Weird....but you should check out Rifftrax, seriously....it has all three of the original guys and they riff new movies. They've done 300, Casino Royale, Star Wars Ep 1-3, etc, they're all funny of their asses.

All you do is download an MP3, and listen to it during the movie. Kind of a bitch to synch up sometimes, but once you get it right it's awesome.

EDIT--I shouldn't say it has all three of them.....the last 6 or 7 have all three original guys, most of the early ones are just Mike Nelson, and the ones in between are almost entirely Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy, the guy who played Servo. Bill Corbett played Crow, and he's in the fewest of them, but the best ones are the ones with all three. Like Revenge of the Sith.

http://rifftrax.com/showSample.php?vidID=85 

Consumer confidence FTW.

Seriously, this entire format war is ridiculous.

I guess you missed the part where you have to keep your PS3 updated too.

By most estimates, the majority of people that buy PS3s (and Xboxes, and Wiis, and we're talking of the enthusiastic, early-adopting crowd), don't connect them to the internet - how are they supposed to get the upgrades? Firmware upgrades can be a great thing when they add new functionality. But "improved support for PS3 games" on a PS3, or "improved support for Bluray movies" on a Bluray player don't really count.

Any consumer electronics device that requires: a) direct access to the internet, b) a CD-burner and internet access, or c) a trip to the store (the most common options), whether frequently or infrequently, to satisfactorily perform its primary function, is a loss for the consumer, no matter how you slice it.

Yes, it's incredible how people are expected to do a damn firmware update on a disc player... Companies are getting more and more out of touch with reality if they think that people will adopt these technologies after hearing about these problems.

What's next, my microwave oven requesting a OS update?

Because there are MANY BluRay players out there, and many more coming out. Its fine when media plays on ONE type of hardware - then you can easily include a SINGLE firmware binary update on it.

Imagine the horror of a device installing the WRONG firmware - and bricking the device. Scary. And no way to test how a disc responds to future (not-yet-released devices).

...

This is getting ridiculous. Consumers don't want to worry about this crap - especially in todays "modern" era.

This makes even more of a mockery of the entire "HD revolution", and will just scare consumers away. Having to install firmware updates on a DVD player? Gimme a break...

How long before viruses are released for BluRay (or HD-DVD) players?

Imagine a "The Ring" scenario, where some evil (pirated?) infected disc with some dodgy porn spreads a virus to HD players - which bricks them 7 days after watching the movie. More than possible (if updates can be installed via disc), and even worse if updates come from the Internet...?

 I tried to nuke some turkey and potatoes from last night and my microwave gave me an error saying it needed more RAM and to consult the owners manual.  

It's all due to greedy executives who think they can stop piracy...

I read (and didn't check on it yet) that one of the big selling points of Blu-Ray with media companies was its additional protection scheme BD+, which is exactly what's causing these problems. If this scheme gets cracked or causes further problems, it's one less point for Blu-Ray in the (currently almost irrelevant) HD format war.

I refuse to buy any device for the sake of HD until a winner emerges or readers which work with both formats get cheap enough. DVD is more than enough for now.

I adopted one of the first two HDDVD players on the market, and yes, I was a little pissed when I found out I have to download and install a firmware update to play the newest HDDVDs, but luckily it was a cinch for me, for others though I see it as being a total hassle, or near impossible since most people have no idea what firmware update even means. Since then though I haven't had a single problem with HDDVD and that was over a year ago, so this really sucks for people who only have blu-ray players. I don't think I will have to update my firmware every again for my HDDVD player, so that is somewhat of a relief, as they already have had the cool features that play simultaneous with the movie, and the pop-up menu that lays over the movie, so I see where paramount is saying how it isn't quite a final format with BD, since they are just now trying to implement those extra features that have been present on the HDDVD format since the beginning. Poor sony, oh well, I am glad I have the most reliable BD player in a PS3, and since I have wifi, I never have to worry, YAY!!!

Virtually no one has a stand alone blu-ray player (who in their right mind would buy one??), so I don't really see this as being an issue.