AfterDawn: News

Dragon's Lair causes playback issues on Blu-Ray players

In the past month there have a been a couple of movies that have caused issues on standalone HD-DVD players such as "Children of Men" and the new NIN concert disc and now there are reports of playback issues on standalone Blu-Ray players for the animated movie/game "Dragon's Lair".

After the reports were made that some players could not play the game and other drives, including the Playstation 3 were getting audio sync problems, Digital Leisure, the movie's publisher noted that that some players would be prone to playback issues.



"Due to the lack of Java standardization many players just aren't able to handle proper playback," said the company.

They also stated that the game would work on the following players guaranteed: The Samsung BD-P1000, Panasonic DMP-BD10, PowerDVD for the PC, Sony BDP-S1 and the PlayStation 3 (they could not replicate the audio sync issues reported).

If you do not have those players, then chances are you do not want to purchase this game yet until firmware updates enable BD-Java support in the players.

Source:
Joystiq

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 12 Apr 2007 11:14

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• 10 comments

• limelight

  Translated to English:
  
  "If you dont have one of the so-called "compatabile" players, well...youre screwed! HA! You'll have to wait for our company to make a patch that should have been there in the first place. We should get started on it in, oh, i dont know...a couple weeks i guess. Just whenever we get around to it." -Digital Leisure

  12.4.2007 14:00 #1

• Thoatih12

  Originally posted by limelight:Translated to English:
  
  "If you dont have one of the so-called "compatabile" players, well...youre screwed! HA! You'll have to wait for our company to make a patch that should have been there in the first place. We should get started on it in, oh, i dont know...a couple weeks i guess. Just whenever we get around to it." -Digital Leisure
  perfectly said..haha

  12.4.2007 14:31 #2

• ThaJazz

  does HD DVD have these same issues

  12.4.2007 15:27 #3

• pigfister

  Originally posted by ThaJazz:does HD DVD have these same issuesyes HD-DVD have similar issues regarding the aacs incompatibilities created by the MPAA with their unbelievably restrictive DRM but all HD-DVD players have a net hook up that Blu-ray players lack so downloading firmware is a whole lot easier.
  imo w8 about 4 or so years before you upgrade to hd players and sets so the MPAA can finalise their DRM so you don't end up buying a hobbled donkey that ends up as an expensive book end!
  
  worrying feature unique to Blu-ray players called BD+ thanks again sony rootkits arnt a patch on this anti consumer feature!
  
  Originally posted by above link:Self-Protecting Digital Content (SPDC), can allow players judged "bad" to be effectively disabled,[12] preventing their use by their purchaser or subsequent owners.or a report by businessweek.com The DVD War Against Consumers
  Originally posted by above link:STRANGLEHOLD ON CONTENT. Even more extreme is a scheme called BD+ that deals with the problem of what to do when someone cracks the encryption scheme. The players can automatically download new crypto if the old one is broken. But there's an ominous feature buried in this so-called protection mechanism: If a particular brand of player is cryptographically "compromised," the studio can remotely disable all of the affected players. In other words, if some hacker halfway across the globe cracks Sony's software, Sony can shut down my DVD player across the Net. you can always choose to not have your Blu-ray player hooked up to the net but just like aacs updates, if you fail to patch your player, you will NOT be able to play any new content!

  13.4.2007 00:24 #4

• Smee342

  and this is were the weak shall fall and the mighty will prevail lol
  
  anyways
  
  theres no need to go and rush to buy all that new equip,becouse u will be able to replace them with a 19.99 walmart special lol
  
  anyways wait it out and see. but this is starting to piss me off eerything is going to need high speed net so u can just keep up with the outside world, were im still stuck inthe dark ages of 26k this is lame
  
  Smeezus

  13.4.2007 00:49 #5

• bluray23

  Wow, you guys clearly don't know much about Blu-ray. First off, Digital Leisure wouldn't have to patch anything. The players need the patches and firmware updates, not discs. The PS3 has had about 6 since it first came out. The game seemed to playback just great for the guys over at Project COE -- http://www.projectcoe.com/sony/games/dragonslair.html?var1=sc3

  13.4.2007 05:29 #6

• eatsushi

  Originally posted by ThaJazz:does HD DVD have these same issuesHD-DVD does not have the same issues. The issue with the Dragon's Lair disc has nothing to do with DRM but has everything to do with the implementation of BD-J (BluRay Disc - Java). The counterpart of BD-J in the HD-DVD world is called HDi or HD Interactive which is based on web languages such as HTML and XML. HDi, as compared to BD-J, is a totally finished and finalized spec that is working well in all HD-DVD players. Thus there is no issue with HDi enabled discs in all players. The same is not true with BluRay and the BD-J spec. See error5's explanation of the different BD-J specs in this thread:
  
  http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/490179

  13.4.2007 06:40 #7

• cyclone

  Sorry, eatsushi, but HDi does have many of the same issues. In fact, the Dragon's Lair people were originally going to issue the game for HD DVD, but put Blu-ray first due to technical issues with HDi. The only reason there are fewer HDi issues is because you basically only have one hardware/software combination it's running on (Toshiba HW, Microsoft SW). Blu-ray has over half-a-dozen players running fully unique implementations, so there are more issues. Things will mature, however.

  15.4.2007 17:17 #8

• error5

  Of course they'll have technical issues with HDi. Dragon's Lair is in essence a game marketed as a video disc. HDi isn't really meant for games but for movies and in-movie interactivity. BD-J probably has more potential for "games" and more diverse interactivity. BD-J would suit their purposes better than HDi.

  15.4.2007 17:59 #9

• eatsushi

  I read that interview with the Dragon's Lair developer. (I need to find the link though.) What I understood from the interview was that HDi was "trickier" to program but not impossible. That was their main issue with it. BD-J is just easier to program for their purposes which is, as error5 put it, a game being marketed as a video disc.

  16.4.2007 07:40 #10