The Blu-ray Discs Association (BDA) has chosen the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) to protect movies and music stored on the next-generation optical storage format.

That's no great surprise. The BDA has hinted in the past that it was likely to adopt AACS, which is being developed specifically for the successors to today's DVDs.

Indeed, Blu-ray's rival format, HD DVD, also incorporates AACS.

However, the BDA has adopted two extra levels of security. The first is the so-called 'ROM Mark', which is intended to identify a given disc as genuine. Designed to defeat counterfeiters, the mark can only be stamped on discs by authorised mastering equipment.

The second security strand is dubbed 'BD+' and is geared to hindering attempts to crack the encryption technology shielding the content. Essentially, it allows the BDA to update the encryption scheme should the current technique be cracked. If a coder comes up with the Blu-ray equivalent of DeCSS, the BDA simply updates the format's crypto engine on all future releases, limiting the volume of content that can be nabbed. BD+ also locks down players that have been tampered with to bypass the security system.

HD DVD supporters were quick to claim their favoured format's copy protection was no less secure than Blu-ray's.

"HD DVD's content protection system provides the highest level of advanced copy protection to meet content owner's needs and the rigors of consumer demand," claimed Mark Knox, from Toshiba's HD DVD Promotion Division.

Of course, that argument is founded in HD DVD's use of AACS - currently still in development, even though it was due to have been finalised earlier this year - and its "synthesis of high level security, including renewability, proven reliability, cost effectiveness and flexibility, as well as superior implementation in real-world devices".

In short, the HD DVD camp is saying AACS is enough - the concept of renewability enshrined in BD+ certainly appears to be part of the AACS specification. Blu-ray's addition of the BD+ system on top of AACS may simply be a sop to content providers, and if it persuades them that Blu-ray is the safer system, then it will have done its job.

Does this mean that anydvd staff will be buzy with new software versions in the future to keep up with what ever format the studios and comsumers chose just like the VHS & BETA war of the 70s ,

I still wonder what the cosumer uptake will be on the next generation of discs. Unless you have a huge HD TV, DVD quality should be more than enough for most people.

Although I do not have the technical skills to do so, I still believe the more clever chappies out there will be able to crack any mass protection system - after all, all we are talking about is 1's and 0's.

No, they probably will pick one of them and crack it.
Then they wait until every content provider has moved to the other platform and the cracked format is totally abandoned.
Then they crack the other one.



Just for clarification: The above statement is intended as a joke. As long as there isn't one of the new formats available, nobody can tell what will happen.

Blue ray will never be the standard. When users find out that they can only play their personal recordings on the original player that recorded them they will not buy the Blue Ray machines. Since the play-anywhere "watermarks" that allow the disc to be played anywhere are only registered to corporate users, home users will turn to other technologies in disgust. Users will also not like plugging their player into a phone line to get their "BD+ updates". Users will ask themselves, "what am I getting in exchange for all this restriction?" While the picture will be better, there will still be alternatives like HD-DVD that will allow playing recordings on any machine. The Blue Ray players are twice as expensive, the discs are three times as expensive, and the players are incompatible with existing discs. Now that DVD-HD has a 45GB version there is little to compare with regards to capacity.

You can be sure that both formats will have the best copy protection they can develop. I've been talking to many people from both the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camp and it's not that the developers of either format see it as a feature they want to heavily promote to consumers but it is an essential part for the acceptance of the movie studios. These are the ones that will push either format and they want to protected their movies and music as good as they can get. So both Blu-ray and HD-DVD will make sure they can protect content very well, just so the movie studios will not pick the other format just because the copy protection is better.

My 2 cents
I don't care what security measures they take, there will always be intellectual individuals that will find a way to hack the security.
Case in point, Visa - Mastercard hacks, and the US Governments secure sights.

Always the possibility developers sitting on both sides of the fence and reaping the rewards.

This statement alone has me bothered; it reminds me of the Playstation security measures. I don't think that too many people will be putting mod chips into there DVD players or even going thru the swap process to get a Burnt or separate region DVD to play.

Sorry m8 but i believe they would...

Blu-ray backers announce DRM details
The Blu-ray Discs Association (BDA) has chosen the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) to protect movies and music stored on the next-generation optical storage format.

That's no great surprise. The BDA has hinted in the past that it was likely to adopt AACS, which is being developed specifically for the successors to today's DVDs.

Indeed, Blu-ray's rival format, HD DVD, also incorporates AACS.

However, the BDA has adopted two extra levels of security. The first is the so-called 'ROM Mark', which is intended to identify a given disc as genuine. Designed to defeat counterfeiters, the mark can only be stamped on discs by authorised mastering equipment.

The second security strand is dubbed 'BD+' and is geared to hindering attempts to crack the encryption technology shielding the content. Essentially, it allows the BDA to update the encryption scheme should the current technique be cracked. If a coder comes up with the Blu-ray equivalent of DeCSS, the BDA simply updates the format's crypto engine on all future releases, limiting the volume of content that can be nabbed. BD+ also locks down players that have been tampered with to bypass the security system.

HD DVD supporters were quick to claim their favoured format's copy protection was no less secure than Blu-ray's.

"HD DVD's content protection system provides the highest level of advanced copy protection to meet content owner's needs and the rigors of consumer demand," claimed Mark Knox, from Toshiba's HD DVD Promotion Division.

Of course, that argument is founded in HD DVD's use of AACS - currently still in development, even though it was due to have been finalised earlier this year - and its "synthesis of high level security, including renewability, proven reliability, cost effectiveness and flexibility, as well as superior implementation in real-world devices".

In short, the HD DVD camp is saying AACS is enough - the concept of renewability enshrined in BD+ certainly appears to be part of the AACS specification. Blu-ray's addition of the BD+ system on top of AACS may simply be a sop to content providers, and if it persuades them that Blu-ray is the safer system, then it will have done its job.

The level of security involved with these 2 rival formats makes me beleieve that things are well changing,as you can read by the other post of mine ,once the codes are cracked they just update crypto engine bulit in.windows vista has a bigger level of secuity for its Next OS.all these measures make me wonder if companys like slysoft should release updates for free,cause the game is up.

Well, from what i've been reading, it seems like BluRay has been adding every protection under the sun, mostly to convert the uptight content producers into using their format. What really upsets me is that while some may say BluRay is more tech-advanced, HD-DVD has more consumer appeal (feature wise) so maybe it's less dense of recording medium, and maybe it's still protected, but I'll be damned if I ever buy into a medium that disallows me to use the content I buy, how I want to. (recode to pocket pc, put on my media network.) If there is going to be only 1 HD-DVD player in the world, i'll own it...

...And the ROM Mark, doesn't that sound like the protection that SONY put into SecuRom, that your SecuRom protected disc would be made by an authorized Sony replication plant, and have a "watermark" that would tell if the disc is genuine.