GolfHos

I bought this particular Sony notebook because it comes with a BD burner among other features. Although the burning ability will be useful for data backups once BD-Rs come down in price, I mostly wanted to use it to play movies. While at BestBuy to pick up an HDMI to DVI adapter* to go dual display with my LCD desktop monitor, I picked up 3 BD titles (Pan's Labyrinth, The Dark Knight, and Horton Hears a Who for the kiddies). After some rigmarole** to get WinDVD to work through an external display, I finally got it to play--only 2 of the 3 titles. Horton Hears a *goshdarn* Who still doesn't work. WinDVD displays a message that my player requires an update. After doing some research, I found out that Fox used a new version of BD+ DRM on some of its December releases. Neither Sony nor Corel (publishers of WinDVD) have any kind of driver/firmware or software update yet.

**goshdarn* $35 for a *goshdarn* adapter. *fudge* you, Monster Cable!
**WinDVD won't play BDs on an external display unless it's the only active display (i.e. I can't simultaneously play a movie on a 2nd external display while working on the laptop display). It's some kind of ridiculous DRM preventative measure. I also had to register with Corel to get an AACS key to get WinDVD to run at all.

This is the kind of *goshdarn* BS that we now have to go through to play a *goshdarn* movie because Sony won the format war this time. Hate!

Yep - Hate!

Way to technical for me, but I understand bringing a movie home and not being able to watch it.

Hate!