BD-Live Impressions

[Pirate]

Thanks to our friends at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, I now possess a pre-release copy of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story on Blu-ray. Walk Hard is one of two April 8 Blu-ray titles that will feature BD-Live access, the other being The 6th Day. You’d never know Walk Hard was BD-Live enabled by looking at it as there’s no mention of the technology on the front or back cover art. But I knew what the disc was packing and was eager to see if the final product was worth the hype.

PS3 BD-Live Blu-ray Impressions With Walk Hard HD DVD, Blu-ray | TheManRoom The Man Room

[Ruined]

The first HD DVD HDi online features were pretty meager, too. Here's hoping that BD-Live gets to the point where HDi was before HD DVD's death and even exceeds it sooner rather than later - some really cool things are possible with online features as we saw from some of the final HD DVD titles.

I wonder how you'd go about attaching peripherals if necessary for the BD-Live content? i.e. I think Saw IV has a BD-Live blogging feature, how do you do that on standalones? A remote would be way too cumbersome. I'm not sure which (if any) standalones have USB or wireless support for peripherals... (EDIT: The Sony S550 apparently has a USB port, hopefully the BD50 will as well).

[Pirate]

The one thing that I’d really like to see with the advent of online connectivity would be live commentaries. I’ve not seen one proposed feature that even remotely interests me, but if they could offer live commentaries or live discussions/panels, I’d be all about hooking my HT to the tubes.

[ganthc]

Yeah, I wonder what the download speeds will be for HD features. Is there a way that they can be packaged or zipped and then have the players unzip or unpackage them to speed up the download?

[Wirehed]

Originally Posted by Pirate

The one thing that I’d really like to see with the advent of online connectivity would be live commentaries. I’ve not seen one proposed feature that even remotely interests me, but if they could offer live commentaries or live discussions/panels, I’d be all about hooking my HT to the tubes.

What?! You want people TO TALK durring a film!?!

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by Wirehed

What?! You want people TO TALK durring a film!?!

Yes, commentaries are a paradox.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by ganthc

Yeah, I wonder what the download speeds will be for HD features. Is there a way that they can be packaged or zipped and then have the players unzip or unpackage them to speed up the download?

Originally Posted by blu-ray.com

The BD-Live menu is exactly as what was seen on this site only a few days ago. Immediately, I went to download one of the Blu-ray exclusive clips of Derek Stone as a "Coxologist". Clicking on "Download Now", I was again presented with a download bar, and I waited patiently for the clip to load. After what must have been a five minute wait, I was presented with a two minute clip in standard definition. Not exactly the speed I am accustom to for such a low quality video clip.

On the PS3.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Derb

On the PS3.

The PS3 isn't going to help a slow server.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Ruined

The PS3 isn't going to help a slow server.

Which for the current quality of these downloads should be.. streamed. Can get the exact same quality from streaming trailers on a 360... without the wait.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Derb

Which for the current quality of these downloads should be.. streamed. Can get the exact same quality from streaming trailers on a 360... without the wait.

I agree, but for some reason that was not implemented in this intial release. Probably didn't have the servers setup for streaming... It is going to take a while before the necessary infrastructure to fully utilize BD-Live is available.