UPDATED: Blu-ray accelerates introduction of new DRM technology

 

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By Simon Aughton

Posted on 16 Apr 2007 at 08:25

The Blu-ray Disc Association has announced that following breaches of the security of the high-definition format's AACS security technology, it has brought forward the planned release date of the BD-Plus (BD+), a more advanced anti-copying system.

BD+ is an entirely different encryption system to AACS. Instead of each movie having the same encryption key, BD+ allows each disc to install a small piece of encryption software on a player, so that each disc has its own key.

A method for extracting Blu-ray keys was published in January (the rival HD DVD format, which also uses AACS, had already been cracked). As a result, the AACS licensing body last week released a security update that supplied new encryption keys for the affected discs. However this means that existing discs can no longer be played until the update is applied.

BD+ would avoid this scenario, by applying the DRM to individual discs rather than movie titles.

The Blu-ray Disc Association reports that player compatibility testing has ended and that studios have had test discs for the last few months.

Once BD+ is available it will add between seven to 28 days per title to production time. 20th Century Fox is expected to be one of the firsts to implement this new technology, having slowed disc production since the attacks on AACS, and Sony Pictures is planning to be using it by the end of the year.