Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

Ars Technica posted a fairly positive story on the future of Managed Copy. For those of you who have never heard of Managed Copy, it is a specification in digital rights management of HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs that that will allow users to make copies of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies. The article indicated that the Managed Copy specification would be approved by the major movie studios by this holiday season yet had this ominous paragraph:

Yet even with the option of charging for managed copy, not all studios are fans of the idea. A source close to a major Blu-ray partner who spoke on condition of anonymity told Ars that there is a fear that managed copy could be exploited and provide a backdoor to AACS security. When I pointed out the obvious flaw with that concern, namely that AACS has already been compromised, my source said that hopes are still high that the AACS game of cat-and-mouse with hackers will ultimately be won in AACS’ favor.

Blu-ray disc and HD-DVDs have been available for over a year now yet Managed Copy has not yet been implemented. I am beginning to wonder whether the specification will ever be implemented. With the cracks of AACS well-publicized, the movie studios may begin to get nervous about adding a feature that would make copying of a disc easier. I also hate the idea that studios could charge extra to allow you to copy the disc to a hard drive. That would be a sure way to kill that feature.

Hopefully Managed Copy will be implemented, putting media centers in a great position to leverage that technology. With hard drive prices continually falling, it will soon be realistic to store your whole collection of high definition movies on a media center. For all you fans of media center computers, I would recommend supporting the HD-DVD standard. At the end of the article, this tidbit of information was dropped:

According to the HD DVD Promotional Group, managed copy will be retroactive for all HD DVD discs—that is, discs sold today will work with managed copy, even though the feature is not ready yet. The same is not true for Blu-ray, however.