Whoo, the last nail in the lid of HD-DVD.. as news of the recent update to Slysoft’s AnyDVD software runs throughout the community. Last week a company spokesperson stated that a crack was imminent, hinting at something coming quite soon.

Forums on SlySoft’s forums the AnyDVD 6.1.9.6 beta has full support for playback of Blu-ray discs with BD+. “All available BD+ titles can be copied with AnyDVD ripper, or can be watched on HTPC without HDCP using PowerDVD 3104 and AnyDVD,”.

BD+ which was launched in June of 2007 utilises a small virtual machine that runs in the background while any Blu-Ray disk is being played, providing a brilliant middle-wear solution to keep the disks content encrypted.

Previous mechanisms such as the AACS protection were cracked back in April on both of the formats, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray, forcing the bodies behind these media formats to go back to the drawing board. BD+ was invented and launched out of this endeavour, with a representative quoted as saying that it would take 10 years to crack this method.

SlySoft plans to keep the crack they have developed under wraps (not sure how long thats going to last, but we’ll soon see). As yet no comment has been made from the Blu-Ray disk association, though its unlikely that they have anything really to worry about at the moment, especially since their too busy dancing on the grave of HD-DVD and smiling greedily at Toshiba’s stock price lol…

In closing.. watch this space, its inevitable that the Blu-Ray corp will find a way to re-touch this technology to render SlySoft’s sly new software useless, but for the time being… enjoy !