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BD Live starting to pick up speed


Territories covered

North America
USA,

Author/s

Tony Gunnarsson
Tony Gunnarsson
Published: 01-Jul-09
Studios are stepping up the range and complexity of BD Live features on forthcoming Blu-ray Disc (BD) releases:
  • Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Sony's digital media identification subsidiary Gracenote have created a BD Live feature called MovieIQ to be included on new and major catalogue BD titles. Going live in September 2009, the feature is a real-time movie database containing scene-by-scene, production and soundtrack information, as well as movie trivia. The first MovieIQ titles will include Angels & Demons and catalogue title Easy Rider.
  • First release in Universal Pictures' deluxe 'Sapphire Series' BD collection is Gladiators which has a BD Live application called U-Control that enables bookmarking of scenes in film that are saved for further exploring on a second disc.
  • Warner's Facebook BD Live application —enabling real-time access to the site while watching the film— will be available on Watchmen and all subsequent new and some catalogue releases.
  • Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Diamond Collection includes an application allowing viewers to upload and paste personal photos onto the Seven Dwarfs characters when viewing the movie.
  • Details of the extras accompanying the summer's two biggest blockbusters — Paramount's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Warner's Terminator Salvation — are yet to be released, but are widely expected to further raise the bar for BD live.

Our take...
While the latest batch of BD Live applications are impressive, Screen Digest believes that the hoped-for 'killer application' that would make the BD format a must-buy for consumers is yet to arrive. Meanwhile, studios must weight the marketing opportunities offered by the new BD Live applications against the risk of alienating the substantial proportion of the installed BD base made of consumers whose players are not sufficiently advanced to take advantage of them.

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