BLU-RAY PLAYER SALES are sucking wind as well they should. According to Cnet, sales of the DRM infected format players are dropping like rocks.

The not so bright people out there had expected sales to skyrocket once the format war was done, but it didn't. They thought was people would ignore the massive defects of Blu-ray and buy like the dumb sheep that they are, handcuffing themselves to the Sony bank account.

Surprise, it didn't happen. US consumers are still dumb sheep, but this time they are realizing what is being done to them and they aren't biting. Sony's hope of having 50% of disc sales this year be Blu-ray are more likely to happen because of falling DVD sales than rocketing Blu-ray.

The format has three problems, DRM infections, BD-J and greed. The greed part is obvious, Sony won the format war and are trying to charge people between 50 and 100% more for a product with marginally better quality. Sure, it looks better, and the 0.07% of people with 7.1 channel audio setups will be overjoyed, but for the rest, it is a small step at best over an upconverting DVD.

Are you going to buy the DVD version for $16.99 on new release sale or $29.99 for the BD? It doesn't take a genius to realize that the next iteration of Hollywood Formula #7 with Big Stars #3 and #8 isn't worth it. The movie studios have yet to convince me that The Water Horse is worth spending my money on at all, much less at twice the price for DRM'd HD versions.

That brings us to the next down side, there is no up, DRM. Every Blu-ray disc is DRM infected even if the producer doesn't want it to be, in order to get a company to manufacture it, it must be infected. Sony gets an infection kickback fee as well, so don't think it is purely for protection unless you mean it in the -racket sense.

Blu-ray DRM infections do not protect anything, Slysoft has cracked it with their excellent AnyDVD HD product, something I can't recommend enough. Basically, new DRM schemes are broken before you can buy discs with them on it, protecting nothing. It will however prevent legitimate users from using legally purchased media on legally purchased hardware. If you pirate though, no more compatibility issues, once again making Piracy the Better Choice (TM)(C)(R).

Basically the new format has DRM baked in and in your face. It costs you money, hurts only legitimate users, and is laughably insecure. Until it is abolished, just say no to Blu-ray and spend your money elsewhere, try books for example. If you must stoop to the DRM infected media, crack it and run it from your HD, it will save you immense frustration.

The last thing that makes people want to run for the hills is the badly broken BD-J abomination. Basically, when Blu-ray was 'finished', it wasn't close to done. HD-DVD on the other hand was well thought out and thorough, HD had a robust virtual machine that did all the work it needed to, and BD had none. Sony rushed a hacked BD v1.1 out, followed by 2.0, and instantly obsoleted all the money spent by the early adopters. All except those who bought Sony players of course.

There are two problems with this, other than the fact that morons spent money on a Sony format, it works like crap and it phones home, both comprise the third negative. Working like crap is the obvious one, to test it, look at one of the flagship titles, Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Disney insists on BD-J, customer be damned, and it shows. If you click on any of the options from the title menu, it pauses, you hear the disc seek, you wait, it loads, you wait more, and it decrypts, you wait a little more, and then the menu animates. It is nothing short of a disaster that you can't skip. Unless you pirate the title, once a gain making piracy the better choice (TM)(R)(C).

In any case, the BD-J support is so half-assed and broken that using it is nothing less than misery, but you also get the BD benefits as well. That is incompatibility and higher prices to soothe you while you wait and wait and wait. Whoever forced this on people should be shot.

The other down side is that to support the so called Profile 2.0, you must have internet capabilities and access. Anyone here trust Sony? Remember, these are the people who unashamedly rootkit paying customers and then tries as hard as they can to bury it, but never apologizes.

With the new BD Profile 2.0, they can run arbitrary code on your player, download and install whatever they want (You read the EULA didn't you?), and take any data they want. In return, you get the privilege of watching your legally purchased media on your legally purchased players. Fair trade, right? Once again, Piracy is the Better Choice(R)(TM)(C), it doesn't rat you out to unrepentant rootkitters even if they have a EULA behind them this time.

In the end, if you buy Blu-ray, you get a more expensive product that is likely incompatible with your hardware, DRM'd to the hilt, slow as dirt and it rats you out for good measure. All this for slightly better rez, be still my beating heart. Player sales are tanking when they should be soaring and Sony is probably wondering why. Caveat emptor.µ