such as www.avsforum.com, complaints are arising from people running the disc on Samsung’s second-generation BD-P1200 model and LG’s first-generation dual-format BH100 player.

It’s unclear what specifically is tripping up the players, Fantastic Four does boast some of Fox’s most advanced technology yet, including BD-Java-powered extras and BD+ copy protection.

Steve Feldstein, Fox senior VP of marketing communications, points out that overall reviews have been favorable for Fantastic Four. He advises consumers having difficulties to contact manufacturer support lines directly.

“We are releasing more and more advanced interactive titles, and consumers should lobby their hardware manufacturers to release firmware upgrades post haste,�? said Feldstein. “The title was well-reviewed and playing well on updated players.�?

Samsung “should have something up soon,�? according to a support line staffer, who said he had received some complaints from those viewing Fantastic Four on the P1200.

The LG dual-format player is already considered weakened by the fact that it can’t fully playback HDi, the interactivity technology for the HD DVD format.

Posted by: Scott Hettrick at October 5, 2007 7:58 PM

The good thing with the Playstation 3 is it is updated constantly over the internet so this Problem can easily be solved for it.

Posted by: David at October 5, 2007 10:01 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!