Rants

Posted on 8 Sep 2009 at 14:44

After a hard day's work, I decided to get out my projector, drop the screen and fire up my Blu-ray player to chill out with the new Futurama movie.

Unfortunately, once the projector had warmed up, I was greeted with an 'Unknown disc' error message, which changed to 'Cannot play this disc' as I mashed the remote's buttons.

Checking the disc revealed no scratches or fingerprints, and The Dark Knight played fine. I figured a firmware update might solve the problem, so checked the Network Update menu to see if one was available. Surprisingly, considering I'd updated the player - a Sony BDP-S350 - just recently, there was one.

Ten minutes later, the update was installed and I tried the disc again. Same error. With nothing left to do, I gave up and stuck the disc back in its wallet ready to return to Lovefilm with the 'faulty' box ticked.

Whether the disc is faulty or simply incompatible remains to be seen, but it prompted me to vent my anger about the need for firmware updates. My DVD player never needed updating to add compatibility with certain discs. In my view, and I'm sure plenty of others will agree, Blu-ray should be a standard just like DVD, and this should be finalised before discs and players are released.

Not everyone has a convenient network connection behind their TV, and for some it would be nigh on impossible to update their player. It's only thanks to a pair of HomePlug adaptors that it wasn't a major hassle for me.

Getting back to the point, if anyone knows why Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder won't play on my BDP-S350, I'd love to hear from you.

Author: Jim Martin

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