Disney goes all BD-Live on upcoming titles
By Richard Lawler 
posted Jun 12th 2008 10:09AM
posted Jun 12th 2008 10:09AM
As Disney gets its digital strategy together, one feature to look forward to is BD-Live on every Blu-ray release going forward. ABC, Touchstone and Miramax flicks are exempt from the requirement, but that doesn't mean you won't see BD-Live titles there eventually. Sleeping Beauty will get things started, but look for Disney to highlight networked features in its Blu-ray mall tour and try to sell families on why they should even bother with networked features. Tinker Bell is the next movie up to get the BD-Live treatment, plus future Pixar releases like WALL-E. Unfortunately for online Disney Channel fans Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds and the Jonas Brothers' Camp Rock will not have BD-Live capability, but we'll be waiting to see where Disney goes next with the technology.
Keep the BD-Live, just release content faster. Open that "vault" and get those transfers up to snuff for BD.
BD-Live is still a gimmick but if anyone can make it work, Disney can. Imagine something like Club Penguin on all their discs with rewards for kids like free shows. It could be made to work and add real value. Some day.
Whether they do this or not and produce some generic crappy portal / storefront remains to be seen. If they end up doing some portal they may as well not bother.
Yes if Finding Nemo or The Incredibles are being held up because of BD-Live content, then that is ridiculous...
I still haven't heard anyone come up with a compelling BD-Live feature yet. The most interesting one to me is Disney's plan to alter the weather in the opening "castle" shot based on weather in your own location, but that's really more of a gimmick than a value-add.
I just hope Disney will release platinum editions of their animated classics on Blu-ray quicker than they have on DVD. How about 3 a year? That should doable.
Yup, with the pace of today, once you almost finish collecting all the classics, out comes a new format with unseen footage, specials, even better picture and sound!! Damn!:-)
Definitely step in the right direction.
I don't get it; does anyone really care if a movie has interactive features? Just release the movies we want with pristine audio and video!