Sony responds about lack of Blu-ray playback the BWU-100A
By Matt Burns 
posted Aug 17th 2006 9:05AM
posted Aug 17th 2006 9:05AM
Sony has been getting a good amount of heat lately, and the latest fuel to the fire is their first Blu-ray drive (BWU-100A) inability to playback commercial Blu-ray discs. A representative has been in contact with us and issued a statement on why this drive cannot play Blu-ray titles -- yet. The main point that this rep made is that they didn't think that the target market had any interest on playing back these titles but there is nothing wrong with the drive; it simply didn't ship with everything need to playback media. The drive is a recorder and shipped with everything need to record Blu-ray media though. Apparently, Sony is taking HDCP very seriously and is making sure that the systems that this drive is installed in is compliant before playback can be achieved. There could be more here then Sony is letting on, but their full statement to us is after the jump.
The Sony BWU100A released last week in Australia is an internal Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Drive designed for storage and authoring personal High Definition video content to BD. This product is separate and apart from the Sony VAIO AR desktop and laptop computers geared for consumers and launched in June in the US with a drive capable of playing commercial Blu-ray media. Regarding the BWU-100A, the drive is capable of playing back commercial BD movies, but there are two things that must be present:
A. Compatible playback software. Unlike VAIO, which is engineered to be an HDCP compliant system, the aftermarket drive may be installed in a variety of different system configurations. HDCP compliant playback software for the aftermarket is not yet available, but we do expect to have an upgrade to the PowerDVD software that will make it HDCP compliant before the end of the year.
B. HDCP Compliant hardware. Once an upgrade to the PowerDVD software is made, the consumer will likely need to upgrade their video card and display to HDCP compliant ones. When we announce the upgrade to the PowerDVD software, we will also provide some recommendations for video cards & displays.
What a colossal blunder on the part of $ONY: Buy a $1000 BR drive and it cannot even play BR movies. Great! Thanks $ony! I cannot imagine that anyone would have tolerated one of the early $1000 CDR devices in the early 1990s that would not have played CDs.
They at least should have offered a built-in down-res option (ICT?) just to play the BR movies until the software/hardware upgrades could be completed.
This is just spin control. Sony is getting eaten alive by bad press, deservedly so. His response just furthers the impression of arrogance and disrespect of your customers. "It's a recorder". Give me a break. This isn't the late 80's. A drive is a drive, whether it burns or not, it should be capable of playing back the content you just burned in it.
But hey, customers should feel honored that Sony affords you the right to buy a burner to burn their format and also buy a seperate player to play back your newly burned discs.
How is Sony getting "eaten alive by bad press"? Earlier this year they were rated one of the highest-rated brands by consumers (not notpicking internet geeks like ourselves). Trust me, almost no one hears or cares about this stuff but us, and we're a very small minority.
This is the best Line "Sony is taking HDCP very seriously” No Kidding they are the Kings of Control!
So I buy a recorder but can never play a disk other then the one I just recorded, o wait if you record it will you be able to view it ? That might be another violation! So you better buy a player to go with it just to be safe. I am glad Sony thinks that we all have unlimited funds to buy their over priced and defective CRAP!
Guys, this isnt a Sony or even BD only issue. HD-DVD uses the same DRM (1 layer of it anyways) and so the non-oem drives will have the EXACT same issues. You'll need software + HDCP. No need to beat on Sony on this.
I'm beginning to think Blu-Ray's worst enemy isn't Toshiba (or Warner for that matter) but Sony itself.
It Sir Howard Stringer can't reverse all these incompetent business decisions, perhaps he should propose the unthinkable and sell the company to its longtime rival Matsushita. Considering the rise of LG and Samsung to being respectable outside of Korea in the past decade, that might not be such a bad idea.
Sony is suffering a lot of bad press this year. Just yesterday their stock tumbled after the news of the Dell laptop battery recall, which were using Sony batteries.
The PS3 preview at E3 didn't go well due to their pricing announcement. The introduction of Blu-Ray hasn't gone well. Sony itself has yet to introduce a stand alone blu-ray player.
When DVD was introduced and Win98 was the O/S, there were lots of issues to getting DVD to play on the existing systems. This time is no different (for both HD DVD and Blu-Ray). WinXP doesn't even support the native file system for these next generation DVDs (UDF2.5) so you can record discs that the O/S can't even mount and read back let alone play a movie.
You should just plan on new hardware based on Microsoft's Vista O/S to really be able to play HD DVD or Blu-Ray discs just like you really needed to have a new computer with Win2k to play a DVD.
The fact that this recorder (and the others on the market) are priced at $1k is so that you do your homework and understand what you're buying. When these recorders are selling for $79, then you'll know that they are plug and play for the systems that will be common then.
These formats are just in their infancy. They are not ready for prime time just yet.