BD-Live

What Is it?

BD-Live is a new technology for Blu-ray that uses the internet to extend your movie viewing experience through downloaded content and advanced interactivity. BD-Live enabled Blu-ray discs have features such as online chat, trivia games that you can play with others watching the same movie, exclusive downloadable content, and other online bonus features. Blu-ray players must also be BD-Live enabled.

BD-Live Features

BD-Live can make your movie viewing experience more interactive. The Transformers Blu-ray disc uses some particularly cool BD-Live functionality through `MyClips', allowing users to save and share video clips with other users. Another feature called the "Intelligence Center" allows you to keep track of how much damage a particular bot, or character, has received throughout the course of the film. While some features focus on a community aspect of movie viewing, others focus on the individual experience.

The future of BD-Live is bright. With the ability to establish a community around a title at its most local and intimate level (the actual viewing of the film), viewers will now have the ability to share knowledge immediately on certain scenes or even give recommendations for similar movies. BD-Live has the ability to focus your interests in, and surrounding a film.

Go to the top of the page

BD-Live Compatible Players

2.0
Most Blu-ray players being released today have the Profile 2.0 specification which allows for BD-Live and PiP. Profile 2.0 players will have an Ethernet port for internet access. Blu-ray players like the Playstation 3 have the ability to stay current with the industry through firmware updates, meaning support for Profile 2.0 and beyond.

1.1
Profile 1.1 Blu-ray players allow Picture-in-Picture but do not have immediate BD-Live capabilities. These earlier players (1.0 and 1.1) may have an Ethernet port for firmware updates, though may not be able to be updated to use BD-Live.

1.0
Profile 1.0 players do not allow PiP or BD-Live and can only play the movie portion of a Blu-ray disc and display the standard navigation screen like you see on most DVDs.

Go to the top of the page