We have previously reported on BD+ Technologies' extra level of security on Blu-ray discs, and how it was progressing during the development phase. Well, now it looks as if the ball is well and truely rolling, with numerous legal agreements approved, and key-issuing and test centres appearing for BD+ verification of hardware players. Thus all appears now to be in place for content providers to start releasing their titles on extra-secure Blu-ray discs.
It's a complex form of encryption, which is nicely described and illustrated in the source of this news over on arstechnica, but basically it involves the hardware player running a small program to interrogate the disc and verify a number of parameters, including the AACS keys and kind of checksum on the drive firmware to see if it has been hacked. Playback of the disc can of course be revoked if something doesn't check out correctly. “BD+ will be the proverbial thorn in the side of Blu-ray movie rippers,” said optical storage analyst Wesley Novack. “With AACS and BD+ switching up encryption keys and methods routinely (BD+), it might become too much work to determine how to rip every Blu-ray Disc title out there.”
With the successful agreements and hardware testing centres in place, the media studios who have been waiting around to see what happens with the AACS cracking achievements may now have a bit more confidence to release titles on Blu-ray. Don't forget that the format has been given the additional filip with its adoption by Blockbuster to be the first of the high-definition titles that it will stock.
As highlighted in the arstechnica article, it shouldn't be forgotten that the ability of the hardware to run small checking programs could be used for future restrictions by the media companies. Even though this might well be used to update copy protections as they become less secure, it could also have some benefit for consumers. For example, when BD-ROM media production gets cheaper, it makes possible the distribution of promotion or sampler discs that would time-expire.
The BD+ Technologies website, which includes an FAQ, can be found here (registration required).
