Philips Blu Ray firmware updates

The only solution I found to fix the problem was to upgrade my windows altogether to windows 7 premium. This was a good lesson learned dell support is not really that good. you can spend hours on the phone and let them do things by remote and chances are the support will screw things up more then try talking you into buying a new machine. I think it's bad when they talk you into buying more than you need. last but not least put internal players in the machine and have no support for it. If dell can't provide a update or support how about sending me the check for the drive that I paid for and is useless.

disappointed with Dell.

VLC will not play encrypted BluRay discs as the format is heavily rights managed and heavily license encumbered which doesn't fit into the open source model. Reverse engineering the DRM could land people in jail for longer periods that rapists in some countries, hence no single download open source BD players exist.

When you put BluRay disc into a BluRay player in your living room, all sorts of activities take place. Various types or decryption keys are read from special tracks on the disc and provided to the player software, cross checks of the drive firmware and player software are also done to ensure nothing has been tampered with. If every check and cross check is OK, then you proceed to load the and decrypt the film.

If the player software has an issue with not having the latest decryption keys, the screen will be filled with a message stating that the firmware needs to be updated. This message is from the perspective of a consumer level BluRay player you have in you living room where the drive firmware and player software are considered one and the same thing.

So, if you see a BluRay message stating that you need to update the firmware, in the PC domain, this would mean the DVD/BluRay player software is what must be updated, not the drive firmware.

Part of the BluRay spec requires new keys to be used on new discs each year, which then requires player updates to be released each year. So even when some manufacturer states that a PC can play BluRay, what is really needed is for the BD player software manufacturer to also follow this up with a statement that updated will be provided yearly (and free). But no manufacture does that so either BD playback on PC's will slowly disappear for new disc pressings on our old machines or it will be like antivirus software where you will have to pay for updates.

And that's why i avoid BluRay discs; they a a blight on honest consumers and on being able to use what you have already paid for.

The failure of Dell support is that either the staff do not understand the DRM mechanism behind BluRay or they don't want to say that both Dell and you are at the mercy of some other 3rd party to release updated to player software (or studios that decide new BD discs will no longer play on writable drives - if this is indeed true).