My brother has a Samsung Blu-ray player that he bought in December, 2008. He rented a couple of Blu-ray disks over Christmas and had trouble playing them. He was told by someone at Blockbuster that he had to upgrade the player's software. So he did. But it didn't help.

So, he went into Best Buy, where he bought the Samsung and someone there told him that Sony owns the Blu-ray technology and that they code the Blu-ray disks so that they can't be played in other brands. The guy then told him that he should only ever buy a Sony Blu-ray player (yet it was also a Best Buy employee who sold him the Samsung!).

He has a bunch of Blu-ray disks that he bought in 2008 and early 2009 that work fine. It only seems to be new disks that won't play. Also, one of the movies he rented played fine for the first half and only the second half wouldn't play. He took it back to Blockbuster and exchanged it for another disk and had the same problem. In all he tried three disks...same problem on each disk.

The Sony explanation sounds like a load of crap and bad business to me. Is there any validity in this explanation, or should my brother be looking for another reason that his BR player isn't working?

Thanks.