UHD drives and limited functionality

[iamamish]

Hello,

I recently found this forum and was able to patch my slim Blu-Ray drive, and now I'm able to read UHD discs. My question is - why wouldn't the manufacturer have allowed this originally? Is it a price discrimination issue, where they want to sell the same hardware with different firmware at a higher price to those who want the ability to read 4k? I haven't seen evidence of this in the drive prices.

Otherwise, it seems silly to intentionally reduce the functionality of a piece of hardware.

I've searched high & low for an answer to this question, but haven't found anything yet.

[d00zah]

It's more likely thanks to film production companies who would prefer...

a) ... you didn't copy their product

B) ... to garner additional fees from properly licensed functionality

[Coopervid]

a) Yes. And a back door was found in the friendly LG drives. Mike then also patched the "more secure" official drives and found another back door.

b) Likely. Pioneer sells identical hardware with just different firmware for UHD / non-UHD. One point is the fee, the other point is to charge the customer more for the UHD feature.