Sony has officially announced its BWU100A Blu-ray disc writer in Sydney at the Experience More 2006 event just a few days ago, which is due for launch later this month for AU$1399 (~US$750). This writer will feature 2x writing support, but Sony's product manager for data storage, Vincent Bautista has confirmed that it will lack one very significant feature - the ability to play commercial Blu-ray disc movies.

Vincent Bautista, Sony's product manager for data storage, told CNET.com.au that due to copy protection issues and lagging software development, the drive will only play user-recorded high-definition content from a digital camcorder, and not commercial movies released under the BD format.

Bautista says that one of two reasons for this is the fact that commercial content is encrypted with High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), which can only be decrypted using a HDCP-compliant graphics card that offers DVI or HDMI connections. Since there are currently no PCs for sale offering graphics chips that support HDCP, this isn't yet possible.

The second reason, according to Bautista, is that BD playback software that can decrypt HDCP isn't "released as a saleable item yet". Today, the only HDCP-supporting BD playback application is the OEM version of Intervideo WinDVD BD that's bundled with Sony's VAIO VGN-AR18GP notebook. The AR18GP also offers an HDCP-compliant HDMI connector, which makes it capable of playing commercial movies without issue.

Well, the drive itself is 100 percent capable of playing movies. It's Windows and PC hardware that aren't ready for HD movies. Keep in mind people, HD-DVD uses the same DRM, right down to every last line of code. So when PCs have HDMI outputs and software that'll playback BD movies, commercial movies will be just fine.