Controversial copyright protection technologies have caused many criticism from both end-users and industry players, but publishers and other copyright holders still do not want to compromise data protections and usage limitations to ensure less problematic user experience. According to media reports, certain latest Blu-ray disc (BD) releases cannot playback on certain media players as the latter do not support the BD+ copyright protection.

Two latest Blu-ray releases from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, The Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer and The Day After Tomorrow cannot playback on at least LG Electronics BH100 and Samsung BD-P1200 players due to the fact that currently those players do not support BD+ copyright protection technology. Apparently, the hardware developers need to release new firmware that featured the BD+ tech, whereas end-users should flash their players to enable playback of protected content.

The Sony S1 and various Panasonic Blu-ray disc players can play the BD+ movies, but have extremely slow load time issue. Sony PlayStation 3, is also capable of BD+ movies playback, once firmware version 1.93 is loaded, reports Ars Technica web-site.

BD+ is the latest copyright protection layer for Blu-ray discs that compliments AACS, HDCP and so on. BD+ is a small program recorded on a Blu-ray disc that is executed by player and examines whether the players security keys were changed as well as decodes part of the content encrypted with BD+ keys. The BD+ technology was finalized in June, 2007, therefore, all players released before that date need to be reflashed with a new firmware.

“We are releasing more and more advanced interactive titles, and consumers should lobby their hardware manufacturers to release firmware upgrades post haste. The title was well-reviewed and playing well on updated players,” said Steve Feldstein, Fox senior vice president of marketing communications, in an interview with Video Business web-site.

Samsung reportedly reassured its customers that the new firmware for its BD-P1200 was incoming, whereas the status of LG’s new firmware is unclear.

Additional security software, firmware or hardware technologies not only this increase the ultimate costs of high-definition video players, which are not really popular on the market even now and are likely to remain in a similar positions for another 18 months, but may also raise support costs, as if content owners alter security keys more or less regularly, hardware makers should prepare new firmware on a regular basis, something that consumer electronics makers generally do not like to do. But while the leading manufacturers can afford supporting players with new firmwares for a decade, smaller makers may not be capable of doing that. As a result, thanks to additional security layers, such as BD+, not only end-users need to learn how to update their DVD players, but they will eventually have to pay for that inconvinience.