The box would have to decrypt HDCP, swizzle one codec into another, and re-encrypt. I spent about $50 on dongles and the better part of a weekend pursuing that angle to no avail. Sony didn't make the announcement ahead of time, so nobody had an FPGA module ready. Of course, a cynic would say that was the whole point.

I wasn't alone in having this problem -- the support forums were overflowing with outraged threads about this. Support would give non-answers, wait for someone to say something objectionable, and then use it as an excuse to lock and delete the thread. Rinse, repeat. They had it down to a science.