Yeah, that was my first thought. Any media controlled by AACS (Blu-ray, BD9, HD DVD, 3XDVD, etc) needs a "secure path" so once the data has the AACS encryption removed it's not passed anywhere outside of that module (ie Blu-ray player application) without some other form of approved encryption such as HDCP. So far as I'm aware, Mac OS X doesn't have the secure path thing implemented. Many of the major problems with Vista have to do with Microsoft's attempts to make secure path work in it.
There is one loophole, but I doubt it'll please anyone: the majority of AACS-controlled discs allow for the data to be down-converted to 960x540 (ie one quarter of 1080p) before being sent on an unsecure, non-encrypted, link. So in theory, a Mac Blu-ray player could do that, but I suspect it'll upset quite a few people if they did, and it wouldn't necessarily work on every Blu-ray movie, as Hollywood has the option to have non-secure path output blocked completely.
It's an interesting rumour, and I'll be interested to see what develops, whether 10.5.6 is a far greater overhaul of the operating system than the point-release number would suggest, whether they'll compromise with 960x540 output, or whether it's another bogus Mac rumor.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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Yeah, that was my first thought. Any media controlled by AACS (Blu-ray, BD9, HD DVD, 3XDVD, etc) needs a "secure path" so once the data has the AACS encryption removed it's not passed anywhere outside of that module (ie Blu-ray player application) without some other form of approved encryption such as HDCP. So far as I'm aware, Mac OS X doesn't have the secure path thing implemented. Many of the major problems with Vista have to do with Microsoft's attempts to make secure path work in it.
There is one loophole, but I doubt it'll please anyone: the majority of AACS-controlled discs allow for the data to be down-converted to 960x540 (ie one quarter of 1080p) before being sent on an unsecure, non-encrypted, link. So in theory, a Mac Blu-ray player could do that, but I suspect it'll upset quite a few people if they did, and it wouldn't necessarily work on every Blu-ray movie, as Hollywood has the option to have non-secure path output blocked completely.
It's an interesting rumour, and I'll be interested to see what develops, whether 10.5.6 is a far greater overhaul of the operating system than the point-release number would suggest, whether they'll compromise with 960x540 output, or whether it's another bogus Mac rumor.