MediaDirect / Dell / Blue Ray .... worked, doesn't work

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MediaDirect / Dell / Blue Ray .... worked, doesn't work

(2 posts)

Started 6 months ago by fpssdave
Latest reply from dmwpowers
Topic Viewed 628 times

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fpssdave

Member

Posts: 2

I had posted this in response to another post where blue ray was a problem and was asked to repost here:

My problem seems similar:Dell Inspiron 1535 / Vista Premium / 32BIT
Intel 2DUO T8100 @ 2.10GHz / 4.00 GB Ram

Matshita DVDRWBD UJ-110 ATA
ATI Radeon HD4330
The screen comes up as a generic PnP monitor.
The display as ordered only says 15.6" glossy.
The display adapter is mobile Intel 965 chipset.
Dell / Media Direct plays the Blue Ray version 3.5.3624

I have had it for a while but yesterday was the first time I tried a blue ray disc. It asked me to update some software that took a good 6-8 minutes over a highspeed connection to download and install and The Chronicles of Riddick played fine. I then tried a new 'high speed' HDMI cable to my HD lcd TV and everything went down hill from there. I tried every variation of split screen, single screen available, but not only would it not play on the TV, it will no longer play on my laptop. I can play standard dvd's with my laptop in extended screen mode with the TV having the player on it. But not Blue Ray. This morning we did a restore to yesterday before the updates. When you put a BR disc in, MediaDirect (MD) brings up 3 files AACS, BDMV, and Certificate. There are files within these files but all eventually lead me to an 'up-one-level' button / file and don't appear to have any content. If I leave the disc in and close MD and try a right click 'Play with MD' from My Computer on the disc identified as BD-ROM Drive (E:) RIDDICK, the same thing occurs. MD has not asked me to re-install the software I presumably got rid of on Restore.
Thoughts?

Thanks for any help
Dave

Posted 6 months ago #

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dmwpowers

Member

Posts: 1

I have a similar problem. My guess is it is due to AACS (look it up in Wikipedia for details).

Software Blu-Ray players need to be updated periodically to get new AACS decryption keys, because hacked keys are periodically deleted. This will mean old disk will still play but new disk won't have the deleted keys so won't play.

Media Direct used to always ask to update, and I did occasionally. One time after updating it stopped asking regularly. The next time it asked I updated and it then just kept asking for updates without ever playing a BD successfully. I backed out to an earlier version, and that worked for one disk, but not the next one I got - in fact it then zapped my region code and said I'd had no changes left (and I'd never changed the region code). After DELL replaced the drive and it still said wrong region, no changes left on a brand new drive. Installing back from the original disk worked for that BD, but not for the next one I tried to play, a fairly recent one.

But although it is asking for updates it is never finding one to do - and I suspect it has me registered as already updated (if anyone can update as many times as they like, the AACS could be subverted - it has to know who you are and whether you are entitled to an update). Also this right to update is based on the software (license), not the hardware.

The problem is that DELL doesn't know anything about all this... but this is my theory...

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MediaDirect / Dell / Blue Ray .... worked, doesn't work

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