The AACS key file is updated every now and then. I get it from here: http://www.labdv.com/aacs/

I've run into some recent disks that I can't play, but never one that actually damaged my blu-ray drive.

"but newer ones will brick your blueray reader"

Source? I don't even see how this could be possible.

Say hello to DRM. Best i recall they introduced a updated DRM system for BR some years after launch, and to play those discs one need to either firmware update or replace the player.

Never mind that the BR spec has all kinds of weirdness, including things like bundled Java applets(?!).

All in all, its problems like these that keeps us torrenting.

Wow, that's crazy.

I haven't really used the drive other than what I mentioned. I just grabbed the nearest DVD (disc 2 of 3 of season 7 of "The Big Bang Theory"), popped it in, and it just worked.

That was just a quick "test" to see how difficult it was nowadays to rip/encode DVDs (I haven't done that for probably eight years or so and it was a major PITA back then). I was planning on doing the same to most of our "media collection" so I'm hoping it continues to go well.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be looking more into this.